by Lauren Esker
"Is that a spaceship?" Sarah whispered.
"Yes," Rei whispered back.
"Galateans?"
"Yes. Let me think, please."
The lights in the house were on. Some of the crew must be down there, probably with Sarah's father. Unless Gary was—but no; Rei refused to consider it. They weren't here to conquer, so they wouldn't want trouble. They were just here to recapture an escaped slave.
Unless they were also here to conquer. It was possible he'd led the Galateans straight to an undeveloped world they would happily add to their empire. But that wasn't a problem he could afford to deal with right now. Anyway, they clearly weren't out for conquest at the moment, not with one small ship.
With two soldiers in Eau Claire, that left six here, possibly seven if the survivor of the Eau Claire team had managed to return—
"Rei!" Sarah whispered, squeezing his hand.
She was looking back the way they'd come. Rei took in what was coming at a single glance and threw an arm over her, pressing them both to the damp ground and trying to stay as still as possible.
A skimmer swept over them, no more than fifteen feet off the ground. If the crew had looked down at just the right moment, they could easily have made a visual identification of the two intruders. Rei waited, heart in mouth, as the skimmer descended and vanished behind the chaser's wings, settling into place.
Sarah stirred after a moment, pressing closer to whisper to Rei, "Coming back from Eau Claire?"
"Probably." The chances were now quite good that they only had the one chaser to deal with. But he was still outnumbered seven to one.
... or seven to two, counting Sarah. Though he didn't know how much help she could be. Sarah was brave and intelligent, but she had no weapons or skills that would be useful. Her people were like his people had been when the Galateans came, clever but vastly outclassed by superior technology. Like the people of his village, Sarah didn't seem to understand the magnitude of the threat she was up against. Hopefully, unlike them, she would figure it out before it was too late.
The ship, he decided, would need to be their first target. It had powerful weapons, powerful sensors, and most likely the majority of the Galateans were on board. If they could take the ship, they might actually win this.
"Sarah," he whispered. "I need you to stay here—"
"Like hell," she whispered back fiercely.
He wanted her safe, but it wasn't worth fighting about. "All right, then stay behind me. In a fight, my shields will also protect you, and you won't be in the way of my weapons."
Sarah nodded and tightened her grip on the useless, primitive piece of iron she'd decided to bring with her.
They both rose to a crouch, and then Rei immediately pushed them down to the ground again when something moved off to his left. At first it seemed no more than a darker shadow detaching itself from the woods. Then he made out the shape of a Galatean striding across the pasture toward the ship with a predator's easy grace.
There had indeed been a sentry, and Rei hadn't even seen him. His blood ran cold; they could so easily have stumbled onto him in the woods. By sheer chance he'd been stationed on the other side of the ship, across the pasture from the mill. The Galateans, unfamiliar with the area, didn't know there was anything else back here.
"Rei?" Sarah whispered. Night-blind, she probably hadn't seen the sentry at all yet.
"Shhh." Rei squeezed her hand and waited. The sentry vanished under the wing of the ship. There was a brief flare of light on the pasture grass—he felt Sarah flinch in surprise—that faded immediately as the door closed.
Rei waited a few moments longer to make sure it wasn't a shift change, but no one else came out, unless they were hidden on the house side. Since the Eau Claire party had come back, the sentry had probably returned for some kind of briefing.
Which meant there were now at least two more enemies in the ship than there had been a few minutes ago. Damn it.
It wasn't like waiting was going to make things better, though.
"Stay behind me, remember," he whispered to Sarah, and she nodded.
They moved swiftly through the grass toward the ship, Sarah a step behind with one of her hands resting lightly against his elbow. Rei felt hideously exposed under the too-large sky—anyone looking out at the right moment could see them—but they reached the ship without incident.
It sat flush against the ground in a wide circle of torn-up grass, marking the concussion radius of the anti-gravity repulsor shockwave from its landing. From a distance, the surface of the ship had looked opalescent and smooth, but up close the individual seams of the hull plates could be seen, as well as the inevitable damage that every ship accumulated from interstellar debris and from atmospheric landings like this one: small scratches and pits, burn marks, and charring along the lower edge of the ship's bottom skirt.
Sarah started to reach out to touch it. Rei caught her hand and lowered it back to her side.
She looked at him, wide-eyed. He touched his finger to his lips.
Whether or not the ship had a warning system that could detect intruders touching it from the outside, they'd find out in a minute, but he didn't want to risk tipping his hand before he was ready.
Instead he moved slowly along the curving line of the ship's hull, trying to reconstruct its internal structure from memory. He hadn't been inside chaser-type ships all that often; most of his life had been spent on the big cruisers or in battlepods. But he'd studied the layouts of all the common types of Galatean ships. They were generally built along very similar plans, for ease of manufacture at the big shipyards and to make it easier for personnel to switch between assignments. The Galateans were very focused on efficiency and modular interchangeability in their technology. The cargo areas should be just in front of the skimmer docking pods, on the lower deck of the ship—
The skimmers. Hmmm.
Both of them were docked in place, one under each wing. He'd originally planned on cutting through the chaser's hull, but that would take awhile and run down the charge on his cuffs. The skimmers, intended for traveling short distances in atmosphere, weren't even armored, and they were much less likely to have some kind of alarm system to detect tampering.
He drew Sarah's attention by touching her arm and tapped his finger to his lips again to make sure she stayed quiet. She nodded and went back to staring up, wide-eyed, at the chaser's wings and engines. That's right, she'd never seen an actual ship before. She had been fascinated enough by the battlepod. He wished he could watch the play of fascination and wonder on her expressive features, rather than having to look out for hostile Galatean soldiers.
He powered up one of his newly augmented cuffs and poured the energy down his fingertips, concentrating it through the implants under his fingernails into a fine laser beam. It cut into the skimmer's hull with a sharp sizzle and a piercing smell of hot metal. Sarah transferred her amazed fascination from the engines to Rei using his hand as a cutting torch, as Rei cut a porthole in the skimmer's side just back of where he guessed the pilot's seat to be.
"Hold this for me," Rei whispered. Sarah planted her hands against the section he was cutting out, and helped him catch and lower it to the ground as it came free. She leaned forward to look into the small ship's dark interior.
Rei pointed to the red-hot, bubbling metal along the edge, and mimed caution. Sarah nodded, but that didn't stop her from staring into the skimmer's small cockpit with interest normally reserved for things that were, well, interesting.
But then, he'd been equally curious about her vehicle. Unfamiliarity bred fascination.
Rei stripped out of his thick sweater and used it to cover the sharp, hot metal edges so Sarah, with her bare legs, could crawl inside without hurting herself. He followed her and pulled the sweater in after them.
The lights came up automatically as they crawled inside. The skimmer was the same as the ones he'd learned to fly during his pilot training, a two-seater with a small cargo area and an ai
rlock connected to the ship at the back.
He could just fire it up, he thought. No need for a fight. They could flee instead ...
—abandoning Gary, abandoning the farm, and leaving an enemy with a much bigger, faster, better-armed ship free to hunt them. No. Flying away would only delay the inevitable confrontation and give the Galateans time to summon reinforcements. Best to take them now, with the element of surprise.
Rei tapped the skimmer's airlock control experimentally, expecting it to be locked, but it cycled neatly onto the ship's cargo hold. He flung up his shields to cover himself and Sarah. No attack came. The hold was empty except for the expected crates and barrels of supplies, lashed neatly into place. There was also a tidy row of Galatean-height capsules arrayed vertically along the outer wall. Good thing he hadn't tried to cut through the hull there; it would have taken forever.
"What are those?" Sarah whispered as they crept silently from the skimmer into the cargo bay.
"Stasis pods." Used to contain prisoners or injured crew members, they could also be used as emergency escape pods and ejected to be picked up later. Small ships like this one typically carried enough to accommodate all of the citizen crew members. There were eight pods here, which confirmed his guess about the number of crew, now minus the one he'd killed in Eau Claire.
Sarah moved closer to the pods. At first he thought she was just curious—he was busy checking the charge on his cuffs—until she gave a soft gasp. "Rei, there's someone in one of those pods."
Rei moved instinctively, blocking her progress with an arm, even though there was no way someone in a functioning stasis pod could get out and attack them. She was right; the first in the row of pods had a panel of lights and a dim figure behind the transparent lid. Galatean, judging from the height—well, Galatean or dragon, but he doubted the pods would work on one of Lyr's people.
"Why is he in there?" Sarah asked, staring curiously at the man in the pod.
"Could be a prisoner or a wounded member of the crew." Rei moved close enough to determine that the sleeper wasn't wearing a Galatean army uniform; instead he wore a long leather coat, beat up and scarred with what looked like old knife slashes. "Not crew. Must be a criminal they picked up. They could've been pulled off another job to come hunt me." He turned away; the prisoner was no threat to them, and therefore need not be given further consideration. "I don't suppose I can convince you to stay here."
"I want to help," Sarah said, tightening her grip on the iron bar.
Perhaps she could be useful, as a distraction if nothing else. "Very well, but stay behind me." He slipped off his shoes, breathing a sigh of relief at the feeling of the deck under his bare toes, and set out quietly down the cargo hold.
The hold ran the entire length of the ship's lower deck, with the hulking mass of the shielded engine core in the middle. As in the skimmer, the hold's lights came up automatically as they crept through it. Above them would be crew quarters and the small amount of recreational space that a ship like this could accommodate, with the bridge up front.
There was a big lift in the back for raising heavy cargo, and two man-sized access ports, one on each side of the hold. Both trap doors were closed, with ladders leading up to them. It was just a matter of picking the one less likely to lead to a bunch of Galateans—
"Rei!" Sarah whispered, but he'd already heard it: the clatter of metal as one of the ports opened.
With the lights on in the cargo hold, they didn't have much chance of concealing their presence. Rei powered up his cuffs as he dashed forward and stunned the tiger-striped Galatean soldier who was just setting her boots on the ladder. The woman folded up like a rag doll and plunged down the ladder. Rei caught her, knocking them both to the deck with a bruising impact.
Sarah scrambled up the ladder and struggled with the mechanism for a moment before figuring out how to pull the trap door shut. The whole thing took seconds.
Rei touched his finger to his lips. Sarah nodded. They both remained quiet for a moment, listening, but apparently it hadn't made enough noise to draw attention. The whole ship had pretty good soundproofing—useful when you were trapped in a confined space with a bunch of other people, but not so great when intruders were sneaking around on your ship. Rei made a mental note of that.
"Did you kill her?" Sarah asked softly.
Rei shook his head. "Just stunned. Quick, help me get her into one of the pods."
"Even the women are huge," Sarah murmured as Rei heaved the female Galatean over his shoulder. His strength enhancements were up to the task, but only just. "Are they all like this?"
"Most of them. Haiva was very short for a Galatean, but still taller than me." He grunted, dropping the woman on the deck next to an empty pod. "There are rumors the Galateans tinkered with their own genetics to make themselves into bigger, stronger warriors. I don't know if it's true."
Sarah took the woman's feet and helped Rei maneuver her into the pod next to the one with the prisoner. "You know, it's not that I want you to run around killing people, but ... is this really a good idea? All their friends have to do is let them out."
"I'll kill if I must, but I'd rather not. They're just soldiers doing their job. As far as they know, they're apprehending an escaped criminal."
"Escaped slave," Sarah said, her voice flat.
"They're still only following orders. Like I would be in their position. It's not their fault."
Before closing the pod, Rei stripped off the woman's cuffs and the power pack belted to her waist. He looked for a way to time-lock the pod so it couldn't be opened at all, but was unable to find anything, so he turned it to its maximum setting. Between stun and stasis, she would be severely groggy if anyone let her out, so that would have to do.
"What's that?" Sarah asked as he buckled the belt around his waist.
"Backup power for the cuffs. No need to wait until they recharge off my metabolism and—" He flashed her a quick grin. "—it makes a bigger bang."
"Big bangs are definitely what we need right now. Eight pods, so that means six more Galateans, right?"
She'd even thought to account for the dead one in Eau Claire; Rei smiled. "Yes. Most of them will be in the ship above us. Perhaps some are in the house with your father." And there it was: the perfect way to get her out of the line of fire. "We need to know where he is and how many are in the house. You can go down and scout while I take out the ones in the ship."
Sarah gave him a suspicious look as if she knew full well what he was up to. "You said they can scan for life signs. Won't they see me coming?"
"You're a native and a noncombatant, and if it's just you by yourself, they may well mistake you for one of your domestic animals. Anyway, if they find you, they'll only capture you. Galateans have a strict code of conduct for prisoners—at least prisoners who aren't trying to attack them." He pointed at the iron bar. "Leave that here."
Sarah clutched it tighter. "I don't think so."
The Galateans might not even consider it a weapon. He probably wouldn't have, a week ago. "Fine, if it makes you feel better—oof!"
She kissed him first, fierce and passionate, and then hugged him until his ribs ached, the iron bar pressing into his spine. "The only reason I'm letting you talk me into this," she said into his chest, "is because I know you'll be able to fight better without having to protect me. So this way I can help Dad, and help you—just, you'd better not do anything stupid if I'm not here to stop you, okay? No pushing self-destruct buttons or throwing yourself in front of energy blasts. You're going to beat those bastards."
He held her tightly against him, felt the living warmth of her, the beating of her heart against his chest. "I'm not in the habit of doing stupid things," he murmured into her hair, and very deliberately did not think about the way he'd jumped his ship to unknown coordinates a week ago, the way some small part of him had almost hoped he'd jump into a supernova or collide with a planet ...
Now he could hardly relate to that desperate, hopeless person.
He wanted to live. He wanted to win.
Sarah gave a choked little laugh. "You'd better not."
"Take your own advice too. Don't do anything stupid." There was nothing he wanted less than to pry himself out of her arms, but he separated regretfully and stepped back. "I must hurry before they discover their missing comrade. Go, Sarah, quickly."
Sarah started to open her mouth, then closed it and gave him a small, fierce nod, her lips clamped into a bloodless line. With both hands wrapped around the iron bar, she vanished into the skimmer.
Rei turned the other way to find the rest of the crew.
17
___
A T THE SOFT THUMP of Sarah landing on the ground outside the ship, Rei felt a weight lift off his shoulders. It wasn't precisely safe for her to be outside, but right now, the least safe place on the farm was anywhere near him.
He started toward the nearest ladder, but then hesitated, and turned back toward the stasis pods. Even if some of the crew were in the house and not the ship, he was badly outnumbered. As the saying went, a stranded lifepod couldn't be choosy about where it landed. He needed all the help he could get.
And there was one other person on the ship who probably had as little liking for the Galatean army as Rei himself.
This is a terrible idea, Rei thought as he tapped keys, setting the prisoner's pod into a wakeup cycle.
The pod hissed open. Rei jumped back and powered up his cuffs, aiming both hands at the leather-clad Galatean. He needn't have worried. The prisoner tumbled out and fell face-first on the floor with a thud that made Rei wince in sympathy.
Keeping one of his hands ready for a quick stun if needed, Rei bent down and pushed up the sleeves of the leather coat to ensure that the prisoner's arms were bare of weapons. They were, though a shiny band was worn through the tawny fur of each wrist where a cuff had been until recently. The prisoner had no slave collar, nor signs of one.