We dodge at least four firefights on our way downward, ducking into stairwells or circling back or just making a mad dash away from them. The Terran marines and Unbroken warriors are still cutting each other to pieces all over the ship, but it’s only a matter of time before the TDF wins through. Those marines called Ty by name—they know who we are, and I know what they’re here for. We need to get Auri out of here or all this has been for nothing.
We dash past a turbolift shaft, and Finian drags me to a sudden halt.
“Hold up,” he says, popping a multi-tool from his exosuit’s arm. He goes to work on the controls, prying the panel off the wall. The lighting flickers again, dropping us into blackness before struggling to life once more.
“Emergency power’s almost dead,” I say. “We can’t ride that down.”
He looks up from his work and winks. “Who said anything about riding?”
I hear the clunk of a lock, the sound of grinding metal. Fin pushes his silver-clad fingers into the gap between the doors, and slowly, exo whining with the strain, he pries them apart. The doors open out into nothingness—just an empty shaft running the entire depth of the massive ship. He taps a control on his suit, and globes in his fingertips light up, cutting a bright swath through the gloom.
“We supposed to fly down?” I ask. “I left my broomstick in my other pants.”
Fin blinks. “Either broomsticks aren’t what I think they are, or you’re being Scarcastic with me again.”
“How the hells are we going to get down, Fin?” I demand, my temper getting the better of me. “It’s a hundred-meter drop and there’s no power to drive the lift. Even the emergency systems are failing!”
“And what happens when the emergency systems fail, Scar?”
“We all suffocate and die?”
“Well … yeah, that’s actually a good point. But before that?”
“I have no idea!” I cry, flailing. “I spent my only class on enviro systems making out in the back row of the lecture theater!”
(Jorge Trent. Ex-boyfriend #24. Pros: Adores musicals. Amazing dresser. Calls his mother three times a day. Cons: You see where this is going, don’t you?)
Finian taps his temple with his forefinger and smiles.
“Watch and learn.”
We wait in the corridor a few moments more, listening to the clamor of distant firefights, the heavy tread of approaching boots. The overheads are flickering in time with my heartbeat, every second we waste is another closer to capture or execution, and I can’t believe we’re just standing here waiting for—
The Andarael’s emergency system coughs its dying breath.
The power finally stutters and dies.
And along with it, of course, goes the artificial gravity.
It takes me a moment to realize. But then, by the light of Finian’s glowing fingertips, I see strands of my hair sent floating with the slightest movement of my head. The sickening feeling of vertigo I always get shifting into low grav comes over me, the sensation of my insides lifting up and floating free inside my body. Suppressing the urge to puke into my enviro-mask, I manage a smile.
“You’re an insufferable smart-ass most days, Finian de Seel,” I sigh. “But you do have your moments.”
Finian gives an experimental kick, lifting himself off the ground before arresting his momentum with one hand against the elevator door. He pushes himself inside, moving like a fish underwater, grinning and offering his hand.
“Milady?”
I grab hold, his actuator-assisted fingers gripping mine ever so gently. And with that, Fin kicks off the wall and sends us soaring downward, flying along the shaft, one hand holding mine, the other held out before us to light the way. My hair billows around my face like clouds, and I feel like I’m falling and flying all at once and for just a moment I forget where and who I am.
But not who I’m with?
And I glance at Fin out of the corner of my eyes and …
I hear the thudthudthud of a heavy gun somewhere below, smell fire in the rapidly thinning air. We reach the lower levels of the shaft and Fin slows our flight with taps of his hands against the wall, finally pulling us to a complete stop outside the docking bay doors. Then he’s at work with his multi-tool again, prying apart a manual release, clever fingers moving quick as the lock clunks and the doors part just a tiny crack.
Peering out into the dark of the bay, we quickly discover what’s making all the racket—someone’s