It was not breaking out of here today. And it was not breaking out tomorrow.
They still had a decent window.
Ren saw it as tight in the heat of the moment, yet it remained wide enough to finish winning the northern front, sweep today's board clean, and bring the entire Vanguard home to rest before the prisoner finished loading its gun.
Ren slowly pulled his fingers away from the warm metal, his earlier panic completely distilled into cold calculation.
The situation was grim, no question about it. The current iteration of the prison had hit its structural ceiling, the monster inside was winding up for a knockout punch, and the nature of their doomsday clock had changed from a repairable erosion bar into a hard deadline.
Even so, it was not a five-minute crisis…
It did not require Ren to gamble the entire war right now by trying to force an emergency upgrade on a half-empty tank while his left arm was still encased in crystal.
