Empress of a Thousand Skies(60)
His stomach sank. “We? No. No way. This is my problem. You still have at least four hours of sunlight, and if you backtrack the way you came—”
“This is no time for chivalry, Aly.”
“I’m trying to save your life.”
“Don’t you get it? It’s not about my life, or your life, anymore. The stakes are too high.”
She reminded him of Vin, of his conviction. Aly thought of the revolution he’d been so quick to make fun of. But unlike Vin’s plan, this was really happening. “We’d have to go through the refinery to access the broadcasting tower,” he said. “The UniForce will have every entrance covered, and we’re sure as taejis not going to slip in unnoticed.”
“Good thing I have an ex-UniForce soldier to tell me their protocol.” She scanned the compound in the distance. “There’s always another way in, Aly. Always a way in, always a way out.”
He closed his eyes, pictured the old Wraetan refineries, the sky blackened with smoke, the constant hiss of steam . . . Steam. “The cooling tunnels,” Aly said, opening his eyes. “There are tunnels running below the compound. They divert the current that runs through the refinery to cool the generators.”
Kara nodded. “What are you waiting for?”
? ? ?
They made their way carefully and slowly through the rocky terrain, staying low in case any UniForce soldiers or NX droids were patrolling. He hadn’t been too keen on signing up for this suicide mission, but it was his last chance to clear his name. Plus, he’d already lost Vin. He wouldn’t lose Kara too.
Aly was banking that the sheer quantity of tunnels that must be running under a refinery this size would serve in their favor: There was no way the UniForce would have deployed forces to keep them all guarded, not when there was no convincing reason for them to be on Rhesto in the first place.
The tunnel’s entrance was tucked into the slope, covered with moss. This one hadn’t been used in a long time, but someone had artfully scrawled BALLS on the crusted walls. It was dark and coated in a slug trail of mud, so narrow they’d have to crawl.
“Right. Okay.” Kara dropped her hand in her pocket and fished out a small bottle, emptying a pill onto the palm of her hand. She broke it in half and made a face as she swallowed.
“What’s that?” he asked.
“I just have a headache.” Even with her eyes all red and puffy, she had this elegant warrior look going on with the braid. He caught himself staring at her lips and quickly looked away.
“I detect traces of some sort of cholinesterase inhibitor,” Pavel said, his eyelights red. “It enhances neurotransmitters and affects the basic chemical messengers associated with memory. What is your ailment?”
“Pavel,” Aly said sharply, even if he was curious himself. He looked over at Kara with a pained smile, all teeth and a tight jaw. “Sorry. Not programmed with manners.”
“It’s okay.” She pocketed the bottle once she put the remaining half of the pill away again. “It’s just some neurological blip. Not a big deal.” She shrugged. “There’s just a lot I can’t remember.”
“Like you forget things sometimes?”
“Like I’ve forgotten everything from when I was little. There was some kind of problem with my cube. It was recalled when I was twelve, and I got a new one. They restored most of my old memories, but I have these bad dreams and . . . I don’t know. It all feels made up. Like I made it up.”
“My problem is the opposite,” Aly blurted out. “All the memories from when I was a kid feel real. Too real. If I ever start to remember, I act like they’re not mine—like they’re fiction. Made-up.”
He exhaled. Aly had never admitted that to anyone, and he was terrified she would make fun of him for playing make-believe. But she didn’t.
“Well, let’s not make up this moment then.” Kara smiled. “Let’s both agree to remember it happened this way.”
“Deal.”
Aly didn’t know if they should shake on it or something else, but instead he did the whole “after you” gesture. They got on their hands and knees, crawling forward through a dark maze of twists and turns. Pavel rolled ahead in his most compacted shape, a dim beam of light shining the way.
But the silence seemed big in such a small space. There hadn’t been a whole lot of chitchat since they got off the ambulance, and he guessed it wasn’t going to start now. Aly was pissed at himself—he’d been stuck in his own head, while Kara had some brain condition and was probably worried sick about her mom. Had he even said thank you?
They snaked around a sharp turn and hit an offshoot of the tunnel. There was a rounded grate secured with an old-school padlock, and it opened just enough for the two of them to crawl out and crouch in front of it. It was so tight, Kara’s knees brushed his, and it felt like the universe had narrowed down into the spot of skin where they touched.
Aly tried to ignore the heat and looked through the metal grating, where he could barely make out some sort of generator in the dark. “Pavel, can you scan for NX frequencies?”
“I detect one in proximity, but the diameter of my reach is only ten meters.”
“Okay, not terrible,” Aly lied, since being on the same planet as an NX was terrible. They had built-in heat sensors that detected subtle changes in temperature, but Pavel had his newly uploaded signal jammer on—meaning he could clone those temperature stats to report back “all normal.” So long as no one saw them, they wouldn’t be detected by temperature.