Adventure of Onyx Soldier 1

Red emergency light washes the maintenance bay as Onyx Soldier reaches the blocked corridor. Water slaps around his boots. Ahead, the Warlord’s squad holds the line, rifles up, while the ship groans like it is splitting open.

A figure steps out from behind a dangling conduit, hands open, not quite surrendering and not quite advancing. He wears a dockworker’s patched coverall, rain dark with seawater, and a thin earpiece glints in one ear.

One soldier at the blockade shifts, uneasy, as the deck gives a hard lurch. The Dockhand glances toward the sound, then back to Onyx Soldier, waiting for a choice while the corridor trembles.

Onyx Soldier tracks the corridor in a single sweep, reading the sway of hanging conduit, the slack in the soldiers’ line, and the slick band of water along the left bulkhead. The safest gap is not forward, but low, where the deck dips beside the ruptured piping.

He moves. Water splashes up his shins as he cuts in tight to the wall, using the red glare and the steam sheet for cover. The blockade shifts, but too late to seal the opening.

Onyx Soldier slips under the soldiers’ firing angle and breaks into the gap between a bent support brace and a half-open maintenance hatch. Behind him, the corridor clangs with shouted orders and boots.

He is past the blockade and into the next stretch of the freighter’s service veins, where the floor pitches hard and the emergency lights flicker against rising spray.