Chase took a deep, shaky breath. In a whisper, he asked, “What’s hap—”
An explosion rattled the walls, and Chase fell to one knee with a gasp. Another loud blast, and then another followed it. He tried to brace himself on the floor, and Parker kneeled beside him. Had the Fleet already found them?
Maurus’s and Vo’s shouts were barely audible over the explosions.
“Halt!” came Maurus’s voice. “I am an officer of the Intergalactic Federal Fleet, and I have conscripted this vessel. You are trespassing illegally on IFF property!”
Chase looked at Parker and frowned. Why would Maurus say this if it was the Fleet that was trying to board?
A sound like a dozen saws being dragged over a metal edge echoed down the hallway.
“Oh lords,” gasped Parker, his gray eyes huge.
“What was that?” The look on Parker’s face frightened Chase more than the noises in the hall.
“Leave this vessel immediately!” yelled Maurus. “If you take one more step, I will be forced to fire!”
There was a pause, and then a jagged series of blasts reverberated through the ship. Chase held his hands over his head, pressing his forehead against the floor, as fear turned his stomach inside out. Someone was blowing up the ship. They were all going to get flung out into space to die.
When the blasts finally stopped, the ship was miraculously still intact. A steady hiss and a few isolated clatters sounded in the hallway. Where was Maurus’s voice? Where was Mina?
A footstep sounded outside the bunkroom. The handle turned, and the door swung open.
The thick metal snout of a powerful-looking weapon appeared at the edge of the door frame, and the creature that cautiously appeared after it was unlike any Chase had seen before. A red-orange, scaly reptilian face peered at them with gleaming yellow eyes. Chase had seen eyes like these before, peering out of a dark ship in the Shank port.
This was a Goxar.
There was nowhere to hide, nowhere to run—they were trapped in the tiny bunkroom. Chase steeled himself to fight, but his body felt frozen with terror. The Goxar took a step toward them and waved its weapon, saying in a barely understandable growl, “We take.”
Chase surprised himself by answering, “No.”
The Goxar cocked its head like a dog, and took a few shuffling steps forward until it had his weapon pointed directly at Parker’s head. “We take,” it repeated in a strange, rattling voice. Silent tears streamed down Parker’s face.
Parker didn’t move and neither did Chase, though more out of fear than defiance. The creature swung its weapon and cracked Parker in the back of the head. “Go!”
Chase staggered to his feet, feeling strangely out of body, and helped Parker up. This wasn’t real, couldn’t be—he was just having a vivid nightmare. He wasn’t sure if his wobbly legs would carry him, but he managed to walk out to the hallway, where another Goxar manned the doorway of the storage room that Mina had sealed off after her unconventional entry. Blackened holes smoldered in the hallway walls, and sheets of metal were torn away like peeling wallpaper. Maurus and Mina were nowhere in sight.
The Goxar shoved its weapon into Parker’s back, sending him stumbling forward into the storage room. The one at the door watched them with flat reptilian eyes. More of the scaly creatures carried freight boxes from Vo’s ship through a ragged hole into a connecting portal into their ship.
Their captor motioned toward the portal, seeming to indicate that they should board his ship.
“No, no, please,” said Parker, backing up against the wall. The creature shouted something incomprehensible and pointed its weapon at them.
A blur of motion streaked across the room, and their captor flew backward, landing on the floor with Mina hugging it in a headlock. The Goxar at the door raised its weapon and fired multiple blasts, hitting its accomplice while Mina crouched behind the limp body, using it as a shield.
The Goxar stopped shooting and grabbed both Chase and Parker by the wrists to pull them through the portal. With a sharp tingling sensation, Chase yanked his wrist right through its grasp and seized Parker’s other arm, pulling him back. With its free hand, the Goxar lifted the weapon hanging from its shoulder and pointed it at Parker.
“Mina!” Parker screamed.
In a flash she was there, snatching away the Goxar’s weapon. She turned it on the scaly creature, and it released Parker with a menacing hiss and backed into the portal to its ship.
Just as the portal was closing, the Goxar reached back over its shoulder and threw something at Parker. A glittering shape flew across the room. Without a thought, Chase leapt in its path, tensing up against expected pain that never came.
He looked down and laughed, giddy with relief. The Goxar had missed. The door to its ship sealed with a pneumatic hiss.
“Urgh,” moaned Parker.
Chase turned and gasped. Sticking out of Parker’s chest was a spike that the Goxar had pulled from its back. Parker stared at the red-and-black prong jutting from his skin, and looked up at Chase with a confused expression. He staggered back against the wall. “Oh lords,” he mumbled.
“No, no!” Chase cried, running to his side. It was impossible—he was directly in front of Parker. The spike should have hit him. Mina caught Parker as he slid down the wall and lowered him gently to the floor. Foamy spittle bubbled from his lips. His eyes rolled back into his head, and he began to tremble.
“What’s happening to him?” Chase asked.
“You have to get out of here,” came a cracked voice from the outer hallway. Maurus stood just outside the cargo hold, clutching the door frame for support. Half his face was covered in blood. “They’re breaking the airlock—we have to seal this room off. Come on!”
Mina gathered Parker into her arms and carried him past Maurus, who slammed the door shut after Chase had passed. The ship rocked around them and deafening metallic squeals filled the air. Mina kicked down a mattress that lay angled against the wall and laid Parker on it. He screamed and thrashed as she worked the thorny spike out of his skin and tore open his shirt to examine the wound.
“I don’t know how it happened,” Chase said. “I tried to block it.”
Maurus placed a hand on his shoulder. “It’s okay, Chase, you tried.”
Mina glanced up at him briefly, and the look she gave him told him she’d seen what really happened. He dropped his gaze, feeling almost ashamed.
“Will he be okay?” Chase asked, gripping the edge of the mattress.
Mina shook her head. “It’s Goxar poison—his blood has to be cleaned. He’ll die unless we can get him to a medical facility. How fast can we get to the next colony?”
“They tore up the energy core.” Maurus leaned against the wall and slid to the floor. “We won’t be able to get the engine functional for days—this ship’s as good as dead.” He put his hand on his forehead, leaving the next sentence unspoken: And so is Parker.
“Where is Vo?” Mina asked.
“That coward is hiding out on the control deck.”
She climbed up the ladder, leaving Parker trembling on the mattress. With a groan of effort, Maurus stumbled to his feet and went after her.
Chase kneeled beside Parker. “I’m so sorry,” he said. “I tried to block it.”
Parker’s eyes rolled around in their sockets, but he managed to look at Chase for a moment. Through agonized gasps, he uttered, “Why?” He closed his eyes as tremors racked his body.
The words I don’t know hovered at Chase’s lips, and stopped there. “Because you’re my friend.” Guilt swamped him like a tidal wave. What good was the ability to jump through doors and evade injury, if he couldn’t protect anyone who mattered?
Parker stared at him a second longer and opened his mouth like he was going to answer, but his eyes fluttered closed. Shouting from the cabin room drew Chase’s attention, and he climbed the stairs and crept into the control cabin.
Vo sat in the captain’s chair facing Mina, who stood
squared for a face-off.
“He needs to get to a medical facility in the next twenty-four hours,” she said.
Vo laughed viciously. “Oh no, not going to happen. Ship ruined. And no comms.” He glared at Maurus and Chase.
“But you have an escape shuttle,” said Mina. “You’ll give us that.” She took a step toward his chair.
Vo reached into the folds of his baggy clothing and withdrew a short blaster rifle.
“Where was that weapon when we were fighting off the Goxar, you self-serving coward!” shouted Maurus. “You wouldn’t even give me the munitions chamber for my own weapon. I confronted them with an empty chamber!”
Vo barely glanced at Maurus, brandishing his weapon at Mina. She stood very still, but Chase could see that her eyes were calculating the situation and her odds.
“Vo, please—put the weapon down,” said Maurus. “Just let them take the shuttle.”
“No. What if Vo need to escape?”
“A child’s life is at stake,” Maurus pleaded.
“Earthan child, who care? Millions of Earthan child in universe, one less not matter. Goxar already take Ferkel, probably eat him for dinner.” Vo shrugged. “More where he came from.”
“I can’t control what this android will do to you if you don’t let her leave your ship.”
Vo looked at Mina and smacked his lips in thought. “How you pay me?”
“Pay you? For what? For the escape shuttle?” Maurus shook his head. “I can’t pay you anything else, I’ve got nothing left. Mina?”
“Parker’s guardian can pay you once we reach him,” she said.
Vo swung his head from side to side. “No pay, no shuttle.”
“I don’t know what else we could give you,” said Maurus. “Just let them take it, and I’ll help you fix your ship so we can continue on our way.”
Vo looked around the room. His greedy eyes rested on Chase, who for a moment feared that he was going to ask to keep him on his ship. Maurus seemed to think the same thing, and he took a step to block him. Vo smiled, and his eyes narrowed within the fleshy folds of his face.
“One thing,” he purred. “You think you so secret, but I see. You carry silver case inside jacket. I see you peeking at it.”
Maurus stared at Vo in horror. A memory flashed through Chase’s mind, Maurus slipping a slim silver case into his jacket as he left the boys in the Starjumper.
Vo giggled nervously. “Yes, you not so secret. I trade you, shuttle for secret case. Yes?”
Maurus cursed and shook his head. “I can’t,” he said, to Chase’s disbelief. What could be more important than Parker’s life?
Vo’s eyes glittered with the knowledge that he had hit on something important, and he lowered his weapon. “So small package for nice big shuttle, I give you good trade. Only choice.”
Maurus brought his hands to his face and looked away. With his dark eyebrows knitted together, it reminded Chase of the crazed look he had seen on Maurus’s face when he was piloting the Starjumper. “I can’t,” he repeated in an anguished voice. “Please. You have to give us another option.”
Vo smiled, shaking his head.
Mina turned away from Vo, her shoulders slumped in defeat, and walked to the back of the cabin. Chase watched her from the corner of his eye as she crouched down to the floor, and realized only at the last second what she was doing when she stood with a piece of loose metal cabinetry in her hands. “Look out!” he shouted.
Maurus started to turn, and Mina swung the metal into the side of his head, knocking him flat on the ground.
Both Chase and Vo gaped as she stepped forward and rolled Maurus’s unconscious body over. She dug inside his jacket and extracted a slim silver case.
“Is this what you want?” she asked. “We’re taking the shuttle.”
Vo extended a long bronze limb to pluck the case from her hand, his fleshy lips curling up in satisfaction.
“We’ll leave him here,” she said, gesturing at Maurus. “You can take him to his destination.”
“Oh no,” said Vo, shaking his head with a sneer. “You take him with you. Not wanna be around when he wake up.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Maurus awoke in a fury, spewing profanity. “You idiots!” he cried hoarsely. “What have you done?” He kicked out with his feet, nearly connecting with Chase’s head.
“I’m sorry, but it was the only way to get the shuttle,” said Mina. She had bound Maurus’s hands and feet before placing him in the back of the tiny escape shuttle, a two-seater with just enough cargo space for a limp body. “Once you made it clear to Vo how important that case was, he wasn’t going to accept anything else.”
“And you couldn’t have bashed his head in instead of mine?”
“That would have been mutiny, a crime with severe—”
Maurus pounded the back of the seat with his boots. “You’ve ruined me! When I get my hands free, I’m going to rip out your wiring.”
Chase cringed at the outburst, but Mina said nothing, making some adjustments on the guidance console. Vo’s shuttle was as well maintained as his ship: A jagged fissure ran across one of the consoles, and the cracked seats were patched with yellow stripes of sealing tape.
“I curse myself for ever trying to help you blasted Earthan trash,” Maurus roared. “Useless boys! Not worth the oxygen you consume.”
Parker lay sandwiched between Chase and Mina, drenched in sweat and alternating between violent tremors and utter slackness. Mina had bandaged the puncture wound on his chest with a piece of clean fabric, but he radiated a sickly heat as his body fought the poison in his bloodstream.
Mina slid a few markers on the console screen and leaned back in her seat. “We’re going to be here awhile, so you may want to save some of your insults for later. This shuttle can’t reach a speed much beyond a camber of two.”
“That’s because it’s an antique,” spat Maurus. “You’ll never make it anywhere in time to save Parker. He was dead as soon as that spike hit him.”
“Shut up,” said Chase. He glanced over at Parker, whose dark hair was plastered to his face with sweat. His eyes were closed, and Chase hoped he was oblivious to the conversation.
“I’ve activated the distress beacon,” said Mina. “We’re not too far from a commerce route. It’s only a matter of time before a ship sees it and picks us up.”
Maurus snorted. “Fantastic. I’m sure the Fleet will be on top of us any moment now.”
Chase’s stomach plummeted.
“Not necessarily,” said Mina. “There are plenty of trade ships out here that could pick up the signal. And if it’s the Fleet that finds us, then I suppose you’ll just have to face the consequences.”
Maurus said nothing for a moment. “I’m a dead man as soon as I step on any Fleet ship,” he finally muttered.
“That seems like something you should have been prepared for, given what you did on Trucon,” said Mina.
Maurus stamped the back of the seat again. “I told you I had nothing to do with the attack!”
“Then tell us who did,” said Chase.
“There’s a traitor within the Fleet, but it’s not me. I was sent on a solo mission to Trucon to investigate a report of nighttime slave traffickers outside of Rother City. Shortly after I arrived I was ambushed by four Fleet soldiers. They were the ones who set the thermodetonators. The silver case you just gave away? I took that from one of them. It contained the maps and access codes for the oxygen plants that were attacked, but more importantly, there were orders that probably could have been traced back to whoever gave them.”
“That makes no sense. Why would the Fleet attack its own colony?” asked Mina.
“I don’t know! Nothing makes sense anymore.”
Chase’s thoughts were still on the silver case. “If you had information about the attack before it happened, why didn’t you try to stop it?”
“After I took the case, I was just trying to stay alive. I didn’t actually look insi
de it until I was in your Starjumper, after everything had happened. It would have been too late anyway. They’d already sabotaged the plants before they came after me.”
“How did you end up in that wrecked spacecraft?”
Maurus’s voice began to lose its vigor, his anger deflating. “Because once I escaped from the soldiers, I was chased and shot down by a Kekilly mercenary. He must have been hired as a backup in case the initial plan to kill me failed. And I would’ve been a goner if you and Parker hadn’t found me.”
Chase started to tell him how they’d found his wreckage over Mircona, but Maurus kept talking, the words pouring out of him like he couldn’t stop now that he’d started. “When I woke up in the cargo hold of your cruiser, I thought maybe I’d been captured, and the first thing I did was go through that case, to see if I could find any clues about what was going on. So then when I learned what had happened on Trucon, I already knew who’d done it. I planned to take everything in the case straight to my captain, but while we were traveling to Qesaris, something else came across the newsfeed. I saw that I was being framed for the entire disaster.”
Chase took a deep breath as understanding dawned on him. This was why Maurus had looked like he was losing his mind during their flight to Qesaris.
“My captain, aside from sending me on a completely bogus mission to Trucon, was the first person to publicly accuse me,” Maurus continued. “So I know he’s one of the traitors, but I don’t know how many other people are involved. If I took the evidence to the wrong person, they’d just thank me for returning their property before shooting me in the heart. That’s why I was trying to get back to my homeworld, where my people will keep me safe until I can clear my name.”
Mina hunched over the console suddenly.
Chase leaned forward and looked at the puzzle of numbers and bars, but he couldn’t decipher a thing. “What’s happening? Did someone find us?”
“No. Something’s wrong,” she told him. “We’re losing speed way too fast.”
“What?” Maurus wriggled up to a seated position and peered over her shoulder. “Why are the cambering shields at half power?”
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