Page 34 of Alien Guardian's Vow

Sparks rained down from the control room ceiling, adding a strobing effect to the already chaotic scene. The water around my ankles sloshed with each movement, threatening my balance as I leaned against a support pillar. My injured side burned, but I kept my face impassive. Warriors did not show pain.

Rivera worked frantically at the main console, her fingers dancing across the ancient interface with surprising skill. Through our newfound connection, I felt her mounting anxiety, a sharp metallic taste that mingled with my own concern. The systems fluctuated wildly under Hammond's remote assault, and alarms shrieked through the chamber, their pitch rising and falling like wounded animals.

A particularly violent surge sent her stumbling back, silver markings flaring across her skin in response. Her panic spiked through our bond, sharp and acrid.

"Damn it!" She slammed her palm against the console edge. "He's bypassing the security protocols faster than I can rebuild them."

I pushed off from the pillar, ignoring the hot lance of pain that shot through my side. My people's survival—her people's survival—depended on our success here. Failure meant destruction on a scale unseen since the Great Division.

I moved behind her, close enough that my presence filled her peripheral vision. Not touching, but present. Solid.

"Breathe, Rivera." The name still felt slightly foreign, but necessary. "Focus the energy flow. You control it."

She shot me a quick, desperate glance. "Easy for you to say. You're not the one trying to outthink a paranoid military commander with a god complex."

"No. But I know something about focus under pressure." I closed my eyes briefly, drawing on the disciplines taught to every Nyxari warrior from childhood. Through our bond, I projected the rhythm—inhale for four beats, hold for seven, exhale for eight.

Feel the rhythm. Match it.

My hand found her shoulder, a light touch meant to ground her in the chaos. The contact sent a warm current through my lifelines, golden light pulsing beneath my skin in response.

"The system responds to intention as much as technique," I said, keeping my voice low and steady. "Like a hunting bow. Pull too hard, and the string snaps. Too soft, and the arrow falls short."

She inhaled deeply, following the pattern I'd shared. Her silver markings calmed from their erratic flashing to a steady glow.

"Right. Okay." She straightened, rolling her shoulders back. "Let's try something different."

I kept my hand on her shoulder, anchoring her while she worked. The pain in my side faded to background noise as I focused entirely on supporting her. She needed my strength. I needed her skill. Without both, we would fail.

Another alarm blared, this one more ominous than the others.

"What is that?" I asked, scanning the chamber for new threats.

"Hammond's trying to override the primary cooling systems." Her fingers raced across the interface. "If he succeeds, the whole facility will go into meltdown."

"Can you stop him?"

Rivera looked up at me, determination hardening her features. "With your help, yes."

The water had risen to our calves, carrying bits of debris that swirled around our legs. The lights flickered violently, plunging us into darkness for heart-stopping seconds before sputtering back to life.

Rivera's focus had sharpened to laser precision, her earlier panic replaced by methodical efficiency. I stood beside her now, one hand on the console, channeling energy from my lifelines into the archaic system at her direction.

"He's trying a recursive loop on quadrant gamma," she said, not looking up from her work. "Need to isolate the node!"

I shifted my hand to a different section of the console, wincing as the energy draw pulled at my injured side. "Here?"

"Perfect. Hold it steady."

Our rhythm had become seamless, as if we'd trained together for years rather than hours. Through our bond, I sensed her technical assessments, translating them into action almost before she voiced them.

"That relay sparking near you!" She pointed to the junction box on the wall behind me, its casing emitting angry blue flashes. "Need to overload it! Now!"

I moved without hesitation, crossing the flooded floor and placing both hands on the junction. Pain shot up my arms as I channeled a surge of energy through my lifelines into the archaic circuitry. The box shuddered, then stabilized, its lights shifting from erratic blue to a steady green.

"Got it!" Rivera called. "Hammond's locked out of that sector. He'll need at least twenty minutes to find another access point."

I returned to her side, studying the readouts over her shoulder. The chaos of data streams made little sense to me, but I trusted her interpretation implicitly. Strange, how quickly that trust had formed between us.

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