Chapter Nineteen #2
Nima screams.
Jorren’s blade flashes.
Rhazek turns between me and the door.
A shape hits the threshold.
Kavren collapses into the room, armor smoking, blood dark on his temple.
Behind him, the corridor lights die completely.
Jorren lunges forward and drags him inside.
Seryn is there instantly. “Alive.”
Kavren grips her sleeve. “Do not… use inner route.”
His eyes find me.
“Elara Quinn. They are waiting.”
“Where?”
“Every safe path.”
A narrow gold line appears, leading away from the bed toward a side wall.
A hidden door opens.
The Black Star’s voice crackles through the stone, faint but unmistakable.
“Elara Quinn. Emergency route available.”
Rhazek looks at the passage, then at the wall. “Where does it lead?”
The Black Star’s voice breaks in static. “Old commander’s passage. To dock spine. Manual route. Not in Veyl archive.”
“Can you get everyone out?” I ask Rhazek.
“Yes.” He draws a blade while Seryn supports Kavren.
“Jorren leads. Nima and Maiven next. Seryn with Kavren. Elara beside me.”
The passage beyond the hidden door is narrow, which for Dravari means it is still the size of a human apartment hallway. Stone steps curve upward, not down. Thank God. The walls pulse faintly with emergency gold.
The moment we enter, the pull under my ribs weakens.
Kavren’s wound limits our pace.
Seryn mutters medical threats every time Kavren tries to apologize. Rhazek stays at my side, large enough that even in the passage, I feel him as shield and heat.
The Black Star’s voice crackles through the walls.
“Enemies at lower bridge,” the ship says. “Adjusting route.”
Rhazek’s voice drops. “How many?”
“Six. No. Eight. Signal interference.”
Jorren glances back. “Can The Black Star open fire from dock?”
“Negative. Citadel shield overlap prevents interior targeting.”
The passage splits.
The gold line points left.
Then flickers.
Right.
Then left again.
The air changes.
Sweet.
Faintly floral.
Drugged.
“Seryn,” I say.
“I smell it.”
Rhazek lifts my robe over my nose. I press the fabric in place.
Seryn tosses filter patches from her medical belt. Jorren gives them to Nima and Maiven before fitting his own. Seryn gets Kavren, gives me a patch, then secures her own. I fit mine beneath the robe. Rhazek takes one. The sweet smell thickens from the right passage as the gold line steadies left.
“Left,” I say.
Jorren moves.
Sarkan’s voice drifts behind us, distorted by stone and distance.
“Elara Quinn.”
We keep moving.
The passage begins to climb sharply.
My legs begin shaking. “I need help,” I say.
“Carry?” he asks.
“Yes.”
He lifts me and follows the others.
A side door opens ahead.
Cold air rushes in.
We emerge onto a narrow upper bridge overlooking the dock spine. Below, in the huge vaulted space where The Black Star connects to Vonn Akra, shadows move between columns.
The Black Star looms beyond the docking shield, dark and alive and furious. Her hull veins pulse gold, but her weapons remain still.
Jorren signals silently.
The Vonn Akra guards on the far side engage first.
Blue-white fire cuts through the dock.
Everything explodes into movement.
Rhazek sets me behind a stone column.
“Cover,” he says.
Nima crouches beside me, breathing hard. Maiven stands behind another column with far too much dignity for someone wearing a filter patch. Seryn gets Kavren down and starts working on his wound while cursing softly.
Rhazek and Jorren move into the fight.
Rhazek fights with a discipline I have not seen before: blades, tail, claws, his body moving like he was built by war and then trained by grief.
One enemy falls near the column where I am crouched.
His mask cracks.
A human face beneath it. His eyes are glassy, and a thin silver implant glows at his temple.
The man groans, reaching for something at his belt.
I kick his hand away from his belt. Pain shoots through my bare foot.
The human attacker looks up at me.
“He’s controlled,” I say.
Rhazek joins us as Seryn crosses to the fallen man.
Seryn reboots her scanner and holds it over him. “Neural compliance device.”
Rhazek lowers his blade.
Jorren comes over, dragging another attacker by the back of the armor. Also human. Also implanted.
“Stun and secure,” Rhazek orders. “No killing unless active lethal threat.”
Jorren nods and passes the order through comm.
The Black Star’s voice crackles overhead. “Dock access restored. Boarding path clear.”
Rhazek lifts me and carries me toward the boarding path.
As Rhazek carries me across the threshold, the ship’s warm, clean air replaces the tunnel stench. The others peel off their filter patches. I lower my robe and remove mine.
Rhazek heads toward the inner medical route. Nima, Jorren and Maiven follow. Seryn stays with Kavren and the secured attackers for triage, yelling instructions so fiercely the ship probably takes notes.
Then The Black Star’s lights flicker.
The ship’s voice comes through the wall.
“Unauthorized access detected. Inner medical route sealed.”
Rhazek turns. “Alternate.”
“Route recalculating.”
The sweet floral scent slips into the corridor.
Nima sways.
“Nima?” I reach for her.
Maiven grabs Nima before she falls.
Jorren curses and lifts his comm. “Seryn, sedative gas in inner route.”
Static.
The Black Star says, “Communications disrupted.”
Rhazek sets me on my feet beside the wall. “Hold breath.”
I clamp my robe over my nose and fumble for the filter patch.
Maiven does the same for Nima.
Jorren moves ahead, blade raised.
Then the wall opens beside me, the living metal splitting with a cry of pain.
A human hand clamps over my mouth from behind.
A sweet-smelling cloth presses hard over my nose.
I try not to breathe. Panic ruins that. I inhale, and the corridor tilts.
Rhazek roars my name.
I see his eyes, gold and furious, as shadows pull me backward through the cut in the wall.
My marked palm flares white.
The tiny rhythm inside me flickers like a star in a storm.
Then everything goes black.