by Bex McLynn
"You're runnin', Kie!" She looked at Dyr and saw his confusion. "She's runnin'!"
Determination thrummed through her technopathy. "[I fire.]"
Dyr stared down at her WristCune, looking at the sensor reading with a fierce frown on his face. "That's a fast cruiser. This barge will never outrun it."
Vedma snarled. "So? We're gonna fight."
Dyr snapped his eyes to her. "We're not going to fight. I'm going to fight. You're going to hide in the engine cluster again."
He started to rise from the cot, pulling her with him. She tried to shrug off his hold. There was no point in hiding her.
"Dyr, we didn't complete the armor."
He froze, and his voice pitched higher in astonishment. "Why the hell not?"
She pulled free from him and began hunting down her clothes.
"Worked on the ship the whole time. But we can still fight. Kie can still fight." Vedma stepped into her jumper and canted her head toward the damaged bulkhead. "That hole over there? Kie did that. Those holes in the armor? Kie."
Dyr gaped at her. "Vedma, that's close quarter defense. What we need to do is stop them from boarding."
"We can do this. Besides, they got a dozen cryo-bins here. What if they're bringin' more prisoners right now?"
"I can't risk you." He moved close to her and pressed a big hand on her belly. She heard the fear rumbling his voice. "Either of you."
Vedma softened. How could she not? Dyr was going to be the best damn da in the Tendex if they could only get away from the kidnappers. And there was another point that Dyr had missed.
She placed her hands over his, and together they cradled their baby. "Dyr, if we run now, we could be runnin' forever."
He anchored his free hand to the base of her neck. Held her in place as he lowered his head and breathed heavily into her hair.
"Godsdammit, Vedma." Two words conveyed his resignation.
She hated that this tore at him, but what could they do? "I don't like it none, either. But like you said, Kie can't outrun 'em anyway. She's a barge, not a spirenought."
He huffed and pulled her close, squeezing her tight. Then he released her with a sigh.
"Fine, Sarda. Finish getting dressed. Quickly."
She banished her trepidation from her voice. "We can do this, Dyr. We're technopaths. The ship's on our side."
He closed off his expression as he bent to fetch his own clothing. "All right. I have a plan."
CHAPTER EIGHT
Dyr guided Vedma through Kigen's corridors as he used his technopathy to cycle through the security feeds. One glimpse at the armored men charging through an airlock had him determined to keep their distance. Each man wore black matte battle gear and held a bullpulse rifle. Their red targeting lasers illuminated the corridors. The boarders combed the ship as a honed unit, no hesitation or verbal exchanges. Their movement demonstrated their familiarity as if they roved over home territory. Dyr hadn't expected bumbling amateurs, but neither did he anticipate such competence and precision.
He held Vedma's hand. In his other hand, he gripped the unsheathed sword.
A godsdamn sword against assault armor and bullpulse rifles.
He bit back pointless curses and continued to pull Vedma along in his wake.
When he started to cycle through the feeds again, with the purpose of evading the boarders, Kigen—Kie—started providing real-time updates that displayed the boarders' whereabouts. The notion that the ship would do such a thing—deliver immediate and succinct intel—had him standing stock-still in the corridor.
What Fleet would do if they knew...
He shook away the distraction. Kie had decided to aid them, and only that fact mattered. The rest, well, he thanked the gods that he wasn't Fleet. That he wasn't in a position where he'd be duty bound to report such an amazing phenomenon.
Vedma pressed a hand into his back, a touch of connection, not urging. "So, what's the plan?"
He flicked his eyes between the feed on his WristCune and the corridor. "We let them board. Kie takes them out. We board their cruiser and get the hell back to the Dominion."
She fisted his undershirt and tugged. "What about Kie? We can't leave her."
There it was, the damn crux of the whole matter. Within the scant seconds Dyr had to formulate a plan, he only managed to rescue Vedma and himself. In no scenario that he concocted did Kigen do anything but decimate boarders. He wasted no time contemplating what happened thereafter. His plan meant leaving her to fend for herself.
This was why he told Vedma very little. He'd been awake less than a day, but in that time, he had witnessed the bond between Vedma and the ship. A kernel of jealousy had even sprouted in his gut. The ship taught her how to overhaul an engine using nothing but basic tools and her grit. Respect and affection were strung between them, a fibrous rope too thick to sever with a clean slice. Unfortunately, there wasn't time to gently untangle them—to ease them into farewells—and he suspected that Kigen already knew this.
"Kie can take care of herself," he said softly, keeping his tone even. "She's proved that already when she took out the first group of kidnappers and the salvagers."
"Dyr."
Gods, she infused so much into his name, voicing both her objection and determination. Even her fear seeped into her tone.
He wished he had time to reassure her, but he didn't. "Ask her if she wants to go back. Back to the Dominion."
Vedma remained still. Ah, she had never considered the ship's ultimate fate, then.
"Go on," he urged as gently as he could. "Ask her."
She bit her lip and cast her eyes toward the deck. So, her exchange with Kie had been that quick, had it?
He released her hand to brush his knuckles along her cheek. "She's already told you no, hasn't she?"
Vedma sighed dejectedly and nodded. "Aye."
"She has no place in the Dominion, Vedma." He wouldn't lie to her. Knew she never wanted anything but hard truths. "Think about what would happen should another house get a hold of her. Do you think she'd keep her independence? That she wouldn't be either stripped or studied?"
She stiffened under his caresses, then jerked her head away from his touch. Aye, she understood well enough, so he refocused them on their current fuck all predicament.
"They're pinging the local AthNet." He took up her hand again and resumed toward the airlock. "I'm masking our WristCunes."
"Are any of them technopaths?"
He didn't know if he should find that fact odd or assuring. "No. They're all manual users."
They reached a juncture in the corridor, and he stopped. Staring at his WristCune and the feed that Kie provided, he already knew what awaited him. They had crept up a starboard corridor to a juncture. Around the corner was the airlock, and on the other side of the airlock, a port side juncture to another corridor.
A lone man, encased in armor, guarded the airlock. Just one person between them and finally getting off the barge.
An armored grunt versus a man with a sword.
Utterly laughable, should he live long enough to tell this story in a tavern while having a drink or three.
He needed a distraction. He needed Kie to start the assault.
Pulling Vedma against the bulkhead of the corridor, he said, "Tell Kie it's time—"
The distant sounds of heavy rounds shredding armor reached them, even in the far starboard-side corridor.
Vedma squeezed his hand as a small moan escaped her lips. He wished that he could shield her from the sounds of men dying, but he hadn't the time. Kie's assault on the boarders sent the lone guard at the airlock into motion. The armored man hunkered down, shouldering his rifle as he swept his surroundings. Then he moved toward the far port-side juncture, on the opposite side of the airlock, where screams ricocheted down the corridor.
"Stay here," Dyr growled lowly, then he released her hand and ran straight for the armored guard.
* * *
Vedma reached for Dyr, her hand swiping but closing over nothi
ng but air. He streaked away from her, boots pounding on the deck, charging straight toward the armored guard.
She couldn't find her voice and peal out a scream. By the time she truly reacted, Dyr and the armored guard collided with one another. The solid clang of the blade against the armor jolted her back a step.
By the gods, the man was fast. The man was also mad. Cracked in the head insane. He carried a sword and had no armor. She desperately wanted to pull him to her chest, cradle him to her, and keep him safe.
Dyr pressed close to the guard, striking at joints in the armor and not letting the other man bring his rifle to bear.
"Jam his comms!" Dyr shouted as he latched onto the guard.
Vedma startled, then scrambled mentally to find the thread that led back to the guard's device, severing it from the local AthNet.
Just as she snipped the connection, another man burst through the airlock. He didn't wear armor, just the same nondescript jumper that she wore. Armed with a pulse pistol in hand, he scanned the juncture and did a double take as he sighted her.
Vedma gasped. Even blinked twice as the man barreled toward her. Kie sent a whip crack through her technopathy, spurring her sluggish response. Run. She needed to fucking run!
She spun away and ran. Shit, what kind of fool just stood there, waiting to be caught?
Her heart hammered hard against her chest and her lungs burned, unable to draw enough air. The corridor pressed close around her, becoming a narrow gauntlet with no boltholes or shadows to hide her.
The man snarled, his breath on her nape. His arm snagged about her neck, choking off her air, while his other arm clamped tight around her belly. She stumbled, her feet kicking out as her pursuer lifted her up. Vedma flailed, terror deteriorating her response into erratic floundering.
Kie shot through her technopathy again, grounding her with waves of fortitude.
Dammit, she was better than this. She had survived more than this!
She shoved her hand into one of the many pockets of her jumper, closing her fingers around her lance cutter. Thank gods she always kept a tool on her person. With her own snarl, she ignited the soldering laser of the cutter and jammed the searing blade into the arm wrapped around her neck. The man roared and shoved her away. She stumbled a step, yet twisted, sweeping her arm in an arc as she faced her attacker.
The cutter blade slid across his neck and face, leaving a magenta line in its wake that split open in a spray of blood.
The man shrieked, crumbling to the deck as his hands slapped over the gaping wound.
Her entire body pulsed. She watched the man kick his legs as blood spurted out between his fingers. As she blinked drops of his blood from her eyes, her grip on her cutter loosened.
Oh gods, what had she—
"Vedma!"
Dyr's crazed cry snapped her back into motion. Fisting the lance cutter, she sprinted back toward the airlock. Her gait rocked her side-to-side as her feet slid about in her boots and her belly pitched her center of gravity.
The armored guard Dyr fought spun about and raised his rifle at her. She ducked and dove into the airlock as Dyr roared again. The bullpulse blast rung her ears, but with her eyes squeezed shut, she didn't see what the blast had struck.
Landing on her side, she rolled up against the inside panel of the airlock. She barely heard the metal strikes of Dyr's sword over her own panicked pants.
Someone closed a hand about her arm and yanked viciously, wrenching her entire limb and dragging her further into the airlock, toward the cruiser. She opened her eyes, and her newest attacker flashed before her. Another Teras man wearing a gray jumper wrestled with her. She swung wildly with the cutter again, only to have her swing blocked. The collision sent a numbing pain radiating through her arm, and the cutter flew, released by her limp fingers.
Vedma curled in on herself, expecting punishing blows to follow. Instead, she heard a hard grunt and the sick sound of something heavy connecting with bone and flesh. The ramp of the airlock shook beneath her as a body toppled down.
When no one else grabbed her, she opened her eyes. A man with a bashed skull lay on the deck. Looming over her stood yet another man in a jumper. She reared back onto her ass and pressed against the side of the airlock as she kicked out at him. He recoiled and held out his shackled hands.
"Easy," the man said softly as he backed away. "Easy now."
That word, 'easy,' clashed with the apprehension Kie pumped into her.
The man wore manacles. In one hand, he held a smashed MediCune scanner. The other hand he held open and empty. A short, coiled metal cord stretched between his bound wrists.
Taken aback, Vedma swept her eyes over him. The jumper was clean, but the man himself looked haggard and beaten. Nicks and bruises covered his shaved pate. Sunken cheeks and dark shadows under his eyes gave him a hollow appearance, and his limbs trembled as if standing there taxed his energy. His praal, a sickly shade of vivid turquoise, conveyed his poor health.
"Easy," he said, the word cracking in his throat.
Although the man whispered, his voice slammed into her. She hadn't heard anyone speak at all for weeks, then recently, just Dyr. The new voice splintered her ears, disrupting her ability to concentrate.
"What?" She heaved as her mind scrambled to catch up. "Are there more?"
"More prisoners?"
Frustrated, she shook her head. "More kidnappers?"
Now he shook his head, staggering his own precarious balance. "No. No—"
"[I fire.]"
A loud boom had both Vedma and the manacled man cowering.
She knew that sound—the shredding of metal by one of Kie's heavy rounds.
"Dyr," she gasped as she scrambled to her feet.
The manacled man listed toward her. "No! Wait!"
She put her back to him and limped to the end of the airlock. If he wanted to stop her, he'd have to put his hands on her, and even then, she'd fight him every step of the damn way.
Kie sent her waves of reassurance, but she needed to see for herself. What if Dyr needed her? What if...?
Stumbling out of the airlock, she looked toward the juncture where he'd been fighting the armored guard. Nothing. No one was there.
Her chest heaved. "Dyr?"
Cradling her wrenched right arm with her left, she limped down the corridor, her boots clopping along the deck. Then she heard heavy shuffling steps echoing from around the corner of the juncture.
The armored guard staggered into view, his rifle nozzle dragging along the deck. Smoke curled around a jagged, gaping hole in his chest. He crashed to his knees, then onto his belly. He stopped moving.
Dyr turned the corner with laden steps. His hand pressed to his side, and beneath his palm, a magenta blood stain blossomed on the scorched undershirt. His sword tip dragged along the deck, just like the rifle had of the armored guard. Her mind raced her through a repeated scene. Now Dyr would fall to his knees before landing on his belly. She expected it. Waited for it. Her eyes opened wider and wider as each haggard step brought him closer to her.
"Dyr?" she said on a thin breath.
"Aye, Sarda," he heaved. He jutted his chin toward the airlock. "Is the cruiser clear?"
"Cruiser clear?" She reached out, yet her hand just hovered, not quite sure where she could touch him. It looked like he had taken a bullpulse blast to his ribs. "No, there's someone—"
Dry, brittle laughter rang out behind her. Shocked, she turned. The manacled man took feeble steps toward them. He raised his bound hands and pointed at them.
He laughed. "Perfect Athela and Unsworn technopath!"
Good gods. Fuckles.
* * *
Dyr snarled as he pulled Vedma behind him. Pressing his left hand onto his injured side, he used his right hand to raise the tip of his blade off the deck. Pain shot through him from the low-powered bullpulse blast that grazed him and seared his skin. He snarled again. Here they stood, so damn close to getting off the barge, yet Unholde shoved one l
ast hurdle in their path. He wanted to skewer the miserable soul before him and be done with it.
But this cackling man took a simple endeavor and made a muck of things.
"I know you," Dyr growled as he advanced.
Vedma left the shelter of his back and walked next to him, foolishly unconcerned. "It's Fuckles."
"Medic Kichern," Dyr said, keeping his eyes on the man. "You serve on Prykimis."
By both gods, why did Kichern now stand before him on Kigen, looking like something that had been dragged through the atmospheric scrubbers?
Kichern, a small man compared to Dyr, shifted on his feet but held his ground.
"Served." His maniacal mirth had evaporated. Now he cast his haunted gaze toward the deck. "I served. Now I..."
"Now you what?" Dyr bit out the words as he raised his sword tip higher. White hot pain tore through him, but he held the blade steady before Kichern. "You do what, exactly?"
Kichern's shoulders sagged as he rotated his left hand, drawing attention to the bashed MediCune scanner that he held.
"I think you already know." The medic meekly peered up at them; his dull eyes darted between them. A shiver threatened to move through Dyr at seeing a Teras with a gaze that had gone so flat and lifeless. Teras eyes swirled, the green and gold striations never blending, giving them constant movement. "You both appear to be in good health."
Dyr stood there and heaved as his eyes flicked to Vedma, who silently cradled her arm—an arm that never should have been injured. His own injury flared with each breath. They were so damn close. Staggering mere paces through the nearby airlock would take Vedma and him to freedom. He only had to go through one man. One man who might have looked beaten and shackled, but still raised Dyr's hackles.
Dyr jutted his chin toward the airlock. "Is there anyone else on board that cruiser?"
"No. No one else," Kichen said as he rubbed his manacles with bony fingers.
Dyr accessed his technopathy, just a quick survey to make certain he could account for all the new WristCunes pinging the local AthNet. The security feeds provided by Kie showed her efficiency. Twelve bodies, plus the two armorless men who exited the airlock, accounted for all the new comm devices.