The alarm bells are still blaring as we dart out of the prison, up a hallway, and through a… well, whatusedto be a door. When Lament says they blew a path, he means, like, literally blew a path. There’s a gaping hole in the first wall, and the second, and the third, like a giant punched its fist straight through the spaceship, and to hell with any obstacles.
“I thought you said The Parallax was indestructible,” I comment as we run.
“It would have been,” Avi replies, keeping pace easily despite her short legs, “until Lament threatened to spoil the season eight finale ofHippie Daysif I didn’t get him onto this ship. Which—rude,” she hisses at him. Lament throws her a flat look without breaking stride. She smirks. “I combined muster juice with supernova nitrate.”
I duck under a tangle of broken wires hanging from yet another blasted wall, glancing back at Master Ira (he’s breathing like it hurts, but nonetheless keeping up) as we follow Lament around a corner. “I don’t know what that means.”
“They’re Class X explosives.” We pass a frozen guard—Avi leapfrogs over his back. “They can’t be combined, or the force of the ensuing detonation will create a black hole.”
“But”—around another corner, past a trio of more paralyzed guards—“I don’t see any black holes?”
Avi’s smile is just a tad too enthused. “Yet.”
“What do you—?”
“The Time Stopper,” Youvu Hum offers, her sleek braid bouncing against her back, “is currently working in more ways than one.”
I blink. “The fuck?”
“We have about ten minutes,” Avi says merrily, “before the Time Stopper wears off, the explosion finishes exploding, and this place is sucked into oblivion.”
I turn panicked eyes on Lament. “Is she serious?”
But all Lament says is, “Prepare to jump.”
I look down the hallway. Hovering outside a final hole in the exterior wall of The Parallax is Moon Dancer. Beside her, I see both Vera’s split-wing and The Bargainer, each ready and waiting for us to launch inside. We must still be within the protective bounds of The Parallax’s pressure bubble, which explains how we’re not all currently being sucked through that opening into space. Not that it really brings any relief. We’re in so much shit, I can’t even feel afraid. Like my brain doesn’t have the bandwidth to process any more terror. It doesn’t seem possible that there is a literalblack holewaiting to devour us in…
How many minutes did Avi say?
I see it then. The korathamite wall of The Parallax looks kind of… warped. And it’s… well, it’s notglowing, exactly, but the space around the blasted opening has a distinctive shimmer, like heat over a fire.
Like two combustible elements, frozen midway through a detonation.
Toph thrusts open a side door on The Bargainer, using his substantial size to bridge the gap between the two ships. He reaches an unquestioning hand to haul Master Ira in first, then Youvu Hum. Avi throws herself into Vera’s Sky Runner while I scramble for Moon Dancer, glancing back to see a throng of guards appearing at the mouth of the corridor.
Lament notices them, too, and freezes.
“Lament,” I snap.
He comes back to himself, jumping after me into Moon Dancer’s cockpit, clicking buttons so fast his hands are a blur. His eyes lock on mine. “Ready?”
Through the jagged opening in The Parallax, I watch the guards pulling out a mix of weapons (ray guns, stunners, shifters) as they swarm closer. I raise my own gun, shooting over their heads to make them duck. Verasplits off first in the Sky Runner, followed closely by The Bargainer. I let off another blast of my ray gun and tell Lament, “Justgo.”
He goes, sealing the cockpit and blasting Moon Dancer into space with enough acceleration to jolt my esophagus into my stomach. I cough, squeezing the muscles in my legs to stop the blood from draining out of my head. The nausea recedes just in time for me to see both the Sky Runner and The Bargainer switch into hyperspeed. They vanish simultaneously in a burst of white light, jetting out of range of the impending black hole, the guards, and Doc Min.
There’s barely any time for me to feel relieved, because now it’s our turn. I brace—hands on my harness, legs still squeezed, one deep inhale—for Lament to throw us into hyperspeed and follow their lead.
Only, he doesn’t.
“Lament?”
I turn around in my seat. Lament’s face is blank. Perfectly expressionless. He says, “Moon Dancer’s hyperspeed isn’t working.”
My lungs shrink. “Um.”
“I don’t understand.” He’s pressing a flat yellow button on his control panel, first in steady, even attempts, then faster, more frantically. “This doesn’t—it worked fine yesterday. I checked. The systems, the controls, Ichecked—”
“I believe you,” I assure him, even as adrenaline hits my system. If Moon Dancer’s hyperspeed doesn’t work, we’ll never make it out of range before Avi’s explosives detonate and we’re sucked into a black hole. I take a deep inhale. “Okay, look, I’m sure it’s just…” I trail off.
