“I’m talking to station control, who is talking to the freighter captain,” Sagitta said. “The Drynka claim they’re having a mechanical problem and can’t move.”
“They couldn’t have accidentally come to a stop right there,” Zakota said. “That was some precise navigation that halted them in front of the door.”
“I know. Station control is irritated with them, and the aliens have promised they’ll make their repairs as quickly as possible and get out of the way.”
“Should I volunteer to go over and help them?” Hierax asked. “I’ll only charge a few thousand drachmas an hour for my time.”
“I’ve already offered your services,” Sagitta said. “They rejected them.”
“Maybe you told them my rate too early in the negotiation.”
“It may be egotistical to think this,” Sagitta said, “but I suspect they may have been paid or bribed to delay us specifically.”
“That’s not ego,” Hierax said. “That’s logic. That timing and placement was too precise to believe anything else.”
“Why would someone want to delay you?” Katie asked, though she was only half paying attention to the conversation. She’d found a way to zoom in, with the sensors showing her what a camera couldn’t see, the amount of space between the hull of the station and the hull of the freighter. Just over thirty feet. She was fairly certain the shuttle was narrower than that. More like twenty feet wide. If the freighter didn’t have any shielding or protrusions that would get in the way, would it be possible to slip through?
“I’ve been wondering that myself,” Sagitta said.
The problem was that she would need room to turn. Flying parallel between the freighter and the side of the space station wouldn’t get her anywhere if her pointy fang of a shuttle couldn’t veer into the bay.
“What are the specs for this ship?” she whispered to Zakota, not wanting to guesstimate on something this important. He hadn’t mentioned the shuttle having shields, and crunching against the side of the space station wouldn’t be good for anyone’s health.
“Uh.” Zakota poked at the controls on the device Hierax had hooked up.
“The Zi’i could have anticipated that we might make it out of the Wanderer System one way or another,” Sagitta continued, “and that it would be in time to join the battle, but it’s hard to believe that they would be that concerned about one Star Guardian ship.”
“And one of their warships,” Hierax added. “And don’t forget your reputation, Captain.”
“I haven’t, but it—and our two ships—are fairly insignificant in comparison to the home forces of the Dethocolean System. Further, there’s not any way they could know about Hierax’s plans to use Wanderer tech to build superior weapons.”
A new display appeared above the console, an image of the shuttle. It showed a cross-section with inside and outside measurements. Unfortunately, they weren’t in English. Back on the Falcon, the ship’s AI had been translating readouts into English for the Earth women. Apparently, Eridanus’s influence didn’t extend this far.
“Going to have to make a best guess,” she whispered.
Zakota frowned over at her and looked like he was going to say something, but the captain spoke again.
“If the freighter doesn’t move in the next five minutes, I’ll bring the Falcon in to deal with it.” His tone turned grim. “One way or another. We don’t have time for this.”
“Yes, sir,” Zakota said.
“I thought firing at other ships was frowned upon,” Katie said.
“He’s probably thinking of using the tow beam on it.”
“Would that work?” Juanita asked. She’d left Orion’s side to come up to stand behind Katie. “That thing’s a behemoth.”
“Probably not, unless the captain has got something creative planned,” Zakota said.
Katie fired the shuttle’s thrusters to nudge them upward.
“Creative?” Hierax asked. “Without me there to help?”
“There are other people on the ship with more than the average number of brain cells,” Zakota said.
“I bet you could list them on your fingers. Of one hand. I—what’s she doing?”
“I’m not sure.” Zakota peered at her. “Katie?”
“Trying something,” she said, guiding them over the freighter’s back. Or did spaceships have tops?
Now that she could see it with her eyes, she studied the gap between the freighter and the station. Yes, about thirty feet.
Hierax had moved forward to stand behind Zakota—Katie was starting to feel claustrophobic from the number of people coming closer for a better look. Shouldn’t passengers be penned in the back behind some locked door?
Hierax thumped Zakota on the shoulder. “I thought you were supposed to be the pilot when it was time to land.”
“We’re not landing,” Zakota said. “Er, are we, Katie?”
She smiled tightly and pressed her fingers into the gel. The shuttle crept closer to the hull of the station as it glided a couple dozen meters above the freighter.
The proximity alarm flashed again. At first, Katie thought it was warning her that they were getting closer to the station. But she realized the freighter had started moving, lifting up toward them.
“What’s that brick doing now?” she muttered, taking them higher while continuing toward the station.
“Trying to bounce us into the nearest sun, I think,” Hierax said.
Behind him, the women shifted around uneasily.
“Nothing to worry about,” Orion said calmly, answering some alarmed question about dying.
Katie, concentrating on flying, didn’t hear what else anyone said. She focused on the gap between the freighter and the station. They were almost to it now. The freighter kept rising. Was it enough that she might zip around it and enter the shuttle bay from below? Probably not. The massive ship had to have dozens of levels. She wasn’t the Trekkie that Juanita was, but she remembered the Borg cube. This was almost as big and clunky. And the way it kept creeping higher, forcing her farther from the bay, made her uneasy.
When she reached the station’s hull, she tipped them nose down, so she could skim through the gap. Yes, there was plenty of room for them to fit. At least five feet of clearance on both sides of the shuttle.
She was tempted to shoot down to the glow of light coming from the entrance, but neither the hull of the freighter nor the station was smooth. Here and there, metal lumps and boxes that reminded her of air conditioners protruded. She picked a careful route through them.
“Halfway there,” she muttered, realizing all the conversations had stopped.
The proximity alarm flashed again—it hadn’t stopped, but now it flashed more quickly. Urgently. Then a wailing erupted from the walls, and Katie almost fell off her stool.
“They’re trying to squish us,” Zakota said, reaching for the controls.
Katie growled, slapped his hand away, and slammed her fingers down into the gel. She shoved them forward, ordering the shuttle to accelerate.
She zipped past those protrusions so fast they blurred. The glow from the shuttle bay entrance grew brighter as they flew closer to it, but she could also see the massive hull of the freighter pushing inward, closing the gap.
The shuttle was slightly taller than it was wide, so she spun them on their side, darting left and right around the damn protrusions. Why hadn’t these idiots built a space station with flat walls?
The bay entrance came up, and she jerked the nose toward it as she threw on the reverse thrusters—the equivalent of the brakes. Right away, she knew there wasn’t room enough to turn them into the bay, not without—
A crunch-clank came from the back at the same time as a jolt threw Katie against the console.
The rest of the shuttle shuddered as they encountered the forcefield. The rear of the craft scraped along the hull of the freighter as she leveled them to fly into the bay. But she could only brake so quickly, and their momentum kep
t carrying them downward. Their belly slammed into the deck of the bay as they flew inside.
The shuttle bounced upward, the force too great for whatever nullified the G-forces to compensate. Katie was launched from her stool, and her head cracked the ceiling. Her passengers’ shouts and screams assailed her ears.
Katie came down on the edge of the stool, and her foot slipped off. She pitched sideways into Zakota even as she lunged for the controls. She couldn’t let them crash into some other shuttle—or smash innocent bystanders.
They bounced twice more before Katie managed to get them under control, pulling them to a hovering stop with the nose about five meters from the back wall of the bay. What had Zakota said about kissing that wall?
“Zeus’s butthole, Zakota,” Hierax said from where he lay on the deck. “She’s more of a maniac than you are.”
“I did try to help,” Zakota said mildly, resting an elbow on the console. Somehow, he’d managed to keep his feet.
Not many people in the shuttle had, though Orion, one of the few people who’d kept hold of a ring on the wall, had four women clinging to him. Most of the rest were in a tangle of limbs on the deck. Several dark glares were leveled at Katie.
“Perhaps seats and seat belts would be a worthwhile upgrade, Chief Hierax,” Katie said, and smiled sweetly.
He joined the others in sending a dark glare in her direction.
“You slapped my hand away,” Zakota said, quirking an eyebrow at Katie. He didn’t appear angry or even that fazed by the unorthodox entrance.
“There wasn’t time to fight over the controls.”
“Fight? As I recall, you were supposed to relinquish them to me for the landing.”
“You’re right. Have at it.” Katie lifted her hands.
Technically, they hadn’t landed yet. They were still hovering near the back wall. The display showed extremely concerned people and aliens peering out from doorways and other small ships, the places where they had ducked when Katie charged in. For a moment, the sight of the aliens snagged her attention, and she barely noticed Zakota giving her a dry look and taking the controls.
As the women stood or sat up behind her, Katie considered the variety of people—was that the right word?—out there. Some were bipedal, like humans, with feathers, fur, or scales, but even more looked nothing like them. She spotted an alabaster, the boulder-like being appearing identical to Commander Korta. There was also a being reminiscent of a furry Jabba the Hutt, and a squishy, tentacled alien looked like something that should be living in an aquarium rather than out in open air. An eight-foot-tall alien waddled toward an exit like a duck—a lot of people were hastening to that exit while throwing uneasy glances toward the shuttlecraft as Zakota sedately piloted it toward a parking spot. Katie didn’t know if it was because it was a Zi’i vessel or because of her entrance.
“You certainly can clear a room, Katie,” Indi said, helping Hierax pick up tools that had spilled from his satchel.
“I got us in, didn’t I? We were about three seconds from getting flattened like a soda can under a garbage truck.”
“We could have waited for it to move.” Indi pointed toward the display showing the bay exit.
The freighter was trundling away, revealing a view out to the stars and the distant Zi’i warship.
“No,” Hierax said, securing his satchel. “It’s fine. I think it was there to deliberately impede us. The fact that it’s moving now, right after we got past, adds evidence to that hypothesis, I believe.”
“Or it means that our crazy entrance was for nothing,” someone muttered.
Katie propped a fist on her hip and lifted her chin. She refused to feel bad for taking a risk. That freighter had definitely been impeding them—if not outright trying to destroy them. If she hadn’t done what she’d done, they might never have gotten here.
Still, it was hard not to have some doubts as, after Zakota landed and opened the hatch, many of the women rubbed shoulders and frowned at her as they filed out.
Katie waited a few seconds, for them to get ahead of her, before heading to the door.
“I’ve seen worse landings,” Zakota offered.
“At least the green button didn’t start flashing.” She waved toward it. No way would the computer ever talk her into using that again now that she knew what it did.
“The shuttle must have known that all hope wasn’t lost yet.”
“Even if the passengers didn’t?”
“They didn’t seem that worried. Hardly any of them screamed.”
“Only because there wasn’t time for screaming.”
“Nah, women can produce a good scream in less than a nanosecond. Trust me, I know. My flight instructor at the fleet academy was a woman.”
“Flight instructors are usually pretty unflappable.”
“Sometimes, extreme students rattle them.” Zakota winked and patted her on the shoulder before stepping out of the shuttle.
Katie smiled, feeling a little better, and she caught herself watching his ass as he led the way out of the bay. Maybe odd wasn’t that bad after all. Sometimes odd understood odd.
6
Zakota strolled at the rear of the group with Hierax and Katie as Orion led the women into the station. Apparently, he had visited numerous times and knew where to take them—the Dethocoles Level held a hotel with expansive baths and restaurants that should make the women happy. A few of them were pointing at clothing and other personal items in the shops lining the wide corridors. Zakota had heard that Orion had permission to charge the women’s lodging to the captain’s personal account. He wondered if that included shopping purchases. If so, Sagitta might find himself bankrupt within the day.
“You sure you don’t want to come along?” Hierax asked Indi.
They were walking side by side, shoulders bumping as they stayed close. It was strange to see Hierax walking beside a woman. Or talking to a woman who didn’t wear a Star Guardian uniform.
“To fight a war with you?” Indi asked.
“It’s not like war in the old days with trenches and foxholes that enemies can lob grenades into. We could hide in the engine room together.”
“It’s not a good hiding spot if there’s a possibility it could catch fire or be blown up.”
“I’m good at putting out fires. Being blown up is somewhat problematic.”
“Imagine that.”
Zakota looked over at the much quieter Katie walking at his side. When she’d first successfully brought the shuttle into the bay, she had appeared triumphant, but after numerous people had glared at her and muttered under their breaths as they disembarked, she looked glum. He’d tried to cheer her up, and had extracted a smile from her, but it hadn’t lasted long. Too bad. Star Guardians would have been glad to survive a tense landing and then gone about their work. Civilians tended to get uppity with anything less than flying perfection.
He bumped her arm as they walked. “I was thinking about doing that too,” he offered.
“What? Blowing up Hierax’s engine room?”
“No, squeezing past the freighter. The captain doesn’t like delays. I aim to please the captain. It’s healthy for one’s career.”
“This isn’t my career. It’s just… I don’t know. I can’t pass up a challenge, and that was a challenge.”
“I understand.”
She looked over at him. “Yeah, I guess you seem to. You’re not as weird as I thought you were.”
“I’m not sure if that’s a compliment or not, coming from someone who all those women would consider weird.”
“I think they’d call me crazy, not weird.”
They passed a shop selling wooden carvings and stone statuettes, and Zakota sniffed in derision. “Factory-made trash. You can tell.”
Katie arched her eyebrows. “What’s with you and the carvings? I mean, I can see having a hobby, but you really seem hellbent on selling them. Don’t you make decent money as an officer?”
“It’s an honor to be
chosen to be a Star Guardian, and you’re supposed to feel fulfilled and rewarded by the work you do.”
“Does that mean the pay is shit? You’re not all volunteers, are you?”
“No, but since our room and board are covered, the government doesn’t feel we need a lot of extra money. You get more if you’re married and have kids back home somewhere, but they don’t give bonuses for other family obligations.” He shrugged. “Selling the charms helps a bit, but I also do it because I want to spread something of my people and my culture around the galaxy. They’re done in a very specific style that’s uniquely Amalcari. Another shaman would recognize them and sense the spirit that I infuse them with.”
“Another shaman? Are you saying you’re a shaman?”
Zakota looked forward while he debated how he wanted to answer. He sensed the skepticism in her tone, the same as he got from so many others. Many people openly laughed, which he often found odd. Why was it all right to be a Dethocolean oracle, but a shaman from another planet was something to be mocked? Because it represented a religion from the non-dominant human culture in the galaxy? Usually, he didn’t worry too much about what people thought, but he was reluctant to set himself up for derision from Katie.
“My father was the shaman in the family,” he finally said, slowing his pace—Orion was having a hard time keeping all the women moving down the corridor, as clusters of them kept diverting toward the shops. “I chose space over following in his footsteps.”
Technically true, but Zakota had taken all the tests, performed the rituals, and been questioned by the elders. As far as his people were concerned, he was a shaman, and he had the ability to speak to the gods on their behalf. He could and did ask the deities and spirits to channel tiny threads of their power into the talismans he crafted.
“Was he okay with that?” Katie asked.
“Gods, no.”
She laughed at his swift answer, but then raised a hand to her mouth, as if she wasn’t sure that had been the correct response.
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