Chapter 21
Something was happening.
Ethan edged toward the front of the runner, the only place to see out, but the front window had been so badly crushed it was impossible.
There was a scraping sound as something hooked the small vessel, and then they started to move.
The question was, was this the Caruso or the Cores?
He was sure the Cores had been responsible for smashing the front of the runner, but he knew a Caruson warship was close by, and there was no way it wouldn’t have retaliated.
Behind him, Velda crouched beside Linao, who was slowly coming round after her laz hit, the second one she’d taken within a few hours.
Given the Cores had done the same to him, and given the threats Linao had made against him and Velda, he didn’t feel all that sorry for her.
Still, they had made her comfortable and given her an oxygen cylinder, and he would bet she wouldn’t have done the same for them, unless there was something in it for her.
Velda rose up and came to join him, crouching down and angling her head to try and find a way to look out, then gave up with a shrug.
The whole runner shuddered as it came into contact with another ship, and they were both forced to press up against the wall to keep their balance.
“Here we go,” Velda murmured, as the ship jerked and then scraped across a bay floor.
They had been physically hauled inside a ship.
Velda put her hands over her ears at the screeching sound of metal on metal, and Ethan realized when it finally stopped that he’d tensed up.
Velda straightened, and he saw her posture change—firming, adjusting, so that she was in a fighting stance as someone started forcing the runner’s door open.
“Ready?” she asked, glancing at him, and he realized he was already in the same stance.
“We’re coordinating.” He didn’t know how he felt about it.
She studied her own stance, flicked a look at his, and shrugged. “I’m taking it as a benefit, to be worried about afterward.”
He couldn’t argue with that.
There was danger coming through the door right now. Whatever was inside him, manipulating him, was a problem for another time.
The sound of a laz cutter, and the glow of heat from the crease in the door, forced both of them to the back, to stand beside Linao.
She was trying to sit up, and Ethan hesitated, then decided not to release her.
There was no good explanation for how he could do it with just the touch of his fingers, and he refused to give Linao any hint that Ritter’s little experiment might have worked.
“Who is it?” she asked them.
Ethan shook his head. “No idea. Could be your people, could be the Caruso.”
“We’ll know any moment,” Velda said. “Looks like they’re nearly through.”
Ethan lifted the laz in his hand, and Velda did the same, and the door finally gave way, bending inward.
A mechanical claw grabbed one side, and the whole thing was pulled outward, ripping the door off its hinges, and then a Caruson soldier stepped into the ship.
That solved that mystery.
Ethan set his laz down as a second Caruson stepped in.
There was no good way out of here, no quick and easy escape, so no need to end up shot again.
One soldier headed for his friends, the other turned to them, laz raised, and then he grunted when he saw they weren’t armed.
He said nothing, just watched them, laz pointed at them, while the dead and injured Caruso from the front were hauled out and carried away.
When it was just them left inside, the soldier moved back a little way, giving them room to exit. “Out,” he said.
“I’ll need to be released,” Linao said, and the guard threw Velda a small device which she studied for a moment before she touched it to Linao’s restraints.
They fell away, and Linao slowly got to her feet, putting her hand out to steady herself.
The Caruson held out his hand and Velda dropped the release into his palm.
There was definitely something about her that made the Caruson more inclined to trust her. So far, she’d managed to be in their good graces without fail.
Whereas they looked at him and saw a threat.
Which he was.