The Visible Gain

The sled slammed to a halt at Bay 17's edge, treads shrieking. The duel clock burned overhead: 71:04:19. Four minutes inside the transit window. Barely enough.

Kai vaulted the rail, boots crunching regolith. The Redline-9 loomed on the flatbed behind him—armor flayed, left leg leaking black hydraulic fluid in a steady pulse. A loose knot of pit-runners and tier-seven hopefuls already ringed the prep zone. One barked a laugh as the frame's knee joint hissed and sagged another three centimeters.

“Fresh meat dragged in his own wreck,” someone called from the tool racks.

Kai slapped the quick-release straps. They snapped free like breaking bones. He muscled the frame upright against the service cradle. Servos whined in complaint.

Inside the cracked cockpit glass, the memory shard pulsed once—soft amber.

“Secondary reactor module,” the woman’s voice said, calm and surgical. “Left pectoral plate, third layer. Degraded but salvageable. Install it and combat viability climbs from eighteen to forty-seven percent. You have nine minutes until first call-out.”

Guild spotters in plain gray drifted along the catwalk, optics catching light. Kai drove the pry-bar under the pectoral seam. Metal groaned, then tore outward with a shriek that turned heads across the bay. The spotters froze mid-step.

He reached in, fingers sliding past coolant lines, and yanked the module free. Compact. Heavy. Amber telltales flickered along its curve.

“Primary bay,” the shard instructed. “Now.”

Connectors locked. A deep thrum rolled through the chassis and up Kai’s legs. Status glyphs stuttered awake.

18% → 47%

The frame straightened—joints clunking into alignment. Fresh oil gleamed under the floods. The jeers thinned into speculative murmurs.

Then the frame’s external speakers screamed three rising diagnostic tones. Conversation died.

The spotters turned as one. One raised a comm. Another smiled thin.

“They clocked the power spike,” the shard said, voice tigh

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