The axe-head rose.
Hazel lay in the dust, blood turning the ground mean, staff three meters out like a friend who couldn't cross the last step. Rune was a streak cutting the air too far away.
Alteea Sage moved.
She didn't take the stairs. She vaulted the rail - white coat flaring - dropped the three meters like a thrown knife, and hit the floor already turning. Two strides and she was at DRN Nine's station. The operator sat there with a VR headset on, hands buried in twin throttles, mind inside the feed.
Alteea didn't ask. She kicked the chair hard enough to make his world turn over. One hand flicked the manual override, the other stole the controls before the headset even finished sliding crooked across his face.
"Nine is mine," she said.
"Wha-!?" the operator blinked inside darkness, still wearing the headset, groping for reality.
