“The activation of Epsilon protocol and the death of Doctor Radavich has set in motion a series of containment safeguards which will make our escape difficult, but not impossible.” Myyaelae moved smoothly, helping Tessa along until she broke away, forced herself to walk on her own feet. The Gnarian watched her for a moment, vaguely concerned, but she held her own, met his eyes defiantly, stare for stare as she hugged the burnt and beaten chest of her uniform with one blood-stripped arm. “Fortunately, there is only a single security door between here and the hangar bay where the shuttles and your fighter are kept, but it should pose little problem.”

“Why–” She choked, coughed. “Why the hangar? Shouldn’t we get to Central?”

“There will be no one left in Central.” Myyaelae made a complex gesture, glanced down a darkened, passing hallway. “Facility wide evacuations are already in progress.”

“Evacuations?” She coughed again. “What? Why?”

“One of the containment procedures which was automatically activated is the timer for an implosion wake matrix.” He glanced at her, watching for a human reaction which never crossed her tired, soot smudged face. “Judging by the estimated time of the doctor’s death, we have less than seventeen minutes before the facility generates its own momentary singularity and is obliterated by it.”

“And then it’s adios muchachos.” She managed.

“In effect.” Came the Gnarian’s level response.

“How far are we?”

“Close.” Myyaelae glanced back at the hallway behind them, turned forward, gestured. “The first security door is just up this way, around the corner.”

Tessa nodded, then, forcing herself to move faster, stumbled into an anxious trot. Seventeen minutes. She shook her head, pushed harder. Move, Tessa.

Hands came up hard against the wall near the secure door. An abandoned security checkpoint looked back at her from behind untouched glass. Myyaelae arrived an instant later, already slamming his identification card across the reader lock. Deep within the door, something clicked, and then a red light flashed back at them. Tessa swallowed reflexively.

“I do not.” He swiped the card across the reader again. “It should accept my code.” He jammed open the override panel, pressed his hand into the touch display. “It should. . .”

Tessa pulled in a deep breath, eyes tired, concerned. “What’s wrong?”

“I–” He tried again, pushed his hand into the override as he moved the card back and forth in front of the reader. “I do not know.” Features tightened, and then he crossed quickly back to the checkpoint station, pulled up a security feed on a nearby console. Thumbing through a series of displays, his agile, Gnarian fingers called up a red-lit screen jammed with scrolling security data. Neon eyes stared at the lines for a long instant, searching, dilating green, studying.

“Someone has raised the security protocols to omega level.“He spun back, fixed Tessa with a hard, uncertain glance. “Safety locks are engaged by passcode, and only direct access to Doctor Radavich’s administrative account can override it.”

“Then we have a problem.” Tessa swallowed, stepped forward. “Radavich is dead.” Lips parted, breath coming faster, flirting with frantic as the edges of terror and anger pushed past her training and sunk their claws into her heart. “How the hell do we get out?”

“There. . . is a feature” Myyaelae said, reaching over her to key another sequence into the console. “A means to keep the system from becoming completely locked down by accident.” Fingers moved fast, tripped through data, backed out of displays blocked by security lockout. “The doctor’s password is filed with the ITPKF back on your homeworld for emergency use by the EPMC, but with communications locked down, there is only the failsafe within the system itself which is accessed through a security hint system.”

Tessa’s heart skipped a beat. Hope. “Can you pull it up?”

“One moment.” Myyaelae’s long, narrow fingers tapped through a series of scarlet data strings, and he pursed his lips in some form of frustration. “The hint is an image.” He looked up, exasperation clear in his vibrant eyes. “A mammalian creature I cannot identify resting on a checkered sphere. Likely it is a form of puzzle, or the password itself could be embedded–”

“A mammalian creature?” Tessa swallowed, mind spinning. The universe was full of mammals. Hell, Earth was full of mammals. She put her hands in her pockets reflexively, started as paper crunched under the fingers of one hand. An instant later, the thought came, filled her mind with the cool burst of realization, of hope, knowing. She crossed over to him, eyes darting for the panel. “Show me.”

“You have experience with cryptography?” He asked, eyeing her as she nodded silently, absently, eyes already seeking the screen over his shoulder. The image was clear, simple, a two-dimensional photo of a dog, black and white, one paw draped across a half-chewed soccer ball. Tessa breathed as the empty dialog box came up, blinked, waiting. In the pocket of her uniform, her hand wrapped across the piece of paper Blavatsky had left for her, the single word written there echoing through her mind like an omen, a secret that had the power to bring reality and probability to its knees.

Jericho.

It’s the name of a dog. You’ll know what it means when the time comes.

Tessa swallowed, sucked in a long, uncertain breath. Myyaelae’s fingers tensed over the console keys as he met her eyes.

“I know what it is.” She swallowed again. “It’s Jericho.”

And then the walls exploded in a flurry of flame and broken, surging metal.