Chapter 93: BOARDING

Fern had just finished tracing three routes across the station map when the first shot cracked through the lower platform. The sound struck the buried chamber hard enough to come back twice, and Sio felt the second echo through the balcony rail under his palm while the old Arcline guide continued smiling above the black core, one tiny hand still raised toward the open doors below.

Fern’s head snapped toward the access route on the far side of the station. "That wasn’t ours." A second shot answered her, followed by the dull impact of something heavy hitting metal. Organization guards below turned almost together. Rifles came up, cages stopped moving, and the officer at the ancient control panel slapped both hands against the modern console bolted over it.

Sterling’s projection broke into warning windows above Fern’s wrist. "Departure sequence just changed." When Sio asked how, Sterling enlarged a block of red text and grimaced. "From scheduled to immediate." The white strips along the platform turned amber before he finished speaking, and the cheerful guide in Sio’s palm brightened as if somebody had improved its morning. "Boarding priority updated. Please proceed without delay."

Caspian stared at the smiling figure. "I hate how happy that thing is." More gunfire erupted from the eastern access route, cutting off the reply. Three figures burst through the smoke there, moving fast and wearing nothing Sio recognized as Organization equipment. One vaulted the portable barrier instead of stopping to trade fire, another dragged a wounded prisoner behind an old ticket pillar and returned fire from one knee, and the third pressed a compact charge against the base of an Organization barricade.

Fern swore under her breath. Sio looked between her and the attackers. "Aureole?" She watched the one behind the ticket pillar lean out and cover the others. "Probably." Sio turned back to her. "Probably?" Fern was already folding the station map shut. "They got here. They saw prisoners. They made a decision."

The charge detonated below them, punching dust from the old arches and sending one barricade skidding across the platform. Organization guards abandoned their slower loading pattern and began shoving cages toward the Arcline doors at a run, while two officers waved the escorts aboard. Fern tucked the map away. "We move now."

They dropped from the balcony through a maintenance stairwell that smelled of hot wiring and powdered stone. Sio hit the lower landing with Gumm gripping the back of his coat, and the vibration from the Arcline ran through the soles of his boots in a steady rising hum. By the time they reached the platform, doors were already sealing at the far end of the ancient vehicle, each closure marked by a clean white flash.

Rhea planted one hand against a pillar as bullets snapped past an old station sign. Her fingers shifted against the stone, then she stepped left just as a guard came around the corner. Her shoulder drove into his chest, and she caught his rifle before it hit the floor, kicking it beneath a bench without slowing. "Two cages ahead. More inside." Fern did not ask how she knew. "Caspian, left side. Angle, locks. Sio, keep an exit open."

Angle was already at the first cage. Heat gathered around his hands as a shimmer that bent the air around his fingers, and when he gripped the locking bar, the seam darkened red, softened, then folded inward under his wrists. A guard lifted a rifle behind him, but the line between the muzzle and Angle snapped into Sio’s awareness before the trigger moved.

Sio opened a portal no wider than a plate in front of the barrel. The shot vanished with a hard pressure pop and burst from a matching opening against the platform wall three meters away, spraying pale stone chips across the floor. Angle glanced over his shoulder while wrenching the cage door wider. "Useful." Sio caught the edge and pulled with him. "Try gratitude next time." Angle’s mouth twitched. "I’ll schedule it."

Six prisoners recoiled inside the cage until Fern pointed toward the maintenance stairs. "Up. Follow the blue lights and keep moving." One of the independent fighters had already reached the base of the stairs and was waving rescued people upward while firing short bursts across the platform. Sio caught the stranger’s eye for half a second. The fighter only jerked his chin toward the second cage before turning back to cover the stairs. Fern was already moving somewhere else. Yeah. That tracks.

Caspian hit the next escort line from the side. A guard fired, but the rifle kicked upward so violently that the shot buried itself in the ceiling. Caspian shifted his hand again, and the guard’s next step carried twice as far as intended, sending him shoulder-first into the cage. Overhead, the Arcline chimed and announced its final boarding phase in the same pleasant voice it had used to welcome them.

The floor shifted beneath Sio’s boots. It was not enough to knock anyone down, but the immense vehicle adjusted in its channel with a tremor that climbed his legs. Farther along the platform, doors began sealing in sequence. Rhea turned toward the nearest open section, her ears angled toward something beyond the wall. "They’re loading through there."

She ran, and Sio followed with Angle beside him and Gumm stretched flat across his shoulders. The air near the Arcline doors had turned colder, drawn inward by pressure somewhere inside the vehicle. Prisoners stumbled across the threshold while Organization escorts shoved from behind. Angle struck the nearest rifle with his palm, heat crawling through its housing until the guard dropped it with a shout, while Rhea drove her elbow into one escort’s jaw and hooked another by the vest, throwing him sideways into the door frame.

A woman had been clipped to a rail by her restraint band. Sio opened a portal beside her and forced the second opening to form near Fern behind them. Its edge trembled when the Arcline shifted again. "Through." The woman stared at the opening until Gumm stretched one small arm through it and slapped the floor on Fern’s side twice, then she stumbled across. Another prisoner followed before Sio felt the connection start to drag sideways across his vision.

Pain pressed behind his Scar as the moving vehicle pulled against the relation between the two points. Not now. He kept it open long enough for a third prisoner to crawl through, then shut the portal before its edge tore crooked. The closure left a purple afterimage across his sight, and he blinked it away while a warning tone sounded from inside the Arcline.

Organization officers were retreating aboard now. Fern reached Sio with three freed prisoners behind her and looked toward the shrinking line of open doors. "We have maybe a minute." Sterling’s voice came through her wrist display. "Less. The control system has stopped accepting external delay commands." Caspian glanced toward the stairwell and asked how many had made it out. Fern checked once. "First cage, most of the second. Not all."

Rhea’s head turned sharply toward the vehicle. She pressed her palm against the platform and closed her eyes just long enough for her fingers to spread across the stone. "There are children farther in." A white warning strip lit along the nearest doorway while she spoke, and the panels began sliding toward each other.

Sio saw a boy on the far side, small enough that the restraint band around his wrists looked oversized. An Organization guard caught the back of his coat and dragged him deeper into the carriage. Angle stepped toward the narrowing gap, but Fern caught his shoulder. "If we go in, we may not get back off." Angle looked at the boy, heat beginning to haze the air around his fingers. "I know." He pulled free and ran anyway.

Sio swore and followed. Rhea was beside him almost immediately, Caspian came after them with a noise that sounded like he had already decided complaining was useless, and Fern remained behind only long enough to turn toward the independent fighters near the stairs. "Get everyone you can out!" One of them fired twice over her shoulder and shouted back, "Already doing it!" Fern then sprinted after the others.

Angle reached the closing doors first and shoved both hands into the narrowing gap. Heat rushed from his palms into the seams, and the closing edges darkened, warped and dragged against each other instead of meeting cleanly. Sio dropped low and slid through the remaining space. Cold air struck his face inside, and the floor was smooth enough that his boots skidded before he caught a vertical rail.

Rhea came through behind him, then Caspian and Fern. Angle ripped his hands free last, and the doors sealed with a clean white line between them. The vibration inside the carriage was deeper than on the platform, less like machinery and more like standing inside the note of a huge instrument. Gumm lifted his head from Sio’s shoulder, then tightened around him as the pitch dropped.

The carriage accelerated. Sio’s grip snapped tight around the rail while the station began sliding backward beyond the broad windows. Old holographic families continued their loops outside, passing through modern barricades as the other fighters dragged freed prisoners toward the stairs and Organization guards regrouped behind overturned cover. One of the fighters saw Fern through the glass and slapped a palm against it while the distance opened between them. Fern held his gaze until the station lights began to smear.

Sio’s Scar flared beneath his eye. Doors, corridors, the tunnel ahead, the platform falling behind and the people still trapped deeper inside the moving vehicle all tugged at his perception at once. He stopped himself from following the routes when the pressure sharpened behind his eye, and Gumm made a low sound beside his ear as if he had felt the same shift.

The guide appeared from the black core in Sio’s hand, perfectly steady despite the acceleration. "Departure confirmed. Next station ahead." Angle had already turned toward the inner carriage door where the guard had taken the boy, and Rhea’s attention had gone to the floor again, listening for the prisoners hidden farther down the machine.

Sio tightened his grip on the rail as the last station lights vanished. "We’d better hope it takes complaints." Rhea lowered her palm to the floor while the Arcline carried them into the dark, and her fingers slowly spread across the vibrating surface. "There are more below us."