After that, the evacuation into the tunnels went smoothly. Dee waited until almost everyone else had gone, and then attached herself to the stragglers in the last group.
“Not you, Deegan!” Lanie called. “I’ll have a job for you in a minute. Hang tight.”
She watched the last of the other survivors slip away and then helped secure the panel over the hatch; unless you worked for maintenance, you’d never know what lay behind it. Not many of the Pirates or Peacekeepers could fit in those tunnels—they seemed to be a Plan C for when malfunctions couldn’t be resolved in the hub or in the numerous engineering stations scattered throughout the ship. The efficiency of the design made a Plan C redundant in Dee’s opinion, but the obscurity of the tunnels made them perfect for hiding.
“All right, time to work. While you were snoozing we decided to go full black-out. None of the Peacekeepers know we’re crawling under their floors.” The flash of guilt in Lanie’s eyes was swept aside by determination. “We can’t risk becoming slaves again, and we’re outnumbered. From what Brandon says, it’s 3-to-1 odds. As much as I’d love to think positively, we can’t afford to be optimistic. There’s a good chance we’ll be boarded, and we’ve got to trick the bastards into thinking we’re gone. Poof. Disappeared. The Peacekeepers won’t know where we are, even if they’re captured, and there can’t be a trace of us—not even a hint—to give us away. We need to be invisible.” She ran a trembling hand through her beautiful hair, tangling the silky strands. “I need you to tinker with the heat sensors—I would try, but the mechanics are outside my skill set.”
“That’s…insane.” And impossible. The ship needed its heat sensors to run effectively. Lanie knew that. Sensing heat was intrinsic to the health of the carefully modulated on-board eco-system.
“Make it work. Truthfully, I don’t care if we end up dead in space. Better that than slaves again, this time without hope of saviors.”
Dee didn’t argue, but she didn’t agree; her time as a slave had been much different than the other woman’s. Still…if she did what Lanie asked, Dee would kill everyone on the ship.
There had to be another way.
Just then, the door to the hub slid open. “Lanie?”
Lanie smiled up at her brakka. “Hey, Hilom. I’m almost finished.”
The youngest of the males stepped into the room with a frown. “Have you seen any other Paradins? There are none in the halls, and it’s…quiet.”
“We had everyone go back to their quarters and lock their doors,” she lied. “We don’t want to be caught wandering the hallways if a Pirate sneaks onboard.”
Hilom nodded. “That makes sense. I’ll let everyone know so they’ll stop worrying—but when are you going to lock yourself in?”
“I’m just running a few last-minute diagnostics. I want to make sure we’re in good shape for the fight.” She went to him, wrapping herself around his leanly muscled body. “I’m safe here, for now, and I’ll make sure to be tucked away before there’s any danger.”
Hilom ducked down and stole a kiss, making sure to rub his little nose-horn along her cheek. “We’re worried,” he admitted. “I want to stay here with you—to protect you—”
“No!” Lanie scolded. “You have a job to do, and the other Peacekeepers are counting on you to do it. I’m fine, I promise.”
After another kiss, which lingered much longer than the last, Hilom left.
“Did you get a chance to say goodbye to the others?” Dee asked. The foursome had only been lifebonded for a short while, but it was abundantly clear they cared for one another.
Lanie ducked her head, not answering. “We need to protect our people. The mission comes first,” she whispered in a watery voice. “Help me, Deegan. Please. Find a way to hide us.”
So Dee went to work. Although Lanie had told her what to do—tinker with the heat sensors and probably kill them all—Deegan couldn’t make herself do it. She risked her entire species if they all ended up dead in space; at least, as slaves, there was some small hope they’d be able to forewarn Earth and Utopia Colony before they were discovered and then invaded.
She couldn’t imagine watching her people die, only to whisper, “I am become Death,” as her own lungs collapsed. She would be forever entombed in a dead alien ship, drifting…lost and abandoned to the vastness of space. Even the thought threatened to cripple her soul.
Instead, she focused on the tech.
The enviro-hub was beautifully made, and it was a work of art in terms of technology. The Peacekeepers, or perhaps the planetary coalition the Peacekeepers had once been allied with, were centuries ahead of humans.
There had to be some way…
The ship rocked, and Dee swayed before catching herself on the console. An alarm blared, alerting the ship of trouble. Apparently, Tugarth had repaired whatever glitch had needed fixing. However, the loud siren didn’t muffle the sounds of fighting out in the hallway.
On the ship’s intercom, and unknown male voice announced, “Insurgents detected on Level 008. Initiating Level-by-Level lock down. All Peacekeepers to battle positions.”
It didn’t take a genius to figure out what was happening; the Life Support Environmental hub was on Level 008—besides Flight Control, it was the single most important, and most vulnerable, room on the ship. The numerous engineering stations could be tampered with, but it would take massive effort, and time, for anything in those to cripple the ship. By contrast, the hub was a treasure trove of potential biological weapons. Air, temperature, water, and food were all directly linked to the hub.
If the Pirates were on L008, Lanie and Dee were up Shit Creek sans paddles.
“We’re trapped,” Lanie whispered in despair.
But hope was not lost—the repaired alarm and intercom had given Dee an idea.
She threw herself on the ground and wrenched open a panel beneath the console. She dragged six of the eight sample sheets, all of which pulsed with profoundly delicate webs of electricity, out onto their extended rollers; the paper-thin sheets were bracketed by hydrastic shields, preventing contamination. The pliable, water-based material also buffered the shock of movement while simultaneously conducting the electricity necessary to keep the system alive and balanced within the shield. It was brilliant, something Dee could marvel at for years…but now she had to trick it.
“What are you doing?” Lanie hissed, scuttling over. “That’s not the heat sensor!”
Dee rolled her eyes. If she hadn’t been about to mess with enough voltage to stop her heart, she’d have put effort into a retort. “My gloves are in my back pocket,” she hissed back. The tips of her fingers were burning from where she’d grasped the trays, which were hotplates from all that electricity.
Lanie jerked the worn leather from Dee’s pants, but Dee barely felt it. She was more focused on the stinging cut she’d purposefully sliced across her fingertip. The edge of the panel needed to be filed down…later. If they all survived.
“What the fuck!” Lanie lunged forward, as if she was going to patch up Dee come hell or high water.
Dee elbowed her. “Just have the gloves ready!” She didn’t have time to chitchat. Instead, she carefully examined the samples. There were four that she needed for her crazy plan to work, and each sheet had hundreds to choose from.
“Come on,” she muttered, scanning the words. “Come on, come on, come on…”
Aha! Assorted livestock—alien cattle, check! One careful drop of her blood sparked an electrical show as the shield tried to both protect the original sample and absorb her DNA.
Lanie gasped as she finally caught on. “You’re a genius!”
Dee was already scanning for the second sample. She grabbed one of her gloves and used it to gently shove the first sheet back into its place, speed-reading the second sheet for…nope. Not on the second sheet. She slid it back and started muttering again at the third.
“There!” Lanie pointed, her finger perilously close to the electrical web.
Dee batted the hand out of her way and saw that Lanie was right: Fluiflora. Water-based crops that were a staple in the Peacekeeper’s diet. Check! Another drop of blood, another sheet rolled back into its slot.
“What else are you looking for?” Lanie asked, voice low and urgent. “The fighting is louder; it’s getting closer.”
No pressure, she was only tricking the entire ship into forgetting humans ever existed. By adding her DNA to the livestock and crops, the Paradins were reduced from sentient beings to tomorrow’s dinner. At least, according to those sensors. “I need to add us to atmosphere and proportional observation—those are set to pristine and optimal settings. They’ll ping alarms left and right now that we’ve been added as food, especially if we’re moving around in maintenance tunnels. The ship will think it is being overgrown by the food supply and it wouldn’t take long the Pirates to find us if that happens.”
Together they scanned the fourth and fifth sheets, the hundreds of samples blurring after a minute. The ship shuddered, and the sound of metal groaning was like the universe scolding them to hurry up.
“Found it!” Lanie pointed at a section that had been separated from the other samples, each dot within varying in size—proportional observation. The ship’s entire eco-system was continuously compared to the ratios within to prevent the food supply from outgrowing the Peacekeepers’ nutritional demands. It was a beautiful example of efficiency, where power and resources were carefully measured out to produce exact results. She hated to intentionally destroy such an ingenious design, but the mission came first.
Dee grimaced as she pinched multiple drops from her stinging finger, watching as each fell and sizzled onto the sheet. Although it would completely skew the supply-and-demand ratios needed to feed and sustain a controlled population for long space voyages, it would effectively hide their presence by allowing them to ‘grow’ anywhere.
“Last one…where are you…” Dee whispered. Her eyes scanned name after name, speeding through dozens. “It’s not here!”
“There are two more sheets.” Lanie used Dee’s gloves to push the sixth sheet away and pull out the seventh.
Another moment of searching had Dee on a razor’s edge of anxiety—she could feel the fight getting closer. The air thickened, as if the Pirates had somehow infused the ship with their foul, rotten presence.
Panic filled her. She was going to die, there on the floor with Lanie. That…or be enslaved again. Her breathing stuttered and spots danced across her vision as horrible memories swamped her, almost managing to overwhelm her focus.
And then, there it was: their salvation.
Dee splashed her blood on the atmosphere sample and returned the sheet to its slot while it was still sizzling from the addition. She sealed the panel as quickly as she could. It was a sloppy job, but the Pirates hadn’t invaded to inspect shoddy repair work. She wiped her hand on her gloves and then shoved those back into her belt.
Despite the horrible circumstances, a bit of pride settled her nerves. The ship would no longer be able to search out Paradins—they were, for all intents and purposes, invisible. Just another part of the eco-system that powered the vessel, like cogs in a wheel. After all, there was no reason the ship would ever need to hunt down menu items.
And she’d done it. She’d saved them all.
“Remember, when the Pirates find us, we don’t speak their language,” Lanie warned. Not if—when. Lanie’s brakka was going to be pissed.
“The mission comes first,” Dee whispered. If she could trick an entire ship, she could trick a few Pirates into thinking she was still ignorant and terrified—it was half true, after all.
“I just hope they forgive me.”
Dee didn’t ask who Lanie was talking about. Her friend’s choked sob was one of profound grief, a sound reserved for the loss of loved ones. Dee didn’t doubt that the sentiment was returned, that Lanie would be forgiven anything by the smitten males.
She reached to take her friend’s hand—not offer comfort, since that wouldn’t be anything but a useless platitude, but rather to offer companionship. Even facing the worst possible future, they had each other. They’d survived once and they could do it again, together.
The door to the hub screeched as it was ripped open. Three enormous males spotted them, two Abbaleer and a Gkiven. It was obvious they weren’t Peacekeepers—their lecherous gazes were the first clue, followed by the general appearance of scruffy negligence. These were males who valued brute force over any form of civility. Personal hygiene included.
Deegan whimpered and curled up with Lanie, though there was no chance of hiding. She felt shudders hum through her friend and held tighter, even when the brutes stomped over to them.
“We’ve found some!” one of them crowed. “Two females!”
Dee clenched her eyes and waited to be assaulted. Even in the midst of a battle, she doubted these three would have self-control.
“I recognize that one. It’s Kinnip’s slave.” He had a gruff, deep voice.
“The other one isn’t—he only had the red one.” That male had to be the Gkiven; he didn’t sound as assertive.
Lanie sobbed as she was yanked to her feet, Dee clutching at her until one of the Pirates kicked her away. She hit to the ground hard, her head smacking with enough force to make her ears ring like bells, and Lanie’s scream echoed from far, far away.
“Disgusting!” Deep Voice spat. “Smells like a sewer.”
“We’ll clean her up after the fight,” the Gkiven said.
Lanie was thrown down next to Dee, and both of them whimpered again, this time in relief. Somehow, they were both going to escape immediate sexual assault…or at least, that’s what she thought.
The third brute crouched in front of Dee. “Guard the door,” he growled to the Gkiven, leaving no room for doubt about his intentions. “I want a taste of the commander’s slave.”
Dee shuddered, but didn’t fight when her hair was grabbed and yanked. She needed to bide her time, wait until his passion was high…he’d be more likely to kill her then, if she fought.
“Ugh, this one stinks, too!” Hair Grabber shoved Dee away, and she fell across Lanie. “Have the others had any luck?”
“No,” Deep Voice said. “These are the only females recovered.”
“Just our luck. Everyone will want them once they’re clean,” the Gkiven griped.
“Not if they don’t know we have them.” Hair Grabber sounded entirely too proud of his idea; a secret slave wouldn’t last long with him.
“We could sneak them onboard now, while there’s still fighting and everyone else is distracted. Kill anyone else who sees them,” Deep Voice mused. “It could work.”
“We need a reason to return to the ship,” the Gkiven said.
“An injury, perhaps.” Deep Voice chuckled, sounding like he was gurgling gravel. “It would have to be…grave.”
A scuffle broke out, and Dee squeaked, curling herself around Lanie in a vain effort to protect her friend. A shot rang out, followed by a very distinctive thud. Just then, she wished she hadn’t given up her own weapon; she could have easily shot the brutes while they fought.
Now, she was a victim again. A helpless, feeble victim.
“Grab them,” Deep Voice said. “I’ll haul him.”
“It’s a good thing he doesn’t have to be alive upon our arrival for this ruse to work,” Hair Grabber mused as he jerked both Dee and Lanie to their feet.
Deep Voice laughed. “I never liked him anyway.”
Dee tried not to see the limp way the Gkiven hung over the Abbaleer’s shoulder, but Hair Grabber crowded her and Lanie close behind his crony. They moved through quiet, bloody hallways, past unseeing sentinels. She would’ve had to close her eyes to avoid the carnage.
Lanie didn’t speak; she was scanning the faces of every body they passed, just like Dee. Thankfully, Lanie’s brakka and Dee’s Viking were not among the dead in the hallway. Hair Grabber prodded Dee to hurry and then reached down
and groped her; she yelped and flinched away from him.
“Knock it off,” Deep Voice snapped. “We don’t want them to know where we are.”
Dee glanced sideways at Lanie, who looked afraid but just as cunning as always. When their eyes met, Dee knew that they were on the same page. She brought a hand up to her chest, holding it close to her heart as if cowering. In reality, she started counting down.
Three.
Two.
One.
Lanie screamed and dodged to the left, and Dee threw her elbow back before running to the right. Both of their captors shouted in surprise, dropping into crouches as they prepared to fight—not an optimum position to begin a chase.
Dee was four steps ahead of Hair Grabber before he grunted and started running after her, and she heard the thump of a body dropping as Deep Voice abandoned his prop and joined the race. Lanie was screaming her head off as she ran the other way, and Dee prayed a Peacekeeper would hear the racket and come to help.
“Help!” she yelled, running flat-out down the hall. “Help me!” And then she had to save her breath because she could hear the Pirate catching up, which pushed Dee to go faster. She was fit, and much smaller, so she was able to put a decent amount of space between them, but there was no air, not when it was rushing past her face so quickly. Soon she was gasping from fear and exertion, but that wasn’t what stopped her.
Emergency doors loomed like an impenetrable wall, protecting the ship from being overrun by the Pirates, and locked tight to hold against strength far superior to her own. Still, she threw herself against the metal safeguard and screamed for all she was worth.
“Deegan?” A familiar Lu’O dropped from a hidden hatch in the ceiling; he’d obviously been lurking there, waiting to intercept insurgents. It was Fen, of Lanie’s brakka, so she relaxed enough to stop screaming and banging on the emergency door. “Why are you here? Hilom said you’d be locked in your—”
“They have Lanie!” she said, cutting him off. They both turned at the sound of heavy footsteps pounding their way, and Dee hurried to hide behind the enormous—suddenly enraged—male. Fen didn’t spare time to coddle her; he ran forward to grapple with Hair Grabber, throwing himself on the more muscular Pirate.
Deegan's Rescue: Survivors of Paradise Book 2 Page 11