Page 201 of Destined For Her Alien Daddy

UNSTABLE RELAY COLLAPSE IMMINENT.

LOCAL PLANETARY COHESION FAILURE ACCELERATING.

Brakk reads it and throws both hands up. “I do not appreciate how formal that is!”

Rolaev moves suddenly toward the cracked control spine on the right wall.

Ghar raises his weapon.

She stops without turning. “If I wanted to kill you, I would have let the relay fail three selections ago.”

“Not reassuring,” Brakk says.

Rolaev places both hands on the spine. Dark code remnants flicker under her skin where the destruction key burned through her nerves. She grimaces with pain, but the stabilization field along the wall steadies.

Sira steps closer. “What are you doing?”

“Preventing the dead recursion from reaching the escape fold.”

I stare at her. “You’re stabilizing evacuation routes.”

“Temporarily.”

“Why?”

Rolaev looks over her shoulder at me. Her eyes are not gentle. They are not redeemed. Certainty still lives in her, wounded but breathing. “Because if the shard survives, it should not do so because I allowed everyone carrying it to die in a hallway.”

“That is almost moral growth.”

“It is tactical consistency.”

“Sure. We’ll put that on the plaque.”

Her mouth tightens. “Go, Anita Prentiss.”

I do not trust her.

I also believe her.

Those two things sit uneasily together, which seems to be the official emotional theme of this whole nightmare.

Ghar’s hand presses my shoulder. “We move.”

The chamber breaks harder.

The ceiling tears open into a view of Nareth-Kul’s crust from inside, layers of black basalt and embedded ruin structures splitting apart in luminous veins. Gravity tilts. Sira cries out as Brakk grabs her again. The archway toward the shuttle route flickers in and out of reach.

Rolaev braces against the control spine, muscles shaking. “Now!”

We run.

Ghar stays beside me this time, not behind, though I can tell every step costs him. Brakk charges ahead with the escape anchor, shouting insults at the corridor to keep it obedient. Sira follows close, one hand on the amber guide-line and the other pressed to the side of her head as she stabilizes the fold. I keep the shard case locked against my chest with one hand and Ghar’s wrist with the other, because if the universe wants either, it can come argue with me directly.

The archway tries to fold shut.

Rolaev screams.

The sound drags my attention back.