Zane moved. In the confined space, it took effort, but he managed to turn himself around so he faced the door. His body formed a barrier between her and whatever was happening outside. The gesture was so unconsciously protective that something twisted in her chest.
"What are you doing?" she whispered.
He didn't answer. His shoulders had gone rigid, every muscle tense. Ready. And the closet was getting hot. Or maybe she was imagining it.
Then she smelled it. Burning. Acrid smoke that made her nose wrinkle. But how? They were in space. Fire needed oxygen, and shipboard fire suppression systems were brutal in their efficiency. Any flame should have been smothered in seconds.
Had they been boarded? Was someone using incendiaries? Her mind raced through possibilities, each worse than the last.
The door yanked open, and she squinted against the sudden brightness. The corridor beyond was empty. No pirates. No boarders. Just wisps of smoke curling along the ceiling and a dark scorch mark on the wall that definitely hadn't been there before.
She and Zane stumbled out, her legs barely holding her weight. Pins and needles shot up from her feet with each step. She had to grab the wall to keep from falling, her hand landing in something wet and warm that she really didn't want to examine too closely.
"I think we have our moment." Zane steadied her with a hand on her elbow, already moving toward the bridge.
"What did you do?" The question came out sharper than she intended. The smoke, the screaming, his calm certainty. It all added up to something that made no sense.
"I got us out." He didn't look at her, his attention focused on the corridor ahead. "We need to run."
No argument there. Whatever was happening, they needed to get control of her ship. She forced her protesting muscles to move faster, following him through corridors she knew by heart.
The bridge was empty, and there weren't any bodies. Just her violated space with its torn panels and shattered displays. And that broken mug, still in three pieces, mocking her from the floor. She dove for the pilot's seat, hands flying over the controls. Most of the systems responded, sluggish but functional.
The dock release wouldn't budge.
She tried again. Override codes. Manual disconnect. Every trick she knew.
"They've locked us down." Her fingers cramped as she input another sequence. "We'd need to be on their ship to disengage."
"I will pay for any repairs." He leaned over her shoulder, close enough that she felt his breath on her neck. "Just pull us away."
"You can't pay for repairs if we're dead." She pulled up the structural display, showing him what he was asking. "We'll lose life support and the engines."
The docking mechanism had integrated itself into her hull like a parasite. Ripping free would tear away half her ship's belly, including the primary systems that kept them alive. They'd have minutes at most before the cold of space claimed them.
"Damn it!"
"Exactly." She pushed out of the seat, mind already moving to plan B. "We can try a manual release. If we can access the coupling directly, maybe?—"
They ran for the maintenance access, her body protesting every step. The hatch was already open, tool marks scoring the metal where someone had forced it. She dropped to her knees beside it, peering into the mechanical guts of the connection.
"Definitely black market." She traced the modifications with growing disgust. The coupling had barbed teeth, designed to sink into hull plating and hold on. "This is nasty work. Professional parasite tech."
The mechanism had burrowed into her ship like a tick, barbed connectors making removal impossible without massive damage. Whoever had designed this wanted their prey helpless.
Fighting sounds echoed through the halls, getting closer. Whatever was happening on the pirate ship was spilling over into hers. The hull breach alarm joined the cacophony, its rhythmic shriek making her stomach drop.
"No. No, no, no." She pulled up her wrist display, confirming what the alarm already told her. Pressure dropping in section C. Structural integrity compromised.
This was her ship. Her home. Her freedom. Five years of her life poured into keeping it running, and it was being torn apart by other people's greed. Five years of choosing which meals to skip so she could afford a new regulator. Five years of sleeping in the pilot's seat because the bunk heater was broken and she couldn't afford to fix it.
Five years of her life, bleeding out into the void.
Movement caught her eye. A figure in a dark green space suit rounded the corner, military-grade gear that looked wrong on a pirate. The plasma cannon in their hands was definitely military. Stolen or black market, designed to punch through hull plating like tissue paper.
The barrel swung toward them. Mercy's brain went very quiet, the way it sometimes did when things got truly bad. No time for fear. No time for regrets. Just the simple observation that this was how she died.
She knew this was the end. No dodging plasma. No clever tricks or last-minute escapes. Just superheated death in a narrow corridor.
