Chapter 12 · The Memory She Chose

The laboratory doors sealed shut.

Like a coffin being nailed closed.

Red emergency light washed everything. The cables hanging from the ceiling. The shattered restraint rings around Nolan's wrists. The thin silver blood running from his nose. Somewhere beyond the walls, drones screamed through the ventilation shafts—rotors rising and falling like a swarm hunting for a heartbeat.

Leia stood between her brother and the only exit. One hand pressed against the Covenant Engine burning beneath her skull.

"Tell me that door can be opened."

Nolan's fingers trembled over the terminal. He was still strapped to half the operating table, bare chest webbed with adhesive sensors. The neural fibers he'd plugged into the mainframe pulsed beneath his skin. Faint blue.

"It can," he whispered. "Not from here."

Kane fired twice at the observation window.

The rounds struck glass and flattened into bright sparks. On the other side, silhouettes moved through smoke. Lab techs. Security officers. Something larger and heavier walked among them.

Kane checked his magazine, then glanced at Nolan. "How long?"

"Until what?"

"Until the thing outside decides glass is a suggestion."

Nolan swallowed. "Three minutes."

"You have one."

Leia turned toward the terminal.