“Er, Kandara,” Tyle said. “It’s the safety systems that are being taken out. Two more have just gone.”

A microdrone crawled into the tiny cubicle that provided access to the quantum battery and its cabling. Kandara felt her breath catch. Cancer was there, using a tool to work inside a high-voltage cabinet. The woman turned in a smooth motion, lining her right hand up on the microdrone. The connection vanished, but not before its radiation sensor spiked.

Maser, Kandara realized. Cancer was using a peripheral to shoot through her suit. The narrow beam would wreck any active systems in the fabric it passed through, but wouldn’t puncture it. Kandara opened her communications to an open broadcast.

“Cancer, there’s no way out. You know that. Every portal is closed to you.”

No answer.

“I’m authorized to offer you a deal. Tell us who hired you, and you’ll be renditioned to Zagreus. Refuse, and you’ll be terminated.”

“She just took out another voltage regulator,” Tyle said. “There’s only two left to limit the quantum battery’s output.”

Kandara looked at her own feet. The crumbled bodywork she was standing on was composite—non-conducting. But the frame underneath was boron fiber–reinforced aluminum. Is she trying to electrocute me? But she’s inside; she’ll receive a lot more of the charge.

It didn’t make much sense, but Kandara crouched down and jumped anyway. Her muscles were strong enough to propel her in a long arc, taking her over the side of the harvester. She landed hard in the mushy ice granules, but managed to keep upright as her boots slithered about. The ice came up over her ankles.

Mother Mary! “Tyle, if she rigs a full discharge, how far will the ice conduct the charge?” She looked back up at the broken harvester, ready to jump back. Her armor could ward off an electric shock ordinarily, but that quantum battery stored a lot of electricity.

“Not far. Remember the ground underneath is ice, too. It should just travel straight down. She’d be better off rigging…Oh, Kandara, if she shorts out that quantum battery, it’ll explode—and trigger the others.”

Kandara stared at the harvester in growing panic. “How big an explosion?”

“Uh—get away! Kandara, she’s just taken out another voltage regulator. There’s only one left. Run! Get out of there. Move!”

Kandara brought her arm up and started firing armor-piercing projectiles. The magrail rifle slammed them through dense machinery. An overlapping series of explosions sent dazzling yellow vapor streaming out through the tears in the bodywork. The whole mass of the harvester shifted slightly, the profile distorting.

She turned and jumped. Soaring above the lustrous ground took an age. She landed, wobbling; jumped again, a lower trajectory this time, carrying her farther.

“Last regulator!” Tyle exclaimed.

Landed—

The quantum battery exploded.

Kandara flung herself flat—a movement she never completed. Zapata instantly hardened her armor’s outer layer, locking her limbs in mid-leap. Behind her, a flawless hemisphere of blue-white light erupted from the harvester. It flashed across her, physically nebulous but enriched with energy. Milliseconds behind the incandescent wave front came the shrapnel cloud.