Transponders in the Hide

No wild void-beast ever threw four kilometers of living armor straight into an orbital shredder, yet the star-manta beneath Velskr was diving with every thruster lit. He clamped both gauntlets around the anchored mag-clamp handle and leaned his full weight into the curve of the beast's dorsal ridge, fighting the centrifugal force that dragged at his ribs to fling him toward the rotating blades of the Iron Shoals. He wanted that suicidal dive broken before the scrap field stripped the hide off the creature—and him along with it.

"Torvund!" he shouted into his helmet comm. "Bring the skiff into the wake! If you stay out in the wash, you'll shear your stabilizers!"

Static hissed, then cleared.

"My stabilizers are balanced to three decimal places, Velskr," Torvund replied, his voice smooth despite the violent chop of the leviathan's slipstream. "However, the paint on the port pontoon is already blistering from the thermal exhaust. A vulgar indignity for an imperial-pattern hull."

The hunter-skiff dropped out of the glare above them, its twin prows cutting through the iridescent wake of the beast's thruster vents. Torvund held the small craft ten yards above the churning nickel-iron scales, matching roll for roll with impossible delicacy.

In the skiff's open gun-tub, Brannar stood braced behind his customized lightning lance, an optical scanner clamped over his visor. He did not look at the approaching wall of wreckage. He looked at the diagnostic readouts flickering along his targeting bracket.

"Five to one we disintegrate on the first pass," Brannar said over the shared link. "Four to one if Torvund clips the antenna array on that derelict refinery. Do I have any takers, or are you both dying poor?"

"Save your wages for fuel," Velskr said. His magnetic boots hummed, biting into the alloy seams of the beast's hide. "Find out why she's running blind. Star-mantas do not throw themselves into scrap fields. Their dorsal sensory fins should have smelled those wreckage spars from half an orbit away."

"Perhaps she finds your company distasteful," Torvund suggested.

"Scan the forward ridge, Brannar," Velskr ordered.

Brannar swung the lance's gimbal mount, aiming the sensor diode at the thick crest three paces ahead of Velskr's boots. A pulse of emerald telemetry painted the beast's thrumming armor, outlining thick veins of biogel and the metallic weave of its synthetic nervous system.

The readings spiked into the red.

"That isn't scar tissue," Brannar said, his dry humor fading into professional disgust. "Look at the junction between the fourth and fifth spinal plates. Deep in the meat."

Velskr dragged himself forward along the guide line. The leviathan banked sixty degrees, its massive port wing catching a cross-current of charged solar dust. Below them, the Scintillating Vast spun like a fractured mirror, reflecting the cold blue fire of the core systems.

Two paces ahead, near the base of the primary dorsal crest, a jagged wound oozed golden conductive marrow. But the injury had not come from a rogue asteroid or a territorial clash with another bull manta.

A heavy block of burnished cobalt alloy sat sunk into the flesh, pinned down by three hydraulic anchor pins. High-output fiber cables burrowed directly into the manta's main neural trunk, pulsing with an angry crimson rhythm.

Velskr wiped grease from his faceplate. "Military hardware."

"Imperial navy ordnance, second echelon," Torvund said quietly over the link. The usual theatrical polish in his tone grew thin. "A neural override harness. Specifically designed to clamp involuntary flight responses to an external broadcast signal."

"They're steering her," Velskr said.

"They aren't just steering her," Brannar called from the skiff. "They're burning her out. That relay is pumping fifty megawatts of kinetic command cycles directly into her spinal core. It's driving her mad. In under five minutes, she reaches the primary debris shelf. When she impacts, she clears a path through the salvage lines for whatever is following behind."

"Then we pull the tooth," Velskr said.

He unclipped the harmonic pry bar from his utility harness. The bar's magnetic tip hummed as he set the frequency to match imperial anchor alloys.

"Touch the wrong conduit and you'll earth sixty thousand volts through your chest plate," Brannar warned. "I'll lay three to one you weld your gauntlets to the casing."

"You're not holding the bar," Velskr said.

"Which is why my odds are so favorable."

Brannar fired a grav-tether from the skiff's secondary winch. The cable's magnetic head slammed into the manta's hide three feet from Velskr, anchoring with a sharp mechanical thud. Brannar hooked his harness to the line and kicked off from the skiff, gliding down through the vacuum to land beside Velskr in a crouch.

Up close, the smell of scorched ozone and burnt tissue bled through the suit's intake filters. The imperial relay was vibrating violently, venting coolant plumes that froze into glittering crystals the moment they met the void.

"Hold the stabilizer," Velskr told Brannar. "If the housing twists while I crack the bolts, it'll sever the fluid line. If the fluid line snaps, the auxiliary capacitor dumps into the spine, and we both turn to vapor."

Brannar jammed the teeth of his heavy wrench into the relay's collar, bracing his boots against the manta's raised scales. "Whenever you're ready, Captain. The first scrap spars are only eight hundred kilometers out."

Velskr set the pry bar's vibrating chisel edge against the relay's portside anchor bolt. He did not rush. He watched the pulse rhythm of the crimson light coursing through the glass conduits.

Two rapid beats, followed by a long swell of power.

On the swell, the circuit grounded itself.

Velskr hit the release trigger. The pneumatic hammer in the pry bar drove forward with a sharp crack that rattled his teeth through his jawbone. The first anchor pin sheared cleanly away, spraying tiny droplets of solidified zinc into the vacuum.

The manta shrieked through the radio band, a low, tectonic groan that vibrated up through Velskr's shins. The beast rolled hard to starboard, throwing both men against their safety harnesses.

"Anchor one clear!" Velskr shouted over the roaring comms. "Torvund, keep the skiff on our tail!"

"I am currently threading a twenty-meter yacht through two tons of loose structural girders," Torvund answered with icy composure. "Do not ask for miracles on a Tuesday."

Velskr shifted his grip, sliding the chisel beneath the central housing. The second bolt had fused with the manta's living scale, melted by extreme heat.

"Brannar, give me a lightning tap," Velskr ordered. "Low yield. Three percent."

"You'll cook the telemetry board," Brannar said.

"I need the weld cracked, not the board preserved. Hit it."

Brannar drew his sidearm, dialed the rotary choke down to the lowest threshold, and touched the copper muzzle to the fused bolt. A blue arc of coherent plasma flashed across the contact point.

The brittle weld fractured with a sound like breaking glass.

Velskr drove the pry bar beneath the relay's main chassis and hauled backward with every ounce of leverage in his shoulders.

Metal tore. The thick neural taps tore loose from the manta's spinal trunk with an eruption of glittering golden fluid. Velskr ripped the heavy cobalt cylinder clear of the flesh and held it aloft in his armored fist.

Beneath them, the leviathan gave a massive shudder. The angry crimson pulse fading from its dorsal conduits slowed, shifting back toward a deep, bruised violet. The beast's auxiliary thrusters sputtered and died, dropping their velocity just as the first outer hail of dust from the Iron Shoals pinged harmlessly against their suits.

"Dive is aborting," Brannar breathed, lowering his wrench. "We're drifting clear of the primary debris shelf."

Velskr turned the heavy transponder cylinder over in his grip. The casing was hot enough to scorch the insulation on his glove palms.

Brannar reached over and slammed a magnetic data-tap into the unit's diagnostic port. "Buffer is still live. Pulling the navigation cache now." He tapped his wrist display, his visor reflecting green rows of scrolling imperial runes. "Got it. Vanguard fleet vectors, picket ship frequencies, and the command route through the Shoals. We have their whole deployment schedule."

A red beacon on the unit's faceplate flashed three times in rapid succession, followed by a sustained high-gain hum that resonated directly inside their suit speakers.

"What is that?" Velskr asked.

In the cockpit above, Torvund's voice lost every trace of its usual ironical detachment.

"That is an emergency sever-ping," Torvund said. "Encrypted naval carrier. It just broadcast our exact orbital coordinates."

Across the forward horizon, deep within the tumbling shadows of the Iron Shoals, three sharp blue sensor flares ignited in the black. A military picket ship had just brought its forward targeting arrays online, painting the drifting manta with tight-beam acquisition fire.