by AJ Vega
******
The room was still spinning when she opened her eyes. Whatever drugs Lankey had given her, she was still feeling it. Earlier, Laina remembered, she had snuck out of the infirmary, then limped her way to her quarters. Once there, she found the remote detonator and sat on a couch. She did not remember falling asleep, but apparently she did.
The bandage was still wrapped around her forehead, and it was uncomfortable. She undid the bandages and tossed them to the floor. The cast on her left leg was not going to come off easily, so she would have to leave that alone.
Laina became aware of a strange tingling sensation on her skin. She was ready to dismiss it as a side effect of the drugs, until she saw the flashes of light around her. She turned around to face the source—it was the conduit.
The crystal was alive with pulsating energy—energy discharged from it, traveling across the room, and leaving burn marks on the walls and furniture it struck. It was dangerous for her to remain there.
Laina moved herself away from it and tried to limp toward the room exit—but a tendril of energy struck her shoulder, burning her. She yelped in pain and fell to the ground. She dared a look at her shoulder; fortunately it had just grazed her.
Lying flat on the ground seemed to be a good place to be, as the discharges tended to launch toward the ceiling and walls. Chorus told her she would know when to blow up the conduit; this had to be the sign. She held the detonator in her hand—but she needed to get a safe distance away.
Laina looked at the exit—only a few meters away, but the discharges of energy began to increase in frequency. It was going to be hard to get there. She crawled on the floor, using her elbows to pull her across the floor.
Just as she neared the doorway, she heard an explosion in the ship and it rocked the room. Things began falling off the walls, furniture came crashing down, and the room lighting went out. The strobe light effect from the crystal made it even more difficult to focus her vision, but she could see something now blocking the doorway.
When the dust settled, a beam and section of the ceiling blocked the exit. There was an open area on top of the rubble—but she would have to crawl through it. The energy discharges continued to strike everything in the room, firing above her and pocketing the debris and the hole she would escape from. There was no way she could get through that without getting killed by the discharges.
Laina turned herself on her back, then looked behind her at the conduit. There was something inside the crystal—a form of some kind—but the light was too intense to make out what it was.
She took the remote detonator and looked at it. A feeling of finality hit her—she had to destroy the conduit. It was the only way to save the ship, save humanity, and save Julius; but in the process, she would die. She flipped open the safety latch.
“I hope you remember this, Julius,” she said aloud. “I hope you know what I did for you.”
Laina looked at the detonator, ready to press the trigger.
