Chapter Twenty-One #2
He hits the floor shaking.
The female guard grabs Sarkan’s ankle.
He kicks her off with a curse.
I run.
I slam into the door, hit the side panel, and get a wall full of alien symbols.
Behind me, Sarkan says something low and furious.
The remaining cabinet doors slam shut.
I jam the medical rod into the seam between panel and wall.
On the Mercy Ark, every door had two personalities: what it wanted to do and what bad wiring made it do. If you found the disagreement, you could usually make it blink.
I twist.
Sparks snap across my hand.
I bite back a scream.
The door flickers.
Sarkan is behind me now.
“Enough,” he says.
He catches my hair hard enough to stop me.
The terror is instant and primal.
I swing backward with the rod.
He catches my wrist.
Pain bursts through the already-torn skin.
I cry out.
The life-pattern monitor is still screaming. His grip loosens a fraction.
I drive my heel down onto his foot with everything I have.
He snarls.
I wrench free, losing several hairs and a significant amount of dignity, and slam my free hand against the door panel.
“Open,” I yell.
Nothing.
“Open, you overdesigned coffin!”
The door stays shut.
“Veyl ships do not answer to you,” Sarkan says.
But some machines answer to blood. I smear my bleeding wrist across the controls.
The panel flares gold. For one impossible second, The Black Star’s furious hum echoes through the room.
“Oh,” he says softly. “That is interesting.”
The door opens.
I bolt.
The corridor outside is narrow, curved, and red-lit. Alarms pulse along the floor. The ship is not as alive as The Black Star, but it has responsive systems. Expensive. Elegant. Cold. Sarkan all over.
I run left because right smells sweeter, more sedative-heavy.
I keep one hand on the wall, leaving blood for Rhazek and The Black Star to track.
A door opens ahead.
I duck into the first room.
Rows of equipment. Spare armor. Medical packs. Restraint cases. Weapon locks.
I grab a wrap from a shelf and tie it fast around my wrist. Badly.
I limp to a wall display.
The symbols are Dravari-adjacent, but not the same as The Black Star’s. I recognize maybe one in eight. Enough to make trouble, perhaps.
I try three symbols before a supply compartment opens. Filters. I grab two, shove one over my mouth, and tuck the spare into my waistband as Sarkan calls my name from the corridor.
I tap another symbol.
This time a ship schematic flashes.
Medical bay. Transfer chamber. Core. Docking spine. Escape pods. I hate pods. I also love breathing.
I memorize the direction as best I can: two corridors, right, lower ramp, pod bay.
Then another marker catches my eye: six human life signs in holding cells.
I press a hand to my stomach. Six people, and the pod bay in the other direction.
The corridor outside goes silent. I look for weapons, but their cases are locked.
I grab three injector discs from a field kit and hope none are poison. I tuck them into my waistband, sling a coil of cable over my shoulder, and slide a small crescent-shaped cutting tool beside the discs.
The door begins to open.
I press myself against the wall beside it, holding the medical rod in both hands.
Sarkan does not enter.
A human guard does.
Implanted. Glassy-eyed. Young. Maybe twenty-five.
He steps inside, weapon raised.
I bring the rod down on his wrist.
The weapon drops. I let the rod fall and draw the crescent tool.
I jab it at his implant.
He jerks back too fast.
His free hand closes around my throat.
I snatch an injector disc from my waistband, stab it into his upper arm, and slap the release.
He stiffens.
Then he collapses.
Breathing.
I crouch beside him and press the crescent tool to the implant.
“Sorry,” I whisper.
The tool cuts through the tiny metal connectors around his temple with a smell like burned hair and hot wire. His body convulses once. The implant light dies.
His eyes flutter.
“Where…” he rasps.
“Kidnapper ship. Terrible décor. Don’t stand up too fast.”
His eyes fill with horror.
“What’s your name?” I ask.
“Ben.”
Footsteps move in the corridor.
I press a filter into his hand. “Stay down or crawl toward the holding cells if you can. There are others. Be scared later. Move now.”
I run again.
Left. Right. Lower ramp.
The ship tilts under me.
A deep boom shudders through the hull.
Then another.
The corridor lights flash.
A shipwide voice speaks in smooth Veyl Dravari. I catch Black Star.
The bond surges so violently I nearly fall.
Rhazek.
Through distance, through ship metal, through sedative and fear, I feel him.
I reach the lower ramp.
Two more controlled humans guard the bottom.
I skid to a stop.
They raise weapons.
A blast hits the ship.
The corridor rocks sideways.
Everyone loses balance.
I fall hard against the wall. One guard slams into the rail. The other keeps her feet better and aims at me.
I throw the cable coil at her face.
She flinches. The shot goes wide, burning a hole in the wall behind me.
I run down the ramp before sanity can object.
The first guard grabs my ankle.
I hit the floor chin-first.
Pain explodes through my jaw.
For one horrifying second, I cannot breathe.
I drive my free heel backward into his face.
He lets go.
I roll, gasping, and jab the crescent tool at the implant on the side of his head.
Miss.
He grabs my wrist.
I scream.
The female guard gets the cable off her face and raises her weapon again.
Then Ben tackles her from behind.
They hit the wall together.
The weapon skids.
I slash the first guard’s implant cable.
It sparks.
He collapses.
Ben and the woman are struggling, her implant glowing bright, his face twisted with terror and determination.
I grab the weapon from the floor, realize I have no idea how to use it, and hit the woman in the back of the head with the butt instead.
She drops.
Ben looks at me, panting.
“Is she dead?”
“Probably not. I mean, I hope not.” I kneel and slice her implant connection. “Help me turn them over.”
We drag both guards against the wall. Breathing. Alive. Implants dark.
Another boom rocks the ship.
This time, the lights cut out and return in emergency red.
Ben grabs the rail. “What is happening?”
“My alien warlord is probably trying to peel the ship open.”
The ship voice speaks again.
Ben pales. “They’re sealing pod access.”
“You understand the ship?”
“Some. They made me maintenance before…” His hand lifts toward the dead implant at his temple.
“Good. I need an escape pod or a way to open holding cells.”
His eyes dart down the corridor. “Holding cells are closer.”
“Then cells.”
“This way.”
We move through a service corridor so narrow I have to turn sideways around pipes. Ben knows the route, though he trembles hard enough that I worry he may collapse.
The bond tugs toward the outer hull.
We reach a narrow control hatch outside the holding cells.
Ben presses his palm to the panel.
Red denial.
He swears.
I shove my bloody wrist at it. “Try with this.”
He stares. “What?”
“Apparently my blood is a universal override for emotionally unstable architecture.”
Ben smears my blood over the panel with two fingers and taps a sequence.
The panel flashes gold, then black. The door unlocks.
The hatch opens.
The holding cells beyond are dim and foul-smelling, which somehow feels more honest than the medical bay. Six humans are inside separate wall fields. Four conscious. Two slumped. All implanted.
One of the conscious women sees Ben and recoils.
“No,” he says quickly. “It’s me. I’m me.”
She stares.
“Ben?”
His face crumples. “Yeah.”
Ben goes to the side console, hands shaking. “I can unlock two at a time.”
“Do it.”
“What about the implants?”
I hold up the crescent tool. “We do awful surgery fast.”
The first two fields drop. A woman and a young man, perhaps nineteen or twenty, stumble out.
I cut the woman’s implant first.
She screams when it sparks, then covers her mouth as her eyes clear.
The young man is next. Then another man and a woman. Two unconscious captives remain.
The ship shakes again.
This time, a deep tearing sound follows.
Rhazek is definitely here.
Ben unlocks the last two fields.
I am cutting the fifth implant when Sarkan’s voice fills the holding chamber.
“Resourceful,” he says.
“Elara Quinn, I begin to see why Rhazek is fond of you,” the speaker continues.
The implant sparks.
The man collapses, breathing.
I move to the last unconscious woman.
Her implant is deeper.
Ben checks the corridor. “We have maybe one minute.”
The speaker crackles.
Sarkan’s voice lowers. “You are also endangering the child.”
My hand slips.
Blood wells at the unconscious woman’s temple.
“You want me scared?” I ask, working the blade under the implant. “Congratulations. I’m scared.”
Silence.
The tool catches.
I twist gently.
The implant sparks.
The woman gasps awake.
Her eyes clear.
“But scared doesn’t mean obedient,” I say.
The speaker cuts out.
Ben looks at me. “We need to move.”
“Yes.”
The freed humans can walk, mostly. Two need support, and I lean on Ben.
We head toward the pod bay because it is closer than wherever Rhazek is cutting holes into the universe.
The ship lurches.
A blast tears through somewhere above us.
The Black Star’s voice suddenly bursts through the corridor speakers, distorted and furious.
“Elara Quinn.”
“Black Star?”
Static.
Then: “Signal—partial. Location?”
I press my bloody hand to the wall panel.
Gold light flares.
“Lower holding corridor. Seven humans with me. Implants disabled. I’m pregnant and extremely annoyed.”
“Rhazek Vonn receiving.”
“Elara.”
His voice comes through broken speakers and static. I pull the filter down to answer, and Ben catches my elbow as my knees nearly go.
I swallow. “I’m here. I have civilians. Sarkan has a shielded transfer chamber and controlled humans. He’s using implants. Don’t kill the human guards if you can avoid it. Where do I go?”
Static tears across the line.
The Black Star speaks over him. “Pod bay compromised. Do not enter pod bay.”
I skid to a stop so fast the humans behind me bump into each other.
The lights flicker.