Iman had run far past Wilson. Her boots clanged off broken tile and buckled metal, past the echoes of screams and the distant whine of air sirens. The further she went, the worse it got. She crossed through three hangars—each worse than the last. Blood pooled in places it shouldn’t. Shattered helmets. Shrieks. Men and women carried on stretchers, others covered in tarps.

  But nothing compared to what she saw next.

  A column of bodies.

  Stacked. Folded. Crushed into one another like meat in a grinder. Some had faces. Some didn't. The sight made her stomach tighten into knots.

  Iman’s eyes widened and she shook her head hard, like she could dislodge the image, like that’d stop the nightmares later. Another thing to add to the mountain of reasons why she’d never sleep right again.

  She passed the elevators without hesitation. They were dead zones now. Waiting rooms for death. She pushed through to the stairs, gritting her teeth as she felt the building’s slant shifting beneath her boots. A strange tilt in gravity, as if the station was exhaling in uneven breaths. Her ears popped. The pressure wasn’t just physical—it was spiritual. Like something beneath this place had broken loose.

  She shoved through a door and hit the emergency stairwell, passing by medics and officers hauling civilians. One looked up, eyes wide. Then they went back to work.

  When she breached the upper floor and emerged through a rusting access panel into the open, the world above wasn’t yellow.

  It was red.

  The sky of the Block—the false sun that cast light through the ceiling’s great diodes—was flaring like an artery split open. Warnings boomed through the smoke-laced air. Sirens screamed like wounded animals.

  “EVACUATE! EVACUATE!”

  The automated voice wailed overhead, each syllable a chisel against the nerves. Red strobe lights cut across the glassy dome. Buses screeched across lanes, crowds swarmed into loading zones. Families carried children and bags and photos and everything they thought might survive. Most wouldn’t.

  Iman just stood there.

  Like a ghost in the storm. A statue watching the collapse of a world not quite real.

  So this is what it means to be displaced, she thought.

  She didn’t move until the station groaned above her.

  She looked up. High in the scaffold spine of the Block, the infrastructure was shifting—columns out of place, girders buckling, cables lashing in the air like severed tendons. Compressed air hissed from ruptured seals. A wheeze, deep and long, like a dragon with a punctured lung.

  She grabbed her radio, thumbed the dial to her unit’s frequency.

  “34th, report!” she barked.

  Silence at first. Then, like the seas parting, a voice crackled through.

  “Commander,” Tara said, winded, “we’ve been trying to reach you. We’re helping civilians into the evac buses—most of the units are already en route to the fallback zones.”

  Iman’s gaze tracked the smoke curling up from the broken superstructure. Her jaw tensed.

  “…how long do we have?”

  A pause.

  “They’re not even going to try to save this section.”

  Iman exhaled sharply. “Understood. All squads listening to this frequency—finish evac. Secure who you can. Then move to safe zones. Regroup by quadrant. No exceptions.”

  She turned, stormed back through the debris-lined stadium doors, pushing through drifting smoke and the flashing light.

  And what she saw made her want to scream.

  People still here. Dozens of them. Some just standing. Others still frozen in shock. Whole families just huddled under the broken beams, waiting like it wasn’t happening. Waiting like this was a drill.

  She clenched her fists.

  “What the hell are you all doing!” she shouted, her voice cutting through the sirens. “We don’t know how long we have—start moving! Now!”

  People jolted. The spell broke. Movement rippled across the chamber as men and women stumbled to their feet, carrying bags, carrying bodies, carrying whatever they could. Even the injured were pushing forward now.

  An older man was struggling to lift his wife. Iman rushed over.

  “I’m sorry,” the man said, panting, “but her leg—it’s her leg—I’m not as strong as I used to—”

  Iman didn’t wait. She ducked beneath the woman’s arm and hoisted her up.

  “Then it’s on us,” she said, voice tight. “The next generation looks after the one that came before.”

  She turned toward the door.

  “Iman!” a voice called out behind her.

  She spun around.

  “Marcus?”

  He was running through the doors, rifle slung over one shoulder, helmet locked in. Behind him was another familiar face.

  “Sarah... Anderson,” Iman said with a nod.

  They both gave tight, knowing grins beneath their visors.

  But then it hit.

  A sound like glass breaking—but not just one pane.

  Thousands.

  It rippled through the air, low and vibrating like a pressure wave. The very floor shivered beneath their feet. Iman’s eyes widened. So did everyone else’s.

  They turned in unison.

  The front wall of the stadium, or what remained of it, was lit in stark white from the outside.

  Something—something massive—had just breached. Or collapsed.

  Iman’s brown eyes widened, pupils shrinking to pinpricks.

  Two mobile suits careened down from the heavens, their frames slicing through the red-hazed dome of the Block. Behind them, the yawning blackness of space—cold, infinite, and hungering. And then she knew.

  That wheezing sound, the one she’d tried to ignore for the last several minutes, wasn’t mechanical.

  It was air. Being sucked out. The great dying breath of a station too large to understand it was mortal.

  Then came the screaming.

  People—whole swaths of them—were yanked from the floor like ragdolls. Men, women, even children clutched to their parents’ legs only to be peeled free, flung like insects into the open vacuum. Their screams didn’t trail—they vanished, mouths still open, sound lost to the sudden death of atmosphere.

  The vacuum was merciless. It tore at the station’s bones. Massive skyscrapers, monuments, cables thick as tunnels—all dragged toward the breach.

  The elderly woman in Iman’s arms let out one last harrowing cry before going slack, and Iman held her tighter. The old man beside her removed his hat, his knuckles white as bone, his voice barely audible over the chaos.

  “Jesus Christ…”

  The color in his face had drained. His eyes—cloudy with age—were wide in a way that hadn’t been possible for decades.

  Around them, Adalaine and Bea wrapped their arms around one another, pale and shaking. Wilson’s mother gripped his younger sibling so tightly the child whimpered. People beyond the doors screamed as if they were being eaten alive. The howling air didn't stop. It wanted more.

  Then Iman felt it. A jolt behind her eyes. That old instinct, the sixth sense that had never failed her on the battlefield.

  She turned skyward, sharp and fast.

  “Everyone, look!” she barked, raising a finger toward the breach above.

  Twenty, maybe thirty survivors turned as one. And they saw it.

  It wasn’t the breach or the carnage.

  It was the trio of contrails—plumes of flame and ozone, burning in wild arcs across the fractured skyline.

  “That’s one of ours!” a younger voice called out, a student in a wrinkled pilot’s uniform. His voice cracked. “First-gen Warcasket—refit, Block model. But the others—”

  He trailed off, jaw trembling.

  Iman didn’t need the rest of the sentence.

  Two enemy machines had fallen in after it. Matte black. Blocky. Brutal. They looked more like bunker fragments than mechs, with hardpoints, ladders, and seams built into their armor like climbing walls. Function over form. Violence given shape.

  One wielded a laser rifle. The other carried a powered axe that glowed at the edge, superheated like the sun itself.

  Iman squinted. “What the fuck are you...?” she whispered.

  The Block’s Warcasket fired. Its internal thrusters flared, bright as a forge. It dipped low beneath the towers and stitched fire from a heavy assault rifle, cutting through steel and concrete alike.

  But the enemy was coordinated. Precise.

  The axe-wielding mech barreled in, ramming the Warcasket chest-to-chest. A shockwave blew out windows for blocks. The other circled wide and raised its laser rifle.

  Then it carved the sky in half.

  The beam seared through the Warcasket’s right shoulder, severing it clean. Sparks and plating burst like fireworks. The Block pilot loosed a wild barrage of missiles—twenty-four in total—arcing in every direction. But the black machines weaved through the chaos, almost dancing, their silhouettes slashing between fireballs.

  Then the rifle fired again.

  One perfect shot, right between the eyes.

  The Warcasket’s head exploded. The pilot never even screamed—just a flash of light and then gone. The mech’s body spasmed like a puppet with its strings cut, then collapsed. It smashed through a residential complex and detonated, sending another bloom of flame and smoke into the already bleeding sky.

  Then came the real horror.

  The breach widened.

  Chunks of the dome peeled away. Cars, walkways, statues, even entire balconies were ripped upward like confetti caught in a vacuum cleaner. The man-made oceans, the false lakes and parks that had made this place seem like Earth—all of them atomized. Sucked into the void.

  “We’ve got to go!” Iman roared. She turned, still gripping the elderly woman, voice cracked with exhaustion and raw from smoke. “Everyone move! Now!”

  She didn’t wait for them to answer. She dragged the woman with her, her boots pounding over buckled steel, teeth clenched so hard it hurt.

  “Where?” someone snapped. The voice was high-pitched, frantic, lost in a sea of panic.

  Iman had one hand on her face, the sweat slicked across her brow. Her eyes swept across the crowd, desperate for direction.

  “Anyone here a student—where the hell do we go if the Block’s falling apart and we can’t go outside?”

  A girl stepped forward, voice trembling. “I... I’m a student. There are escape pods in the subdocks. Underneath. But I don’t know if they’re all taken.”

  Iman’s head twitched in a fast shake. Her gaze jerked to the side.

  The enemy mobile suits had split apart, drifting like vultures to opposing ends of the shattered block. One was repositioning high, coiled like it was ready to strike. The other rained fire, tearing chunks of structure loose.

  Iman’s stomach turned. Every danger sense in her body lit up at once.

  “Everyone,” she ordered, calm but cold. “Head downstairs. Now.”

  Nobody argued. They just moved.

  She snapped toward the student. “Where can I find a space suit or survival gear?”

  This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

  “Down in the docks,” the girl replied, already backing away.

  Marcus, Anderson, and Sarah barreled back into the scene, breathless and covered in soot.

  “Guys,” Iman said, urgency rising, “we’re moving to the lower levels. Maybe we can find a launch point, something that gets us off this rock—”

  But her voice stopped short.

  A sickening crack echoed through the ceiling. It wasn’t a normal noise. It was metal—real structural metal—snapping like brittle bone. The whole floor pitched slightly, then again, like standing on a sinking ship.

  Iman stumbled.

  So did everyone else.

  The gravity wasn’t normal anymore. They were sliding. It was subtle, but they all felt it. The Block wasn’t just falling. It was folding.

  “Run!” Marcus screamed. “Run, fucking run!”

  The entire crowd surged forward like a tidal wave. People trampled chairs, one another. Screams ricocheted down the corridor as Anderson reached the nearest door, threw it open with both hands, and waved people through.

  “Come on! In here!” he shouted.

  Iman threw a glance back—and her mouth went dry.

  The axe-wielding mobile suit had driven its blade into the already-ruptured edge of the dome, digging deeper. The other was still firing, full-auto, carving a corridor of death. Glass began to crack behind them—not in spider-web patterns but deep, white fractures that raced like lightning.

  “Move!” she howled.

  “Move!” echoed Marcus.

  Iman was near the tail of the crowd, the elderly couple still beside her, both staggering. She braced under the woman’s arm again, the man barely keeping up. That’s when he stopped. He turned to her.

  “Get the hell out of here, girl,” he said.

  “What?” she snapped.

  He pushed her away. His wrinkled hands shook, but his voice was calm.

  “This is our last stop. You really think we can get down all those stairs in time?”

  Iman stared at him, eyes wide, chest rising like a drumbeat. “We don’t leave people behind,” she hissed. “Move. I can get you there.”

  The man shook his head. His eyes were glassy, faraway. But peaceful.

  “You seem capable. Worry about the kids. Worry about the ones with years ahead of them. Me and my wife, we know when it’s time to rest.”

  Iman’s hands trembled. Rage, grief, helplessness. All of it boiled behind her clenched jaw. “This is not how it’s supposed to end!”

  “Iman!” Marcus shouted behind her. She looked. He was sprinting back into the collapsing corridor.

  “Marcus!” she screamed back.

  “What?!”

  And then she saw them—just for a second. The old couple had gone to their knees, arms around each other, whispering something she couldn’t hear. The wife smiled. The old man pulled her close, kissed her softly on the temple.

  Then the doors shut.

  Sealed them inside.

  A moment passed.

  Then glass shattered.

  The void took them.

  Iman’s scream tore through her throat, raw and broken. She stumbled forward, blinded by tears. Behind her, there was only silence, the silence that comes when there's no air left to carry screams.

  Marcus caught her before she fell, gripping her by the arm.

  “Ernest, seal that door,” Sarah snapped.

  Iman turned, surprised—she hadn’t even noticed him until now. Ernest already had the portable welder out, the torch hissing as he dragged molten light across the hatch’s edge. Sparks flew. He averted his gaze from the heat but still called back to the group.

  “What the hell is going on with the Oceana Sector?” he barked. “It was GrimGar last month—and now terrorists? Are you kidding me?”

  “It’s a new war,” Marcus muttered. His fingers clawed along his face, like he was trying to peel off the exhaustion.

  “Who would be this stupid?” Anderson asked, still wide-eyed, still pale.

  “A real dumb shit,” Iman spat, her voice raw from screaming, her cheeks stained with tears. She wiped her face and looked toward the civilians—frightened, crammed, barely holding themselves together. “…But right now we need to escape. This section’s compromised. We don’t have time.”

  Then, another voice spoke. A kid in a university hoodie stepped forward, shoulders squared but voice shaking.

  “I doubt it’ll collapse.”

  Iman shot him a sharp look.

  “The Block isn’t that foolish,” he said. “They’ve got contingencies. Backups.” His hand trembled as he gestured to the ceiling. “They’ll just snip us off. Like dead weight. Reconnect later.”

  He glanced over at the Mercurian cadets standing nearby. “Why bring the whole Block down when you can cut away the infection?”

  Nobody answered. Nobody breathed.

  “They’ll vent us,” he said quietly. “They’ll space this entire section. Let the atmosphere suck us out and burn us over Oceana…”

  He trailed off. The air left him. His chest started to hitch. Hyperventilating.

  “Bryson—breathe,” his friend said, seizing his shoulders. “You’re okay. Breathe, man. You’re okay.”

  Iman didn’t waste time. She turned to Marcus. “I need a pilot suit.”

  Marcus blinked. “For what mobile suit?”

  She didn’t answer. Just glared, then spun back toward the girl from earlier. “You said there were suits in the docks. Anywhere else?”

  The girl nodded. “Yeah—there’s more in the side corridors. Maintenance suits. And backups. Emergency lockers.”

  “Good.”

  Iman broke into a steady pace toward the stairwell. Controlled. Measured. She had a mission now.

  “Marcus,” she called over her shoulder. “You’re in charge.”

  “Me?” His voice cracked.

  “Yes, you. Reinforce that door, then haul ass to the docks. Find pods, find ships, find anything with a goddamn engine.”

  “You’re leaving?” Sarah asked, stepping forward.

  “I need that suit.”

  “I keep telling you, they’re—”

  But Iman didn’t hear the rest. Her boots pounded the stairs as she took them two at a time. Her body moved on instinct, but her mind lagged behind—fixated.

  That couple. Their faces. That moment.

  She’d remember it till she died.

  Maybe that’s why she couldn’t risk taking an old man’s suit. Maybe that’s why she had to find one on her own, make room for someone else. She needed to be better. To make it right.

  One death wouldn’t balance another. But maybe two lives saved could start to weigh the scale.

  She ran faster.

  She tore past broken bodies. Rubble. Glass. Soot-streaked corridors where the emergency lights flashed like dying stars. Her voice echoed as she shouted, “Is anyone there?! Alive?!”

  No answer.

  Only silence.

  Then—open space. A clearing.

  It used to be an office. Desks were overturned. Chairs cracked. A display monitor blinked on the far wall, hanging by one sparking cable.

  And in the center, a desk.

  Still intact.

  Behind it, a man slumped forward, blood soaking the wood beneath his skull. His eyes were open. Hollow. Flies already circled. The buzzing filled the room like a pulse.

  Iman gagged, hand shooting to her face as the stench clawed down her throat.

  This was what death looked like when it wasn’t fast. When it sat. When it rotted.

  And there were more coming.

  She knew that.

  That was when her radio crackled—sharp, frantic. She ripped it from her belt.

  “Iman, there are suits here, but no pods! They’ve all been shot out!” Marcus was yelling.

  Iman’s eyes whipped left and right. The Block was groaning now, the entire structure lurching under its own weight. She had to throw up both arms just to keep balance. Her boots skidded. Her gut twisted.

  “What’s around!” she shouted, bracing herself as the corridor swayed.

  “Uhh… uhh…” Marcus was scrambling, she could hear the panic, the static bleeding into his voice. “There’s a storage container! Big enough to hold us in, and—”

  “Does it have air, Marcus? Does it have air!” Iman snapped.

  A pipe near her exploded with a shriek. Steam hissed, scalding. She recoiled, shielding her face.

  “Fuck it,” she growled. “I’m coming to you. Make sure everyone gets jetpacks.”

  “There’s no air,” Marcus muttered.

  Iman clenched her teeth, the pressure in her skull matching the rage building in her chest. “Then let’s hope rescue gets here before our suits run dry.”

  Marcus didn’t reply. Just his breathing, heavy. Then—another blast. The ceiling above her shuddered, the lights overhead went out. Pitch black swallowed the hallway. Her only companion now was the dead man beside her.

  “Iman, get here! Now!”

  She ran. Not up—there was no chance of reaching the other stairwell. Her instincts kicked in, and she hurled herself downward, feet thundering on metal steps.

  Then the voice.

  “Gravity malfunction. Gravity malfunction.”

  The floor vanished from beneath her. It was like being thrown into a dream with no floor. Her legs flailed. For a split second, she was flying—and then her boots clipped the wall. Her momentum hurled her forward, spinning, disoriented, until she slammed into a handrail and barely hooked her fingers.

  She launched herself through the stairwells, ricocheting from rail to rail like a human pinball. She hit bottom in what should’ve taken thirty minutes. It took her three.

  She kicked off and glided into the next corridor, using the rails to propel herself. Windows lined the wall to her right—she glanced outside.

  The world was ending.

  Shell casings floated like debris in a snow globe. Rockets cut through the dark like glowing knives. Two suits dogfighting, far in the distance—one Warcasket bleeding smoke, the other two tearing through the sky with merciless efficiency.

  And then—escape pods. Distant, some firing off. Others shattered mid-launch.

  She saw ships approaching. Rescue craft. But they weren’t fast enough.

  “This really was a fucking atrocity,” she spat, rage blistering her throat. Her breath fogged the visor of her helmet. The Block wasn’t Mercurian territory, but deep down, she knew she’d lost people in this. She could feel it in the way grief twisted her chest.

  Then—no warning.

  “Gravity restored.”

  It slammed her sideways. No delay. No grace. Her entire body jolted left. One eye bulged. Vomit rushed up the back of her throat. She hit the ground hard enough to knock the air from her lungs.

  Her vision spiraled. Hand to her ribs. Something wasn’t right. But she forced herself to her feet, staggering.

  The lights flickered.

  Her legs obeyed out of habit, not strength. She ran.

  Then—everything tilted again.

  Worse this time.

  She reached for a handrail, purely on reflex, and screamed. The glass exploded beside her. She saw stars—actual stars—vacuum roaring before the emergency shutters clamped down like a steel jaw.

  “Holy shit! Oh my god!” Iman choked, staggering back, tears slipping unbidden down her cheeks.

  She ran again. Kicked off the floor like a swimmer in space. But—

  “Gravity malfunction.”

  Again.

  This time, the shift was brutal. Her body slammed into the ceiling. Both palms caught the roof as she floated, her shoulder screaming from the strain. She twisted to protect her skull, narrowly missing a concussion against the bulkhead.

  Everything was tilting.

  No rhythm. No pattern.

  Just chaos.

  She bounced off a pipe and crashed against the side window. Pain burst across her ribs. Her head lolled. Black spots crowded her vision.

  The door was close.

  So close.

  Heat blasted across Iman’s face. Her right hand flew up instinctively, blood blooming across her lips from the force of it. Her brown eyes narrowed, feral and wild.

  “Ancestors… give me strength,” she snarled, planting one foot—unsteady—then another. She was staggering like a wounded animal.

  Glass cracked beneath her. Her eyes widened.

  She was walking on the side of the window.

  “Holy shit!” she shouted, breath catching as she ran across the slanted pane, the galaxy yawning beyond the fractured barrier. She hurled herself toward the half-open bulkhead door and wrenched it open. Inside—a locker room. But more than that.

  There. In the center of the room, behind a set of glass-fronted containment units—four pristine white suits, jetpacks mounted on their backs like angelic wings. Explosions echoed in the distance, shaking the walls. Debris trembled underfoot.

  “Marcus, you and everyone better be in that fucking container!” she yelled into her comm.

  “Commander, where are you!” Marcus’s voice barked back.

  She ignored him. Her knees hit the floor hard as she skidded into the glass locker, smearing blood along the panel. She yanked it open, shoved her arms into the suit sleeves, breath hitching, and slammed the seal into place. Her hands fumbled the buckles. The jetpack came next, heavy, balanced.

  “I’ll meet you all—”

  BOOM.

  The wall next to her vanished in a white-hot blossom of flame. Pressure dropped instantly. She screamed. The vacuum yanked her forward, tore her clean from the floor. Her body flailed, spinning wildly into the void.

  The locker behind her was gone.

  Her fingers scraped along steel. “The helmet! The helmet!” she shrieked.

  She twisted in Zero-G, clawing at the nothing, and spotted it—her helmet, tumbling just ahead of her, spinning like a coin tossed into infinity.

  “Oh, you’ve got to be shitting me!” Iman screamed, kicking off a loose chunk of plating, forcing herself forward. Her breath burned. Her chest tightened. Her lungs screamed for air.

  She activated the jetpack.

  Her hands swiped wide. She grazed the edge. Missed.

  One more try. She gritted her teeth, twisting her body into a corkscrew. The tips of her fingers caught it. She yanked it close, slammed it down over her head, and twisted the seal tight.

  For a heartbeat, she was dead.

  Then—air. Rushed in like salvation. She gasped. Her lungs filled. Her vision cleared.

  Her eyes scanned the damage.

  The Block was spinning, one of its segments breaking apart. She could see why—the docking arm had been released. They were sloughing off damaged sections like a serpent shedding dead skin.

  She keyed the radio inside her helmet.

  “Guys, I’m outside!” she shouted. “Open the door! But brace for impact!”

  Heavy breathing answered.

  “Just like that time on Primus II?” Marcus asked.

  “Primus… what?” snapped Anderson.

  “Get all the civilians inside the container,” Iman barked. “Sarah, Anderson, you two are fresh meat. Hope you’re not scared of a little space walk.”

  Sarah laughed, thin and high. “What the hell is a space walk?”

  Anderson’s silence said everything.

  Iman reached the side of the dock entrance. Her hands gripped the manual release. “I can blow it from the outside. Get ready!”

  “Ready!” came Marcus, braced now.

  “Christ, I can’t believe this,” muttered Anderson.

  “Only way we live,” Sarah whispered.

  Iman yanked the lever.

  The lock disengaged with a guttural hiss. The container lurched, slipping free. The sudden decompression punched air out like a geyser. Iman kicked off the panel, jetpack flaring to full, and watched as three white-suited figures streamed out after the container, trailing plumes of blue thrust.

  Then—

  “Holy shit!” she screamed.

  An explosion erupted beneath her, a flaming roar that sent debris rocketing in all directions. Metal shards tore past her, one grazing her shoulder. Her vision blurred from the shock. She twisted midair, jetpack shrieking at full burn.

  Below her, the world collapsed.

  Chunks of station, broken girders, shattered hull plating—everything fell.

  It was horrible. Watching buildings and bodies vanish into the fire like they’d never been real to begin with. Flames churned in space like liquid, sloshing and roiling, turning the void into a cauldron.

  Iman reacted on instinct.

  She whipped her hand out behind her, catching a rail just as a chunk of concrete shot past her like a cannonball. The others were nearby—she spotted them between streaks of fire and debris—three little figures tumbling toward oblivion.

  “Iman!” Sarah’s voice rang out, high and strained. Marcus ducked, eyes wide, as he caught a glimpse of Iman spinning out of control, her body silhouetted against a sky of fire and broken glass.

  “Holy shit!” Iman barked, engaging her jetpack at max output. Her body screamed from the pressure, and she pushed it harder, aiming herself straight for the others. The space around them had become a meat grinder—twisted metal, falling spires, and razor-sharp debris in all directions.

  “Holy shit, this is impossible to navigate!” Anderson shouted, voice shaking.

  “We make it work!” Marcus snapped back.

  Iman spotted an opening—an exposed hole through a collapsed building’s structural spine. She could see the other end, distant, flickering like a memory. She didn’t hesitate. She spun through the wreckage, arms and legs flared lazily, her momentum screaming behind her.

  “Iman, where are you!” Marcus’s voice cracked. “We can’t slow down!”

  “Veer it toward me!” she ordered. The container they were riding—their only hope—was tumbling through the void, caught in the same pull she was. Her vision blurred with heat and motion as the whole dying block reeled behind her.

  She was just some Muslim girl from Dubai. Now she was surfing a jetpack over the carcass of a dying colony.

  They were nearing the edge. The colony’s terminus was ahead—no up, no down, just the edge of human civilization spilling into darkness.

  “H-how are we supposed to get around that?!” Sarah screamed, panic rising.

  Iman narrowed her eyes. “Move. Veer it up. Up!”

  Anderson barked back. “You fucking try!”

  Iman’s smile cracked like a fracture. “Ram it.”

  Silence.

  “What?” Marcus managed to get out.

  “Fucking ram it!” she shouted, barreling toward them, catching the bannister of the container mid-flight. Her gloves clamped hard, the metal groaning under her grip.

  “Holy hell!” Anderson shouted.

  “Jesus Christ!” Sarah howled as they all braced. The container slammed through the structure, sparks and steel shearing in every direction.

  They came out the other side spinning like a top, launched upward and away from the wreckage. The force scattered them like debris—Anderson and Marcus were flung wide, spinning off in opposite vectors.

  “Stabilize it! Stabilize it!” Sarah shouted. She and Iman engaged full burn on their jetpacks, counter-spinning, throttling against the chaos.

  The container began to steady, inch by inch, the worst of the spin bleeding away. Their breaths came hard and hot in their helmets.

  Anderson and Marcus drifted back toward them like tired satellites.

  “Some help you are!” Sarah snapped at the men.

  “The hell is that supposed to mean?” Anderson barked. “You think I liked getting flung like a rag doll? I’m gonna puke.”

  “They all right in there?” Marcus asked, drawing in close.

  “You can hear them,” Sarah answered, leaning against the side of the container. Inside, muffled voices shouted in celebration and raw relief.

  Marcus chuckled. “Better to be sick and alive than dead and dignified.”

  “True that, brother,” Anderson muttered, giving a weak thumbs up.

  Then they all turned toward Iman.

  Her brown eyes didn’t look away from the horizon—what used to be the center of the Block. Now it was a graveyard. Chunks of cities drifted past, swallowed in flame, while ships and suits scrambled in wild patterns like ants in a broken hive.

  “They did it,” Iman said, voice hollow. “The authorities disengaged the sector. They cut it loose.”

  They watched it fall away. The other sections of the Block still blazed with life—Mobile Suits scrambling, cruisers flaring engines, rescue teams working—but this sector, the one they came from, was spinning out like a bad dream.

  Then Iman’s eyes widened.

  Something else was moving.

  It didn’t move like a Mobile Suit. Too large. Too smooth. It had mass and shape, but its features were… wrong. Organic and angular. It veered along the edge of the wreckage, almost dancing through it.

  Marcus’s voice was tight. “What the hell is that?”

  Iman’s face stiffened. “Your best friend’s new Warcasket.”

  And together, they watched the MTW – Stargazer 01 emerge from behind the curtain of smoke and dying light—cutting a silhouette against the red furnace of a dead colony, explosions still rippling behind it like applause from hell.