Jen grippedthe edge of the platform with frozen fingers. Her arms protested. One more pull.Just one more.
She hauled herself over the lip and collapsed onto the metal grating. Rain pounded her face. Cold soaked through her coveralls, settling into her bones like it planned to live there.
What she wouldn’t give for a cup of real coffee, right now. The good stuff from home. Not the sludge from the station dispenser. Real Arabica. Black. Scalding enough to burn her tongue.
Hell, she’d settle for lukewarm at this point.
She rolled aside as Wyatt climbed up behind her. His breathing was even, maddeningly calm.
She hated him a little for that.
But when he straightened and offered his hand, she took it. He pulled her upright with quiet strength.
They stumbled back inside through the watertight door. The wind died instantly, but the cold followed them in, clinging to her skin like a second layer.
Jen bent forward, hands braced on her knees, trying to remember how lungs worked.
In. Out.Yeah. That.
Wyatt’s warm hand settled lightly on the small of her back.
“It’s okay,” she managed. “I’m good.”
The hand remained a second longer. Then lifted.
She straightened and wiped her face with a sleeve equally drenched—achieving absolutely nothing except smearing water around.Whatever.Now was not the time for self-pity.
“We need to get to engineering control.” Her voice sounded a hell of a lot calmer than she felt. “I can lock down the mechanical systems they’d need to extract the missiles. Cranes, tube access, exterior hatches—the whole loading deck.”
Wyatt inspected the corridor with a quiet predatory awareness. “Vent shaft will be safest.” He gestured back toward the narrow opening.
Jen stared at the metal artery of the station that would squeeze around her from all directions, whisperingyou’re trapped in the dark.
She exhaled. “Hell, yeah. Back into the fun-sized coffin we go.”
His mouth twitched—a smile there and gone.
He boosted her up, and she scrambled in before her brain decided to panic.
The vents were still a maze, but she knew the HVAC schematics. East trunk line took them over mess storage toward the canteen.
Wyatt crawled behind her, his presence filling the tight space—steady breath, solid weight, a heat at her back she shouldn’t have noticed but did. The shaft widened slightly giving her a little more room to breathe.
Light filtered up through a vent grille below.
Jen stopped and looked down.
The canteen.
Crew were huddled on the floor—thirty, maybe more. Orange coveralls for engineering. Gray for tech support. White for the kitchen crew. Their heads were down, hands secured.
Eight terrorists paced among them with a confident swagger.
Her eyes searched the crowd until?—
Max.
Like the others, his hands were zip-tied, but his face was up, eyes open and alert. Tracking everything. Thickness swelled in her throat. Relief collided with rage inside her chest, volcanic and immediate.
