47. Lorken
Lorken
Idrove my axe blade through the shoulder of the nearest Zagrath soldier, his scream dying as he crumpled against the corridor wall clutching the wound I’d already opened in his gut.
Beside me, Dawz spun and buried his own axe into the throat of another.
We moved in the same tight, brutal rhythm as we had so many times before, and there was a part of me that relished the familiar cadence of hand-to-hand combat.
My heart hammered so violently I could feel it in my ears, and adrenaline burned white-hot through every muscle in my body.
More boots pounded toward us from the breach point ahead, and I didn't slow to think of a strategy. I only blocked, slashed, pivoted, and slashed the way I’d been taught to since I was old enough to lift an axe.
Dawz shoved past a falling body and reached the cruel, ragged edge of the hole cut into our hull, and a curse tore from him. "Tvek!" He gestured at the mechanism still smoking at the breach's edge. “This is our own clamping system, Raas. This is Vandar tech."
I stalked past him straight into the mouth of the small enemy vessel still latched to our hull with my axe raised. I found the pilot scrambling for a weapon of his own, but I didn't give him the chance to reach it, driving my curved blade through him in a single motion before storming back out.
"That does not make them raiders," I growled, though the words tasted bitter and pointless even as I spoke them. Stolen technology or not, the enemy had found a way to burrow into my ship like parasites, and that fact alone made my rage burn molten.
I peered over the railing into the vast, gaping chasm at the ship's center, and the sight below shifted my fury.
Vandar raiders swarmed across every bridge and down every staircase, fighting with a ferocity that filled me with fierce, unwavering pride.
Zagrath soldiers flipped bodily over suspended walkways and tumbled through the open air below, while others were hurled from platforms or cleaved in two with blood-soaked axes.
Despite my pride at my raiders’ skill, I despised the sight of so many enemy soldiers crawling through my warbird. No Zagrath should ever board a warbird unless it was to be interrogated, and the only way one should ever leave was through an airlock.
As I started to turn away, a flash of vivid blue caught my eye several levels below, and I jerked to a stop so abruptly Dawz nearly collided with my back.
Was that Lettie's hair? I squinted down through the dim, pulsing emergency lights, and my dread solidified as more came into focus including Hal's distinctive orange hair, Vern’s loping gait, and Vallia’s lavender hair.
What the tvek were they doing out here? They were supposed to be safe in my quarters. The steel door might not be impenetrable, but it was safer than a raging battle. Then I saw Athena.
Fear coursed through veins so fast it nearly buckled my knees.
Had they been discovered? Were they on the run from Zagrath soldiers?
I had no way of knowing, but none of the reasons mattered.
All that mattered was that she was exposed and, from the looks of it, unarmed in a warship full of enemy soldiers.
I was already moving before a strategy had fully formed, breaking into a dead run along the walkway. My majak thundered after me even though I had given him no order, and I didn’t know if he’d seen what I had. Still, he followed my lead.
Another quick glance over the railing told me that she was too many levels below me.
There were too many twisting bridges and staircases between us, not to mention the enemy soldiers.
A Zagrath soldier lunged into my path, and I threw him aside without breaking stride, barely registering the crash behind me.
Another rounded the corner with a blaster pointed at me, but I slashed him with my axe without slowing, my focus only on reaching Athena.
I looked down again, and my heart seized.
Two enemy soldiers had cornered Athena and her friends in the middle of one of the suspended bridges, the chains creaking under the weight of too many bodies crowded together.
The two lanky actors stood on either end of the group, acting as a barrier between the soldiers and the others.
Their fists were raised and their bodies braced, but they held no weapons.
They were holding the line with nothing but their bare hands against blasters.
I calculated the staircases I would need to descend, the bridges I would need to cross, and the platforms I would need to leap between. I knew with brutal certainty that I would not reach her in time. Not even if I ran faster than I’d ever run in my life.
“Time to stop running,” I told myself, as I sucked in a single, sharp breath, and threw myself over the railing into the vast, open chasm below.