All Chapters of Marked by the Enemy King: Chapter 41 - Chapter 50

The iron cables of the crane shrieked, shedding showers of orange rust as they dropped the massive thirty-ton life pod onto the flat bed of the waiting cargo car. The heavy carriage groaned, its massive spring suspensions bottoming out with a loud metal-on-metal clang that echoed through the dark railway tunnel."Unshackle it! Faster, Aris!" Nikos yelled, pressing his back against the vibrating rusted metal of the locomotive's main engine block.Another shockwave from Jenderal Kyras’s artillery rumbled through the basalt mountain, shaking loose a fresh curtain of gray stone fragments and dust. One particularly large chunk of granite crashed through the high canopy, obliterating a section of the steel gantry platform they had just stood on three minutes prior.Dr. Aris tumbled onto the carriage, his knees skinned, his hands fumbling wildly to detach the thick steel guide ropes. "I’m deadass doing my best, Nikos! The locking mechanisms are half-frozen! I can’t clear the second bracket!"

The freight train hit a rusted rail junction with a bone-shattering clank that bucked the entire chassis upward. Nikos was thrown back against the vibrating cold steel of the ore car, his hands reflexively clamping over his midsection to cushion the child. The metal tunnel screamed—a grinding, metallic screech of wheels biting into corroded track that sent showers of glowing, white-hot sparks whipping past them like tracer fire."We’re moving too fast!" Aris bellowed, his voice straining to be heard over the deafening mechanical roar. The doctor was hunched over the stasis pod, bracing his shoulder against the glass cylinder as it threatened to slide off the reinforced trolley mounts. "These rails were built for slow-moving coal shuttles in the nineteenth century, not for an armored locomotive running a dead-engine surge!""I don't give a damn about the load rating!" Nikos screamed back, hauling himself to his feet. His legs felt like lead pipes filled with mercury, but the raw, buzzi

The metal-rimmed tires of the freight train screamed against the freezing curves, but the sound of tactical boots landing on the carriage roof was a lot louder.A high-frequency round sheared through the sheet-metal barrier right above Nikos's head, spraying a line of bright orange sparks into his eyes. He squeezed himself flatter against the damp flatbed floor, his hands wrapping defensively around his abdomen. Under his coat, his middle was rock-hard, vibrating with a high-pitched, metallic hum that felt less like a fetal heartbeat and more like a dying cooling fan inside an overtaxed server."They're going to decouple us!" Dr. Aris roared from behind the ruined gantry console, his bald head gleaming with grease and sleet. He was frantically shooting his hand-laser into the darkness of the trailing car. "Two more rigs just clamped onto our rear chassis. If they blow the magnetic linkages, they can drag the King's capsule straight off the platform!""I deadass can't keep doing this,"

The void wasn't black—black had depth, shades, a distance. This was nothing.Nikos sat on the slick, greasy floor of the abandoned heat terminal, his back pressed against the curved glass of King Andreas’s stasis pod. The glass was ice-cold through his shredded tunic, but the deep, mechanical hum of the survival cradle felt like a god in the silence. It was the only thing holding the world in place."Deadass can't see a single thing," Nikos croaked, his fingers digging into his eyes as if he could scoop away the static. His vision was a heavy, dead curtain of grey film and red ghosting shadows from where the current had sizzled his optics. "Doc? Are you... you still on the gantry?""I'm here," a voice cracked to his left, followed by the sounds of wet hacking and frantic plastic rustling. Aris sounded half-frozen. "Don't touch your face, Nikos. You smell like an electrical fire and raw carbon. Stay still."Nikos laughed, though it sounded like he’d swallowed glass shards. "Move where,

The rumble from the street-level streets wasn't a generic distant sound; it was the rhythm of a burial. Above the damp, rot-clotted vaulted stones of the Sewer Crown, trench warfare had officially broken out in the city's heart. Nikos felt every vibration—every shell impact, every boot-scramble, every automated weapon drone scream—directly through his aching spinal column. He was deep enough to be hidden, but low enough to feel the vibration of an empire being chewed into mulch."Connect it! Faster, Aris! The signal bypass is practically dead on its feet," Nikos wheezed, slamming his raw back against the moss-slicked rotunda wall. He held his distended midsection with trembling fingers. Inside his womb, the hum was no longer rhythmic. It was erratic—a chaotic mechanical shiver that vibrated so high it threatened to melt the marrow in his bones.Dr. Aris was a frantic blur in the dark, shadows from his localized portable strobe light dancing across the soot-streaked bricks. "I am tryin