Chapter Twelve

The team escapes through a powered-down section of the installation toward the hangar, but discovers hostile SecUnits waiting for them. SecUnit fights and disables two SecUnits while ART-drone provides support, then discovers a third SecUnit who has disabled its governor module and warns them to flee. The team commandeers a pseudohopper aircraft and escapes into a tunnel as Barish-Estranza forces close in, while the shuttle retreats separately to a rendezvous point.

SecUnit leads the humans—Iris, Tarik, Leonide, and Ratthi in the shuttle—through dark corridors and into a massive hangar. On the way, the team discusses the schism within Barish-Estranza's ranks: a management faction is rebelling against leadership, hoping to capture colonists for forced labor and eliminate SecUnit's team to secure bonuses. ART-drone in the shuttle is six minutes out. As the group navigates the hangar, SecUnit's scout drone is destroyed, revealing hostile SecUnits in the area. SecUnit positions the humans to reach a landing platform with an old aircraft while staying low. A fight ensues: SecUnit engages HostileSecUnit1 in close combat, ultimately destroying it by reaching into its helmet and firing an energy pulse into its spine. ART-drone drops from the overhead hatch and battles HostileSecUnit2, using its tools to dismantle it. A third SecUnit appears—one to whom SecUnit had previously given a governor-module override code. This SecUnit warns them that more Barish-Estranza forces are incoming in two minutes, tells them to leave, and disables its own governor to blend back in with enemy ranks undetected. With ART-drone heavily damaged and barely functional, SecUnit carries it up the platform stairs. The team gets ART-drone aboard the pseudohopper, which Tarik and Leonide begin piloting. They take off and dive into a tunnel to escape the approaching Barish-Estranza shuttle, while Ratthi's shuttle retreats separately to the terraforming construction access rendezvous point.