Chapter 18
Wherever they were going, it was taking forever.
Velda wished they would just hurry up, because waiting around was getting on her last nerve.
She kept eyeing the door of the mess, and the two guards standing there, and working out ways to take them down.
That was not a thing she usually did but she went with the flow, and she thought there were at least three ways she could succeed, no problem. And if Ethan helped her, even more than that.
They had eaten something, which she realized she really needed, because her hands began to shake a little as she started chewing, and she noticed Ethan’s doing the same.
Whatever was happening to them, it was taking a lot of energy.
She also kept an eye on Linao.
Linao was being shut out, and she knew it.
Velda could tell she was about to get up from her table and approach Brink, Ritter and the final member of the bridge, Tansy, who’d been allowed to come and eat.
The captain had gone back, and then Rico had taken his place, also sitting with Brink and Ritter, speaking to them in a low voice.
When he’d finished, he’d left and Tansy had come in, and Linao looked like she was going to demand to hear whatever news she had.
As she began to push her chair back, the whole ship shuddered, and everyone froze, then looked toward the guards at the door.
They looked just as surprised, Velda thought, and one began talking into his comm.
“You.” The guard pointed to the table with Brink, Ritter and Tansy. “Go to the bridge.”
Tansy stood up, scooping up the last spoonful of food from her plate, and then headed for the door.
“Quick,” the guard said
Tansy moved faster, leaving the mess and disappearing.
Linao was still pushed back from her table, but hadn’t risen to her feet, and she looked over at Velda and Ethan.
“What’s your best guess?” Velda asked her.
“We’ve found Sylvester,” Linao said, and gave a shrug. “I’m guessing either there was an exchange of fire, or this is Sylvester’s defense system kicking in automatically.”
There was something there. An underlying fury to Linao’s tone, and Velda wondered what was behind it.
She felt a stirring of . . . excitement, as if this change in circumstances would open up possibilities. If they had reached Sylvester, things were finally going to break, one way or another, and there would be opportunity in the ensuing chaos.
She glanced toward Ethan. He looked relaxed, but he was anything but. He was ready to move.
Their gazes clashed, and there was a strange calm that settled over her. She felt ready.
For what, she didn’t know. But something was coming.
Ethan’s large, warm hand slid up between her shoulder blades and settled against the back of her neck and she drew in a deep breath.
The ship shuddered again, and this time she was jostled in her chair.
One of the guards had to grip the door to stay on his feet and he accidentally discharged his laz, hitting the ceiling in a bloom of light.
Everyone stared over at him, shocked.
Before anyone could speak, though, there was a grinding sound—metal on metal—and then the ship listed a little to one side and stopped moving.
The guards changed position, from pointing their weapons into the mess to pointing them down the passageway, back to back.
“We’ve been caught and hobbled,” Ethan murmured.
Linao had finally gotten to her feet, looking toward the door.
Everyone here obviously thought they were about to be rescued, and that might well be the case.
She leaned forward and Ethan gripped her hand. Squeezed it in a silent message.
“I know,” she murmured, glancing at him.
It would have to be a matter of life and death before they moved, because if it was the Cores attacking the Caruso—which seemed the most likely—and the Cores were victorious, then they would have just shown themselves to be exactly what Ritter had been hoping for.
They would be a successful experiment, with all the further experimentation that would entail.
And they will try to take us from you. We are tired of being given a purpose and then put back in the box.
The voice in her head was obviously very much against that outcome.
And by us, she guessed it meant the silver balls.
Laz fire was suddenly exchanged and one of the crew gasped and stood, backing up against the wall, as far from the door as possible.
One of the guards looked in, then swung his laz in a lazy arc, firing into the room.
Ethan moved at the same time as she did, diving down and rolling under the table. They ended up side by side, close together.
Linao gave a shout, pulling a small laz from a jacket pocket as she leaped forward and began shooting, and Velda realized she must have been biding her time, waiting for the right moment to use it.
She didn’t last long, going down under the much heavier fire of the Caruson laz fire.
But she wasn’t dead.
Velda could see her chest rising and falling and suddenly the Caruson grabbed her foot and dragged her out of the room.
Someone else was dragged, too, and Velda was surprised to see it was Ritter. He must have been caught in the scattershot fire, because she was sure he hadn’t been hiding a weapon.
She looked back toward his table, saw Brink was also down but alive. The Caruso had chosen two hostages, probably at random, and Velda watched as they lifted up Linao and Ritter and held them, limp and unconscious, against their chests.
The laz fire abruptly ceased, and the Caruso backed away down the passage, going left.
There was a moment of silence in the room, and Velda saw four others were down, but the rest were crouched beneath tables, like her and Ethan.
Three people in full armor appeared in the doorway, scanned the room, and one stepped inside while the other two continued down the passage.
“Is this everyone?” The soldier kept his laz up as he angled to the side to look inside the kitchen.
“The captain, Tansy and Rico are on the bridge,” one of the crew said. “And they took Linao and Ritter.”
The soldier glanced at her, gave a nod. “No one through there?”
She shook her head, and he moved cautiously anyway, stepping into the kitchen and then stepping out again less than a minute later.
“Mess and kitchen clear,” he said into his comm unit. He did a head count. “Can report eleven people; four unconscious and one conscious but injured.”
The guard who had curled into a ball when the shooting started had propped himself back up, arm held close to his chest. “Those two are the prisoners,” he said, pointing at her and Ethan.
She sent him a bland look and he shrugged and closed his eyes, lay back down on the ground.
“Prisoners?” The soldier walked over to them, laz up and pointed at them and bent his head close to the comms unit on his shoulder. “Someone says two of the eleven are prisoners.”
He obviously got a response confirming it, and narrowed his eyes. “Why aren’t you restrained?”
“Ask the Caruso,” Velda said from under the table.
The soldier blinked, reassessed, and then moved to the door. Whatever he was told through his earpiece, he suddenly focused back on them. “Come.” He gestured to them.
“That’s not good,” Ethan said quietly.
“It was always going to happen,” Velda said. She’d seen it coming the moment Linao had been taken prisoner.
The Cores were going to swap them, no question about it.
The Caruso were about to get their hands on Aponi’s Head of Defense.