Callie shook her head. “If I was still planning to execute you, I wouldn’t trust you on that kind of mission anyway. But you’re not going to die by my hand, Lantern. There will be justice for Meditreme Station, but I won’t get it by killing you. I’m going to settle things with your superiors.”

“I know what we did was unforgiveable,” Lantern said. “But I hope you can see we had our reasons.”

“They might not be the reasons you think, though,” Elena said. “Sebastien told me some things… You should look into the deep archives before we go, Lantern.”

Callie wondered what that was all about, but she shrugged. One thing at a time. “You don’t get to volunteer for this, Lantern. You have to raise the little ones in the incubators. If you died, I’d be stuck raising a bunch of baby squidlings, and that’s too much like a comedy immersive for real life. I’m the captain. I’ll do the deadly mission of death.”

“Cap, with all due respect to your fitness level, you’d have to crawl backwards out of the access tunnel before you could even start trying to run–”

“Perhaps not.” Uzoma went to one of the screens and began manipulating data, spinning spatial models of the station. “She could, perhaps, go forward, and drop down to this larger tunnel used by the bio-drones. Then, if she could hitch a ride on one…”

“That could work.” Ashok joined them at the panel. “If we direct a drone to wait for her here…”

“You two figure that out,” Callie said. “I’m a quick study, so just tell me what to do when the time comes. Lantern, open up a hangar door so we can get in touch with the Raven, and get the rest of you off this station.”

The alien scurried away to comply.

Elena touched her arm. “Callie, you don’t have to do this. Risk your life? I asked you to help me, to save my friends, and you succeeded beyond my greatest hopes. You’ve done enough.”

Callie shook her head. “I can’t leave this place just sitting here. It’s too dangerous. Besides, I’ll be fine. I’ll cut the thing, activate the stuff, ride the kaiju, teleport out, you’ll rescue me – it’ll be fine. I’m not in this for the noble self-sacrifice.”

“Don’t die,” Elena said. “Promise me.”

“I can’t–”

“Just say it, Callie.”

“OK. I promise not to die.”

“Good. Now you can kiss me, and then you can go be brave.”

Lantern got the ship-building machines shut down, and even though they’d been working in vacuum and therefore hadn’t made any noise, it still seemed more peaceful without the falling sparks and flashes of welding and the ceaseless motion of metal beyond the glass.