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"Now," she said, "juh At the sareen Tania felt the vibrations begin and hoped she’d pushed off hard enough

Forty er when the energy release occurred, but she didn’t want any residual shock wave to send theht be nasty indeed

Thirty lance at the readout inside herbut vacuu with the brilliant glow buffeted her The suit’s externalshaken by subsonic vibrations

Twenty o Despite the distance, the visor, the fact that she wasn’t looking directly at it, when the light peaked and cascaded into a burst of white-green energy Tania found herself an to return Her legs caught a wisp of h to drastically change their path toward the botto?" Vanessa asked

Everything looked blurry all of the sudden, as if condensation had suddenly formed on her visor She swiped a hand across it, to no avail, and realized the roolanced at her HUD again The red text VACUUM DETECTED no longer floated there

"We’ve stoppedthen The inexorable pull of gravity

She was no longer drifting toward the floor; she was falling sideways toward the wall that glowed blue

In the miserable tin can of a ship, Tiain They’d done this six ti his breath for the handful of seconds that elapsed before the connection reestablished

This tioddammit," he muttered "Come back to me, Tania"

The display remained blank

"Tania, Vanessa," he said into theCan you read me?"

No response came The indicators ree

He had no suit of his own There wasn’t room in the tiny ship for three Besides, so

Tim wiped a bead of sweat from his brow and dialed the cabin temperature down "Keep calm, keep calht his eye He glanced up and stared once again at the object being lifted up frole, it looked like the tail of a wasp, yanked fro once, in the sensory chaet and then pull away, leaving both stinger and a good-sized chunk of its own body behind Little glistening wisps of bodily fluid would stretch between the two sections as they pulled apart What he sa resembled that process, only in reverse The Elevator cords spanned the gap between the Key Ship and this new coht--the spikes that had been on the bottoh clearly they’d sunk antic object they lifted

He felt helpless, parked like a chauffeur at a polite distance He couldn’t go outside, he couldn’t go in, and he damn ouldn’t leave He’d rather suffocate on his own stale air than abandon Tania to this place

So Tilanced at the object coer, and little

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Above Darwin, Australia

2APR2285

Between the three of them the box of crackers vanished almost instantly

Skadz kicked aside the forency supply cabinet and rooted around so joking"

Sa herself to smile Instead she forced herself to chew the last bite of her cracker It tasted like salty cardboard, with the familiar sour aftertaste of Preservall Unfortunately there was no alcohol to wash it down, much less to offer a toast to Pru," Sam mumbled to herself No one responded She’d said the sahtcliff She and Skadz had reh, and neither of the What they both wanted was to raise a glass to their fallen friend and then raise a few lanced at Kelly The woman had discarded her Jacobite robe not thirty seconds after clearing the tower at Nightcliff Underneath she wore a black bodysuit, just like the kind she’d favored when sneaking about Gateway In fact, it ht well be the same one, Sam realized Kelly had probably hidden it somewhere in those early days of captivity under Blackfield The fact that she wore it now spoke volumes about how successfully she’d conned everyone in Grillo’s organization over the last two years As good a ruse as Prumble’s bum knee, really

Kelly stood, as she had been, near the car’s single terress If herheld, they would pass right through Gateway at a speed high enough to obliterate the station should anyone try to get in their way, and continue on up to Penrith Assembly That station, she’d explained, had been all but abandoned a long ti there should be ample shuttles or ERV-type vehicles parked there, any one of which should support an escape

"Ah," Skadz said "Not a total bust Chocolate"

Saative We’ll have to wait to toast our fallen brother" He handed her a thick square of chocolate Sao well enough to assume the treat would taste like wax on the finish To her surprise, it wasn’t half bad

Skadz passed a portion to Kelly, who took the chunk without looking "Almost to Gateway," she said

"What’s the plan?" Skadz asked

"Well, if we start slowing, then our control of the cliht our way out If we don’t sloe either sail through Gateway as I hope, or we crash into so, in which case on’t have to worry about a plan"

Silence greeted the co on the assumption that the security forces aboard Gateway, as well as Grillo, knew about their heist and subsequent climb The question ould Grillo order everyone to back off due to the presence of the object, or would he sacrifice it rather than let so?