The rhythmic shudder of the exterior shell was all that remained of the squall's fury, a muffled grind against the newly sealed bulkhead. Citra lay motionless upon the steel decking. Aris knelt beside her, his gloved fingers tracing the jagged fissure split across her visor, where sticky fluid pooled between shards of laminate. Her chest barely rose. Then, the Omen-Dial on his wrist flared. Not the angry, pulsing red of critical failure, nor the stark white of warning, but an amber projection. It flickered with a quiet gear-click, throwing pale brass illumination across the rusted rivets. [KUBAH STRUCTURAL EQUILIBRIUM: OPTIMAL] [EXTERNAL CONDITIONS: LULL. RECEDING FLOW VELOCITY. ATMOSPHERIC STABILITY: INCREASING] [SURVIVAL PROBABILITY: 98%] Aris stared at the readout, the amber projection glinting across Citra’s fractured faceplate. Atmospheric pressure had stabilized behind the partition. He unlatched the hinges and pulled the broken visor free. Her skin showed gray through engine grease and arterial spray, a deep split tracking from temple to jaw, but her pupils tracked him. A cough rattled behind her ribs. “You always… make things so dramatic, Aris,” she rasped, a faint, defiant smirk touching her lips. “Should’ve just said ‘please’.” He offered no reply. He pulled clean woven gauze from his utility pouch and pressed it against the torn skin beside her ear. "Stay down. The hatch holds." A guttural groan echoed from the mangled entryway to the Scavenger Quarters. A figure, barely recognizable through the gnarled debris, dragged himself forward. Mandor Karta. His heavy jacket was shredded, his face a roadmap of deep lacerations where the razor-sharp glass-rain had flayed his skin. His left arm hung uselessly, a shard of composite plating skewering his bicep. No chassis could seal flesh that fast. The corridor behind him stood empty, strewn with shredded scrap and severed copper conduits beneath the constant vibration of the deluge. Karta coughed, spitting a mixture of blood and black silt. He saw Aris, then Citra, his gaze darting toward the amber projection spinning above Aris's forearm. The swagger had bled out of his posture, leaving gray skin and slack sinew. He began to crawl, scraping his ruined body across the floor, leaving a glistening trail of crimson. He reached Aris’s boots, his good hand grasping at the worn leather. “W-Warden,” he choked out, his voice a pathetic croak. “Mercy. Please. I… I was wrong. I was a fool. Don’t… don’t send me out there. I beg you.” Aris looked down at the man who had tormented him, mocked him, tried to murder him. The man who now groveled, mirroring Aris’s own desperate pleas for entry a year ago, when his warnings had gone unheeded and the storm had devoured his old life. He saw the naked fear in Karta’s eyes, the same fear Aris had felt when he stood before the airlock, pleading for his life. The urge to drag the man to the exterior chute flared, then soured into cold calculus. Corpses produced no calories, and salvage crews were already under strength. Pak Tua was still breathing through a pinched valve two decks below, too weak to haul hydroponic vats alone. Citra had nearly bled out to keep the outer bulkhead pinned. The brass glyphs spinning on the dial offered no forgiveness, only raw headcounts and structural margins. "Get up," Aris said, voice dry as pumice. Karta scraped his boots against the decking, hoisting his back against the bulkhead. “Your augments,” Aris continued. “They are forfeit. Every one of them. You will work. You will earn your breath and your rations. Every single day.” He turned his gaze to a few stunned survivors, who were slowly emerging from the upper bunks, drawn by the sudden quiet. “Someone fetch the medical kit. Strip him of his enhancements. Now.” The survivors hesitated, then moved, recognizing the unshakeable authority in Aris’s tone. Karta’s face contorted, a silent scream of humiliation, but he offered no resistance. His power had evaporated with the storm. Aris watched them begin the painful extraction, then turned back to Citra. “The Hydroponics Bay,” Aris said, his gaze fixed on Karta as he was led away. “He will work there. For the rest of his miserable life. Under Pak Tua’s supervision.” Citra managed a weak, knowing smile. “Fitting. He always hated getting his hands dirty.” Later, with Citra stitched and sedated on a metal cot in the upper command post, Aris checked the ventilator lines feeding Pak Tua. The old mechanic's respirations were shallow but rhythmic. His lids lifted as Aris adjusted the regulator. “Karta… he is contained,” Aris said, his voice low. “He will tend the crops. Under your… guidance.” Pak Tua nodded toward the far partition where Citra lay resting. "The young carry the old. And the old keep the gears greased. She stood her ground, Aris." Aris nodded, then made his way to Citra’s cot. She was awake, watching him. “You saved us,” he stated, the words feeling foreign and heavy on his tongue. “You risked everything. For everyone.” He hesitated, then continued. “The Kubah needs you. As a partner. As a leader.” Citra looked up at him. "What does that mean? No shock harness? No tether on the air supply?" "No collar," Aris said. "You take lead on exterior runs. You choose your squad and your loadout. You answer directly to me, but nobody else dictates your line of retreat." The corner of Citra's mouth hooked upward, parting cracked lips. "Sounds better than carrying your trash under guard." Aris gave a short nod. He stepped out of the ward, the amber glyphs on the Omen-Dial ticking down their mechanical rotation. He walked to the reinforced viewport overlooking the valley. Outside, the downpour had dropped to a sullen spray over churning black floodwaters, the steel skeletons of Gunung-Besi's lower terraces protruding like rib cages through the grit. Inside the Kubah, water dripped predictably into catchment drains. The mechanical face on his wrist clicked forward one notch, calculating survival odds in cold, shifting fractions.

The Warden's Mercy