“Cordelia.”
She turned toward Thalen, who was kneeling beside a panel he’d pulled off the wall. It must have been seamless, because she’d never seen it when it was sealed.
“What is that?” she asked, moving to kneel beside him.
“A passage for the ship’s cleaning drones,” Rentir answered. “I did not think of that.”
“Ven and I were separated in our tenth cycle. They thought we had grown too dependent on one another. But we were only one room apart, and there was a passage just like this one between us. We used it until we were too broad across to fit, visiting each other at night.”
She looked back at the narrow passage, then at the two males.Too broad across…they would never fit, but she would. Tapping her comm, she brought up the map of the ship. The bridge was one floor above them, about a hundred feet to the right.
“Is there a way to shut these security measures down from the bridge?” she asked, looking up at Rentir.
His tail flicked hard, expression hardening, but he nodded tightly. “But you would need the clearance to do so, and you do not have it. Only those high-ranking officials on the ship can do such a thing.”
“And they’d be on the bridge, right? Someone who can shut it off must be.”
Again, he nodded stiffly. His eyes were wary.
“Describe them to me.”
“Cordelia…”
She stood up, cupping his face in her hands. “We can’t stay here waiting for someone to open that door and shoot us like fish in a barrel. I haven’t come this far to die like that. Have you?”
He sighed heavily, briefly closing his eyes. “I do not like this.”
“I know. You don’t have to like it. You just have to trust me.”
His eyes opened again, filled with an anguish she understood all too well.
“I’ll get the security system taken down, and the two of you will come meet me on the bridge. Yes?”
A muscle ticced in his jaw, but he nodded. “Yes,” he rasped.
“Tell me what they look like.”
And, however reluctantly, he did. She kissed him hard, ignoring the way Thalen cleared his throat, and lingered with her lips a hairsbreadth away.
“Iwillcome for you,” he murmured.
“I know.”
“Take this.”
She looked down at the object he was pressing into her hand. The armor disruptor.
“Rentir, I can’t?—”
“You must. Please. I cannot bear the thought of you without it.”
Her throat tight, she stowed the puck in the pocket of her jacket. “See you soon.” She dropped to her knees and crawled into the service tunnel.
Cordelia’s jaw ached from carrying her blaster between her teeth, but if she tried to tuck it anywhere else, it clanked damningly loudly against the metal walls of the service shaft. As it was, her shoulders and hips barely fit, dragging with a softscraping noise she hoped wouldn’t draw any undue attention. She glanced down at the holomap over her wrist, then up at the shaft that would lead her to the right floor.
She’d been hoping for a gradual ramp-up, and that had clearly been wishful thinking. This was a sheer climb straight up. There was a seam running down one side of the shaft, just big enough to stick her fingers into. She tore off her gloves and stuffed them into her pockets, then wormed her way into the shaft. Claustrophobia pressed in on her, making her vision waver momentarily, but she forced herself to breathe deep.
The shaft was at least wider than the horizontal section had been, giving her the little bit of room she needed to leverage her weight. Hand over hand, she used the crack to pull herself up a few inches at a time, forcing herself not to think about how far the drop was as she approached the top.
