"The climate control is dead."
Kira stood in the center of the dark command center and watched her breath turn into a cloud of white vapor. The towering digital monitors on the walls were blank, and the gentle hum of the industrial heaters had faded into a deafening silence.
Malcolm sat in his plush leather chair. The emergency floor strips cast a dull crimson glow across his face. He checked the diagnostic readouts on his wrist console to verify the catastrophic engine failure they suffered after breaching the federal blockade. The tainted diesel had reduced his three billion dollar mobile fortress to a tomb in the middle of Sector Seven.
"The internal temperature is dropping by two degrees every minute," Kira warned him while she pulled her thermal cloak tight against her neck. "We ha
