Zakota: Star Guardians, Book 5

by Ruby Lionsdrake

  “I get that. I mean, I don’t have a big family—it was just me and my mom and my sister when I was growing up. Dad left when Mick and I were too young to remember, and Mom had been adopted, and she had a falling out with her adoptive parents when we were kids, so I barely know them.” Katie thought about reiterating that her mom was a drunk and didn’t have the excuses that his seemed to have, at least so far as she knew. “But I get being stifled and wanting to be free.”

  “Yeah, I figured you would.” He smiled and rested his arm around her shoulder. It was a natural movement at first, but then he stiffened with uncertainty. “Uhm, is this all right?”

  “All right, as in do I mind it? Or all right, as in if we touch, we might end up throwing each other on the deck and engaging in carnal debauchery?”

  “Both those things, I guess.”

  She leaned against his side. “I can control myself.”

  “Good. Me too.” His arm relaxed around her shoulders. “Probably.”

  “Just think of your captain comming you to ask what you’re doing with your tools. That ought to have a quenching effect.”

  “Yes, almost as good as a cold shower.” Zakota squeezed her.

  “Why don’t you tell me more about your family?”

  “I promised my father, when he was dying, that I’d look out for them. He wanted me to stay and take his place as the village shaman, and I’d gone through all the training to make him happy, but in the end, I couldn’t commit—condemn—myself to that. I’m not sure it’s enough, but I send my pay back to my mother.”

  “The shit pay that’s not much more than you’d get volunteering?”

  “Yes. And whatever extra I can make from my charms. Carving is something I loved doing as a boy. I had a book about spaceships that someone had given me, and that’s what I started out carving. But people were more interested in talismans of the gods and spirits, so I made those, and I blessed them. I don’t truly know if it helps, but I like to think that the gods may be more likely to recognize blessed charms and think kindly of those who carry them. Also, I can sell them for more if they’re blessed.” He’d been rather serious while talking about all this, but he threw in a wink now.

  “Does that actually work on anyone?”

  “Not many on the ship, but sometimes, when I run into one of my own people out in the galaxy, and I tell them who my father was, it matters to them. Maybe they just want a little piece of home for nostalgia’s sake, but they usually seem to value what I’m offering.”

  “That’s nice,” Katie said, not having more adequate words. “I mean, that you’re helping your family. Your mom.”

  “It’s less about being a nice person and more about feeling obligated.” His mouth twisted. “I’d help, anyway, of course, but sometimes, if I’m not trying hard enough to scrounge up extra money to send home, I get this sense that my father is looking out at me from the land of the dead and frowning.”

  “Maybe when your siblings are older, they can take over some of the burden.”

  “Maybe. As the eldest son, I’m the one expected to be the head of the household until my mother remarries. If she ever does. Society is satisfied if the younger children can simply take care of themselves.”

  “You better survive this battle, then. So someone can keep sending money home to your mom.”

  “It does seem like a good reason to live. Though I’ve recently found another reason I’d like to stick around.” Zakota quirked his eyebrows at her.

  Katie caught herself meeting his gaze, and that urge to kiss him returned. He hadn’t touched the controls for several minutes, so they were presumably on course, and hadn’t he said they had a couple of hours until they reached the gate?

  Perhaps thinking the same thing, he leaned toward her.

  But the bridge doors opened, and he jumped back, dropping his arm from her shoulders.

  “What’s going on in here?” Orion asked, ambling in with the Norse Viking.

  Katie supposed the Vikings hadn’t officially been around when the man’s ancestors had been taken from Earth, but Arkyn looked so much like someone from the cast of the History Channel’s Vikings, she couldn’t think of him as anything else.

  Both men carried bolt bows, stunners, knives, and holstered weapons closer in design to guns than bows.

  “I’m telling Katie about the invoice I sent her for the carvings she ordered,” Zakota said, propping a nonchalant elbow on the helm.

  “With your arm around her shoulder?”

  At least his trousers weren’t sagging off his hips. He’d refastened his belt and his uniform jacket when he’d been talking to the captain.

  “She agreed to purchase ten,” Zakota said. “I figured I’d better console her for the hit her bank account will take.”

  “Ten?” Orion looked incredulously at Katie, which made her decide Zakota had successfully deflected speculation about what might have truly been going on.

  “Technically, I told him I could get ten of my co-workers to buy carvings.”

  “Do you not like your co-workers?” Arkyn asked, his expression deadpan.

  Katie wasn’t sure if it was a joke or not.

  “I like to encourage them to be good people by making purchases from worthy organizations,” Katie said. “Last year, the office ordered thirty boxes of Girl Scout cookies.”

  “Zakota is a worthy organization?” Orion asked.

  “I’m extremely worthy. And organized. What are you two doing here?” Though Zakota maintained that casual stance, elbow leaning on the helm, he looked like he wanted to kick them out.

  “The captain told me to be your Ku,” Arkyn said.

  Katie didn’t understand the comment, but it must have made sense to Zakota because he responded right away.

  “He sent you to sit next to me and pester me with insults?”

  “I am up to the challenge.”

  Zakota waved toward the side of the bridge. “The weapons console is over there.”

  Wordlessly, Arkyn walked toward it.

  “What are you here for?” Zakota asked Orion.

  “I heard there was a cot up here. I was thinking of a nap before we have to spring into battle. Unless you have plans for it.” Orion arched his eyebrows, his expression taking in Zakota and Katie.

  “Not me,” Zakota said. “Asan said it’s been defiled.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “You would have to ask Hierax for details.”

  Orion squinted at him. Maybe he wasn’t up on the latest pairings on the Falcon 8, or, as Indi called it, the Love Boat. She hadn’t been calling it that as often now that she represented one of those pairings.

  “This console has been modified,” Arkyn said, frowning at what was apparently his new station. It was a little higher than the helm, and even though he was well over six feet, it came up to his chest. Maybe Zakota would make him a box. “There’s a big red button that isn’t on the schematics I was given to study before coming over.”

  “I’m guessing that’s one of Hierax’s additions,” Zakota said. “If he had time to get his weapons done and integrated, I’ll be impressed, but that was his goal, to get a little something special placed in the warship’s torpedo tubes before heading over to do the same for the Falcon 8. I think he was doing some handheld explosives, too, in case we need to board one of their ships. Well, not we. That’s a job for you boys with the big, booming weapons.”

  “I will comm him and consult him on it,” Arkyn said, seemingly indifferent to compliments about his weapons.

  “Don’t forgot to pester me while you do it. Ku would.”

  Arkyn looked over his shoulder at him. “Did the captain say that woman could stay over here?”

  Zakota smiled. “He didn’t not say she could stay. Also, good job on the pestering.”

  Arkyn frowned faintly and looked back to the console.

  Orion had found the cot set up on the far side of the bridge and sprawled out on his back, his hands cradli
ng his head. He must not be worried about defilement.

  “As long as we have company now,” Zakota told Katie, “I guess we should do something.”

  “Something appropriate, considering our onlookers?”

  “Yes. Since Arkyn is learning how to shoot things, why don’t we teach you to fly this behemoth?”

  “I thought you’d never ask.”

  10

  The blue-black metal gate lay ahead on the view screen, the Falcon 8 poised to fly through it.

  Zakota rubbed his palms on his trousers, noticing their dampness. Usually, he didn’t bat an eye at flying into battle—he’d started piloting as a space fleet officer during the war, and he’d been in dozens of skirmishes since then, if not more than a hundred.

  He supposed he was nervous this time because they didn’t know what they were flying in to. As far as he knew, other than Sagitta’s contact at the station, they hadn’t received any intel. Normally, there would have been ships flying out of the Dethocolean System and into this one who would have transmitted updates. But Zakota hadn’t spotted any gate activity in the hours they had been cruising through the system. That likely meant the Zi’i had the other side barricaded. If that was the case, he and Asan would have to pilot through that barricade to join the battle. If the Zi’i had several ships deployed there, getting through could be very, very difficult.

  His logostec beeped.

  “Zakota here, Captain,” he responded promptly.

  This time, he and Katie weren’t fooling around. Though he had appreciated that activity a great deal, and had wanted things to keep going in the direction they’d been heading, the arrival of Arkyn and Orion had put a damper on the flames.

  “I want to send you in first,” Sagitta said.

  “Damn, Captain, I thought you liked me more than that. Sacrificing your favorite pilot to the Zi’i isn’t a noble thing to do.”

  “No, it’s not. See to it that you’re not sacrificed.”

  Zakota assumed Sagitta wanted the warship to lead since the Zi’i might hesitate a few seconds before firing at one of their own vessels. Even if they had the Star Striker marked as lost to the enemy, which was likely, seeing it might discombobulate them briefly. Also, they might be tempted to try to retake it rather than firing to disable or destroy it. It wasn’t as if the Zi’i had unlimited resources, any more than the Confederation did.

  “I’ll do my best, sir.”

  “As soon as you get through, break toward Caerus Moon and its orbital asteroids. If the Zi’i give chase, there’s the potential to lose them in there. Once we’ve had time to assess the situation in the system, we can leave the asteroids and help where needed.”

  “You’ll be right behind us then?” Zakota wouldn’t be surprised if the captain waited long enough for the Zi’i to give chase, maybe leaving the gate open for the fire falcon to slip out and race right into the heart of whatever awaited them.

  “Approximately one minute behind. Enough time to get them focused on you and looking away from the gate.”

  “Understood, sir. Tell Asan to scoot over so I can maneuver this big beast past him.”

  “Make sure to give us a belly rub on the way past,” Asan said.

  “You need to get a woman for that,” Zakota said.

  “It’s hard to find women when you’re usually relegated to another ship.”

  “Enough,” Sagitta said. “Let’s get this plan going. Sagitta, out.”

  “Spoken like someone who already has a woman,” Zakota murmured, glancing at Katie. “Do you give belly rubs?”

  “It depends on how appealing the belly is,” Katie said from her perch on the stool next to him. She had let him retake the controls when they’d approached the gate, but had seemed to enjoy her lesson on how to fly the warship.

  “Mine’s appealing. Want to see?”

  “No,” Orion said from the cot, his arm slung over his eyes.

  “I thought you were sleeping,” Zakota said, though he hadn’t truly been planning to lift his jacket and shirt. Katie had already slid her hands over him, so she ought to have a sense of his appeal.

  “Even if I was, Arkyn wasn’t, and he doesn’t want to see your belly, either.”

  Arkyn, after familiarizing himself with the weapons console, had been studying all the other stations on the bridge. He was at the environmental controls now, and he paused to look over his shoulder. His features leaned toward the cool and flinty side, and he leveled that expression at Orion now.

  “We should probably go before they honk the horn,” Katie said, waving at the view screen.

  The fire falcon had drifted to the side, leaving plenty of room for the warship to fly through the gate.

  “Right.” Zakota took a deep breath and sent them arrowing ahead. Remembering the four other members of the combat team, those who hadn’t come up for naps on cots, he made a ship-wide announcement. “We’re going through the gate, and we expect to meet resistance as soon as we enter the system.” It felt exceedingly strange to be the one making the announcement. That was Captain Sagitta’s job. But, he realized with a sense of unease, since Hierax had gone back to the fire falcon, he was the highest-ranking officer here. “Belt yourselves—er, brace yourselves.”

  Unlike the Falcon 8, the warship had neither seats nor seat belts. He wondered what the Zi’i did when they traveled the galaxy’s wormholes. Maybe they plopped their furry bodies down on the deck and didn’t worry about being jostled around.

  Katie slid off the stool, which would doubtlessly go flying the first time the ship was struck, and gripped the console.

  Zakota raised the shields as they approached the gate, the shimmering silver event horizon forming. The gates always knew when a ship was coming and created a new, live wormhole to the linked gate. If an event horizon didn’t form, that was a sign of a broken connection. He was relieved to see this one—the Zi’i could have destroyed the Dethocolean gate as part of their war strategy. Of course, that wouldn’t have made much sense, since it would have meant trapping their own ships in the system, but Zakota had still worried about it. The Zi’i had tried to blow it up during the Territory War when their ships had been on the other side. They’d badly wanted to cut the head of the Confederation off from the rest of humanity.

  “Here we go,” he whispered. “Arkyn, be ready with those weapons.”

  Arkyn jogged back to the weapons console. “The captain instructed me not to use Hierax’s special weapon until we’re at a crucial moment.”

  Zakota had no trouble envisioning a crucial moment slamming into them as soon as they exited the gate, but all he said was, “Plenty of other weapons to use.”

  “Yes, and I’m ready to deploy them.”

  Zakota looked to Katie and touched her arm. She gave him a solemn nod in return.

  With another deep breath, he took them in.

  For the others, traversing the wormhole would seem to take only a couple of minutes—and in real time, that’s exactly what it did take—but for Zakota, it seemed more like an hour. The chip that had been implanted in his brain when he’d been a newly minted ensign on the verge of graduating flight school allowed him to see the twisting purples, pinks, and blues of the wormhole. The real world became a shadow world, people’s figures dark and unmoving around him as they seemed frozen in time.

  The wormhole undulated like a giant sand snake, but his practiced hands glided over the controls, keeping them in the center rather than bouncing off the walls. This wasn’t the hard part. The hard part came when—

  There.

  He swallowed as the silver disc that represented the event horizon at the end of the wormhole came into view. The flight hadn’t taken nearly long enough.

  Unfortunately, there was no way to see what waited for them until he flew through the gate.

  The warship zipped out, the vibrant colors of the wormhole disappearing, replaced by the drab grays of the warship’s bridge. His colleagues were slumped over consoles or down on the deck. The
y would wake up soon enough, so he didn’t spare them a glance. He couldn’t. He had to focus on whatever trouble lay ahead.

  And trouble there was. Three Zi’i warships floated in front of the gate, one so close that the proximity alarm blared as soon as Zakota flew into normal space.

  He jerked one hand sideways in the navigation gel as he checked to ensure the warship’s shields were still up with the other. The warship veered sideways.

  More alarms flashed, warning him of weapons locking on to him. A wave of disappointment washed over him, even though he’d expected this. Deep down, he’d hoped and prayed that they would enter the system to find that the Dethocolean forces had already won the day and beat down the Zi’i. The fact that three enemy ships lounged here, barricading the gate, was not good.

  All he could do was fly away from them as quickly as possible, aiming for the asteroid belt, as Sagitta had instructed. He wished Lieutenant Coric had stayed aboard to comm the Zi’i and try to convince them their admiral was still in charge of this ship and that it should be allowed to pass. But he knew full well that it wouldn’t have worked. These were probably some of the same Zi’i that had been in the Scyllan System when the Star Guardians had captured the ship.

  The first energy blast struck their aft shields, causing another alarm to flash to life.

  “Returning fire,” Arkyn said coolly.

  So much for the hope that the Zi’i might hesitate to fire on one of their own ships. If they planned to attempt to recapture the Star Striker, they meant to disable it first. And it would be an unfortunate mishap if they accidentally destroyed the warship.

  Hierax had gotten the warship into good working order, and shields were at full power. They wouldn’t remain that way if all three of those ships opened up on the Star Striker, but Zakota thought he could get them to the asteroid belt. After that, he was as good as anyone at navigating through an obstacle course.

  “Is there anything I can do to help?” Katie asked quietly.

  “Be ready to jump in if I get electrocuted,” Zakota said, rocking his hand in the navigation gel, trying to make them a hard target.