Page 224 of Red Scale Daddy
Dad laughs weakly. “Honestly, space sounds relaxing compared to this.”
The crawlspace shakes.
Throgg’s voice returns, thinner now. “Do you think choosing him makes you free?”
“No.”
“Then what does it make you?”
I look at Dux.
“At this point?” I say. “Late.”
I smash the comm.
Silence.
Dux exhales something like a laugh. “Late?”
“We are.”
“You could’ve said brave.”
“I prefer accurate.”
Dad’s voice crackles faintly again. “Still hearing you. Still moving.”
I pull myself forward through the crawlspace. “We meet at service lock twelve.”
Dux catches my wrist. “You changed your plan.”
“Yes.”
My voice doesn’t shake.
“Yes.”
I pull free.
“Move,” I say. “Before I make another emotional decision.”
He smiles behind me.
“Yeah,” he says. “Let’s survive that.”
We crawl forward together through heat, darkness, and failing systems toward the exterior of a dying ship.
CHAPTER 34
DUX
The crawlspace feels like the inside of a lung that forgot how to breathe.
Heat clings to everything, thick and wet, carrying the stink of scorched wiring and old lubricant that coats the back of my throat every time I drag in air. The metal beneath my palms hums with strain, a low, constant vibration that crawls up through my bones like the ship is trying to shake us off before it dies. Dust sticks to my skin, turning sweat into grit, and every movement grinds it deeper into cuts I didn’t notice getting.
Roma moves ahead of me like she belongs in the dark.
Not blindly. Never that. Every inch she crawls is measured, deliberate, her body adapting to the cramped space with a precision that makes it look effortless even when I know it isn’t. Her shoulders brush the narrow walls, her boots scrape against the metal, and still she moves like she already mapped this route before it existed.
