Renegade Magic (Star Renegades Book 1)

by Jennifer M. Eaton

  “I see her,” Alanna said. “Take it in slow.”

  Cal crawled to Doc. The medic’s chest still rose and fell in short breaths. Doc was a damn lucky son of a water driller. Cal pressed his palm against the doctor’s head. He seemed cool, but not cold. He wasn’t sure what that meant, though.

  “Got her!” Alanna announced.

  Ty squinted at his panel. “Bay four is the smallest. Pull her in there and then flood the space with air.”

  Flood a cargo hold with air?

  Cal tried to sit up, but the room spun again. “We don’t have enough oxygen to spare.”

  Once again, Ty didn’t turn. “Shut up or I’m going to have Ethan shoot you.”

  Cal flinched when Ethan turned to him and smirked. He wanted to jump to his feet and make them all see reason, but he couldn’t do more than sit and hope the room stopped spinning.

  “Done,” Alanna announced. “Snug like yesterday’s contraband.”

  “Closing and sealing bay four,” Ty said.

  “Bringing life support back up.” Ethan tapped on the wall. The lights lowered. “Oh, crap.”

  Cal grabbed the wall behind him. Stars, no!

  Ethan snorted. “Just messing with you. We’re fine.”

  The lights came back on.

  One of these days, Cal was going to throw that guy out an airlock.

  “Flooding Dania’s compartment with air, and bringing the rest of the critical systems online.” Ethan’s fingers flew over the panel. “And…done!” He spun. Eyes wide. “I did it!”

  Cal grimaced. “Why do you sound so surprised?”

  Ethan shrugged.

  Dammit! He’d hoped Ethan had been kidding about not being sure he could get life support back on.

  Ty stood and frowned, looking down at Doc. “Anyone know anything about doctor-stuff?”

  “I had first aid training in high school,” Alanna said.

  “I guess that’s something.” Ty looked at Ethan. “Give me light air in the corridors, and full air in the med bay and bridge.” He looked at Cal. “Alanna and I are going to get Dania. We’ll meet you in medical.” He started walking.

  Cal shook his head. “You should keep her in the cargo bay. Tie her up until we can figure out how Doc contained her.”

  Alanna pulled a med bag on her shoulder. “She saved us, Cal.”

  “She also led the prince straight to us. And she created the black hole that got us stuck here. She could have gotten us all killed. We could still get killed. We don’t even know where we are.”

  Ty fastened a gun at his hip. “True, but you know me. I go with the flow.” He turned to Ethan. “If Cal gives you any trouble, you really do have my permission to shoot him.” He left the room. “On stun, Ethan!” he called through the door.

  Alanna chuckled as she followed.

  Ethan squatted beside Cal. “Are you going to be a good boy? Because I could really use help getting Doc onto a gurney.” He cracked a smile. “But shooting you sounds like a lot of fun, too.”

  Great. He was barely sure he could get himself onto a gurney.

  Ethan tapped him on the shoulder twice. “Hold tight. I’ll be right back.”

  Cal blinked, glancing out the window. The stars outside were radiant and comforting, but brighter than home. The last time they’d gotten choked down by a black hole, they’d ended up on course. This time, nothing out there looked familiar.

  Cal cringed. Maybe Ty’s gut reaction had been a good one. As crazy as it might seem, they all might need Dania to get out of here, wherever here was.

  Still, Ty’s consistent lack of caution should be a concern for them all. Someone needed to be the voice of reason, and as usual, it ended up being Cal. He just needed to find a way to make them all listen to him again.

  “Here we go.” Ethan pushed a mattress on wheels onto the bridge…not quite an official gurney, but not a bad retrofit.

  Doc had made himself a miniature hospital over the past couple of years, and the man’s tinkering had saved a few of their lives on more than one occasion. Now, hopefully, they could do their genius mad scientist the same favor.

  Cal helped Ethan lift Doc onto the mattress. His head pounded, and he closed his eyes to the brighter illumination in the halls.

  “We can probably lower the lights out here and save some power,” Cal suggested.

  Ethan nodded. “I agree.”

  He stopped, opened a panel, and typed in a few codes. The lights dimmed, and several deep blue floor tiles illuminated their path.

  Cal breathed a sigh of relief and opened his eyes again. It didn’t make the headache go away; it just made it possible to see without it feeling like someone was blinding him with daggers.

  He glanced at his engineer as they pushed the gurney down the hallway. “You were the only one to side with me when we found out Dania was a general.”

  Ethan grunted.

  “You know deep down that she’s dangerous.”

  Doc’s arm slipped off the side, and Ethan placed it back on the gurney. “I’m not a fool. I know what she’s capable of.”

  Cal leaned forward as they maneuvered Doc around a corner. “She turned us in. We were getting attacked by her prince’s ship. We have no idea why she really called up that black hole.”

  Ethan placed his palm on the med bay door panel, and it slid open. “What’s your point, Cal?”

  “I need someone else to back me up on this. That woman is a massive liability, whether or not she pushed our ship out of harm’s way.”

  Cal wanted to believe differently. He wanted to believe she’d changed. But with her ricocheting from one side to another at a second’s notice, they couldn’t take this threat lightly.

  Ethan pushed the gurney inside. “I agree.”

  There was an odd edge to his voice, like there was more to that sentence.

  The medical bay lighting hit Cal like an avalanche of blinding white. He stumbled back and hit the floor.

  His head pounded, and he rolled on his side and retched, but there was nothing left inside him. He collapsed, leaning his forehead on the cool tiles. Perspiration dripped into his eyes. The lines of sweat cut his skin like a knife, stinging and biting.

  They were lost in the middle of nowhere.

  The hull was breached.

  His crew had turned on him.

  And his brain pulsed in his head like it was imploding.

  Maybe he’d died in that vortex and this was Hell. He couldn’t imagine anything much worse.

  Ethan’s boots appeared beside him. “Sorry, boss.”

  Cal pushed himself up and shielded his eyes with his hand. “For what?”

  The barrel of a gun came into focus.

  “Wait!” Cal cried.

  The flash seared through his pupils.

  The boom echoed in his head, pounding in slow motion.

  Everything went numb for a blessed two heartbeats before his head hit the floor and the harsh light finally faded to black.

  39

  Cal

  A tone sounded, cutting through a deep, murky swamp.

  Voices spoke in the distance.

  Laughter boomed, slicing through Cal’s mind, then faded.

  Another tone. Muffled voices.

  Footsteps.

  Someone tugged on Cal’s arm. He fought to open his eyes, to speak, but nothing obeyed.

  Time was an odd thing, ticking away.

  Why did people say clocks ticked, anyway? Clocks hadn’t ticked in hundreds of years. Odd, how people clung to the past, without even thinking about it. The past was like time, and time was fleeting.

  Fleeting… What did that even mean? Fleets of ships?

  The tone heightened, closer, and light shone through his eyelids. Cal willed them open, and he blinked.

  Doc smiled down at him. “Good morning, sunshine.” He adjusted something at Cal’s bedside. “How do you feel?”

  Cal blinked. “Wh-What?”

  The med bay came into partial focus.
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  Cal blinked at Doc again. “You-You were… Blast it, I don’t know what you were.”

  Doc’s lips thinned. “Ty and Ethan called it dead. Alanna says they were both just star-fried.” He leaned closer. “At the moment, I’m more worried about you. Can you feel your toes?”

  “My toes?” Cal wiggled them. “Yeah.”

  “Good. They tell me you were blasted at point-blank range with a distance-calibrated stun gun. Effective, but it toasted your brain for a few days.” He adjusted a bag hanging beside the bed.

  “A few days?”

  “Yup.” Doc stopped fiddling with the bag. “You’re pretty lucky. Ethan has been here checking on you every few hours. I’ve been trying to convince him you aren’t dying, but I don’t think he’ll believe it until he sees you up and talking.”

  Cal blinked again and the room spun a little. “Ethan… He-He shot me.”

  “That’s what I hear.”

  “Why?” Cal closed his eyes as he laid his head back. Cal had fallen, and the next thing he knew a gun was in his face.

  Doc pushed a machine to the edge of the bed and checked a reading. “Well, according to Ethan, you were somewhat delusional, and you sounded like you were going to give Ty trouble about Dania.”

  What? “I was not delusional.”

  Doc picked up a thin metal cylinder. “He also said you were a stumbling, puking mess—which Alanna and Ty both confirmed, so I tend to believe him.”

  Cal eased up off the bed as heat rushed through his veins. “So he shot me?”

  Doc pointed the cylinder at him. “He tried to stun you. Which would have been a great idea, except he grabbed a gun calibrated to stop someone at a distance.” He put the metal tube in his coat pocket. “As I said, at point-blank range that could have killed you. It was a good thing Alanna thought to give you oxygen and fluids until they were able to revive me.”

  Cal held up his arm. A long, clear tube came off the bag, leading to Cal’s inner elbow. “Alanna did this?”

  “No. That’s a magnesium drip. Luckily, I had some on hand to run some experiments with.”

  Cal blinked, still trying to focus. “Magnesium? Experiments?”

  “According to my research, intravenous magnesium is an effective treatment for migraines.” He lifted a brow. “Are you in any pain? Do you feel like you might puke?”

  Cal shook his head.

  “Good. Then I guess it’s working.” He looked over to another bed. A faint shimmer hung around the mattress like a curtain, or maybe a shield.

  “Dania?” Cal asked.

  Doc nodded. “She’s still sedated. I wanted to talk to you before I woke her up.”

  Good, at least one member of his crew was taking the threat seriously.

  Doc’s gaze grew unusually serious. “They all tell me I woke up and started seizing before Dania got on board. Is that true?”

  Cal rubbed the back of his neck. “Yeah, it was right before they pulled her inside. Why?”

  Doc sucked his teeth, tapped on a data pad, and showed Cal an x-ray of a head and shoulders.

  “As usual, I have no idea what you’re trying to show me.”

  Doc pointed to the spine. “Look at that.”

  Cal groaned. It looked like any other x-ray. What was he supposed to see? “How about you tell me what I’m looking at?”

  “There are a whole lot of technical, very long words for what this shows, but basically, my spine looks like it was broken in several places and then got soldered back together.”

  Huh? “I take for granted you aren’t talking about actual solder.”

  “No. My spine repaired itself.”

  Cal stared at the x-ray. “That’s not possible, right?”

  “No, it’s not.” He lowered the data pad. “I hate to side against my girl Alanna, but I think Ty and Ethan were right. I should be dead. At the bare minimum, I should be paralyzed.”

  Cal sat up. “So, what does your incredibly big brain tell you?”

  Doc pointed at Dania. “That she did something. Enforcer healing. That’s the only possible solution.”

  “She wasn’t on board.”

  Doc smoothed back his hair. “I’m not complaining. I certainly like being alive, but something weird is going on.” He turned away. “Anyway, the lack of my demise is the good news.”

  “There’s bad news?”

  Doc faced Dania’s bed, folding his arms. “I’m not sure I can save her anymore.”

  Cal balked. “What?”

  “Remember those pathogens?”

  Cal glanced at her. “Yeah.”

  “They’re nearly gone. I think that’s why she busted out of our brig and tried to stop her prince from shredding us to bits. There’s nothing to suppress her from thinking for herself. I think she might be a real person now. Conscience and all.”

  “But she turned us in. She sent him our location.”

  “Yes, but while you were asleep, we all watched the recording of her conversation with that prince.” Doc looked back at her. “She tried to convince him to look at the evidence that exonerates you.”

  Cal stretched his back against the mattress. “I’m going to guess that he didn’t.”

  “Yeah, that would be my guess.” Doc pressed a few buttons on the wall. “Look at this.”

  A split screen opened up on the panel. On the left was Dania, hair frazzled and a confused look frozen on her face. On the right, the Kever prince who had demanded her return.

  Doc pressed a button, and Dania gulped. “Were you aware Filluck was involved in illicit activity?”

  Whoa. She’d cut right to the chase. Even with how far she’d come, Cal hadn’t expected her to be so direct.

  The prince looked down. “I admit I had suspicions.” He lifted his eyes. “I was going to confront him about it, but Espinoza killed him before I had a chance.”

  Yeah, rat bastard. Nice excuse.

  Dania lifted her chin. “Cal didn’t do it.”

  Cal leaned up in his bed. “Whoa. Wait.”

  Doc stopped the recording.

  “What did she just call me?”

  “Ah, so you caught that, too? I thought the same thing. All this time, she’s been dehumanizing you by using your last name.”

  Cal rubbed his chin. “Probably to make it easier for her to kill me.”

  Doc flipped the switch. “You ain’t seen nothing yet.”

  The prince tilted his head. “Cal?”

  She balked, blinked, and turned to the side.

  Interesting. So it had been a slip of the tongue. How long had she been thinking about him by his first name, rather than his last?

  The prince waved his hand dismissively. “It makes no difference. Calvin Espinoza has already been found guilty.”

  No surprise there. That was how all Kevers thought. The king’s idea of guilty and innocent was far too rigid.

  Dania shifted in her seat. “I told you the recording proves his innocence.”

  And she was still pushing it? Cal glanced over to where Dania slept behind the energy curtain. An enforcer wouldn’t do that. They would have accepted the prince’s decision as law.

  The Kever’s eyes darkened to a glare that made Cal grip the edge of his bed. “I’ve heard enough. You need to come home to be fed. You are not well, and you are not thinking clearly.”

  Cal held up his hand. “Hold on.”

  Doc stopped the recording.

  Cal stared at the screen. “Did you hear what he said? Come home to be fed?”

  “Creepy, right? I’m starting to think about twentieth-century horror films.”

  Cal frowned. Just what did these aliens do to the enforcers? What had he meant by feeding her?

  Cal shivered and waved for Doc to restart the recording.

  On the screen, Dania took a deep breath, like a child trying to gain courage in front of an angry parent. “I admit I’m not well, but on this one thing, I’m clear. I need you to look at the recordings.”

  The prince’
s eyes widened slightly.

  Damn, Cal might have buckled under that glare if it had been him. The interesting thing was, that the evidence made no difference. Yes, it proved he was innocent of murder, but he was guilty of smuggling and a myriad of other more minor offenses, but any one of them condemned him to death. So why push to remove the murder conviction?

  Dania’s cheeks glistened. Were those…tears? “Please, sir.”

  The prince closed his eyes. “Fine. Send them.”

  Dania started pressing buttons.

  Cal sat back. “I guess this is when she sold us out?”

  “Nope,” Doc said. This is where it gets pretty interesting.” He pointed to the screen. “I think, right here, that she decided that she doesn’t trust him. It’s a huge step for her. Watch.”

  The prince’s lips thinned. “Why have you sent the file with spatial encryption?”

  Cal straightened, his heart suddenly racing. “She encrypted it?”

  Doc held up his finger for Cal to listen.

  The prince’s glare returned. “Send me your location.”

  “I need you to watch the recording.” Dania’s response was quick. Again, like a child struggling for any possible advantage in an uncontrollable situation.

  The prince’s nostrils flared. “Send. Me. Your. Location.”

  Cal’s hands dug into his sheets. Dania knew better than Cal did what kind of power backed up that harsh command.

  She seemed to struggle to get a breath. “You need to promise me to watch the recordings.”

  “I already told you I would. Are you questioning me?”

  Yeah, she was, and Cal could barely believe what he was watching.

  “I-I…” Dania stammered.

  Tell him that you don’t trust him, Dania. Tell him that you want to be free. You want to. I can see it in your eyes!

  The prince slapped the table in front of him. “This is all the more reason to get you home as quickly as possible. Send me your location immediately. I will come for you myself.”

  And that should have been the red flag. A prince meant death. She should have known that.

  Dania looked down at something beneath her screen, maybe part of the console. “Please promise you will watch the recording with an open mind.”