Up sounded the low trill of the ship’s evacuation alarm. Somewhere above her, a child’s muffled scream echoed down a vent. The juvenile she’d seen raced along support beams, tiny claws raking metal, its iridescent skin catching light like wet oil.
Mara clipped into the docking collar with trembling hands. The pod’s insertion arm shuddered and began to lock. The reactor’s containment fields tried to recover, warping the air. The predator charged across falling light and smashed into the arm, sending a lattice of sparks into the vapor. For a second everything froze: Mara’s harness screamed; the pod’s telemetry flickered; the core’s pressure began to spike. dino crisis 3 xbox rom verified
“We contain it,” she said finally. The decision unspooled from fatigue as if someone had cut a rope. “We patch the breaches. We tow the hull into deep orbit where it can be monitored. We’ll catalog, study, and—if possible—heal.” Up sounded the low trill of the ship’s evacuation alarm
“We don’t get to be sure,” Mara said. “We get to try.” Mara clipped into the docking collar with trembling hands
She raised her scanner, voice steady. “Do not move. I’m not armed.”
She had seconds. She reached into the vapor with the arm, fingers wrapped in insulated gauntlets, and manually welded the sensor to the vent. Heat licked her wrists; the Argent fog thinned and thickened like breath. The reactor’s systems accepted the handshake and the siphon began. The canister thrummed as it climbed fullness, a heartbeat compressing into steel.