Page 52 of Fated to the Dragon Alien
The moment they’d cleared the entryway, the reprogrammed mech’s shoulder pods flared. No light. No alarm. Just a nearly invisible flicker, like static moving over its plates. A static sound filled the room—a noise Cerani felt in her teeth more than heard.
The Axis mech’s head turned slightly. It started a low-alert cycle, a soft rising tone from its vocal unit. But before it could engage the alarm, the black mech struck.
It moved fast—one lethal appendage shot out into the guard mech’s vent panel. There was no dramatic crash, no messy sparks, just a hard crack and a hiss as the Axis unit’s core blinked out. It went still and its scanning light faded to black.
Cerani’s heartbeat pulsed in her ears. This had been one of the parts she’d been nervous about. Mechs had always been terrifying. There was no talking with them, explaining thingsto them. They were machines with one objective—keeping prisoners in line.
Cerani exhaled. She no longer felt like a prisoner, though.
The reprogrammed mech eased back into its neutral stance. “Axis guard deactivated,” it said. “Command input?”
“Get them up. All of them. Use sub-audible pattern six.”
“Confirmed.”
The mech’s outer chest panel opened, revealing a small emitter node tucked inside its chassis. It pulsed once—a soft thrum that Cerani scarcely felt—but she knew what it was doing. Pattern six delivered a vibration keyed to Axis suit resonance, enough to stir any miners who might be sleeping and signal to those who were awake that the coast was clear.
Within moments, there was movement across the barracks. Miners sat up and moved to the edges of their bunks.
Jorr was up first. He crossed to her quickly. A dark smudge still spread beneath one eye, but his posture was strong, his movements sharp. “Cerani?” he asked, his voice gravel-deep and still bearing a trace of pain. “Are we…?”
“Yes.” She stepped forward. “It’s time.”
People moved faster then.
Blankets were thrown off. Miners climbed down bunk ladders in practiced silence. Nobody shouted. Not a single sound rose above a murmur. Every one of them had been waiting with their EP suits on and helmets at hand.
Rinter pushed off the lower bunk. He gave her a nod. “You sure?”
“Yes,” Cerani said. She looked around the room. Her gaze swept across them all. “Helmets on. Take what you need and leave the rest.”
They moved.
Every footlocker cracked open with clicks and soft creaks. Most of them held little worth taking—threads of personal cloth,trinkets from home they’d smuggled in, or ration scraps folded into cloth pouches.
Sema walked toward her with a slight limp, all that was left of an injury that would have been fatal if not for the medical treatment. “The Axis is going to let us go just like that?”
“No,” Cerani said. “But we’re going anyway.”
Sema nodded once, firmly, and pulled her helmet over her head.
The reprogrammed mech stood beside the fallen Axis unit without comment. No alerts had been sent. Stavian’s override stream was working. Cerani’s breath came easier once she was sure the door had stayed closed. The mine hadn’t noticed.
Yet.
Jorr joined her near the central aisle. He hadn’t buckled his EP suit closed yet and carried his helmet under one arm. “How long until they realize?”
Cerani kept her eyes on the others. “Depends on who’s watching the logs. We have until the security queues flag an anomaly. That gives us twelve, maybe fifteen peks. Twenty, if we’re lucky.”
Jorr winced. “Not a lot of margin.”
“No,” she said. “But it’s enough.”
Around them, the room turned into quiet activity. Elba was helping a younger worker tie the back of their suit. Toval was double-checking his air pack straps, and two others were folding a thin blanket over the fallen Axis mech like it was trash to be taken out later. Cerani moved between groups, checking seals, handing out filters and reinforced gloves from her pack.
She stopped beside the youngest group—three miners barely out of adolescence. Their hands moved too fast, and their faces were too pale.
“Breathe slower,” she said to one of them, a thin, purple-skinned female with a broken tusk and a patched visor tuckedunder her arm. “Your helmet’s fine. But shaking hands won’t help you fit it faster.”
