Chapter 15 · Boarding the Dead Sun

"Three minutes," Lyra said. "That's all the air you've got, Captain. If you miss the node, you don't get a fourth."

Cassian shoved the cutting bar under the hatch wheel and drove his shoulder into it. The dead sun's outer shell groaned beneath him. Black metal flexed, shrieked, and finally split wide enough for a man to crawl through.

"You said two minutes," he snapped.

"I lied. Move."

He grabbed her harness and dragged her through first. Her boots struck the slanted deck. She rolled, came up on one knee, and swung her short blade toward his throat before he could follow.

Cassian stopped with one hand on the hatch rim. "Really?"

"You touch my harness again, and I cut something useful."

"You want to save your lungs, stop threatening the man carrying you."

"I wasn't asking you to carry me."

"You were sliding into an abyss. I made a judgment call. Try gratitude."

Lyra tilted her face toward him. Her blind eyes did not track the sound of his voice, but she always found him anyway. The black lenses over her pupils were cracked from the last breach.