Starbreaker

by Amanda Bouchet

  “This has to be the worst heist ever.” My knees knocked together. I only felt one of them. It was like an out-of-body experience—not that I’d ever had one.

  Tess pursed her lips. “I don’t know about that. We finished the last heist in a black hole. So far, this is better.”

  “True.” It was all relative. But at least they’d had something to show for that one: a lab full of enhancers.

  Tess holstered her empty weapon and ground her right thumb into the center of her left hand as she turned toward the vacuum-seal control panel. She mashed her fingers together in a tight triangle and then held her left palm up to the locking mechanism. Within seconds, the control panel beeped, and the doors slid open.

  Jax, Frank, Caeryssa, and I were all right there, watching. They had to know, or at least suspect. How could they not? Unless they believed in magic, they had to know there was some kind of illegal tech involved. They simply didn’t care. They had Tess’s back and kept her secrets—didn’t even ask about them. They were family in the way that had been missing from my life for a decade.

  But maybe that void was finally filling up again.

  An ache shot through my heart. The blazing pain from the two stun blasts had given way to numbness, and that one beating muscle was pretty much all I could feel in my body. I couldn’t even lift a hand to rub my chest, so the tightness simply stayed there.

  Tess sprang out of the way when the door panel slid open. Frank helped Caeryssa stumble into the accordion-like passageway of the vacuum seal, propelling her toward the other side of the air lock. Jax got a shoulder under my arm and half dragged me through after them. Once we were in, Tess closed the door and changed the code. It was hard to tell, but I thought she typed out Gabriel on the number pad, and I scowled.

  “We could leave it open,” Caeryssa said. “The space between the shells will depressurize when we detach. An emergency like that would distract the whole station. They won’t have time to come after us.” Her cold pragmatism should’ve surprised me but didn’t. It was a good idea, in fact.

  Tess pushed past us to get to the far lock and repeated the process with her hand and fingers. She shook her head as she held up her palm to the control panel. “If I get you guys in this one, I might be able to run up to the next level and snag that one, like Sanaa said. Between both our ships, they can pick us up quickly.”

  “By yourself?” I frowned at her. “We don’t even know what’s in the next cargo hold. Not worth it.” Goons’d be here any second, despite Tess having shot out the locks on the next five levels. They could still come down the stairs and would—unless they were in danger of being sucked out into space. “Leaving a gaping hole right here sounds like a good plan to me.”

  Caeryssa nodded.

  “We don’t know what’s in this one, either,” Tess said.

  “Our escape, for one thing.” That was what mattered.

  Numbers started scrolling across the small rectangular screen. Tess kept her hand up, watching the blur of combinations go by. “I don’t know. We’ll see what’s in this one. There’s usually similar stuff grouped together. Why is this taking so long?” She glared at the control panel and shifted from foot to foot, her agitation growing.

  This lock was definitely different from the one built into the outer shell of the spacedock. Much more sophisticated. Maybe there was something of real value in this container. Cure-alls? Weapons? I almost hoped not, because Tess wouldn’t listen to me then. She’d go for another.

  “I’ll go with you,” Jax said. With his agreement, I sensed a losing battle and bit down on a curse. “Frank can steer this one while Shade and Ryssa recover.”

  I wanted to howl at the idea of being separated, but Tess just nodded, all business.

  “Actually…” Frank lifted his hand from his side. It came away bloody.

  “Shit! Frank!” Caeryssa hopped backward on one leg, taking her weight off him.

  “I guess a goon got lucky,” Frank said through a grimace.

  “What’s going on?” a female voice asked sharply over the com. Macey? Nic? I couldn’t tell. It wasn’t Fiona or Mwende.

  “Frank has a bullet in his side!” Caeryssa nearly shouted.

  “I think it went through,” Frank said. “No big deal.” The black material of his stolen goon gear clung to his side, now noticeably shiny and wet under his fingers.

  No big deal? What was over there? The spleen? I couldn’t remember.

  “Let me be the judge of that when you get back here,” the woman from the Stench said.

  “Sure, Mace,” Frank answered.

  “And make it quick, you stupid idiot.”

  Frank just nodded, even though she couldn’t see him.

  The lock finally beeped. The door slid open, retracting into the side of the cargo unit. We stared. About a hundred and fifty people stared back at us.

  What the hell?

  Women, men, and children of all ages and what looked like all walks of life stood crowded against one another in the cargo hold, some in well-made clothing and others in rags and sandals. No matter what they wore, they were rumpled, huddled, and terrified. The place smelled like a filthy prison. Unwashed bodies. Human waste in corners. Fuck, it was disgusting. And inhumane. Who would do this?

  “It’s her.” A middle-aged man at the front of the crowd pointed at Tess. His hand shook from the effort. When had these people last eaten? And why was he pointing at my girlfriend?

  Tess pointed back at herself. “Me?”

  “He said you’d come for us.”

  Tess blanched. I lurched closer to her on the leg that still functioned. Focusing on the man who’d spoken, I demanded, “What are you talking about?”

  “She’s come to save us,” he said hollowly. He stared at Tess, everything in his expression half defeated already. “Haven’t you?”

  “I’ll help you,” she answered without hesitation. “But I don’t know what happened here. Who told you I’d come?”

  “The tall man with the dead eyes. He showed up where we were before and said he was moving us to where you’d be. A Dark Watch general. He moved the whole unit… I don’t know. Several hours ago.” The self-elected spokesperson shook his head, but even that effort seemed to drain him. “I don’t know where we were before that, but there were more of us. Another hold like this one. Some of us have been locked up for almost a week now, and they keep adding people.”

  “A Dark Watch general? Tall, dark hair, blue eyes?” Tess barely breathed as she waited for confirmation.

  Several people nodded.

  Her nostrils flared, and her eyes turned terrible. She angled away from the crowd a little. “Sanaa? What the fuck is going on here?” Fury cracked through every word she launched at the lieutenant over the com units.

  “I might have mentioned you deciding to come here,” Mwende answered, a forced blandness almost covering up her accent. “Your uncle was very interested in your arrival on the Ewelock hub, especially after he found some unexpected cargo in the Sambian System. Certain phasers and storage units might have been manipulated in the meantime.”

  “Oh, really?” Tess spat.

  “Yes, really,” Mwende answered dryly.

  Tess turned back around and swept a concerned gaze over the prisoners. “He could have just told us.” All the fury drained from her voice.

  “Too many variables. Might not have worked out, and he didn’t want you living with that.”

  Too many variables. That was exactly what Tess had been saying about this whole plan from the start. She and Bridgebane were more alike than they realized.

  “Your uncle’s a Dark Watch general?” Frank was whiter than a ghost—and I didn’t think it was because of the blood he was losing. “And Sanaa? What’s she?”

  Beside me, Tess took a huge breath, like she was gulping down a new reality. She probab
ly was. General Bridgebane had gone from enemy number two to Uncle Nate in a matter of days, and he’d just sealed the deal with Tess by giving her proof that he was working against the Overseer. These were living, breathing people that needed help, not just empty words or vague promises he might not keep.

  On top of that, the man was a mastermind. Mwende revealed our plans to him. To come to the Ewelock station. To pose as a maintenance team. Within hours, he’d organized it all. Taking out the LZL phasers. Forcing us to the bottom level to maintain our cover. Sealing a cargo hold full of prisoners to the exact spot from where we’d probably have to take off in a panic. Had he also contacted Bob, making sure the real maintenance team was on its way so that all hell would break loose and we’d never make it to the upper levels? I wouldn’t put it past him, even if it put Tess in danger.

  “Frank.” Tess finally answered him. “They’re trustworthy. Look what they gave us.” She spread a hand toward the weakened and terrorized human cargo. Great Powers, the looks on their faces as they watched her. Hope and fear. The utter belief that she would save them. I felt their faith in her like a weight in my chest and wondered how Tess could breathe through the sudden pressure.

  A swallow moved Frank’s throat. He nodded. “Better get moving, Bailey.”

  “Sanaa, do I need to go to the next level?” Tess asked. “And no half-truths. Just tell me.”

  “Yes,” Mwende answered. “And hurry. Security cruisers are starting to circle the station. DW 12 is nearby and will undoubtedly be called in for backup.”

  “Of course it will,” I muttered. Bridgebane had planned for that also.

  Tess backed into the air lock, her hand rising to the door control that would shut us in here. Without her. “He’ll shoot at us, won’t he?”

  “You know he will, Daraja.”

  And he’d make it look so real it would be. Tess knew that from experience.

  Jax tried to follow her out, but Tess shook her head. “Frank’s wounded, Shade can’t move, and Ryssa’s not back to normal. You fly this one.”

  He handed her his gun without arguing. “Plenty of rounds left.” Jax hadn’t been shooting. He’d been carrying Caeryssa.

  Tess took it and closed the door, turning away as the panel slid shut.

  Her abrupt exit jarred me. Everyone stared after her, maybe feeling as suddenly plunged into uncertainty as I did. This had been Frank’s mission to begin with, but every single part of it revolved around Tess, even the unexpected ones. Our center of gravity, the solar to our system, had just left without a backward glance.

  “I’m in between the shells again,” Tess said softly over the coms, her voice kicking my frozen lungs back into action. “I broke the vacuum seal. You’re free to go now.”

  “Are there goons?” I asked.

  “Feet pounding on the staircase. They’re coming,” she said in a barely audible whisper.

  My face twisted, and I swore under my breath, powerless and enraged. The Dark Watch was coming, I couldn’t do a damn thing to help her, and we were only partway through a rescue mission we hadn’t even known about. We’d been reduced to trying to rescue ourselves, and here we were, with hundreds of people counting on us.

  I was able to lift a hand enough to scrape it over my scalp. I looked around me, finally getting it now. A day in the life of Tess Bailey. What a Nightchaser really does. I’d better get used to it, embrace it, because I was all in. For Tess. And for this. These people needed help, and it was us.

  “Everyone brace yourselves. Jax, let’s get this thing outta here.” I could barely move, but I was ready to make this happen. We had to.

  Tess’s breath came faster as she raced up the stairs to the next level. Jax moved to the console near the cargo unit door and started waking up the nav system. It was as basic as they come: forward, reverse, and a steering joystick under a large, square monitor showing a bunch of indistinct shapes moving around. It looked like a kid’s video game, a challenge to avoid the blobs. Dodge them to get to the next round. Hit one and you explode.

  “Engaging thrusters.” Jax directed a little power to the rudimentary propulsion system and gave the joystick a delicate push to angle us away from the spacedock. “We’re moving out.”

  Tense as hell, I leaned against the wall where Jax had propped me for balance and prayed I wouldn’t fall over as the cargo hold began to rattle and shift. Between not being able to steer this thing myself or stand up on my own, my breathing turned tight and shallow, the stale and stinking air leaving a bitter coating on my tongue. The sour bite of people sweating hope and terror from their pores swelled inside the cargo hold. The same mixture rose in me. No Tess. A body I couldn’t use. Bridgebane my puppeteer again. No clue as to the outcome of this. I grimaced, clenching my teeth.

  After the initial jolt of Jax setting us into motion, the cargo unit steadied as we floated through space on a trajectory toward the Stench. Merrick would wait for Tess. There was no question. The nervous silence broke when a man pushed his way forward through the crowd and moved toward us, his eyes on Frank. The blond captain sat slumped against the wall beside me, holding his side, his features stiff with pain. The black uniform made the rest of him look as white as a pristine, snow-capped peak.

  “I’m a doctor.” The man took in Frank’s pale face, tense jaw, and blood-soaked fingers with a worried frown. “Can I help?”

  Frank glanced up at him and then lifted his hand from his side, giving unspoken permission for the man to take a look.

  As the doctor crouched by Frank and began lifting his shirt, Tess spoke again. “I’m at the Lower Y cargo door,” she panted. “Opening it now.”

  Come on, baby. My lips moved, hardly making a sound. It was torture not having a visual on her, not being able to help. My heart pounded like it wanted to punch through my chest and burst right out. You’ll get through this, starshine. You’ve made it through worse.

  Silence. Silence. Gunshot!

  I jolted off the wall, nearly pitching over. “Tess?”

  “They’re here! Just above me. Come on, come on!”

  “Stop! We’ve got you now, rebel!” Gunshots cracked over the com, riddling my nerves with bullet holes.

  “Tess? Baby!”

  No answer, and my chest started to collapse in on itself. Powers. No. Fuck!

  “Tess!” I bellowed, swiveling frantically to look at Jax.

  Jax might’ve howled louder, covering whatever sounds came from the crews on our ships. He whipped toward me, a crazed gleam spreading through his eyes at the speed of light.

  “I’m in!” Tess cried. Another shot went off. She hissed. “Son of a bitch!”

  Fear choked me. “What is it?”

  Gabe echoed me from the Endeavor when he really needed to shut the fuck up.

  “Daraja?” Mwende said.

  More gunshots roared over the coms, so loud I knew they were point-blank. My world spiraled out of control. No one survived that.

  “I’m in the air lock,” Tess panted out. “Just blew the station-side control panel.”

  “Thank the Powers.” My leg gave out, and I slid down the wall, landing next to Frank.

  The doctor threw me an anxious glance. “Is she all right?”

  I nodded.

  “Are you?” he asked.

  “Stun blasts.” I flopped my hands and one foot. “Still recovering.”

  He nodded and went back to examining Frank. It occurred to me that he might not have been asking about my physical state.

  Caeryssa caught my eye and gave me a reassuring nod with her sharp chin. Things are moving along just fine, she seemed to say.

  I blew out a breath. A day in the life of a Nightchaser. I might go gray before my time, but at least I’d go gray with Tess.

  She updated us on her progress. “I’m opening the second lock. It’s a fancy one again.” Her only w
ay out of here now was in that cargo hold. “Someone shot me in the ass,” she added, outrage firing up her voice.

  “The ass?” I croaked. “Can you walk?”

  “Yeah. It hurts like crazy, but I can walk. Or limp,” she said.

  “Holy shit, Tess. What can I do?” Gabe over the com, sounding panicked.

  What can you do? Zip it and man the damn air lock.

  “It’s fine,” Tess ground out, her growing impatience either due to the slow override of the sophisticated lock or to Gabe’s stupid question when she had other things to worry about. “Surral will help.”

  My jaw flexed. That was Tess’s solution to everything—Surral will fix it. Well, Surral wasn’t here. What happened if Tess couldn’t get to Starway 8 before she bled to death?

  “Can you fly that hold?” I asked. After she broke the vacuum seal, maybe someone already inside it could pilot the box.

  “I can do it.” She didn’t elaborate, and I waited for the lock to beep over the com. It finally did. The door whooshed open, and her breath hitched. “It’s the same. A hundred people, at least.”

  The door swooshed again as Tess sealed herself inside with the human cargo. “Ignore the uniform,” she told the people in the cargo attachment. “I’m here to help. I’m breaking you out of this place.”

  Soft murmuring and cries of relief came through to us. A shiver rippled over my half-numb body, the discernible reaction of the people trapped in that place painting a sudden wash of goose bumps across my flesh. My blood pumped harder, making me giddy and sick and fearful and alive all at once.

  “Lock door and…detach,” Tess muttered to herself. “I’m loose, Merrick. Pick me up as soon as I’m far enough out.”

  “Put pressure on the wound,” Merrick answered back.

  “I am.” She sounded distracted, already on to her next task. “I’ve got a joystick in one hand and my ass in the other. That sounds like fun, but it really isn’t.”

  Frank snorted and then winced, earning himself a frown from the doctor for jostling himself.

  “Grazed rib. No organ damage that I can see.” The man gently probed Frank’s injury with one hand, keeping the blood-soaked uniform out of the way with the other.