Explosions popped and crackled behind us.
“Run!”
Yasmin
Diving through the data, all of my focus had been on the mission.
Finding that file.
But with a snap, reality shifted, and I realized we were in real danger.
Sheets of metal had fallen, littering the deck of the secondary control room. Twisted wall panels exposed sparking wires, and imminent disaster was everywhere.
I looked around frantically. “What’s happening?” I blurted out.
Hakon shook his head. “I’ll tell you about it on the way out,” he said. “Move!” He shoved metal out of the way to clear a path back to the corridor, and I hurried to follow in his steps.
“That ship is firing on us, that’s what’s happening.” He wrenched the door open, and we slid through. “So far, they’re either still getting the range or playing with Serrup.”
“Oh, he’d have the range already figured out the instant they arrived,” I answered absently as I hunched and twisted to avoid another hanging bunch of cables. “They’re playing with us, no question.”
“Huh,” was Hakon’s only reply.
I grabbed at his shoulder for balance, then froze. “If I can get to the Command Center, I can stop this!” I cried, swallowing.
Probably.
Except, I didn’t know why Uncle Ran and Luca were here, so far ahead of schedule.
But surely they’d stop when they knew I had the data.
“Alright then, I’m not exactly enjoying being stuck in a shooting gallery,” Hakon said.
He pulled the door of the turbo lift open and we dashed inside, shouting orders.
I eyed the mangled metal on the side of the car.
If I didn’t know better, the lift’s control panel had been clawed open.
“Don’t ask,” he growled as, with a groan, the lift headed up again.
“Wasn’t planning on it,” I answered.
He’d been remarkably good about not asking me too many details. Surely, I could extend him the same courtesy.
“But whatever you did, we need to get back up the spindle, fast.”
Except, despite the priority override code, despite whatever modifications he’d made, the lift only rose a fraction, then shuddered, starting and stopping in a jolting cycle.
“Give me a minute,” Hakon said, then reached into the wires, splicing and twisting them into patterns that I was fairly certain had not been authorized.
Then with the screech, the car surged upward.
I crouched down, holding onto the wall for balance.
“Told you it’d be—”
With a thud and a clatter, something hit the roof of the car.
And then we fell.
“Hold on!” Hakon shouted.
“To what?” I hollered back, but he was busy ripping back the access panel in the ceiling of the car.
The opening was covered with a pile of debris and bent permasteel. Clinging to the edge, he shoved it to the side to clear the way.
He hoisted himself out, then lay on his belly on top of the still-falling lift car, arm outstretched for me.
“Take my hand!” he shouted.
“Are you crazy?” I yelled. “Where can we go from there?”
“Don’t know yet, but it’s gotta be better than stuck inside a little box waiting to hit the bottom!”
That was a point in his favor.
Shakily, I pushed myself up and reached for him.
In an instant, he’d swung me out of the car, holding me tightly to his chest with one strong arm.
The sides of the lift shaft flew past us as we descended, almost too quickly to focus on.
“It won’t be long before this thing hits the bottom,” Hakon said. “Keep holding on, okay?”
“Wait, what?”
Instead of answering, he jumped.
I didn’t have time to do more than squeak before his free hand had wrapped around the guide rails I’d barely been able to see.
I risked a glance below. The lift car was still plummeting away, no more than a speck now. “What do we do now?” I whispered, already feeling exhausted.
“We climb,” he said grimly. “You go first; I’ll be right behind you.”
“You just want me to be the first to get hit with whatever falls down,” I teased.
“Be a hell of a lot harder for me to catch you if you fall, if you’re already lower than I am,” he shot back.
Second point to him.
And somehow, all of his points involved me falling to a grisly death.
“I don’t think I like this game,” I muttered.
“Why not?” he said from below. “Think of it as giving me a behind the scenes tour of seldom seen parts of the station.”
I snickered, and hoisted myself up one more time. The rails were studded at regular intervals with small openings, just big enough for me to squeeze my foot in.
Sort of like the world’s worst designed ladder.
I couldn’t imagine how Haakon