Restricted Salvage

Forty-seven hours remained on the re-evaluation clock. In Sector Nine, time didn't tick; it eroded.

Above, a shutter groaned—the sound of tortured metal vibrating through the floor and into Rian’s boots. Amber alarms bathed the salvage bay in a rhythmic, sickly pulse, casting jagged shadows across the rusted graveyard of frames. Rian crouched inside the hollowed-out shell of a support unit, the stabilizer case clamped under his arm. His left side bled heat—a jagged, pulsing warning on his HUD—as the cooling lines struggled to compensate for the structural breach in his thoracic brace.

Maintenance levy. Bracket assignment. Re-evaluation. It was all the same countdown, just wearing different masks.

He looked up at the collapsing lane. Milo had been right: the secondary stabilizer was here. The housing pattern matched the Vanguard-series specs he’d memorized, a haunting echo of the frame’s original architecture. But the sector’s security grid had finally caught the scent.

A white lens snapped open in the dark.

The drone unfolded from the ceiling ring with cold, expensive precision—academy-grade plating, polished sensors, and three articulated barrels. It swept the chamber in a single, clinical line. The beam hit Rian’s frame, painting his armor in a harsh, accusatory red.

“Restricted salvage breached,” the machine chimed. “Stand by for containment.”

Rian didn’t argue. He shifted his weight, ignoring the screech of grinding joints, and moved.

The drone fired. The first burst stitched sparks off the wreck spine where his head had been a heartbeat earlier. His cockpit flooded with data—barrel rotation, thermal bloom, sensor lag—a frantic, incomplete map of his own impending death.

Not perfect. Enough.

He stopped moving like prey. He moved like a scavenger who knew the room’s geometry better than the hunter. The bay was a graveyard of half-collapsed support columns and oily, stagnant water. He backed into a narrow lane, kicking a support column with his frame’s heel actuator. The metal screamed and buckled, forcing a hanging bulkhead to tilt, momentarily obscuring the drone’s line of sight.

The machine adjusted instantly, sliding left. Rian shoved his frame sideways, letting the drone’s second volley tear through the empty space where his thoracic brace had been. The rounds carved molten grooves into the wall, the impact ringing through the bay like a funeral bell.

Too loud. Too much heat.

He needed to break the drone’s lock. Rian dragged the stabilizer case by its handle, clipped a bent rail, and flung it down the trench. The case hit the water with a metallic slap. The drone’s sensor face tracked the motion on instinct.

Now.

Rian slammed his frame under the dead skeleton of a Vanguard torso as the drone burned through the trench, chewing up the rail where he’d been. He emerged on the far side, the stabilizer case in hand, the inner chamber directly ahead.

“Of course it’s a timed cage,” he muttered.

The drone descended, its movements tighter, more predatory. It had adapted. The next shot banked off the wet floor, targeting his failing hip mount—the exact point of his frame’s greatest vulnerability. Rian twisted, pain flashing through his nerves as the frame obeyed, the movement saving the brace but costing him a strip of outer armor.

He pushed the module harder. The data feed turned into a blur of red, but it gave him the exchange he needed: the drone was mapping his weakness, trying to take him apart piece by piece.

Attrition.

Rian switched tactics. He moved where the drone wanted him to, but only to bait it into firing at load-bearing structures. He drove his frame into the wreck skeleton, forcing the drone’s fire through a support spine. The structure groaned and collapsed, the drone rising to compensate.

There it was. The stabilizer housing.

It sat in a sealed cradle behind the bulkhead, a black ring of scorched fasteners. It wasn’t just a part; it was the missing heart of the Vanguard mount. The component that would let his module run at 100% capacity instead of this throttled, dying state.

Rian dropped flat as the drone’s rounds carved across the chamber. A warning light bloomed: Structural stress critical. He pushed the module, ignoring the heat spike. He had the pattern. He had the target.

He crawled to the bulkhead, wrenched the cradle open, and hauled the stabilizer free. It was heavy, dense, and precise.

Match verified. Vanguard-series secondary stabilizer. Compatibility path unlocked.

The drone dropped into the chamber with a heavy thud. It was scarred, reinforced, and built to punish. It wanted the part back.

Rian didn’t give it a choice. He jammed the stabilizer into the exposed mount. It didn’t seat. The frame was too warped. He shoved again, feeling the mount bite into the armor.

Two options. Both bad.

He could save the frame’s structure or seat the part and tear his left side apart. The drone fired. Rian saw the path: the shot was for the brace. If it landed, he was done. If he moved, he might save the frame but lose the limb actuator entirely.

He severed the actuator.

The left lower limb snapped free, dropping the mech’s mass and throwing the shot high. Rian slammed into his harness as the stabilizer locked home with a deep, satisfying click.

Efficiency: 12% recovered. Latency: reduced.

The frame moved differently—less lag, cleaner transfer. It was still a wreck, but it was a functional wreck.

Rian pivoted, using the wreck skeleton as a pivot point, and let the drone’s own shot slam into the bulkhead. The chamber shuddered. The sector’s seal sensors overrode the drone’s lock.

He didn’t look back. He pushed for the lane, his crippled mech lurching, the severed limb dragging. Every step was a negotiation with collapse. When he hit the hangar threshold, the public boards were already live.

Rian Vale. Provisional rank active. Maintenance levy: 18,400 credits. Re-evaluation: 47:00.

Waiting under the light spill was Captain Sera Kade. Director Voss stood beside her, his face a mask of bureaucratic malice. He took one look at Rian’s crippled frame and smiled.

“Unauthorized salvage,” Voss said. “That will be noted.”

Rian kept the cockpit sealed, the stabilizer case hanging in plain view. Kade’s eyes moved from the case to the frame’s readouts. She wasn’t smiling. She was counting.

“There’s also the matter of the levy,” Voss said, gesturing to his techs. “Reassignment is the cleanest solution.”

“Not in my hangar,” Kade said. The words were flat, absolute. The room went silent.

Voss’s jaw tightened. “Captain, this frame is unsafe.”

“And it just produced a valid restricted recovery,” Kade countered. “I’m seeing the logs before anyone touches it.”

She looked at Rian. Not warm. Not trusting. Interested.

She saw it all—the stabilizer, the damage, the way the part had changed his frame’s behavior. She knew he was hiding something, but the next bracket announcement hit the board behind her—a harder tier, less forgiveness.

“Let him through,” she said.

Voss stared, but the compliance techs hesitated. Rian moved, pushing the mech past the threshold. He could feel the frame’s balance settling around the new part.

Forty-seven hours. A levy designed to break him. A ladder that wouldn’t stop rising. And behind him, Kade watched like she’d found the edge of a blade she hadn’t known was hidden in the handle.