The corridor blessedly opened up after a while, spilling out into a cavernous space were different paths through the heart of Songlai met. I took a deep breath and kept still as sweat dripped down the bridge of my nose and fell off to the floor. Even with shields it was boiling hot in here.

And knowing that we were being hunted didn’t help.

When we’d first heard the sound it could have been just another passerby, someone else smuggling through the tunnels, but that wasn’t the case anymore; that much was obvious from the fact that they were also keeping quiet in the darkness.

The quiet had meant that progress was slow, even once we were off the ladder everything had been turned into slow methodical movements as opposed to trying to get out of this damned maze. That and needing to keep hidden had meant that we’d been moving without light or anything to guide us aside from memory.

At least up until this point the path had been mostly a single tunnel to climb and walk through, but now that it’d opened up we were left with two options, either fumble around and hope I knew the way, or turn on our lights and let them see us first.

I offered Victoria one last nod, and turned on the small light as I affixed it to the front of my Mako. I winced, even pointing it at the ground there was a soft white glow that would give us away in the darkness if they were in the same space. Not how we wanted things to go but-

Well we weren’t going to get very far feeling our way around.

“Quiet still.”

“I know,” Victoria answered, her whisper came over the speaker in my ear and crackled louder than I would have liked. I took a deep breath and then the first steps forward, keeping the gun trained on the metal catwalk to ensure that I could see where I was going while spreading the least light pollution I could.

It was going to be a long walk, even with the light.

I played with the safety of the Mako with my right thumb as we inched forward. Was it worth turning it off? The Mako itself would give off light and make noise but it would mean that I was ready to return fire. The last thing I wanted was to need the Mako and then realize I hadn’t primed it properly.

After another several meters of steps I flicked the safety off and a soft blue glow edged its way along the coolant vents. We’d already turned on the lights, at this point I was sure that we were going to be picking a fight either way.

Or at least as sure I was that we were being hunted. There was a chance that I was wrong and all of this caution was to avoid a set of smugglers who were more scared of us than we were of them.

That said, when the alternative was a Fotuan hunter or a set of Jie’s guards trying to find us in the foundry it was worth being ready and spending too long in the sweaty-humid mess between floors.

A blast of steam erupted somewhere in the darkness above and I killed the instinct to snap my gun up to us to avoid becoming a beacon. At least the steam and the condensation lent themselves to muffling the noise of us stalking through the halls.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

There were three notches on the railing to my right, put there too long ago by someone I’d never met as a marker though this place. “We’re going the right way,” I passed on.

“How much longer?” Victoria asked. While I had to keep low to stay below all of the railing and sheet metal on the side of the catwalk, Victoria almost had to crawl. She was doing her best to bite down any complaints, but frankly I didn’t imagine she was used to or built for this sort of thing.

Hell, I’d been through a lot worse and I still hated this fucking place.

“Long enough to-”

There was a deep rumble in the ceiling, a massive latch falling into place.

“Shit.”

Several more followed, and the red glow of emergency lighting poured into the cavernous maze of catwalks that we’d been sneaking through. My blood ran cold as the red light diffused through the humid air. I dropped to a knee and flicked the Mako’s light off, holding it close to the ground and trying to understand my surroundings without putting my head above the walls.

Victoria was on her stomach.

“Guess they don’t mind getting seen,” she hissed.

“Guess not.”

“Does that mean-”

“Kill the chatter,” I snapped back. If I understood where she was going with that, the answer was yes, that meant that they were doing the hunting. They were in here looking for something.

There was still the slightest chance that it wasn’t us, but reckless optimism wasn’t a great survival strategy.

I turned to Victoria and pointed to the Mako at her side, she had to roll over onto her side to pull it off. Once she had it in her hands I reset the safety on mine and then unlocked it again.

“I know where the safety is.”

I shot back a glance that hopefully told her to shut it, and then held a hand up to keep her still.

Down the path we’d been going down there was a small mechanism control unit, similar to the one they would have used to turn on the lights. It wouldn’t be much better than being out on the catwalk, but at least it had four walls tall enough that we could stand up. It wasn’t good, but it was at least good enough.

I pointed to it and started inching forward, using one hand on the wall to maintain my balance while creeping along. Once I had a rhythm I closed my eyes, cutting out some of the stimulus to ensure that-

The whine of a weapon spooling up.

I sprang to my feet and into a sprint before I could communicate it to Victoria but she followed, chasing after me in the half second it took for a white hot blot to slam into the catwalk where she’d been, melting through the metal and turning it into a molten slag that dripped onto the floors beneath us.

They were in the support beams along the ceiling.

That had been a- shit- I couldn’t place the timing of the shot to know how much time we had.

The maintenance housing was only a few meters away from me now, a dive would get me in there before-

Was that the whirring of their weapon or just ringing from the previous impact?

Two more steps to the do-

No time.

I snapped back around on my heels and launched toward Victoria, crashing my shoulder into her chest and throwing her off balance as white erupted across my vision.

Victoria lost her footing and fell backward out of the way.

I felt the blunt force of the shot smashing into the shield over my arm, and then the burning, blinding pain as it shattered through it. Then nothing.

Nothing but the smell of burning and Victoria grabbing me by the collar to throw me into the maintenance building. I crashed down to the floor and my ribs hit the metal before my arm did. There was a flash of pain that was immediately muted and yanked away by chemical intervention.

Victoria was saying something but I couldn’t gather what she was getting at, my support systems were spouting off too many chemical injections for me to catch her words within them.

Fuck. I’d just been hit. Why was I able to be so clear about- Shouldn’t I have been-

Oh. I was in shock. That would make sense. My support systems were trying to keep me awake. Okay, I would help.

I went to push off the floor and nothing responded, then I tried again. Then the third time my body understood what was going on and reached across with my other arm. Pushing myself half over before I could get up to sitting.

“Cognitive stabilization complete. Re-administration in 60 seconds or when prompted” my PA chirped.

I looked down to my right, where my arm ended abruptly halfway down the bicep in a burned stump.

Oh fuck.