The room was still alive in small ways.

  Consoles hissed, fans whined, damaged panels ticked as they cooled. Somewhere deeper in the Opp ship, something boomed hard enough to shake dust out of the ceiling. Kaden’s ears rang. His hand throbbed. His whole body felt one bad jolt away from folding.

  They were still standing.

  “Vos,” Jax said. “Kill their guns.”

  “Yes, Sergeant.”

  He limped to the central console cluster, boots smearing blood across the deck. Up close, the pillar of light that Aurora had tagged as PLASMA TORPEDO – PRIMARY FIRING LOGIC looked worse than it had from a distance. Nested glyphs and shifting shapes rotated through each other in patterns that made Kaden’s eyes ache.

  Kaden moved with Navarro and Tanaka to form a loose perimeter around the island. Tanaka took the widest angle, shield up. Navarro covered their rear, pistol out. Kaden picked a lane that let him keep the door and Vos in view.

  Jax stayed by the inner entrance, one hand braced on the frame, head canted like she was listening to something far away.

  Vos planted his good hand on the console.

  Aurora responded on Kaden’s HUD:

  [UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS – CRITICAL NODE]

  [PLASMA TORPEDO CONTROL – ACTIVE / DEGRADED]

  [REMOTE INPUT – INTERMITTENT]

  Panels flickered in front of Vos. Lines of alien script crawled, split, and reorganized themselves into blocks that Aurora half-translated.

  “Sub-controls are damaged,” Vos said, voice flat. “Core’s still convinced it can work around it.”

  “Fix that,” Jax said.

  “Working.”

  He didn’t sound excited. Just tired.

  He started with the obvious, tapping through a chain of controls with slow, deliberate motions. His shoulder trembled when he held his arm up too long.

  “Breaking their charge cycles,” he said. “Every time they try to spin up, it error-loops.”

  One of the readouts shifted from steady green to a tight, jittering pulse.

  [CHARGE CYCLE – STATUS: ERROR / LOOP]

  “Not enough,” he added. “A patient tech could patch that.”

  “Make it something they can’t patch,” Jax said.

  He nodded without looking back.

  Kaden scanned the entry again. No new movement. Just Opp bodies where they’d fallen and the haze of smoke that made the lights look farther away.

  Vos dragged another block of symbols across a pane. Aurora tagged it:

  [GUIDANCE PROFILE – TORPEDO TARGETING]

  [HISTORICAL VECTOR SETS – ACTIVE → CORRUPTED]

  “Wrecked their guidance library,” Vos said. “If they salvage this later, all they get is junk history.”

  Kaden watched the tremor in his hand get worse as he moved to the next panel. Twice his finger slid and he had to pull back, breathe, and try again.

  “You’re shaking,” Kaden said.

  “Adrenaline crash and a concussion,” Vos said. “I’ll live.”

  He shifted to a new section. Aurora overlaid:

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  [CHARGE SYNC – STATUS: INVALID]

  [FIRING QUEUE – EMPTY]

  [REMOTE COMMAND – FAILED]

  “Charge timing and firing logic are out of sync now,” Vos said. “They can’t trust what these tell them anymore. But the core still thinks it’s in charge.”

  The deck rumbled under Kaden’s boots. Somewhere outside, one of Harrow’s ships dumped another volley into the crippled cruiser.

  Jax’s comms icon flickered orange. She was tuned into the leader net.

  She tilted her head, listening. Kaden couldn’t hear the other end, but he could read her posture: weight forward, jaw tight, fingers drumming once against the frame.

  “This is Theta-3,” she said. “Primary firing control secure. Sabotage in progress.”

  There was a pause. Her shoulders shifted.

  “Understood,” she said. “Theta-3 holds the room.”

  She switched back to squad channel.

  “Update,” she said. “Theta-5 just made contact with a Reaver near another junction. Okafor diverted Theta-4 to support.”

  Kaden’s stomach tightened.

  Song.

  “How bad?” Tanaka asked quietly.

  “Bad enough Okafor moved another squad,” Jax said. “We’re not leaving this position. Our piece of this is making sure no torp takes anyone else with it while they fight.”

  Vos’ hand paused above the console. “Copy,” he said after a heartbeat. “I’ll make sure they don’t get blindsided from up here.”

  “Good,” Jax said. “Talk less. Break more.”

  Kaden checked the door again. Navarro’s pistol tracked with him, then shifted back to cover her sector.

  Aurora added another layer of alerts:

  [PRIMARY CONTROL – ACCESS LEVEL ELEVATED]

  [OVERRIDE CREDENTIALS – FORGED]

  [SYSTEM TRUST – DEGRADED]

  “Got deeper,” Vos said. “Core’s listening to me more than it wants to, now. Time to make it regret that.”

  He opened a final pane. Aurora could barely keep up.

  [CORE LOGIC – EXECUTION MATRIX]

  [WARNING – SYSTEM INTEGRITY CRITICAL]

  “Core executable,” he said. “I can’t rewrite it without AP, so I’m going to break the paths it relies on.”

  He started severing links. Logic blocks that had been clean lines became loops, dead ends, or pointed into nothing useful. Aurora’s warnings stacked.

  [LOGIC PATH – CORRUPTED]

  [LOOP DETECTED]

  [EXECUTION FLOW – UNSTABLE]

  Kaden’s skin prickled. Even without full access, he could tell they were pushing the system toward a point of no return.

  “Valiant, Theta-3,” Jax said on the ship channel. “Be advised: primary firing logic is being destabilized. Expect weirdness on any remaining telemetry.”

  “Copy, Theta-3,” Okafor said. “Shenzhou reports Opp targeting signatures are degrading. Confirm hard kill when you have it.”

  “Yes, sir,” Jax said.

  Vos made one last adjustment, then tapped a confirmation.

  For a moment, nothing happened.

  Then the pillar of light glitched. Script stuttered and reappeared in the wrong places. The glowing shapes folded, unfolded, then twisted into an arrangement that didn’t hold long enough to make sense.

  [PLASMA TORPEDO – PRIMARY FIRING CONTROL]

  [STATUS: OFFLINE]

  [CORE LOGIC – IRRECOVERABLE ERROR]

  [REMOTE CONTROL – DISCONNECTED]

  Kaden’s HUD added a broader feed:

  [TASK FORCE HARROW – SENSOR]

  [OPP PLASMA TORPEDO CAPABILITY – NULL]

  [SHENZHOU / HARROW’S WAKE – CONFIRM: NO VALID FIRING SOLUTIONS REMAIN]

  Vos’ shoulders sagged. He caught himself on the console with his good hand.

  “That’s it,” he said. “They don’t just have to fix damage. They need a new brain for this thing.”

  “You sure?” Tanaka asked.

  “If they manage to launch anything now, I’ll buy them a drink,” Vos said. “From hell.”

  Jax exhaled slowly. Some of the coil in her frame unwound.

  “Valiant, Theta-3,” she said. “Confirm: primary torpedo capability destroyed. Ship cannot bring plasma launchers back online without full rebuild.”

  “Copy, Theta-3,” Okafor said. “Shenzhou corroborates. Gaunt says, and I quote, ‘nice work.’ Stand by for exfil.”

  Leader-net popped again before he cut the line. Jax listened, eyes on the floor.

  “Understood,” she said quietly. “Theta-3 copies.”

  She switched back to them.

  “Theta-5 killed their Reaver,” she said. “Theta-4 helped. That section of the ship is a mess.”

  Navarro let out a breath. “Of course they did.”

  “They paid for it,” Jax added after a beat. “We’ll get details when we’re back on Valiant.”

  Kaden swallowed. Theta-5. That was Song’s squad. The worry clawed at him, but there was nothing he could do from here. He locked it down next to everything else he didn’t have time to feel.

  “What now?” Tanaka asked.

  “Now we follow orders,” Jax said. “Valiant’s pulling the task force back before Opp decides this is worth more hulls.”

  Okafor’s voice came over the broader channel, tired and iron-hard.

  “Valiant to all Theta elements. Objectives achieved. Begin fighting withdrawal to designated extraction points. Repeat: Theta elements, commence exfil. Do not get clever. Do not get heroic. Get back to your ship.”

  “Copy,” Jax said. She glanced around the room. “You heard him. We’re done breaking things. Time to leave.”

  She pushed off the frame, wincing as the bandage at her side pulled.

  “Tanaka,” she said. “Shield up. Navarro, reload that pistol and hang onto your rifle; if we find ammo, you’re back on primary. Vos, you’re off the console. If you start to fall, give Mercer enough warning to catch you.”

  “Understood,” Vos said.

  “Kaden,” Jax finished. “You still have that one point?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “One.”

  “Save it,” she said. “Someone between here and the pods is going to do something stupid or unlucky. You’ll know when it’s time to spend it.”

  He nodded, feeling the weight of that little number on his HUD.

  Jax took one last look at the dead, flickering pillar of torpedo logic.

  “Theta-3,” she said. “On me. We’re done here. Let’s go home.”

  They turned their backs on the ruined core and moved for the door.