“Hey, sister,” I greeted her when she came near enough to speak. “You clean up nice.”

She spoke in a low and cutting whisper. “Why are you here?”

“To help out.”

She glanced back over her shoulder, a brisk, nervous movement. She really didn’t handle surprises very well, did Lantern-Eyes. “Last we spoke you were planning to get the data for yourself.”

“The implant’s gone. The Dreamer-bots, they were designed to repair.” I pressed my hand to the back of my neck, the smooth, implant-free back of my skull. “I think they realized the implant wasn’t supposed to be there, and broke it down. I’m not after the Stone for me anymore.”

“So you’re here to help the Republic get it?”

“That’s right.”

“Bullshit,” said Tamara.

So harsh. “You’re hurting my feelings.”

“Sean, listen,” Tamara said, “there’s only so far I can protect you here. If they find out… If they even suspect that you might take enemy action, they will put a bullet through your head before you can open your big mouth. If you are up to something, this is not the time or the place to try to pull a fast one. I can distract them and get you out of here, if you need to, but the closer we get to the Stone—”

“Mr. Wren,” Carson called across the room, and Tamara flinched like he’d laid a hand on her shoulder. “Is the next room safe to proceed?”

Sure it was, and it would be safe—if my sense of timing was correct—for another two minutes or so. I could see over Tamara’s shoulder that the soldiers had gotten the door unsealed.

“Sure is,” I said, brightly. Tamara looked frightened, so I clapped her on the shoulder. “Don’t worry so much, Lantern-Eyes,” I said, and walked off to join Carson and the first wave of soldiers as they advanced into the next room.

The next room had been some kind of break room. A massive hollowed-out rectangle, fallen onto its side like a coffin left lying out, that had been a refrigerator. The rest of the room was in eerily good repair, consequence of no monsters in this part of the ship around to destroy what was left. Tables stood, hunched and sagging, where they had been left a thousand years ago. Some of the chairs had been pulled out and left there after their occupants had gone, no one left to put them away. And the dust was ankle-deep, thick and soft. It muffled our steps.

On the other side of the room, past the fallen bulk of the refrigerator, I saw the locked exit door. I moved through the crowd towards that door as quickly as I dared. I had to get over there first, and quickly, if I wanted to pull this off without any bloodshed. Tamara tried to stick to me like a burr, but halfway through my path another soldier called her name, asking some technical question about room layout, and she was forced to linger behind. I picked up the pace. I’d thrown up a dozen roadblocks, but the Ministers could cut through walls; it wouldn’t take them long to—