by Lyn Gala
“Run.” Tyce had wanted to sound authoritative and firm, but his voice came out a thready whisper. Plat obeyed anyway. Still dragging Joahan by the leg, he practically dashed for the opening to the spiral stair, leaving Tyce struggling to keep up.
Chapter Twenty-Two
JOAHAN’S WEAPON WAS heavy in Tyce’s hands, but he held it at the ready as they moved up the stairs. “It’s quiet down here. I’ll carry Joahan for a while.”
Plat grunted. “Fucking Imshee was down there. I’d rather you watch our six.”
Tyce didn’t argue, but he figured the Imshee had either escaped to a higher level or it was dead. Seconds after they’d reached the stair and the sphincter door closed, the whole wall had bulged outward. The only explanation for that was a sudden loss of pressure in the corridor. They struggled up the tall stairs, and Tyce cursed the aliens who’d built this death trap, in ever more creative ways.
They stopped. Despite the low level hum the ship always produced, Tyce could hear Plat breathing heavily. He was wounded himself. “You’re more likely to run into enemy up there than I am. Let me carry Joahan.”
“The Imshee—”
“Was probably sucked into space or died of asphyxiation, depending on how large that hull breach was. Maybe it died as its body was sucked into the hole and dragged through.” That would be a fitting end. A Ribelian spiritual leader would’ve warned him about karma and the danger of judging others, but right now Tyce felt pretty damn entitled to that opinion.
When Plat went silent for a good minute, Tyce knew he’d won. “Shift him over to me,” he said. Even in the poor light, he could see Plat kneel down and lower Joahan. Tyce clipped the weapon he had taken from Joahan to his vest, and Plat moved several steps up to clear the way. The stair was too narrow for two men to stand comfortably side by side. That would make carrying Joahan more difficult.
He was shifting Joahan onto his shoulder when Plat said, “When we got this mission, I was not expecting someone like you.”
“Meaning?” Tyce put his foot on the next step and grunted as he lifted them both. Fuck. Joahan was heavy.
“Meaning I didn't think a traitor would care this much about one life,” Plat said.
“I became a traitor because I cared about life.”
Plat was conspicuously silent as Tyce climbed another stair. Tyce counted it as progress when Plat turned and headed up-ship. The stairs were so tall that within three or four steps Tyce’s thighs were burning, and he had more respect for Plat’s training regimen. Plat paused several steps ahead of Tyce and went to one knee.
“Problem?” Tyce whispered
Plat held up a small square ready meal with a Command insignia. “This is our exit.” Plat scooted to the side so that when the door opened, he would have a little cover.
“Good thinking to mark it,” Tyce said.
“I can't believe you didn't mark this the first time you found it.” Plat snorted.
“I wasn't interested in sneaking back into a cell.” Tyce carefully laid Joahan as close to the wall as possible. With no railing, the stairs were a menace for even conscious and healthy human beings. If Joahan moved about in pain, he would fall into the void. However, Tyce couldn't let Plat cover the door by himself. Either rebelling Command troops or Imshee could be on the other side. For them to have any hope of survival, Plat needed Tyce's help. Tyce eased his way past Joahan and settled on the opposite side of the door.
Plat took a deep breath. “Ready?”
“Yep.” Butterflies filled Tyce’s stomach, but he couldn't tell if that was some ship emotion or his very own, very legitimate terror. Tyce tickled the door, and the sphincter released. Once the threat of imminent death passed, people would laugh about the ship biology. Tyce could practically hear the anal jokes now.
The cell where Tyce had been imprisoned was empty. Plat remained wary as he moved forward, his weapon up. With each step Plat took, Tyce’s panic grew more intense. “Wait!”
“What?”
Tyce’s heart beat against his ribs. “There’s something on the other side of the door. Something’s wrong.”
“Is this another of those weird ship feelings?”
Plat’s disrespect annoyed Tyce to the point of illogic. “The information the ship is sending me helped us find the camera room. It saved us from the last Imshee. Don’t discount a source of information simply because you don’t understand it.”
“Oh, I understand it,” Plat said in a knowing tone, “I don’t trust it. And we need to get back to the others or Joahan won’t survive. He needs those wounds sealed, and he needs blood.”
“I know it,” Tyce snapped. The weight of Joahan’s life pulled at him, but they couldn’t afford a tactical mistake right now. If they died, Joahan would lie in that spiral staircase until he died alone and his soul wandered off to another life. “We can’t rush into this.”
“Says the man who boarded a powerful alien ship with a dozen broken down shuttles.” Plat scoffed. “Besides, I don’t rush into anything.” Plat raised his gun. Despite his confident words, he moved slowly. He pressed himself to the wall before triggering the door. Tyce raised his weapon. When the door slid open, it showed an empty corridor.
Plat rolled his eyes. “Great intel,” he said sarcastically. However, Tyce’s gut was churning. Plat kept his weapon up and eased around the edge of the door, and Tyce inched up to cover him. Plat had picked up speed when the whine of an Imshee weapon warned him a half second before an oversized claw appeared around the curve of the corridor.
“Fall back!” Plat yelled. He scrambled to get back into Tyce’s old cell. But if Joahan didn’t get help soon, he wouldn’t survive. They couldn’t afford to head back into the stairs and wander around a city-sized ship trying to find another pathway into the engineering level. And they couldn’t afford to get trapped in one room, not when Joahan needed help that neither of them knew how to provide.
Tyce started down the hall. “Get behind the sphincter door with Joahan. I’ll draw it off.”
Tyce fired off a couple of shots in the Imshee’s direction and took off running. Behind him, Plat shouted something, but Tyce kept running. The Imshee was between him and the balloon elevator that would take him up to the engineering level, so Tyce needed to find a set of stairs. They were far more common than the elevators, and hopefully he could find another way up to the level he wanted.
Behind him those oversized claws scrambled over the floor. This ship was not made for them. Tyce slipped as he detoured around a bone-like support structure, his knee hitting the padded ground. It wasn’t ideal for humans either, but at least Tyce didn’t end up with cracked kneecaps from falling on steel-plated decking.
“So!” Tyce shouted when the clacking of Imshee claws went quiet, “I guess you guys don’t board ships often. Either that or you suck at your job.” Tyce assumed the creature couldn’t understand him, but if humans knew about Imshee, there was a chance the Imshee had researched humans and their dominant languages. “Are you coming?”
Tyce peeked around the support structure, and found himself damn near nose-to-missing-nose with an Imshee. The monster didn’t appear to have a head at all—only two huge bloodshot eyes set into dull black skin over what should’ve been shoulders. The Imshee clicked, and a huge claw grabbed for him, but Tyce scrambled back before fleeing. He didn’t even consider close-quarters fighting, not with that sort of monster.
Behind him, a huge crash made the deck shiver. When Tyce glanced back, the creature was sprawled on the floor, one thick back leg shoved up into the air. Huh. Tyce hadn’t even shot it. They were not graceful. However, those center legs were already reaching for a weapon. Tyce ran for his life. Because of the curve of the ship, he nearly ran past a stair before spotting it.
Gasping for air, Tyce forced his legs to carry him up a level. He was either on the engineering level or one deck below, he wasn’t sure. He doubled back in the general direction of his old cell, hoping to find either a patrol or another se
t of stairs. He was roughly over the location of his old cell when the whine of the alien guns returned. They did not board ships regularly or someone would have designed something quieter, or they would have done what the Dragon crew had and resorted to short swords—silent, deadly, less likely to cause hull breaches. Humans had relied on them for thousands of years for good reason.
Tyce put on a burst of speed. He hated leading the Imshee back toward John’s group, but at least they had significant firepower. Tyce and his one gun would not survive long against an alien. The passage curve grew a little sharper, and Tyce glanced over his shoulder to make sure the Imshee was not in sight. It wasn’t. However, when Tyce turned back, he nearly ran into the ass end of another monster. The huge back legs were tucked up under the butt.
The creature started to turn, and with another Imshee behind him, Tyce took the only safe path he knew. He threw himself on the creature’s back and grabbed fistfuls of green hair.
The Imshee went wild. It launched itself straight up with its huge back legs, and Tyce was almost crushed as they hit the ceiling. However, he held on.
“Hold your fire. Hold position!” Someone yelled. It sounded like John. Tyce wanted to look, but he concentrated on holding onto the chitinous body under him. When the Imshee landed, it huddled down and chittered madly. Its behavior reminded Tyce more of a frightened horse than an advanced species. “It’s trying to draw a weapon!” John called. That implied that it had dropped its weapon.
Tyce slid off the side of the Imshee and quickly scanned for the weapon. He didn’t see it, so he went with plan B and ran like hell. Something struck the floor hard, but he didn’t even glance back. John stood behind the curve of the hall yelling, “Run, run.” Tyce didn’t even have the breath to call him an idiot because Tyce was running. He skidded into the wall, and pushed off. The alien weapon made a distinctive hiss and Tyce’s neck felt sunburned, but he didn’t care. He slid to a stop safely behind two soldiers with the biggest guns Tyce had ever seen.
John caught his arm. “Are you all right?”
Tyce sucked in oxygen and tried to hand wave John away. It was the best he could do without any air in his lungs. However, John pulled on Tyce’s shoulder and leaned around to check his neck. “You’re burned.”
“Not badly.”
John snorted. “You won’t say that in a couple of hours when it all blisters up.”
Tyce had suffered worse. He pushed John to one side and straightened up. “The Imshee?”
A soldier guarding the hall answered. “It’s shaking.”
John finally stopped staring at Tyce in horror. He turned to the soldier and asked, “It’s what?”
The woman shrugged without lowering her weapon. “Sir, it’s shaking like a dog with water in his ears.”
John blew out a breath. “Aliens.” He spat the word out like it was profanity. Soldiers lined the walls, weapons up and ready for the assault, but then the soldier who was watching the Imshee said, “Sir, it’s retreating.”
“Why?” John sounded utterly confused.
“I assume because it didn’t want to be shot,” Tyce said. The look John gave him made it clear that was a stupid answer. “Did Plat and Joahan make it back safe?” Tyce braced himself for the worst.
“Yeah. That’s how we knew to look for you doing a suicide run.”
“I survived. How are they?” Tyce followed when John headed into the engineering room. The first thing he noticed was the number of Dragon crew who were scattered among the Command soldiers—tending wounds, hooked to live blood transfer equipment, unloading supplies. At least fifty crew had reached the upper levels, including Yoss. Despite the extra people in the room, Tyce also noticed several missing. The dead had been removed and a couple of the barely surviving were gone as well. Tyce assumed they had died while he was gone . John’s expression was unreadable.
Now Joahan was lying in one of those spots. He had bandages everywhere and Rytae sat on a chair next to him, medical tubing coming out of her arm before it curled down, through a med filter and into Joahan. At least he was alive. Tyce was surprised at how relieved he was to see Plat sitting on the edge of a box as a doctor poked him. They made eye contact, and Plat nodded.
“You idiot,” Ama greeted him as she strode across the room. “Plat told us you planned to distract the Imshee. I sometimes wonder if you’re not tired of this life and looking to move on to the next.”
Tyce grinned at her. “If so, I must be disappointed because I keep ending up back here.” He held out his arms for a hug, but she punched him in the gut before embracing him. That was his Ama.
“It means we have some additional information,” John said. “One Imshee attacked you at the same time an Imshee attacked here, and just now, one Imshee was chasing you while another was keeping us pinned down. That gives us a crew of at least three.”
Tyce let go of Ama. “How does that help us?” Unless Tyce knew something about their fighting styles or internal politics, the number of individuals in a crew didn’t help much. After all, Command crews were three to four times larger than a typical colony crew, and yet the colony crews were far more dangerous because any mechanic who served on a ship knew how to pick up a wrench and beat a soldier to death with it.
Ama punched him in the arm.
“Ow.”
“You two are the leaders of these crews. Go next door and decide on a strategy and don’t come out until you can present a united front.” She caught Tyce’s arm and dragged him toward the door.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” John said.
Plat stood and pushed the doctor to one side. “Sir, I agree. You two have to share intel and figure out how to lead. We won’t survive if we try fighting these guys separately.”
“Look at that, an unexpected burst of common sense,” Ama huffed. For a second Plat stiffened, clearly offended.
Then Yoss spoke. “She talks to us like we’re half-wit grandchildren she got stuck babysitting. Don’t take offense.”
Ama gave him a vicious look. “I do not.”
“You kinda do.” Tyce quickly backed away as she turned her fury on him. “Which I respect because you are far closer to enlightenment than we are, but to be honest, you definitely do.” Instead of waiting to see how she might react, Tyce took the tactically sound choice and fled—to the room across the hall where she’d told him to go.
John followed, and suddenly Tyce wondered if he could get someone to loan him a big gun so he could go Imshee fighting. That sounded so much safer than being alone in a room with John.
“Come on,” John said as he walked to the next door and opened it.
After taking a deep breath and sending a prayer out to the universe, Tyce followed.
Chapter Twenty-Three
“YOU HURRIED OVER HERE,” John said with amusement in his voice.
“Yeah, well you’ve never pissed off Amali . It’s not safe.”
John frowned. “What exactly is the command structure in your group? Should we have her over here to discuss strategies for working together?”
Tyce looked around the room. It was half the size of the engineering room, but it had no controls at all. That left a lot more open space. “What is this room?”
“The guys are split between an office or storage room.”
A long conduit ran the length of the wall, and Tyce put his hand on it. It was warm. “Yeah well your guys confused a hallway and a prison cell. So...” Tyce ran his hands over the back of the wall, searching for any hidden doors.
“In their defense, that's a dumb design for a hallway.” John leaned against the wall near the door and crossed his arms. That was classic annoyed John. “So, are you ignoring my question about the leadership of your ship?”
Tyce focused most of his attention on the walls. “We’re not a military ship. Leadership works differently with a family.”
“Don’t give me that shit,” John snapped. “I’ve seen the intel on your ship, on what your ship has bee
n involved in. I know you’re military. Don’t fucking lie.”
Slowly turning around , Tyce studied John. “I never said we weren’t involved in military action. We were. But the Dragon was a family ship, so it’s not about promotions and ranks.”
“But you’re the captain?” John’s voice had a real edge of challenge. Good. Tyce would rather have this version of John, the genuine anger and hot passion. He understood this John better than the emotionally stunted version he’d dealt with earlier.
“I’m the captain,” Tyce agreed. “And for the most part, that means that I get the tie breaking vote if Ama and Tuch get into a knock-down, drag-out fight about how to handle a situation. It also means that if someone has to make a fast decision, that’s me. However, Ama lived on the Dragon for fifty years. She’s known half the crew since they were born. No title will ever trump the relationship she has with people on that ship. It’s a family, John. You remember what that’s like.”
John’s expression turned nasty. “I remember what you were like. You would have done anything to make your father happy, and he died without ever once telling you he was proud of you. I know how much that screwed you up in the head. I was there.”
Tyce turned his back. He’d never fought for his father’s approval the way John had. It had been John getting drunk every time a test came back with anything less than an A. Tyce’s father had never been that much of a hardass. Sure, they’d had trouble understanding each other, especially after Tyce’s mom had passed, but Tyce’s dad had never played the psychological games of John’s father. However, Tyce wasn’t willing to discuss this. Not now. They had too much water under that bridge, and Tyce would rather focus on the homicidal aliens and the crazy ship.
Tyce frowned. Maybe it was because he’d been contemplating a potential life sentence lately, but a new possibility occurred to him. “What if this is a prison ship?” He turned around.
The question startled John out of his anger. “What?”
