Don’t stop to think!” Owen roared, somehow louder than the fire raging around them. “It’ll be better inside the structure, but we’ve got to act fast!”

Owen wasn’t lying; the large, looming Covenant scanner was tilting precariously, threatening to collapse all over the entrance to the structure. There was a part of Dorian that wanted to turn around and run to the rendezvous point, where he would at least be able to breathe. But then he saw Evie and Saskia pounding their way to the shelter entrance and he knew he couldn’t. Not the girls, and not Victor, who had laid a path and then vanished into the smoke. Dorian hoped he was lying in wait at the rendezvous, his role in the mission done.

So Dorian kept moving, trying to follow Blanc’s instructions for running headlong into the fire: keep low, try not to breathe too much. He pushed forward into the smoke and heat, his feet pounding against the path of fire suppressant leading them straight into the structure.

“Go! Go! Go!” They were at the entrance of the hole, the Covenant scanner tilting precariously above them. Dorian could hear the internal groaning of its crumbling structure. Not good.

Dorian half boosted, half tossed Evie into the dig, then Saskia. Dorian took a deep breath as Owen grabbed him around the waist and then let go. He landed hard on the packed dirt below. The air was clearer down here, but just as hot. Dorian wiped away the sweat dripping into his eyes.

A loud and thunderous thump as Owen landed beside him. “You okay?” Owen asked. “Breathing fine?”

“Breathing as well as I can,” Dorian said, and then he slipped into the structure itself.

The air changed: The temperature dropped, the world grew quiet. The roar of the fire couldn’t make it through the stone walls. Dorian almost forgot about the conflagration raging overhead, and he wondered if there was something to Evie’s theory that this building was used to rearrange molecules, if they were somehow in a different pocket of space than the fire outside.

But then he heard a scraping, grinding groan again: the scanner, threatening to topple. They had only minutes left before that thing came down.

“We’ve got to move fast!” Saskia shouted, shoving the coil of rope into his chest. “Like we talked about, remember?”

Like they talked about.

Saskia and Evie were already attacking the wall, positioning the construction laser Dorian had found stashed in a back room of the transport center, buried beneath a bunch of rubble. A lucky find, although he had no idea how well it was going to work on Forerunner stone. If anything could work, it’d be that laser.

Probably better than what he was going to be doing.

He looped the towing cable around the sculpture, shoving it down between the sculpture and the wall, pulling tight, locking it into place the way Uncle Max had shown him when he was a kid, helping out with the tourist boats. He locked the other end of the rope around the gravitic binder that powered the forearm-sized tension steel cutter and pulled.

Nothing happened.

Saskia and Evie fired up the laser, sending off sparks and tiny fragments of stone. Dorian dropped the cable and knelt in front of the sculpture, examining how it was connected to the entire room. It wasn’t carved into the wall, just like Evie had said. She had remembered correctly. He could see where the sculpture ended and its display platform began. They were separate components, which told him it could be moved.

It was just too heavy.

“Are we getting it?” Evie shouted over the whine of the laser. “Where are you at, Dorian?”

“Working on it,” he said.

A loud crash filtered down from above, Covenant metal on metal. Evie and Saskia both shrieked, and Dorian felt his whole body go rigid with fear, as he saw one of the scanner’s legs begin to buckle. He picked up the cable again.

“We have to leave now,” Owen said from the doorway. “That scanner is about to topple completely.”

“We’re almost done,” Saskia called out.

Dorian felt a wave of hopelessness, the cable limp in his hand. “It’s too heavy,” he said. “The steel cutter isn’t working like we thought it would. I can’t get it.”

“Well, you should have told me,” Owen said, and Dorian scowled. But Owen was already reaching around the base of the sculpture. “On my count,” he said as more debris crashed overhead, as the ground around the structure trembled.

“Got it!” shouted Evie, and Dorian saw her drop a large chunk of the wall into a satchel Saskia was holding.

“One,” Owen said.

Dorian shoved aside his anger and hurt. None of that mattered right now.

“Two.”

The ground shook again; something boomed above them.

“Three.”

Dorian used the tension cutter’s binder to pull with every ounce of his strength. At first, nothing happened, but then there was a snap and a long, horrible ripping sound, like iron being torn in half. And then Dorian was flying backward, the cable and cutter in his hands. He slammed into the far wall, and the world flickered in and out of his vision. Distantly, he heard screaming.

No, not screaming. Cheers.

He lifted his head. When his eyes focused, he found Owen standing with the sculpture in both hands. Long strands of what looked like seaweed tumbled out from the bottom of the statue. So it wasn’t the weight that was keeping it moored, it had been connected to the wall after all. Just not with stone.

A crash up above.

“Go!” Owen yelled. Dorian dropped the cutter and cable, pushed himself away from the wall, and followed after Evie and Saskia as they sprinted out of the structure. It was like stepping into the engine of a starship. The heat was astonishing.

He crawled up the side of the hole, scrambling over the hot earth, his palms scorching with each touch. When he looked up, the sky was fire.

He forced himself to keep going.

Somehow, he made it to the surface. The fire raged around him, and the scanner had toppled, leaving all but a narrow path for him to escape into. He ducked through it and emerged on the other side, into the smoke. The fire suppressant was working; flames rose up on either side of the path, enough that Dorian was able to run through them, the heat singeing his skin. He spotted glimpses of Evie and Saskia up ahead through the smoke; he thought he heard Owen behind him but didn’t dare turn around to check. He just ran, as hard as he could.

Someone screamed.

It came from up ahead, but Dorian couldn’t see anything in the smoke. He tried to shout, but his voice was caught in his throat.

Another scream. This time, Dorian recognized the voice. It was Evie. And she was screaming for help.

He ran, gasping and choking in the thick, smoky air, his eyes watering. He passed the fire line, the suppressant path winding off sideways out of the clearing. Through smoke he saw Evie and Saskia, both kneeling.

“Evie!” he choked out, stumbling forward. Evie looked up at him, her face shining with sweat.

“It’s Victor!” she screamed.

All of Dorian’s blood froze in his veins. He stood dumbly on the path, the fire roaring behind him.

And then Owen was racing past him, skidding to a stop next to Saskia and Evie. That brought Dorian to his senses, and he pushed forward. In the bloody firelight, he saw Victor lying collapsed on the ground, his skin patchy with burns.

“He’s still breathing,” Saskia said, her voice brimming with tears. “But—”

“Dorian, take the statue.” Owen shoved it at him, and Dorian wrapped his arms around it, staggering a little beneath its weight. Then Owen scooped up Victor and draped him over his shoulders.

“Let’s get to the rendezvous,” Owen said. “And then let’s get off this world.”