I was pretty sure I had it wrong, but it’s worth playing dumb for Scarlett’s laugh, a warm, throaty sound that sends a zing up my spine. “Right. A hippaf. Learn your animals, Scar. That one’s clearly dangerous.”
“The most dangerous land mammal in existence,” Zila agrees solemnly. “They are capable of crushing a person to death in their jaws.”
Lieutenant Nari Kim speaks from the doorway. “Wait, what’s crushing people to death in their jaws?”
“Hippos, apparently,” Scarlett replies, looking concerned about it.
“Wouldn’t worry too much, Red,” Nari tells her. “They don’t live in space. And there’s only five of them left anyway.”
“Not anymore,” Zila replies. “Our rehabilitation programs were very successful. They thrive in the aquatic environs found on Troi III.”
“Wait a minute,” I say. “You people brought a terrifying teeth-monster back from the brink of extinction why, exactly?”
Zila shrugs. “Science.”
Nari looks almost entertained for a moment, then remembers she’s a badass who’s technically at war with my people. Her frown returns, dark as ever. Still, I swear we’re growing on her a little.
When those security guards found us in the airlock on our first boarding attempt, I thought she’d given us up for sure. But our next nine tries have convinced me that for now at least, Dirtgirl is on our side.
A part of us knows how insane this is. Time travel. Temporal loops. Dying over and over, only to reset. But it’s hard to disbelieve the evidence smacking us right in the face every time we get perished. And, as Zila says, even though I’m the enemy to this girl, our interests are aligned. We all want to get out of this loop.
“All right.” Nari glances around the smoke-filled hallway. “Looks like we’ve figured out a way to get you in without getting your heads blown off.”
“Or asphyxiated,” Zila says.
“Or incinerated,” Scarlett shudders.
“Yeah.” I nod. “That one hurt.”
“Security is on full alert,” Nari continues. “From what I can tell, the damage to the core is bad.” The whole station shudders around us, as if it agrees. “Could be what’s left of Command makes the call to evacuate any minute now. So what are we looking for next?”
“Alert, medical personnel report to Beta Sector, Deck 14.”
“Information,” I say. “We’re going to need a terminal with top-level clearance if we want to go trawling through your records, though. The tech here is two hundred years old, and I’m into vintage, but I can’t hack that. I mean, I can’t even plug my gear into the outlets.”
“The tech labs will be crawling with people,” Nari says, frowning. “Thirty-six members of Sci-Div died during the test, and if Command suspects sabotage, security will be all over those levels like a rash.”
“Medical personnel required immediately, Deck 12,” calls the PA. “Repeat, medical personnel, Deck 12.”
“Think,” Scar says, encouraging. “Who won’t be at their station?”
The whole place rocks around us, metal walls creaking as the lieutenant slowly looks upward. “Dr. Pinkerton. The project lead. He got killed in the explosion. There’ll definitely be a personal terminal in his office.”
“Brilliant.” Scarlett treats her to one of the smiles that always make me feel like I’m standing in sunshine. “It’s looking pretty chaotic in here, but we’ll probably need uniforms if we’re going to be running around in the open safely. And some way to disguise Fin.”
“No, we can get to the admin deck via the emergency stairwells,” Flygirl assures her. “I like our odds of staying out of sight there.”
I think she’s the only one who does, but we follow, four sets of footsteps treading quiet on the metal stairs. It takes us longer than I’d like—nearly a quarter hour, I’d guess—but we manage to avoid the highly stressed and definitely shooty security patrols pounding all over the place.
The station rumbles again, and I hear a hollow booming through the walls. Scar reaches out to steady me as my exo hisses, and I squeeze her hand, give her a grateful smile. This whole place feels ready to come apart around our ears.
“Attention, Glass Slipper personnel. Hull breach on Decks 13 through 17.”
“I gotta be outta my goddamn mind … ,” Nari mutters.
“It is possible,” Zila agrees, climbing behind her. “But doubting your own sanity is reasonable proof that you are, in fact, sane.”
“Yeah, but maybe that’s what I’m supposed to think,” Nari says, glancing back to Zila. “Maybe none of this is real. Maybe I’m a POW right now, locked in some bleach-head psy-op lab, and this is all some drug-induced nightmare to get me to betray classified information.”
“Information about what?” I ask. “Seeing as how you’re a grunt and don’t actually know anything?”
“How should I know, Bleachboy?” Nari replies, sounding grumpy at having this flaw in her theory pointed out. “All I know for sure is, I get caught helping you three, I’ll be lined up with you and shot for being a traitor.”
“Attention, Glass Slipper personnel. All engineering staff report to Gamma Section, Deck 12, immediately.”
“Let me assure you,” Scar says, “having died twenty times, this is definitely really happening. Dying hurts.”
“It is difficult to understand what is occurring here,” Zila agrees, speaking over the blaring PA. “Hopefully our answers lie within the station’s computer system. But I do not believe you are insane, Lieutenant Kim. Or a traitor. In fact, I believe you are very brave.”
Dirtgirl raises an eyebrow at that, and Zila actually maintains eye contact for a few seconds before ducking her head and continuing upward. At the top of three flights, our co-conspirator slips out to check the hall, then ushers us after her.
BOOM.
The whole place shudders as something, somewhere, explodes.
“WARNING: CONTAINMENT BREACH. EVACUATE DECKS 5 THROUGH 6 IMMEDIATELY. REPEAT: CONTAINMENT BREACH.”
“We can cross from here to Beta Section,” Dirtgirl murmurs. “Then it’s two more floors up to Pinkerton’s office.”
The deck’s Beta Section is at the periphery of the station, lined with viewports looking into space. As we pass by, I can see the swath of darkness out there beyond the station’s skin. That thick length of cable runs out into the dark matter storm, hundreds of thousands of klicks, connected to the quantum sail in the chaos beyond. A tiny flicker of energy illuminates the tempest, lighting up those massive roiling clouds, millions of klicks across, its echoes ripping through the fabric of subspace.
Honestly, it gives me the screaming heebie-jeebies.
“It’s beautiful,” Scarlett says quietly, proving—as did her decision to kiss me—that her judgment is highly questionable.
CRASH.
Out in the storm, that same massive pulse of quantum energy we saw from the hangar bay strikes the sail again. It’s so bright that my vision is momentarily lost to the afterimages. Zila looks down at her wrist display.
“Forty-four minutes …”