Fourteen months later...
Bear and Falco nearly had everything in place. By this time tomorrow, they'd be on their way to get Kyree. Finally.
It had taken so much longer than he'd thought it would. Falco, after his initial disbelief that straight-laced Bear would dare to circumvent the Corporation, had signed on with enthusiasm once convinced. "You think I'd let you go try to join up with the Underground without me? No way, man. You'll never even find them without me." And he'd been right. Once they had, it had taken them months to convince someone important enough to help of their sincerity. And longer to prepare the second phase of the plan, post-rescue. They couldn't leave the Corporation any leverage at all to use against them once they had her. There would be no going back. They had smuggled out their families and hers to the Outer Colonies, beyond the reach and jurisdiction of Callan Prime, and that's where they would be headed, too.
They waited in the shadows near the hangar of the ship due to be launched up to the lunar colony in the next half an hour. The perimeter guard should be passing by in three, two, one... They jumped him and dragged his unconscious form out of sight. "You have five minutes to decrypt the lock, Falco, before the next one comes through. I'd like to have the engines up and running before then," he spoke in low tones, so as not to be overheard.
"On it. Shouldn't be more than three," he whispered back. Then, he turned with a huge grin, and said, "Make that two. We're in." Falco worked to jam the lock behind them while Bear made his way to the bridge, disabled the tracker, and powered up the ship. If everything had gone according to plan, their associates had already shut down the planet's defense grid long enough for them to get through. They held their breath as they made their way up and broke through the atmosphere. Halfway to the moon, they relaxed slightly. They were out of reach of Callan Prime's defenses. All they had to do now was make it to Kyree.
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She was falling... always falling. She'd been falling forever. She couldn't tell up from down or sleeping from waking. There was nothing solid to grab onto, no point of reference. Only the slowly spinning stars... and sometimes a face. She couldn't quite place it, but it gave her a sense of peace.
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"We don't have time to wake her now, man! Just get the pod in the ship and we'll wake her when it's safe. Doc'll be waiting to check her as soon as we land. We have to go now, Bear! Corps' coming!"
They got her on board and flew like hell for the safety of the Underground's base. Soon, he told himself. Soon, the waiting will be over. She's safe now. She's safe.
Waking her turned out to be more difficult than they'd hoped. In all of the vidcasts when they'd talked about the damage to her pod, they'd not once mentioned any problems with her stasis. The techs and the doc went over the whole thing before concluding she'd been in a state of semi-consciousness the whole time. There was no telling what state she'd be in when she awoke. They were going to have to bring her out of it slowly, and break it to her gently that she'd lost more than a year waiting for rescue.
