A New Beginning

Chapter 65

Tessa's POV:

Soranto checked his wrist comm one last time. "Are you ready?"

"No, but I want to get out of here more than I want to stay."

"Fair enough."

He opened up the door cautiously; the air was overly warm, but not hot enough to harm either of us. The metal tube still radiated more heat than my heat lamp as we eased past it and approached the door to the narrow corridor.

After checking that the coast was clear, Soranto began quickly jogging down the corridor. We were both hoping that most of the Votaks would be asleep or resting in their rooms.

Soranto found the door to a maintenance shaft and opened it up. There was no way he was going to easily move through this small space. I jumped off Soranto's shoulder and glided into the tiny passageway.

"I'm flying ahead. Are you going to fit in here?" I asked, wondering if we had to find another route.

"I'll manage." Ducking down, he managed a fairly impressive speed even though the ceiling was lower than his elbow would have normally been.

It was easier and safer for me to check around corners. An escaped animal was one thing, but if a Votak spotted a Kymari in their hidden base, all hell would break loose.

It took us a long time to reach the area Soranto wanted. The door was locked, though.

"Stand back."

I glided in a small loop to fly further behind him as he awkwardly kicked the door in the cramped space. It bent and buckled, but didn't open. It took a second kick to break the lock. The air inside practically hummed from the massive machine. From this angle, I could only see a corner of it.

Soranto stretched now that he had more room and went over to sit against the wall. He removed his wrist comm while bringing tools out of his belt pouch. He pulled off one shoulder pad, turned it over, and detached various electronics and cords that were meticulously arranged inside.

Once he put the shoulder pad back on, he asked, "Can I get you to go onto my other shoulder for a moment?"

Slipping behind his head, I asked, "What are you doing?"

"I'm linking the heat capacitors and my wrist comm together." He gestured to a small keypad on the ground beside him. "I'll be able to use this controller to make them detonate once we are at a safe distance. My wrist comm is almost at full power; by itself, it could probably destroy a part of this place. If it explodes in here, it will set off both reactors."

"Will it destroy this place?"

"Depending on how deep the geothermal lines run and how big this moon is, we have a good chance of blowing up a quarter of the moon. Those last two Votak shuttles have returned, so the entire group is in this place. Nothing should be left of the lab other than our memories."

"That would be a huge relief."

"One last thing..." He used a tool to pry a small piece of his armor off. "This camera is going to remain here as well."

"I had completely forgotten about that..."

"I can tell them that it must have been knocked off in the explosion on the trade ship." He got to his feet and wedged his wrist comm and the attached devices into a gap in the machine's pipes. "I'm done here. Now all that is left is to get out of this place. Just don't get lost – I have no way to find you without my wrist comm locating your tracker bead."

"I'll try to keep within sight."

Once again, we used the deserted maintenance passageways to travel. The trip was much easier on me than on Soranto, who barely had enough room to squeeze through the narrow space.