The lift dumped us into Base Platform Alpha-3 like scrap off a conveyor. The floor shuddered under my boots. Half the deck plates were warped where a section of Skyterra's upper hull had torn loose and punched straight through. Smoke bled from fissures in the ceiling. Somewhere above, the city was still breaking.
Crowds swarmed the shattered concourse. Nobles in shredded silk screamed for priority boarding. Companions clung to their owners with cracked, blood-smeared hands. Hybrid soldiers argued with mechanics over power cells. Ground-born refugees curled around stolen oxygen tanks like animals around meat.
"Off-world shuttles are gone. All of them," a gaunt woman howled, hair matted with ash. "They sealed Dock Ring Two ten minutes ago."
"They left us to burn," a man in a gold-trimmed coat spat, shoving a bleeding tech aside. "I paid for emergency clearance."
"You paid for a fantasy," the tech coughed. "Get in line or get out of my face."
Naeva squeezed my arm, eyes wide, skin pale beneath the grime. My shoulder burned where the knife had gone in. Hot blood ran down my sleeve. I felt the muscle tear each time I moved.
Joren waved us onward. "Transit tier below this. Service sleds. Old ore haulers. If any still have power, they drop to the core elevators. From there we crowd the ground shafts."
"Move," Rell snapped, dragging a teenager with a cracked respirator. "Argue later."
We pushed through a snarl of bodies toward the eastern gantry. Above us, a rusted sign blinked:
INTER-ARC INTERNALMAG-LINE: DOWNWARD ONLYAUTHORIZED LOAD: 140 METRIC
Someone had scrawled across it in grease: "LIES".
The platform shook. A deep metallic groan rolled through the air. Heads turned as a blast door on the far wall buckled outward, hinges screaming.
Something punched through.
First a leg. Black, jointed, chitinous. Then another. Eight in total, dagger-tipped, braced against steel as the thing hauled its bulk into the light. Armor gleamed like oil. No eyes. Only a slit of mandibles clattering with wet, mechanical hunger.
It hissed. Then spat.
Green liquid arced and struck a running man in the chest. He dissolved. Flesh sagged into sludge. Bone bubbled. His scream ended in a gurgle.
Pandemonium.
"Shoot it. Shoot it," someone shrieked.
Ballistics cracked. Useless. Bullets pinged off armor and ricocheted into the crowd. A Companion dropped, skull split. People stampeded over her body.
A plasma lance flared from a security officer's shoulder rig. The beam bored into the creature's flank. Sizzling tissue sloughed off. It staggered but did not fall.
"Bring the platform guns online," a voice barked over the din.
Ceiling turrets groaned awake. Rotary cannons swung toward the breach. Hydraulics stuttered, then locked. The first volley thundered. Explosive shells tore into the second creature forcing its way through. Carapace ruptured. Acid sprayed in veils. Two children caught the mist. Their skin smoked. Their father tried to wipe it off. The fabric fused to them.
Another impact above. A ventilation grid buckled. A third black shape dropped into the milling evacuees. Eight legs stabbed down. People were impaled, lifted, torn. Blood sprayed across my face. Hot. Metallic.
Naeva gagged. "Kael, please, please."
I yanked her behind a toppled cargo crate. "Keep low."
Shrapnel peppered the crate. A noblewoman in a torn pearl dress clawed at my sleeve. "Help me. My son—"
A hybrid mercenary ripped her off. "Back away or lose the hand."
She spat in his face. He slammed her to the deck.
"Hey!" Tyven's voice cut through. He appeared from the smoke, exo-frame scarred, one actuator sparking. "Platform Seven. Heavy ore sled. Manual ignition. I can jumpstart it if someone feeds me cells."
Joren shoved his crate of plasma packs into Tyven's arms. "Take them. Go."
We sprinted, weaving through bodies, leaping over acid pits that ate through the deck like termites in wood. A turret shell detonated near the breach. The first spider-thing shrieked again, half its armor blown away. Still moving.
Rell fired a handheld radiation beam. The ray carved a groove down a leg. The limb buckled and oozed. "Radiation hurts them. Keep them under the cannons."
"Cannons are overheating," a gunner screamed from a balcony. "Cooling loop is severed. Two more shots, then dead barrels."
We skidded onto Platform Seven. The ore sled crouched on magnetic rails like a steel beast. Paint flaked. Hazard stripes faded. The cockpit hatch hung jammed. A dead operator slumped inside, chest caved.
Tyven slammed the packs into the side port. "Charge."
Lights flickered. The sled hummed. Coughed. Roared.
"Capacity," Rell shouted. "How many?"
"One hundred forty metric. We are two hundred if we cram. We shear off the rails and die," Tyven grunted.
"People die either way," Danika said, appearing like a ghost, arm splinted with conduit, face streaked with oil. "Pick who breathes."
"No." Naeva's voice shook but held. "Make them fit."
She grabbed the control panel, fingers flying. "Auxiliary cages. Two maintenance cradles locked under the chassis. Release them and chain them to the sled. We drag them."
Tyven stared. "That will tear the couplers."
"Not if you throttle the drop and ride the mag-brakes," she said. "Do it."
He cursed, then grinned like a man handed a worthy problem. "On it."
We popped the undercarriage. Two skeletal frames unfolded, hanging on rusted struts. Rell and Joren dragged chains into place, bolting them with guns that screamed.
"Board. Move," I shouted.
People surged. Screams. Fists. A hybrid soldier lifted a Companion child and tossed her to me. "Keep her alive." He turned, firing a pulse at an advancing leg. It cracked. Acid splashed his boots. He melted where he stood, still firing until his fingers were gone.
A noble shoved forward. "My family first."
Rell clubbed him with a spanner. "Your money is burning with your tower."
Naeva hauled a crying girl into a cradle, wincing as blood smeared her cheek. "It is all right. Close your eyes. Breathe."
Someone grabbed her torn skirt, trying to climb. She screamed. I kicked him in the chest. He tumbled backward into the mob.
Another seismic slam. The deck tilted. A slab of ceiling tore free and crashed onto Platform Four, wiping out a cluster of evacuees and a mounted turret in one hit.
"Go," Danika yelled. "Rails are fracturing."
Tyven shoved the throttle. The sled lurched. Chains groaned but held. We rolled, slow at first, then faster, toward the dark mouth of the sub-core shaft.
Behind us, the breached wall vomited two more creatures onto the platform. The last turret fired. Barrels glowed white, then exploded. Shrapnel shredded a dozen people who had not made the sled.
The sled dropped.
Gravity punched my gut. Naeva clutched me, nails digging into my chest. My shoulder burned like fire. Blood filled my mouth.
The rails screamed. Sparks carved lines of light in the dark. The maintenance cradles slammed the shaft walls, scraping metal and flesh. People shrieked. Chains snapped, then caught. Tyven rode the brakes, sweat pouring down his neck.
"Hold," he bellowed.
We plunged through steam, then a curtain of cables that snapped across us like whips.
Somewhere above, something roared. Metal crumpled. Then silence, except for the scream of steel and the collective sobbing of a hundred terrified throats.
We hit the transfer tier hard enough to rattle teeth. Magnets caught the secondary line. We skidded onto a half-collapsed docking deck bathed in emergency red.
This station was smaller. Older. Half the ceiling gone, starlight bleeding through a crack high above. Off-world pods: empty clamps. No ships. A rusted sign:
SKYTERRA INTERNAL LOGISTICSGROUND CORE FREIGHT ONLY
Perfect.
A dozen hulks of ancient freight elevators waited on cracked rails. Most were dead. One blinked, flickering amber.
"We switch again," Joren panted. "This is the drop to the Earth anchor. No cosmics. No arc transfer. Only gravity and hope."
Complaints erupted.
"I am not going farther down.""This was not the plan.""Go back up.""Up is gone, idiot.""Shut up and load."
Black shapes shifted above. Screeches echoed down the shaft.
"Move now," I barked. "Or die complaining."
Naeva grabbed my hand. Her fingers shook, filthy and blood-streaked, still soft. She stared at me like I was the last solid thing.
"We are not dying," she whispered. "Promise me."
"I promise."
Pain lanced my shoulder as I lifted a fallen boy into the next cage. Darkness edged my vision. Naeva saw it, pressed her forehead to mine for one steady second, then shoved me toward the control wheel.
"Bleed later. Pull now."
I pulled.
The freight cage clanked, shuddered, then engaged. Locks disengaged with heavy thuds.
Behind us, someone screamed as acid rained from above. A leg stabbed through the deck. A noble shrieked prayers to a god that did not answer. A Companion tried to wipe acid off her owner and lost both hands.
Tyven jammed the last chain. Danika kicked the release wedge.
The cage dropped.
No sky. No turning back.
Only the red-lit shaft below and the thunder of something tearing the platform apart above us.