LIRA
GLASS RAINED DOWN on top of them.
Lira opened her eyes to see Breck hunched over beside her, coughing smoke from her lungs, eyes watering and red.
Mountains crumble, Lira thought.
How strong had Gilly’s homemade Sparks been? Perhaps they’d been a bit too generous with the amount of powder they’d poured into the orbed casings.
Lira rolled to her hands and knees and crawled past the scattered playing cards, bottles of broken liquid and moaning bodies on the floor. Somewhere across the room, the bartender howled out curses over the wasted liquor.
“My leg!” someone screamed. “My leg!”
An android, headless neck sparking, walked around in circles, bumping into overturned tables and blown-apart chairs.
Definitely too strong, Lira thought.
Beside her, Gilly appeared. Her nose was crooked and bleeding. “That...was awesome.”
If the warden hadn’t been drawn in by the fight...surely, after this, she would come to restore order. Any moment now.
Lira kept crawling forward, coughing as the fires from the Sparks flickered out. She scanned her surroundings, looking for Andi and Dex.
At first, she couldn’t see her captain. For a moment, fear swallowed Lira whole.
They’d ruined this.
They’d blown up the entire plan along with the pub.
That was quite a show, Lir.
The com message flashed into her vision, and she knew Andi was safe.
She blinked it away, scanning the darkness again.
There. Motion to her left, near the bar as Andi stood, using a table to pull herself upright. Beside her Dex struggled to his feet. The poor fool looked like a baby fresh out of the womb, disoriented and confused. Lira knew a sympathetic person would help a teammate get his bearings.
Unfortunately for him, Andi was anything but. Lira smiled at that.
With so much smoke clouding the room, she found it hard to see anything farther than a few feet in front of her. But she could hear people moaning. Curses hissed out through clenched teeth.
“Her pub,” the bartender was mumbling. “Her pub, her beautiful pub... The warden will kill me...”
A wail reverberated through the cavernous room. Lira craned her neck around toward the entrance to the pub as guards plowed in through the unhinged doors, guns held before them, emerald lasers cutting through the smoke as they angled about the room, searching for the cause of the attack.
Lira’s stomach twisted.
This was it.
The final step in the plan.
From her vantage point, Andi’s pale hair and metal cheeks, visible now as she stepped forward, were like beacons in the chaos. Smoke curled around her feet like dancing wraiths.
You still have time to stop this plan, Lira’s mind hissed at her. You can’t trust Soyina. You can’t trust Dex.
But then Dex was speaking, his voice like a gunshot amid all the groans and moans.
“It’s about time you showed up.”
The guards lined up in front of him and Andi. Too many rifles aimed at their chests, their heads, their necks. Kill shots, all of them.
Help your captain, that little voice begged Lira. You can’t let this happen.
A single figure stepped through the smoke, and the guards fanned out to make space. Lira watched, teeth clenched, as the warden of Lunamere surveyed the scene.
“Seeing as you’re the only people left standing in this room right now, I’m going to ask you a question and you’re going to answer it truthfully.” She puffed herself up, the red-and-gold sash on her chest shining even in the smoky room. “Were you the perpetrators of this attack?”
Dex tilted his head and flashed her his best smile. “Guilty as charged.”
The warden stepped forward.
And slammed her fist into Dex’s face.
His head turned sideways, and he toppled against an overturned table with a sickening crash.
“You’ve just destroyed thousands’ worth of assets for me,” the warden growled. She looked to her guards. “Detain and scan them. I want to know who these bastards are and what the hell they’re doing in my pub.”
Lira watched it all with a sickness in her gut.
Dex rose and turned back around, his mouth spreading into a bloody smile. “Well, well, Warden. The rumors about your strength are true. I’d love to take you on a date sometime. Perhaps to the Unified Systems, where I can show you a planet truly worth your time.”
The warden’s fists clenched. “Gag him.”
“Do you have any Griss on you? Not the cheap kind you serve here,” Dex said, riling her up further. “I’m positively parched.”
“What is the meaning of this?” the warden demanded, looking to Andi. “Explain yourselves.”
Andi smiled at her like a predator. “Screw you. And screw Xen Ptera.”
A guard marched toward Andi, gun outstretched. He was about to cuff her when Andi leaped to her feet, whirling so fast that she’d grabbed his gun and used it to shoot out his kneecap before the guard could even scream in surprise.
“Detain them!” the warden howled. “Now!”
The rest of the guards converged on her and Dex.
Through the chaos, a single word filtered into Lira’s vision from Andi’s channel.
Run.
Lira shook her head. This couldn’t be the best plan...this couldn’t be the only way. It was happening too fast.
Run.
“Come on,” Gilly said. “It’s time to go.”
But Lira was frozen.
“Lira,” Breck whispered. “We have the command.”
Gilly’s small hand wrapped around Lira’s. She began to pull, gently at first, then insistently as Dex screamed curses and Andi began to shout about damning the queen of Xen Ptera. Once they had them on the ground, bound in cuffs, half of the guards began to move about the room. One of them uncovered the shell of a Spark.
“Right here, Warden. Looks homemade.”
“I want every single person in this pub checked. Identified. Backgrounds. Do it now.”
Unless they left now, the guards would soon discover the rest of the girls.
Run.
The message was there in bright red, hovering before Lira’s eyes.
Lira hated herself for what she was about to do, hated the command Andi had given.
But she allowed Gilly to lead her into the shadows. She stood patiently as Breck silently disabled the single, unsuspecting guard by the hole they’d strategically blown in the back wall. A quick exit point.
Gilly slipped into the darkness. Breck squeezed in after her.
But Lira stopped and looked over her shoulder one last time, her gut begging her not to go. Never, in all of their missions, had they abandoned their captain.
Even now, the warden of Lunamere was standing over Andi like a predator ready to spring.
“You will rot in hell for this,” she said.
Not happening, Lira’s mind screamed. This is not happening.
It went against every fiber of her being.
But it was an order—all part of the plan—and Lira could not disobey.
It was with great pain that she left her captain behind, a prisoner, and went to secure sweet freedom back on the waiting ship.