Over the years, she’d discounted the power of Palian steel, believing that the ensnared enforcers were simply weak. Nothing could have prepared her for the truth of the material’s power.
Sweat beaded her brow as she considered sending out another blast to solidify their escape route. A shiver raced across her skin, and her hands fell lax beneath the bindings. As the sting settled deeper, burning from within, she understood the plights of all those taken before her.
The steel had done its job. She wouldn’t use her power again unless absolutely necessary.
She pushed down the lump building in her throat. She’d never been vulnerable, even from her earliest memories as a child. A deep ache formed in her chest and she pushed it away.
She would not be afraid. She refused.
Still, her hands trembled.
When the wall of energy she’d conjured hit its target, the trappers flew back into the barricades, and one of the containers exploded into shards.
Espinoza grabbed her. “Time to go.”
Her head spun slightly. She had never been at anyone’s mercy, and she refused to succumb now. She needed to find a way out of the shackles before they did irreparable damage.
Dania stumbled as Espinoza dragged her across the floor to the entrance of a timeworn ship several levels high. A smuggling vessel, no doubt—big enough to carry freight but small enough to be maneuverable and faster than most local police ships.
When they reached the base of the platform, Ty reached down and grabbed her, dragging her inside. A loud boom echoed between the metal walls. She faltered and tripped up the incline as a blast seared a hole in the deck near her boot.
A few inches to the left and she’d have lost a foot!
“Come on!” Ty grasped her arm and yanked Dania to her feet.
She stared at the singed tips of the man’s blond hair as he pulled her with him down a long hallway and into what appeared to be a small command deck. Two chairs stood centered over unique consoles spread evenly between a large observation window.
A third, occupied chair farther to the right seemed placed between two smaller screens flashing what appeared to be navigational coordinates. The woman in the chair turned, her chin-length hair and cropped bangs bouncing about her face. Dania took in her pink highlights as the woman’s eyes widened.
Interesting. This was the woman who’d held Alexander’s patient when he’d removed a bullet from the man’s chest. What a fascinating web of intrigue she’d stepped into.
“What in all that’s good and right in the galaxy is that?” The woman pointed at Dania.
Espinoza pushed past them into the room. “Don’t ask questions. Get us out of here.”
The woman spun her seat back to her console and pointed to one of her screens. “We’re in line, but we don’t have clearance.”
“Do I look like I give a damn? Get us out. Now.”
Ty attached Dania’s shackles to a hook in the center of the rear wall. “I’m sorry about this. We really aren’t going to hurt you. We just want to talk and explain things.”
So he’d said. Oddly enough, after all that had transpired, she was interested in why they’d take such a chance. Dania was still going to kill them all—once she got free from the Palian steel—but first she’d humor them to quell her curiosity.
Espinoza hit several buttons on the control panel. “It’s useless trying to reason with her. For now, the plan is to save her life and then drop her off somewhere where she can wait for a ride home.”
A yellow light flashed. He cursed then hit it three times before the blinking stopped.
Dania pushed against the wall. Did he actually think she’d let him leave her anywhere, let alone fly away with his head still attached?
Ty put a small device into his ear. “Control, this is the Star Renegade requesting clearance for immediate take off.”
“Are you insane?” a voice said from the speaker. “We’re on lockdown. No one is—”
Ty slammed his fist onto a button, cutting the person off. He pointed out the window. “They’re closing the gel filters.”
Espinoza stared out the window. “Alanna?”
“I need a clear line of sight. I can’t jump us from inside.”
Espinoza tapped Ty on the back. “Do your magic.”
Ty smiled. “Rock and roll.” The ship rose into the air and throttled toward the rapidly shrinking gel filter. The clear, green film shimmered and darkened as it solidified.
Were these people insane? Once the gel hardened, it would be like hitting the side of a mountain.
“Ty?” Espinoza shouted.
“Close your eyes, boss.”
Dania clawed at the wall behind her until she found and grabbed the hook she’d been attached to.
The gel turned a deep, forest green, almost solid. They weren’t going to make it. Yet Ty only pressed the controls to go faster.
If she were outside the ship, she’d let this happen and dispose of the whole lot of them at one time. She wasn’t outside, though. An explosion of that caliber would incinerate all organic matter onboard, even her.
Dania squinted, sending a bolt of her power forward to explode into the bio-gel. Her vision blurred as another icy lance stabbed at her from beneath the bindings. Her arms seemed leaden as the ice roared through her muscles and exploded behind her eyes. Her vision skewed and she clenched her teeth against a scream until it subsided.
They’d been taught that Palian steel drained more power if the victim tried to use their abilities while restrained. She almost wished the infernal metal would have taken all her strength to keep her from doing that to herself again.
When her power hit, the bio-gel lightened, sparkling with her primordial energy seconds before the ship made contact. They slipped through the light-green matter, slowing slightly in the suction map before they skated past the protection layer and blasted into space.
“Woohoo!” Ty punched a fist into the air.
Espinoza slapped Ty on the back again. “How did you pull that off?”
“That’s good, old-fashioned flying right there, boss!”
Dania held back a laugh. She didn’t bother telling them that they’d all be dead if she hadn’t helped. Still, she leaned against the wall and closed her eyes, breathing slowly as the icy pain subsided. She didn’t relish the idea of leaving her life in the hands of these fools any longer than necessary. She needed to find a way to get the cursed steel off her wrists.
Espinoza looked over his shoulder. “Alanna, get us out of here.”
The ship jolted, wrenching Dania’s shoulder.
“What was that?” Espinoza asked.
“We’re taking fire.” Ty pointed out the main viewing pane again.
“You think?” Espinoza fell back into his chair as another charge of sonic fire rocked the ship.
“Those are warning shots,” the pink-haired woman said. “It’s station security. They’re asking us to cut our engines.”
“Why the heck do they care what we do?” Ty asked.
Espinoza leaned over his console to look up through their main viewing pane. “Because they know we were involved in the mess in their hangar bay.”
A huge ship sunk into view, filling the window.
“Bite me.” Ty pointed. “Royal insignias.”
Espinoza turned to look at Dania. “Friends of yours?”
She smiled at him. The terror on all their faces warmed her, but this wouldn’t do.
Her ship could squash this vessel with no more effort than flicking a bug off the wall. Twisting, she tried to access the communication band on her wrist, but she couldn’t see the screen with her hands still fastened behind her back.
She couldn’t have her people concentrating on this crew, though. She could handle these imbeciles. Her enforcers needed to focus on the king's requested targets: the trappers back on Midway Station.
Dania closed her eyes and sent a gentle trickle of power out, then tensed for the pain. The bindings
chilled, but the sensation quickly abated.
Good, so little strokes of energy were manageable.
She sent another small wave of power out. It was a simple gesture, one meant to calm her soldiers after an altercation. Kile should read that as a sign that she was fine. If he backed off now, he could still apprehend the few dozen trappers in the docking bay before they dispersed.
“What was that?” The pink-haired woman spun, wiping her arms as if trying to get something unseen off of her.
Ty stood and faced her. “Alanna, are you okay?”
The woman—Alanna, apparently—shivered.
Odd. The energy Dania had sent out should have been barely discernible to a human.
Alanna blinked and nodded. “Sorry. I think I just got creeped out.”
Dania’s ship shot a spray of power over their bow.
“Holy crap, they missed.” Ty returned to his seat. “This must be our lucky day.”
Either that, or they’re letting you get away. How simpletons like this ever eluded local law enforcement was beyond her.
The screen before them lit up with a fireball.
Espinoza clutched the console. “Incoming!”
The ship balked and Dania’s knees slammed to the floor, wrenching her arm again. Pain seared through her shoulder. Her stomach churned. She needed to get off that hook and out of the bindings before she ended up needing a medic.
Fire spewed from the navigation console. Ty pulled Alanna back, shielding their eyes from the sparks.
“That shot didn’t come from the royal cruiser. Someone else is out there.” Espinoza reached for the controls, banking the ship down. “Let’s keep away from whatever just hit us.”
Alanna tried to smother the flames on the navigation console with a silver-colored rag. One flame went out, and another flared up.
Ty returned to his position. “Either way, we can’t outrun that royal cruiser.”
“If we play our cards right, we won’t have to.” Their captain hit a button on the panel. “Doc, get up here. Now.”
Espinoza turned and walked over to Dania. She rose to her feet as he grabbed her wrist, snapping off her communication band.
“What are you doing?” She scowled as he flipped the bracelet over in his hand.
“Getting us out of here.”
The door slid open, and a man entered—the one Alexander had healed. “Someone hurt?”
The man scanned the room, checking the crew before his gaze settled on Dania. He startled, his mouth forming an ‘O’ as he faced her. His lips formed several words that he didn’t actually speak before turning toward Espinoza.
The man pointed at Dania, as if that simple gesture and his wide eyes summed up everything he needed to say.
“Ty,” Espinoza said. The word sounded more like an explanation than a name.
Doc shook his head. “Figures.”
“One problem at a time. Those ships are after the enforcer.” He held up Dania’s band. “This belongs to her.” Espinoza checked the screen, then moved closer to the newcomer. “You still got the cadaver?”
“Bessie? Of course.”
Espinoza pressed Dania’s communication band into the man’s hand. “Let’s send her for a ride.”
The man stared at the band before a smile spread across his lips, as if he’d just been let in on the galaxy’s biggest secret. “I want to be you when I grow up.”
Espinoza turned. “Yeah, fine. Let’s just get out of this in one piece first.”
Dania yanked against the bindings. “That’s mine. I need that.”
Espinoza didn’t even look at her. “You’ll have to get over it. Right now, if any of that stray artillery out there hits us, you get blown up, too.”
Dania gulped. That, at least, was true.
Her heart throttled. Other than her power, or being close enough to make a mental connection with Alexander, the bracelet was her only means of communication with her people. Cutting her off meant she was actually alone.
When she’d planned on being taken by trappers, she hadn’t anticipated the illicit steel. How could she have been so foolish, believing the foul material had all been destroyed?
She made one more useless tug against the hook holding her to the wall. If she couldn’t get the bindings off, she was trapped with these people.
Espinoza stormed back to his console while Alexander’s former patient left the bridge with her bracelet. Losing her means of communication would be problematic, but no matter. She could deal with a small crew of miscreants with or without help from her soldiers.
Not having her link left her unsettled, though. She needed to make sure the ship, and its systems, remained intact so she could use it to return home when her job was done.
“Looks like they dropped the gel barrier.” Ty pressed the earpiece tighter to his ear. “We have mass exodus from the hangar bay.” He grimaced. “Half of them are running, but the rest are headed straight for us. Guns blazing.”
“No doubt our new buddies, looking to get chummy with your girlfriend,” Espinoza said.
Ty looked over his shoulder at Dania. “He didn’t mean that. Well, the girlfriend part, at least.”
“Can we focus on the ships shooting at us, please?” Espinoza stared at the cruisers becoming bigger in the viewscreen.
He was right. There were too many of them.
Their ship spiraled around the small vessels spraying bolts at them that weren’t much more than an annoyance, meant to wear down this smuggling ship’s shields, rather than do any real damage. The trappers were being cautious because their target held precious cargo—namely, Dania.
If Espinoza’s ship was boarded, Dania would have to break free from these bindings in order to remove the threat. She needed to find a concentrated particle transducer, or possibly a fully charged light refractor. She’d seen them in medical bays and also used as lightweight handheld weapons. Either one would melt through Palian steel at close range. She’d just need to figure out a way to not dissolve the flesh off her hands in the process.
“Here we go.” Doc’s voice sounded over a speaker.
A whoosh filled the chamber, and a small pod ejected from the ship, hurtling into space.
Espinoza pressed a button and spoke into a microphone, probably disseminating his voice to all the crafts outside. “You want her, take her.”
He banked the ship up, then right, barely missing Dania’s cruiser.
Kile broke off his pursuit of the trappers, heading away from them all, chasing the ejected pod. Why was he going after that piece of junk?
The firepower of all the smaller ships turned toward the royal cruiser as the trappers pursued them like starflies shadowing a fuel tanker. What was wrong with them all?
Ty slapped his hand on the arm of his chair. “Holy smokes, it worked!”
“We’re showing a perfect woman’s signature out there,” Doc’s voice said from the speaker. “That communication band sealed it, Cal. They all think Ty’s new girlfriend is on board that escape pod.”
What? Dania turned back to the screen. All the ships, including her own, chased down the small metallic cylinder.
Her bracelet…they all actually thought she was in that pod. The idea was so deviously simple, and ridiculously effective.
Ty kissed his own hand and tapped Espinoza’s face. “I freaking love you, man.”
Espinoza stared as the last ship skipped past their port bow, leaving a clear shot at open space. “Love me later. Alanna, do your thing.”
“On it.” The girl raised her palm, and a circle of blue light formed in the air. “Prep for jump.”
Dania cocked her head. What were they doing?
The ship shook as the stars in the distance grew fuzzy.
Alanna pressed her finger into the circle of light. “Three, two, one…”
A small skipper craft flew in front of them.
“Abort!” Espinoza shouted.
But the stars blurred, forming lines. The ship jolt
ed, clipping whatever had flown in their way. Their ship spun, the stars and reality whipping around her. Dania’s gut twisted, and she retched. Her head swam until the ship stopped, facing Midway Station.
She blinked, wishing she could rub her eyes. They were almost a league away from their last position. The faint glint of the space station was barely visible through the stars.
Dania straightened, staring at the navigator. How had they traveled so far? What had the woman done?
“Sorry!” Alanna spun the blue dial of light floating in the air.
Espinoza pressed a sequence of buttons, and the screen zoomed in on Midway Station as a hoard of ships turned on them.
Espinoza cursed under his breath and hit the communication button. “Ethan, we’re in trouble up here.”
A voice cut through the static. “Oh, really? Didn’t anyone tell you guys you’re not supposed to hit things?”
“Cut the lip and get us moving.”
“Already on it.”
A spray of fire shot up and over the window.
“Their aim is going to get better when they get closer,” Espinoza warned.
Two of the smaller ships exploded in the distance, becoming fireballs before the cold of space winked out the light.
Good. Kile had finally decided to do his job.
Maybe scans showed one of the trapping ships was giving commands. It didn’t matter who dealt the fatal blow to the trappers as long as her king’s directives were achieved.
“Hold on!” Alanna pressed the center of her blue light dial again, and the stars blurred once more before they settled.
Dania gasped. They were now more than two leagues away.
“Shoot!” Alanna said, once again spinning the dial of light hanging in the air.
“We’ve got a problem.” Ty stared into a raised section of his dashboard. “That royal cruiser is heading right for us, and they’re driving like they’re pissed off.”
A small vein in Espinoza’s temple drummed as he turned to Ty. “They must have realized that Bessie was not who they thought she was. What about our other friends?”
“It looks like they’re all headed our way. The slavers must have figured it out first because they have a good head start on the enforcers.”
Renegade Magic (Star Renegades Book 1) Page 5
