Suckers.
Zila—eight minutes remaining
Liebermann went down without shooting Nari this time. The security guards outside the lab have been incapacitated. We reach the sign.
NO UNAUTHORIZED PERSONNEL BEYOND THIS POINT.
“SECURITY ALERT, LEVEL 2. REPEAT: SECURITY ALERT, LEVEL 2.”
A stolen passcard against the door. A deep electronic hum.
And the announcement that tells me there are eight minutes remaining until the implosion of the station and the end of our final loop.
“WARNING: CONTAINMENT BREACH ESCALATION UNDER WAY, ENGAGE EMERGENCY MEASURES DECK 9.”
And I am here in person, in the large circular room I have seen over and over through Nari’s eyes. A cylindrical glass case dominates the space, cords and conduits connecting it to the computer banks against the walls. Our target is within, cracked and suspended midair, pulsing with light.
The first time I saw one of these probes, Aurora touched it, and lived half a year inside the Echo with Kal. I wonder briefly how they are. If they make it. If all of this will be worth it.
“What the hell are you doing here?”
Nari stuns the man in the white radsuit. Stuns his companion before he has time to draw his sidearm this time. I drop to my knees, plunge my hands into the machinery, narrowing my focus to the task at hand.
This moment is all that matters.
“Twenty seconds till company arrives,” Nari murmurs, perfectly still, eyes fixed on the door. A hawk hovering, waiting for her chance.
The system to eject the crystal out into space is mechanical rather than electronic—in case of a power failure, I suppose. There are four locks holding the probe in place, one at each compass point, and all must be disengaged manually. But the mechanisms are heavy, bolted shut. Scanning the floor around me, I crawl toward one of the unconscious engineers. Shoving him onto his back, I search his tool belt, grabbing a heavy wrench.
Hurry, Zila, hurry. This time you can save them.
“Heads up!” Nari shouts, and the doors burst open, and everything is sound and light, smoke billowing around me, and I spare one hand to tug my shirt up over my mouth and nose. The wrench fits onto the first of the couplings. I yank it, yank it again. It loosens. I pull it free.
Crawling to the second lock, I ignore the fire sizzling over my head, the smell of melting metal. Nari is holding them off, but there are so many, and I know there are only seconds remaining until one of them uses the covering fire of the others to charge into the lab.
I glance at the probe and wrench the second lock free, the alarms ringing louder. It still hovers, still pulses with light, anchoring my friend here.
Now.
“Zila!” Nari shouts as weapons roar and the column above her head explodes in a shower of sparks. “Hurry up!”
I crawl to the next lock on my belly, sirens screeching in my ears. My hands are slick with sweat, the wrench slipping in my grip as I pull hard, face twisting, finally uncoupling the third bolt.
“ZILA!” Nari roars.
“Ten seconds,” I shout back.
I am at the fourth lock now, fitting the wrench into place and yanking with all my strength to turn it. The last coupling resists, stubborn, infuriating, the fate of the entire galaxy resting in my hands. I am not a religious person, but a part of me desperately wishes I was.
“Please,” I whisper to whoever is listening.
Please.
And finally, finally, the bolt comes loose.
For a moment more, the pulsing glow lingers. The energy flowing through to the broken probe stutters. And at last, the light within flickers.
Then dies.
With a hollow clunk, the cylinder containing it opens, the broken probe slipping free, ushered out into the cold void of space.
Powerless.
Lifeless.
I did it.
But there is no time for celebration. Nari backs up toward me, still firing, cursing. The air is filled with gunfire, the noise almost deafening.
Five seconds.
Nari spends the last of her ammunition on the doorway, then ducks behind my column, lacing her hands together as we planned.
I drop the wrench and rise, planting one boot on her joined hands.
With a grunt, she stands, boosting me upward. I punch at the ceiling vent and grab the edges of the hole, pulling myself up in one movement, swinging around with no regard for the pain as I jam myself into too small a space, and lowering my upper body down to reach for her.
Nari jumps, and another bank explodes behind her, and for a moment I think our hands will not connect, because she is not tall.
Then her palms slap into mine, and with everything I have, I pull her up just as the security patrol bursts in through the door.