They got about two-thirds of the way down the corridor, and then he saw the first red-bladed swords. “Heads-up to your left,” he told Simban. “Don’t get hit.”
“Fuck. Great.”
“What’s wrong?
“I don’t know,” he said. “Something . . .”
Ruith’s voice came from behind them. “Step aside.”
Mordjan let Ruith pass, and the elf raised his arms, erecting a shield. IceBlood also had a red-bladed sword, and they all began to press forward again.
IceBlood fought off two Ardaks with red-bladed swords in a way Mordjan had never seen before. It was beautiful and horrible and he was glad those swords weren’t being wielded against him. But their enemies were getting closer.
“Forget the cannon! Grab two ray guns!” he ordered Simban.
Simban took the guns from two of the downed Ardaks, but his movements were unsteady. “I don’t feel good.”
“What do you mean?” Mordjan moved to Simban’s side, steadying him as he listed to the left, and let the other two take the lead.
“Fuck! Stay in the center, Simban!”
“I . . . can’t.”
Mordjan tried to keep him moving, but Simban fell to his knees, holding his helmet with his hands. Simban flipped his visor up, and Mordjan saw him struggling to breathe.
He dropped to one knee beside him. “What’s wrong? Is it just shortness of breath?”
“I don’t know. Dizzy. Pain every . . . wherrrre.” The words were slurred, and blood began to drip from his nose.
Mordjan checked him as best as he could for injuries, but he didn’t see anything wrong with the suit. It must have been an overload of power.
“What’s wrong with him?” Ruith asked.
“Watch out!” IceBlood growled.
As if in slow motion, one of the Ardaks he’d thought was dead rose just enough to thrust an arm forward, sinking the red-bladed sword clean through Simban.
Simban’s eyes opened wide, and he looked straight up at Mordjan. “Irielle.” Her name was a whisper, and a tear rolled down his cheek as he sank to the floor, whispering, “Fuck. Sorry.”
“You’re going to get back to her,” Mordjan said, his voice cracking. “Just hang on.”
The Ardak who had stabbed Simban sprang up and ran straight to an escape pod halfway down the hallway. Mordjan wanted to chase him, but he couldn’t. “I want that pod!” Mordjan roared.
“Consider it done!” IceBlood growled, still keeping the Ardaks back from them.
Ruith knelt and created a bubble around Simban. “This will hold him for a few minutes, but we need to get him back on our ship. Now.” He spoke into his wrist com. “Darion, open docking bay twenty-one and line it up with where that last escape pod came from. Man down. And track that pod!”
“Yes, sir.” Darion’s voice crackled over the com. “Second Medic Zaleria will be there.”
Staring at Simban’s bloodless face, a rage unlike anything he’d ever known went through Mordjan, turning his vision red. He took Simban’s cannon and attached it to his arm, turning it up.
“Duck, IceBlood,” he ordered. He shot twice in both directions down the corridor, killing every Ardak still alive. The power made him dizzy, but he didn’t care.
When he was finished and sure each one of the cats had lost its life, he grabbed Simban under his arms, and IceBlood grabbed Simban’s legs. “Stay with us, Simban. You’re going back to your mate now.”
Simban made no acknowledgement, and his eyes closed seconds before his head lolled on his shoulders.
Ruith held his hands over Simban’s chest, giving him more healing energy. Then he raised his wrist. “Have his mate and healers meet you at the docking bay.”
“We’ll be there,” Fayelle’s voice came in over the com.
Mordjan felt a wave of relief. If anyone could help Simban, Fayelle could. They placed Simban into the pod next to the empty bay. Mordjan strapped him in while Ruith entered the trajectory, locking it on to docking bay twenty-one. Then Mordjan closed the door and pressed the button, watching the pod head toward the other ship.
“Let’s finish these assholes,” he told Ruith, sprinting down the hall toward the control center.
“Agreed.”
“Where’s IceBlood?”
Ruith looked around and, not seeing the Ardak, clicked his com. “IceBlood, where are you?”
“In the control room,” IceBlood growled. “I almost have that escape pod.”
“We’re going after it?” Mordjan asked.
“No. I’m targeting it with the long-range lasers.”
They entered the control center to find about twenty more dead Ardaks.
“Did you do this?”
“Yes. I was pissed.”
“Good job,” Mordjan replied.
“More escape pods are detaching as we speak.”
“Let them go,” Ruith said. “We have the ship. It’s doubtful anyone will pick them up before their life support runs out.”
Mordjan examined the control room. It had been a long, bloody fight, but they had done it. He jumped up two levels of platforms to the lead console and connected with the ship. He wouldn’t be able to fly it alone, but with IceBlood, they might be able to do it.
“Escape pod annihilated.”
“Good work,” Mordjan said. “Team two, what’s your status?”
“We’re heavy in battle over here. We could use some help.”
Mordjan glanced at Ruith and IceBlood. “We’re on our way.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Fayelle
Fayelle had listened to the fight over the com, her arms around Irielle the entire time.
When Simban went down, Irielle had fallen to her knees, clutching her chest. Fayelle instinctively knew that was where Simban had been struck. Her shriek of pain had blistered Fayelle’s eardrums and pierced her heart.
Then the com had gone dead.
“What happened? Where’s Simban?” she asked, frantically pressing the button on her wrist device. Fayelle knelt beside Irielle and took the elf into her arms again. Tears sprang to her eyes as Irielle rocked back and forth, her broken sobs interspersed with cries.
The seconds passed slowly as they waited for an answer, telling them to get to docking bay twenty-one.
“Come on, Irielle. We have to go meet him.”
The elf shook her head, covering her face. “The pain—” She choked. “Too much pain. He’s dying. I can feel it.”
“We can save him,” Fayelle implored. “We just have to get there.”
Irielle pushed up off the floor then, sprinting toward the elevator.
Once inside, Fayelle grabbed her face, forcing Irielle to meet her gaze. “You must have faith. He needs your strength. He’s going to live.”
“You can’t know that.” She pressed her hands to her chest. “You can’t feel it.”
“I can.” Fayelle put her hands over Irielle’s. “If you still feel the pain, it means he’s alive. He’s fighting.”
At that moment, Fayelle realized that every time Mordjan went into battle, this was something she would possibly face.
And one day, Mordjan wouldn’t come back.
When they arrived at docking bay twenty-one, Simban was being pulled from the pod. Irielle screamed and ran to him, clutching at his chest, her magic fluctuating as wildly as her emotions.
Fayelle gathered her magic as she ran, throwing it over him like a blanket when she arrived, trying to strengthen his life force as much as she could. The power of the suit kept throwing off her magic, and when Fayelle saw the hole in his armor, her magic faltered. It was enormous.
He was ashen gray as they hoisted him onto a med bunk and wheeled him through the doors into the elevator. The journey upward to the med wing was one of the longest of her life. Simban’s physical body lay completely still, but his energy field was flexing and twisting, the power from the suit making each fluctuation harder to control.
Irielle was try
ing to add her magic, trying to focus, but the exoarmor was blocking them.
“Turn off the suit!” she cried, and one of the elven engineers stepped forward, turning it off before he started to take each piece off him.
Then Second Medic Zaleria was there, cutting into his chest, finding arteries and clamping them off. Medics hooked Simban up to machines, which were silent.
“There’s no heartbeat,” the medic said. “No blood pressure.”
Irielle screamed, clawing at Simban’s arm.
“Shut up!” Fayelle ordered the medic, trying to keep her magic going.
“Get me some of the cyborg blood, but don’t add it until I tell you to,” Zaleria ordered. “Hold these clamps while I cut and suture this! Jaffete! There are only minutes left before I won’t be able to start his heart again. I need to get pressure back in his heart before I start it.”
Irielle had gone silent, leaning over Simban and touching her forehead to his, one hand on his heart.
“Don’t give up! Help me, Irielle,” Fayelle ordered in a tone she’d heard Mordjan use.
“I can’t,” she whispered. “There’s too much pain.”
“He needs you now. The exoarmor is gone. Help me.” Fayelle gritted her teeth in concentration. The energy was weaker but still unstable, and even with the suit gone, she couldn’t do this by herself.
Three more healers arrived and joined in.
“Where the vok have you been?” Fayelle demanded.
“Simban isn’t our only patient,” one of them replied almost flippantly. If Fayelle hadn’t been trying to save Simban’s live, she would have punched the medic. That would have to wait until after his energy was back under control, though.
It seemed to take forever, but finally, his energy field was stabilized.
She’d been so focused on saving Simban that she hadn’t followed Zaleria’s surgery deep inside his body. When she gathered her courage to look, she found herself fascinated by the complexity of the surgery. The red-bladed sword must have cauterized everything as it cut him, so the high medic was reopening everything to reattach them. Arteries were clamped off with different colored clips, others were already sutured. Zaleria’s hands were covered with blood, disappearing deep into Simban’s torso and reemerging again moments later.
Irielle still had one hand on his forehead, but she had moved the other to the side of his chest. She didn’t shift at all as the surgery went on, atriums, ventricles, arteries, and veins slowly repaired by hand. Even just watching the medic work was exhausting, and some of the other healers had traded out as time went on.
Several hours later as she was finally suturing the skin on his chest closed, the high medic’s wrist com beeped. She glanced down at it. “Oh gods.”
“What’s wrong?” Fayelle asked.
“Now that we’re out of hyperdrive, we’re getting notifications again. The Ardaks have attacked Belavia, which is where we were headed.” She stood and took off her glove before shoving her fingers into her hair, something she’d never seen the medic do before. “We weren’t ready. Jukkete! Why the vok do the Ardaks always attack early? We don’t even have medics on the planet yet!”
“So you knew about the attack?”
“We had word of it, yes, but it wasn’t supposed to be for two more days.”
That was just like Aurora. But from the time they’d used, by her mental calculations Aurora had less than twelve hours left.
“Do they always attack early?” That could mean bad news for Aurora. What if the Ardaks were already there?
“They didn’t used to, but now, yes.” Zaleria took in her expression. “There’s no way you can get there now. It will take time for Mordjan and the others to finish taking both ships—then Ruith will figure out how to get you back. Besides, Simban isn’t going anywhere at the moment.”
Fayelle’s heart was torn between trying to hurry them up to get back to Aurora, or trying to accomplish her own mission. She could probably learn the most by helping out on the battlefield. “Do you need help in the meantime?”
Zaleria started, “Are you volunteering? Because I won’t lie, I could really use your healing ability on the planet.” She glanced between Simban and the machine that was monitoring his heartbeat. “I’m done here, anyway. Simban will be fine.”
Fayelle went to follow and then froze. Should she wait for Mordjan to return?
“If you’re worried they’ll leave without you, they won’t. They can easily retrieve you from the planet when they’re ready to go. And I know Mordjan wouldn’t leave you behind.” Zaleria began issuing orders to gather medics, healers, and supplies.
Fayelle glanced to Irielle, who had climbed onto the bunk next to her mate and wrapped her arms around him.
Mordjan was out there, risking his life for them. And warriors and healers went hand in hand. If Ruith hadn’t given Simban healing energy, he would have died, so the least she could do was return the favor. The only reservation she still had was that Mordjan might still be injured, and she wouldn’t be there to help him. But that was unlikely since it sounded like he had everything under control at this point.
Her mission was to learn how to integrate technology and magic. She’d learned a lot just watching her perform that surgery, but she should learn even more if she saw the medic work in the field. And if nothing else, she was still a healer and couldn’t just walk away from people who needed her help.
“I’ll do it.”
The high medic nodded. “Meet us in Docking Bay Twenty in fifteen minutes.”
“I don’t have anything to pack. I can go now.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Mordjan
Mordjan kicked in another door, shooting the Ardak before he had the chance to draw his weapon. Once he’d figured out how to turn it on, he’d discovered the exoarmor had heat scanners and would send the information directly to his ocular device.
“Looks like you don’t even need my shield,” Ruith commented.
“Not this time, but you never know.”
They continued down the corridor with Ruith’s shield out in front, just in case. Both of them were holding a red-bladed sword in one hand and a ray gun in the other.
They’d come to the second ship after securing the first, and the fight for this one was turning out to be long and brutal.
A voice came on over the com. “We need backup in the med bay. The Ardaks released some type of poison into the air . . .”
Screaming erupted in the background, and Mordjan quickened his pace. Damn.
“On our way,” Ruith said into the com. “Why the vok are they fighting so hard? Every section of the ship has been the same. I thought the Ardaks were bad, but these traps have been ridiculous.”
“There is something on this ship that the Ardaks don’t want us to find. Something they’re willing to die for.”
“I get it,” Ruith commented, turning into the next corridor. “I just don’t know what it could be. I don’t even think the resistance has this kind of loyalty.”
Mordjan shot him a look. “That sounds a little jaded.”
Ruith gritted his teeth. “Maybe I’ve just been fighting this war for too long.”
“Well, don’t give up,” Mordjan growled. “There are a lot of beings who are counting on you.”
At that moment, he remembered Tordan’s words, and uncharacteristically, he chuckled.
“Something funny?” Ruith grunted, punching the button for the elevator.
“No. Yes. Maybe.”
“That was clear,” the elf said dryly.
“It’s just something the king said to me before I left. He said that my people needed me and that I should find a reason to hope.”
The elf paused for a moment before he answered, “I think we all could use a bit of that, at this point.”
He lowered his helmet and entered the med bay, Ruith doing the same. His heart sank to see that it was the Red Death, but at least the resistance had a cure for those who made it thr
ough the first exposure. The air was thick with it.
Borian joined him, and they carted the unconscious elves to an escape pod that would take them back to the resistance ship.
“Do you think we’re almost done with the holdouts?”
“I’m not going to rest until this ship is clear,” Mordjan said and then asked, “Has anyone checked the jail cells?”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Fayelle
Fayelle headed to the docking bay with the box of supplies the high medic had given her. She wondered if she was making the right decision because a part of her wanted to wait for Mordjan to return before she left. But if Simban recovered and the resistance agreed to help them on Aurora, Mordjan had completed his mission, but she hadn’t completed hers.
She had to focus on her part of it. If she went to the planet and worked with the high medic, she might just be able to learn something worthwhile. Practicing her magic and learning from the surgeons here was an incredible opportunity. Their skill and technology were unlike anything she’d ever seen before. If she lived through this, she’d be able to teach the other healers her new skills, making them an exponentially greater healing force.
She arrived at the docking bay where the shuttle was already being loaded. She helped them load the rest of the boxes, with other medics and healers joining them. Within minutes, they were ready to leave. She grabbed a seat next to Second Medic Zaleria and the door closed quickly behind her.
As they departed from the ship, she glanced over to see the two Ardak ships. Mordjan was fighting inside one of them.
“Thinking of changing your mind?” Zaleria inquired. Her voice was a lot warmer than it had been before. She seemed almost friendly.
“No.” As much as she wanted to see him, she wasn’t sure she could handle the reminder that her magic for him was gone.
She didn’t want to feel that again.
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