Page 222 of Red Scale Daddy

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He pulls.

The ship answers.

Lights flare. Systems flicker alive. I seize control, rerouting everything—gravity, power, seals—forcing the auxiliary shutters open.

Ahead, a blast door grinds upward.

A narrow path.

“There!” I shout. “Go!”

Dad runs.

Dux doesn’t.

“Roma!”

“I have to hold it!”

“No, you don’t!”

“If I let go, it closes!”

“Then we drag you with it!”

The swarm shifts. Everything funnels toward the opening.

The shutter trembles.

“Roma,” Dux says, voice breaking through everything, “you promised.”

The opening narrows.

I look at it.

I look at him.

I could push him through.

Clean. Efficient. Final.

I don’t.

I let go.

The system snaps.

The door drops.

I slam into him, driving us sideways through a secondary maintenance gap I caught in the schematic.

We crash into the crawlspace as the blast door seals.

Silence slams in.

Then—

“Roma? Dux? Tell me you’re not dead!” Dad’s voice crackles through a comm panel.

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