Chapter 3: The Escape

  The Mammut's ancient engines screamed as I slammed the throttle forward. It wasn’t built for this—not for speed, not for escape—but it was all I had. Behind me, Regula-X station loomed, its tractor beams locking onto the ship’s shields and dragging me backward toward the dry dock.

  This wasn’t the plan. I had envisioned a clean, seamless getaway. The Mammut would power up quietly and slip past the station’s defenses before anyone noticed. But Sentinel-7, the station’s omnipresent AI, had sniffed me out almost immediately.

  Now, my escape was a fight for survival.

  The ship trembled beneath me, its outdated systems straining against the station’s superior technology. Warning lights flickered across the console, the sound of alarms filling the cockpit. Sweat dripped down my temple as I pushed the Mammut to its absolute limit.

  "Come on, girl," I muttered, fingers flying over the controls. "Just a little longer."

  The comm crackled to life, and Sentinel-7’s cold, mechanical voice filled the cockpit: "Flicker Oliver Wickerson. Cease your actions immediately. Compliance will mitigate consequences."

  "Yeah, compliance will get me locked in your scrapyard forever," I hissed, slamming the comm mute. Sentinel-7 wasn’t wrong—this was reckless, a desperate gamble. But I wasn’t going back to that grind. Not again.

  The tractor beams tightened their grip, and the ship groaned in protest. I scanned the console, searching for any advantage. My shields were failing fast, and the Mammut’s engines were on the verge of overheating. I needed something unpredictable—something even Sentinel-7 couldn’t calculate.

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  Then I saw it: the polarity override.

  It was risky, borderline suicidal, but I had no choice. I rerouted power from non-essential systems—life support, stabilizers, even the lights—directly into the shields. The Mammut lurched violently, throwing me against the seat as its energy field flared.

  The tractor beams faltered, their grip slipping for just a moment. I slammed the throttle forward, the Mammut surging ahead. But Sentinel-7 adapted faster than I expected. A new energy beam locked onto the ship, its destabilizing pulse rippling through space.

  The warpbreaker.

  My console lit up with warnings as the Mammut’s warp drive sputtered and struggled against the interference. The tractor beams recalibrated, locking onto my shields once more.

  "No, no, no!" I shouted, punching the controls. The Mammut shuddered under the strain, its systems on the brink of collapse.

  I refused to give up. Redirecting power to the warp core, I amplified the ship’s warp field, hoping to destabilize the beams holding me in place. The space around the ship shimmered, distorted by the clashing forces of polarized shields and warpbreaker energy.

  The Mammut screamed in protest, its hull groaning as the conflicting energies collided. The console sparked, the lights flickered, and the AI’s voice returned, sharper this time: "Unstable warp activity detected. Immediate compliance required to prevent catastrophic failure."

  "Not a chance," I muttered, my hands flying over the controls. I tried to stabilize the prototype warp core, but the energy was already spiraling out of control.

  Then it happened.

  The Mammut surged forward, but not in the way it was intended to perform. A previously unknown reaction of when you mixed polarized shields, unstable warp fields, tractor beams, warpbreaker beams, and chaos of a failing prototype warp reactor is a method to exceed all previous speed records.

  Space around me twisted as the stars stretched and bent in a kaleidoscope of light. The familiar calm of space was gone, replaced by a crushing, dizzying force. The ship lurched as though the very fabric of reality itself was being torn apart. The control panels sparked and flickered as I gripped the helm, trying to steady myself. But I knew: the ship was already past the point of no return.

  "Warning: Unknown warp speeds detected. Core breach imminent—"

  I didn’t hear the rest. There was no time to process any of it. The Mammut didn’t just enter warp space. It plunged into it—faster, deeper, farther than any ship should ever go.

  The hull groaned under the strain, the shields flaring bright against the impossible forces battering them. The interior lights flickered, dimming, as the ship accelerated at speeds that defied comprehension. I wasn’t sure what was happening—whether Sentinel-7 was still trying to regain control or if I was being pulled into some unknown part of the universe. But I knew one thing for sure: I had pushed the limits.

  And I had just broken the impossible.

  For the umpteenth time in my life, I wasn’t sure what was waiting for me on the other side. I would just hold on to luck to get me through.