“The mag-locks,” I say, looking up at the sliver of sky visible through a crack in the stone. “They’re fused, aren’t they?”
“Corroded,” Maug corrects, climbing out of the pilot’s seat. He looks at the ceiling with a snarl. “The internal release is dead. I can’t blast them open from the inside without risking a cave-in that crushes the ship.”
I tighten the straps of my pack. I know what has to be done. I knew it the moment the red error light blinked on the console.
“I have to go topside,” I say quietly.
Maug freezes. His golden eyes snap to mine, blazing. “No.”
“There’s a manual override on the outer ridge. You showed me the schematics,” I argue, stepping off the ladder to stand before him. “If I trip the hydraulic release from the outside, thedoors will slide. You fly out, hover low, and I jump on the ramp. We’re gone before they even know we launched.”
“It’s too dangerous. The hive is hunting.”
“And if we stay down here, we’re trapped in a stone box,” I counter, reaching out to grip his forearms. His skin is hot, the muscles coiled tight as steel cables. “Maug. You can’t fit through the maintenance shaft. I can. I’m the only one who can reach the switch.”
He stares at me, a war between instinct and logic waging behind his eyes. He wants to lock me in the cockpit and keep me safe. But he knows I’m right.
Finally, he exhales—a ragged, defeated sound. He leans down, pressing his forehead against mine.
“Fast,” he commands. “You move fast. You trigger the release, and you get to the extraction point. If you aren’t there when I clear the doors…”
“I will be,” I promise. I kiss him hard, tasting ash and hope. “Fire it up. Be ready to fly.”
I pull away before I can lose my nerve and scramble toward the narrow maintenance shaft that leads to the surface.
I climb until my lungs burn. I climb until the air turns from stale cave damp to the dry, scorching heat of the surface. When I finally drag myself out of the fissure and onto the sun-baked rock, the wind hits me like a physical blow.
I check my bearings. The manual release junction is three hundred meters east, right near the canyon lip.
I start running.
I don’t see them until it’s too late.
I’m only a few klicks from the canyon’s lip—close enough that I can smell ozone where the ship’s atmospheric buffers are warming the air, a faint metallic taste on the back of my tongue that saysescape. Almost there. Almostfree.
And then they’re there.
Shadows in the dust. Flash of a boot. The glint of Darwin’s goddamn smile.
I pivot, instincts firing before thought, shoving hard off a rock and bolting toward the eastern trail.
A hiss cuts the air. Tranquilizer dart—misses by a whisper.
Another flash—Darwin again, moving too fast, too smooth.
He’s humming.
That’s what does it.
Thatsound.
It isn’t loud. Not really. Just this low, syrupy thread curling through the heat, brushing the edge of my skull like a vine wrapping around bone. It shouldn’t hurt. It doesn’thurt. But it’swrong. Too perfect. Too steady. Like a machine trying to mimic a lullaby.
“Stop,” he says gently, and his voicevibratesthrough my spine.
I scream. Raw. Human.
And I run.
