The sharp, digital chime of my system alert cut through the chaos like a knife.
Tti-ring.
[Three remaining.]
The words flashed across my HUD, stark and urgent. My jaw clenched, teeth grinding together as I fought to steady my breathing.
The storm raged around me, a tempest of wind and rain, lightning splitting the heavens with jagged streaks of white-hot fury.
The air smelled of ozone and burning metal, the aftermath of countless explosions still lingering in the atmosphere.
I couldn't slow down.
I wouldn't.
Beneath me, the ocean churned violently, waves crashing against the hull of the Whistling Derrick, the massive cruiser now barely holding together under the relentless assault. The ship was a graveyard of shattered steel and smoldering wreckage, its crew fighting for their lives belowdecks. And above it all—me—streaking through the sky like a comet, the last line of defense between annihilation and survival.
