Another group of guards appeared behind us. Closing the trap. We were caught between two forces with nowhere to go.
Tarsus’s voice came through every speaker. Every comm. Everywhere. “You’re surrounded, Brevan. There’s no escape. Surrender the Regalia and I might let the human live.”
Carys looked at me. Her expression calm despite everything. “What do we do?”
I measured the odds. The distances. The angles. Two groups of Tarsus’s elite guard. Limited ammunition. A lockdown protocol counting down.
No good options.
But I’d been in worse situations.
I hoped.
CARYS
We were pinned. Guards ahead. Guards behind. Brevan’s stolen blaster at forty percent charge. My escape plan reduced to hoping someone had a miracle.
Brevan looked at me. “When I move, you run left. There’s a maintenance access panel three meters down that passage. Get it open.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Buy time.”
He stepped out from cover.
The guards ahead opened fire immediately. Brevan was already moving. Not toward them. Toward the wall. He grabbed a loose section of utility pipe and yanked. The pipe tore free in a spray of coolant vapor. White clouds filled the corridor.
The guards’ targeting lasers scattered in the mist. They were firing blind.
I ran left.
Three meters. The maintenance panel was exactly where he’d said. Standard access point. Biometric lock.
Flinx was a heavy, silent weight on Brevan’s shoulder, his eyes dimmed, all his power focused on fighting the lockdown. He couldn’t help me here.
I hit the panel’s emergency release with the heel of my hand. Nothing. Tarsus had locked it. I pulled the slicer spike I’d grabbed from Brevan in the office—I’d snatched it when he grabbed the blaster—and jammed it into the lock.
Behind me, Brevan fired into the vapor cloud. The guards returned fire. Pulses hitting walls. Equipment.
The lock indicator stayed red. The spike was too slow.
The guards behind us were closing. Their shouts getting louder.
Brevan appeared through the vapor. His jacket was scorched. He pressed against the wall next to me.
“How long?” he asked.
“It’s not working!”
The lock turned green. Flinx. He’d diverted power for one second.
I yanked the panel open. The maintenance shaft beyond was narrow. Dark. But it led somewhere that wasn’t here.
“Go,” Brevan said.
I climbed in. Brevan scrambled in after me, Flinx jumping to my shoulder. Brevan pulled the panel shut just as pulses hit the spot where we’d been standing.
“Route found,” I said. “This way. Forty meters to a junction. Then down two levels.” This was my plan. I knew these tunnels.
