Page 231 of Red Scale Daddy
Roma’s ship flickers.
The shields buckle.
And for the first time since I met her?—
Roma hesitates.
The moment stretches, fragile and dangerous, balanced on the edge of everything we have left.
If she and Pally can’t get that ship powered and moving fast enough?—
We’re already dead.
CHAPTER 35
ROMA
The void waits outside the service lock with its mouth open.
There is no sound beyond the hatch, not truly, but the ship translates violence through pressure, vibration, and light. Reaper fire strikes the hull in hard white flashes that crawl across my visor, each impact blooming against the glass like a star dying too close to my face. Beneath my boots, the service lock trembles with the aftershocks, and the magnetic soles of my skinsuit hum as they fight to keep me attached to a ship that is actively coming apart.
Dux stands at my left, tether clipped, breathing controlled and too loud over the comm channel. Dad is at my right, one hand braced against the hatch frame, the other gripping his tether so tightly his glove creaks. Behind them, through the reinforced viewport, my ship shudders beneath another burst of Reaper fire, its shields flickering pale blue, then violet, then a dangerous thin white that means the defensive lattice is near collapse.
“Roma,” Dux says, voice low over the comm. “Tell me you’re not hesitating because you think staying here is an option.”
“I am hesitating because if we step out during the next firing cycle, we get cut in half.”
Dad leans forward, peering through the open hatch at the hull between us and the ship. “You could’ve led with that. I was starting to think we were having a meaningful emotional moment, and frankly, I’m not dressed for it.”
Dux huffs a breath that fogs the edge of his visor for an instant before the suit clears it. “You’re in a vacuum skinsuit.”
“Exactly. Terrible outfit for feelings.”
I ignore both of them and watch the Reapers clinging to the hull. There are four visible from this angle, maybe five if the shape half-hidden behind the buckled sensor mast is alive and not debris. Their claws dig into Throgg’s ship as if they are part of it, bodies flattened against the outer plating, weapons braced into the surface. They fire in patterns now, no longer random suppression. They have identified my ship as the exit vector.
That means Throgg has, too.
The comm crackles, and his voice comes through the service lock speakers as a broken thread of static and venom. “Roma. You are making this painfully theatrical.”
Dad groans. “Oh good. He’s back. I was worried the day might improve.”
Dux angles his weapon toward the nearest exterior speaker, as if shooting it would do anything useful. “You ever shut up, big guy?”
Throgg’s chuckle crawls through the channel. “And there is the pet. Loyal. Loud. Do you fetch as well?”
Dux smiles without warmth. “Come find out.”
“Dux,” I say, eyes never leaving the firing pattern.
“I know. Useful anger. I remember.”
“Then be useful quietly.”
He shifts closer to me, shoulder almost brushing mine inside the cramped lock. “Hard sell, but I’ll try.”
The next barrage hits my ship. Its shields flare brighter this time, then gutter. I feel the answer in my spine, though thereis no physical connection between me and the vessel except memory and design. I know how the power will be distributing itself. I know which banks will be starving first. I know the port stabilizer hates emergency cold starts because I built it too sensitive and Dad later modified it too aggressively, which means the ship will either fly like a blade through silk or cough up its own guts before we clear the hull.
“Dad,” I say.
