NOVEL NEXT Chapter 95 - Hull Breach
"Oh shit," Luca whispered, the words lost in the rush of air.
They tore down the corridor, their boots pounding on solid steel as gravity crept back toward a full 1g. Behind them, the Nullmaw tide was a wall of black bodies surging through the gloom. The corridor plunged into deeper darkness ahead, but they needed breathing room, and they needed it now.
"Hold up!" Luca barked, skidding to a stop at a junction. To their left was an alcove filled with rails of cabling, stacked loot crates, and a heavy bulkhead door they could slam shut. A defensible position.
"Doorway! Here!" Joey was already there, planting his shoulders against the massive frame. Danny locked his armor on the other side, their power armor plates gleaming under the emergency strobes. Their helmets clicked shut just as the first tentacles whipped out of the darkness, scraping against them.
"Make it count," Joey muttered, plasma blaster primed.
The rest of the team fanned out behind them. Chris trained his heavy rifle on the approaching mass. Emily leveled both blasters, her face a mask of concentration. Zoe was still in [Ghost Protocol], hopefully somewhere close. Ryan gripped his Arcwave disruptor like a club.
Luca dropped into a crouch behind Danny's left flank, plasma blaster in one hand, tomahawk in the other. He hit [Steady Aim], and his vision narrowed, the world sharpening as crosshairs locked onto the closest Nullmaw tentacle.
He fired. The bolt sizzled through gray flesh, and the creature crumpled.
A dozen more tentacles lashed at Danny and Joey's armor. Using [Trajectory Focus], Luca squeezed the trigger again.
Ryan lurched forward and jammed the Arcwave disruptor under Danny's static-locked legs. He fired a pulse. Sparks crackled up a loose cable on the floor, and the Nullmaws caught in the shockwave jerked violently, their bodies arcing before dropping limp. One coil whipped backward and caught Danny's shin.
"Hey!" Danny growled, tapping the plate. "I'm not part of the test bed, Ryan!"
Ryan just shrugged apologetically. "Sorry, got carried away."
The Nullmaws surged closer. Chris unleashed an incendiary grenade, and a gout of fire consumed half a dozen of the creatures at once.
Luca reset his [Steady Aim], then flicked on [Reflex Shot]. When a tendril lunged for his neck, he fired again, the shot ringing out as the limb dropped slack.
Zoe and Chris fanned out, firing plasma bolts through the narrow gap between the door and the frame. Sparks lit the deck as Nullmaw claws slammed against the metal. Ryan and Emily fell in behind Luca, shotgun and twin blasters blazing into the throng.
She dropped to one knee, hosing the front line with blaster fire, every squeeze of the trigger carving a glowing hole in the dark mass.
The Nullmaws' assault was relentless, but Danny and Joey held the line. Danny's Warhammer slammed into the plating, sending a shockwave that dented Nullmaw bodies like tin cans. Joey's blaster spit precise bolts, carving clear lanes for the others' fire while they all took potshots around their heavy armor.
Luca rounded on the last Nullmaw, heart hammering, and cut it down as it tried to slip past the blockade.
Silence fell, thick and heavy. "Is that all?" asked Ryan, his voice echoing in the sudden quiet.
Beyond the two armored giants, the corridor lay strewn with gelatinous black bodies and goopy, violet blood. The remains of the nullmaws that had amassed lay twitching. There were more, Luca knew, a cold certainty in his gut. But where had they gone?
[+716,734 XP]
[+356,500 credits]
[Level up! Close Quarters Mastery Level 11 --> Level 12]
[Ability level up! Reflex Shot Level 2--> Level 3]
As they looked into the darkness, loot boxes started appearing.
[Item acquired: Power Cell] (x16)
[Item acquired: Auto‑Seal Patch] (x2)
[Item acquired: Biogel Applicator] (x1)
[Item acquired: Smart Nutrient Bar] (x2)
[Item acquired: Neural Boost Capsule] (x1)
[Item acquired: Synth‑Oxygen Canister] (x2)
[Item acquired: Vision Clarity Drops] (x1)
[Item acquired: Energy Stabilizer Vial] (x1)
[Item acquired: Smart Fragmentation Grenade] (x1)
[Item acquired: HydroRecycler Armor Modification]
Everything else could wait; every second counted. Luca pocketed the Neural Boost and loaded the Smart Fragmentation Grenade, where he could reach it fast.
"Thank God," he muttered, clipping a synth-oxygen canister to his belt. Around him, the team settled at the junction: a heavy bulkhead door at their backs, and a grated stairwell plunging down into darkness ahead.
Emily leaned against the wall, popping a Smart Nutrient Bar. She winced as she bit down, the simple motion jarring her splinted arm. "Anyone got water?" she croaked.
Joey shook out an empty pouch. "Just these and the bars." He offered one to Luca, who tore it open and chewed.
"What's with the Hydration Recycling Module?" Danny asked, looking at the small, compact device that had dropped.
Chris picked it up, turning it over in his hands with a skeptical look.
Ryan, who already had a similar device integrated into his own suit, clapped Chris on the shoulder with the enthusiasm of a cult leader finding a new convert. "Oh, you're gonna love that thing. It's a lifesaver."
He gestured to his own sippy tube, which snaked up to his neckline. Smiling, he gave it a squeeze and took a grateful sip.
"Just clip that on your suit," Ryan explained proudly. "It filters sweat and, uh, everything else into perfectly good drinking water."
"Gross, dude," Zoe drawled, wrinkling her nose.
Chris, however, just shrugged and snapped the new Hydration Recycling Module into an open port on his armor. "Hey, water's water. And I'm thirsty as hell."
Ryan's grin widened. He slung an arm around Chris's shoulders, pulling him into a one-armed hug. "That's my man! Welcome to the club, buddy. We're pee-recycling brothers now."
Chris just shook his head, but he was smiling. "Whatever you say, man."
Luca's attention, however, was fixed on Emily. Joey was hovering in front of her, med-kit open and insistent. "Emily, I can't patch you through your armor. We need to look at that arm."
Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author's preferred platform and support their work!
She shot him a glare, her eyes hard. "It's fine. I don't have time for a day spa."
Luca pushed himself to his feet and moved to her side. "Just trust us," he said, trying to keep his voice gentle as he reached for the buckles on her chest plate.
She flinched, pulling away from him. "Do you have to?" she grumbled.
"Yes," he said, his hand finding her back to steady her. His other hand twisted the last buckle free.
Emily exhaled sharply, yanking off the plates in one motion. The sight under her undersuit made Luca's stomach drop: torn flesh, the edges ragged as metal shavings, and fresh blood seeping into the white fabric.
"Jesus," he muttered, his own eyes stinging. "It's worse than I thought."
Emily sucked in a sharp breath. "Great."
Joey was already at work. He peeled the backing off an Auto-Seal Patch and held it out. "Ready?"
Emily's jaw clenched. Luca slid his hand under her arm. "I'm right here," he murmured.
She gave a shaky nod and peeled back her sleeve.
Joey pressed the patch onto her bicep. The nanopolymers swelling as they activated. Emily hissed in tandem, her jaw flexing, but she didn't pull away. Next, Joey unscrewed the Biogel Applicator and squeezed a bead of iridescent gel around the wound's edges. It glimmered hot against her skin before seeping in with a soft sizzle.
Her shoulders, which had been rigid with pain, finally slackened. "Fuck," she breathed.
Luca helped her slide the armor back on, his thumb wiping a smear of blood from her suit. "There," he said.
She tested her arm, flexing once, then twice. "Less pain," she admitted, her eyes finally meeting his.
Joey snapped his kit shut with a satisfied click. "Good for now. Hopefully enough to finish this delve."
Hopefully. Because nothing about this clusterfuck had gone according to plan so far. Why start now?
Emily offered the medic a shaky grin. "Thanks, Doc."
Luca slumped to the deck, his back against the cool bulkhead. The corridor's emergency strobes flickered overhead, casting long, rhythmic shadows. With a full breath, a nutrient bar in his hand, and the Synth-O₂ clipped into his suit, he let himself relax for the first time in hours.
Gravity felt solid, the air smelled clean, and for a moment, this battered battleship didn't seem like a tomb.
"Water's overrated," he muttered, cracking a wry grin at Ryan's proud Hydration module. Ryan just winked and took another sip from his suit's sippy tube.
Ten minutes of rest. That's all they needed. Then they'd hit those stairs, chase down the AI, and finally be done with this.
The stairs creaked as they headed down to the next deck. Luca kept close to Emily, watching her move. The patch was already doing its job; she wasn't favoring her arm as much.
***
Holy fuck, this place was a rust bucket. Rusted beams crisscrossed the cavernous space below, catwalks weaving between them like a spider's web. It was an engineer's nightmare, which meant Ryan was already in heaven.
He was doing that head-tilt thing he did when he was analyzing something, his voice a low mumble. "Robotic arms... gantry crane... engineering miracles..." The dude was practically drooling over the derelict machinery.
They made their way down a final ladder to the deck floor. As their boots hit the grated metal, Nullmaws struck from behind a bulkhead, a silent explosion of teeth and whipping tentacles.
Luca reacted on pure instinct, yanking Emily behind a heavy workstation. "Get back!" he shouted, his body shielding her from the initial charge. He wasn't about to let her get turned into alien lunch.
Chris unleashed an incendiary round, and the nearest Nullmaw dissolved in a gout of flame.
Ryan, naturally, fucked up. His plasma bolts went wide, slamming into an already shaky support beam. Fuck. A huge gantry crane overhead, disturbed by the impact, started to sway.
The crane groaned, toppled, and slammed against a large structural beam. The impact pulled down another beam, then another, in a horrifying domino effect that shook the entire deck.
The final beam, the size of a small shuttle, crashed against the outer wall, puncturing the hull with a sickening shriek of tearing metal.
The world dissolved into a howling roar as the deck vented into space.
Luca clutched Emily, his arms wrapped around her as her good hand scrabbled for a grip on the console. The wind shrieked as a physical force tried to rip them from their anchor. Alarms wailed, and his visor fogged with every shaky, panicked breath.
Emily's feet kicked free, her grip loosening. She was about to be torn away, but he wrapped his legs around the workstation's base, turning himself into a human anchor, locking them both in place.
His eyes burned from the sudden pressure drop. He could barely see the others, just silhouettes whipping past in the maelstrom of escaping air. Debris, tools, crates, and chunks of metal hurtled toward the breach in a tornado of junk and death. Somewhere behind him, Chris was yelling something, but the noise swallowed it whole. He saw Danny just grunt, probably too busy trying not to die to bother with words.
Emily looked up at him, her eyes wide with a look he could only describe as absolute shit-your-pants terror.
They were so fucked.
The deck lurched, shuddered, then held, a single, agonizing second away from tearing completely free. Everything strained, and Emily's voice cut through the chaos, garbled and desperate.
"Luca!" Her breath hitched as sparks rained down from a ruptured conduit overhead. He squeezed her hand so hard he swore she'd feel it in her bones. Losing her here… the thought was a black hole in his mind, threatening to swallow him. He couldn't survive that.
"I'm here!" he yelled back, his voice choked with static. "I've got you!"
A chunk of shrapnel whizzed past, gouging the wall beside them. The breach was pulling harder now, a greedy black hole. Luca felt Emily's suit give, her breath fogging her visor. He was terrified her arm was going to split open again.
He couldn't see the others and couldn't hear them; their comms were just a mess of static.
Was this it? Is this how we buy it? Like a bunch of dumbasses in a rust bucket?
He gritted his teeth. If they let go, they were toast.
Suddenly, they fell, slamming hard onto the deck as emergency gravity generators kicked in, pushing them down. Emily rolled into him, breathless and battered. Her sling had slipped free, but he caught it, gently helping her slip her arm back in.
The alarms still screamed, but the deck had vented completely, and the terrifying roar of escaping air was replaced by the dead silence of vacuum. Ryan's face appeared over them, a wide, adrenaline-fueled grin splitting his face.
"Everyone alive?" his voice crackled through the comms. "That was... holy shit."
Danny loomed beside him, Chris just behind. "What the hell did you do?" Chris demanded, pointing an accusing finger at Ryan.
"Ryan got creative," Luca said, still breathless.
Zoe walked up, a smirk playing on her lips. "Told you guys not to blow it."
"Blow it? Are you kidding?" Emily muttered, still flat on her back.
The others shook off the shock. It felt like a victory; none of them had drifted off into space. Maybe we'll make it out of this after all.
"Just don't aim at the crane next time," Chris warned Ryan. "Or do. That was kind of fun." He was probably already thinking about how he'd tell the story later, exaggerating everything.
Luca flashed a grin. They could handle this. They could do the stupid dance with death, barely making it out, over and over.
"Let's keep moving," Zoe said. "Next deck's not gonna breach itself."
Emily's hand slipped into his, her grip surprisingly strong, just for a second. "Thanks," she whispered, her voice for his comms only.
He just shrugged, trying to play it cool.
A small smile touched her lips. "Asshole," she grinned.
They hit exploration mode, back in the groove. The deck stretched before them, a field of forgotten, debris-strewn tech. Ryan took the lead, chasing blinking lights and claiming the first find before the rest of them could even blink. Emily drifted just behind Luca, staying in his orbit.
"PAY DAY!" Ryan screamed over the comms, so loud Luca was pretty sure his eardrum had ruptured.
[Item acquired: Modular Fusion Reactor Core Schematic]
"What?" Luca asked, floating closer. "Can't we already build fusion reactors?"
"We have fusion reactors, but nothing modular," Ryan replied, his voice dripping with the condescension of a genius lecturing a toddler. "If this is what I think it is, that's a new age of power generation. Miniaturization, baby."
"And let me guess," Luca said, a smirk playing on his lips, "it requires a whole bunch of prereqs we can't even get."
"Negative, Captain," Ryan said. "We already have the [RheTung Composite] schematic! We just need two others, the [D-T Cell] schematic and something called a [Nb-Ti Superconductor Filament]. With that and a specialized Fusion Tech Lab," he stopped and eyed Danny, "We can figure this out."
That actually made Luca pause. The Triumph's own fusion reactor was a behemoth that took up the better part of the fourth deck. If this schematic could actually do what Ryan was suggesting... that would be a game-changer. Not just for them, but for all of humanity.
"Keep it safe," he said, his voice firm. "Everyone else, look for more schematics." He let Ryan have his nerd moment. It was good for morale.
The others caught up, filling the space with movement and noise.
"You still okay?" Luca asked Emily quietly, trying not to sound too concerned.
She punched his shoulder lightly. "You're not rid of me yet."
He caught himself staring at her, at the way the emergency lights caught in her eyes, and quickly looked away, his cheeks burning. She was so gorgeous when she was pissed off.
Zoe smirked at him from across the deck. "Stop flirting and start looking for loot," she called out.
"Just don't take a hit," Ryan laughed, "or your lungs will leak like her arm."
"Hey!" Emily snapped, already plotting his murder.
Luca was about to intervene when he caught movement at the edge of his vision, shadows slithering in the dark corners where the bulkheads met the ceiling.