Orion: Star Guardians, Book 1

by Ruby Lionsdrake

  “I’m working on it. You surprised me by not waiting.”

  “Just get the shields down. Zakota's trying to damage that ship without blowing it out of the sky, but they’re fighting like cornered jayctor, and they’re going to keep it up as long as they’ve got shields to hide behind.”

  “I’m on it.”

  Orion pulled open the latch. There wasn’t time for subterfuge now. Or anything else.

  • • • • •

  Juanita watched the man she’d been referring to as “Tooth” stride through the hatchway. Orion, he’d called himself. She gripped the hypospray or whatever it was that he’d given her and started after him.

  Tala gripped her arm. “Where are you going?”

  “To help him.”

  “Don’t be silly. He’s leaving us here, so now’s our chance to go hide someplace. You can’t trust him. He was eyeing your boobs just like the others.”

  “He’s not like the others.” Juanita pulled her arm free, though Tala’s grip was surprisingly strong.

  Before Tala could try to restrain her again, she slipped through the open hatch and into the first well-lit area she had seen on the ship.

  Gauges and monitors glowed from walls covered in more of the protective bronze plating, along with machinery with buttons and input keypads all over the sides. An oblong cylindrical object took up a third of the space, stretching along one wall. The reverberations she’d been feeling through the floor—the deck—seemed to originate from it. Was the engine inside of that casing?

  Two men were standing by a control panel and pointing to it, and one glanced toward the hatch as Juanita came in. But his eyes soon turned further, toward Orion.

  He’d strode into the room—what Juanita assumed was engineering—without hesitation. Instead of going toward the engine, he headed toward a workstation in the back. There were more panels and displays, including a holographic one. Two men were pointing at it. No, they were tapping holographic buttons in it. Two other men were on their backs under some big piece of equipment.

  Six people in total. Six people that, if Juanita had understood Orion correctly, needed to be subdued.

  The two at the engine control panel turned toward Orion. One frowned and walked toward him, saying something as he held his hand up.

  Orion blurred into motion, jerking up that crossbow-like weapon off his back and firing straight at the man’s chest. It blew a hole even bigger than the one that guard had left in the deck when he’d fired into the cell earlier. The engineer reached for his chest, his eyes huge, but that was all he managed to do before toppling over.

  Juanita stumbled back, her shoulder blades clunking against the hatch. She had expected subduing, but not killing.

  The room erupted into chaos as everyone else lunged for weapons. Orion whirled toward a boxy construct in one corner that reminded Juanita of some steam-age boiler. He fired several blasts of blue energy into it.

  An alarm wailed, and smoke poured from the damaged casing.

  Orion dove to the deck, somersaulting toward the other man at the engine as his other opponents fired weapons. Energy beams crisscrossed the space where he’d been standing a second before.

  “Move,” Tala barked from behind Juanita, her voice barely audible over the wailing alarm.

  Juanita hadn’t realized she had stayed close, but now Tala slipped in, grabbing her arm and pulling her along the wall toward a corner where there was a gap between the bulkhead and a hulking bank of machinery. Juanita almost balked, since Orion had clearly intended for her to help when he’d given her the hypospray. Hiding in a corner wouldn’t do anything to help him. Even after killing that man, he was outnumbered five to one.

  But weapons fire streaked wildly about the room; one energy bolt slammed into the wall right above Juanita’s head. That convinced her that Tala was right. The hypospray wasn’t much of a weapon against all that. She and Tala could hide for now and help if an opportunity presented itself.

  They squeezed side by side into the gap, their shoulders pressed between the bulkhead and the bank of machinery. Juanita angled herself so she could watch the fight.

  Smoke hazed the entire room, but Orion was close enough that she could see him, alternating between grappling and punching men next to him and firing at ones farther away. He was doing his best to keep one of his foes between himself and the ones shooting, but the engineers were working together, shouting orders and trying to surround him. He ended up with his back to the cylindrical engine, kicking and punching. He moved with amazing speed and surprising grace, but he was still cornered.

  Juanita couldn’t believe he wasn’t being overwhelmed. Even though his opponents were apparently engineering officers, they weren’t geeks in glasses with pocket protectors. They were as big and tough as Baldie, and they sprang at Orion from all sides.

  His bare muscular arms gleamed as sweat dripped down them. He ducked just before one man fired at his head, the en-bolt clipping the top of the engine housing. He grinned as shards of metal blew off it. One of the engineers yelled at the one who’d shot, and Juanita guessed that Orion had put his back to the engine for a reason. If they missed him, they risked damaging it.

  She had no idea what the equipment he’d started the battle by blowing up did, but it was still smoking, and that alarm hadn’t stopped blaring.

  “Everyone on the ship is going to be down here any second,” Tala growled. “This was not a good place to hide.”

  Juanita flushed at the glare that accompanied the words, but she grew worried more for Orion than herself. She hadn’t considered that reinforcements would show up. What would happen then?

  Orion spun, his long hair coming free from its knot and flying about his face, and he kicked one of his opponents so hard that the man flew back. He landed on the deck, his head cracking against it, and skidded toward the corner where Juanita and Tala hunkered.

  For a second, he lay stunned, staring up at the ceiling, his arms splayed.

  Juanita sucked in a breath, gathering her courage, and leaped out of hiding.

  “Juanita,” Tala whispered harshly, reaching out too late to catch her sleeve.

  Not hesitating, Juanita ducked low as she ran to the fallen man’s side. He squinted, eyes focusing on her, and he started to rise. She smiled broadly, hoping to confuse him, as she sneaked her hand in. As soon as the tip of the hypospray, as she was calling it, touched his neck, she thumbed the button.

  Eyes bulging, he whirled to the side.

  Juanita scrambled back. Had she gotten him before he pulled away? How fast would the drug take hold?

  He crouched to leap at her. Shit. The hypospray was the only weapon she had, and he would knock it away easily.

  Weapons fired, and a streak of blue cut through the air between them just as he’d been about to lunge. He paused to throw a curse toward his comrades, but the words sounded slurred. He blinked slowly, opened his mouth again, but then pitched over a few feet away from Juanita. He didn’t move again.

  “One down,” she whispered, turning toward the sounds of punches. “No, three down,” she amended, taking in the unmoving bodies on the deck around Orion.

  Two more men were still battling him, trying to coordinate their attacks so that he would have too much to handle. None of them were shooting now. A couple of the bow-like weapons lay on the deck. Orion must have knocked them out of the men’s hands.

  Unfortunately, these two engineers seemed almost as powerful and fast as Orion. And it looked like they had worked together in battle before. One threw a series of jabs and punches, forcing Orion to turn slightly to block them. The other had a dagger and lunged in, aiming for Orion’s unprotected kidney.

  Juanita was on the verge of yelling a warning, but Orion anticipated the attack and brought his knee up to knock the dagger from its path as he kept blocking the other man’s attack with his arms. The knife clanged against the engine housing, but the man didn’t drop it. He merely eased away a couple of steps, his dete
rmined expression promising he would be back in with another attack.

  Juanita considered returning to her corner, hoping to get another opportunity to help later, but the men were so focused on Orion. Was it possible they weren’t aware of her?

  She circled to the knife holder’s back and crept toward him. Smoke burned her eyes and tickled her throat. If she coughed, they might hear it over the alarm. She clamped her mouth shut, not letting the urge win out.

  Something slammed into the ship hard enough that the deck tilted thirty degrees. The men stumbled, the battle pausing as they all fought for balance.

  A whistle sounded across the room as a valve seemed to blow and steam escaped. The knife holder glanced that way. Juanita hurried in, reaching up to his neck.

  He must have glimpsed her out of the corner of his eye because he spun toward her. But not before she tapped the hypospray against his throat and pressed the button.

  He roared, his arm moving so quickly she didn’t have a chance to get out of the way. He clubbed her in the chest, knocking her to the deck.

  Orion roared and leaped onto his back, snaking a muscular arm around his neck. The man reached up, snarling as he grabbed Orion’s forearm with both hands. But he wasn’t strong enough to break the grip. Orion flexed his arm and twisted.

  A snap echoed through engineering. The man’s neck breaking.

  Juanita, on her butt on the deck, stared as Orion dropped the now-dead man to the deck. She’d just gone from never having seen someone killed to seeing it twice in five minutes. Maybe more than twice.

  She looked past Orion to where the man he’d been trading punches with now lay on the deck with the others. His neck, too, was twisted at an unlikely angle. Aside from the man she’d drugged, Juanita doubted any of the engineers were left alive.

  Orion moved toward her, and she turned her incredulous stare toward him. What had prompted all this? Why was he attacking the people he had been working with just hours before? And why was he destroying parts of the spaceship they were all riding on? The ship they were stuck on? It wasn’t as if they could call AAA and get a tow from Saturn. Had he lost all his marbles? Had she been right to trust him?

  He bent toward her, extending a hand. Blood stained the back of it and dripped from a cut in his arm. His lip was swelling from a fresh punch, and he looked fiercer than a hellhound, but that fierceness didn’t seem to be for her.

  Tentatively, she lifted her hand to his.

  Before he could clasp hers and help her up, another attack struck the ship. Something snapped and hissed on the engine, and he sent a worried glance in that direction.

  Maybe he was thinking about the lack of AAA coverage out here too. Then the lights went out again.

  His hand clasped hers, warm and calloused and surprisingly gentle.

  He started to pull her up, but a big thrum of energy came from a piece of equipment near the workstation, and the universe seemed to light up with bright purple confetti. Juanita didn’t see the brilliant purple with her eyes, but instead with her mind, as if some weird waking dream had taken over her thoughts. The confetti turned colors, pulsing and flying all over the place, as if it were caught in a tornado.

  Was she having a seizure?

  That was Juanita’s last thought before blackness replaced the purple, and she passed out for the second time that day.

  6

  Orion found himself flat on his back on the deck when he woke from the wormhole jump. He groaned and rolled onto his side, his body stiff after the fight. The soreness made him feel like he’d been out for hours, even though he knew that the ship only would have traveled for a few real-time minutes in gate-space. For the pilot, up on the bridge, whose brain was plugged into navigation, it would have seemed much longer, as he guided the damaged ship through the strange space between gates, but everyone else would have experienced the few minutes of unconsciousness that Orion had felt. And what the two women would have felt for the first time.

  It was still dark in engineering, with only a few indicators glowing yellow and red, and he groped his way over to the woman who’d run out of hiding to help him. Juanita. A surge of emotion ran through him, emotion he didn’t quite have a name for. He was beyond pleased that she had risked herself to knock out some of his enemies even though she had no idea who he was or why he was attacking people and disabling this ship.

  By the faint light, he found her and scooped her up. She groaned in a semi-conscious state, and he forced himself to ignore the way she felt in his arms, the warmth of her body against his, the faint desert plant smell that drifted up from her hair. A scented shampoo? Or just leftover smells from the dry part of that world where they’d found her? He had an urge to lower his nose to inhale more deeply, and maybe to brush his lips against her temple.

  She groaned again, stirring in his arms, turning toward him. Her breasts pressed against his chest, soft and delightful.

  Heat stirred within his groin, and he rolled his eyes at himself. This was not the time for sexual urges. And to lust after some helpless prisoner was despicable. It wasn’t as if she chose to be here with him. Just because she’d run out to help him didn’t mean she wanted any of this. She certainly hadn’t given any indication that she wanted him. She probably wouldn’t want anyone for a long time after being pawed over by Bray.

  She shifted against him again. She would waken soon, as would everyone else on the ship. The alarms were still going off, and everyone on the bridge would know that the shield generator was offline. He was surprised a security team hadn’t already charged into engineering.

  He carried the woman over to the nook where she’d been hiding with her comrade earlier. With the lights on, it wouldn’t be much of a hiding spot, but now, it was in complete darkness. Only by touch did he confirm that the other woman was unconscious and wedged in the space.

  Even with the darkness, it wouldn’t be wise to stay there. He would grab the other woman, hopefully before she woke fully and tried to fight him, and take them… he wasn’t sure where. They would have to find a spot to hide on the ship until Sage’s people boarded and subdued the rest of the slavers.

  Orion trusted that his brother would board and subdue them, even though he was puzzled that the slavers had been permitted to reach the gate.

  “My fault,” he grumbled.

  If he hadn’t delayed, if he hadn’t taken so long to blow up the shield generator, the Star Guardian ship could have boarded this one earlier. But Sage should have plenty of time to catch up before the slavers could slip through another gate and disappear into the network. From the trip to the women’s planet, Orion recalled that the next gate was located on the far side of the system from where this one was anchored.

  The other woman—Tala, he reminded himself—stirred in the dark nook, pushing herself to her feet. He reached out, knowing there once again wasn’t time to explain or insert the translator chips. He would just have to throw her over one shoulder, and Juanita over the other, then run off into the bowels of the ship. With luck, he would pass a monitor or porthole and get a glimpse of what was going on outside. Sage’s ship had better be coming out of the gate right behind this one.

  There were, of course, reports of ships that didn’t make it through gate-space and were never heard from again, but that rarely happened, and it certainly shouldn’t happen to a top-of-the-line fire falcon ship. If the damaged slaver ship had made it through, Sage’s vessel would have no problem.

  The hatch to engineering clanged open, and Orion jumped.

  He hadn’t heard footsteps over the wailing of that alarm. His notion of running off with the women fled, and he jammed himself into the gap between the bulkhead and the navigation machinery.

  He detected surprise from the Tala woman as she hurried to back away, her mind probably still groggy from the jump. Fortunately, she had the sense not to make any noise.

  Four men stormed into engineering, three of them armed. Their logostecs projected beams of light, but they mostly highl
ighted the deck and machinery, so Orion couldn’t see their faces. He had to assume Cutty had sent security experts, men with combat training superior to that of the engineers, so he would have a hard time if he had to fight them.

  If he had to, he would jump out and do exactly that, but he would prefer to lay low until Sage’s boarding team arrived. Otherwise, it would end up being him against the entire ship as more and more squads of reinforcements were sent into engineering.

  The newcomers strode into the room without glancing toward his corner, but they did split up. Two rushed to check on the fallen men to see if they were dead or alive. Another rushed to the workstation while the fourth headed for the damaged shield generator.

  Orion doubted they would be able to get the shields back online without hours of repairs. Sage would be here long before then. Still, he leaned back, feeling the weight of his bolt bow digging into the back of his vest. He found it reassuring. If he had to, he would leave the women and leap out to stop the repairs.

  “What the fuck happened in here?” one of the men checking the fallen asked. “Vax, Auriga, and Swifty are dead. Broken neck, stab wound, and shot.”

  “We have a saboteur is what. I bet it’s that new guy. Urnion or whatever his dumb name is.”

  “Shit, I didn’t trust him from the start.”

  Well, his cover was blown.

  Not that Orion had expected anything less. If something crazy happened and Sage didn’t show up… he was going to be screwed. He was good in a fight, but even he couldn’t possibly kill the sixty or seventy people crewing this ship. He’d caught the engineers by surprise, but as soon as these men reported to the captain, he wouldn’t catch anyone else by surprise.

  Juanita stirred again in his arms. He sensed that she was fully awake now. He set her down as quietly as he could, this time glad for the noise of the alarm, as it would keep the others from hearing the rustle of clothing. The tight space made movement awkward, and she ended up pressed to his chest with her back against the navigation drive. Tala had to be even more cramped. His shoulder was brushing her, though she seemed to be trying hard to melt into the back wall and avoid touching him. She was nothing like Juanita.