Page 90 of Her Lawless Prince

“We have about an hour of power in this sector before this thing dies,” Nyle said, reading the controls. His chest light shut off.

“Let’s move,” Rick ordered.

They went back into the hall, walking faster than before now that they could see better.

Cysgod had loomed over her thoughts like a dark cloud, in those pictures of the end. But seeing the planet firsthand, she could imagine beyond those last moments. The laboratory was not the big scary monster of nightmares. It wasn’t an evil lair. It was just a building, like so many buildings she’d seen with sterile walls and precise lines. The rooms looked as if they had only been recently abandoned. There were a few scattered devices and empty workstations, as if the scientists would suddenly come back to resume their work.

What frightened her were the things she couldn’t see. It was the air around them, stopped only by a suit. It was an intangible fear, like ghosts echoing the hallways.

Suddenly, Nyle stopped at a glass door encasing a steel one offset into the wall. Score marks scratched the glass as if it had been struck but had not shattered.

“I’ve never seen security like this,” Rick said.

Nyle held up his hands and pressed them to the glass. He began to lean forward.

She heard a soft tapping on the other side of the door.

“Something is in there moving around,” Payton said, reaching to stop him.

“It’s probably another cleaning droid,” Rick said.

“There shouldn’t be cleaning droids in there,” Nyle denied. He kept his hands on the door and pressed his helmet against the glass. He rocked his head back and forth, triggering light to scan the three points of contact. It must have recognized him because the door shimmered and disappeared. A panel opened in the center of the steel.

The tapping turned into thumps. It didn’t sound like the other robots.

“Be careful,” Payton whispered. She felt her claws starting to extend and had to forcibly keep them retracted.

Nyle’s gloved hand hovered over the screen as he hesitated. He hummed a tune and then punched the keyboard symbols to repeat the sounds of the security code. The door groaned as it slid open to let them pass.

A high whiz sounded, and Payton jumped toward Nyle to shove him aside. A laser blast passed between their bodies. Rick pressed against the wall next to the door and instantly drew a weapon.

“Status?” Dev demanded.

Rick quickly leaned into the open doorframe and fired before hiding against the wall once more. Electricity zapped.

Nyle pushed Payton’s back to the wall and began running his hands over her to check her suit. Their lights were still showing they were good, but he kept checking.

“Status!” Dev yelled.

“Rick one, security nub zero,” Rick stated.

“Don’t you dare get yourself killed, space cadet,” Dev warned. “I’m not going to be the one to tell Harper you’re not coming back to her.”

Rick quickly swayed several times in front of the door, but no other shots were fired.

Another soft clank sounded.

“What is that noise?” Payton asked.

Keeping his weapon drawn, Rick went inside. “Clear.”

A destroyed security nub smoked in a ceiling corner. A robotic arm attached to a bench worked analyzing samples from a long cabinet.

“It’s still working,” Payton said.

Nyle went to shut the arm off and pulled up information on the table terminal. “It’s still attempting to grow organs. They never shut it off when they left.”

“Check your air,” Jackson reminded them through the comms.

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