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.
We crawled through the shaft. Metal walls. Exposed wiring. My dress caught on every protrusion. The fabric tore. I ignored it.
Behind us, guards were trying to open the maintenance panel. Shouting. Calling for override codes.
“They’ll get through,” Brevan said, his voice tight.
“Faster,” I said.
We reached the junction. The shaft split in three directions. I didn’t hesitate. “Straight ahead. Then down the vertical access tube.”
I grabbed the rungs and descended. Hand over hand. The tube was maybe three meters. My palms burned from the metal. I didn’t slow down.
The tube opened into another horizontal shaft. This one wider. Tall enough to crouch instead of crawl.
Brevan dropped down behind me. “Where does this lead?”
“Service bay sublevel. The hangar is accessible from there.”
“How far?”
“One hundred twenty meters. But the lockdown is progressing.” I glanced at Flinx. His eyes were still dim. “He can’t hold it much longer. Two minutes until full seal.”
Two minutes to cover one hundred twenty meters while being hunted. The math was bad.
“Let’s go,” I said.
We moved through the shaft. Faster now. The space allowed us to run hunched over instead of crawling. I led. I knew the way.
The shaft opened into a service bay. Industrial. Filled with maintenance equipment. Loading drones. Repair stations. And at the far end, a reinforced door marked “HANGAR ACCESS.”
Empty. No guards.
Too easy.
“Flinx, scan for—”
The door burst open.
Eight of Tarsus’s Elite Guard. Mondians. Heavy armor. Military-grade weapons. They filed into the bay and took positions. Professional. Coordinated. Blocking the only exit.
We ducked back into the shaft.
“They’re waiting for us,” Brevan said. “They knew we were coming.”
“The hangar is the only extraction point,” I said. “Every other exit is sealed or monitored. We have to go through them.”
I looked at the guards. Eight of them. All trained. All armed. All positioned to cut us down the moment we emerged.
My mind went through options. Scenarios where we survived this. I came up empty.
“We need a distraction,” I said. “Something big enough to split their attention.”
Brevan checked his blaster. “I have six shots left. Not enough.”
Flinx offered, his voice strained in my head.
“Then we need something they can’t ignore.” I studied the service bay. The equipment. The drones. The repair stations.
The loading drones.
They were autonomous cargo haulers. Designed to move heavy equipment through the villa’s service areas. Strong. Fast.
I didn’t ask Flinx. I ran from the shaft, sliding behind a stack of power cells, and sprinted for the bay’s main cargo terminal. I knew these systems; I’d studied them for my escape plan.
Brevan fired from the shaft, covering me. Pulses scorched the air over my head.
I slammed my palm against the terminal’s emergency panel. “Fire Suppression Test,” I muttered, hitting the override sequence. “Maintenance Cycle. Evacuate Bay.”
The loading drones activated. All twelve. Their engines humming to life.
The guards noticed. Turned toward the sound. “What is that?”
The drones lurched forward. Not in formation. Random. Chaotic. Each one following a different route but all of them converging on the guards’ position.
One guard tried to shoot a drone. The pulse bounced off its armored hull.
“Move!” Their commander shouted.
The guards scattered. Their careful formation breaking apart as two tons of automated machinery bore down on them.
“Now,” I said into my comm.
We ran.
Straight through the chaos. The drones were still moving. Still forcing the guards to dodge. We stayed low. Used the machines as cover.
A guard saw us. Raised his weapon.
Brevan fired. The pulse caught the guard’s shoulder. He went down.
We reached the hangar access door. Still open from when the guards had entered.
Flinx shrieked, jumping from the console to Brevan’s shoulder.
We plunged through.
The hangar was small. Private. Designed for discrete departures. And sitting on the landing pad, engines already warming up, was the sky-speeder.
Sleek. Fast. Exactly what Kallum had promised.
We sprinted toward it.
Behind us, the guards were recovering. Pushing through the drone chaos. Weapons raised.
“Get to the speeder!” Brevan shouted. He turned and fired. Covering our approach.
I reached the speeder first. Climbed into the pilot seat. Flinx leaped in after me and settled into the copilot position.
The controls lit up. Standard configuration. Throttle. Navigation. I’d run simulations on this layout for two years. But simulations didn’t shoot back.
Brevan backed toward the speeder. Still firing. Keeping the guards pinned.
The hangar’s main doors started closing. Heavy blast doors. The lockdown.
Flinx sent.
“I know!”
The launch sequence initialized. Power routing. Thruster alignment.
Too slow. The doors were closing faster than the systems were warming.
Brevan reached the speeder. Climbed in. “Can you fly this?”
“I’ve been practicing.”
The doors were halfway closed now.
I punched the throttle, skipping the pre-flight alignment.
The speeder shot forward. Not smooth. Not controlled. We lurched sideways before I corrected. The hangar spun. My stomach dropped.
“Straight!” Brevan grabbed the copilot controls. Helped me stabilize.
The blast doors were closing. The gap narrowing with each second.
Ten meters to the exit.
The gap was barely wide enough.
Five meters.
I could see daylight beyond. Sky. Freedom.
The doors were almost shut.
Three meters.
“We’re not going to make it,” I said.
“Yes we are.”
I pushed the throttle to maximum.
The speeder accelerated. G-forces pressing me into the seat. The gap was too narrow. We were going to hit.
Two meters.
The speeder’s hull scraped against the blast doors. Metal screaming. Sparks flying. Warning lights flashing across every console.
One meter.
We punched through.
Daylight. Open air. The villa falling away beneath us.
I pulled up hard. The speeder climbed. My hands shaking on the controls but holding steady.
Behind us, the hangar doors sealed shut. Too late.
Flinx’s eyes glowed warning red.
The comm crackled. Tarsus’s voice. Cold.
Absolute. “You think you’ve escaped? You think you’ve won?
I own this villa. Every guard. Every patrol.
Every ship.” His voice dropped to something darker.
“I will hunt you. And when I catch you, I will make you watch while I dissect that Vinduthi piece by piece.”
I looked at Brevan. His expression was grim. The Regalia was secure in his jacket.
“He’s coming,” I said.
“Let him.”
I banked the speeder toward the canyons. Away from the villa. Away from civilization. Toward the badlands where his private craft would have a harder time tracking.
Behind us, Tarsus’s pursuit craft launched.
We were airborne.
We were free.
But Tarsus was right behind us.