I just had to stay that way too.
Chapter Eighteen
Breaking Orders
Rygnar
By the time I reached the upper terraces, smoke already crawled along the ceilings like low storm clouds. Pulse fire rolled through the mountain, echoing off the stone ribs.
The raiders had breached the ventilation shafts.
I moved through the heat, issuing orders as I ran. “Seal the west corridors. Get the children below the waterlines. Use the maintenance lifts if the main one is jam.”
Voices answered.
Each one a heartbeat.
Each silence, a warning.
Veklan intercepted me at the junction, armor scorched, one side of his face streaked with soot. “You’re alive. The pass is sealed?”
“Yes. But they came through the service tunnels.”
“Confirmed.” He pointed toward the lower galleries. “We’re evacuating civilians through the vents. Raiders split their forces—storage levels and infirmary. Mara stayed behind to cover them.”
“And Lina?”
His hesitation was enough.
“We got separated in the crush,” Mara said. “Then the raiders pushed through. Three of them drove into the east corridor. She didn’t come back out.”
I cut him off. “Where?”
“You wait until we regroup,” he said. “We can’t risk another loss.”
“Every second we wait, she gets farther away.”
“Rygnar.” His voice hardened. “I know what she means to you, but if you break formation—”
“She is part of this colony,” I said. “Our law says none are left behind.”
“Our law also says we live to protect the rest.” His grip tightened on my shoulder. “If you go now, you go alone.”
“Then I go alone.”
For a moment, I thought he would stop me.
Instead, something in his expression shifted—recognition, perhaps. Memory.
He released me. “One hour,” he said. “After that, we seal the tunnels.”
I nodded once. “That’s all I need.”
The outer galleries were chaos—smoke, shouts, and plasma fire cutting through the haze. Raiders had driven their vehicles into the lower chambers; engines growled like trapped beasts.
I moved through it like a shadow, armor dampening light. My visor tracked heat, motion, and heartbeats. Most colonists were evacuating. A few held the chokepoints.
Then—
