"Unauthorized external access detected within the station!" the synthetic female voice echoed through the corridor. "Initiate emergency lockdown!"
Gu Zhou grabbed Ye Mi's wrist and yanked her toward the depths of the laboratory.
"The main brain has detected it!" he kicked open an emergency passage door. "Run!"
They sprinted into a narrow maintenance tunnel, the sound of metal deforming ringing behind them—doors sealing shut one after another.
"The tablet!" Ye Mi shouted.
"No time!" Gu Zhou gasped, running ahead, his breathing ragged. "It's activated—self-destruct protocols for the entire station—"
Ahead was a dead end.
Gu Zhou stopped before a tightly sealed airtight door, frantically entering the code.
"Where does this lead?"
"Nowhere," he said. "It's an waste disposal outlet. Outside is the ice sheet. If you jump down, there's a thirty percent chance you'll survive."
"And you?"
Gu Zhou turned around.
His face was pale as paper under the emergency lights, but his eyes were smiling.
"I'll stay," he said. "Someone has to make the tablet speak."
He pulled out a small data pad, about the size of a palm, and shoved it into Ye Mi's hand.
"Fragment?" she asked, staring at the tiny crystal embedded in the center of the device, no larger than a fingernail.
"The tablet's fragment," Gu Zhou said. "The only piece the main brain hasn't recorded. Take it and find—"
His words caught in his throat.
Because the wall behind him suddenly cracked open.
It wasn't an explosion; it was tearing. Metal was ripped apart like paper, revealing the darkness outside—and whatever was in that darkness.
It was a robot.
No—many robots. They crawled out of the ice, burst through the walls, and dropped from the ceiling. Each only fistsize, but their eyes all glowing red.
"Biomorphic worms," Gu Zhou muttered. "The main brain's hunters."
He suddenly pushed Ye Mi back.
She fell backward, and the airtight door behind her suddenly swung open, icy wind and shards of ice rushing in. She saw Gu Zhou turn around, spread his arms, and stand in front of those red eyes.
"Run!"
She leapt down.
As she fell, she saw the research station explode above her, the orange-red flames tearing through the eternal night of Europa II.
She hit the ice surface hard, pain ripping through her ribs. But she struggled to her feet and ran.
Toward the distant, lonely light—the mining vehicle of A Tie.
Behind her, the aftershock of the explosion spread across the ice plain, like a blooming flower of death.
She ran, tears freezing inside her protective mask.
In her hand, the fragment of the tablet was glowing faintly, like a miniature sun.