Starbreaker

by Amanda Bouchet

  “Hurry, Merrick.” How long would it take a hundred people to breathe through the remaining air in here?

  “He’s shooting at us!” Fiona sounded more incensed than scared.

  Worry gripped my heart in a crushing fist. What if Bridgebane shut them down like he had us?

  “Midgrade phaser,” Merrick reported through an alarm that blared on the Endeavor. He shut it off. “Damage. No hole.”

  I blew out a tight breath. “Is there room to jump?” Dark Watch fighters could be gathering. Swarming the ship.

  “We’ll shove our way out. We’re bigger,” Merrick said.

  “But they’re armed.”

  “They’re just trying to hold us in place. They’re counting on the warship to shoot.”

  “It is shooting!” Fiona said.

  “It’s not shooting to kill,” Sanaa clipped out. “Otherwise, we’d be dead, and we’re close enough to take the cargo attachment out with us.”

  How could Bridgebane get away with this? This was a very public half-assed effort to catch us. There was no way he could cover this up.

  Unless…

  “Everyone quiet!” I bellowed.

  People shut up. Even kids. Everything stopped.

  “Why are you in here?” I asked.

  A masculine voice drifted through the dark. “It’s something about our blood. They won’t tell us what. We were part of the early GIN Project. It started almost three weeks ago—before the announcement. They’ve been taking samples from us ever since. Sometimes a lot.”

  Almost three weeks ago? Just after I stole the Overseer’s lab?

  My lungs suddenly felt shallow and tight. Was this my fault? All these people, caged up?

  “From talking to each other, we think they covered several big cities across the Sectors,” he continued. “Said it was for research. Said they’d pay us. I saw people walking out just fine, but when my turn came, they wouldn’t let me back out.”

  More voices confirmed his story, and my heart sank, rose, jumped all over the place. Had I found the Mornavail? Were they like me? Did they know more than I did?

  “Did they inject you with anything?” I asked. “A GIN? Is it already in you?” There was no hiding anywhere in the galaxy if the Dark Watch had already tagged them with that shit.

  “N-No. That’s why they’re holding us—we think. The tech isn’t ready yet. But they drew a lot more blood from us, even the kids.”

  A1 blood. I was sure of it. The Overseer would have super soldiers. But so would the rebellion. Loralie Harris was probably lining them up by the dozen. I’d given her thousands of ready-to-go injections, but the Overseer still had to gather A1 blood and engineer the serum again. We were a step ahead of him for once. Could we strike first?

  We hadn’t really been at war before. Just…doing what we could. That was all about to change, wasn’t it? The clash of our generation was upon us. The surety of that detonated inside me like a bomb blasting out destruction along with tiny unbreakable kernels of hope.

  Fear and something close to excitement ignited in my chest as another hit rattled the hold. People screamed. I lost my position against the wall and free floated.

  “Calm down!” I said loud enough to be heard. “They want you alive, which means they won’t blow us up.” And Uncle Nate had his excuse to use less-than-lethal force—assuming he was even supposed to know about this. He must have just found out. Why else would he have demanded my blood on Reaginine?

  “But we were escaping.” A sob-heavy female voice rose above the rest. Others followed her straight into her pit of doom. Crying erupted in the cargo hold. Great Powers, don’t these people know anything about morale?

  “Are escaping,” I said firmly. I was scared, too. I just wouldn’t show it.

  “They’ll blow your people up and take us back.” That teary, half-broken voice sounded like a child’s. Too young not to believe in happy endings.

  “They won’t. I have an ace in the hole,” I promised. “You’ll see.”

  A softer thud jostled us. It felt like a hip bump from a friend, and I breathed a sigh of relief.

  “All lined up,” Merrick said.

  Thank the Sky Mother.

  “Gabe! The vacuum seal!” Merrick barked.

  “I’m trying. The accordion won’t extend.” Anxiety carried Gabe’s voice across the com like a poison-coated bullet. “I used the password you gave me. What do I do, Tess?”

  Won’t extend? I never had trouble with my air locks. “Try again.”

  “It’s not working!” Gabe said.

  “Something must have damaged the mechanism, or is blocking the passageway from coming out.” It was an awful feeling, free floating in the dark when I wanted to pace or grind my hands into something. I clenched my fists. “Merrick, try backing off a bit and bumping us again. Maybe it’ll jostle the walkway out.”

  “On it,” Merrick said.

  A hard thump resonated through the box.

  “Gabe?” I asked.

  “Shit! No luck.”

  What the hell is wrong with my air lock? “Swing around and line us up with the starboard door,” I said.

  An explosion shook the cargo hold. We ground against the Endeavor. People freaked out around me, grunting, cursing, crying. I spiraled into someone and shoved off with a gut-reaction push that sent me somersaulting over backward. An alarm shrieked in my com. Fiona made a sound of distress. Purring rolled in my ear like thunder.

  My heart flipped over. She had Bonk.

  “We don’t have time to come around,” Sanaa said. “How much bad shooting do you think he can do? Gabe, try again. Daraja, figure it out!”

  I hit a wall and stopped spiraling. Oof. Blindness was terrifying. No idea where up or down was. Too much noise. I tried to concentrate. “Merrick, is there anything strange on the main console?”

  “Other than it blaring about the big hole in your portside storage closet?”

  Oh no! There went my tools. Frank better have something. If we got stuck on Nickleback, we’d be spider food!

  I shoved that thought out of my head. “It has to be something right at the air lock. The vacuum seal should just pop out and latch on to us when Gabe pushes the button. Bump us again—hard.”

  I didn’t bother telling people to brace themselves. No one could see. We were all floating around like particles. The shock came about thirty seconds later, and I pinpointed the noise. It was on my left, which meant the door was over there somewhere. My foot was on something—or maybe someone—and I pushed off, flying in the right direction. For a second, I must have forgotten I had a bullet in my ass. Pain shot down my leg, and I winced, pressing a hand to my throbbing cheek. My pants were sticky with blood. Adrenaline wasn’t enough to keep me warm anymore. I shivered, cold.

  “It’s extending!” Gabe shouted.

  I hit a wall and clung to the smooth surface, my heart pounding like I’d just run a race.

  “We have a lock,” Merrick said.

  I whooped. I couldn’t help it. But how would we get out of the cargo hold? Without any power, it would take a saw to break us out. I didn’t have a saw capable of cutting through metal. Did Frank? Would the systems come back on? Oxygen renewal? Gravity? The door panel?

  “The seal’s airtight,” Merrick announced. “Ready to go.”

  “He’s shooting!” Fiona yelled at the same time.

  We rattled hard along with the Endeavor, an extension of her now and not just alongside her. Merrick shut down the new alarm almost before it started. Super-soldier reflexes. More people started crying.

  “Just let us go!” someone pleaded from the darkness. “At least they weren’t trying to kill us!”

  I turned my head toward the voice, a slow swivel on shocked hinges. No one answered. No one fucking answered. What the hell?

  �
��Well,” I ground out, “I invite you to report back to a Dark Watch security hub to be drained of blood and used indefinitely by a homicidal monster after I rescue the people who have something better to live for!”

  I could practically feel the collective blink in the cargo unit, everyone so taken aback they went silent.

  I couldn’t feel guilty for my outburst. I couldn’t. There were sides to choose, and you had to either own yours or get the hell out of the way of the people who had the balls to know where they stood.

  “The GIN Project is coming for each and every one of us. We need to stop him, or no one will ever be safe. You think he owns the galaxy now? Imagine when he can find any of you with just the click of a button. No one should have that power. He wants you for a reason. You specifically. Your blood. He needs you in order to create super soldiers to solidify his control, to enable more terror and destruction. An unbeatable military. Can you imagine? We have to act before it’s too late.

  “Fight! I don’t care who you were before. I don’t care how old you are. Fight, before there’s nothing left to fight for. Die right here, if you have to. At least you’ll deprive the Overseer of something he needs for his dark doings. This is the battle of every man, woman, and child. This is the battle of our lifetime. Resist! Stand up and say No before your voice is lost—and all others are crushed also.”

  The silence was absolute, even from the Endeavor.

  Then someone started clapping. “I’m with you, Captain!” a man shouted. More people joined in until it was deafening.

  I didn’t want cheering. I wanted commitment.

  “DW 12 cleared a path for us. Made it look like an attack that barely missed us. Guy’s a genius,” Merrick said.

  “Can we be friends now, darling?” Sanaa asked. “Maybe friends with benefits?”

  Merrick grunted. “Jumping in ten…nine…eight…”

  “Jumping in eight seconds!” I called out. I had no idea what it would feel like to jump with zero gravity. The thought began to terrify me just as the lights came back on, the systems whirred to life, and a hundred people crashed down, screaming.

  I managed to twist in the air and landed mostly on my front, smacking down like a pancake. Pain rang through my body, a hot-cold hammering in my bones. I couldn’t move a muscle and groaned out the bit of air I had left in me. Breathing in again was a struggle. My lungs didn’t want to expand. My ass was killing me.

  “Seven…six…five…”

  A woman tried to tug her hand out from under my hip, jostling my aching backside. I winced and scooted over. A kid sat on my ponytail, pulling my head tight against the floor. He put his small hand on my forehead and held on with sticky fingers.

  Our eyes met. The kid smiled. I smiled back, half grimace.

  “Four…three…two…one…”

  I closed my eyes. Darkness crashed down on me, both crushing and a huge relief. My bones ached under the pressure, my mind blanked, and I’d never been happier to race headlong into the mysteries of hyperspace.

  * * *

  “Tess? Tess!” Someone shouted in my ear. I opened my eyes. Lots of people stared at me, but they were all silent. I rubbed my forehead, confused.

  Everything flooded back at once. Had I fallen asleep during the jump? Or blacked out? I’d never passed out in my life except due to blood loss—which couldn’t be ruled out right now. I sat up and pain shot through my bottom. My head spun.

  “Merrick?” I croaked.

  “We’re here,” he told me. “About to touch down on Nickleback. I’ve got eyes on the Stench. She made it but hasn’t landed yet. You all right in there?”

  Relief squeezed an abrupt breath from my lungs. “Um…” I looked around. Everyone seemed fine. Rumpled and anxious, but okay. “Yeah. Looking forward to getting out of this box.” It stank in here. And it was starting to feel small. Really small. Where was the door? I wanted out.

  A familiar anxiety gripped me, but I didn’t move. I was afraid I wouldn’t be very steady on my feet yet, and people blocked me in every direction. The reality of what we’d done started to sink in. We had about two-hundred-and-fifty escaped prisoners to relocate. We couldn’t bring them to the Fold. That was too many people to trust with the rebellion’s biggest secret. We couldn’t leave them here. Humans hadn’t completely deserted Nickleback, but they would soon. There were giant spiders eating everyone in sight.

  The Mooncamps maybe? That was the safest bet, but that just meant more mouths for Raz to feed, and we hadn’t even found him any new food with this totally off-the-rails heist.

  Merrick landed. There was no mistaking the soft jolt. The second we touched down and stopped moving, my pulse went haywire, pounding dizziness into my head. I swallowed. A cold sweat broke out. We didn’t leave the Endeavor’s doors open when we docked in places only to air out. We did it because otherwise, I freaked out.

  Phantom restraints cinched around my wrists and ankles. I could practically smell the cold antiseptic environment of the Overseer’s basement laboratory and feel the bright glare of the overhead lights in my face. Tension banded tighter and tighter around my chest until breathing felt like a joke.

  Not moving. Closed space. Trapped. Get out!

  I sprang up and lunged for the door, spots marring my vision. I’d changed the code when I locked myself in here and punched in the simple star pattern that was Jax’s and my backup. If I’d been knocked out—or worse—he would have known the code to open the cargo attachment.

  The door slid sideways with a whoosh. Gabe was right in front of me, his smile so big. This is the life! his excited expression screamed at me while I tried to breathe and convince myself I wasn’t a claustrophobic mess. The life we always talked about! We’ve got it, Tess!

  I turned away from him, my pulse thundering in my ears. Sanaa was also there, looking like we hadn’t just been to hell and back. Not a glimmer of sweat. Not a hair out of place. A small smile tilting up her lips. She looked fresh and relaxed, as if she’d just come from the spa and not from a space battle that had left at least two holes in my ship.

  I gulped down a breath.

  Merrick turned the corner, jogging toward us from the bridge. Something rose in me, an emotion I had to beat down hard or risk bawling in front of people who needed to think I was a rock.

  A rock could still hug, though, right?

  I dodged Gabe and threw myself at Big Guy. He caught me, his body and grip huge and strong enough to make me feel safe. I even stopped worrying about the Endeavor’s doors still being closed right now—probably a good thing, considering the spiders. Merrick rocked me a little. My feet didn’t touch the floor anymore, and I was fine with that. My pulse evened out, and my lungs got back to work. I felt almost normal again when he set me on my feet.

  As I stepped back, the look Merrick gave me arrowed straight to my heart. Approving. Affectionate. Almost paternal. The only man who’d ever looked at me that way was Uncle Nate. But unlike my uncle, Merrick hadn’t abandoned me. He’d come back for me when I needed him most.

  My throat burned with a thousand tears I wouldn’t let out. I’d just been scared out of my mind, our original plan had exploded in stardust, and my entire body hurt, but everyone was counting on me to pull it together and make decisions for the whole group.

  Static crackled in my ear a second before I heard Shade’s voice. “Tess?”

  “I’m here! Where are you?” My heartbeat took off like a rocket.

  “We just landed. We stayed in orbit until we were sure you guys made it.”

  “You’re on the plateau?”

  “Right next to you,” he answered. “I’m on my way over.”

  “Don’t get eaten!”

  He laughed. “Don’t worry, starshine. Nothing’s keeping me from you.” A soft click sounded, Shade disconnecting from the channel. Several devices clicked off in quick succession.
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  Giddy with relief, I turned off my com, my fingers shaking. I couldn’t wait to see Shade. Going off on my own had been lonely and horrible. We were a team now. I liked it that way.

  Fiona stalked down the hallway, Bonk in her arms. She passed him off to me with a sour look even she couldn’t pull off. “He scratched me twice.”

  I gathered Bonk in my arms, a ridiculous smile on my face. Bonk crawled up my chest and put his paws around my neck. Holy shit, my cat can hug! I snuggled against him. He purred in my ear, his stiff whiskers tickling my cheek.

  “He doesn’t like to be startled.” I stroked his back. Little shoulder blades and a spine bumped against my hand. Bonk’s purring revved up, his chest vibrating against mine. He wasn’t expressing his ire this time, but I hadn’t been gone that long. And all the jolts and noises had frightened him. Tiny claws dug into my skin, but I ignored the sting in favor of kitty love.

  “Then he needs to get used to it,” Fiona muttered, brushing gray and white fur from her shirt. “He’s a rebel space cat. Explosions will happen.”

  I grinned. How could I not?

  “Tess!” Shade’s bellow came from the direction of the starboard door.

  I took a few steps toward the sound of his voice but then he was there, barreling down the corridor. He abruptly slowed, readjusting his approach. The embrace that would have been fierce and perfect ended up being gentle and even more perfect as Shade took care not to crush Bonk. It was awkward, both of us bent around the cat between us. It also felt like a family of three.

  Shade gripped my face and kissed me. It was fast, but the quick contact breathed new life into me.

  “That was fucking terrifying,” he whispered against my lips. “How do you do this all the time?”

  I understood what scared Shade, because they were the same things that petrified me. Someone I loved getting hurt. Things spiraling out of my control. Being taken out of the game before we finally swept the Overseer and his minions from the board.

  I kissed him this time, lifting up to press my lips to his. “It’s not all the time.”