Page 189 of Red Scale Daddy
I drop.
A burst of white static arcs from the wall interface to the corridor’s overhead strip, jumping through the ceiling grid and striking the third Reaper’s weapon. The rifle overloads in his hands with a bright flash. He staggers, and I launch forward from the crouch, driving into him before he can recover. We slam into the doorframe together, and I finish the matter with one hard strike under the helmet seal.
He drops.
I turn back to Pally. “Nice.”
He yanks the access chip free. “That was a diagnostic pulse.”
“Looked violent.”
“It was diagnostically violent.”
“I respect that.”
“Move before someone respects us back.”
We strip the guards fast. Pally takes an access wafer and a command tag from the least damaged one while I drag the bodies into the conduit mouth and wedge the hatch mostly closed. He shoots me a look when I remove one guard’s shock blade and clip it to my belt.
“What?” I ask.
“You have hands.”
“I like options.”
“You like trouble.”
“Trouble likes me first.”
He leads us down the corridor at a brisk pace, one eye on a palm display tracking internal movement. The ship’s interior is colder than his vessel, built in long angular lines that make every passage feel like it was designed to control where the body wants to go. Reaper architecture loves discipline. Straight sightlines. Reinforced junctions. Doors that seal with authority. Places to trap enemies, places to observe prisoners, places to remind everyone that mercy was never part of the blueprint.
“Roma’s signal?” I ask.
Pally lifts the little transmitter he gave me earlier. Its display flickers with static, then a tiny pulse crawls across the lower band.
“There,” he says.
I stop moving.
He nearly runs into me. “What are you doing?”
“That’s her?”
“It is likely her system signature.”
“Likely?”
“It uses Larson-pattern recursion, but it has been buried under damaged telemetry and false diagnostic noise.”
I stare at him.
His mouth tightens. “Yes. It is her.”
A grin pulls at my mouth in spite of it all. “Good girl.”
Pally gives me a look that could sterilize instruments. “Do not say that where I can hear you.”
“Focus, old man. Where is she?”
