Fragmented Light

Chapter 7: In the Wake of Tremors

The golden light faded, leaving afterimages dancing in everyone's eyes. Where the corporate agents had stood, frost crackled on the stone floor, spreading in almost-perfect patterns that kept trying to repeat themselves. The shadows they'd left behind moved wrong, reaching with hungry fingers before reluctantly retreating.

"Time to go." Lyra's voice came out thick with blood. "Things to do. Corps to annoy. Reality to set on fire."

She pushed herself up on trembling arms, ignoring how bones ground against each other inside her chest. One foot found purchase. Then the other. For a moment, she stood – swaying but upright, golden light still flickering beneath her skin like dying stars.

Then her body remembered it was broken.

The collapse came in stages, each one more spectacular than the last. First her legs simply stopped existing as functional limbs. Her knees buckled inward at angles knees were never meant to achieve. The rest of her followed, torso folding like industrial equipment under too much pressure. Blood that had been waiting for its chance painted abstract patterns across the floor as she crumpled.

She might have screamed. It was hard to tell over the sound of her ribs announcing their complete surrender to basic physics.

"Caught you." Jorran's voice came from somewhere above her, his arms keeping her from hitting the ground full-force. His remaining eye was wide with a fear she'd never seen there before. "I've got you, kid."

More blood bubbled up her throat, golden sparks mixed with red this time. Every breath felt like mining charges going off inside her chest. The fever that usually burned beneath her skin had turned to ice, like her body had finally run out of fire to give.

"Status?" Senna's voice cut through the grey haze trying to claim her vision. The doctor's hands moved with practiced efficiency over injuries that should have killed her already.

"Bad." Lyra tried to grin but it came out as more of a grimace. "But you should see the other guy's uniform. Got blood all over his nice corp whites."

"Not funny." Jorran's arms tightened slightly, careful of the damage. "Not even a little bit."

"Everyone out!" Senna's command carried the weight of someone used to being obeyed in medical emergencies. "Back to your sectors. Different routes, no groups larger than three." Her fingers found another broken rib, another ruptured vessel. "Voss, get word to Milra. Carefully."

The assembled workers scattered like disturbed tunnel rats, their footsteps echoing off walls that still hummed with wrong resonance. The crystals embedded in the stone sang a low, mournful tone that set teeth on edge and made old mining scars throb in sympathy.

"Lyra?" Senna kept her voice steady even as her hands catalogued catastrophic damage. "Can you hear me?"

A wet cough answered her, specked with blood and golden sparks. More blood painted copper patterns on the stone as Lyra tried to respond. Each drop caught the failing light strangely, pulsing with internal radiance before fading to dull red.

"Did they..." The words came out broken, wet. "Did you see what they really..."

"Don't try to talk." Senna glanced up at Jorran, sharing a look heavy with old fears. "We need to move her. My clinic. Now."

"The corp patrols—" Jorran started, but his arms were already shifting to better support Lyra's broken form.

"Will be the least of our problems if those things come back." Senna's hands hadn't stopped moving, hadn't stopped finding new damage. "Help me get her on something flat. And careful of the—"