Before Arthur could map point a firing solution against the dropping void frigate, a priority emergency signal pulsed across his visor’s bio-tracking data array.
“All medical units, emergency extract on Airlock Four!” Valerie Koslov’s voice sounded tight, edged with the strain of holding a dying outer edge. “Outside upkeep crew caught in the unshielded solar flare during the steadying fin repair! Five personnel retrieved, but their suits took a direct hit from the void-corrupted heat wave burst! We have active bio-black rot spreading through their tissue!”
Arthur didn’t hesitate. “Grimm, heel. Vesper, watch the outside narrow high walkway. Pip, maintain high-sky scouting on that approaching frigate.”
Arthur left Vesper and Pip to secure the outside solar spar. He and Grimm cycled back through Airlock Four, stepping into the decontamination staging entry hall.
The chamber smelled of scorched nylon, ozone. The clear, sweet-metal stench of severe living heat wave burns. On the deck plates lay three outside upkeep technicians and two combat scouts, their void suits hastily unsealed by emergency medics.
Arthur dropped to his knees beside the most critical patient. Senior Scout Sergeant Chen, a veteran who had survived two trench campaigns in the Rust-Belt.
Chen’s condition was horrifying. His outer flight tunic had melted into the skin of his left shoulder and chest wall. Where the fabric had peeled away, the flesh was not merely blistered. It was an angry, purplish-black slurry of liquefactive black rot. The heat wave had not simply cooked the tissue. It had shattered the…
