Jelena glimpsed one man’s features through his faceplate as he fell, and an expression of utter pain and sheer horror contorted his features. Then he toppled, like the others, and she couldn’t see his face any longer.
The enemy Starseer soon stood in the corridor alone, except for Brody and Abelardus, who had stayed under the hatchway. They hadn’t been joining with the pirates in the attack. They were probably biding their time, hoping to snatch the artifact at an opportune moment.
Thor glared across the fallen men at them, and they exchanged uneasy glances with each other. The other Starseer backed away from Thor.
Jelena couldn’t see the expression on his face and didn’t know if he was threatening them, but he glowed with such intense red light that she had to shield her eyes. She was still glowing too, being infused with energy. With life.
Gradually, the glow faded. The pirates weren’t moving at all, and Jelena warily checked them with her senses. She gulped. They were dead. All of them.
I’m returning to the ship, Thor spoke into her mind. Into all four of their minds, she realized, as the others stirred. Come if you wish. But the artifact is mine.
His voice was cold in Jelena’s mind, and she shifted uneasily, looking at the dead pirates again.
Thor strode toward the hatch with the teardrop thing under his arm. The other Starseer scooted aside so he could pass. Brody hesitated, then also stepped back.
Thor sprang through the hatchway without looking back at them. Or at Jelena.
The red and yellow lights flickering outside had stopped, and the corridor fell into darkness, with only her and Abelardus’s helmet beams still shining.
She passed the Starseer who’d been attacking her earlier, keeping an eye on him—no, it was a her, she noticed. Not that it mattered much. The woman didn’t bother Jelena. She was staring at the bodies, and she sensed her distress at what had just happened. Jelena was distressed too. The pirates had been attacking and would have killed them all, and she couldn’t blame Thor for targeting them, but the way they had died disconcerted her.
She touched the patch on the back of her arm. Of course, she couldn’t see the wound through it, but it no longer hurt. It still tingled slightly, as if she’d grown fresh skin in an instant. Her whole body was full of energy, and she jumped through the hatchway easily.
Thor was already striding out of the pit. The pirate ship and the Snapper were both in the air on opposite sides of the chamber, their shields up as they glared at each other like circling dogs.
“Erick,” Jelena said. “Can you hear me? Any chance you can lower the shields long enough to let us on? I think… the pirates might be a little discombobulated at the moment.”
The nose of the pirate ship shifted until it faced Thor and Jelena instead of the Snapper.
“Then again, maybe not,” she muttered, raising her barrier.
Abelardus and Brody climbed out of the hatchway behind her. Thor stood at the top of the pit, ignoring the pirate ship and looking expectantly toward the Snapper.
“They’re not going to fire on you,” Erick said. “Austin, get us down there and put the ship between them.”
The Snapper tilted sideways, one of its thruster housings almost bumping the boulders.
“Remind me not to skimp on Austin’s piloting lessons in the future,” Jelena said.
The pirate ship’s e-cannons flared white, and she braced herself, feeding all the new energy she had into her barrier.
Thor flung out a hand, and the entire pirate ship lurched sideways. Jelena gaped as it crashed into the wall near the tower again.
Letting him get that was unwise, Brody spoke into Jelena’s mind, as if she had been the one to hand it to Thor.
Better him than you, she snapped back.
I doubt it.
The Snapper landed on the boulders near them as the pirate ship struggled to right itself. Brody, Abelardus, and the other Starseer ran toward it. Thor glared at the pirate ship as if challenging it to threaten them.
As Jelena ran toward the airlock hatch, a boulder shifted underneath her, throwing her off balance. She recovered, but realized all the boulders were shifting. It was as if something was moving underneath them.
In the corner of the chamber, the tower glowed a faint white.
“Uh, not sure what’s happening,” Erick said, “but you all might want to hurry.”
“It’s definitely time to get out of here,” Masika growled over the comm.
Jelena picked up her pace, but it was like running over marbles as the boulders continued to shift and tilt. The Snapper’s hatch was open, light spilling out of the airlock.
A boulder slammed down to Jelena’s left, and she squawked in surprise. That had come from the ceiling.
Barrier, Thor spoke into her mind.
He looked back at her from the ground under the open airlock. Jelena had let her barrier lapse when the pirate ship hit the wall, but she obeyed swiftly, reestablishing it.
More boulders struck the ground all around her, some of them the size of shuttlecraft. She couldn’t see the dark ceiling—it was too far above them—but she sensed it shaking and shifting, much like the rocks under her boots. She reached the ship, jumping past Thor and into the airlock, but even as she did, she feared it wouldn’t matter. Was the Snapper about to be buried the same way the other ship had been?
Chapter 17
Once Thor was inside, Jelena reached for the controls to close the hatch and cycle the airlock. Abelardus and Brody were already waiting near the inside hatch, so there was nobody left to worry about.
Outside, boulders continued to rain down, bouncing off the ship and bouncing off each other. The pirate vessel had recovered from Thor’s attack and was heading toward the tunnel it had entered through. Jelena needed to get the Snapper flying in the same direction before the entire ceiling collapsed. As soon as the lock cycled, she would sprint to NavCom and take over the controls.
A figure in a spacesuit appeared between two large boulders and sprang for the ship as the hatch slowly swung shut. Jelena tensed, creating a barrier around her. But it wasn’t an attack. The Starseer that had been with the pirates needed a way out—her ship wasn’t waiting for her.
Jelena thought about using her power to knock her away from the ship, but the woman would be stranded in the rockfall if she did. There had been enough death.
The Starseer dove through the crack in the closing hatch and smashed against Thor’s and Abelardus’s legs. The hatch shut, and the lock slowly cycled. Jelena sensed Alfie waiting in the cargo hold right inside. She gave the dog a reassuring mental pat.
The Starseer rose to her feet as the inside hatch opened. Alfie barked at the intruder, though they must have all looked like strangers in their spacesuits. Jelena wasn’t sure whether they were dealing with a Starseer government representative, a Starseer turned pirate, or neither, but she felt Alfie should have barked at Brody if she was going to bark at anyone.
Everyone stepped into the cargo hold, but the men soon spread out to face each other.
“You’re not fit to hold that, boy,” Brody said, pointing to the artifact.
“More fit than you,” Thor said coolly.
The artifact was still tucked under his arm, still glowing that ominous red. Blood red, Jelena decided.
Abelardus stood where he could look at both Thor and Brody. “You know who’s truly fit to hold it?” he asked. “A noble warrior who’s fought and defended the Starseer community on numerous occasions.”
He puffed out his chest, but neither Thor nor Brody looked at him.
“Jelena,” Zhou called from the corridor leading to NavCom and the cabins. He had slides and a portable microscope clenched in his hands, as if he hadn’t dared leave them behind to come check on her. “You’re all right!”
“I am,” she agreed, jogging around the glowering men and toward him. “Thanks for noticing.”
She needed to get the Snapper out of this chamber. Let those three worry
about the damned artifact. Maybe she would worry about it once they were out of the asteroid. Or maybe she would find a way to eject it out into space.
Thor turned his cool look toward her as she ran past, but the female Starseer strode forward to face him, and he turned his attention that way.
Jelena patted Zhou on the shoulder as she passed him and ran into NavCom.
“What’s the situation, Austin?” she asked as soon as the back of his head came into sight.
He jumped out of the pilot’s seat as if he’d been waiting for ages to relinquish it. “It’s raining boulders, Captain. I got the shields up, though.”
“Good.”
Her oxygen tank clunked against the seat as she slid into it. Equipment she didn’t recognize littered the co-pilot’s side of the console. She glared at Austin but held her questions for later.
As soon as she verified that the shields were up and saw that power was at eighty percent—good enough for a quick escape—she lifted the Snapper into the air. The view screen showed the huge boulders tumbling from the ceiling, and one of the external cameras displayed the top of the hull already covered in a layer two or three thick.
Again glad for the low gravity, Jelena tilted the craft left and right to dump the excess weight. At the same time, she turned them toward the only tunnel large enough for a ship to fly through, the one the pirates had gone down.
The passage came into view, and she frowned at it. The pirate ship hadn’t gone down it. It was lying on the ground with its tail end sticking out, the ship effectively blocking the tunnel.
“Want me to paint the walls with bits of their hull, Captain?” came Masika’s voice over the comm. “I’m in your turret.”
“And feeling artistic, I see.” Jelena checked the sensors and groaned. The pirate ship had stopped because the tunnel was blocked ahead of them. Rocks had fallen to close it off and were continuing to fall on and around the craft, bouncing off its shields.
“I haven’t had much opportunity to paint on this trip.”
“Why doesn’t he just shoot his way out of that tunnel?” Jelena wondered as the Snapper floated to a stop behind the craft, thrusters keeping them aloft.
The pirate ship chose that moment to answer her question. It fired e-cannons at the rocks blocking the tunnel, and blazer beams lanced out from behind it, striking the Snapper’s forward shields.
“Oh, really?” Jelena shoved some of the unidentified equipment off the co-pilot’s console and tapped the blazer controls.
Her own beams streaked out, slamming into the ship’s rear shield. It was being pummeled from all sides, with boulders continuing to fill the tunnel around it. Its e-cannons had blown through some boulders ahead of it, and the ship crept forward, but more rocks filled the tunnel beyond the obliterated ones.
Jelena grimaced, trying to get a read from the sensors. Did those boulders extend all the way back to the cavern where the Snapper had set down for repairs? Or maybe even farther?
“Is this rain ever going to stop falling?” Masika muttered.
She must have quite the view of the rockfall from the turret atop the ship. Jelena tilted the Snapper from side to side again to slough off more boulders. Another layer had formed.
“Weird that they’re falling in waves rather than simply coming down all at once,” Jelena said.
“I believe there’s a master hand at the controls, Jelena,” Zhou said, stepping into NavCom. His eyes were bright rather than worried as he considered the view screen.
“The controls… for the boulder fall?”
“It’s definitely controlled rather than natural. There have been warning signs of that all along.”
Jelena thought of the images that had flashed into her mind. Warnings, indeed. Though she’d considered them threats. “Yeah.”
A weak blazer blast came from the tunnel, the single beam barely tapping her shields. Jelena could see why. More boulders had fallen behind the pirate ship when it inched forward, and now she could only see part of it. Was it even firing at her? Or were the pirates only trying to clear the rubble around them?
“Look out!” Masika cried, and a clang came from within the ship.
The steady fall of boulders turned into a torrent, as if a leaking dam had finally broken. Rocks slammed onto the Snapper and to the ground all around it. The tunnel and the pirate ship disappeared from view.
Even with the shields up, the freighter was pressed downward under the weight of all those rocks. Jelena turned them and tried flying away from the tunnel, but it didn’t matter. The rocks tumbled down throughout the chamber. No, she realized with a start, catching a view of the tower through the falling boulders. They weren’t dropping in that corner.
She flew in that direction, but the belly of the Snapper was pushed to the ground, and she didn’t make it. Rocks kept falling, finally burying all the cameras and the ship itself. Soon, all she could see were dark rocks, and the engine whined, the thrusters unable to send them anywhere.
“I should have flown up,” she muttered, wondering if that would have saved them.
That ceiling was high. Maybe if she’d gone for it instead of the tower, they would have escaped being buried. They might have found space up near the ceiling when the rocks stopped falling. Of course, if they just ended up filling the whole chamber, it wouldn’t have mattered.
Jelena left the shields up, but powered down the thrusters. There was no point in making the engine work now. They weren’t going anywhere.
Chapter 18
Jelena stood up, refusing to feel daunted. They were buried, yes, but they had Thor and other Starseers. And they had that artifact. Surely, someone could lift or destroy enough rocks for them to get out. Maybe it would take time, but the shields could stay up, protecting them from the weight above, and they ought to have that time.
She refused to acknowledge the nagging doubt in the back of her mind that the five-hundred-year-old ship had also had Starseers and that artifact, and that it hadn’t helped them. For some reason, they had run out of time. She pushed away the image of those skeletons, of how the people had died when they’d been in the middle of doing things, as if they’d been caught unaware. Helpless and unaware.
“How do we get out?” Austin asked, staring at the uninspiring rock-filled view screen.
“We’ll figure something out.” Jelena stepped away from her seat and pointed at the equipment she had shoved off the console. “What is that stuff? It doesn’t look like a toolbox.”
Was that his silly ghostometer?
“I was getting some strange readings with the ghostometer, so I brought all my monitors up here while we were flying to this place.”
She gave him an exasperated look. “Austin, there aren’t any ghosts.”
“Oh, there’s something. The dead Starseers are definitely riled up. See?” He pointed at a frozen display on a monitor on the side of the device. “Look at this. It got stronger and stronger as we got closer to this chamber.”
“What did?”
If he said ghostiness, she was going to slap him.
“The electromagnetic energy readings.”
“Probably from that tower. It was shooting out lightning earlier.”
“From all around,” Austin said, his eyes round. “The entire asteroid. And there have been temperature fluctuations as well, especially in here. The tower is a hot spot, yes, but I’ve gotten all kinds of whacky readings, things the sensors don’t measure.”
“Because the sensors aren’t looking for ghosts,” Jelena muttered. She reached out to Erick and found him in engineering. Should I be listening to your brother or ignoring him?
I’ve never gone wrong ignoring him.
“It means there’s something here that shouldn’t be in a regular old asteroid,” Austin said. “I think the Starseers of the past are trying to talk to us.”
“Erick doesn’t think they made that tower.”
“Their ghosts could have. Maybe they were trying to create a conduit
to, to a way home. So they could send their spirits across the cosmos for a proper funeral.” Austin snapped his fingers. “Or maybe some of the dying Starseers used their powers to lock their souls away in the metal structure so they would live for all eternity. Or until someone came along to free their spirits.”
You may want to come down to the cargo hold, Erick told her. Thorian looks like he’s about to turn into an Octarian blood bear on these people.
“On my way,” Jelena said aloud. “Austin, keep an eye on things.”
He looked at his ghost equipment. “Of course, Captain. I always do.”
Zhou was waiting in the corridor with his arms still full of equipment. He looked like he wanted to talk, but he stepped aside so she could pass. She wanted to hear about what he’d learned, but after she made sure nobody murdered anybody in her cargo hold.
She strode in and found the Starseers still glaring at each other. They hadn’t moved other than to take off their helmets. Thor had dropped his at his feet, but still held the artifact cradled under one arm. Abelardus had moved to Brody’s side and faced Thor. The other Starseer, who turned out to have curly gray hair and fierce blue eyes, faced all three of them. Even though none of them were moving, tension crackled in the air between them, and Jelena sensed power curling about the area. They were testing each other with subtle mental attacks, probing each other’s defenses.
“So we’re completely trapped in a cave full of rocks,” Jelena announced, hoping to divert them from this stupidity and to the real problem. “Can I get anyone some refreshments? Tea? Coffee? A sazz-razzle berry vitamin drink?”
Alfie barked. She was sitting by the airlock hatch, probably hoping to go out. As if this was the place for that.
“Or a dog treat?” Jelena added.
Another bark. This one quite agreeable.
Jelena spotted Erick in the hatchway to engineering, frowning at the face-off. Masika climbed down the ladder from the turret, a fresh bruise on the side of her face. Was that from her earlier confrontation with Brody and Abelardus? She carried her rifle on a strap. Too bad she didn’t have a stun gun. Jelena would have given a subtle nod and told her to shoot everyone in the hold.
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