Page 202 of The Space Between Stars

One guard had been posted on the roof—a lookout. Calver pulled his dowaga from his back and hurled it. Three silver points spiraled. The man gasped just before the dowaga struck true and fell to the roof. Calver pulled his body over the waist-high wall encompassing the roof’s perimeter, unstuck his weapon from the man’s neck, and reholstered it. He returned to the ledge.

Niklaus and Dex dipped across the street and scaled the ladder, each rolling over the wall onto the roof. The trio crouched beneath the cover of the knee wall. Niklaus heaved for breath, eyes doggedly away from the body. To the west, the sun clung low to the horizon.

“So few guards,” Dex said. “Why haven’t the civilians overwhelmed them by now, weapons or none?”

Calver wasn’t proud of his memory of this Tera’thian tactic.

“But there are thousands of people here.”

Dex nodded in understanding.

They sat in silence for long moments.

“Alright. Warehouse scoped,” Niklaus panted. “What’s the plan?”

Dex’s voice was low and serious. “Hear me out. It will take a minute to get to my point. When the plates detonate, it’s going to look like Aetech conspired with either the oligarchy or the Tera’thians to sacrifice the Groundling front lines. When Calver first told me about the interference, I sent a light signal to Atti to warn her. She said the only way it won’t seem contrived is if all of Aetech experiences a shutdown at the same time the plates explode.”

Calver interrupted.

“Naturally.”

Niklaus raised an eyebrow at Dex. “She can make that happen?”

“Consider it an insurance policy against a long list of people she’s rubbed the wrong way.”

Niklaus cursed. And then he began to laugh. The noise began low and crescendoed until he punctuated it with a snort. Calver shifted. Nothing seemed particularly funny.

“To think that all I ever had to do to dismantle Aethertech Mechanics was rub Attilatia Mitar the wrong way.”

Dex swung an arm at him. Niklaus ducked.

“Meyernes, when I do finally punch you, it’s going to be when you least expect it.” Dex held up the bead laced on a string at his neck and continued. “I have a universal activator for anything on Aetech’s stratum. Destroy it, and every lamp goes dark. Including those in the warehouse.”

“But that won’t work on the shields, right?”

Through the mire of his suppression, Calver understood: they’d have a distraction.

“Right. But we stage a rescue. The rescue becomes reinforcements. It’s the best I’ve got.”

{It will do nothing. You will only lead them from one destruction to another,} the Survivor purred.

Calver’s whole body stiffened from the effort of suppressing the creature. He didn’t realize his breath was hissing through his teeth until Dex gave him a look.

Calver feigned control.

Dex nodded, though his brows still hunched too close to his nose. “The closer we can time the two events, the less likely they are to look mutually exclusive.”

Calver fished through his pack for the two Aetech lamps he’d altered while they traveled. He handed Dex the one for which he’d moved the influx capacitor the least—the less dangerous of the two.

Dex turned the lamp over with shrewd discernment. “You altered this one?”

“How will it work if I’ve crushed the bead?”