The guard tower didn't just fall; it dissolved.
Julian's sonic lance had struck the structural support struts. The vibration liquefied the metal at the molecular level. The tower groaned, listed to the right, and then toppled slow-motion into the lava lake below.
SPLASH-HISSS.
A geyser of molten rock erupted, spraying the gantry. Guards screamed as the heat washed over them.
"Kill him!" the Overseer shrieked from the upper platform, aiming his heavy Aether-pistol. "Kill the slave!"
"I'm not a slave!" Julian roared.
He raised his gauntlet again. The copper coils whined. He didn't aim at the Overseer; he aimed at the mag-lock control panel on the wall.
THWUMP.
The panel sparked and exploded.
Click-clack. Click-clack.
Down the line of the "Slag-Run," the magnetic collars on a hundred slaves deactivated. They didn't fall off, but the red lights turned green. The kill-switch was dead.
The slaves froze. They touched their necks. They looked at Julian, standing amidst the steam with a glowing blue hand, defying the masters.
"Fight!" Julian screamed at them. "Or burn!"
It was the push they needed.
A burly miner roared and swung his titanium shovel at a guard, taking his head off. Chaos erupted.
The Melee
"Cover me!" Lyra yelled, grabbing a fallen guard's stun-baton. She moved like a dancer through the brawl, dodging clumsy swings and delivering precise, electrical strikes to the joints of the armored troopers.
Isolde was less graceful but more brutal. She wielded her heavy shovel like a halberd, knocking guards over the railing into the magma.
"This is better than a bar fight!" Isolde laughed, ducking a laser bolt. "Warmer, too!"
"We need a way out!" Julian shouted, blasting a drone out of the air with a pulse of sound. "They're calling reinforcements!"
From the upper levels, heavy doors slammed open. Magma-Troopers—elite guards in red, heat-shielded power armor—marched out. They carried flamethrowers and riot shields.
"Suppression formation!" the lead Trooper commanded. "Burn the contagion."
They advanced, a wall of fire pushing the slaves back toward the edge of the cliff.
Julian stood his ground. He checked his gauntlet. The heat was affecting the charge. The crystal was flickering.
I can't hold back a squad, Julian realized. I need something heavier.
He looked at the Titan.
The Magma Strider was agitated. The battle on the gantry was irritating it. It tugged at the massive chains, causing the whole foundry to shake.
Help us, Julian projected his thought toward the beast. Stomp.
The Titan didn't understand the words, but it understood the intent.
It raised one massive, obsidian leg and brought it down into the lava lake.
BOOM.
A tsunami of lava rose up. It crashed against the lower support pillars of the gantry. The metal groaned and twisted. The Magma-Troopers stumbled, their formation breaking as the floor beneath them tilted twenty degrees.
"Now!" Lyra grabbed Julian. "To the vents!"
"We're cut off!" Skid's voice crackled in Julian's ear. "I'm seeing heat signatures blocking the East exit. You're trapped on the bridge!"
The Troopers recovered. They raised their flamethrowers.
"Incinerate them," the commander ordered.
Julian raised his gauntlet for a final, desperate shield.
Suddenly, a sound cut through the roar of the factory.
WHOOSH-CLANG.
A heavy industrial hatch in the canyon wall—one marked TOXIC VENTILATION / DO NOT ENTER—blew open from the inside.
A figure stepped out onto the gantry behind the Troopers.
He was massive. He wore armor made of welded boiler plates and brass pipes. But the most striking feature was his chest.
Embedded in his torso was a massive, rusted iron cylinder with bellows that expanded and contracted with a wheezing, mechanical rhythm.
The Iron-Lung.
He held a weapon that looked like a modified jackhammer.
"Shift's over, boys," a deep, distorted voice rumbled from his mask.
The Iron-Lung pulled the trigger of his weapon.
THUD-THUD-THUD.
It didn't fire bullets. It fired Compressed Steam Bolts.
The super-heated slugs hit the Magma-Troopers from behind. The impact dented their armor and cooked them inside their suits. Three Troopers went down in seconds.
The Iron-Lung charged. He didn't run; he barreled forward like a train. He lowered his shoulder and slammed into the Trooper commander, knocking him off the bridge and into the lava.
"This way!" the Iron-Lung shouted to Julian and the slaves. "Into the guts!"
He pointed to the open vent hatch.
"Go!" Julian ordered the slaves. "Move!"
The slaves scrambled into the dark tunnel. Lyra and Isolde followed.
Julian paused. He looked at the Titan. The beast was watching him with one burning orange eye.
Soon, Julian promised.
He turned and sprinted into the tunnel.
The Iron-Lung stepped in last. He fired a steam bolt into the control panel of the hatch door.
CLANG.
The heavy steel door slammed shut and sealed, locking the Magma-Troopers outside in the heat.
The Tunnels
The ventilation shaft was dark, cramped, and smelled of sulfur. The only light came from the glowing bellows on the Iron-Lung's chest.
Wheeze... Click. Wheeze... Click.
He led them deep into the mountain, navigating a maze of pipes and maintenance crawlspaces.
Finally, the tunnel opened up into a large, natural cavern lit by stolen glow-lamps. It was a refugee camp. Dozens of escaped slaves were huddled here, sharpening scrap metal into shivs.
The Iron-Lung removed his helmet.
Beneath the mask was a face scarred by burns, with skin that looked grey and leathery from years of breathing ash. He was older, maybe fifty, but built like a tank.
"I am Kaelen," he rasped. "They call me Iron-Lung because the fumes took my real ones. This suit breathes for me."
He looked at Julian. He looked at the Resonance Gauntlet.
"You made a hell of a mess up there, stranger. The Overseer is going to purge the whole shift because of you."
"They were going to die anyway," Julian said. "I gave them a chance."
"A chance to die fighting," Kaelen grunted. "Better than dying on your knees, I suppose."
He walked over to a table covered in maps of the foundry.
"You're the Conductor," Kaelen stated. "The one the Empire is screaming about on the open channels."
"I am," Julian admitted. "And I'm here to break the Titan's chains."
Kaelen laughed. It sounded like a bag of rocks being shaken.
"Break the chains? Kid, those chains are made of Star-Metal. You can't cut them. You can't melt them. And the winch is shielded."
"Everything breaks," Julian said. "If you hit it hard enough."
"Maybe," Kaelen leaned on the table. "But you can't get to the winch. It's in the Command Spire. And between here and there is the Fabricator."
"The Fabricator?"
"A machine," Isolde spoke up, recognizing the name. "An automated factory that builds war-bots. It never sleeps."
"Exactly," Kaelen said. "The Fabricator guards the Spire. If you want to free the Titan, you have to shut down the factory first."
He pointed to Julian's gauntlet.
"You have a fancy toy. But do you have the guts to walk into a machine that builds killers?"
"I've fought inside a brain," Julian said. "A factory doesn't scare me."
"It should," Kaelen wheezed. "Because the Fabricator doesn't just build bots. It recycles... mistakes."
He gestured to the refugees.
"We need weapons. We need a distraction. You help us take the Armory, and I'll get you into the Fabricator."
Julian looked at Lyra. She nodded.
"Deal," Julian said. "Let's start a shift change."