Page 77 of Third

They were seconds away from unleashingit.

Frantically, she watched her bracelet.

The countdown ticked.

And kept ticking.

She blinked, waiting for it tostop.

It didn’t.

The numbers kept falling.

Her stomach turned over, hard and sudden, like she’d been dropped from a height. Aslow, sick chill crept up her spine, and her knees nearly buckled. Her hands pressed against the edge of the console, white-knuckled, as if she could will the numbers to freeze.

They didn’t.

Chapter18

THE SHIPgroaned beneath them, as if it too sensed the weight of decisions that could no longer be delayed. Every component around them vibrated with pressure—from the failing systems, from the pounding fists outside, from the truth they could no longer ignore. There would be no second chances. No more corrections. Whatever came next, it would have to be enough.

Tor’Vek tweaked a final setting for the stabilizer in its core socket, fingers slick with blood from his own palms. Atremor rolled through the deck—deep, low, seismic—as the interface flared to life. He reached up, adjusted the thermal bypass limiter, then recalibrated the auxiliary circuits manually, rerouting excess pressure through the shield dampeners. The panel finally flashed green. It should have been a victory.

It wasn’t.

Outside, fists and claws pounded against the hull—feral, unrelenting. The shrieks of the hominids rose in a discordant chorus, shaking the air. Something heavier struck near the starboard intake, warping the metal with a sickening crunch.

Anya flinched. “Tell me that fixed everything. The countdown?”

Tor’Vek didn’t look up. His bracelet still tickedaway.

12:09:2212:09:2112:09:20

Not accelerating. Not stopping. Just bleedingtime.

“Stabilizer held,” he said, voice like stone. “Decay rate has slowed, but the countdown remains active. We have twelve solar units.”

She made a choked sound—half laugh, half sob—and blinked fast, fighting to pull herself together. She dragged her fingers down the sides of her thighs, then clenched them tightly, forcing the tremor from her hands. The panic didn’t vanish, but it hardened into something sharper. Something she could use. “Twelve hours tolive.”

A harsh screech tore through the ship’s comms.

Tor’Vek spun toward the source, body already bracing, as a fractured blue shimmer burst to life above the interface. The light jittered, warped—then resolved into the shape of Selyr.

He was grinning.

“Fascinating,” Selyr said, clasping his hands behind his back, ever so arrogant. “Even knowing your odds, you obeyed so predictably. Retrieve, install, hope. It is remarkable how desperate organisms will cling to even the thinnest promise.”

Tor’Vek stepped forward, muscles coiled. “Speak your final variables, Selyr,” he said, low and razor-sharp. “Iwant to hear the last data point from a failed experiment.”

“You thought survival would be simple?” Selyr retorted with a sneer. “Retrieve the part, plug it in, and live happily ever after?”

“Yes,” Tor’Vek said simply.

Selyr paced slowly in front of the camera feed, every movement deliberate, almost theatrical. He lifted a hand, stroking it across the top of a console just off-frame, as though fondly revisiting an old experiment. His expression was one of mock sorrow, his eyes lit with malicious amusement.

“How quaint. You’re still under the illusion that effort earns outcome—that if you fight hard enough, bleed deep enough, love fiercely enough, you win. But the universe does not care how much you want to live. It only watches to see how well you suffer. Oh no, precious creatures. Life—real life—is a predator, not a puzzle. It waits, teeth bared, for those foolish enough to think the game ends with a button press and a blinking light. You survive one trap only to step into thenext.”

Anya stepped forward, her eyes ice-cold. “Hear this, you sadistic bastard—watch us survive anyway. Watch us burn your world down on the way out. Ihope the last thing you see is myface.”

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