Page 11 of Claimed By the War Brute
The first man charges, swinging a shock-axe like a lunatic. Rookie mistake. I duck the blow, slam my elbow into his gut with enough force to cave a rib cage, then toss him like trash. His body skids, limbs limp, breath gone. The second one backs away. Smart. Doesn’t help him.
I don’t kill. Not yet. But I make it look like I want to.
I grab the second one by his collar, spin, and slam him into the electrified wall just long enough to make the lights flicker. Sparks cascade like fireworks. The crowd loves it.
I’m not here for glory. I’m here for noise.
The echo chip in my vambrace vibrates twice—sync established. The chaos in the ring masks the signal. Perfect. The chip piggybacks on badge frequencies, pings off each guardlike sonar. Mapping patrols. Logging clearance codes. Finding a path.
My HUD updates in real time, overlays drawing routes, estimating lag times in gate cycles, pinpointing blind spots in the surveillance grid. I file every detail away, but my focus—my drive—isn’t the data.
It’s her.
I see her eyes every time I blink. Fire behind fear. A tilt of the chin that doesn’t beg, but dares. She’s dangerous. Not with brute force, but precision. Her mind’s a weapon, just like mine. And I’ve been forged to recognize kindred steel.
Jalshagar.
The word stings in the back of my throat. I’ve never believed in it. Myth. Campfire bullshit to lull soldiers into dreams they’ll never see. But when I saw her—when her gaze locked on mine—I felt the click. Like the chambered round of a perfect shot.
A match. A threat. A bond.
The fight ends. Both opponents down. One’s unconscious. The other whimpers. I tower above them, chest heaving once for effect. I let the crowd drink it in. Let them mark me as their monster. I want them to.
Because monsters get close to the throne.
Back in my cell, I don’t pace. I stalk. I calculate.
The chip’s still hot. It sends bursts of light to my HUD—guard loops, maintenance schedules, storage compartments beneath the med-bay corridor. I’ve mapped twenty-three potential extraction points. Only three are viable.
I tap the speaker port again. One beat. Then five. My way of saying: “I’m in.”
She’ll know. Somehow, I know she will.
The next wave is hers. She has the codes. The finesse. I’ve got the power, the timing, the route. Between us? We’ve got hell waiting at the hull.
And for the first time in a long damn while, I don’t feel alone in the fight.
CHAPTER 11
SYD
Idon’t realize I’ve been humming rusted bar-chords under my breath until the first ping hits my neural band—a static jolt so whispered-fine I nearly ignore it. Nearly. But I’m tuned in; years of live-sound bleed into my nerve ends, and even the faintest melody won’t pass me by. The digital signature is deliberate, precise. Not a glitch. I lift my hand, fingertips grazing the contoured patch behind my ear, drawn by the soft drone that transforms sound into electric structure. It’s him: Garrus sending a signal through the walls, speaking to me in rhythm. My pulse hammers in approval.
I lean back on the cot, tilting my head skyward as though I might catch the signal in the shifting angles of the ceiling lights. My fingers dance in empty air—ghostly chords forming against the memory of a holokeytar I no longer hold. I let the signal sync: four pulses, lingering breath, seven pulses, breath held, three. Then fade. Not words. Not music. A map. A plan. It’s trust, hammered into vibration.
I can almost taste it. Concrete and recycled air, the burn of ozone and the lingering ferrous tang of old blood on my tongue. The map unfolds in my mind like scores on a page—the air-nodebehind the grate, the weak point in the vent grid, the cadence of intake fans, door cycles, guard patrols. Garrus has scored their path, and I’m the soloist stepping up to the mic.
At first light—I call it light, though this ship bleeds artificial dawn—I celebrate by laughing, soft, breathy, nearly drowned by my heartbeat echo. After days of bruised dinners and broken sleep, I’m alive. I’m choreographing my exit. My initiation. This is revolt with style—and I’m in control.
Meal transfer: a guard in mid-rotation slides in the panel with dinner plunger. He’s young, clean-upholstered, nervous. I watch the slight hitch in his hand as he reveals the tray. That moment is everything—he’s unsure, pulled by my faux exhaustion, my slouch. “Another day in paradise,” I murmur. He tosses a half-smile, counters, “Try to keep warm. The lights get cold.” He doesn’t notice I note his glancing away—keeps me alive.
Once he clanks the panel shut, I slide the shard artifact from my pocket—plastisteel, scavenged from the hydration port. Its edges flicker with worn promises under the cell lamp’s haze. I drop to one knee, spreading out on the floor until the vent grate intersects the slender beam of my peripheral vision. I brace my palm on the grate and slip the tool through the slatted opening. Metal resists my motion with quiet friction, but opens. One whisper. Then I reach in, and I feel it—not the nodal panel, not the cooling fan motor, but the hum of life beneath. My fingertips brush the terminal's outer sleeve just until I hear the first denial of power and deliver my sabotage: six seconds of short-circuit shock. The lights, for one pregnant moment, shiver. Then grid alignment resets. No alarm. No panic. Just a momentary hush as the ship reclaims control.
I rise—casual, indolent, though my chest feels subsonic with excitement. I wipe my lip where crusted blood from earlier performance dusts the corner of my mouth. I let the breath even.I let the expectant pause linger. Then I tap four soft knocks on the panel—not a code, but a recessed keystroke, a beat that translates to: Do your thing.
A ripple of energy curls through the ship’s hull like a tremor whisper traced through water. I press my hand to the rail-honed wall, tongue pressed sideways on my teeth. Every breath tastes electric. My limbs jitter in readiness.
Then the distant alarms snap the hush. Sirens wave and crackle under metal plating. The node I sabotaged bleeps into action—the panic light pulses red. Across the corridor, at the cross-hatch to the merc-bay, alarms cascade into clattering demand. The fight drones—it’s already mid-collapse—overload, sparking circuits and drawing red halos of sentinel attention. Shields flicker, eroding in sections, including mine. The echo chip hums to life, mapping frequencies, snaring guard badge codes with jittery triumph. A private channel blossoms in my headset: “Now,” I feel it vibrated directly into my synapses. A two-beat buzz, heavy, command.
