He accessed the Enforcement programming, hidden in a benign batch of code that looked like a simple part of the comm’s transmitting function. Holding his breath against the drugging lure of her scent, keeping his eyes pinned on his comm and not on her lush body, Errol activated the override program and directed it to the lock on the hatch.
The hatch emitted a muted thunk as the internal bolts released. He grasped the handle and eased it open by the barest sliver, peering into the passageway. His lungs were burning, but he didn’t dare breathe yet.
It was was empty. He threw the hatch open and burst from the berth, gasping out and hauling in a clean breath. The dizzying effect of her pheromones lingered, but his head cleared some. The desire was a manageable impulse—one that he crushed and consigned back to that dark, forbidden part of his mind.
The human stood just inside the berth, watching him uncertainly. He didn’t look directly at her, tracking her instead on the edge of his peripheral vision, where she was only a short, tawny blur.
“Come on,” Errol croaked, moving down the passageway. He reached deep inside his shipcoat, feeling along the side seam until he found the tip of his hidden weapon, sewn into the lining. He grasped it with finger and thumbnail, and pulled the length of it from his coat as he marched onward. The human female trotted to keep up with him.
As they approached a juncture in the passage, he gestured at the human to stop. He pressed himself up against the bulkhead, and she did the same, watching silently as he slid pieces of his weapon from the thin tube and into his open palm. It was the work of seconds to piece them together—a process he’d practiced over and over until he could do it blindfolded and upside down. When he was done, he held the interlocking cables of a high volatility arc pistol in his hand. The weapons were still in the experimental phase, but it’d been the only thing that Errol could confidently get past both a pat-down and a weapons scan.
“Follow me.” Errol pushed away from the wall, and moved to the juncture. He cleared the cross passage, and gestured for the human to follow him onward.
The flight deck was two levels down, and all the way on the other side of the ship. Although the auction was still going—it was unlikely they’d be able to make it all the way to the flight deck without running into trouble.
Behind them, back by the berth they’d just escaped, an enraged shout of alarm echoed down the passage. Their absence had been discovered. And quickly. Errol gestured for the human to step aside. She obeyed silently, flattening herself against the bulkhead.
He edged up to the corner, listening to the oncoming footsteps of their pursuer. When he was sure the trafficker had cleared the other corner, he leaned out and fired a shot with the arc pistol.
Silent, invisible, and forceless, the only tell that a weapon had been fired was the target’s reaction. The blast caught the other Scaeven square in the chest. Flesh and bone exploded outward, leaving a bleeding crater in the trafficker’s sternum. He dropped to the deck, eyes blank with death.
Errol turned away. There was no time to hide the body. He urged the human on. “Run,” he barked.
He kept ahead of her, clearing corners and cross-passages, keeping his pace slow enough that a creature of her diminutive height could keep up. If he were alone, he’d be halfway to the flight deck by now, and he’d be able to barrel his way through any opponents with brutal abandon. Instead, he was hamstrung with a fragile, defenseless creature whose species’ primitive technological advancements would render her ignorant to many of the dangers aboard the traffickers’ ship.
At the next passage, they encountered another trafficker. At first, the other Scaeven didn’t react—but then he saw the arc pistol in Errol’s hands. He reached for his own weapon, but before his fingers had even grazed the electron gun, Errol put him down with an arc blast.
“What the hell kind of gun is that?” the human asked on panting breaths, sprinting behind his easy strides.
Errol shushed her, slicing at the air with his hand. She fell silent.
The closer they got to the flight deck, the more patrols they encountered. Errol dropped another trafficker with an arc blast that tore out his throat.
At the next juncture, Errol was taken by surprise when a trafficker emerged from a hatch just as he was crossing the passageway. Errol raised his weapon, then immediately lowered it. He recognized the other Scaeven. Leoric Kal-Torron was an Enforcer. With the dark scar running down his face from temple to jaw and his unusually pale eyes, Kal-Torron’s was not an easily forgotten face.
Errol hesitated, looking askance at him.
“You don’t know me,” the other Enforcer said quietly. “Stick to the portside perimeter.” He turned and disappeared back inside the hatch he’d just emerged from.
Errol had known there was an Enforcement agent embedded with the traffickers—but he hadn’t known the agent’s identity, location, or the capacity in which he worked with the cartel. It was unfortunate that they’d crossed paths with each other—it was a risk to both their covers. Errol’s was blown, and his presence here laid the breadcrumbs that could lead the traffickers to Kal-Torron.
But there was no time to dwell on it. Errol accepted the advice of his brother in arms, and surged down the passage with the human sprinting at his heels.
But even his restrained pace was taxing her. She began to lag behind. Errol glanced back at her, wishing he could trust himself to throw her over his shoulder and carry her. But he needed his wits about him, and touching her body, feeling her warmth, smelling her scent would dull his edge.
Following the outer portside passages, they moved swiftly without encountering other traffickers. As they neared the flight deck, their luck ran out.
Errol cleared a juncture, and crossed it. As the human trailed after him, a hatch opened further down the cross-passage. Errol spun back in time to see a trafficker reaching for his electron gun, barreling towards the human with a roar.
She lunged out of the trafficker’s path, nearly crashing into Errol as he raced to intercept the attacker. Before he could get a shot off, the trafficker fired off his electron gun at Errol. It had been set to a charge meant only to stun a human. The painful shock of it rippled through his body, but Errol stayed on his feet, and the paralyzing rigidity passed in a single heartbeat.
He pulled up his arc pistol while the trafficker was frantically increasing the charge on the electron gun.
Another trafficker emerged from a hatch just behind Errol. He turned quickly. The human was out of sight and Errol was flanked front and back by traffickers, hemmed in on each side by the bulkheads.
They closed in on him.
The human suddenly flashed into view, carrying something large and round and metallic. With a scream that pierced his eardrums like a hot needle, she dropped down and slammed her parcel hard into the second trafficker’s achilles tendon. He dropped with a pained grunt.
Errol got off a shot on the other trafficker, carving a hole in his chest. Behind him, he heard another thud of metal against flesh, another a pained grunt. When he turned back to the second trafficker, he found him crawling on hands and knees towards the human. She wielded a round metal meal tray like a shield as she backed away.
Errol dropped the trafficker with a shot that caved in the back of his head. He stepped over the dead body towards the human. She looked down on the corpse with disgust, but surprisingly no fear.
“Keep that,” Errol commanded, nodding at the port cover. She’d used the hard edges to damage the trafficker’s crucial tendons badly enough to take him down—despite his vastly superior strength and size. There was nothing Errol admired more than a resilient fighter—especially one who relied on wit to overcome a significant disadvantage. Even in the heat of battle, he burned for her. He couldn’t get her to the sealed berth aboard his ship fast enough.
He turned his back on her, waving her onward with him. They raced down the passages, making it past three more traffickers, each one taken by surprise by a blast of
arc fire. The human was obviously getting winded, but as long as she was keeping up, Errol couldn’t slow the pace.
They reached the flight deck at last, bursting through a side door and emerging behind a row of docked shuttles.
They were expected. Traffickers ringed the flight deck—at least six of them. Errol took down two immediately with closely-timed blasts from the arc pistol. He caught the human by the back of her flight suit and shoved her behind a shuttle just in time to dodge a hail of electron charges. Electricity crackled against the bulkhead behind them, raining sparks down on the deck. It snapped and sparked against the edges of the shuttle, charging the air so potently that Errol could feel the prickle of electricity over his skin.
The human glanced down the row of shuttles. Electric sparks fountained through the gaps between each vessel. “Which one are we taking?” she panted.
He nodded at the shuttle at the very end. It looked like a civilian’s short range luxury cruiser, but had all the weaponry and transport tech of an Enforcement vessel.
When the electron fire died away, Errol shoved the human forward. They lunged past the open gap between shuttles, ducking down behind the next one as another wave of electron fire hailed down around them. Electric discharge spread against the bulkhead in complex, splintering webs, remaining bright for several breaths. White-hot sparks fountained from the webs.
The traffickers were shooting to kill now. They’d realized Errol was Enforcement.
Errol leaned over and shot blindly around the shuttle. He heard the muted sound of arc fire snuffing out against metal. He hadn’t hit anybody. But the electron shots slowed. Errol urged the human forward again. They raced past the next gap between shuttles, then another, before another wave of deadly electric discharges blocked their way.
Only one shuttle away now. The human leaned back, breathing hard, still clutching the meal tray she’d used to take down a full grown Scaeven. The electric discharges lit her features in an ever-shifting flares of light. She looked slightly different with each new angle of light—harsh then soft, cold then hot.
Errol tore his gaze away from her. He sent another blind shot around the edge of the shuttle—and this time he was rewarded with the heavy thunk of a falling body. But the electron charges continued to bombard their position.
After a few beats, Errol realized there was never going to be a break in the fire. They’d finally coordinated so that they weren’t charging at the same time—they’d maintain a continuous stream of electric discharge, allowing one of them at a time to restore the charge to their weapons.
There was only one reason to do that—the traffickers were pinning Errol and human down while they closed in on them.
“Come on,” he snarled, pulling her closer to the the last gap they needed to cross. They were never going to get a perfectly clear window. He’d have to blindly spray the flight deck with arc fire, taking out as many of them as he could.
Before he could put his plan into action, one of the traffickers appeared at the other end of his shuttle. His electron gun was already up, already trained on Errol. Errol twisted, raised his arc pistol, but he knew it was too late—he’d failed.
In his peripheral vision, he saw a silver blur go hurtling past his head. The human had flung the serving tray.
The trafficker’s electron discharge glanced off the metal tray, ricocheting towards the bulkhead, completely missing Errol. Errol didn’t miss a beat. He fired his arc pistol, turning the trafficker’s chest into red pulp. Errol grabbed the human’s arm and raced to his shuttle. He ripped the hatch open, shoved her inside, and sealed it.
“Fasten your restraints!” he barked at her as he threw himself into the pilot’s seat and ran the ship through its startup cycle.
Electron fire sparked across the hull and flashed against the windshield. Beside him, the human clambered into a seat much too big for her, and clipped herself into the five-point harness. She tugged at the straps with an efficient familiarity that had Errol reassessing his initial impression of her again. Not just cunning and tough—but experienced. She was somebody who’d been through battle before.
The flight panel lit up beneath his hands and Errol punched in the manual override. The ship wasn’t going to like what he was about to do, so he’d have to accomplish it by force.
Already the AI was scolding him. “Clear the perimeter of all external hazards before attempting to—”
He silenced the AI with a jab at the panel, then forced the shuttle to lift off. Doing so in an enclosed space was hazardous enough, but the docking tracks were still clamped onto his vessel, and the only way to release them was through brute force. He punched the thrusters. The shuttle roared as it surged upward. Metal shrieked as the docking clamps slowly peeled free.
Bigger electron blasts rocked the side of the shuttle. That meant they’d gone and gotten the canons out. Enough hits from an electron cannon, and even an Enforcement vessel would go down.
One last clamp held onto the docking rails on his shuttle, keeping them tipped sharply to the starboard bow. The human clutched her restraints, flinching when another canon blast rattled the hull. Errol gritted his teeth, straining as if he were a part of the shuttle itself. He twisted the yoke, whipping the shuttle in a tight circle around the nose. The last clamp twisted free, sending them spinning wildly across the flight deck. They bashed into a row of shuttles. The human jerked against her restraints with a pained gasp.
Countering their momentum, he spun the shuttle back around. With his other hand, he punched a command into the shuttle’s transmitter—hacking the trafficker’s ship and forcing an override through to the airlocks.
The white-hot flare of electron fire petered away as the traffickers realized that the airlocks were releasing. If they didn’t clear the flight deck, they’d all be sucked into the cold void of space. Bright red lights flashed through the flight deck, a shrill alarm blaring.
Errol steadied the shuttle, lining it up with the hangar door.
The first airlock released. The shuttle’s cameras displayed trafficker’s bodies fleeing for the hatches out of the flight deck. Except for three, who threw themselves into shuttles.
“Come on,” Errol urged the second airlock, hands sweating, poised over the flight panel. The human muttered something in her own language.
Behind them, one of the trafficker’s shuttle’s lifted from the deck.
Errol swore furiously.
The second airlock finally released. Errol surged through it. The force of their exit pinned them both against their seats. It was too fast—blackness tinged the edge of his vision—and yet, not fast enough. As they shot out into the silent yawn of space, one shuttle followed immediately on their tail. Two more darted out behind the first.
He was going to have to jump immediately. He’d wanted to lose the traffickers before jumping, to avoid the possibility of them locking on and following the jump—but the pursuing shuttles were alarmingly fast. They chased Errol’s shuttle at military-grade speeds. That was interesting information, but it would only be useful if he escaped them.
“We’re about to jump,” he warned the human.
She looked over at him, bafflement written on her face. “There’s no bridge.”
“I’m going to project one.” He punched in the command, directed the ship to jump to a chaotic corner of the galaxy—a place nobody in their right mind would jump to. A place where it’d be easy to shake off a pursuer, so long as you managed to survive the place yourself.
Blackness split open in front of them, and the shuttle slipped into it.
And then there was nothing.
The human exclaimed in her own language. It was a language Errol had never heard before, but he could guess she was using some of the more colorful words from it.
“How did you do that?” she asked breathlessly, reverting to the Creole.
“It’s a temporary superluminal bridge. It collapses around the ship as we move through it.”
She bli
nked at him. “That… means almost nothing to me. I’m not sure why I even asked. How long will we be in the bridge? Where are we going?”
He looked over at her for a moment. He shouldn’t have. Her body strained against the restraints as she hauled in hard breaths, her full lips parted for each ragged exhalation. Her big eyes had gone even bigger, wide with adrenaline. “We’ll be in the bridge for less than half of a zeitraum. We’re jumping to the Falan asteroid field. It’s going to be rough when we emerge from the bridge. The ship can auto-navigate the field, but it will not be elegant.”
“Your tech is…” she drew in a staggered breath. “It’s insane. I’ve never seen anything like this.”
Errol focused on the flight panel. There was nothing to do while they passed through the bridge, but he couldn’t look at her, couldn’t listen to the soft feminine chime of her voice. The shuttle was bigger than the berth they’d been locked in, but her scent was still a heady temptation that dulled his wits—and he needed clarity. If the pursuing traffickers had locked onto their jump, he’d have to lose them in the asteroid field.
Chapter Four
In the endless dark of the projected bridge, Hadiza realized a prolonged silence had fallen between her and the alien.
“I should thank you,” she said, breaking it. “For saving me. But… why did you save me?”
“It’s my job,” the alien answered. He spoke the Creole with a harsh, rhotic accent, in a deep voice that rumbled from a broad chest.
“Well, thank you anyways. I’m Hadiza Moreau.”
The alien was silent.
“And you are…?” she prompted.
“Errol Sin-Haros.”
“Thank you, Errol Sin-Haros. You saved my life.”
“They wouldn’t have killed you,” he replied curtly.
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