**Chapter 13: The Oath**
The crimson light stretched their shadows to unnatural lengths, and the beams from the lights on their chests pierced through the dust-filled air. The soldiers moved with cautious urgency, peering past each other's shoulders at the gradually dimming outlines of the corridor, barely illuminated by emergency lights. The path sloped downward, and the atmosphere was tense, as if each step led them deeper into hell. Occasionally, someone tripped from sheer nervousness, the silence amplifying every stumble.
Lu Yuan noticed the signal bars on his helmet's HUD decreasing and thought, *Is the reactor in such poor condition that it can't even support the ship's network?* The backup power system, designed with redundancy in mind, should have lasted longer.
"Why hasn't the backup system kicked in?" Lu Yuan stopped, directing his question to the sergeant in charge of the security unit inspecting a terminal.
The sergeant struggled to pry open the console, peering through the foggy screen. After pressing a few keys, he looked back at Lu Yuan with frustration. "The main lines here are mostly intact, but all the power is being diverted to the front of the ship. There's barely enough left in this area to keep life support and the doors operational."
"Can you check on the reactor status?"
"No, sir." The sergeant shook his head and continued forward. "The ship's systems are now tightly restricted, especially anything concerning core components. Even the base duty officers can't access specifics on the reactor; I definitely can't."
"Maybe the bridge needs power focused on the shields," Lu Yuan reasoned aloud, thinking of the immense energy required to maintain an outer shield for a massive ship like the *Corona.* This was especially true with one of the main reactors damaged.
The sergeant opened his mouth as if to argue but returned to the ranks without another word. Lu Yuan, however, knew what he wanted to ask.
If the bridge has decided to abandon this damaged area, then why waste precious power here at all?
The slope continued for a long time before leveling out, ending at an abyss-like elevator shaft. Lu Yuan tossed an empty shell casing down, waiting in vain for an echo, and eventually ordered a few soldiers in exosuits to force a conveyor beam into place, creating a makeshift bridge, though they were still several meters short of the other side.
"Boss, are you sure you want to be doing the young guy's work with those old bones of yours?" Zhang Yueyang asked as he approached Lu Yuan, who was securing a cable around his waist.
Lu Yuan shot him a look. "I'm not dead yet." Rejecting the offers from several other paratroopers, he added, "Do any of you have a higher training score than me?" Balancing on the exosuit's outstretched arm, Lu Yuan stepped onto the conveyor rail. The gaps between each support beam were significant, and it was clear the design was never intended for people to walk across.
"Then shut up," Lu Yuan said, crouching low and staring ahead before dashing across, each step precise and centered. At the last support beam, he leapt—
Just as Lu Yuan was about to land, a thunderous boom reverberated through the space, sending violent tremors through the floor. The shock threw him off balance, and he flailed for a moment before managing to grasp the edge of the platform, narrowly avoiding a fall.
Once across, he secured the cable anchor, allowing the others to slide over one by one. The exosuits, however, would require additional ropes to cross. Judging by the intensifying tremors, Lu Yuan figured that the *Corona* was still under siege. He left a few soldiers as a rear guard and pressed onward with the main group.
The corridors outside the reactor were a complex maze, and the heat rose quickly. Without power, the filtration systems had failed, and toxic fumes filled the air. Lu Yuan passed the bodies of reactor engineers who hadn't had gas masks. The sight weighed heavily on the team, as they could guess how these engineers, knocked out by gravitational shifts, had been unknowingly poisoned.
By the time they reached the reactor core, Lu Yuan, even in his combat suit, was sweating heavily. The air was so thick with gas that they had to replace their filter cartridges every few minutes. Fortunately, there was no sign of enemy forces yet. Lu Yuan sent volunteers to search for survivors, while military police led engineers to assess the damage. But it only took a short walk along the reactor's perimeter for the problem to reveal itself.
Damaged pipelines had crushed several auxiliary furnaces, causing plasma overflow. This plasma had corroded the shielding, spilling onto the operational matrix below, melting through partitions to the lower levels. Just in front of Lu Yuan hung dozens of plasma waterfalls—residue from the ship's defensive armor and the devastating effects of high-precision warheads.
Swallowing nervously, Lu Yuan signaled the group to move forward. The path was a gauntlet of ruptured pipelines, with jets of scalding steam erupting at random. Soon after, the temperature dropped sharply, with icy formations surrounding broken cooling pipes. The leaking superconducting coolant had created a dense fog that instantly froze on his visor. He resisted wiping it, fearing his hand would freeze on contact.
They walked in silence along the path, leaving marine guards at the edges of the freezing electromagnetic cooling zone to prevent enemy intrusion along the pipes.
The structure here was as heavy as the ship's armor and almost impossible to breach. But the constantly dropping pressure gauge readings hinted that the integrity of this area was compromised. Following Lu Yuan's instructions, the paratroopers stopped in front of an airtight door, using remote-controlled engineering robots to dismantle any equipment that invading forces might use.
"Would the enemy even be foolish enough to attack here, sir?" Zhang Yueyang asked. They had waited in silence for some time without incident.
Adjusting his comms, Lu Yuan listened to the reactor reports and replied nonchalantly, "If I were the Imperials, I would come here, and I'd bring heavily armed battalions."
"In that case, why are we even here?"
"Someone has to guard it. Would you prefer the base officers send some rookies to cover this?"
"Come on, boss, that makes us sound like cowards. So what's the reactor's status?"
"They said it's salvageable. Patching the holes might work, but it'll take a long time."
"Do you think we'll get reinforcements, then?"
Lu Yuan glanced sideways at Zhang Yueyang, sighing, "How many times have we made airdrops? And how many times have reinforcements arrived on time? How often did we have to rely solely on ourselves?"
"Didn't you notice that the paths to the mid and forward sections of the ship were locked back at the base? Rather than staying back there listening to bickering, I'd rather be here. If we're lucky, maybe we'll take a few Imperials down with us. At least it'll be dignified."
Zhang Yueyang glanced at the paratroopers nearby, veterans who had survived countless battles, too accustomed to worry about details. He said quietly, "Do you think we'll make it back home this time?"
"Maybe," Lu Yuan answered, pulling out a cigarette from his combat suit's outer pocket and inhaling its scent through his helmet. "Do you still remember what home looks like? Sometimes I can hardly remember what Bai Ji Yue looks like myself."
Zhang Yueyang laughed, "Boss, you're not that old. It's a crime to forget Bai Ji Yue's face! Here's a trick: if you forget, just pinch your ear hard. It should feel just like when she does it to you."
"Smart-ass," Lu Yuan muttered.
Just as he was about to kick Zhang Yueyang, his comrade's expression turned serious. "Listen! I think there's an explosion!" Zhang hurried to press his ear against the door, while Lu Yuan analyzed the frequency of the vibrations. They quickly reached a conclusion.
"Prepare for battle! Zero-G mode!" Lu Yuan commanded. Weapons aimed at the quivering door as faint dots of light appeared from the other side, lighting the darkened corridor.
"Steady… steady!" Lu Yuan shouted, eyes locked on the straining airtight door. The dots on the other side grew brighter before exploding. The impact knocked the paratroopers backward, only to be thrust back against their cover by the air pressure.
"Enemy space infantry breach! Fire!" Lu Yuan roared, adjusting to the vacuum within seconds. Imperial soldiers on individual propulsion units surged into the breach, but a barrage of pulse rounds from the paratroopers took down the lead soldiers, momentarily forcing the rest into cover.
Through the faint light slipping through the shattered door, Lu Yuan glimpsed the ravaged sea gate at the end of the corridor. The standstill didn't last long; the enemy infantry pushed forward, disregarding casualties, trapping the paratroopers under withering fire.
Their pulse guns overheated, and Lu Yuan switched to his handgun, shooting at close range, shattering helmets and filling the air with misted blood as soldiers drifted aimlessly. The residual heat from pulse rounds created an unbearable pressure, dissipating into the silent vacuum. In a few short minutes, the enemy advanced to the remote-controlled bots.
"Conserve ammo! Fall back in intervals!" Lu Yuan ordered.
The intense fireline stalled the enemy's advance once more, but the paratroopers had no heavy weaponry, no air support to control the situation, not even their basic paratrooper exosuits.
Lu Yuan dragged a wounded comrade across the ground, just about to tie him up, but the soldier shook his head with a smile and gave him a firm push. With a "ding," the grenade's safety pin flew out.
A burst of flame rose, engulfed in a black-red wave in an instant. The shockwave brushed past Lu Yuan, his feet scrambling as he grabbed floating magazines and fired back, the gun's recoil sending him backward. Pressing down on the comms button, he roared, trying to get the message through to the bridge.
"This is Commander Lu Yuan of the 28th Paratrooper Battalion! My men are holding the sea gate of Main Reactor 2 against the invading enemy! The reactor under repair is right behind me—I need urgent reinforcements!"
His voice faded into the boundless cosmos, his oath flickering on the switchboard of a communications operator on the bridge.