Jewels and Julio ran.
The Ripper's wings tore through the air behind them, a chittering, screeching noise that sent ice through their veins. The ship's hollow corridors carried the sound forward, making it impossible to tell just how far behind them the thing really was.
Julio's mind raced. The Rusty was gone. Their only way off this dead city-ship had been reduced to a blood-soaked cockpit, its pilots nothing more than a half-digested mess inside the Ripper's mandibles. That thing had cut through reinforced glass like wet paper.
And it was hunting them.
"Jewels!" Julio shouted, voice strained as he sprinted beside her. "We can't just keep running what's the play?"
Jewels' heart pounded. Adrenaline fought with the lingering corruption in her neural interface. Lines of code still flickered in the corners of her vision, trailing across her HUD like phantom whispers. She didn't have time to figure out what the hell had been installed into her. Right now, she needed a way out.
And she had one.
"The Mancer drones are warping in soon, right?" she huffed between breaths.
Julio hesitated. He already didn't like where this was going.
"…Yeah?"
Jewels sucked in a breath, dodging a fallen beam as they turned a sharp corner.
"Then we make them our exit strategy."
Julio nearly stumbled mid-step.
"You're telling me," he huffed, "you wanna bait the fuckin' Mancers into fighting the thing that just ripped our friends' heads off?"
"Yes." Jewels was already scanning through her neural HUD, searching for the nearest viable rendezvous point. "Because unless you have a better idea, we're running out of options."
Julio cursed under his breath but didn't argue. He knew she was right.
"Alright, genius. How do we make sure they actually take the bait instead of just killing us?"
Jewels didn't respond immediately. She was already running calculations, modeling probabilities in real time and whether it was because of the file that had installed itself into her brain, or just her own desperate survival instincts, her mind worked faster than ever before.
Her neural interface flickered again.
[Suggested Combat Solutions Available]
[Execute: Tactical Baiting Protocol? Y/N]
Jewels' breath caught.
Her neural interface had never displayed anything like that before.
The code was… new.
And the strangest part?
She understood it.
Every line. Every function. As if the knowledge had been buried inside her mind all along.
There wasn't time to question it.
She accepted.
[Executing Tactical Baiting Protocol...]
A map of the ship unfolded across her vision.
Projected paths of movement highlighted the corridors ahead, outlining the best routes to draw both the Mancers and the Ripper into conflict.
Jewels grinned.
"Oh, this is gonna be good."
***
The abandoned city-ship had long since become a hollowed-out husk of its former self, but the infrastructure was still intact. Old gravity dampeners, power conduits, and emergency bulkheads lined the hallways, inactive but still theoretically functional.
Jewels and Julio sprinted into a narrow maintenance corridor, their boots pounding against the rusted flooring. Overhead, the distant hum of warp signatures sent a familiar shiver down Jewels' spine.
"They're coming," she murmured.
"Yeah, I fuckin' noticed," Julio growled. "How do we make sure they meet our ugly friend first?"
Jewels tapped into an old security relay, her fingers moving faster than her own thoughts. Lines of code flooded her vision, she wrote and executed commands in seconds, bypassing the century-old firewalls like they were nothing.
[Accessing Local Ship Systems...]
[Emergency Bulkhead Protocol: Override Engaged]
With a screech of metal, the hatch doors behind them slammed shut, sealing off their escape route forcing the Ripper into a single path forward.
Julio let out a low whistle.
"Not bad."
Jewels didn't respond. She was already moving to the next step.
"Now," she said, scanning the incoming Mancer warp signatures, "we need to make sure they see the Ripper before they see us."
She adjusted their flight path, dragging Julio toward an upper-level catwalk overlooking an open bay.
"Take cover," she hissed. "And don't move unless I tell you."
Julio didn't argue. They slid into the shadows, pressing against the steel grates as the air below them shimmered.
Then,
The Mancers arrived.
***
Warp gates split open.
Three humanoid figures stepped through, their bodies wrapped in sleek, carbon-fiber exosuits, dark and lined with pulsing cyan circuitry. Their movements were smooth, too smooth, like machines pretending to be human.
Jewels barely breathed.
These were Recon-Class Mancer Drones.
Fast. Efficient. Built to kill.
One of them stepped forward, scanning the area with an augmented neural visor. A cold, synthetic voice echoed through the empty bay.
"Unregistered Flux signatures detected. Scanning for source—"
Then the Ripper arrived.
It smashed through the bulkhead, steel shrieking as its scythe-like arms tore through the opening. Its bulbous eyes locked onto the Mancer drones.
It screeched.
The drones turned too late.
The Ripper lunged, moving faster than anything that size had any right to.
Its mandibles snapped toward the nearest drone.
But the Mancers were ready.
A pulse of Flux erupted outward.
[Countermeasure Engaged]
[Executing Disruption Protocol]
A shockwave of coded energy ripped through the air, distorting reality itself. The Ripper staggered, its momentum hindered, but not stopped.
It slashed forward, barely missing the first drone as it dodged in a blur of movement.
The second drone raised an arm, its fingers folding inward as a plasma field materialized around its palm.
[Deploying Subatomic Lance]
A lance of pure white-hot energy erupted from its fingertips, spearing directly toward the Ripper's torso.
The attack landed.
The Ripper shrieked in agony.
The wound burned, smoking flesh hissing as the biological monstrosity recoiled.
Jewels' plan was working.
But not for long.
The third drone's visor flickered.
[Additional Flux Signature Detected]
[Tracing...]
Jewels' blood ran cold.
One of the drones turned toward their hiding spot.
"Shit," Julio muttered.
Jewels didn't hesitate.
With one precise movement, she hijacked the drone's scan command, redirecting its targeting subroutines back to the Ripper.
[Override: Combat Priority Shift]
[Target Reassignment: Threat Level Maximum]
The drone's visor glitched.
It turned back to the Ripper.
Jewels exhaled.
The battle continued, the Mancer drones locked in deadly combat against the Ripper.
Jewels and Julio slipped away, unseen.
Their plan had worked.
Now all they had to do was get the hell off this ship.