“You want to contaminate the fuel line?” Shae looks at me incredulously.

I nod.

“Temporarily.”

Shae scoffs and shakes her head.

“I don’t know,” Shae says skeptically. “That sounds like a really bad idea.”

She’s not wrong. It’s dangerous, reckless even. But it’s the best idea I’ve got right now.

“Look,” I say. “Garda are selfish. They don’t care about anyone or anything but themselves. The way I see it, we have two options: create a distraction, a decoy of some sort—”

Shae tilts her head to the side, considering this.

“—which means putting ourselves at risk. And that’s assuming we’re actually able to get their attention and draw them away from Chrysanthemum.”

Shae scrunches up her nose at this.

“Or?” she asks.

“Or,” I say, “we create a threat here on the Chrysanthemum that’ll force them to abandon the ship in order to save themselves.”

Shae nods slowly, thinking for a moment.

“What about a perceived threat?” she asks.

“A perceived threat would work,” I say, “as long as they’re convinced it’s real.”

“That might be tricky,” she admits.

I turn my attention to C-CIL.

“What about you? Any bright ideas?”

He looks at me blankly for a moment, then at Shae.

“I told him to be quiet,” she explains with a smirk. “He’s good at being quiet.”

I roll my eyes.

“Well, if he thinks of anything, he better speak up,” I say.

Shae puts her hands on her hips and taps her foot. She paces around the room for a minute and then stops, her eyebrows drawn together.

“Do you hear that?” she asks.

I give her a questioning look as she leans out the doorway into the main engine room.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

“It’s coming from out here,” she says. “Voices. It must be coming from the comm system.”

I carefully step out of the annex and listen.

“Is that Jahdra?” Shae asks, looking at me with concern.

I listen closely. All I hear is the sound of a deep, demanding voice, a Garda. I stand there, frozen, and feel my chest start to tighten.

“Look at this,” Shae says from across the room. She’s indicating the control panel on the far wall. I step closer and see the message flashing across the screen.

“Access Denied: Invalid Security Code.”

“They must be trying to access her systems,” Shae observes, “but she’s not letting them.”

She shakes her head. “The kid’s got guts, I’ll give her that.”

Either she’s really sticking her neck out for us, I realize, or she’s hiding something big.

Then I hear it—a muffled thud, like the sound of a body dropping to the floor.

Shae’s eyes find mine.

“I’m pulling the filter,” I say. “It’ll be enough to contaminate the fuel without totally destroying the engine.”

I feel Shae’s eyes follow me as I cross to the metal grate on the side wall. I know she thinks I’m being hasty, but I’m done waiting around for things to go from bad to worse.

“Unless you can come up with a way to trip the alarm manually without causing any damage,” I suggest, pulling the grate from the wall. I can tell she wants to protest, but she says nothing, and the truth is, as dangerous and stupid as this may be, it’s still our best shot at getting the Garda off the ship.

“You,” I say, turning and pointing to C-CIL, who’s been watching silently. “I need your hands.” I feel around on the floor for the latch that opens directly into the filtration system. I twist the lock, yanking the handle upward as a gust of warm air hits my face.

“Here,” I say as C-CIL kneels down beside me. “You’re gonna grab this and pull as hard as you can. Chrys probably isn’t gonna like it—if we don’t have a new filter already in place, she isn’t gonna want to let the old one go. But don’t let her stop you. Got it?”

He looks at me but doesn’t answer.

“You can say something,” I say with annoyance. “You don’t have to be quiet anymore.”

“I’m good at being quiet,” he answers.

I hear Shae laugh at this, but I’m not all that amused.

“Yeah, well, right now I need you to be good at this,” I say, gesturing to the filter before going back to the manual controls on the wall.

“Is there anything I can do?” Shae asks, crossing over to where I’m searching the levers and switches for the one I need. I turn and look at her. “You think you could short the release on the filter?” I ask.

“Say no more,” she answers with a grin.

Shae claps her hands over her ears.

“Warning: engine temperature critical. Immediate action required,” Chrys’s voice repeats as the alarm blares throughout the ship. Red lights flash brightly as I replace the grate on the wall and close the hatch to the engine’s filtration system.

I turn around to see Shae beaming at me.

“We did it!” she yells over the din of the alarm, hands still pressed to the sides of her head.

I nod. At least that part went according to plan. Thanks to Shae, we managed to short the release, letting us pull the fuel filter by hand. After that, it was only a matter of minutes before the fuel line became contaminated by the unfiltered fuel and the engine began to overheat. Now that the alarm’s been triggered and the ship is in obvious danger, we just have to hope that the Garda make tracks before we incur any serious damage. If we replace the filter to quickly, we risk stopping the alarm before they have a chance to leave. But the longer we wait, the more real the danger becomes.

“We did it,” I say back to Shae. “Now we just have to hope the ship doesn’t blow up.”

“What?” she shouts back at me, her brow furrowed. “I can’t hear you!”

I shake my head and walk closer.

“I said, now we just have to hope—” but I stop myself. Shae looks at me eagerly, and I return her smile. “Nevermind.”