Chapter 79 Seventy nine
The terminal sparked under my fingertips, the glass screen spider-webbing as I pushed the Origin-Code directly into the Aegis Destroyer’s localized network.
I didn't just look for the "Off" switch for the anti-gravity drives. I looked for the system registry, the core bootloader, and the emergency backup generators. And then, with the ruthless efficiency of a hacker who had watched this ship burn her city to the ground in a previous life, I deleted them all.
"Hack executing," I announced, my voice eerily loud in the sudden silence of the hangar. "Anti-grav engines cutting out in three... two... one."
THUUUUM.
The sound wasn't an explosion. It was the terrifying, bone-rattling groan of fifty million tons of reinforced durasteel suddenly remembering that it had mass.
The deck beneath our boots lurched violently. The artificial gravity plating I had messed with earlier shorted out completely, plunging the entire hangar bay into a state of chaotic zero-G before the physical freefall took over.
"Hold on!" Dax roared, grabbing the handlebars of the Interceptor to anchor himself.
The massive airship began to drop.
Through the open cargo-lift doors beneath us, the black glass spire of the Citadel was no longer an approaching destination; it was a spear rushing up to impale us. The wind howling through the bay doors turned into a shrieking hurricane as our terminal velocity increased.
Over the hangar’s PA system, Commander Vance’s smug corporate arrogance shattered into raw, unfiltered panic.
"System failure! System failure!" Vance screamed, the audio clipping. "Manual override! Give me manual control! We’re dropping!"
"He's locked out!" I yelled to Dax over the roaring wind, clinging to the Sovereign's saddle. "He can't pull up. This whole ship is going to crack the Citadel in half!"
"Then we need to be off it before it hits!" Dax ordered. He spun around, looking at the Iron Wolves who were clinging to their anchored bikes. "Mag-locks on! Throttle up! We're riding down the ramp!"
"Prez, the cargo doors!" Sienna shouted, pointing toward the gaping hole in the floor.
The Board’s automated safety protocols, blind to my hack, were reacting to the atmospheric pressure drop. The massive, interlocking steel teeth of the cargo-lift doors were sliding shut, threatening to seal us inside the falling tomb.
"We have ten seconds before those doors lock!" I calculated, watching the telemetry on my deck. "The ship impacts the Citadel in fifteen!"
"That's plenty of time," Dax grinned, the amber fire in his eyes burning with absolute, reckless joy. In the old timeline, we would have been scrambling for parachutes. Today, we were riding the bomb down to the target.
"Pack! On my mark, disengage mag-locks and hit the Phase-Drives!" Dax commanded into the open comms. "We drop through the doors, angle our descent, and land on the roof of the Citadel before the ship crushes it!"
"You want us to out-fall a falling airship?" Tank bellowed, revving his massive trike until the engine screamed. "I love the New Game!"
"Mark!" Dax roared.
Twelve pedals slammed down. Twelve magnetic locks disengaged simultaneously.
Because the ship was falling faster than the pull of gravity inside the hangar, the moment we released our anchors, we didn't drop we floated upward toward the ceiling.
"Throttles!" Dax commanded.
We dumped the clutch. The tires caught the momentarily weightless air, spinning wildly before Dax threw his weight forward, angling the nose of the Interceptor down toward the closing doors.
We shot toward the shrinking gap of the cargo bay.
"Phase-Shift!"
I slammed my thumb onto the red switch. The world washed out into iridescent blue. The shrieking wind of the freefall vanished into the hum of the sub-ether.
We hit the cargo doors just as they clamped shut.
Because we were phased, we didn't crush against the steel. We clipped right through the heavy interlocking teeth. For a split second, my vision was filled with the dense, molecular static of solid durasteel, and then
We were out.
We were in the open sky, plummeting toward the neon-lit grid of Neo-Vegas.
Directly above us, the Aegis Destroyer was a falling mountain, trailing black smoke from its failing thrusters. Directly below us, the sleek, sloped glass roof of the Citadel's executive penthouse was rushing up to meet us.
"Drop Phase!" Dax ordered.
We snapped back into reality. The wind hit us like a solid wall, tearing at our leathers.
"Angle your descent!" I yelled over the comms, fighting the Sovereign’s aerodynamics. "Aim for the slope of the glass! Don't hit it flat or the suspension will snap!"
Dax led the way, tucking his body flush against the gas tank of his bike, turning himself into a dart. I mirrored him, the white Origin-fire of my engine trailing behind me like a comet’s tail.
We hit the glass roof of the Citadel.
The Sovereign’s tires shrieked as they made contact with the sloped, reinforced windowpanes. The suspension bottomed out, jarring my teeth, but the angle saved us. We didn't shatter the glass; we skidded down it, using the momentum of the fall to transition into a high-speed drift across the penthouse roof.
Behind me, the rest of the pack slammed down. Sparks showered the night as Tank’s heavy trike dug grooves into the architectural steel. Reaper and Sienna landed flawlessly, drifting into a defensive perimeter.
We skidded to a halt at the edge of the roof, the front tires of our bikes hanging inches over a hundred-story drop.
"Brace!" Dax roared, turning his bike sideways.
We barely had time to look up.
The Aegis Destroyer hit the Citadel's main spire.
The sound was apocalyptic. The massive airship sheared off the top thirty floors of the Board's communication array. Glass shattered in a billion glittering diamonds, raining down on the city below. The impact sent a localized earthquake through the skyscraper, buckling the roof beneath our tires.
Fire ballooned into the night sky as the Destroyer’s plasma reserves detonated, illuminating the Iron Wolves in a hellish, orange glow. The broken half of the airship slid off the side of the tower, plummeting into the lower districts in a cascade of burning metal.
We sat on our bikes, breathing hard, watching the destruction of the Board's greatest weapon.
"Well," Tank panted, flipping up his visor to wipe sweat from his eyes. "That's one way to skip the lobby."
Dax kicked his kickstand down and dismounted. He walked to the center of the sloped roof, looking at the massive, glowing skylight that looked down into the executive boardroom of the Citadel.
Through the reinforced glass, we could see the Board of Directors. They were trapped, staring up in absolute horror at the biker gang that had just dropped an airship on their building.
At the head of the table, covered in dust from the impact, was the Chairman.
Dax drew his explosive-round rifle and looked over his shoulder at me. The Speedrun King was grinning.
"Mia," Dax said, racking the slide. "Do me a favor and hack the intercom down there. I want them to hear this."