by Leslie Chase
"And the boss'll kill us all if we shoot up that room," his calmer companion answered. "Go in there and get your revenge in person."
"You first, Captain," the first one hissed back. Whatever discipline the pirates usually had was clearly breaking down.
Kosar laughed, a huge echoing sound in the space of the engine room. "Cowards! I'm waiting for you. One at a time or all at once, let's finish this."
He wasn't sure if he could back up that challenge. If they all rushed him at the same time, he'd be in trouble. But how many of them could there be out there? He'd killed seven of them now, and Ashley must have dealt with at least one if she'd taken control of the bridge. So, six more at most. I can do that. I have to be able to do that. There's no choice — I'm not letting my mate die here.
He glanced up at the camera in the corner of the room. Was Ashley watching him? He smiled, hoping that Ashley would see, and braced himself for the next round of the fight.
But no one came through the door.
Perhaps they've had enough. It was possible. These were mercenaries, fighting for profit. Perhaps if they understood that they couldn't steal what they were being paid for, they'd decide to save their lives instead of risking them for a paycheck they'd never see.
But they didn't seem to be leaving either. A whispered conversation was going on in the corridor outside, quiet enough that Kosar couldn't make out any of the words. The pirates were up to something, and he had no choice but to wait for them to make a move.
He felt himself weakening, the wounds he'd taken sapping his strength, and hoped that they didn't realize how much they'd injured him. Rescue was still too far away, and if they waited long enough he'd have to risk rushing them. But outside the engine room, where they could use guns freely, the enemy would have a much better chance.
"Kosar, is it?" a voice called from outside. "We seem to be at a stalemate, so let's make a deal."
That was a cultured voice, a carefully businesslike one entirely unlike the mercenaries. It had the tinny ring that told him the speaker wasn't on board, that he was having his voice relayed by radio. Kosar's lips peeled back in an angry snarl. That had to be Ashley's 'Mr. Johnson,' the human behind all of this. Of course the man was too much of a coward to come and face his enemies in person. Fingers itching to rend and tear, he waited for the human to continue.
The pause dragged on uncomfortably long before the human spoke again. "I know you don't want to die here, Kosar, but I'm not stupid. You'd die for your cause if you must. I don't think you're willing to let Ashley die for it though. In fact, I'm willing to bet that you won't. So here's the deal. I will let the two of you leave the ship unharmed, I'll even pay Ashley a bonus for her trouble. You get your girl, she gets paid, and we all walk away from here happy."
Before Kosar could respond the ship's speakers came to life again.
"Fuck you," Ashley snarled, her voice echoing in the corridors of the Grace of Herendar. "I've got a counter offer for you — get the hell off this ship. We've already won: Kosar's got the engine room, I've got the bridge, and we can hold out until the rescue ships arrive if we have to. By my count, you've only got six of your men left aboard. Bring it."
Kosar's heart soared with pride at his mate's words, wanting to hold her tight. The two of them would stand against anything.
But it didn't seem to faze Mr. Johnson.
"My dear Ashley, I'm afraid you're mistaken," he said, though under the cultured accent Kosar could hear frustration and anger. "There's no victory for you here. If it looks like I'm not going to get my prize, the Black Sail will simply destroy the Grace and you along with it. You might be able to deny me my prize but there's no way for you to survive to enjoy your victory. No, if you want to live you'll take my offer. Be a rich survivor rather than a corpse who wouldn't compromise."
Kosar growled angrily at the threat, turning it over in his head. The Black Sail was still fully crewed, and the Grace of Herendar had no weapons with which to defend itself. If Mr. Johnson was truly willing to destroy the stardrive rather than let anyone else have it, there wasn't much that they could do to stop it.
So be it, he thought with a sinking feeling. I accepted that this would likely be my death when I stayed aboard. I wish Ashley hadn't come back... but she made that choice, too. Perhaps it's fate that we die together?
At least her brother will be fine. I managed to do that for her.
"I told you, no deal," Ashley said. "You won't talk us into it, and you may as well give up on trying."
"I'm sorry to hear that you're not going to be reasonable," Mr. Johnson said. "That means I shall have to take more direct action. Captain Radcliffe, take the plasma lance. The bridge door won't keep you out for long."
Kosar roared with rage, reacting instantly. A threat to Ashley was one he couldn't allow to stand. Moving as fast as he could, he leaped through the doorway, swinging a fist into the surprised face of the nearest pirate. With a horrible crunch of breaking bone the man flew backward, blood spraying across his companions.
His only hope was to act quickly, too quickly for the humans to react. Unfortunately, they'd been smart and spread out, covering the entrance. Even with the shock of his attack, they were already responding.
One fired a burst that just barely missed Kosar. Another, more careful, brought his gun up to aim. He was the threat, the one Kosar needed to focus on. Ducking low, trying to stay out of the line of fire, Kosar charged at the humans. If he could reach them before they hit him, he had a chance.
He nearly made it.
The first shot thudded into his shoulder, and his scales turned most of the impact. A second snapped past his ear, deafeningly loud. Close enough to strike, his hand lashed out to knock aside the barrel of the gun, and the third bullet chewed up the ceiling above them.
But before he could take down his target, a shock baton slammed into his side, driving him back. The world spun around him, blood loss and the electricity combining to put him off balance, and somewhere he heard a cultured laugh.
I've played into their hands, he realized. This was what Mr. Johnson had planned, drawing Kosar out with a threat to Ashley. But what else could he have done? If he didn't beat them here, then he was sure the human would make good on his threat and burn his way onto the bridge.
If he was going to save Ashley, he had to win this fight. No matter the cost.
Another baton struck his leg and he tumbled to the ground. On the way down he grabbed the leg of his nearest foe and was rewarded with a snap and a scream. With a savage snarl, he pulled the man into the way of the gunmen, trying to buy a few more seconds to recover. To rejoin the fight. To save Ashley.
At least if I die here, she's safe, he thought. They'll have no need to kill her, and I'll have died defending the stardrive. My duty is done.
It was an awful compromise, but if it kept his mate alive he'd take it.
23
Ashley
Watching on the monitors, Ashley saw Kosar fall to the deck and nearly screamed with frustration. Four of the pirates were left, only four. But that was too many, and her alien lover vanished under a rain of blows. Not even he could take on these odds.
She'd caused this, she'd put him in this position, and now she was going to watch him die.
Not if I can help it, she told herself, pulling her eyes from the screen and trying to work out what she could do to help. For a moment she imagined herself throwing open the bridge doors and charging down the corridor to save Kosar, her wrench in hand like some kind of demented engineer-valkyrie, but that was a worse than useless idea. She'd barely beaten Cooper, one of these cyborgs would be far too much for her to face.
Fighting was pointless. But that didn't mean that there was nothing she could do to help.
Kosar roared, the sound tinny through the speakers, and threw back his attackers. Two had their rifles out, trying to get an angle for a killing shot, and the others kept him at bay with their shock batons. Despite the beating he'd taken he was still in the fight,
and Ashley knew he wouldn't stop until he was dead.
Neither would she. Watching him fight wasn't achieving anything. Turning, Ashley looked for something, anything, she could use to help her mate in his desperate struggle to protect her.
The controls of the Grace of Herendar were all around her, and they were useless. Most did nothing and the ones that did were labeled in a language she didn't know. But this is what you're good at, Ashley, she told herself. Taking technology you don't understand and making it work for you. That's your life.
Her gaze paused on the artificial gravity controls. She'd watched Kosar adjust those to balance out the thrust, keeping the gravity steady through the ship. They were complicated, delicate things, and she knew that there would be failsafes to stop her meddling when she had no idea what she was doing. But that wasn't going to stop her.
Before she could think, she was moving, pulling a small prybar from her belt and opening a panel beneath the controls. Behind the metal she saw the crystal structures of dragon technology, complex and far beyond human science. Ashley had no idea what she was looking at, or how to make changes to it.
So she hit it with the prybar, as hard as she could.
Sparks flew as the crystals shattered, and an alarm howled deafeningly. Shielding her eyes she struck again, feeling a sickening pulse of weight run through her as the artificial gravity malfunctioned. Her third strike broke something critical, and suddenly she weighed nothing at all.
The force of her swing carried her up into the air and Ashley started to panic. There was nothing in reach to hold onto, nothing to keep her from drifting away from the controls. She was truly helpless now, and just had to hope that she'd done enough.
Twisting to look at the screen, she saw the results of her action.
One of the men fired his gun wildly as he floated off the deck. The recoil sent him spinning back and away down the corridor, and none of the bullets went near Kosar. Another swung his baton in a desperate arc that only glanced off the alien's arm. Human and alien drifted apart, pushed away from one another by the impact.
And then Kosar spread his wings, a huge feral smile on his face. Ashley's heart leaped as she watched him catch the air, pushing himself back towards the pirates easily. They were trained for zero gravity combat, but next to the dragon shifter they looked as helpless as she felt. One swung his baton, but with a beat of his wings Kosar stopped short, letting the swing miss completely. Kosar's counter strike smashed the human's head back with a crack and sent him tumbling back down the corridor, limp. Ashley didn't think he'd be getting up again.
Two of the others were scrambling up the corridor as best they could, pulling themselves along the wall. Ashley didn't know if they were trying to reach her or simply getting as far away from Kosar as they could. It didn't matter. The alien warrior was in his element now, soaring through the air with powerful beats of his wings, and no human was going to outdistance him.
Another, braver, leaped up to meet him, baton in hand. The man's enhanced muscles swung the weapon too fast for Ashley to follow, but Kosar's arm snapped up in an equally fast block. Grabbing hold of the cyborg's arm, he slammed the human into the ceiling with crushing force and dropped him to fly on.
Behind him, the cyborg drifted in a cloud of blood droplets.
That left only the two scrambling towards her. Ashley swallowed nervously, trying to look at the door. If they reached her before Kosar caught them, she knew she couldn't expect anything good. And they were already nearly at the bridge.
She needn't have worried. With a roar, Kosar closed on them like an eagle striking its prey. The rearmost of the two turned, his gun coming up and firing wildly. But without gravity to anchor him, that just sent him spinning out of control. One bullet nicked Kosar as he closed, and then the full force of the dragon shifter's dive slammed the human into the wall. Bones crunched and Ashley winced at the sound.
When Kosar pushed off again, he left the human motionless behind him.
"Let me in," the remaining man shouted, finally reaching the bridge door and trying to open it. Filled with panic, his voice was almost unrecognizable, but Ashley knew this was the pirate captain himself. "You can't leave me out here with this monster."
Floating in midair, there wasn't anything that she could do for him even if she wanted to. Not that she would have rushed to his aid anyway. He'd put himself in this position, and he deserved everything he got.
Kosar advanced slowly, taking his time now that it was just the two of them in the corridor. All the hired thugs floated uselessly behind him, some motionless, some clutching at their injuries, none of them able or willing to fight on.
"Wait, wait!" the captain cried out. "I'm the only one who can stop the Black Sail from destroying this ship. If you kill me, you die and so does your precious mate. Let me go and I'll spare you both."
Kosar's answering growl seemed to echo through the whole ship, and Ashley knew the human had made a fatal error. Threatening her wasn't a good idea, not when Kosar was within arm's reach. The captain realized that too, grabbing at his belt for a sidearm.
Before he could raise the pistol, Kosar was on him. A huge red-skinned hand snatched the pistol from the human's grip, and another punched with enough force to snap his neck in one clean blow. The Captain spasmed and then stopped moving, drifting in space.
Ashley let out a breath she hadn't realized she was holding. It was done, the attackers were dead or helpless. They'd won! It might be a small victory, but they'd kept the stardrive from falling into the wrong hands.
Kosar typed in his override code and the door to the bridge slid open. He flew up to Ashley, snatching her out of the air into a great hug as they spun across the open space.
Holding on tight, Ashley found herself laughing with joy and clinging to Kosar. His deep, rough laughter joined hers as they let themselves relax for a moment. In his arms she could forget everything, the danger and death and betrayal. Climbing up him, she kissed him hard on the mouth.
"Don't ever scare me like that again," she whispered, and he chuckled.
"You're the one who came back and put yourself in danger," he pointed out, squeezing hard enough to make her gasp. "I just did what was necessary to keep you safe."
The memory of Kosar pushing her out of the airlock surged back into Ashley's mind and she felt the terror of that moment all over again. She opened her mouth to protest and then shut it again, decisively. This wasn't the time for that conversation. They might never have the time for it.
"We belong together," she said instead. "I couldn't leave you to die alone in an impossible fight."
"So instead we die together?" Kosar might have meant that as a rebuke, but it sounded okay to Ashley. Better than living without him did, anyway.
"It's not like I don't deserve it," she told him. "I'm the one who got you into this mess."
He growled, a deep rumble that shook her body, and fixed her with a serious stare. "No. Your Mr. Johnson would have found a way to do what he did, with or without you. It's a shame that he is too cowardly to fight me in person, or I would have at least punished him for what he did to you."
She could feel his anger blazing deep inside him, the frustration. It was almost enough to make her laugh. "Come on, we've denied him his prize. Cost him a ton of money. And he'll hardly be popular with the pirates on the Black Sail after getting all their friends killed. I'll call it a win."
He shook his head, growling again. "Not if you die and he lives."
The ship shook around them, and more alarms howled. Ashley didn't need to look around to know what was happening — their tormentor had grown tired of waiting for a response from his men and had opened fire.
Given how badly damaged the Grace of Herendar was, it wouldn't hold out for long. The dragons built to last, but even hullmetal wasn't invincible and they had no way to fight back. Ashley realized that she didn't really care. She was with her man, and that mattered more. When she'd made the decision to come back she'd known
how slim the odds of survival were.
I saved him, and he saved me. That's enough. She clung to him tightly, accepting their fate.
"No." Kosar's voice was calm, quiet, and absolutely certain. She looked up at him, confused, and saw a faint smile on his lips. Tired, battered, injured, he still had an unshakable confidence in his eyes.
"This isn't our death, Ashley," he told her. "I will not let it be. Do you trust me?"
Ashley nodded, more confused than ever as the ship shuddered under the Black Sail's assault. Before she could say anything or ask a question, Kosar was in motion.
His great wings spread, catching the air and beating with enough force to send them hurtling back towards the exit from the bridge. It felt as though they were moving faster than Ashley ever had in her life, and the decking zipped past close enough for her to touch.
Shrieking, Ashley clung on to Kosar for dear life as he swept her down the length of the ship. His wings beat with furious speed, the walls whizzing by too fast for her to focus on, and the thrill of speed nearly overcame her terror as he weaved through the floating bodies and carried her into the engine room.
The odd, pulsing glow of the stardrive greeted her like an old friend even as the ship shook again. Kosar spread his wings wide, catching the air and slowing them, but even so they landed with bone-jarring force.
"There," he said, dropping her beside her makeshift control panel. She blinked and looked at him, eyes wide and uncomprehending.
"What the hell are you expecting me to do with this?" she asked.
"Work your human magic," he said, steadying her as she started to drift off again. "You're the expert scavenger, you can make broken machines do what you want. So do it. Fire up the drive."
"You're mad," she muttered, but even as she said it her hands were moving, dancing across the touchscreen interface and guessing what power to send where. "It's damaged, even if it was working properly I'd be more likely to blow it up than get it to go anywhere. I need days, weeks..."
