As we headed back in the direction of the central shaft, the temperature continued to drop. We were still within the operating range of our exosuits, so I wasn’t worried. Yet.
“So what do we do once we get to the reactor?” I asked the Sean bot.
“What do you mean?”
“We need to turn it on, don’t we?”
“That’s the idea, son.”
“You know how to do that?”
“Conceptually, yes.”
I rolled my eyes. My dad could be so pompous. “And how are we planning to get juice inside your little pyramid? I didn’t see any sockets, did you?”
“I’m not really sure.”
“Induction, maybe?” Narcissa asked.
“Could be,” the Sean bot said. “You know what they say about advanced technology.”
“Magic,” Chiraine said.
“Exactly.”
That didn’t make me feel any better.
It turned out that we hadn’t made as much progress as we thought. We must have missed an access panel somewhere along the way, because we reached a dead end and then spent a half hour wandering around, squeezing our way between massive heat exchangers, big coolant canisters, and thermal regulator units. Eventually, Narcissa spotted another maintenance tunnel which snaked its way across to the far edge of this level, then dropped down into another shaft.
But before we made it down to the next floor, a loud boom rocked the shaft.
“What the hell was that?” Ana-Zhi yelled.
“Whatever it is, it was close,” Narcissa said.
“Sounded to me very much like a breaching charge,” the Sean bot said. “Looks like the Mayir are finally getting off their asses. We need to step up the pace.”
“How did they even know where we were?” Chiraine asked.
“Thermal scans, maybe,” Narcissa said. “Who knows?”
“It doesn’t matter. Just move.”
The shaft ended in a dark space. There were no emergency lights or directional illumination like in all the corridors we had encountered so far.
“You think the power’s out down here?” I asked while turning on my helmet lights.
“I don’t think so,” Narcissa said. “We don’t have time to check, but it wouldn’t make sense that only part of the station would have a power loss.”
The beams on my helmet illuminated a horizontal tunnel that ran back towards the central shaft. I kept my eyes peeled for any indication that this area had power, but didn’t see any status lights, moving ventilation blowers, surveillance scanners, or anything else.
“Hold up,” the Sean bot said. “Everyone freeze for a second.”
He squatted down and placed the flat of his hand on the floor.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Vibrations.”
“From the Mayir?”
He shook his head. “I think the reactor is right below us. And it’s running.”
That would be surprising.
“What are we waiting for?” Chiraine asked.
“Exactly,” the Sean bot said.
I still wasn’t sure what I expected to find once we located the primary reactor. Would the reactor be able to activate the jump gate? Or would it activate the Levirion? And how did it manage to turn itself on?
“This way!” Narcissa had discovered a hatch in the floor. As she pulled it open, a blast of air blew through. I caught a glimpse of a wide open space below us, illuminated by an expanse of dim pinpoint lights that looked like a star field. At least the power was on down there.
“In, but be careful,” the Sean bot said.
I activated the EVS overlay on my helmet display and then climbed down onto a metal catwalk suspended a dozen meters above a battery of power core modules, all set into the ground and connected by hundreds of meters of coupling lines. Looking around, it appeared that we were inside of an immense sphere.
Another explosion from somewhere above us rocked the superstructure, swaying the catwalk dangerously. We all grabbed on for dear life.
“That was definitely closer,” Ana-Zhi said.
“I’m concerned that we could be trapped here,” Narcissa said. “Wherever here is.”
“This is the reactor,” the Sean bot said. “We made it. JJ, if you will?”
He reached out his hand.
“What? The Levirion?”
“Yes, the Levirion.”
“Right.” I rifled through my bag until I found the artifact. “Here you go.”
The Sean bot tucked the Levirion into his own bag and said, “Wish me luck.” Then he ran full tilt and vaulted over the edge of the catwalk.
I expected to hear the crash of a combat bot accidentally dismembering itself from the impact of falling three stories or so, but the Sean bot managed to use its magtouch to slide down the wall of the sphere like some robotic parkour athlete. Impressive.
He scampered around the floor of the reactor, probably getting his bearings and figuring out what was what. But I was getting a bad feeling about the Mayir closing in on us.
“Keep an eye on him,” I told the rest of the team.
“Where are you going?” Narcissa asked.
“Like you said, I need to make sure that there’s not a squad of commandos bearing down on us right now.”
I jumped up and caught the edge of the hatch, then pulled myself up through it and into the dark corridor. Scrambling to my feet, I snapped my RB out of its holster and thumbed it on.
I listened carefully, but didn’t hear much beyond some distant mechanical sounds somewhere above me. Then I crept through the dark corridor until I reached the vertical shaft.
Should I go back or keep investigating? I didn’t want to get too separated from the others, but I also didn’t want to be a victim of a surprise attack.
I decided to continue up, climbing the shaft, towards the illuminated section of the maintenance tunnel. I moved slowly, careful not to let anything knock against the metal hand rails of the ladder.
From above, I heard a distinct clang. Yeah, that wasn’t far away at all.
I emerged into the chamber with all the cooling units and hid behind a stack of coolant canisters as tall as I was. Movement caught my eye and I peeked out to see a Mayir legionnaire wearing a jetpack affix a metal cylinder the size of a beer can to one of the central shaft’s bracing beams. What the hell was he doing?
“Ana-Zhi?” I hissed over the comm.
