Chapter 257: Fractured Stasis

The violent thud of the deadbolts sealing the doors echoed through the dark vault like a hammer striking an anvil.

Above, red emergency strobes pulsed, casting the sprawling Tier Three containment hall in harsh, disorienting shadows.

Su Yun remained on her knees, her fingers clawing at the floor as the neural pulse tore through her head. On the elevated catwalks sixty feet above, the eight mind-controlled Hounds raised their weapons. Arcs of lightning, superheated plasma, and dense kinetic energy ignited around their gauntlets, illuminating their visors.

"Cover!" Han Zheng bellowed.

Before the Hounds could unleash their barrage, Han Zheng planted his boots on the floor and stepped directly into the line of fire. He raised his left hand, his eyes flashing as core energy surged beneath his skin.

THUMMMMM!

A shimmering distortion of kinetic force erupted from his palm, expanding into a six-foot-wide barrier. Lin Qing instinctively pulled Su Yun closer to the console, keeping her below the shield’s edge.

A fraction of a second later, a rain of high-caliber rounds and elemental bolts slammed into the barrier. Instead of breaking through, the projectiles’ momentum was absorbed by Han Zheng’s power. Sparks scattered across the catwalk. His arm trembled under the mounting pressure, and the metal beneath his boots groaned as he held his ground.

"Take it back!" Han Zheng roared.

With a powerful punch, Han Zheng redirected the accumulated energy toward the upper balcony. A roaring shockwave exploded from his fist, sweeping upward with tremendous force. The impact shattered the steel guardrails, throwing three Hounds backward into the shadows and interrupting their attack. Loose fragments of railing clattered down onto the floor below.

"Ah Hua! Secure the left stairwell!" Han Zheng commanded over the ringing alarms.

"On it!"

Ah Hua sprinted toward a terminal box bolted to the catwalk floor. Grasping its edges with his mechanical arm and bare hand, he tore the massive box free of its mounts. The hydraulic servos in his shoulder whined under the strain. With a fierce grunt, he heaved it ten feet across the platform, slamming it down to form a barricade between the squad and the stairwell.

Ah Hua rested his weapon over the improvised shield, unleashing a steady stream of suppressed fire to keep the remaining marksmen pinned behind the concrete pillars. He adjusted his aim whenever a helmet appeared above the railing, forcing the Hounds to retreat before they could line up another shot.

On the central console platform, Su Yun’s breathing was rapid and shallow, her teeth clenched as the transponder in her skull continued its agonizing whine. She tried to lift her head, but another pulse sent her shoulders curling inward.

Lin Qing knelt beside her, wrapping an arm around Su Yun’s shoulders while keeping her rifle trained on the upper catwalks. "Ye Lin! Can you shut off that signal?!"

Ye Lin was already moving. With the main console locked by Commander Lu’s remote override, he activated his core ability.

His body flickered with a translucent shimmer as he stepped into the steel housing of the central terminal. Phasing his hands through the armor plating, he reached into the server’s internal wiring, bypassing the locks entirely. For a moment, only his shoulders and head remained visible outside the casing.

"I can’t stop Commander Lu’s transmitter!" Ye Lin shouted from inside the terminal, his voice muffled by the metal. "But I can overload the short-range receiver in this room!"

Working blind inside the casing, Ye Lin pulled an interface wire from his wrist-pad and connected it to the primary signal receiver. His fingers searched among the bundled cables until he found the correct contact. One wrong connection could fry the entire terminal, but he had no time to check twice.

SPARK!

Blue sparks burst from the console’s side vents. The receiver short-circuited under the data surge, emitting a screeching pop before dying out. Several diagnostic lights blinked once and went dark.

The neural whine behind Su Yun’s left ear vanished.

Su Yun gasped as the pressure in her skull receded. She blinked hard, catching her breath, then looked toward the upper catwalk.

Her eyes were clear and alert once more. Without wasting time, she drew her sidearm with her right hand and a combat blade with her left, springing to her feet to cover the squad’s blind spot.

"Infiltrator dropping from the right!" Su Yun warned.

One of the Apex Hounds had bypassed Ah Hua’s suppressive fire, leaping from the sixty-foot catwalk with kinetic energy cushioning his descent. He landed ten feet behind Lin Qing, raising a broad blade crackling with electricity. His boots struck the metal grating with a dull clang, but Lin Qing was still turned toward the console.

Su Yun moved before the Hound could close the distance. She ducked beneath his horizontal swing, driving her blade into the unarmored joint beneath his armpit while firing two rounds through the lower edge of his visor. The Hound groaned and collapsed onto the metal grates before he could strike again.

Lin Qing glanced back at the fallen attacker, then at Su Yun. "Can you fight?"

"I’m fine now," Su Yun replied, though her breathing had not quite settled. She retrieved her rifle from the floor and moved beside Lin Qing. "Just don’t let him turn that signal back on."

Above them, the remaining four Hounds regrouped. They raised their weapons, preparing a synchronized salvo of armor-piercing rounds at the exposed console platform where Ye Lin was still phased into the server frame.

"Ye Lin, move!" Lin Qing called out.

She raised her rifle, preparing to fire at the upper marksmen through the dark, smoke-filled hall. The distance was awkward, and the flashing emergency lights made it difficult to hold a clear sight picture. Still, she steadied her breathing and chose the Hound nearest the railing.

At that moment, Lin Qing’s extraordinary luck intervened.

As she squeezed the trigger, her foot slipped on a puddle of hydraulic fluid, tipping her barrel upward by a fraction of an inch. The bolt missed the Hound entirely, striking a suspension cable supporting a massive industrial steam pipe along the ceiling.

The severed cable whipped through the air, snapping a nearby high-pressure valve.

PSSSSSSSHHHHHHH!

A wall of scalding white steam erupted across the upper catwalks, engulfing the four Hounds. The vapor blinded their optical sensors and thermal visors, forcing them to stumble backward as their shots went wildly off-target, striking the concrete ceiling. One Hound fired blindly into the vapor, but the others quickly ducked behind the pillars, unable to locate the squad below.

Lin Qing recovered her footing and stared up at the spreading cloud. She had been aiming nowhere near that pipe. Even she could hardly believe what had happened.

"Pure luck..." Ah Hua grunted in disbelief, blinking through the steam. "I swear she can’t miss even when she slips!"

"Less talking, more covering!" Lin Qing called back, though she couldn’t entirely hide the relief in her voice.

"Ye Lin! What’s the status on the pods?!" Han Zheng demanded, stepping back toward the terminal platform while keeping his kinetic shield raised against stray rounds.

Ye Lin phased his head out of the terminal, his face streaked with sweat and soot. "The software lock is absolute! They engaged a military-grade dead-hand protocol. We can’t disengage the stasis locks from the console! The prisoners are stuck inside!"

"Can you bypass it physically?" Lin Qing asked.

"Not fast enough. The lock controls are distributed through the entire manifold system. Even if I cut one, the others stay sealed." Ye Lin pulled his arm free of the casing and glanced at the progress bar, still frozen at eighty-two percent. "And the guards won’t stay blinded forever."

Han Zheng looked across the red-lit hall. The twenty-four stasis pods remained locked in their iron frames, their pale blue fluid draining far too slowly while the emaciated power-holders inside pounded weakly against the reinforced glass. Some could barely raise their hands. Others had opened their eyes but seemed unable to understand what was happening around them.

"If we can’t open them with code," Han Zheng said, "we break them with force."

"Commander, that glass is reinforced composite!" Ye Lin warned. "Standard rounds won’t breach all twenty-four before the guards recover from the steam!"

"I’m not using standard rounds," Han Zheng replied.

He stepped down from the platform and approached the central fluid manifold—a network of thick steel pipes feeding pressurized nutritive fluid into all twenty-four stasis pods. He studied the branching lines for a moment, following their paths to the bases of the cylinders. The same system that kept the prisoners suspended connected every pod in the room.

Han Zheng unslung his rifle, switching the selector past red to the glowing gold indicator. The weapon whined as its internal fragment drew maximum core energy. Lin Qing recognized the sound and turned sharply toward him.

"Han Zheng, wait. The prisoners—"

"I’ll direct the force through the base connections," he said, keeping his eyes on the valve. "The pressure will push outward. Get everyone clear of the glass."

Lin Qing hesitated for only a moment before moving back toward Su Yun. She knew he wouldn’t gamble with the captives’ lives without a plan, but the amount of power gathering around his weapon still made her uneasy.

Instead of aiming at the pods, Han Zheng pressed the rifle’s muzzle against the central pressure valve. At the same time, he channeled his own kinetic energy through his arms and into the weapon. The steel beneath his hand began to vibrate, and a faint tremor ran through the pipes toward the nearest cylinder.

"Brace yourselves! Grab the railings!" Han Zheng bellowed.

Lin Qing, Su Yun, Ah Hua, and Ye Lin grabbed the steel handrails, bracing their feet against the catwalk. Ah Hua kept one hand on his weapon, watching the upper balcony through the thinning steam. The Hounds were already beginning to move again.

Han Zheng gritted his teeth and pulled the trigger, unleashing a kinetic shockwave directly into the pipe.

BOOM-CRACK-THUUUUUUM!

The golden beam blasted into the manifold, superheating the liquid trapped inside. Han Zheng’s kinetic shockwave followed, driving the pressure to catastrophic levels. The thick pipes buckled against their supports as the force raced through them, and the valves along the floor rattled violently.

With nowhere else to escape, the pressure surged through the branching pipes and into the bases of all twenty-four stasis cylinders. Han Zheng held his palm against the manifold, forcing the shockwave upward and outward, away from the figures suspended inside.

BOOOOOOOOOOM!

A deafening explosion ripped through the containment hall.

All twenty-four reinforced glass pods burst apart simultaneously. Razor-sharp shards, thousands of gallons of pale blue fluid, and a blinding surge of liberated core energy erupted into the hall.

The fragments scattered outward from the cylinders as the shockwave tore through their frames, while the weakened prisoners were thrown free with the draining fluid. The blast destroyed the lower catwalk lights, sending a wave of water and unleashed power surging across the floor.