Fracture - Book One of the Glass Galaxy Trilogy

Chapter 26: Rescue

Aria climbed up to the next floor as the alarms continued to blare, pulling us up after her. This floor looked no different than the last two, holding cells lining either side of the wide hallway, and I hastily looked through them to find Kaeya.

She was laying on the floor in one of the corner cells, her bruised arm the only feature I could recognize from a distance. Two swift slashes of my gravity sword had the cell's thick plastic door crashing to the floor, and I rushed to her side and gently picked her up.

She didn't stir, but my suit's interface informed me that she was alive, and I clenched my teeth in anger. She was even more injured than she had been in my dream, her face heavily swollen and her nose broken, and I had to stop myself from screaming in rage.

Instead, I stepped out of the cell, Kaeya held gently in my armour's arms, and turned to Aria. "We're killing anyone that gets in our way," I said, the rage in my voice causing her to flinch.

She looked down at Kaeya, frowning, and then gave me a small nod, "I understand..."

"Viliana!" I shouted into my earpiece. "Where's the best place to pick us up from?"

Her voice came back slightly fuzzy, though I didn't know if it was because of interference or distance. "There are guards swarming all over your side of the station! You need to get out of there right now!"

I glanced at the two directions we could go from here. "Which way should we go?" I asked her hurriedly.

The light male voice of Viliana's ship AI answered my question, "I've uploaded a model of the station to your armour. There's a path marked on it that should get you to the other side of the station with minimal resistance."

"Thanks, Thomas," I said as I relayed directions to Reaper, Aria, and Abaddon. We set off as quickly as we could, Reaper using my sword to cut open any doors that blocked our way.

About a minute into our trip Viliana spoke again, "You've got company coming. It looks like a Dark-Ops ship is coming to the station from planet-side."

How could she tell it was Dark-Ops? "Wonderful," I replied. "How long till they're here?"

"Only a few minutes," she replied, her voice strained.

"Thanks for telling us," I said as we picked up our pace. We had another minute of smooth going when we reached a choke point in the station's design: a single room that had to be traversed to move between the prison half of the station and whatever the other half was used for.

It just so happened to be the main security room, a fact that we learned moments after Reaper started cutting open the locked-down door into it. A cacophony of laser fire barraged the door, a few lucky shots making it through the tiny hole Reaper had made and scorching her shoulder. She had to stop cutting.

We were stuck on this side of the door, fortified enemies stopping our advance while their allies undoubtedly converged on us from behind. We needed a plan.

"Anyone have any ideas for making it through that room?" I asked.

A tense moment passed as we all wracked our brains, and then Aria answered my question, "It's just like when Reaper was boarding your ship."

I caught on immediately, but a feeling of regret accompanied my understanding. Aria was going to have to do something she didn't like doing, and she was going to do it for my sake. That felt pretty sour.

I simply nodded to her, unwilling to confirm her idea out loud, and she raised her rail rifle towards the heavy door in our way. "Can you please get them to shoot again, Reaper?" she asked softly.