The Great Escape

Luke climbed through the narrow tunnel leading back toward the airlock, pulling himself forward hand over hand, foot over foot, using every cable, bracket, or groove as leverage. Microgravity didn’t allow for running—just crawling, swimming, and the occasional **** lunge. The only thing guiding him was the fading thermal imprint of the lights and conduits lining the walls.

Behind him, the boom of Aslög’s shotgun echoed again—another blast to discourage pursuit.
“Why the fuck are these morons chasing us?” Luke muttered, breath tight with irritation. “This can’t be about Mae’s eyeballs.”
“Maybe they think Shima’ll resurrect if they kill us?” Aslög replied with a twisted smirk in her voice.
“Your shotgun made sure that won’t happen,” Luke answered—and then froze.

In a single fluid movement, he drew his pistol and double-tapped a heat signature ahead—some idiot guard too eager, too visible. The corpse drifted sideways, rapidly cooling. Luke shoved it out of their way and moved on.

The tunnel branched ahead. He didn’t remember an intersection here—but his implant did. A directional arrow blinked into existence in his vision overlay, pointing them forward. He kicked off the wall and glided across the gap—

A deafening crack. A bolt of pain lit up his ribs like fire. Ricochet.

Luke curled into a defensive ball as his pistol snapped up again. His targeting systems threw a grid over the likely source of the shot. He fired a burst blind into the shadows of a side tunnel and twisted mid-air, but the impact had wrecked his momentum. He slammed into a support strut, bounced off, disoriented.

Another shot—this time searing into his thigh.

“FUCKING FUCKERS!” Came the furious scream of a Valkyrie behind him.

Then Aslög hit him—both knees into his back, launching him forward and out of the kill zone. She landed where he’d just been, submachine gun blazing full-auto down the tunnel. Incendiary-fragmentation rounds mixed with armour-piercing bullets ripped through the space, leaving nothing but shredded meat and fire in their wake. She didn't pause. Two grenades clinked off the tunnel walls—one in each corridor. The twin concussions buffeted the narrow space as she dropped down beside Luke.

“Don’t you fucking dare die on me, you hear? The girls’ll riot if you take the magic cock with you.” Luke barked a pained laugh. “It’s just a graze,” he coughed. The truth was, his augments were already sealing the wound, dumping painkillers and adrenaline into his bloodstream. Aslög checked his vest and thigh anyway, then sighed and flicked a fresh mag into her submachine gun. “You’re an old fart and probably hallucinating from blood loss.” Luke zipped the vest shut and grabbed the rope lining the wall. “Let’s keep moving. That little fireworks show definitely got their attention.”

Topside, Metzli raised her arm, the tracker’s display dead on her wrist. “I lost the signal.”
Macha frowned behind her helmet. “Connection issue or jammed?”
“Could be either. Could be the device got hit. Hell if I know.”
She toggled her radio. “Nepthys, you seeing what we’re seeing?”
“Signal went dead. Either it’s toast or someone’s blocking it. But I’m locked out of their network—power just came back on, which means I lost control of the grid.”
Macha growled. “We’re the cavalry, but we don’t know where the fuck to ride.”
“Then we sit tight and wait,” Metzli agreed grimly.

Aslög took the lead now, with Luke limping behind her. Her thermal vision painted the rundown tunnels in vivid ghosts of heat. Anything vaguely humanoid got a shotgun blast or a burst from her SMG. It was wasteful, but effective. She reached the last corner before the main foyer—the one in front of the primary airlock. She stopped. Tethered her foot to a loop. Fished out a thin fibreoptic cable and snaked it around the corner.

“Okay, Captain,” she whispered. “We’ve got a problem. They’ve got a mining laser covering the tunnel. It’s aimed right at us.”
Luke resisted the urge to laugh. “No one’s dodging light speed. That’s a dead end.”
Then the overhead lights flickered to life, bathing them in stark fluorescence.
“That settles it,” he muttered. “Nepthys is out. We're on our own.”
He tapped his implant. “Metzli. New plan. We’re headed to a secondary surface tunnel. You’ll need to blow your way in. Stand by.”
Her voice came back instantly. “We can't track you. Give us some landmark or something!” There was a clear hint of panic in her voice.
Aslög lit up the tunnel behind them with a fresh burst. “If I’d known we were dying here, I’d have let you fuck my ass.”
Luke grinned, even through the pain. “That’s just the motivation I needed.”

Then he saw it—the doorway to the canteen, just a few meters from the foyer. He marked it in her HUD.
“Flashbang, now. We dash into that.”
Aslög yanked the pin and lobbed the grenade into the foyer. The concussive pop gave them two seconds of confusion. They launched forward, narrowly missing a white-hot beam that slagged the frame where they’d been moments earlier.

The canteen was empty—except for a shriek from the kitchen door.

“Don’t shoot!”

A bald, grubby figure stepped out. Scrawny. Pale. Eyes wide. Luke aimed, then held. The kid was shaking.
“We won’t shoot. But the guards might. Make your case fast.”
“I know a way out! Abandoned tunnel—collapse sealed it, but just with junk and plastic. It leads to the surface. You’ve got a ship, right? Room for one more?”
Luke blinked. That was insane. But not impossible.
“Alright. Lead on.”

The boy nodded frantically and guided them through the kitchen, past food processors and waste units into a low crawlspace that stank of grease and mould. Luke squeezed through, slow and carefully. At one point, he thought he was stuck and a burst of claustrophobic fear struck him. I won't die on this fucking rock! I have Aslög's ass to fuck! He shoved the panic into a locked box in his mind. One last push—and he popped out into a tunnel wide enough to float.

“Where does this come out?” he asked.
“No idea. But it used to be a cargo exit. Some say it’s the second biggest hole on the rock.”
Luke keyed his comms. “Metzli. Look for a large shaft between your position and the passenger airlock. Go down until you find a pressure seal. Set charges. We’ll be on the other side in minutes.”

A moment later: “Copy. We’re in position.”
They reached the barricade. Plastic sheeting. Welded rubble. A **** patch job.
“Uh, what do we wear for the trip?” the kid asked nervously. “It’s a hard vacuum out there.”
Luke and Aslög exchanged a glance. She turned, wrapped him in a bear hug.
“You saved our lives. We’ll save yours. Just exhale when the bang comes.”
Luke gave the signal.

The shaped charges went off.

The barrier shattered—and the air turned into a hurricane. Slag, rock, and debris vanished into the void. Then the humans were pulled with it, sucked out into the black.

Waiting for them: two massive shell suits. Macha snagged Aslög and the kid—Metzli caught Luke. They stuffed their charges into emergency vacuum bags, triggered the emergency seals which in turn automatically activated the little airbottles that emptied their compressed contents inside the bags. The pressurized pouches puffed outward like bubbles, giving them seconds of safety. The rescue team crawled up the tunnel, then used their suit thrusters to leap up and away from the asteroid because, as if by magic, _Seraglio _was right there, airlock open and waiting. Bari proved her piloting chops once again.

Inside, Amaterasu slammed the cycle button, and the hatch sealed behind them. As the air flooded back in, Aslög held her precious cargo like a rescued kitten.
“What’s your name, little one?” she asked as the bag opened.
The bald kitchen goblin blinked and coughed. Then smiled.
“Pinga. My name’s Pinga.”