Page 41 of Meteor Storm

I clenched my fist, feeling the exosuit reinforce and harden around my knuckles. Drawing my arm back, I drove it into the barrier.

Cracks spiderwebbed across the surface at the first impact.

The second strike shattered it.

The barrier exploded with a deafening crack, thick shards crashing to the floor. I ducked through the opening and into the corridor as voices erupted from the surrounding cells. Prisoners shouted, howled, and pounded against their confinements, the noise swelling into chaos behind me.

“Thilar,” Sunhai said, placing her hands on the glass. “Come on. I got you that khof kaar. Without me—"

The lights flickered back to life, but only at half capacity as the backup power systems booted up. I peered down the hall as the large doors slid open and three shikari guards stormed out, immediately spotting me and the mess around my feet.

They quickly pulled their rifles off their backs, aiming them in my direction and firing in quick succession. Their poor aim saved my armor from doing most of the work, but what few shots hit me ricocheted into the walls and the other cell barriers, including Sunhai’s. It exploded inward, creating a hole just large enough for her to squeeze through. As she ducked out, I shoved her back inside and charged the reckless guards.

They continued firing, each shot less effective than the last. When I slammed into the first guard, my shoulder launched him backward into the doors. The second spun to fire again, but I ripped the rifle from his trembling hands before he could fire. Turning with the motion, I drove the butt of the weapon into the side of his head hard enough to snap the rifle clean in half.

The third guard pivoted and ran. His weapon clattered to the floor as he rushed for the control panel, fumbling to open the door. Beside him lay the motionless body of his fellow guard, slumped in an unnatural heap, his head tilted at an impossible angle.

I let the vermin go. Without the collar—without torture as a source of power—he was nothing.

I stepped forward as the doors slid shut behind him and picked up the broken rifle. Behind me, the habitation cells still roared with excitement, an orchestra of voices echoing through the corridor. I didn't care.

But off to my right, a ghostly figure stood motionless at the edge of my vision, a silent witness to the entire ordeal.

I turned my head to see Thraxxen standing in the middle of his enclosure, his head slowly cocking to the side, curious. He did not beg me to free him. He did not speak or try to bargain, but his eyes did flick briefly toward the rifle in my hand, daring me to use it.

I gave it a split second of thought before I raised the rifle and fired two shots at the side of his barrier, bringing it down between us. He did not shy from the debris or rush into the hall to wrestle the gun from my grip. He just observed, glimpsing the broken glass and then me.

I said nothing. I tossed the gun at his feet and I stepped back, waiting. I wasn’t surprised when he stepped over the weapon and exited his cell, standing slightly taller than me in the open corridor, weaponless and menacing. He raised his hand to the collar around his neck and in the same fashion that I had, snapped it clean off with one, tense tug.

“Can we go?” Sunhai said, pulling my attention toward her.

She’d ventured out into the hall with us, still toying with her collar. I turned toward her and, with both hands, pried the thing off her slender neck, tossing the two halves to the sides. A solid thump and a grunt drew both our eyes toward Thraxxen as he pried the electric door open with one of the fallen shikari’s shock sticks.

“Should we go that way?” Sunhai asked.

I turned toward Penny’s open cell and stepped inside, searching briefly until I found her wrist cuff tucked under the corner of her thin mattress.

“Meet me at the hangar,” I said to Sunhai as I stepped back out.

Sunhai’s big eyes narrowed. “You going for the human?”

I didn’t grace her with an answer. Instead, I moved past her, heading for the opposite end of the hall where the others had taken Penny. I didn’t bother looking back. I could hear the doors give and Sunhai spoke a few nervous words to Thraxxen, though he didn’t bother responding either. I didn’t expect them to work together, but Thraxxen alone would carve a path through the whole port now that he was without restraints. I knew that much. Sunhai could simply tread behind him.

When I heard the unclear chatter of voices within the fibers of my helmet, I knew my khof karr had tapped into a monrian vessel, which meant they were close. Soon enough, the asteroid began to tremble and alarms started blaring from across the entire station. When I reached the elevator, I pried the doors ajar, not bothering with the controls. I didn’t have clearance and I suspected even the backup power would get cut off soon. Glass crunched to my left as a valerian male stepped out into the hall, staring at my efforts. He was a fiery red color from head to toe, unlike the common race. I didn’t know his name. The man never spoke—never interacted with anyone outside the games. He looked me up and down, nodded once, and headed toward the other end of the hall, ignoring the other prisoners the same way I did.

He would add to the madness, and I needed the commotion to distract the guards from mine.

Once the elevator doors opened, I slipped into the hollow shaft and leapt onto the maintenance prongs lining the inner wall, scaling them toward the upper level at speed.

Reaching Pek-Tol's floor was easy. I braced myself against the platform outside the doors and forced them apart. With the added strength of my exosuit, the metal yielded quickly.

Beyond was a dark hallway filled with chaos. Shikari raced in every direction, panicked and disorganized, weapons raised and fingers twitching on their control panels, ready to fire at anything that moved.

The first one to rush past me met my fist. The impact flipped him backward onto the floor, his rifle spinning from his grasp. I snatched it from the air before it could hit the ground.

More monrian chatter came through as my helmet reformed across my head. That time, I tapped in.

“This is Commander Tuross. I’m on Mekah Prime.”