Six thousand meters above sea level. Here, the air was more ice than oxygen. Through the shattered cockpit window, a knife-edged wind tore into Ethan’s lungs, forcing a dry, agonizing cough from his throat. Even the Land-Crawler’s resurrected engine—a mechanical Frankenstein of salvaged parts—was beginning to fail, gasping for air that wasn't there.
“Ethan! Engine temperature’s past the redline! The hydraulic cylinders are seizing!”
Mei’s voice drifted down from the upper hatch, muffled by the gale. Frost had already silvered her eyebrows and lashes. Ethan didn’t answer. He couldn't. He was pumping the manual hydraulics like a madman, his muscles screaming in protest. The batteries had died kilometers ago. Now, the only thing keeping the three-story monster moving was Ethan’s grip strength and raw, desperate pressure.
“Just… a little more,” he gritted out, the words freezing instantly. “Hold together.”
He wrenched the control lever. To their left, a sheer drop of thousands of meters waited patiently. As the Land-Crawler hauled itself up a near-vertical ice wall, its steel talons bit into the frozen surface, sending sickening shudders through the entire chassis.
Then, the silver haze overhead ignited into a violent, artificial red.
SHUUUU—!
Burning debris speared through the clouds, shrieking like falling stars as they slammed into the glacier. Commander Marcus—seasoned, relentless—had entered the final phase of 'Star-Fall.' Satellite fragments, their trajectories twisted by orbital lasers, were being guided down as kinetic fireballs, vaporizing the very ice Ethan was trying to climb.
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“They’ve locked onto us! Not Reapers—this time it’s the Guardian units!”
A massive explosion rocked the frame. An anti-armor missile from a Guardian drone slammed into the right auxiliary thruster. The Land-Crawler lurched violently, one massive track lifting into empty air, spinning uselessly over the void.
“Mei! Behind you!”
Ethan slammed the emergency release valve. High-pressure steam erupted from the pipes, cloaking the machine in a shroud of white chaos. Through the steam, Mei raised her mechanical crossbow. Hatred for the man beside her still burned in her gut, but it was eclipsed by a desperate, starving hunger to see the stars again.
“I told you!” she screamed, her voice cracking. “If you’re going to die—do it up there, not in this ditch!”
Her bolt whistled through the steam, punching through the sensor array of a circling Guardian drone. The flaming wreck plunged into the darkness below. And in that same moment, the Land-Crawler’s engine gave one final, metallic shudder and died.
A terrifying, absolute silence crashed down upon them.
Ethan reached into his pack with trembling, grease-stained hands and pulled out an old manual welder.
“Mei,” he said, his voice eerily steady. “I’m going outside. I have to reconnect the engine block directly. Bypass the main line.”
“You’re insane!” she shouted. “It’s minus forty out there! There are drones everywhere!”
Ethan met her eyes. The hollow ruin of his gaze was gone, replaced by a cold, sharp spark of purpose.
“I’m the warden, Mei. Remember?” he said quietly. “A criminal doesn't turn down a chance at atonement. Buy me two minutes.”
Before she could stop him, he threw himself out of the cockpit. Minus forty degrees ripped into his skin like a thousand razors. He didn't wipe the blood from his brow—it froze before it could run. Clinging to the ice-slick hull, surrounded by a rain of falling fire, Ethan seized the severed, sparking power lines with his bare hands.
Above him, the sky burned with silver flames, a hellish illumination of his own making. Beneath the sky he had broken, Ethan began the final, brutal act of engineering to open it again.
Ph.D. in Life Sciences, I’ve always been fascinated by how the human body and our machines react to environmental extremes. If you're curious about the biological limits Ethan is pushing, or if you want to see if he survives the next mile, come join the research team on Patreon!
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