A quantum sail.
This station, this rig—all of it must have cost a fortune to build. And the thing is, if you could ever make one of these things work, the power source would be unimaginable. But the reality is that setting up a quantum sail in a dark matter storm and tethering it to the station that you yourself are on is like slathering your favorite body part（s） in freyan and marching straight into a caladian’s den. You are absolutely, positively asking for—nay, jauntily demanding—a very unpleasant and ultimately terminal experience.
“These people are deranged,” I whisper.
We draw close to the dumpy station, still spewing vapor out into the dark, its hull scarred and blackened. It’s just ugly, like someone really angry built it. I don’t know what it is with Terrans and their design aesthetic.
We cruise into a small landing bay, and though Lieutenant Kim still hasn’t managed to raise her commanders on comms, the automated docking arms latch on to our ships, the shudder of impact running through the whole shuttle as we’re brought down onto the deck.
As the bay doors cycle closed behind us, Lieutenant Kim orders us to our feet. My heart is in my mouth as she marches us down to the shuttle airlock. Even though I’ve already been killed nine times today, my body is still full of adrenaline, my brain ringing with the thought that I don’t want to die.
I don’t want to die.
Our airlock door clunks open, and we step into a secondary airlock connected to the main hangar. The bay is bathed in flashing red light. Pistol aimed at us, Kim types an access code, the main hangar doors open, and we’re suddenly stepping out into a scene of total chaos.
Dozens of crew in military uniforms are running around, feet stomping on the metal floor. Thick smoke billows from vents in the ceiling. Half the hangar is in the dark, the other half lit by emergency lighting. A squadron of fighters like Kim’s is bathed in a flickering bloodred glow. Terrans are scurrying around, wearing breathers to protect themselves from the fumes. Scar starts coughing, Zila too. The stink is like burned hair and plastene.
The wall to our left has a long plexiglass window, and I can see the distant sail dancing like a kite in a storm, the tempest pulsing beyond. It’d be almost pretty if it—
“Attention, Glass Slipper personnel. Hull breach on Decks 13 through 17.”
The loudspeaker temporarily drowns out everything else, and when it cuts out, an annoying siren starts whooping instead.
“Move,” says the lieutenant behind us, poking me between the shoulder blades with her gun.
“I don’t want to,” I say.
“What he said,” Scarlett agrees.
“Attention, Glass Slipper personnel. All engineering staff report to Gamma Section, Deck 12, immediately.”
“This will end poorly,” Zila predicts again.
“Kim!” a voice roars. “Where the hell have you been?”
We shamble to a stop, and Kim comes to attention. The speaker is bearing down on us out of the red light and smoke, a huge, broad-shouldered man with no hair on his head but one of those weird mustaches Terrans grow, looking like it’s trying to crawl out of his nostrils. When he spots me, his eyes bulge wide, and my stomach crawls up into my chest.
“What the hell?” he barks. “Is that a goddamned Betraskan? Explain yourself, soldier!”
“Apologies, sir!” Kim salutes. “I tried to raise command on comms but got no response! These three broke the exclusion zone, sir!”
“So shoot them!” he roars.
BOOM.
The whole place shudders as something, somewhere, explodes.
“WARNING: CONTAINMENT BREACH. EVACUATE DECKS 5 THROUGH 6 IMMEDIATELY. REPEAT: CONTAINMENT BREACH—”
Kim raises her voice over the clamor. “Sir, I think the anomalies surrounding their arrival warrant Sci-Div’s attentions. If it wasn’t urgent—”
“I’ll tell you what’s urgent, Lieutenant,” he snarls. “The containment field around the core is breached, half the upper decks are locked down, and thirty-six people are confirmed dead, including Dr. Pinkerton! The whole goddamn station is coming to pieces around us, and you choose now to bring Betraskan spies into a classified facility? Are you insane?”
CRASH.
Out in the storm, the dark lights up, black to roiling mauve, as a pulse of dark energy directly strikes the sail. The energy burst is so intense that even catching it through my contacts from the corner of my eye, my vision is momentarily lost to the afterimages. I blink furiously as the pulse runs up the cable at the speed of light, cascading into the station itself. A bank of computers to our right explodes in a spray of sparks. A new blast of louder, more annoying alarms screams through the loudspeakers. I almost miss Zila’s words when she mutters to herself beside me.