But my relief lasted only a fraction of a second.
As the capsule climbed, the automated interior lights finally sputtered to life, casting a dim, clinical blue glow over the console. Under the blue light, the reality of my situation became clear. I was completely bare beneath the heavy blanket, my skin still flushed and tingling from the energy of our mate bond. I leaned down and popped open the pod's emergency survival locker beneath the console, pulling out a pair of thick, oversizedthermal emergency boots. I quickly tugged them onto my bare, ash-stained feet. At the top of the display, a synthetic voice chimed, calm and entirely detached from the chaos.
Emergency launch confirmed. Auto-navigation active. Target: Orbital Rescue Hub Seven. Estimated time of arrival: twelve minutes.
"No," I choked out, fighting the immense G-forces that pinned my shoulders to the seat. "No orbital hub."
I struggled to lift my arm, the weight of my own limbs feeling three times heavier than normal as the rocket engines continued their vertical burn. I reached for the touch console. The navigation screen had flickered to life, showing our trajectory rising rapidly through the ash clouds, heading straight out of the atmosphere.
Away from Kaen. Away from the caldera.
The physical tether in my chest pulled downward with agonizing strength. It felt like a heavy anchor dragging behind us, trying to tear me out of the ascending capsule. He was down there, in the dark, volcanic heart of the island. If I let this pod carry me into orbit, I would never see him again. He would detonate alone, and the bond would snap, leaving me hollowed out in the cold vacuum of space.
I had to hijack the flight.
I gritted my teeth, forcing my hand forward against the crushing weight of the climb. I tapped the screen, attempting to access the manual flight controls. A bright amber warning flashed across the display.
Auto-pilot locked. Manual override restricted to authorized security personnel.
A grim smile touched my lips. My fingers moved with rapid muscle memory across the screen, typing out the bypass sequences from my high-level negotiator credentials with the corporate safety grid.
I swiped the prompt away, pulling up the master security command terminal. The capsule vibrated violently as we hit a pocket of severe atmospheric turbulence, the metal hull groaning as it sheared through the ash storm. My fingers bounced off the screen, but I forced my hand steady, entering my personal, ten-digit corporate negotiator bypass code.
The screen flashed red, then transitioned to a steady, pulsing green.
Override accepted. Manual piloting interface engaged. Please select destination.
I didn't have time to input precise coordinates. I didn't need them. The compass was already locked inside my chest, the physical ache in my ribs pointing directly toward the epicenter of the volcanic storm.
I pulled up the regional geothermal map on the console. The Dead Zone was lit up in a massive, blinding crimson wave—a thermal anomaly so intense it dwarfed everything else on the screen.
I swiped the orbital destination away, dragging the targeting reticle directly into the center of that crimson wave.
Warning,the automated voice chimed, its tone finally losing its calm detachment.Selected flight path enters a high-hazard geothermal zone. Atmospheric density and thermal turbulence exceed safety limits. Proceed?
"Proceed," I growled, and slammed my hand onto the confirmation prompt.
The pod’s attitude thrusters fired with a series of sharp, pneumatic thuds. The capsule tilted violently, the nose pivoting downward. The vertical climb ended in a gut-wrenching lurch that left my stomach floating in my throat, and then the rocket engines roared again, driving the pod into a steep, high-velocity dive back down through the freezing ash clouds.
We were plummeting straight into the volcanic winter.
The descent was a terrifying, violent ordeal. Through the lead-glass viewport, the world was a chaotic blur of pitch-black ash, freezing rain, and jagged, vertical streaks of purple ash lightning that arced across the sky. The wind howled against the titanium hull, a screaming, relentless beast that buffeted the small capsule from side to side.
The G-forces shifted, pulling me forward against the heavy harness. The automated alarms on the console began to shriek in a rapid, continuous pitch.
Warning. Geothermal boundary breached. Ambient temperature rising. Thermal shield degradation at fourteen percent.
The air inside the capsule was growing warm, the heavy scent of hot metal and scorched insulation returning. I grabbed the manual joystick on the console, my knuckles white as I fought the severe turbulence that was trying to rip the controls from my grip. Every updraft of superheated gas rising from the caldera below hit the pod like a solid wall, tossing us upward before the thrusters forced us back down.
I looked out the viewport. The nose cone of the pod was beginning to glow, a dull, angry orange that cast a hellish light across the cabin.
The mate bond in my chest pulled tighter, a sharp, white-hot needle dragging my attention toward the center of the active caldera. The signal was incredibly strong now, a physical presence that filled my entire chest, humming with the frequency of Kaen's superheating core.
Warning. Proximity to terrain critical. Deploying emergency braking thrusters.
"Not yet," I shouted, holding the manual override trigger down.
If the autopilot deployed the braking thrusters too early, the wind would catch the capsule and hurl us against the sheerbasalt cliffs of the crater rim. I had to time it perfectly. I had to wait until we cleared the high-velocity ash currents at the rim.
