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Min-Min guides our sub us up to the underside of the donetic couplers and the sub a pressurized seal between our thermal drill and the prison’s hull The drill whirs above us as energy froines funnels into the drill’s heat coils

When the drill has finished, it retracts back and shifts sideways into its cooling sheath Sevro waits severalopen the top exit hatch of the submersible On the other side of the hatch, the circular block of hull froravity well built into the submersible’s penetration systeravity and the block floats up into the station

“Hats on,” I say, donning oes dark and then the heads-up display flickers to life, brightening the confines of the submersible with its spectral amplifiers The vitals and names of my friends appear above their heads

I step toward the hatch to go first, but Sevro puts a hand on et a head start?” I ask

“Don’t be so competitive, boyo”

Milia and Clown go in front oftheir netically coupled to a holster on her back Min-Min swings out of her pilot seat and tosses one of her drones into the air Small as a thumb and matte black, the projectile races up the hole She surveys through its caives us the thumbs-up

“Playtime”

The two point Howlers cliravWell grips theh the hole Sevro removes his hand from my chest

“Your turn, princess”

Using the schematics stored in Starhall’s data vault, I chose the water filtration room as our point of entry It’s dark, full of noise, and entirely autoe machines suck in seawater and desalinate it for the use of the guards and the prisoners I call up theour target’s cell White footprints glow on the display, illustrating the path we chose

I shoulder my rifle and lead them up out of the desalination plant Weis ah a hulking photoelectrical oxygen splitter I move forward, crouched Then Sevro runs past me and slides to round the corner first There’s the soft sound of a spider veno out the narrow barrel of his short-stock rifle A body cruties theup one finger

“One”

Leaving the desalination level behind, we h the lower bowels of the station like a silent nocturnal anis and arms The station relies on its extern

al defenses, which would eviscerate even a heavy assault force of the Ash Legions, but on the inside, the security systems were made to keep men in, not out

We subdue several workers sipping coffee fro work, Sevro and I racing each other to be the first to hit them with our spider rounds He’s better with firearms than I ah heavy reinforced security doors so thick they appear to have been made by some ancient race They’re old and rusted, like the rest of the bones and shell of this dilapidated crab station Only the sinew is new Glowing bioas nodules in the ceilings All neutralized by Winkle’s access into the mainframe