He stood and held up four fingers—there were four people in the room. Using hand signals, he relayed that two of them were facing the door. We could either try to cross unnoticed or shoot them now.
The hallway continued uninterrupted for fifteen meters past the door. We would have no cover. But shooting innocent people in cold blood didn’t sit well with me, either. I indicated I wanted to cross.
Loch looked like he would argue, but finally he nodded. We synced our stride and walked past the door, Loch closer to the people inside, me hopefully hidden by his body. We sped up once we were clear of the door.
“Michaels, is that you?” someone called from inside.
“Nah, looked like he was in a hurry. You know Michaels doesn’t hurry,” someone else said. Everyone laughed. Neither speaker had sounded like seeing someone was cause for concern.
Their voices faded as we moved down the tunnel, but I didn’t relax until we turned a corner and put steel between my back and their eyes. “How much farther?” I asked in a whisper.
“We’re nearly there,” Loch said. “If we’re lucky, Rhys and Veronica are ahead of us.”
True to his word, a minute or two later we dropped down a ladder into one of the storage rooms off of the landing bay. Through the open door, I saw Polaris waiting with the cargo ramp down.
I could also hear a ridiculous amount of blaster fire. Most of it seemed to be getting absorbed by Polaris’s shields. Two people in the ship’s cargo bay were returning fire, shooting at someone or something I couldn’t see from here.
“Seems like we’ve been noticed,” Loch said.
“Tell me that’s Rhys and Veronica on the ship,” I said.
“With the shield up, that’s the most likely case, but I can’t see either of them to confirm. I just hope they got some alcubium loaded before they were caught,” Loch said. “Or we’re going to be dead in the water.”
“You know where it’s stored?”
“It’s down with munitions,” Loch said.
“If they didn’t get any, I will go,” I said.
“Rhys and Veronica were dressed as crew. If they couldn’t get it, your chances are nil. And the longer we wait, the more reinforcements Rockhurst is going to call in,” he said. I started to reply but he cut me off. “Let’s have a little look-see before we do anything rash.”
We crept out of the storage room. A few stacks of cargo gave us some cover. We stopped behind a pallet stacked high with emergency water rations. A solid fifty meters of open space separated us and Polaris. Without shields, we wouldn’t make it without getting shot.
“I don’t suppose you have one of Rhys’s fancy shields?” I asked.
Loch shook his head. “Rhys only had one. And, if you remember, you blew it up in Rockhurst’s face.”
“How could you possibly know that?”
He grinned at me. “I was there,” he said.
That left me with more questions than answers, but now was not the time. I peeked around the edge of the cargo. At least six soldiers hid behind similar cargo piles on the far side of the landing bay.
And sitting out in the open between us was a sled full of alcubium tubes in protective triangular covers.
It looked like a few soldiers had tried to retrieve the sled, only to be picked off by shots from the ship. I saw four bodies on the ground. The sled was not hovering, which meant it was either dead or deactivated.
“We have to get that sled,” I said. I roughly calculated the weight of each cylinder at a little over five kilograms. There were probably thirty cylinders on the sled. That was a shit-ton of weight to move, not including the busted sled itself. I revised my statement. “Or as many tubes as we can carry.”
“We have five minutes max until we’re overrun,” Loch said.
I edged around the cargo sled we’d crouched behind. The control panel was unlocked with big red and green buttons for ease of use. I hit the green go button and the sled lifted. The water rations weren’t the best shield, but none of the other cargo was any better. Too bad the soldiers had neglected to leave a sled full of ballistic armor sitting around.
“We use this as our shield,” I said. “We run for the alcubium. You load, I shoot. We grab as much as we can before the water containers disintegrate, then we make for Polaris.”
“The soldiers are being careful not to shoot the alcubium. I suggest you do the same,” Loch said.
“I’ll do my best,” I said with a grin. Adrenaline pumped through my veins. “You ready?”
“Let’s do this,” Loch said.
We grabbed the webbing that strapped the water to the sled and pushed. The stack of water containers was high enough that we could run bent over and still be protected.
We crossed more than half of the distance to the alcubium before the soldiers noticed we weren’t on their side and started shooting at us. Water spilled out of the front containers, wetting the floor and putting the nonslip flooring paint to the test. The cool water soothed the abrasions on my feet.
“Give me your blaster,” I said as we maneuvered our sled next to the alcubium. Blaster bolts sailed overhead and into the part of our sled not protected behind the alcubium sled.
Loch handed over his blaster. I took a deep breath then stood up and started shooting with a blaster in each hand. It wasn’t the smartest thing I’d ever done, but it focused attention on me while Loch transferred alcubium cylinders to our sled.
And with a pallet of alcubium between me and the soldiers, I could almost feel their reluctance to shoot at me and miss.
When a bolt sailed close enough to my head that I could feel the passing heat, I ducked back down with a warning to Loch. He’d moved five cylinders.
“Once again?” I asked. The soldiers had blasted through nearly a third of our water containers. If we wanted to make it to Polaris with any shield left, we’d have to make this quick.
Loch nodded. I moved over slightly, so I would pop out in a new place, then stood and started firing. The break had given the soldiers time to prepare. They returned fire with furious intensity.
My left arm went white-hot then icily numb. The blaster slipped from fingers I could no longer feel. I shot twice more with the blaster in my right hand, until it clicked empty.
“Down,” I called to Loch as I half ducked, half fell back into the protection of the cargo sled. I refused to look at my left arm, happy to leave it in a state of numb unknown until we were safe. “Time for a strategic retreat,” I said with a grimace.
We pulled the sled toward Polaris. And by we, I mean Loch; I mostly held on and tried not to fall down as we were forced to walk backward. With flagging support from the ship—they must be low on ammo—the soldiers became bolder. They were trying to disable our sled.
We were four meters from Polaris’s cargo ramp when they succeeded. The sled slammed down a mere centimeter from my unprotected toes.
“We’re going to have to drag it,” Loch said.
I grabbed the webbing, dug in my feet, and pulled. Loch strained beside me and the sled creaked into motion. I was so focused on pulling, moving my feet, and ignoring my arm that Rhys’s appearance caught me by surprise. He grabbed the webbing and pulled with Loch. The sled rocketed into motion so quickly I had to dance back or risk my toes.
Show-off.
We hit the end of the cargo ramp and finally had the protection of Polaris’s shield. Of course, if any Rockhurst soldiers got inside the shield, they could still shoot us. Rhys handed me a cylinder, then he and Loch grabbed four each.
Veronica covered us with sporadic blaster fire as we made our way up the ramp. As soon as we were inside, she hit the button to close the cargo door and retract the ramp.
“Can someone get us out of here?” I asked. “I’m not sure I’m fit to fly, even if I don’t have to go manual.” My left arm throbbed with increasingly difficult-to-ignore shards of agony. It felt like crushed glass had been embedded under the skin and the pieces grated together with every movement.
“And does anyone have a blaster with ammo left?”
Loch left for the flight deck. Rhys handed me a blaster. “What are you thinking?” he asked.
“I’m going to shoot their alcubium supply,” I said.
“Are you sure that’s a good idea?”
My smile was full of teeth. “No.”
“I’ll let Loch know to expect a boom,” Rhys said. “Then I want to see you in the medbay.” He turned to Veronica. “Make sure she gets there, okay?”
“She’ll get there. We didn’t rescue her just to have her die on us now,” Veronica said.
Rhys grinned then disappeared behind me.
I went to the control panel and activated the external PA. “Dear Rockhurst soldiers, I’m going to blow up that pile of alcubium. This is your ten-second warning. I suggest you flee,” I said. I felt better having given them at least a chance to run.
I flopped down on the deck of the cargo bay with a jolt of pain, but the door opened from the bottom. I didn’t want to open it all the way in case the explosion was bigger than I anticipated. “Polaris, open the cargo bay door ten centimeters,” I said.
A chime indicated that the ship still saw me as its captain. Richard hadn’t had time to crack my personal codes with brute force or he hadn’t bothered, thinking me safely in his grasp. He likely would’ve demanded the codes once we were married.
Ha.
“Veronica, can you get ready to close the door?” I asked. She nodded and moved to the controls. “It might get a little explody in here,” I warned.
The door raised just enough for me to see the alcubium. A line of soldiers frantically tried to move cargo in as a barrier, but they were too late. I checked the charge on the gun then fired two warning shots. The soldiers fled. I waited until I couldn’t see them, then fired on the alcubium.
It took three shots.
On the third, the pallet exploded in a bright orange fireball that kept growing as more and more cylinders ruptured. The flames licked against the ship’s shield as warning messages blared. Even with the shield, heat seared my face before the cargo door slid closed.
I blinked the black spots from my vision. Okay, that was a little more energetic than I had expected.
At least the inferno was in a landing bay. If all else failed, they could put out the fire by lowering the atmospheric field and letting the vacuum of space work its magic.
It also meant they’d be less likely to close the blast doors and trap us inside.
“Let’s get you to the medbay,” Veronica said. She helped me to my feet when I wobbled on the way up.
“I should make sure Loch isn’t having trouble with the ship,” I said.
“He’s fine, but you’re not going to be in a few more minutes. You’re going to get patched up now,” she said in her best mom voice.
“Triage now, fix it later,” I said. “There’s a first aid kit on the wall.”
Her mouth compressed into a hard line, but when I didn’t budge she sighed and grabbed supplies out of the kit.
I risked a glance at my left arm and wished I hadn’t.
Blood soaked the sleeve of my shirt and dripped in a sluggish stream from my fingertips. The bolt had caught me on the outside of my arm, halfway between my shoulder and elbow. A large chunk of flesh was missing, leaving a bloody mess.
The hole in my sleeve was singed around the edges, as was my flesh. This was beyond the capability of my nanobots. They’d have their work cut out for them just to stop the bleeding.
I swayed, light-headed, as renewed pain stabbed me with vicious barbs. Veronica returned with a trauma bandage. “You’re just lucky that it was an outside hit,” she said. “Looks like it missed the bone, which will help with recovery.”
I looked away and willed my stomach not to crawl out of my mouth while she applied the compress.
“This bandage buys you fifteen minutes. After that, I expect you in the medbay, even if I have to drag you there myself.”
“Thanks,” I said.
The stairs up to the flight deck were daunting, but Veronica had given me a shot with the bandage and I felt awesome. Which meant it was probably a shot of foxy, and I’d crash hard about the time my bandage was due to be changed. Sneaky woman.
Both Loch and Rhys looked up when I entered the flight deck, but Loch was too busy trying to get us out of the landing bay to yell.
Rhys had no such qualms. “Why aren’t you in the medbay?”
“I will be, just as soon as we’re clear. Veronica stabilized me.” At least I assumed she had because blood no longer dripped from my fingers.
The vid screens were up. We were nearly out of the landing bay, but fire still raged behind us. Gas visibly leaked through the atmospheric field. They were lowering the field slowly, which was smart, as long as they didn’t let the landing bay burn down in the process.
In front of us, a handful of fighters offered heavy resistance. Richard must’ve launched the ships from the other landing bay. The fighters were doing their best to keep us pinned in place. Richard probably wanted them to keep us here until the retrieval ship launched.
Our shields were taking the brunt of the damage, but so were theirs. We couldn’t punch an opening in their line, and Loch needed to get us free of the landing bay so we could jump without risking damage to both Polaris and Santa Celestia.
“Strap in,” Loch barked. I sank into a seat and clipped in. Veronica did the same.
The fighters were playing chicken with our ship. They hovered close enough that if Loch kept creeping out of the landing bay, he ran the risk of overlapping our shields and theirs. If he did, the results could range from nothing to explosive failure of both shields.
Loch eased farther out of the bay, centimeters at a time. He was not going to flinch first, but the fighters must have been under orders to stand their ground. His hands flew over the manual control console.
“What are—” I started.
Loch dropped the forward shield, rammed Polaris out of the bay before the fighters could take advantage, then engaged the FTL drive practically on top of them.
After the jump, the windows and vid screens showed vast quantities of empty space. I breathed a sigh of relief. No doubt we’d have to do some repairs after Loch’s little stunt, but we’d made it.
Loch tapped on the manual control screen then stood up. “Medbay, now,” he snapped at me. Fury darkened his face.
I scowled at him. I’d been about to congratulate him on his piloting, but I changed my mind. People who yelled at me didn’t get compliments.
I unclipped from my seat and stood. I wobbled slightly but steadied myself with the back of the chair. Indignation and foxy kept me going for half of the trip downstairs. The second half was powered by sheer will. When I hit the medbay, I admitted defeat.
“I think I need to lie down,” I said. My voice sounded funny. I collapsed onto the diagnostic table. My arm lit up in agony at every tiny movement.
If I never moved again it would be too soon.
Loch cut off my shirtsleeve and the trauma bandage. I hissed in pain as black spots danced behind my eyes. He pressed something cool against my shoulder, and I heard the distinctive hiss of an injector.
The pain did not lessen.
Loch prodded at the wound in my arm. I yelped and tried to pull away. “You can still feel that?” he asked.
“Yes, obviously,” I said.
“Okay, then this is going to hurt,” he warned.
“It hurts now,” I said.
“The anesthetic should kick in soon, but I don’t want to wait because you’re bleeding again. And you’re already white as a sheet, so you don’t need any more blood loss.”
I clenched my good hand. “Do your worst,” I said.
He did.
Chapter 23
My arm was cleaned, coated in regeneration gel, and bandaged, then my scraped-up feet were given the same treatment. Only then was I allowed to leave the medbay. I had also been given a large glass of
orange juice by Veronica and stern instructions to drink it all.
She also insisted on escorting me up to the flight deck when I listed drunkenly to the right on bandaged feet while trying to walk out of the medbay door. Loch followed silently.
Veronica helped me slump into an empty chair while Loch dropped into the captain’s station. “Thank you,” I told her, “for everything. I mean it, even when I yell at you later for ignoring my request and risking your life.”
“You are welcome. I’m glad your arm is bandaged properly,” she said. “You should’ve let me do it before.” She sat beside me. I’d scared her and now she was hovering. I could deal with hovering.
“You’ll also have to yell at me,” Rhys said cheerfully from the navigator’s chair. “And Loch.”
“Don’t worry; I will,” I said. “I’m just saving up my strength. Where are we?”
“Ten light-minutes from the gate,” Loch said. “It’ll take longer to get a jump point, but Rockhurst will not expect us this far out. We’re stealthed. With the exception of the gate frequency, everything else is shut down. And I’ve matched our trajectory with a large planetoid; you can’t see it, but it’s below us.”
At ten minutes out, our gate communications would take twenty minutes—ten minutes to the gate and ten minutes for a response. But it made the area Richard would need to search in order to find us so vast that he’d have to get extremely lucky to even have a sliver of a chance.
“Thank you,” I said. “And nice work getting us out of the Santa Celestia in one piece, even if you did yell at me afterwards.”
Loch inclined his head. “It was a little risky, but it worked,” he said. He might be playing modest, but he’d proven once again that he was a first-rate pilot.
I turned to Rhys and Veronica. “How long does the gate take to give you an endpoint?”
“You figured out that we’d jumped before, huh?” Rhys asked.
“Richard tipped me off when he mentioned how much alcubium you had left. I suppose now would be a good time to yell at you for being crazy, stupid, and reckless, both with yourselves and with my ship?”
Polaris Rising Page 26