by Juno Wells
Heidi took a deep breath and limped toward where her friend waited, but a burst of light cut through the dim warehouse and Heidi went to her knees. Some of it struck Vrix and he grunted, holding his side as the massive photon cannon nearly tore a hole through him. Vrix fired back at the two Slasu operating the cannon, and rushed to grab Heidi and drag her to some cover. The other Xaravians arrayed out to try and disable the last two Slasu, and Vrix held his breath as he looked at where Heidi was injured.
The cannon burned most of her left side, leaving raw red blisters, and she groaned as she tried to move. "We have to get out of here."
"We will," Vrix muttered. Damn it. He needed to get them both up to the Galaxos, which would be more difficult with his wounds and theirs. He didn't have time to worry about the damage done to his leg and side. They couldn't afford to delay. "I can carry you to Griggs, then we can all get out of here."
She glared up at him, though her eyes were nearly swollen shut and the photons made her face lobster-red. "You can help me walk. That's it."
He wanted to complain about stubborn Earthers, but since it was a trait he admired about Griggs, it felt hypocritical to dislike it in someone else. So Vrix nodded and glanced up to make sure the Xaravians successfully disabled the cannon and the Slasu, then carefully gripped Heidi's uninjured arm to help her stand. "Then you'd better hop along, Earther."
She muttered under her breath and tolerated his touch as she dragged her burned leg and held her side in pain. It was slow going back to where the space chickens treated Griggs, and Heidi shuffled to a stop when she saw the grayish, feathered aliens hopping around her friend. Vrix made sure she could stand on her own before going to check on Griggs, wincing as his own wounds pulled.
Noise and sirens rose up outside the warehouses, and the chickens clucked as they packed up their bag. "Time to go, time to go. The police come. It's best if you're not here."
Vrix handed them the extra stunner. "Thank you for your help. Pyix will assist you with the other girls. We'll be in touch once all of this is sorted out."
The chickens flapped off into the warehouse, calling to each other and periodically shooting at any Slasu who moved, and Vrix took a breath as he looked at both the women. "Now we've got to get out of here."
"How the hell are we going to do that?" Griggs cried out as she shoved to her feet, and staggered to hug Heidi so tightly they both winced and cursed.
Heidi made a face. "He's got a transporter. Apparently."
"Bullshit," Griggs said, though she limped to lean against him. "What's the real plan?"
"This is the only plan," Vrix said, and held up the old tech locator that Frrar promised would work. "And we don't have any time to argue."
Heidi looked at Griggs, her expression grim. "Do you trust him?"
"For now." Griggs patted his chest as Vrix grumbled, then she gestured for Heidi to lean against Vrix's other side. "If he thinks it'll work, it'll work."
Vrix really, really hoped it worked. He flipped the locator on, then put his arms around them to hold them tight, and took a deep breath. He didn't believe in prayer, but he wished he did as his finger hovered over the trigger. "I really hope this works."
"Wait, what?" Griggs said, eyes suddenly wide.
He hit the trigger before he could change his mind, just as armed Caihiri police burst through the warehouse, and everything went sideways and upside down and dark all at once.
Griggs
Griggs never felt anything like the transporter in her life—it was like being torn apart and put back together all at once, over and over, until she wondered if something went wrong and she was stuck in an eternity of endless pins and needles.
And then cold surrounded her and everything felt weird and smelled wrong and she thought she could taste color.
She opened her eyes, even though it felt like they were already open, and stared around. They were on a ship, but it definitely wasn't the Galaxos or the Heisenberg. She sprawled next to Vrix and Heidi, both of them groaning, and studied the oddly familiar room. It looked like one of the equipment rooms on the Argo, near the bridge and just a few feet from the main security office.
Griggs swallowed hard, her mouth filled with cotton, and started to pat herself down. Something felt off. She didn't know exactly what happened, but...
She looked down at her hands. Well, that explained it. Her hands were on the wrong sides. And... so were her feet. Griggs awkwardly punched Vrix. "You son of a bitch."
He lifted his head, breathing oddly. "What's wrong? Where are we?"
The whole ship jolted and alarms started going off, and too late, Griggs remembered the battle. They must still be attacking the Galaxos. And if the Galaxos managed to damage the Argo, they'd all be killed along with the crew. She wobbled to her feet, nauseated at the sight of her right foot where her left should have been, and the left where the right normally was. "We're on the Argo. We have to get off this ship or..."
"Or what?" Heidi could barely move; almost all of her burned. Her lips were dry and cracked as she struggled to breathe.
Griggs braced herself against the wall as the ship lurched again, and calculated the distance to the security office. She could get protective gear and weapons, and then it was just a couple of steps to the bridge, and... "We can take the ship. Witz is dead, so there's no captain. They're all focused on fighting the Galaxos. I can get to the bridge and seal all quadrants of the ship so they can't get to us, and hail the Galaxos so they don't destroy us. Then we have our third ship."
Her heart jumped to her throat. Finally, she could captain her own ship.
Vrix shook his head, sitting up even though the color drained from his scales until he was an unhealthy gray. "I'll go. Stay here with Heidi and—"
"You need to figure out what the fuck happened with that transporter, okay?" Griggs held up her hands. "And how to fucking fix this. Okay?"
"Griggs, we—"
She limped to stand near him and kissed him gently. She held his face and could barely whisper the words. "Remember how you said I could save the universe and change everything for the better?"
"Yes," he said, silver eyes blazing.
"Then let me." Griggs pressed her lips together to keep them from trembling as fear and pain and a tiny ray of hope bubbled up in her chest. She could do it. Even injured and alone and afraid, she could take the bridge and seize the Argo. She could end the battle. She could rise above and end it.
Vrix looked at her for a long time as the ship shook around them, then he pulled his dagger from his belt and offered it to her, hilt first. His silver eyes blazed like mercury. "Come back to me, Cecily."
She nodded, and paused only long enough to pull one of the emergency medical packs off the wall of the equipment room, handing it to him. "Help Heidi. Please. We can get her to the sick bay as soon as the transporter thing is working, or I can find a way to get us to the sick bay on the Argo. The Galaxos would be better, since Maisy is there."
Vrix dragged himself over to Heidi, his legs disjointed and his movements jerky. "I've got it. Go save the day."
Griggs had to clamp her lips together to keep from grinning—and to hide the fact that her teeth chattered in pure fear and adrenaline. She could do it.
She'd spent years sneaking around the Argo, looking for all the best ambush spots and hiding places. That helped a great deal as she sneaked out of the equipment room and got her bearings. She was just a short distance from the bridge, but Vrix's dagger wouldn't be enough to seize control of the ship, and the stunner she stole from the Slasu must have discharged in the transport, because it was completely useless.
And trying to fire it with her backwards hands was flat fucking impossible.
Griggs ignored the alarms and smoke and the tossing of the ship, hoping that the Galaxos held off on the killing strike long enough for her to send a transmission, and dragged herself to the security enclave. One poor ensign sat inside, monitoring the different systems, and he didn't even look up at
the door opened. "We need reinforcements in—"
He never finished the sentence. Griggs bobbed him on the head and the ensign crumpled to the ground, unconscious. She remembered him as a nice kid, if too dazzled by the exploits that Witz and some of the others claimed to have had to see through the bullshit and understand what being a Fleet officer was really about.
Griggs tied him up in the corner and made sure he was out of sight from the door, and locked it so no one could surprise her like she'd ambushed him. She hobbled over to the console and ran a scan of all systems, identifying where the crew were located in the ship. Surprisingly few crewmembers were even on the ship. She chewed the inside of her lip, muttering curses as her backwards fingers slipped on the screen and refused to obey even simple commands to drag in new security requirements.
Heavy boots ran past the security office, men shouting to each other, and another crash moved the ship that was heavy enough that she fell off the stool. She really, really hoped Vrix got the transporter fixed or at least a transmission to the Galaxos. Dying in a fiery explosion in space wasn't on Griggs's list of things to do that day.
She took a deep breath to focus, centering herself until all the distractions and panic faded to the background. First steps first. Prevent any other crewmembers from reaching the bridge, and get as many off the bridge as possible.
She triggered alarms in two different parts of the ship, creating the impression that landing pods had somehow adhered to the outside of the Argo and started boarding. She opened a communique to the bridge and kept her voice gruff, glancing back to check on the ensign. "Alert, alert. We have a boarding party in Sector 22, and a boarding party in Sector 87. Repeat—boarding parties identified in Sectors 22 and 87. All crewmembers prepare to repel hostile troops immediately."
More shouting and pounding feet, and she watched on the tracking screen as little glowing dots stopped what they were doing in nearly every other quadrant of the ship and converged toward the two fake boarding parties. Griggs held her breath. Just a little longer. Just a few more crewmembers to get in the right halls...
As soon as the crew reached the sectors, Griggs tapped through the screen to trigger the isolation protocols, and massive airlocks sealed around those quadrants to trap the men inside. It worked. It damn well worked. She bounced to her feet and punched the air, wanting to shout. Fuck Witz and all the misogynistic bastards he kept on his crew. They didn't know who they'd fucked with when they gave up Griggs and the rest of the women.
One of the security officers stuck in Sector 22 messaged the security office, shouting over more alarms and creaking equipment. "This is Boggs. What the fuck is going on? No sign of a boarding party, and now we're trapped by the airlocks. Is there a malfunction?"
"Standby," Griggs said.
But she didn't bother to check anything, and instead pulled one of the high-powered photon rifles from the wall of the security office. Time for stage two. Take the bridge, seize the ship, save the day.
Easy.
Griggs checked the hall before hobbling toward the bridge. Only two men remained there to navigate and manage the shields and weapons as they kept firing at the Galaxos and evading any return fire. She thanked her lucky stars the Galaxos didn't have the best targeting system. She slid through the door to the bridge, weapon raised, and neither of the officers turned around.
One slammed his fist against the navigation screen. "What the fuck is going on with those boarding parties? I didn't see anything on the scanners with approaching ships, and they sure as fuck didn't materialize out of thin air right on our hull."
"There's nothing from those sectors," the other one said, shoving to his feet. "And I've got nothing from the security office. There's no way they could have—"
He turned and saw Griggs for the first time, and froze.
She smiled. "You've already been boarded."
They both reached for their weapons and Griggs fired, winging them both even though she meant to kill them. Her aim was off; Einstein help her if her eyes ended up flipped, too.
But it worked well enough, and the two officers each held an arm and a leg respectively as their wounds bled.
She gestured at the floor in front of her. "Sidearms. Now."
One squinted at her as he slowly slid the weapon over to her. "Griggs? What the fuck are you wearing?"
"This is payback. None of you did a fucking thing when Witz sold us, and now you're going to feel the consequences." She didn't dignify the outfit comment with a reply, though she realized the racy costume she wore revealed a lot more than originally planned, since the Slasu took her Xarav robe when they beat her and the whip had shredded quite a bit of what remained. Griggs tossed the sets of restraints she brought from the security office over to them. "Wrists and ankles, right now. Don't try anything tricky. No one's coming to help you."
They glared at her but did as directed, and Griggs limped to the command console. She took the weapons offline and opened a hailing frequency.
Her voice shook just a touch as she started, but it grew stronger as she went on. "This is Commander—this is Captain Cecily Griggs. I am in command of the former Fleet ship Argo, soon to be renamed. Rebel ships Galaxos and Heisenberg, we stand by to assist. Repeat—Captain Cecily Griggs is in command of this ship."
Only silence answered for so long she wondered if they decided it was a ruse and meant to just destroy the ship. Then a transmission crackled onto the bridge. "This is the Galaxos. It's good to hear your voice, Captain Griggs. Support pod is on its way to you now."
"Copy all," Griggs said. "Use Bay 15 on the starboard side."
She eased to sit in the captain's chair, wishing she had the strength to jog back to the security equipment room, but not wanting to surrender the bridge so soon. No telling what the two scowling Fleet officers would do if she turned her back. She kept the rifle charged and pointed at them, just in case, and turned the captain's chair so she could also see the doors to the bridge. No one was going to fucking surprise her on her own ship.
Her own ship.
Griggs started to smile. She sure as fuck could change the universe with her own ship.
Vrix
It took every ounce of strength he possessed for Vrix to watch Griggs walk out of the equipment room and face the Argo crew on her own. But it felt like the transporter blew out every fuse in his brain, and his legs wouldn't cooperate. Everything felt backward and switched, and the injuries from the photon cannon on Caihiri drained his strength as his green blood leaked all over the floor.
Heidi seemed much worse for wear. Vrix focused on the medical bag and pulled out the supplies so he could get oxygen and one of the healing gizmos on her, then fumbled with the communicator. "Galaxos, come in. This is Vrix."
"Where are you?" Frrar sounded worried, but there were more alarms going off in his background than around Vrix, so he figured that concern might be misplaced.
"We tried to transport," Vrix said, pushing to his feet despite the pain and wooziness of blood loss and pain. "It didn't quite work. We're on the Argo."
"Shut up!" Rowan crowed in the background. "You're still alive? And it worked?"
Vrix pinched the bridge of his nose and hoped for patience as he reached the door and peered out to see whether any of the Fleet stormtroopers headed for the bridge and Griggs. "We're still alive. But we need medical help. Quickly. If I fire up the locator, can one of you transport over here?"
A long silence, broken by some whispers, was the only response. Then Frrar cleared his throat and tried to use his "I'm being a reasonable engineer" voice. "We, uh, think that would be ill-advised."
"You fucking sandsnake," Vrix growled. "You let us use the damn thing and you're too chicken to use it yourself? I'm going to kick your ass the second we're on the same ship. Tell Vaant we're on the Argo and to stop fucking shooting at it."
He cut off the communicator before he could say something truly awful, and turned his attention back to Heidi. She didn't look good. Even wit
h the oxygen and the medical gadget that was supposed to start healing whatever was broken, her face took on a grayish cast and her eyes looked unfocused. Something boomed over the ship's internal communications system, saying something about boarding parties in a couple of sectors. Vrix frowned as he listened to the repeated message; it could have been Griggs lying, or maybe the Galaxos actually attempted to board the ship. He hoped it was both happening simultaneously, for Griggs's sake as well as Heidi's.
Vrix wasn't great at being comforting, but she was Griggs's friend and Heidi fought hard to live. She'd endured a great deal. She was a fellow warrior, and deserved to be recognized. He looked in the medical bag for anything else that would help.
"If I die…" Heidi whispered, each syllable a struggle.
"You won't," Vrix said. "Medical help is on the way."
"I'm dying, not deaf. I heard what your pals said." Her breath rasped in her throat as her hands scrabbled across the floor, searching for something. "If I die, tell Griggs I'm sorry."
"You won't die," he repeated, more to make himself believe it than to convince her.
Heidi closed her eyes and a ghost of a smile drifted across her face. "She must really like you."
"Well, I really like her." Vrix listened at the door for more alarms, but the ship grew eerily silent. "Keep talking. What happened? Did your whole crew get stranded?"
She snorted, though she didn't bother to open her eyes. "No. Witz showed up on our ship and said he needed me for a special mission. So he dropped me in Caihiri with a communicator and enough juice to get out a distress call. I didn't realize his plan until I had already called for help. He knew that Griggs and Isla and I were roommates at the academy, and he wanted to ambush them. I figured it out just as the Slasu showed up and captured me, but by then I couldn't find any way to warn them off. And look what happened."
"Well, he's dead now," Vrix said. "And I'm pretty sure one or all of the space chickens ate him, so there's that."