Without Tianna’s knowledge, we had to rely on Valrea's memory of the power grid.

She sat at the desk, tapping a stylus on a tablet while she sketched from memory sections of the mechanical systems.

“I've never seen the control system for the dome,” she mused. “But every building has its own power source directly below.”

“That's good, last thing we want to do is take down the dome and realize we can't open any of the doors to get out.”

“That would be annoying,” Doc agreed.

Valrea kept sketching. “I know this area fairly well and I'd swear it wasn't here.” She swiped off the section underneath the dormitory.

“And we know it's not by the labs, because, well,” she glanced at Doc, then looked carefully down at the tablet again, not needing to say anything further.

“The dome would already be down if the control systems were in the lab,” seemed the most tactful way I could put it.

She drew for a few more moments, flicking from one area to the next until she stopped.

“It's in the middle.”

“The middle of what?” Whatever she saw, I wasn’t getting it.

“The middle of the compound, of course. If the security field is broadcast in a dome, the simplest solution would be to put your power source and control at the exact center of that circle.”

She drew another circle, this time showing the area covered by the dome on the island. “You could modify it, sure but we'd be stupid not to check there first.”

I tapped her sketch. “That puts it right below the landing pad, doesn't it?”

She nodded.

“Then we'll want to go easy on the explosives.” I was only halfway joking. I didn't want to damage every ship on the planet. I’d never live that down.

We considered the scatter cloaks. They were handy to have, but it was too easy to rely on them, the consequences too great if they failed.

“You snuck through the hall without them before,” Valrea said. “You can get us to that control room.”

“I will come with you.” Rhea rose.

“Are you sure?” I asked.

“I can do nothing to help Vicki now.” She moved towards the door. “With Tianna incapacitated, you may need another on the team.”

Valrea stood with her. “You could just stay here, rest,” she protested.

“I would like to take the dome down. It has been too long since I have seen the sky.”

I wasn't arguing. I'd seen how strong Rhea was when she ripped open the panel to get Valrea’s pills. Without the cloaks, the risk of us getting into combat increased exponentially. Rhea wouldn't let anything happen to Valrea, so that made her coming along good in my book.

We left the hidden warehouse and crept to the end of the passage. The entire building bustled, filled with scurrying guards.

“There's no way we can get through them,” Valrea said. “You might be able to,” she glanced at me. “And nobody will question the Companion. But I don’t have any super skills.”

“Are you sure they would question you?” I asked.

Rhea answered for her. “It has already been reported that she has been destroyed and her replacement created. They would notice.”

Lovely. Just when I thought I couldn’t hate Stanton and the General more.

“Maybe we don’t have to go this way.” Valrea pulled me away. Once we re-entered the warehouse, she headed toward the back.

“It's dark, they won't see us when we leave.” She shrugged. “Well, probably. We go out the back, find our original exit from the caves, and enter the maintenance tubes that way.”

I stared at her. “That’s brilliant.” I hurried to catch up.

“I'm not brilliant. Just very, very determined.”

Rhea joined us as we strode down the tunnel.

“Besides, we’ll get to see the stars that much sooner.”

As we exited the tunnel and emerged onto the side of the ridge, Rhea paused.

“Why did you never come out before,” Valrea asked.

“Until Doc began to modify the compulsion units, the radius of my movement was limited.” Rhea answered. “It did not extend through the entire length of the warehouse.”

“I'm sorry,” Valrea said, then hugged the stiff black form. “But it will be over soon. No one will control you, ever again.”

Rhea unfastened her helmet. “For just a moment, I want to see the sky with my own eyes.”

Every moment was a tick on the clock, a chance for someone to find us, find Doc, capture Abril and Caze.

But I wasn’t going to deny anyone a chance to see the stars.

Rhea raised her face to the sky, and said nothing until she refastened the helmet.

“I am ready.” She looked at me. “With my modifications, I am faster. If you would like to run, I can keep up.”

“I'm never going to argue with that.” I lifted a laughing Val.

“Let's go shake things up some more.”

The glowing rocks guided us to the tunnel entrance. As we jogged through the caverns Rhea looked around.

“I'm glad you were not trapped here alone, Valrea.”

Valrea shuddered. “Me too.”

Approaching the collapsed section of the maintenance tubes I paused, listening.

“Nothing. No one's there.”

“I will check.”

Rhea climbed up, then reached a hand down. “You are correct.”

As I boosted Valrea through the opening I tried not to roll my eyes. Of course, I was correct.

Valrea took a moment to orient herself. “All right, I know where we are. This way.”

At this point stealth wasn't our friend, speed was. We ended any attempt to sneak and simply moved through the tubes as quickly as possible, following Valrea’s directions.

Until we came to a door that wouldn’t open. There was no palm lock for Rhea to try, and the panel didn’t respond to Doc’s cracker, just whirred.

I set Valrea down. “It's got to have a weak point somewhere, give me a minute, I’ll get it open.”

“Wait!” Valrea cried. “I think it's just stuck.”

She examined the door and the wall surrounding it.

“Hit here,” she pointed to the lower corner. “Lightly,” she clarified.

One tap. She tried the code cracker again. It beeped as if it'd found the right sequence but still, nothing happened.

“Tap it again, twice more.”

Two more gentle blows, and the code beeped and the door slid open, with a groan.

“That should've been on Tianna's maintenance list years ago,” Valrea grumbled.

The high pitched whine assaulted my ears the instant we crossed into the new section of hall.

“What is that? “

Valrea looked at me questioningly and Rhea tilted her head.

“I do not hear anything out of the ordinary.”

“Neither do I,” Valrea agreed, looking worried.

The high pitched constant drone increased with every step down the hallway.

“Do you need to go back?” Valrea asked as I scrubbed at my ears.

“No, it's just really annoying. Let's just keep going.”

The next door opened more smoothly, leading into a small room filled with equipment.

A small room with only two pieces of equipment in it. A low squat box next to a wide console, lights flickering steadily across the top.

Valrea considered it. “I could probably just make it short out, be sure we don't damage the landing field.”

I shook my head. “No, we need to make sure they can't repair it. We'll just have to be careful.”

Valrea and I placed explosives while Rhea kept watch on the corridor outside.

“That should do it.”

We retreated past the second door, and then a bit further down the hall, just to be sure.

I held the detonator out to Valrea, but she shook her head.

“Rhea, would you like a turn?”

Slowly, Rhea pressed the button.

Nothing happened. I waited for the delayed rumble, the shaking.

Nothing.

“Maybe the button stuck?” Rhea hit it again. But still nothing happened.

“There's something wrong, I'll go back and check.”

Before Valrea could stop me I'd broke away, dashed through the hall with the annoying sound and into the control room.

The explosives were still mounted properly, blinking merrily away, ready and waiting for the signal.

The signal.

I went back through the noise of the hall to where Valrea and Rhea stood waiting.

“It's a dampening field.” I sighed. “That's what I'm hearing.”

Valrea shook her head. “What you mean?”

“There is something that is interfering with the transmission of the signal from the detonator to the explosives,” Rhea explained. “Is that correct?”

“Yup. And we don't know where it's coming from.”

“Then we find it.” Valrea narrowed her eyes, scouring the ceiling already. “We tear everything apart until we find it and destroy it.

“Valrea, honey.” She kept checking the corridor, not listening. “We don't have time. Right now we have momentum. There's not enough of us on the ground to risk losing it. Tomorrow they’ll wise up, get guards posted all over the place, not just in the hall.”

I turned to Rhea before Valrea caught on. “Get Vicki as soon as you can. And then, all of you, just wait in the warehouse for the Pack to come. They'll be here soon.”

I crushed Valrea to me, breathing in her scent, her taste. And I felt it through her body the instant she realized what I was saying.

“What are you going to do?”

“Take the dome down. That was the mission.”

I stepped back from her, my glorious, determined princess.

There was no way, even with my speed, that I'd be able to get past the blast zone once I was close enough for the trigger to work.

“I am sorry,” Rhea said.

“Yeah, me too.” I turned to face the door, ready to charge. Then a sharp pain at the back of my head dropped me into darkness.