Chapter 26 · The Dead Man’s Cockpit

The floor vanished beneath Eli’s boots.

For one breath, he and Sera stood on nothing but a trembling sheet of alloy. Then the metal split down the middle with a shriek, and the darkness below opened its mouth.

Sera’s hand found the back of his coat. “Eli.”

“I’ve got you.”

“You’re the one falling.”

That was true. The broken floor tilted, and Eli slid toward the widening gap. Beneath him, red light pulsed through the underground chamber like a dying heart. Heat rolled up against his face, carrying the smell of scorched oil, ancient dust, and something metallic enough to taste.

Ash Zero Prime waited in the pit.

It was too large to be called a machine. Its armored shoulders scraped the cavern walls, and its head rose higher than the collapsing tower above them. Scarlet plates overlapped its body like the scales of some buried predator. No face marked the smooth helmet, only a narrow red line that had copied the scar along Eli’s left cheek.

The line brightened.

“COMMANDER IDENTIFIED,” the warframe said in Eli’s voice. “COCKPIT OPEN. AWAITING PILOT.”

Another section of the floor buckled behind Sera.