Page 219 of Red Scale Daddy
“That’s not a number.”
“It’s the number we have.”
The Zenos hit the Reapers first.
A squad of Throgg’s creatures spills into the junction from a side corridor, claws carving into the deck. They charge us, then veer as the Zenos descend. The collision is immediate and obscene. The air fills with shrieks, chitin cracking, plasma fire, the copper stink of blood, and a sour alien musk that crawls across my tongue.
Dad backs up until his shoulder hits mine. “Are they fighting each other?”
“Yes.”
“Great. Great, that’s helpful.”
“Not if we remain between them.”
Dux fires into a Reaper trying to break through the mess toward us. “Please tell me you’ve got a door, a tunnel, a magic carpet, anything.”
“I have a dying ship and partial access to a crippled control grid.”
“So a Tuesday for you.”
“Essentially.”
I release his wrist and slide to the wall console beside the junction. The screen is cracked, flickering between dead static and corrupted schematics. I pry off the casing with my knife, shove two fingers into the wiring, and ignore the sting as current bites through my gloves.
Dux steps close, covering my right. “Talk to me.”
“Auxiliary launch access is still connected, but the direct corridor is compromised.”
“Compromised meaning blocked?”
“Compromised meaning filled with vacuum, fire, and things with teeth.”
Dad fires twice, misses once, hits something that screams. “So blocked.”
“I can reroute power to seal the forward breach and open service shutters beneath the launch spine.” I twist a wire, and the console spits sparks into my sleeve. “It gives us a gap.”
“A gap sounds good,” Dux says.
“A temporary gap.”
“How temporary?”
I taste blood where I bit the inside of my cheek. “Thirty seconds if the grid cooperates.”
Dad laughs once, sharp and brittle. “And if it doesn’t?”
The console display glitches, then flashes with a symbol that makes my stomach sink.
Throgg’s command sigil.
A voice pours from the wall speakers, distorted but unmistakable, thick with smug violence. “Roma. Little blade. I wondered when you would stop running.”
Dux goes still.
Dad mutters, “Oh, I hate him already.”
I keep my fingers in the wiring. “Throgg.”
