“Not yet.” Adequin looked over her shoulder toward the doorway, where Puck helped Cavalon stand. His brow furrowed with pain, but his face had flushed with color. He leaned on Puck’s arm as he found his footing, then looked up and locked eyes with Adequin.
She inclined her head. “They might have a dictator on their hands, sooner rather than later. One who’s already trying to replace us.”
Cavalon slicked his sweaty hair out of his face and he nodded his agreement. “That’s … very true.”
Jackin let out a sharp sigh. “Okay, fine. You want to muster a force? Gather the Sentinels? How the hell are we even gonna begin to do that? All the gates at the Divide are off, except Kharon. We can’t go anywhere but inward.”
“Puck fixed Kharon,” Adequin said. “So we help the Typhos fix Zelus. Then the Accora with Eris. And so on…”
Jackin flexed his jaw but gave a short nod. “Okay, so let’s say that works, then what? We’d only have a handful of Hermes between us—which we can’t even take through the gates. And regardless, the second we try to take a single ship through, the Legion will know we’re still alive and come after us. How’re we gonna get everyone to safety without showing our hand?”
“Mesa?” Adequin turned to the Savant.
She stood beside Puck, wringing her thin hands nervously. “Yes, Excubitor?”
“Can you reverse engineer this technology? The reactor, I mean.”
Mesa’s brow raised. “Yes, well, I would need some…” She turned her look to Cavalon. After staring down at his boots for a few long seconds, he gave a quick nod. Mesa inclined her head, then turned back to Adequin. “Yes, Excubitor.”
“Jack?”
“Yeah, boss.”
“What’s the Typhos’s maximum personnel capacity?”
He blew out a long breath. “I don’t remember its make, but it was a capital ship. Maybe ten thousand?”
“Does it still have its jump drive?”
His exasperated grimace softened, then he exchanged a questioning glance with Puck. “It’s at least a hundred years older than the Argus, so, yeah. I don’t think they would have repurposed it. But it’d still need solar power to charge…” His words died in his throat as his gaze fell on the window, onto the collapsing mass they’d created, and his face fell slack.
“Cav?” Adequin asked.
“Yeah.”
“Are you with us?”
“Yeah, I’m with you.”
She raised an eyebrow, surprised by his lack of hesitation. He stood unaided, clutching his stomach in one arm, trying to hide his pain under a look of steadfast determination.
“Were you serious when you suggested putting this thing on a ship?” she asked.
He blinked in surprise. “Well, not just any ship. Not the SGL or the Synthesis, if that’s what you mean.”
“Could you build one into a capital ship?”
His mouth gaped open. “Uh…”
He stared past her, through the glass into the containment chamber, then threw a look to the terminal, then the atlas, then Mesa. He scratched the back of his neck.
A few moments later, he looked up, swallowed hard, and nodded. “I’ll need resources…”
“Of course.”
“And man power.”
“Certainly.”
“And time.”