Page 88 of Red Scale Daddy
She moves half a step, and I drive my shoulder into the ramp housing. Pain flares through my side. The housing dents, complains, and pops free enough for the mechanism to catch. The ramp drops with a grinding shudder.
Roma looks at the dent.
“Later,” I say.
“Oh, absolutely later.”
We scramble aboard as the first drone leaps from the hull toward the ramp. I turn and meet it at the threshold. It hits me hard, driving one claw through the outer armor along my thigh. Igrab its head and hold it back from Roma, who is already inside, one hand on the inner controls.
“Dux,” she says, voice tight.
“Close it when I say.”
“That will crush your arm.”
“Then say something nice about the arm.”
“I am not in the habit of praising limbs under pressure.”
“Work on that.”
The drone pushes closer, mandibles snapping inches from my helmet. Its breath fogs the faceplate with chemical rot. I plant one boot against the ramp frame, haul its head down, and shove my sidearm under its throat.
“Now,” I say.
Roma hits the control.
The ramp rises.
I fire as the metal catches the drone’s torso. The round blows through its throat, and the ramp finishes the argument, crushing the body between closing plates. My arm comes free at the last second, scraped but attached.
The hatch seals.
The cockpit alarms are distant through the corridor, but the ship’s interior feels blessedly enclosed. The air inside smells of smoke, polymer, blood, and the harsh sterile bite of automatic filtration fighting contamination from our suits. Roma slams the inner decontamination cycle with the side of her fist.
She looks at me.
I look at her.
Both of us are breathing hard.
“You dented my ramp housing,” she says.
I glance down at the blood spreading along my side and thigh. “I also improved access.”
“You are bleeding on my deck.”
“I am adding character.”
“My deck does not need character.”
“It’s a little sterile.”
Her eyes flash, but the anger is different now. Less brittle. More alive. She reaches for the emergency medkit mounted beside the hatch, tears it open, and throws a compression patch at my chest.
“Apply that before you become inefficient,” Roma says.
I catch it. “That your way of saying you care?”
