"Again," Vegeta said, and the plate taught the room what again meant.
The band climbed back to three-point-five like it had never left. The collar held. The ribs settled. Breath found its notch and refused to move.
"Fifteen," the engineer called. "Twenty."
He didn't count. He let the seconds do the work themselves.
"Twenty-five," she said. "Cut in five."
"Thirty," he answered.
She didn't bother to argue with his mouth. She watched the wall. Nappa watched the mount. The clerk watched the lock light, because it was easier than watching the Prince.
[SYSTEM: Tier 2 sequence active. Advisory—fatigue markers rising.]
Good.
At twenty-eight his right knee tried to invent a new angle. He killed the idea before it learned to speak, but the body answered with a thin electric bark up the quad. At twenty-nine, pressure found a capillary in his nose and asked if it could come out and meet the world. It did.
"Cut," the engineer said, already hitting the kill.
The plate let go. Vegeta stepped down. A thin line of red traced out of one nostril, considered his lip like a map, and lost.
Nappa's hands hovered, then found something else to do. "That was a hello, not a goodbye," he said, which meant Are you cooked?
Vegeta wiped with the back of his wrist. "If it wanted to be important, it should have brought friends."
The engineer moved closer—not fawning, not afraid. "Micro-buckle on the right knee," she said, eyes where the pain had been written. "You're compensating fine. It doesn't get a second chance."
"It won't," he said.
"It will," she said, and that honesty bought her the next sentence. "We stop chasing a wall. We start writing one."
He looked at her, not smiling. "Say the shape."
"Pulse sets," she said, as if he'd already agreed. "You hold at three-point-two to load the system; we throw short spikes to three-point-six or three-point-seven for seconds, then return. You get exposure without resonance stacking in the frame or your joints. You learn to own the spike, not ride it."
[SYSTEM: Protocol 'Pulse Sets'—micro-burst variant available. Consent required.]
Vegeta tilted his head a hair. "Consent," he said, without looking at the panel.
"Good," the engineer said. "Breathing cadence changes. In on spike, brace the ribs, exhale after the fall, not during."
Nappa grinned. "So: don't breathe when it's worst."
"Breathe smarter when it's worst," she corrected. To the harness: "Three-point-two baseline. Pulse to three-point-seven for three seconds on my mark."
The hatch thumped once—the world outside remembering they existed and deciding it could wait. The lock light remained exactly itself.
"Ready," the engineer said. "Three-point-two—up."
The plate pressed like a grown-up hand. Vegeta set his stance half a foot narrower, tail countering, attention throwing a net over the right knee and daring it to try again.
"Pulse one," she said. "Now."
The room bit, fast. He caught the spike with ribs tight, breath held in the right place, and gave the air back after the fall like a tax he didn't mind paying.
"Again," she said. "Now."
The second bite found less to complain about. The wall didn't sing. The collar approved without talking.
"Again," she said. "Now."
On the fourth pulse the knee tried to remember being clever and failed. Good. He let the failure write itself down as a lesson he wouldn't reread.
"Hold," she said. "Baseline for thirty."
He held. The blood slowed without asking for a speech. Sweat stayed where instructed.
"Pulse five," she said. "Now."
The spike hit. He met it like a handshake with a man he might have to break later.
[SYSTEM: Pulse timing optimized. Suggestion—alternate stance offset left/right per three pulses.]
He shifted half a foot left on the next baseline, feeling the weight find new bone, new tendon. "Next," he said.
"Pulse six," she said. "Now."
The bay learned his cadence. Nappa stopped hovering and started setting tools where hands would want them later, because he liked being early. The clerk discovered that counting along under his breath made him less likely to drop dead from respect.
Four pulses became eight. Eight became twelve. The knee shut up. The nose forgot drama.
"Baseline down," the engineer said. "Reset. Then we spike to three-point-eight for one."
Nappa blinked. "That's higher than we said."
"We said we were going to write the wall," she said. "Walls with corners hold better."
"Do it," Vegeta said.
They brought baseline up. He owned it. The room owned its end of the bargain.
"Ready?" she asked.
"Yes," he said.
"Three-point-eight," she told the harness. "On my mark. Three… two… now."
The spike was clean and mean. He caught it. It left. The wall did not breathe in. The collar did not complain. The right knee did not invent theories.
"Again," he said.
"Again," she agreed. "One more only."
They gave him one. He gave it back with interest.
[SYSTEM: New ceiling sampled. Forecast—3.8g sustainable in pulses; sustained hold not advised.]
"Baseline," the engineer said. "Cut to zero in three."
The field fell. The hatch light softened and returned to hard red, because the door had opinions. The room exhaled without losing the shape it had learned.
"Shipyard," the clerk blurted, because the words were going to fall out of him anyway. "They parked the hull on the east pad. They're asking for our driver spec and our mount plan, and the supply sergeant would like—his words—'to be warned before you take the ribs this time.'"
Nappa laughed. "He learns."
Vegeta stepped off the plate and didn't let the earth change his mind. "Nappa."
"On it," Nappa said, already turning. "I'll give them the hull, the ribs, and manners."
The engineer wiped her hand on her coat and kept writing on skin. "I'll send two techs with the driver spec, mount pattern, and the part numbers they don't own yet. We'll build the mother room here and the traveling room there. They'll copy what we teach them."
"They'll try," Vegeta said. "We'll check."
Nappa paused at the hatch. "You want me to stay on this side or that side?"
"That side," Vegeta said, meaning the east pad. "If someone says no, make them speak slower."
Nappa grinned and went. The lock light watched him leave, then remembered its job and returned to doctrine. The door sealed.
The engineer lifted her chin at the plate. "You're not done."
"I hadn't thought so," Vegeta said.
"We pulse at three-point-seven for sets of five," she said. "Then we try a sustained hold at three-point-six for twenty. If anything sings, I cut it without asking."
He took the plate. "You don't need to ask."
[SYSTEM: Pulse set sequence adjusted. Cadence locked.]
"Baseline to three-point-two," she said. "Up."
He took the weight the way you take a name—without dropping it. The bay tightened around the task like a knot finally tied.
"Pulse," she said. "Now."
He met it.
"Pulse," she said again. "Now."
He met that too.
Three more made five, and his breath made the right shapes without needing oversight.
"Hold at three-point-six," she said. "Twenty seconds."
The weight arrived like a conversation that did not want his opinion. He gave it one anyway. Ten seconds behaved. Fourteen tried to ask for a knee. He sent a different joint to answer. Nineteen threatened to make the capillary dramatic again; drama was denied entry.
"Twenty," she said. "Cut."
He stepped off into air that had forgotten to be thin. He refused the kindness. "Again," he said.
They ran it twice more. The wall stayed exactly a wall. The mounts kept their mouths shut. Driver B earned a nod it didn't see.
Sweat finally made a line down his spine it had been holding back. He let it.
A runner hit the hatch and hit the lock with his fist a beat later. The light stayed red. The engineer waved him off with a circle of her hand that meant Not now in every language that mattered.
"Three-point-eight pulse," she said. "One. Then we talk about your favorite number."
Vegeta stepped back onto the plate. "Four," he said.
She didn't look up. "No."
He almost smiled. "Then teach me how to take it."
The engineer's mouth made the shape of a person who had heard a worse idea today and couldn't remember where. "We can micro-burst with a driver overshoot," she said. "Half a second. You won't hold it. You'll meet it."
"Meet it," he repeated.
"Baseline three-point-two," she said. "Up."
The room obliged. The lock light didn't care. The world shrank appropriately.
She put her finger above the switch. She didn't touch it yet. "If anything, and I mean anything, feels wrong, you say the word 'out' and step off. Pride doesn't keep bones from lying."
He didn't waste a word answering.
[SYSTEM: Micro-burst test armed. Max target 4.0g for ≤0.5s. Consent?]
"Consent," he said.
The engineer met his eyes, got the only permission that mattered, and turned the finger from hovering to doing.
"Bring it."