Zakota

by Ruby Lionsdrake

  Katie remembered that Zakota had been planning to sacrifice himself, and his team, before the Falcon 8 had shown up. The entire mission had grown a lot more real in the last fifteen minutes. For the first time, she questioned what she was doing here, why she had fought so hard to come along and fly. Oh, she’d wanted the experience of piloting a spaceship, and she still hoped for a chance at the helm of the fire falcon, but if she died in this giant alien cube, would it have been worth it?

  “Can you tell what’s going on out there?” she asked. “My sensor display used to show a lot more, but now it’s just this little alcove and the shaft.”

  “I can’t see what’s going on, either, and I can’t communicate with the ship—the Falcon. I’m assuming there’s dampening or scrambling technology built into the hull of the weapons platform.”

  Katie absorbed that with unease. That meant every human ship could be destroyed, along with Dethocoles, and they wouldn’t know, not until they flew out again. Assuming they got the chance to do that.

  “Do you think the Zi’i know we’re here?” Katie looked around the empty shuttle, feeling alone without the burly men there, and realizing she didn’t have any weapons, no way to protect herself if an alien forced its way inside. Hell, would the Zi’i even have to “force” their way in? This was their shuttle. Maybe it would see them coming, pop the hatch, roll out a carpet, and start playing luau music.

  “It would be surprising if they didn’t,” Zakota said. “I suppose there’s a chance the weapons station is completely automated, but I wouldn’t bet on it. Sagitta mentioned that intel reported Zi’i inside of it.”

  “Yeah.” Katie didn’t know what else to say. She was tempted to find a bar to jam through the hatch handle to see if that would keep it from opening. Or did that only work in cartoons?

  “I suspect we got in without much opposition because they didn’t think we’d know how to bypass the forcefields.”

  “You don’t consider what we faced much opposition?” Katie almost pointed out that the Star Guardians had lost a ship and one of their officers, but she didn’t want to rub salt in that wound.

  “It could have been worse.”

  She also chose not to point out how he’d almost sacrificed himself and his team.

  “But it would be foolish to assume they didn’t notice us slipping in,” Zakota continued. “Unfortunately, with the sensors so limited in range right now, anyone that comes to investigate us will get pretty close before we know they’re there.”

  “Comforting.”

  When he didn’t respond to that, she wondered if she should have been less of a downer. But it was hard to be optimistic in this situation. What happened after the men planted the warheads? She assumed there were countdown timers and that they would give themselves time to race back to the shuttles and fly away. But what if they decided someone had to stay with them to make sure the Zi’i couldn’t disarm them? More sacrifices? Or what if the shuttles couldn’t get away quickly enough, and the cube imploded around them?

  Were these men even meant to survive this mission? Or had Captain Sagitta believed there was a good chance he was sacrificing them when he’d chosen them for it? And if so, could she be bitter, when he and his crew were out there, being pummeled right now? What were the odds that any of them would make it out?

  “You all right, Katie?” Zakota asked quietly, as if he could guess her thoughts.

  Maybe he was having similar thoughts.

  “Not really.”

  “Regretting that you volunteered for this?”

  “Considering I would have been blown up along with Arkyn if I’d stayed on the warship, no, I’m not.”

  She thought he might point out that she could have stayed on a space station in an entirely different star system, but he didn’t. Good. She didn’t want a lecture. It was bad enough she’d played a role in Arkyn’s death. She kept expecting somebody to point that out, to blame her.

  And she would deserve it. Maybe the warship had been put to better use because he’d stayed behind. But she hadn’t been thinking about that. She’d just been thinking of convincing Zakota that she should fly one of the shuttles on the mission, that she could be an integral part of a team, for the first time in a long time. That she could matter.

  “Want me to come over there?” he asked.

  Was he looking around his empty shuttle and also facing his self doubts in the lonely silence?

  “Is that allowed? Or possible?” she asked.

  “I have my combat armor on.”

  “Seems I’m the only one who didn’t get a packing list.”

  “I’d say we could have borrowed someone’s armor for you, but I’m sure everyone on the Falcon is wearing theirs right now. I’ll come over there.”

  “What if the men come back, and we have to leave in a hurry?”

  “I’m in touch with them. They’re sneaking around now, trying to avoid notice while looking for the equivalent of the engineering room. I’ll know when they’ve planted the warhead and are coming back.”

  “You’re welcome to visit then,” Katie said.

  Judging by how soon her hatch opened, Zakota had already been on his way over. He stepped inside, closed the hatch, and faced her. The forcefield was still up.

  “Want me to press the button to lower that?” she asked, waving at the console. “And if I do, will there be enough air for me to breathe?”

  “I suspect the environmental system can refill the shuttle with air, but I’m not sure how many times it can do it. The shuttle isn’t that large, and there aren’t big tanks back there with the engine. Better keep it up.”

  He poked the air with his finger to find the location of the forcefield. It buzzed at him. Then he sat down against the hull between it and the hatch.

  “I’m starting to miss chairs,” he said, letting his helmet clunk back against the hull.

  Katie stepped down from her box and thought about sitting on it. Instead she sat on the deck next to Zakota, the forcefield between them. It was too bad they couldn’t lean shoulder to shoulder, too bad he couldn’t take that helmet off.

  “One way or another, our time on Zi’i ships should be coming to an end soon,” Katie said.

  “Yes.” He turned his helmet and gazed at her through his faceplate. “I’m sorry I got you into this.”

  “You didn’t get me into anything. I got myself into this.”

  “I chose to let you. I could have said no to your requests, at least until this was all over.”

  “I’m persuasive when I request things.”

  “The captain managed to say no.”

  “Only because he fled whenever I approached,” Katie said, “so I wasn’t able to ply him with my entire arsenal of persuasiveness.”

  “So my mistake was in… not fleeing from you?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Huh. I’m not used to fleeing from women. Occasionally, women flee from me.”

  “Just in general or because you’re trying to sell them charms?”

  “The latter, I believe.”

  “If I hadn’t come, you wouldn’t have gotten a kiss on the bridge,” she pointed out.

  “This is true. And that would have been tragic. I liked that kiss. It’s too bad there’s a forcefield between us, or we could while away our waiting time with more kisses.”

  “The helmet would also be problematic.”

  “True. So many obstacles between us. It’s as if the gods aren’t on our side.”

  “Probably because you left all your talismans on the bridge of the Falcon,” Katie said. “The gods must be on the side of whoever’s sitting in your seat.”

  “Asan. I’m going to be upset if I get back and find out someone was kissing him.”

  Zakota smiled fondly at her through his faceplate, and she wished once again that nothing stood between them. She would have liked to touch his face. He looked like he could use a gentle touch. Despite the smile, a sadness lurked in his eyes, a sadness that w
asn’t usually there. Was he thinking of his lost comrade? Or of the fact that they, too, might be lost before the day ended?

  “What will you do,” he asked quietly, “after this is over?”

  “Assuming we get out of this cube?”

  “Yes, and that Dethocoles is still standing when we do so.”

  That seemed a lot to assume, but she went along with it. “If your people let mine go back to Earth, I guess I’d want to go home first, of course, but I’d hope… it would be a shame not to have access to the rest of the galaxy, now that I know it’s out there. And flying a plane around the Southwest seems boring and tame in comparison to piloting spaceships. If it was possible, I suppose I’d want to get a license to fly out here.”

  “It is hard being confined to one planet after you’ve known the entire galaxy.” He tilted his helmeted head. “What if you had to choose? Between Earth and the rest of the galaxy? Between your friends back home and your new friends here?”

  “Is that what we are? New friends?”

  “We’re new… something. Because I opted not to flee. Now you’re stuck with me.”

  “That’s all right. I would regret not being able to say goodbye to my sister and my friends back home and letting them know that I’m alive and well. And I suppose I’d want my mom to know that, too, though I’m not entirely sure it matters to her one way or another.”

  He lifted a hand, as if to reach out to her, but must have remembered the forcefield because he lowered it again.

  “It’s not a big deal,” she said. “I got used to her indifference—or maybe her self-centeredness—a long time ago.” Besides, she had a self-centered streak too. It must run in the genes. “But if I had to choose, and it was a choice for the rest of my life, I think I’d choose the adventure of the unknown.”

  “And new friends,” Zakota said.

  “And new friends, preferably ones who can write me recommendations to help me get into a flight school. Assuming that’s a thing out here.”

  He snorted. “Yes, only four planets and two stations have civilian spaceflight academies. The space fleet has its own, of course, but unless you want to sign up for the military, that wouldn’t be an option. The civilian academies usually have a waiting list. A recommendation from someone important can get you bumped up to the top.”

  “Are you important?” She grinned at him. “As a Star Guardian helmsman?”

  “Not particularly. If you want to be trained as a shaman on Amalcari, I could give you a useful recommendation for that.”

  Katie wrinkled her nose. Visiting his planet sounded about as appealing as being beaten by hickory sticks.

  “If Sagitta said he liked your flying, that would be about as good of a recommendation as you could get,” Zakota said. “The academy heads would punch each other in the faces as they competed to get you as a student.”

  “I’d probably have to get him to stop fleeing from me to notice that I’m not a half bad pilot,” Katie said.

  “Maybe I could stand behind him and block his route.”

  “That seems like a good plan to me. By the way, does he know I’m over here yet?”

  “I’m not positive he doesn’t know.”

  “Wonderful.”

  “If Lieutenant Coric was monitoring our comm chatter between the two shuttles, she might have told him you were at the helm on one, but it’s possible they’ve been too busy with their own skirmishes out there to pay attention.”

  Katie vowed to make Sagitta aware of the help she had provided, assuming they got out of here and she had that chance.

  Abruptly, Zakota rose to his feet. The forcefield buzzed as his armored shoulder brushed it, but he didn’t seem to notice.

  “Something’s coming,” he said.

  “Your combat teams returning?” Katie asked, though she doubted it.

  “No.”

  15

  Katie stood on the box again to look at the sensor display and the visual of the alcove outside. Nothing moved in their nook yet, but she spotted what Zakota must have seen, some kind of energy readings in a corridor that ran parallel to the shaft. It was accessible through a hatch in the back of their alcove—the men had gone that way.

  “Those aren’t people—or aliens—are they?” she asked.

  Zakota was pacing behind her, talking softly and listening in on what the combat teams had to say. From what she could make out, listening to one half of the conversation, they were several levels away now.

  “Shit,” Zakota said, his voice louder. He thumped a gauntleted hand against the hull.

  Katie glanced back, but not for long. She was trying to figure out what the sensor display was telling her. Energy readings—two of them—but not life readings. So, those couldn’t be Zi’i warriors approaching.

  “They’ve run into Zi’i in the corridors,” Zakota said, turning toward Katie. “They’re fighting, and they haven’t even figured out where to plant the warheads yet. That doesn’t bode well.”

  “And means we’re on our own for dealing with whatever this is?” Katie waved toward the ambulatory energy sources. They were coming closer.

  “Yes.”

  “Any chance you brought a bunch of weapons with you?” She looked him up and down.

  The armor would protect him, but did it have offensive capabilities? He hadn’t brought a bolt bow.

  Zakota lifted one arm, and a small panel opened as a metal barrel popped out. A small metal barrel. If that was a gun, she doubted it could down anything larger than a squirrel.

  “It’s smaller than I expected,” she said, making a face.

  “That’s not usually something I hear from women.”

  “Maybe they just don’t say it to your face because they don’t want to make you feel bad.”

  “I haven’t noticed that women are overly worried about my feelings,” he said dryly and lowered his arm, retracting the weapon. “You can defend yourself with this shuttle. You don’t have to be flying to fire the weapons. If something gets past them and inside, we’ll be in trouble for more reasons than a lack of firepower.”

  “Should you go back to your shuttle?” Katie glanced at the energy sources.

  They were closing on the hatch the men in the alcove had taken. It was a huge door—several men could have walked side-by-side through it—and she envisioned an army of Zi’i approaching, even if the sensors hadn’t reported life forms. Maybe the aliens were in combat armor of their own, and that was interfering with the scans.

  “I’m not sure. I rigged a trap before I left.” Zakota pointed to the console. “Turn off the running lights, will you? We can’t completely play dead—I want the engines hot if we need to take off—but maybe we can look less appealing.”

  Though not certain what he had in mind, Katie toggled the lights off. The interior ones dimmed, as well, though the display of the exterior and her cockpit forcefield remained up.

  In the dark that enveloped the alcove, she noticed that the second shuttle’s lights were off. Zakota had also left the hatch wide open. His trap?

  The hatch leading into the alcove opened. Faint light came from the corridor outside, silhouetting a dark vehicle of some kind. From what little Katie could see, it reminded her of those Razor 4x4s that raced along the off-road trails back home. Except that those didn’t usually have cannons mounted to the fronts.

  She grimaced at the hefty guns protruding from the frame. As the vehicle rolled through the hatchway, a second one appeared behind it.

  “Hm,” Zakota said from behind her, as close as he could get without bumping the forcefield. “That’s not what I was expecting, and I don’t think my trap will work on auto-chariots.”

  “Those don’t look like chariots.”

  “We use that word for almost every ground vehicle.”

  The two 4x4s rolled into the alcove and stopped side by side.

  “Is there gravity out there?” Katie asked.

  “Not the last time I checked. They could have magnetized
wheels.”

  One of the vehicles pointed its cannon at the other shuttle.

  “Get us in the air and point our weapons at them,” Zakota said as the second vehicle’s cannons swiveled toward them.

  Katie had been ready to take off, so she obeyed instantly, lifting the shuttle and spinning toward the hatch. She hopped on the box to reach the weapons buttons.

  The 4x4 fired first. Not a cannonball, but a huge blast of energy that filled the alcove with light as it slammed into the front of the shuttle. An alarm wailed, and lights flashed on the console.

  Katie hammered on the weapons button, then jerked them higher into the air, feeling like an idiot for not having moved sooner. At least she was able to move the shuttle.

  “You got it,” Zakota said, jumping, no doubt wishing he could reach the console to help.

  The interior lights flickered, then went out completely. Uh oh.

  A whoosh of air whipped Katie’s hair about, and she sucked in a huge breath, afraid the forcefield had just gone down and that there wouldn’t be enough oxygen left to breathe.

  Zakota raced to the console, confirming the lack of a forcefield. He tapped at controls close to the Star Guardian device. He fired weapons she hadn’t known about. A blast of energy slammed into one of the vehicles, and it flew backward, hitting the wall.

  The first one was damaged—one of the cannons and the front corner of it had melted into lumps—but it fired again.

  This time, Katie was in the air, whipping them about the small alcove, making a harder target. The blast zipped past her and ripped into the ceiling. Shrapnel flew in all directions, pelting the shuttle’s hull.

  A draft of air brushed Katie’s face as she drew them back into the opposite alcove. She hoped the shuttle was replenishing the cabin with oxygen.

  Zakota fired again, relentlessly this time. White beams streaked over the maintenance shaft and at the 4x4s. They’d started maneuvering about, rolling here and there on their giant metal wheels, but he struck them more often than he missed.

  One crumpled in on itself and slumped to the deck. The other fired one more time.