Chapter 97: Crowbar Versus Starship

The reinforced titanium hatch of the boarding capsule slammed shut with a heavy pneumatic hiss, sealing five people within its cramped, humming interior.

The air inside was cold and sterile, smelling of fresh thermal sealant, recycled oxygen, and high-voltage wiring.

"Is everyone strapped into their deceleration webbing?" Cassian asked, checking his tactical visor as the internal red emergency lights bathed the cabin.

"Forge, are you completely certain these titanium welds can withstand Mach six shear stress?" Bekka asked, tapping her knuckles against the reinforced ribbing of the capsule.

"Officer Hayes, those welds were laid down by my personal automated fabrication lathe," Forge answered over the comm, his voice brimming with aristocratic pride.

"I would bet my entire stock portfolio that this hull could survive a direct collision with a lunar satellite."

"I will bet you ten thousand credits I find a loose rivet before we hit the stratosphere, Elias," Sierra chimed in, running her slender fingers along the ceiling seam.

"Do not encourage her, Forge, because she will steal the rivets just to win the bet," Cassian warned without looking up from his tactical interface.

"That was one time in Monaco, Detective, and the casino yacht had terrible structural integrity anyway," Sierra shot back with a cheerful grin.

"Focus on your harnesses, everyone," Leo said, his voice cutting through the cabin banter with calm authority.

"I am strapped in so tight my ribs are whistling, detective," Redline answered from the center harness, nervously adjusting his silver goggles.

"If this tin can bounces off their shield, tell my publicist my memorial statue needs to be cast in solid polished bronze."

"Stop talking about statues, speedster, and check your magnetic boot clamps," Bekka commanded, locking her three-point harness into the bulkhead.

Her wind gauntlets hummed with quiet amber tension as she tested the emergency release lever beside her hip.

"Leo, how does the counter-frequency feel?" Sierra asked, tying off her Night Spool to the ceiling release ring with a delicate loop.

"It is vibrating right behind my teeth," Leo answered, resting the dark blade of the Null Razor across his knees.

’The shard is humming like a tuning fork, pulling straight toward the warship’s ventral power conduits.’

"Outside on three," Sunlark’s voice crackled clearly through the exterior radio speaker.

Leo looked through the thick quartz porthole, catching Luna’s gaze through the billowing smoke and drifting ash on the clinic roof.

She offered no dramatic wave, only a firm nod of clinical confidence that anchored his racing pulse.

’She kept me alive through the seizure, and I am bringing every single person in this capsule back to her clinic.’

"Ajax, lock your lift vector to sixty degrees," Hancock’s gravelly voice shouted over the exterior comms.

"I have the base skids, John, just give it everything you have left in your aura," Ajax roared back.

"Three, two, one, lift," Sunlark commanded, her golden light blazing through the porthole.

The three solar paragons gathered the capsule beneath their glowing arms, hurling the ten-ton metal dart into the stratosphere.

The sudden acceleration slammed Leo backward into his harness, gravity pressing ten times his body weight into his chest.

"Atmospheric friction reaching thermal peak in five seconds," Cassian reported calmly over the shriek of burning air.

Iron Regent fired remote guidance thrusters mounted along the hull, steering the capsule through bursts of purple anti-air flak.

"Hang on, kids, they just opened up with point-defense cannons," Forge crackled over the radio link.

High above, the warship’s central aperture pulsed with unstable violet energy, firing an early, partial orbital lance.

"The cannon is firing," Redline yelled, pointing toward the forward monitor.

"Tidemarch and Meridian have the ground angle," Bekka called back, bracing against the shuddering frame.

Below, the water lens and spatial gates deflected the periphery of the beam into the abandoned industrial rail yards.

Four empty warehouses and three dry docks vaporized instantly in a plume of white-hot slag, proving the lethal cost of the invasion.

"The primary beam missed the clinic," Cassian confirmed, reading the ground telemetry, adding, "Now we breach their deflector."

The capsule screamed into the outer perimeter of the flagship’s dimensional barrier at Mach six.

"Blow the forward hatch, Leo," Bekka shouted over the roaring slipstream.

Leo lunged forward, kicking the capsule’s forward emergency hatch clear into the supersonic air.

The bitter cold of the upper atmosphere hit his face like a hammer, screaming around his ears at over two thousand miles per hour.

He drew the Null Razor, aligning its dark edge with the silver thread of Shard 4’s resonance.

"Do you see the nerve?" Sierra called out from behind him, anchoring her boots to the floor.

"I see it," Leo shouted back, tracing the glowing filament of violet energy against the void.

’It is not a fortress to be smashed, it is an open vein waiting for the right frequency.’

He swung the Null Razor with surgical precision, carving a clean twenty-foot breach through the alien barrier.

The black blade bit into the dimensional lattice, and the counter-harmonic shattered the nerve with an ear-splitting crystalline snap.

The boarding capsule punched through the newly opened seam, slamming into the hangar deck in a storm of torn chitin.

"Breach successful, deploy now," Cassian barked as the hull skidded three hundred yards across the ribbed alien floor.

The detective hit the alien decking first, his tactical carbine firing in rapid three-round bursts that eliminated two biomechanical sentries.

Bekka vaulted through the mangled hatch, sweeping two approaching guardians into the bulkhead with a compressed gale.

"Clear the landing bay," Bekka ordered, her gauntlets flashing as alien chitin cracked against the metal walls.

Redline tumbled out backward, his magnetic boots catching the ceiling as gravity fluctuated unpredictably.

"Okay, gravity here is completely upside down, and the floor smells like rotten seafood and burnt ozone," the speedster announced.

"Plant your extraction anchor, Sierra," Leo commanded, parrying a plasma lance with the flat of his blade.

Sierra fired a high-tension loop of phase-wire through the closing shield breach, securing an illuminated blue beacon.

"The breach will stay open as long as my spool holds this frequency, shadow boy," Sierra answered with a sharp grin.

"Redline, hold the southern gantry and do not let any reinforcements reach that blast door," Bekka ordered, her gauntlets unleashing a howling vortex that cleared the upper walkway.

"I am on it, Officer Hayes, but the floor is definitely trying to stick to my heels," Redline shouted back, dashing in tight figure-eights to keep his boots moving.

"Sierra, how long can that extraction anchor hold against their internal dampening field?" Leo asked, parrying another energized spear.

"It will hold for twelve minutes, shadow boy, provided nobody drops a five-ton bulkhead on my spool," Sierra answered, her phase-wire singing through the air.

Suddenly, the organic chitin walls groaned, pulsing with bioluminescent violet veins that responded directly to Leo’s cellular presence.

Dense bulkheads of living alien bone shifted across the corridor, sealing Leo away from his team behind a five-foot barrier.

"Leo," Bekka shouted, slamming her gauntlets against the bone wall as wind battered the dense membrane.

"I am fine, Bekka," Leo called back through the translucent partition, shouting, "Find the captive pens and get our people out."

Through the vibrating wall, a distorted telepathic voice resonated directly inside Leo’s skull.

"Unfinished property of the hive, abandon the parasites and take the direct path to your core."

"Your biological genome belongs to the vanguard, and your destiny is written in imperial stars."

Leo sneered, driving the tip of his blade into the floor.

"My name is Leo Marsh, and the only thing I am taking from this ship is my people."