Their Fractured Light (Starbound #3)(61)

I draw in a careful breath.

“Okay, I cut the alarm,” Gideon says, before I can speak, his eyes on his lapscreen. “I managed to isolate just the engineering floor—if we shut down the whole ship, all hell will break loose.”

Damn it.

I’m still searching for a response when the doors slide open to reveal the engineering department, and I’m forced to follow him out into the hallway. Perhaps, if we follow Gideon’s plan and disable the rift, it’ll draw LaRoux away from the fully secured ballroom and give me the opportunity I need. Part of me sickens at how easy it is to smile at Gideon and pretend everything’s fine again. But I can’t ever forget that it’s the Knave walking beside me now—he’ll never be just Gideon again.

This floor lacks the ornate trappings of those above—it’s purely functional, scaffolding running up the walls to our left, a metal gantry leading away toward the center of the department. I know from the plans I studied that this whole level is open, several floors high. It’s like a huge stadium, set up around the hyperspace engines in the center, with workstations clinging to the walls like metallic nests, linked by a complex series of staircases so the engine can be viewed and accessed from dozens of angles.

Gideon’s moving quickly, and I’m grateful my shoes are hanging from one hand so I can keep up, hurrying along the hallway after him in my bare feet, the metal grille of the floor biting into my skin. Perhaps this will be quick—perhaps we’ll find the rift quickly, disable it, return to the party. There’s still time for my shot. I can fix my hair, fix my makeup, blend back in—I’m so busy mentally reassembling myself that the breath goes out of me with an undignified squeak when I suddenly run into Gideon’s broad back.

“What the hell?” He whispers the words, but his body’s blocking my view.

It’s only when I step to the side that I can take in the scene before us. Our hallway ends in a balcony fixed to the wall, opening up onto the huge engine space, several floors in height. Staircases lead in both directions, part of the giant metal spiderweb of scaffolding and gantries…but that’s not what stopped him in his tracks.

In the huge void where the hyperspace engine should be—where the rift should be—there’s nothing. The massive metal claws that should hold the engine in place simply grasp at empty air. For a moment, I’m struck with the same confusion as Gideon—we’d been so sure that LaRoux’s plan with the rift was being executed here, tonight. Then I’m fighting my instinct to turn on my heel and march back into the ballroom, security field or no security field, so I can take my shot at LaRoux.

“I’ll get into the system,” he says, mobilizing abruptly before I can speak, striding along our little balcony to the stairs at the end of it. He continues speaking as he clatters down them, and I race after him. “The rift at Headquarters caused enormous energy fluctuations. It must be somewhere else on the ship. I’ll track the energy readings and work out where. It has to be somewhere.” There’s a note of desperation in the back of his voice, though, an uncertainty he’s not ready to face. There aren’t many places on a ship like this that could hide something as massive as the rift we saw at LRI Headquarters.

“We don’t have long,” I warn him, as we reach the base of the towering installation. It’s a long row of consoles, mostly dormant, display monitors layered above command trackpads. “Not if we’re going to head to a second location on the ship.”

Gideon doesn’t even answer, his attention riveted on his work. Before, I almost enjoyed watching him do his thing—the utter concentration there, more focused than anyone I’ve ever seen. I probably could have stripped naked and laid down on his desk and he would’ve just moved his monitor so he could see over me. There was something fascinating about that, something appealing in the way he’d just vanish into the task.

Now…now I can imagine him tracking me that way. Following me with that single-minded attention.

I watch over his shoulder as a blueprint of the ship leaps to life on his lapscreen. My mind circles back again, relentlessly, to my plan. If our route takes us back past the ballroom, there’s a chance I could slip away from him, look for an opportunity with Monsieur LaRoux. I could—

The hair on the back of my neck stands up on end, instinct warning me before my brain interprets the sound my ears are reporting: the faint hum of the elevator doors opening. “Someone’s coming,” I hiss, grabbing Gideon’s arm to get his attention.

His head snaps up, and he yanks the leads out of his lapscreen, ducking in underneath the console—there’s no time to make a dash for the other side. I slide in after him on my knees, grabbing at handfuls of my layered skirts, shoving them into the free space around me to keep them out of sight. It’s like the dress has a life of its own, fighting me, trying to slither free. My heart thumps in time with the footsteps hurrying down the same metal stairs we took from the elevator.

“Son of a…” It’s a girl’s voice, rough and irritated. Her boots are visible as she reaches the bottom of the stairs, and then she’s in view. She’s tall, with dark skin and eyes, only a few years older than me.

She’s in a security uniform, and though her stance is casual, her right arm is just inches from a holster on her thigh containing some sort of weapon. It’s not an LRI uniform—she’s one of the security officers with the visiting planetary delegations. The very ambassadors we came here to protect. Or at least, that Gideon came here to protect. She turns before I can see the crest on her jacket, looking back at the stairs, where her companion must still be.