“Ah, the Vahataman Crystal. Nothing makes a finer decorative piece. Such exquisite material is worth a fortune—the galaxy has little of it left.”

—Deraw Gulfrees, Chairman of the Ildgul Mining Conglomeration’s Public Relations Department

“We’ve been probing his defenses for a few months now,” Reida said. “Trying to find information on where the sensors are and aren’t—blind spots in the security system.”

“I’m guessing the roof is one of those blind spots?” Zaina asked, pacing back and forth to work out the excess energy her anxiety was generating.

“Yeah, sort of.”

“Sort of?”

“Well,” Reida replied, “there’s no way inside the building without tripping a sensor. Every entry and exit point is covered—and even if you destroy a section of the wall, there are internal sensors built into every inch of the interior’s framework.”

“So, how the hell are we gonna get inside?”

“Simple. On the captain’s signal, we’re gonna disable one of these turbines and go in through the duct system.”

Zaina’s mind raced, trying to make sense of this plan. “Okay, but—won’t we trip a sensor?”

Reida shrugged. “Yeah, but at that point the system won’t care. Captain Danjai’s going to create a diversion down below on the street level—if she can poke a few holes in the building, it’ll prioritize those over a shorted turbine. There isn’t much security up here, to be honest—I was shocked that there weren’t even cameras. The outer surface is made from nonmagnetic material, so no magnetic hook-guns—and no regular hook-guns, either, since they’ll lodge themselves inside a wall and trip one of the internal sensors; and these towers here are tracking for active engines and cascading signals at a certain energy threshold in case anyone tries to come via ship. That’s why we had to come on those stupid discs—the system isn’t designed to look for anything that small.”

“You really know your stuff.”

“Like I said,” she replied, “we’ve been probing. We’ve been able to figure out what works and what doesn’t—for the most part.”

Zaina’s eyebrow rose. “For the most part?”

“Well, truth be told, we don’t know as much as we’d like about the basement-level defenses. Only what we’ve been able to get out of contractors who worked on it and Bilvane’s employees—which isn’t all that much.”

“What happens if we fail? You know—if something bad happens.”

A coy smile spread over Reida’s lips. “Then this whole thing will be considered another probing attempt for whoever tries next.”

“So if this goes sideways, we’re probably dead?”

Reida shrugged. “Yeah, probably.”

Zaina didn’t understand—how wasn’t she taking this seriously? “Aren’t you afraid to die?”

“Nah,” Reida replied. “Never understood that mentality, really. It can come anytime, any place; there’s no sense in living your whole life avoiding it. Half the fun of it all is being right on that edge—you’ll never know what it means to live until you’re right there. And once you know that feeling, it’s—well, it’s everything. Nothing else really matters after that.”

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It was strange to hear someone talk so openly and casually about death. Zaina had put her life on the line a few times on Demelia. Memories of the surges of power, of the thrill of the fight briefly made her heart skip with excitement, but it was quickly replaced by the shaky lurch of a deep pit of fear opening in her stomach.

“What?” Reida asked. “You think I’m wrong?”

“Yeah, kind of. I mean, the more times you put yourself at risk, the greater the chance of it going wrong eventually—you know? I don’t see anything wrong with playing it safe.”

“Safe and slow, huh?” Reida chuckled. “You know, that’s probably not a good mentality for a lancer-to-be. Safe and slow might not be in your repertoire for long if you want to be a hero.”

“Well, yeah, but not everyone can be a lancer or a freedom fighter.”

“No, but we are,” Reida replied. “You can’t worry about it in this line of work. Sooner or later it comes for everyone—who cares?”

“You do, apparently. Or are you forgetting you’ve saved me twice now?”

Reida waved the thought aside. “First one was to repay you. The second was to put you in my debt. Never know when I might need a friend for something.”

Warmth flushed through Zaina’s chest, rising into her cheeks. “Friend?”

“Yeah, friends,” Reida said. “We’re about to go on a dangerous mission to save this world—I wouldn’t do that with someone I didn’t consider a friend.”

“Thanks,” Zaina said. “That means a lot.”

“What, you don’t have a lot of friends or something?”

Zaina sighed. “No, not really. I had a few friends growing up—made some in school—but it doesn’t matter. Shouldn’t we be talking about the mission?”

“Probably.” Reida leaned forward. “Well, you want to be a lancer... Can’t you summon a sword or something like that?”

“A cipher. I did it once,” she said, “but—it wasn’t under normal circumstances.”

“You seem to find yourself in abnormal circumstances a lot.”

Zaina replied, “It’s not like I asked for my planet to be destroyed.”

“Well, I would hope not,” Reida said. “In case your cipher doesn’t want to come out, I have a spare resonedge you can use. It’s really sharp, but it won’t cut through or block a cipher—you know, if we come across that lancer. So if we do, keep your distance.”

Reida pulled a dark gray sword, three feet in length, out of the back storage section on her armor; the hilt was constructed around a thin, narrow engine, with a black button facing the same way as the blade’s withered, chipped edge.

Zaina took the weapon and turned it on. The handle gave a gentle hum.

“Careful with that, now. You ever used one before?”

“No, I can’t say that I have,” Zaina said.

“Should’ve grabbed you a pair of gloves—that thing’ll vibrate your hand off. It uses resonant frequencies to cut through anything it touches—except ciphers. It should cut through Bilvane’s security droids no problem, especially with your strength.”

Zaina turned the blade off. “All right, perfect. So—what’s the plan for when we get inside?”

“Well,” Reida said, scratching her head, “the ventilation system should take us where we need to go. If not, we’ll have to pop out and chance the building’s interior security. Either way, we’ll need one of the employees to get into the basement.”

“What, you mean like kidnapping someone?”

Reida rolled her eyes. “No, I was thinking we’d ask real nicely. Of course we’re probably kidnapping someone. The air ducts don’t go where we need to go, and it’s only accessible by Bilvane himself and his few employees that aren’t androids.”

“As long as they don’t get hurt,” Zaina said.

“What do you think these people do? They either program or fix his robot army—his surveillance empire. How many people do you think they’ve hurt—friends of mine, even?”

Zaina turned away. “Yeah, but—”

“No. If they work for him, they’re my enemy. I’ll deal with it when the time comes, okay? You won’t have to dirty your hands.”

A twinge of sorrow struck Zaina’s heart. Had Reida ever known anything but this?

“What’s wrong? Don’t tell me you’re getting cold feet on me.”

“No, it’s not that,” Zaina said. “I guess I—I’m sorry, Reida. You’ve been through so much. Growing up where I come from—I don’t know, I guess I never thought things could get this bad.”

Reida shrugged it off. “Eh, it is what it is. I don’t want to dwell on it. What about you, anyways? Your world was blown up—that’s pretty sad, isn’t it?”

Zaina’s gaze fell to the ground as she turned back toward Reida. “I mean... it is and it isn’t. My family’s safe, and I’m so grateful for that—but my home is gone. The place I grew up—that I know. Knew. There, I could tell you the exact number of steps to get to my father’s shooting range. I could navigate the forest near my parents’ house blindfolded. But here? Anywhere else? I’m lost.”

“Yeah,” Reida said, “you seem pretty lost here. I don’t think Otmonzas is your style.”

“Too much commotion. And too many lights—they’re everywhere.”

“It’s not so bad. There’s something about it—I don’t know, I think it’s all right.”

“I guess,” Zaina replied. “I don’t know about living here, though.”

“Well you’re not going to, right?” Reida said. The vis-screen on her wrist beeped, and she checked it. “All right, five minutes until we go in. Get ready.”