48. Athena
Athena
I'd thought racing through Kashara under attack had been frightening, but it was nothing compared to being trapped on a swaying bridge above an enormous chasm with blasters pointed from both directions.
"Get back!" Hatch bellowed, to the enemy soldiers as he sidled toward the center of the bridge with Vern flanking him.
"Back where?" Hal asked as he shuffled closer to me and away from the cable railing. "There is no back. There's just down."
Lettie glared back and forth at the soldiers on both sides of the bridge, as if she could scare them off with attitude alone. "You call yourselves soldiers? Cornering a bunch of unarmed civilians? That's real brave, that is."
The soldier in front sneered at her. “If you’re in a Vandar warbird, you aren’t civilians anymore. You’re criminals, just like them.”
“Look who’s talking,” Lettie snapped, and a part of me wished she’d stop antagonizing the ones holding the weapons.
I scratched absently at the strange burning sensation on my chest and wondered if I was getting a stress rash. Being held at blaster point would definitely qualify as stressful.
"Traitors to the Empire," the officer said, leveling his weapon, "deserve nothing but death."
I didn't close my eyes, even though I didn’t want to watch him fire at us. Some stubborn part of me refused to give any of the Zagrath the satisfaction of me flinching. I did reach for Lettie’s hand, though, and then Vallia’s, comforted by the feel of their hands in mine.
Both women smiled at me, and a strange peace settled over me. If I were going to die, at least I would be with my friends. Then something enormous slammed down onto the bridge.
The impact threw all of us to our knees. The entire steel structure bucked and swung with cables screaming in protest, and for one gut-lurching second I was sure we were all going over the side.
Then I locked eyes with the Vandar who was crouched where he'd landed, axe already in hand, tail lashing behind him with barely contained violence. “Lorken?”
He didn't answer me. He was already moving, a blur of rippling muscle and glinting steel, cutting into the soldiers who'd cornered us from one end of the bridge before they'd found their footing.
A second crash sounded behind us, and the bridge lurched again, sending everyone scrabbling for the railing.
Dawz had dropped from somewhere above, landing hard enough that I felt it in my teeth.
He came up swinging and took the other end of the bridge, dispatching the Zagrath soldiers there before they could get off a single shot.
When the last soldier crumpled to the floor, we all stood and looked around.
Our small group was accounted for, if shell-shocked and shaken, and the two Vandar were breathing heavily at either end of the bridge.
“Fuck me sideways,” Lettie whispered, as she looked up where the two raiders had come from and then to all the dead Zagrath.
“Same,” Hal muttered.
I ran to Lorken, and he caught my hand in his, his grip fierce, already pulling me off the bridge. "We need to move.”
“To where?" I asked, half-running to keep pace with his long strides as Dawz brought up the rear behind my wide-eyed friends.
"Off the ship."
Off the ship? Was he planning to send us off in a transport while a battle was raging? Were things on the warbird that desperate?
“What’s going on?” I asked. “Why did they hunt down this horde? Is it because we’re on it?”
Even as I asked that, it didn’t make sense. We were a bunch of theatre types. Sure, we might have supported the rebellion, but I couldn’t imagine that we were worth risking a Zagrath battleship over. He didn't answer, and the muscle ticking hard in his jaw told me he wasn't going to. Not now.
We wound through the warbird at a punishing pace and spilled out into the hangar bay, which was as chaotic as the rest of the ship.
Fighters roared off and burst through the energy field while ground crew sprinted between damaged ships that limped back in trailing smoke.
Lorken steered us toward a waiting transport, practically shoving my friends up the ramp ahead of me.
I had one foot on the ramp when a voice boomed from behind. “Stop where you are, or I will shoot."
I froze. Lorken went rigid beside me, his hand tightening around mine as we both turned.
An older Zagrath officer stood a short distance away, blaster raised, flanked by two soldiers.
But it wasn't the weapon that made my stomach curdle. There was something in the shape of his eyes and the set of his mouth that seemed eerily familiar, although I was certain I’d never encountered him on Kashara.
His gaze was locked on me as he cocked his head to one side. “You look so much like your mother.”
The words lanced through me and robbed me of breath. My mother? Then I knew without a doubt that the enemy officer facing off against us was my father.
“I’ve been looking for you for a long time,” he continued. “Then just when I was sure I’d tracked you down, the Vandar swooped in and took you.”
The world seemed to tilt sideways. Was I the reason all this was happening?
Lorken stepped in front of me before I could so much as draw breath, his body a wall between me and my father. “She is not yours to take.”
The officer's mouth curved, the smile almost tender. Then he shrugged lazily and fired. The blast hit Lorken and threw him backward into the transport with a sickening crack as his body hit metal.
I screamed his name as one of the Zagrath wrenched me away and handed me off to my father. All I could think, as I was forcibly dragged away from Lorken, was that I had killed him.