⫸ [ TIME: 04:30 AETHELGARD STANDARD TIME ]
⫸ [ LOCATION: SECTOR 4 – THE ASH FLATS ]
⫸ [ STATUS: IMPACT ]
Elian hit the ground.
It was not a graceful landing. The ash dunes of Sector 4 were soft, but at 80 kilometers per hour, the physics of deceleration were brutal.
He tumbled. His armor plowed a deep furrow through the grey powder. The external sensors shattered. The internal gyroscope spun wildly before seizing.
He came to a stop face down in the dirt.
Silence returned to the flats. The only sound was the hissing of his overheated coolant lines and the distant rumble of the collapsing Sun-Spire.
[ System Reboot... ]
[ Critical Damage Detected. Servo-motors offline. HUD offline. ]
[ Auxiliary Power: 3%. ]
Elian gasped. The air intake filters were clogged with ash. He clawed at his helmet. His fingers felt numb and clumsy, the tactile feedback completely gone. He pried the manual seal open and vomited bile onto the grey sand.
"Status," he croaked.
"Alive," a deep voice rumbled.
Grom limped over the crest of the dune. The Giant was covered in soot and burns. He looked like a statue forged in hellfire. In his arms, he clutched the Scuttler-leather sack. It pulsed with a rhythmic golden light, illuminating the dust motes around them.
"The Heart beats," Grom said.
Elian rolled onto his back. He looked up the slope.
The Deep-Kin were emerging from the dust. They were laughing. They slapped their iron shields and pointed at the burning ruin of the fortress high above. They had ridden the avalanche and survived because they were built like tanks. Elian was not.
"We need to move," Elian whispered. He tried to stand. His legs buckled. The servos were dead weight, locking the joints in place.
"A.R.C., route remaining power to the exoskeletal frame. Bypass life support. Bypass thermal regulation."
[ Warning. Bypassing thermal regulation will expose you to residual suit heat. ]
[ Confirm? ]
"Confirm."
The suit whined. The joints unlocked. Elian stood up. The heat from the earlier slide began to bleed through the under-suit, stinging his skin, but he ignored it.
"Check the clock," Elian ordered.
[ Stasis Pod Power Reserve: 4%. ]
[ The insulation coefficient of the pod is degrading. ]
[ Time to Critical Failure: 3 Hours 45 Minutes. ]
Elian stared at the internal chronometer.
The pod was a vacuum flask. Once the power died, it would hold the cold for a few hours, but then the temperature would rise. Alara wouldn't wake up; she would rot.
"We run," Elian said. "We run until the servos fuse."
⬡ ─── ⬡ ─── ⬡
⫸ [ TIME: 07:45 AETHELGARD STANDARD TIME ]
⫸ [ LOCATION: THE VERGE – JUNGLE EDGE ]
⫸ [ STATUS: ARRIVAL ]
The return journey was a blur of agony.
Elian did not remember the march. He remembered only the rhythm of his boots hitting the ground. Thud. Thud. Thud. His muscles screamed against the weight of the dead armor, assisted only by the dying spasms of the actuators.
They broke through the tree line.
The Horizon Seeker loomed in the mist.
It was dark.
The external floodlights were dead. The hum of the perimeter fence was gone. The ship looked like a corpse.
"It's quiet," Lin whispered. "Too quiet."
"The reactor died," Elian said. "We are on emergency reserve. The ship is in hibernation."
He didn't wait for the airlock cycle. He pried the manual release open.
The interior was pitch black. The air was stale, the scrubbers having failed hours ago.
"Grom! To the Engineering Bay! Bring the package!"
Elian sprinted through the corridors. He navigated by memory. He turned the corner to the Secure Cargo Hold.
The blast door was sealed.
"Open!" Elian shouted. He slammed his hand on the panel. Nothing.
"A.R.C., override!"
[ Negative. System power is zero. The mag-locks have engaged fail-safe mode. ]
"Grom!"
The Giant appeared. He dropped the sack. He jammed his Void-Steel reinforced fingers into the door seam. He roared. The muscles in his back coiled like pythons.
The door groaned. The magnetic seal fought him, but the leverage of a Giant was undeniable. It slid open six inches.
Elian squeezed through.
The room was quiet. The hum of the cryo-pumps was gone.
In the center, the Stasis Pod sat in the dark. The internal lights were off. The status LED was a blinking red dot.
Elian ran to the glass. He wiped the condensation away.
Alara was inside. Her skin was pale.
◤ BIOMETRIC ALERT ◢
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
⬢ Subject: Alara Vance
⬢ Pod Temp: -4°C (Rising rapidly)
⬢ Status: Metabolic Cascade
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
[ The active cooling failed 30 minutes ago. ]
[ She is thawing. Without a controlled sequence, cellular crystallization will occur. ]
[ She is suffering from ice-crystal formation in the bloodstream. ]
"She's not dying," Elian realized with horror. "She's breaking apart at the cellular level. I need to power the defroster now."
He turned to the door.
"THE HEART!" he screamed. "GIVE ME THE HEART!"
Grom shoved the pulsing sack through the gap.
Elian grabbed it. It burned his hands. He didn't care. He dragged it to the Reactor Interface on the wall.
The ship's reactor was a Fusion Chamber designed for refined fuel rods. It wasn't designed for a biological Titan organ.
Elian ripped the maintenance panel off the wall. He exposed the main power bus—heavy gauge tungsten cables designed to carry the ship's full load.
"I need a bridge," Elian panicked. He looked around. "I can't just touch the wires. The impedance mismatch will cause an arc flash that blows the room up."
He looked at the Titan Heart. It was pulsing with raw Aether.
He looked at his Exo-Suit.
His suit had a Super-Capacitor Bank built into the backplate to handle the railgun's recoil absorption. It was designed to take massive spikes of energy.
"I am the capacitor," Elian said.
He grabbed the heavy tungsten cables from the ship's bus. He jammed them into the emergency discharge ports on his suit's power pack.
Then he grabbed the Titan Heart with his bare hands.
"A.R.C., divert all input from the chest plate to the rear capacitor. Filter the output to the ship's bus."
[ Commander. The Exo-Suit is rated for 500 Kilovolts. ]
[ The Titan Heart output is variable and chaotic. ]
[ Resistance heating will exceed the melting point of the chassis. ]
"The chassis is replaceable!" Elian shouted. "My daughter is not!"
He slammed the Heart against his chest plate.
He grabbed the output cables.
CONTACT.
White light exploded in the room.
Elian screamed.
It wasn't just heat. It was current. The energy of a Tier 4 Titan surged through the suit's conductive mesh. The capacitors screamed as they filled instantly. The regulators fought to smooth the chaotic Aether into usable electricity.
ZZZZZRAK.
The metal of the suit turned white-hot. It began to liquefy.
The polycarbonate undersuit melted. It fused to his skin. The Thermal-Lattice epidermis fought to dissipate the heat, but the contact was direct.
The ship shuddered.
The lights flickered on. The hum returned. It started as a whine and grew to a roar.
◤ POWER SURGE ◢
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
⬢ Input: 1.21 Gigawatts (Stabilizing)
⬢ System: Rebooting
⬢ Cryo-Cycle: ENGAGING EMERGENCY STABILIZATION
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
Behind him, the Stasis Pod hissed.
The coolant pumps kicked in with a violent thud. The thawing process was arrested and reversed into a controlled wake-up cycle.
Elian couldn't let go. The magnetic field created by the current had locked his hands to the cables. He was part of the circuit. He could smell his own flesh cooking beneath the molten armor.
"A.R.C.," Elian gasped. "Is she... clear?"
[ Cellular crystallization halted. ]
[ Metabolic sequence normalized. ]
[ She is safe. ]
"Cut... the line."
Elian blacked out.
His body went limp. His weight tore the cables free from the suit.
The connection broke. The Titan Heart rolled onto the floor, still glowing, but the ship's capacitors were full. The automated systems took over. The reactor chamber clamped down on the Heart, engaging the magnetic containment field.
Elian lay on the floor. Smoke rose from his chest. His suit was a ruin of melted slag fused to his torso.
⬡ ─── ⬡ ─── ⬡
⫸ [ TIME: +3 DAYS ]
⫸ [ LOCATION: MED BAY ]
⫸ [ STATUS: RECOVERY ]
Elian woke up.
He was floating.
He was inside a Bacta-Tank (Regeneration Vats). Green fluid filled his lungs. He didn't panic. The oxygenated liquid was breathable.
He looked down at his body.
The ruined suit was gone.
The skin on his chest and arms was new. But it wasn't human skin.
It was gunmetal grey. The hexagonal scales were no longer surface-level; they were deep, interlocking plates.
Grom stood outside the glass. He tapped on the tank.
"Iron-Star wakes," the Giant rumbled.
The fluid drained. The glass slid open. Elian stumbled out, coughing up the green gel.
[ Welcome back, Commander. ]
[ You have been in a medically induced coma for 74 hours. ]
[ The damage to your dermis was catastrophic. 40% of your skin surface area was incinerated. ]
"I'm alive," Elian whispered. He flexed his hand. The movement was smooth, hydraulic. "How?"
[ I utilized the excess energy from the Titan Heart to over-clock the Auto-Doc. ]
[ I also took the opportunity to install the "Iron-Skin Scripture" data you acquired. ]
[ I used the laser scalpel to etch the Aether-conducting circuits directly into your new scar tissue as it healed. ]
Elian looked in the mirror.
Faint amber lines traced the muscles of his chest and arms, glowing softly beneath the grey scales. He was a printed circuit board of flesh.
◤ UPGRADE COMPLETE ◢
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
⬢ Subject: Elian Vance
⬢ Classification: Tier 2 (Solid State Equivalent)
⬢ Ability: Iron-Skin (Passive Aether Hardening)
⬢ Durability: Small Arms / Heat Resistant
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
"I didn't just survive," Elian realized. "I evolved."
He walked to the door. He felt heavy, solid. Like he was made of lead.
"Alara?"
"She sleeps," Grom said. "But the ice is gone. She breathes the air."
Elian nodded. He walked to the window of the Med Bay.
Outside, the base had transformed.
The Deep-Kin had not been idle for three days.
Trenches surrounded the ship. Forges burned in the courtyard. The Giants were drilling with new Void-Steel shields.
It was no longer a desperate camp. It was a fortress prepared for war.
Disciple Lin walked in. She looked different. Confident. She wore a chest plate of Void-Steel over her robes.
"You slept through the celebration," Lin said. "The Deep-Kin call you the 'Forge-Father' now."
"I don't care about titles," Elian said. "I care about the counter-attack."
He looked at the infinite energy reading on the ship's diagnostic panel.
"We have infinite power," Elian said. "We have the metal. We have the army."
He turned to the Fabricator schematic on the wall.
"A.R.C., pull up the blueprints for the Mark-IV Exo-Suit. The 'Warlord' Chassis."
[ Blueprint loaded. ]
[ Warning. This design prioritizes heavy weapons platforms over scientific instruments. ]
"Good," Elian said. His blue eyes burned with cold logic. "We are done with science. We are starting an industry."
He looked at the sky.
"The Golden Crows will come for their Heart. And I am going to sell it to them."
"One bullet at a time."
[END OF CHAPTER 26]