Chapter 23
Irena
I did not realize I was a bloodthirsty person—someone who believed in revenge.
As I helped Flack place bombs all over the Vidu, it felt cleansing, however.
Not so much the prospect of blowing up the pirates as the idea that I was going to wipe this miserable place out of existence.
Today, everything had gone to hell, and I’d risen from the ashes like a phoenix.
I’d taken control of my own fate, even if I was terrified, and now I was taking control of the past.
I’d gotten us help, and I’d gotten Flack out of his cell.
With him at my side, we’d beaten everything that life had thrown at us.
The future suddenly didn’t seem so scary after that.
That thinking was tested moments before we reached the safety of the escape pods.
I saw them; I’d been inside a few in my search for a safe sleeping place, yet they felt like they were miles away at the same time.
The ship rocked so violently it threw me off my feet, and I stumbled forward.
The real danger came from above, and I didn’t even see it coming.
Disoriented after falling, I heard the groaning, shrieking noise, and then Flack was already on top of me.
Our bodies colliding and rolling across the wildly bucking deck as metal crashed down around us.
For a moment I believed the bombs we’d placed had gone off already, and that we’d accidentally blown the ship up around us.
Then Flack’s mouth by my ear whispered the answer.
“Jalima’s ship arrived.” The name of the crimelord had inspired terror and desperate plans in the Vidu’s crew.
It was clear it did something to Flack too, a growl in his whisper, a fury etched on his face that had nothing to do with me.
I didn’t know how he knew, but I believed him right away.
Bombs might not be my thing, but we’d been very precise setting the timers.
“Hurry,” I urged. The ship had stopped bucking, and there was no more debris falling from the ceiling above us. I could only conclude that meant the ship had been struck just once. We needed to seize the moment and get into an escape pod while we still could.
Aside from skinned knees and a few blisters on the palms of my hands, I was surprisingly uninjured after all that.
Flack’s body covered mine, but he had kept his weight off me.
Despite my whispered urging, he didn’t get up, and I had to wriggle out from beneath him.
How badly was he injured? I expected a broken leg, gashes, perhaps a head wound. All bad, but this… this was worse.
A beam lay across his legs, as big as a tree trunk and probably much heavier. Steel warped and twisted, all of it pressing down on his lower legs. There was no way either of us could move it. The future came crashing down around me.
“Go,” he said. “Get into the pod. I’ll be right behind you.
” His blue eyes glowed with fervor, fists clenched, mouth pulled into a grim snarl.
He jerked his head, repeating the order, but my feet were rooted to the spot.
No, there was no way I’d leave him behind.
Not now, not after everything we’d been through.
“Flack,” I whispered. “No!” I shook my head, turned to the beam, and though I knew how hopeless it was, I tried to move it anyway.
“We’ll get you out!” I pleaded. “Push! Help me, damn it! I’m not leaving you, so get this bloody beam off!
Now!” He growled in answer, but he braced himself against the deck and pushed.
A crackling noise overhead made both of us wince, and instinctively, I covered his head with mine.
That really pissed him off. “Run, Irena, go!” he tried again, but I refused.
That wasn’t the ceiling about to collapse again, but the shipwide intercom struggling to come through.
It crackled again—static, thin and high-pitched.
“The bombs will go in just a few minutes. You don’t have time.
Get out of here! The Varakartoom will retrieve you…
” Me, but not him, because he wouldn’t be able to make it to the pod.
I hunkered down over his head even more, fingers trailing through his long, silvery hair.
“Vidu, that was a warning shot. Surrender now and I will end this swiftly. You have no shields and no weapons. You’re sitting ducks.
You have one minute.” A woman’s voice sounded, clear as day, when with a loud pop the static suddenly cleared.
Jalima’s ship, indeed. From the sounds of it, not the crimelord himself, but someone he’d sent to dispose of the Vidu and its crew.
I pictured Xathena panicking on the bridge, possibly answering back to say they had the diamond and could pay.
Then something else sunk in: sitting ducks?
Had this woman just said what it sounded like?
Was that some weirdness with my translator, or had she really said that?
I met Flack’s eyes, but he must not have been paying attention as I had.
His attention turned inward. I realized what he was trying to do right away, and my heart skipped a beat with hope.
A shift! Of course! If he managed to shift to a much smaller size, he could get out!
Then he shook his head with a groan. “I’m full of that damn drug, and too injured.
” He shifted on the deck, rolling just enough that he could look up at me.
“My beautiful Irena. I know this isn’t what you want, but you must. Leave me here and go.
Get yourself to safety with the pod, and my captain will take care of you, I promise.
” I was shaking my head, furiously denying what he was saying.
“Yes! You must go. I need to know you’re going to be all right.
I’m a pirate, a mercenary. I’m a selfish bastard, and I need you to do this for me.
” His voice was hoarse, pain and emotion raw in each syllable.
He gathered his strength and, with a shove, pushed me across the deck toward the pods in the distance.
I glanced at the pods, the looming offer of safety. Then back at the beam that kept his lower body pinned to the deck. Then I looked at the timer on the detonator and calculated my chances. I could make it, as long as that mystery woman didn’t try shooting up the Vidu just yet.
I rose to my feet, dusted off my torn skirt, and gave Flack my fiercest glare.
“No, I love you, and I’m not abandoning you.
Now, do you know what the antidote looks like?
” There was one; there always was one. I was certain of it.
It was the only option we had, and I’d brave the damn med bay—and the butcher inside it—for it if I had to.
Flack’s snarl was so furious I took a step back, but the sound of a ship docking with the airlock made us both freeze.
That was good, wasn’t it? If the enemy ship had docked, perhaps Xathena was surrendering.
In any case, it meant our bombs were ready to blow it up.
It was the only timer I had left to race.
“No,” he said, and then relented almost immediately.
“I’m pretty sure Yurel keeps it in a cabinet to the left.
Yellowish liquid. Take a blazing gun, Irena.
” I’d already turned to start running, but I bolted back to take the rifle he shoved out from beneath his body toward me.
Then I flat-out sprinted through the ship with zero fear that I might run into someone.
I did, though, rounding a corner and barreling straight past two pirates arming themselves at the armory where we’d stolen the bombs.
They didn’t try to stop me, and I didn’t try to fire the rifle at them.
Moments later, I skidded into the med bay of the Vidu and came to a stop, orienting myself.
Left, cabinet, yellow. Yurel, the nasty doctor, was nowhere to be seen, so I crunched across the deck’s sticky surface in a hurry.
Too many options were yellow in the cabinet, so I swiped one of each, as well as an injector.
Flack could read the labels, and I wasn’t taking any chances.
“What the fuck are you doing in here?” a male voice snarled from behind me.
My heart rate instantly leaped into my throat, but it had already been pounding furiously; it hardly made me feel worse.
Yurel, he was here after all. Rising from some dark corner to try and inflict maximum damage on his patient.
Evidence of his most recent surgery still splattered the walls, cot, and floor.
A jar sat askew on a tray by the bed, water dripping from it, and a damaged eyeball floating inside. Xathena’s damaged eye.
He’d been the most terrifying specter of all on this ship.
Perhaps at first simply because he was one of those aliens with a mask like a skull marking his face.
As if I were staring death right in the eye, and those eyes glowed a macabre red.
Part of it might also be because his language was so similar to English, and it was eerie to hear an alien swear with “fuck.”
He stood directly in my path, appearing unarmed, but clearly not intimidated by the laser rifle hanging by its strap from my shoulder.
His head was cocked, and his posture relaxed, as if he was also completely unaware of the enemy ship beyond the hull, or that the Vidu had just been fired on.
I definitely wanted to cower in front of him, and my eyes darted over the walls as I contemplated my quickest exit.
Through him was the only answer; anything else would take too long, and I was painfully aware of the time already ticking away.
We shouldn’t have placed the bombs, as good as that had felt.
I was racing against a clock of our own making now.
Flack needed me. I lifted my chin and gave Yurel a glare.
“I’m getting the drugs that will allow Flack to shift again.
” My hands were full of vials, so full I couldn’t even reach for the rifle.
Yurel dropped his eerie gaze to them, turned to a cabinet by the door I hadn’t even seen yet, and retrieved another vial of yellow liquid.
“Then you’ll need this one. Jumping ship?
Smart. This one is about to blow.” He placed the vial on the floor by the door, began whistling a jaunty but slightly creepy tune, and walked past me like he hadn’t a care in the world.
He picked up a satchel from a cabinet, passed the jar with the eyeball and picked it up too, and then walked back out.
I lost several precious seconds staring after him, but then I darted for the vial, pocketed it and the others, and began running.
As fast as I could, my bare feet slapping against the deck.
I held the rifle in one hand, the other in my pocket to make sure the vials didn’t fly out or break.
Had Yurel actually given me the right one?
He had no reason to do that, did he? Could I trust it?
On the other hand, he didn’t have much reason to lie, either.
With the ship about to be boarded by Jalima’s crew…
He might be jumping ship himself, heading for an escape pod somewhere.
The tune of his whistling was stuck in my head, reminding me of his very casual attitude after the ship had just been shot at.
Flack was exactly where I’d left him, pinned to the deck by that beam, and furious that I hadn’t done what he wanted.
“Irena!” He hadn’t been idle, though, and that had cost him.
Blood smeared the deck by his legs, which meant that odd black armor he wore had gotten damaged.
He’d managed to curl back and stack other debris beneath the beam, however, preventing it from collapsing when he shifted to a smaller form.
That way, it couldn’t crush his smaller body when he changed. Good.
I crashed to my knees at his side, heedless of the pain it jarred up my thighs.
The rifle dropped carelessly to the ground next to me so I could use both hands to yank out the injector and the vials.
Flack didn’t comment, just pointed at one, and I rushed to load it and press the injector to his throat.
It wasn’t until after I’d given him the shot that I realized he’d pulled out the one vial Yurel had given me.
Son of a bitch, he’d actually helped? That butcher of a doctor had actually gotten it right?
I held my breath as we waited for the drugs to take effect.
“Almost,” Flack said. “Get the pod ready.” I didn’t believe him.
It’s a weird sensation when your hope comes crashing down into despair—like something snapped inside my head, and then it was just too much.
I’d seesawed so wildly between feelings, victory, defeat, my body had just had enough.
Numb, I rose on shaky legs and shook my head, lips trembling, tears swimming across my vision.
Everything was blurry when I stumbled toward the escape pods, hands icy despite the Vidu’s always unpleasantly humid heat.
The hatch opened with a creak, the pod beyond dark and absolutely tiny.
Designed to fit one person and emergency supplies, not much else.
I hesitated by the door, certain that if I looked over my shoulder, that would be the last I’d see of Flack.
Could I really do it? Step into that pod and abandon him.
No, I was certain now. My feet turned, and I was already moving back to him.
Flack was still pinned by the debris, several dozen feet away from me and still struggling to shift.
It was then I recalled that he couldn’t shift when injured, either, and he was very injured.
It wasn’t just the drugs keeping him from freeing himself.
He rose on his elbows, blue eyes flashing at me, his mouth a grimace.
He was trying; I could see that. Every inch of him strained to make the change happen.
Our gazes locked; he saw me coming, and then those magnificent eyes went wide with horror.
The transformation followed in a rush, his body changing with a ripple, shrinking, and then he was free.
The burning pain burst across my senses a moment later.
I didn’t know what happened, just that my shoulder was suddenly on fire.
I stumbled, and then Flack was there, catching me in his arms and hauling me to safety.
Over his shoulder, I had one last look at the hallway and discovered Xathena barreling down toward us with fury written all over her face.
Behind her, something much more terrifying: a person in black armor, moving lightning-fast and firing rapidly. Had I been shot?