“Self-destruct in T-minus twenty-five seconds. This is not a drill.”

“Get me out of here!” she shouted through the mask. “Take off! Take—”

The Valkyrie jolted as it detached from the cruiser, and the weight of a thousand tons crashed into her as the shuttle’s engines roared to life. The suit hardened in response, but still, it hurt.

The bulbous alien ship flashed past the nose of the Valkyrie, and then Kira glimpsed the forward section of the Extenuating Circumstances half a kilometer away, and she saw a pair of coffin-shaped escape pods shoot out from the prow of the ship and burn toward Adra’s desolate surface.

In a surprisingly quiet voice, Bishop said, “Ms. Navárez, I left a recording for you on the Valkyrie’s system. Contains all the pertinent information regarding you, your situation, and this attack. Please watch at earliest convenience. Unfortunately, nothing else I can do to help. Safe travels, Ms. Navárez.”

“Wait! What—”

The viewscreen flared white, and the aching pull in Kira’s chest vanished. An instant later, the shuttle bucked as the expanding sphere of debris hit. For a few seconds, it seemed as if the Valkyrie would break apart. A panel above her sparked and went dead, and somewhere behind her, a bang sounded, followed by the high-pitched whistle of escaping air.

A new alarm rang out, and rows of red lights cycled overhead. As the roar of the engines cut out, the weight pressing down on her vanished, and the stomach-churning sensation of free fall returned.

2.

“Ms. Navárez, there are numerous hull breaches in the aft,” said the shuttle’s pseudo-intelligence.

“Yes, thank you,” Kira muttered, unbuckling her harness. Her voice sounded strange and muffled through the mask.

She’d made it! She could hardly believe it. But she wasn’t safe, not yet.

“Kill the alarm,” she said.

The siren promptly cut out.

Kira was glad the mask stayed in place as she followed the high-pitched whistles toward the back of the shuttle. At least she didn’t have to worry about blacking out if the pressure dropped too low. She wondered, though: Would she have to spend the rest of her life with her face covered?

First she had to make sure she did live.

The whistles led her to the rear of the passenger compartment. There she found seven holes along the edge of the ceiling. The holes were tiny, no wider than a piece of pencil lead, but still large enough to drain the atmosphere from the shuttle within a few hours.

“Computer, what’s your name?”

“My name is Ando.” It sounded like a Geiger, but it wasn’t. Militaries used their own, specialized programs to fly their ships.

“Where’s the repair kit, Ando?”

The pseudo-intelligence guided her to a locker. Kira retrieved the kit and used it to mix a batch of quick-setting, foul-smelling resin (the mask didn’t seem to block the scent). She troweled the goop into the holes, and then covered each one with six cross-layered strips of FTL tape. The tape was stronger than most metals; it would take a blowtorch to remove that many strips.