Our preparations begin mostly in silence, tension still in the air between Marina and Adam. We start by going through the equipment that the Mogadorians left behind. There are crates piled in one of the larger tents, a veritable arsenal of weaponry and tools that the Mogs shipped down here only to have it all break against the Sanctuary’s force field. There’s a whole array of Mogadorian blasters, but the rest of the gear appears to have been manufactured here on Earth. There are crates of weapons stamped as property of the U.S. military, mining equipment shipped from Australia and what Adam tells me are experimental EMPs covered in Chinese lettering. Adam went through this stuff earlier when he was looking for spare Skimmer parts, so he knows how it’s organized.

“We want explosives,” I tell him. “What have they got?”

Carefully, Adam moves some crates around before opening up one packed with blocks of a beige substance that reminds me of clay.

“Plastic explosives,” he says. “C-4, I think.”

“You know how to work with that stuff?”

“A little bit,” Adam replies, and starts gently pushing aside objects in the crate. Besides the C-4, there are also some wires and cylinders that I assume have some role in detonation. After a quick search, Adam smirks and holds up a small paper booklet. “There’s instructions.”

“Perfect,” Marina mutters.

“How many bombs total?” I ask.

Adam does a quick count of the clay bricks. “Twelve. But I can break them up, make them smaller if you want. The smaller the brick, the smaller the explosion, though. And we’ve only got the dozen blasting caps, so the smaller ones would need to be wired together.”

Before replying to Adam, I poke my head out of the tent and do a quick count of Skimmers parked on the landing strip. Sixteen of them, including the one Adam’s been working on and the one Phiri Dun-Ra’s tied to.

“We should be good with twelve,” I tell Adam. “Don’t blow yourself up, okay?”

“I’ll try my best.”

“Great. Come on, Marina.”

I grab an empty burlap sack from the Mog supply tent before setting out towards the landing strip. Marina follows next to me.

“What exactly are we wiring to explode, Six?” she asks.

“Hold that thought,” I say, approaching the Skimmer where Phiri Dun-Ra is restrained. She watches me approach, eyes hot and angry, not smiling through her duct tape anymore. I think she knows what’s coming. She struggles a bit against her bonds but can’t do much to stop me from pulling that burlap sack over her head.

“Sick of looking at her?” Marina asks.