by Rachel Aukes
“I still think we should have the specters hit Alluvia and Myr while the armada is out chasing after their lost fleet. Then they’d hand over Critch without question,” Tracks said.
“Let’s try to accomplish this mission without starting another war. Now, keep your heads in the game and get where you need to be,” Sixx said, and added under his breath, “Dumbass.”
As soon as Sixx had met the specters—Critch’s pirate army turned torrent army—he knew they were a shoot-first-ask-questions-later sort of team. He’d warned Reyne against taking them along on a mission where shooting was a last resort, but Reyne had stood firm that they needed all the help they could get to extricate Critch. Sixx didn’t tell him that if they found themselves in a gunfight, Critch and all of them would likely be dead and the extra help wouldn’t make any difference.
He was glad Bree had stayed back. That woman constantly surprised him. She was one hell of a fighter, but she also had a better head on her shoulders than Sixx. She knew Sixx would’ve refused to stay behind, and so she’d chosen to stay without their usual rock-paper-scissors game to decide who went. He hadn’t thought he could care for someone as much as he had for Qelle. He’d been wrong. He now cared for not one, but two who made his heart full—and ache any time he was forced to leave them behind.
At least, if something happened to him on this mission, Lily would have someone she loved to take care of her. Once he returned to Nova Colony, he’d tell Bree and Lily that he wouldn’t take any more missions without them, which meant he wouldn’t take any more dangerous missions. Bree and Lily deserved better, and he wanted the chance to see what having a family was really all about.
Sixx refocused on the mission and scanned the hallway for an elevator. As the three teams parted ways, he headed his team to the nearest elevator down the hall on his left.
In their short walk, they came across only one tech, and she didn’t even look up from her tablet.
Hari glanced over her shoulder before speaking, to make sure the tech hadn’t stopped. “The brig on the Littorio is located on level Eight. That’s above us.”
Sixx nodded, as he had also studied the warship’s layout beforehand and knew the brig had been their greatest risk. “Good thing he’s showing below us then.”
“But why isn’t he in the brig? His tracker’s still online, so he’s still alive,” Boden said.
Hari’s lips curled upward. “It’s Critch. I bet he broke out.”
“All that matters to us is that he’s alive and below us. We can philosophize on the whys later,” Sixx said.
He stopped at the elevator, took in a breath, and pressed the lowest floor listed on the touchscreen. The screen flashed INSUFFICIENT AUTHORITY.
“The lowest level is always a service area,” Boden said. “Someone with either tech or security authority should be able to get us in there.”
“Then we’ll find someone,” Sixx said as he pressed the second lowest floor. The elevator opened to reveal two droms in full armor and carrying rifles.
The three stepped inside and stood in front of the droms.
Sixx turned around and eyed the female soldier, who noticed and cocked her head at him. He nodded to her gear. “Aren’t you guys a bit overdressed?”
“We’re just running some drills. Nothing for you to worry about,” she replied.
He gave his smile, the one that had worked magic on many women—and a good number of men—through the years. “I’m not worried. That armor fits you nicely.”
Her features softened, and he knew he had her.
“Hey, maybe you can help us,” Sixx continued. “We’re rilon techs from Tulan Port. Stationmaster Reyne assigned us to the lowest deck to repair a busted magnetron liner, but we can’t seem to get to it from here.”
“Oh, that’s because you need authority access,” she replied. “They should’ve assigned an onboard tech to escort you.”
Sixx frowned. “I was wondering about that. Is there any way you could escort us? It shouldn’t take long. We’ve already been given a map and the area we need to check out.”
“Well, we’re still on duty, but—”
“We can’t help you. We’re busy running drills,” the other soldier blurted, and shot a hard look at his partner.
“But it’d be safe. There are plenty of us in the service areas,” she said.
“We can’t. We’re in the middle of drills,” he said.
“Oh, I see,” Sixx said, not believing for a moment that they were involved with drills of any sort. He made an obvious show of reading their name badges. “Well, thanks anyway, Wilton and Rodriguez. Since Stationmaster Reyne is on board, I’ll call him and—”
“The stationmaster is on board?” the male drom asked.
“Yeah. He’s overseeing the delivery, and I think he was going to meet with the Corps General. So, when they meet, they should be able to get this worked out. Don’t worry, I’ll be sure to mention your names and that you would’ve helped if you could.”
The droms glanced at each other. The elevator stopped and opened on their floor. All five moved, but then the pair squeezed around the three.
“I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to give you access to get your work done,” the female drom said.
The male scanned his wrist comm and selected the lowest level. “There. No need to bother the Corps General. Just be sure not to waste any time down there.”
“Believe me, we won’t. We’ll take care of what we need and get out of there. You have my word,” Sixx said with a smile.
The elevator closed, sealing off the three from the soldiers.
“Well, that was convenient,” Hari said.
“That’s Sixx’s way,” Boden added.
“And no one got shot,” Sixx tacked on.
“We’ll have to be careful. They said there were droms down there already,” Boden said.
“I’m thinking Hari was right,” Sixx said. “Our wayward orphan broke himself out.”
The elevator opened, and they stepped into the cold underbelly of the warship. The narrow walkway required them to stand in single file. They looked over the sea of massive pipes and storage tanks. Sixx glanced at his wrist comm to find the red dot at his two o’clock a couple hundred meters away. Then he looked to his left and to his right down the lengths of the walkway. In the far distance of each side stood droms. Unfortunately, the ones to their right were headed their way.
He exhaled, and his breath formed a cloud in the still air. He motioned to the pair. “Keep your game faces on.” He turned right and led them down the walkway until the red dot was straight off his left. The pair of droms were within fifty meters of their position. Not wanting to give away any hint of Critch’s location, Sixx walked past the dot and toward the droms.
The pair slowed as the distance between the groups closed.
“Hey, what are you doing down here? The service areas are off-limits during drills,” one of the droms said as everyone came to a stop.
Sixx held up his hand. “Blame it on a magnetron for not waiting for your drills to finish to break.”
“No one said there’d be tech down here,” the other soldier said.
“We just want to do our jobs. Wilton and Rodriguez said it was okay,” Sixx said.
The first guard who spoke rolled his eyes. “Fine. Whatever. Just be careful down here.”
“Why?” Sixx asked.
The guards glanced at each other. “Just rumors that we might have a stowaway or two who snuck on board to join the trip. If you see anyone, call it in immediately. Do not approach him—them, I mean. They could be dangerous.”
“Sure thing.” Sixx said as they squeezed past one another on the walkway. “Thanks for keeping the ship safe.”
Sixx, Boden, and Hari walked as slowly as they could without looking like they were biding time. Every now and then, one would point at something as though analyzing it for inspection. Sixx shivered. “I could think of quite a few better places to hang out than here.�
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“But no others provide as many hiding spots,” Hari said.
Sixx glanced back to see the pair of droms standing by the elevator, watching them. He gritted his teeth. “Looks like we’re not going to be able to wait them out. We’re doing this with an audience.” He grabbed the handrail to jump off the walkway.
“Wait,” Boden said. “There are traction strips on that pipe over there. Techs would be trained to walk along those pipes for safety.”
“Oh. Right. How about you lead the way?”
Boden backtracked them to the nearby pipe and opened a gate in the rail Sixx hadn’t noticed. He stepped out on to the huge pipe. Hari followed, and Sixx covered their backs. He didn’t turn to see if the droms were watching—he knew they were.
Despite being the largest of the trio, Boden moved with the most grace over the somewhat curved surface. Sixx realized Boden was used to moving through uneven spaces, given he was a ship mechanic.
Boden stopped at a pipe that ran perpendicular to and above the larger pipe they’d walked on. He grabbed the ladder that ran down the side and climbed up. Hari and Sixx followed, and Boden led them to the next ladder. They then climbed down onto a parallel pipe even lower than the first one they’d taken, cutting off the view from the walkway and, more importantly, the droms.
Boden stared at his wrist comm for a moment before looking up and walking briskly toward Critch’s beacon. Hari and Sixx followed, helping each other at the occasional slip on the smooth surface.
The mechanic slowed, stopped, and did a three-sixty. “I don’t understand. He should be right here.”
Hari and Sixx joined him in searching the immediate area. They looked above, below, and everywhere around them.
“Critch?” Sixx called out, keeping the word barely above a whisper.
“Hold on,” Hari said. She leapt to a smaller pipe running alongside theirs. She sat, straddling the pipe, and looked over the outer side, then slid down and disappeared. “I found him. Get over here.”
Sixx and Boden leapt and slid smoothly off the pipe to find Hari kneeling next to a body wedged between the ship’s gel insulation and the pipe they’d slid down. Sixx turned to Boden. “Cover us.”
Boden nodded and pulled guns from his toolbox.
“He’s alive, but not responsive,” she said, worry quickening her words. “He doesn’t have his wrist comm, so I can’t see his bioscans. Other than a superficial cut on his forehead, I don’t see any signs of injury.”
“He’s alive. Nothing else matters until we get him out of here and back to our ship,” Sixx said. He looked over Hari’s shoulder at Critch’s unconscious form. Blue lips, pale skin, sunken eyes…the man looked like a corpse already.
Sixx bent down, opened his toolbox and pulled out the first aid kit. “Here.”
Hari looked back. He handed her a shot and the three electrolyte vials he had. She tried a couple times with the syringe before finding a vein. She inserted the first vial. Sixx watched as it drained.
“How’d you see him?” he asked.
“I didn’t. I smelled him.”
Critch was so wedged into the insulation, likely for warmth, that it was also blocking the worst of his odor. Now that Sixx was practically on top of the other man, he admitted that Critch wasn’t the worst thing he’d ever smelled—after all, Sixx had grown up in Devil Town—but Critch damn near topped the list.
“He’s so dehydrated, the cold is probably the only reason he’s still alive.”
After she finished administering the three vials, Sixx handed her a chem boost.
She held the nasal spray under Critch’s nose and squeezed. His eyes shot open, only to fall back closed.
Hari ran a hand through Critch’s hair with a gentleness Sixx had never seen in her before. “Stay with me.” She turned to Sixx. “I don’t suppose you brought something for hypothermia.”
Sixx shook his head. “We’ll get him in a tank as soon as possible.”
“Hurry. The droms are walking out on the pipes,” Boden said in a low voice.
“Distract them if you have to,” Sixx muttered back. “It’s going to take a while to get him out of here.”
Boden grumbled something, and Sixx heard fading footsteps on the pipe above them.
They tugged Critch free, and both embraced him to feed him their body heat. Sixx grimaced and changed his mind: Critch topped his list.
“He must’ve been down here for the better part of a week. Being a soft-freeze ice cream cone is definitely what kept him alive,” he said. “Just like usual, Critch is screwing up our plans. I was counting on him walking out with us. There’s no way we can sneak off this ship while carrying him.”
“Would a carbon fiber box hold him?”
“Maybe. If we can manage to get one down here and back up to the ship without anyone the wiser.”
Critch groaned.
She shook her head. “That could take hours. He doesn’t have that kind of time.”
Sixx grabbed two handguns and a rifle from the toolbox and pushed it to the side. “Sounds like we’re going with Plan B.”
She grimaced and went for her weapons. She pulled out a pair of coveralls and hat that matched their outfits, glanced at Critch, then tossed them aside. “I was afraid you were going to say that.”
After holstering his blasters and slinging the rifle over his shoulder, Sixx typed out a single letter “B” and sent it to the rescue team, Reyne, and Will.
A moment later, hurried footsteps approached. “We’re going to Plan B?” Boden asked.
“Yep,” Sixx said as he hefted Critch up. “Help pull him up.”
Boden grabbed the limp man under his arms and pulled while Sixx pushed.
“Hey! What’s taking you so long back there?” a voice yelled out.
“Fixing a magnetron liner isn’t just slapping a patch on it,” Sixx yelled back.
Boden set Critch down on the pipe. “Magnetrons don’t have liners.”
Sixx climbed up and pulled out his guns and from his toolbox. “That’s nice.”
“You don’t even know what a magnetron is, do you?” Boden asked.
“Not a clue.” Sixx peeked through the pipes and saw two pairs of boots less than fifty meters from them. He spun around to face Boden and Hari. “Hari, you get us to that elevator as fast as you can. Boden and I will keep up with Critch. Ready for some fun times?”
“Where are you at? Come out now,” the same voice yelled.
Hari gave a single nod and headed down the pipe in the opposite direction to the one they’d arrived from, away from the pair of droms. The pipe was smaller than the higher pipes, and Sixx and Boden had to carry Critch between them as they ran sideways, with Boden in lead. Sixx struggled to keep up.
“We’re on a straight path to the elevator,” Hari said. “We have to climb up and go visible. I’ll lay down cover fire.”
Hari climbed the metal rungs up the pipe.
Boden and Sixx struggled hauling Critch up the short ladder. With every upward movement, Critch made a small sound.
Once they reached the pipe, the width of this pipe allowed them to jog side by side with Critch between them. Their passenger moaned at being jostled.
“Hang in there, you old pirate,” Sixx said.
“There they are! Wait. They have the target!”
Sixx didn’t turn to locate the droms; instead, he ran faster. Shots were fired, and a pipe near Sixx’s head suddenly had a blackened hole in it.
Hari laid down a barrage of rifle fire.
The elevator was fewer than fifteen meters away. Hari sprinted ahead and reached the walkway. She lunged at the elevator and punched the level for the docking bays. Then she spun around, got down on a knee, and scanned the area through her rifle scope, firing off shots into the piping as well as at the walkway to their right.
Gunfire came at them from at least two directions, but Sixx had no hand free to fire. All he could do was hope the droms were far enough away that they couldn’
t get direct hits. Boden climbed over the railing, then dragged Critch over. Sixx jumped over without pause.
Two droms were on the walkway, sprinting toward them, but Hari was busy holding off the pair just leaving the pipe on their left.
Sixx kept one arm around Critch’s waist while he unslung his rifle. He aimed it at the pair running toward him. They were firing, but their gait was screwing up their aim and their shots were all over the place. Sixx took his time and fired. One. Two. Two shots fired; two headshots.
The elevator chimed, and they bunched up to get in. The door opened, and they came face to face with two more droms. Everyone raised their weapons simultaneously. Sixx felt pressure in his side, like someone snapped a rubber band on his skin. He ignored it and fired his rifle at the drom’s face. At near point blank, it was messy but effective. The other drom was already down, dropped by either Hari or Boden. They jumped in over the bodies and held their rifles at the opening. When the door closed, the trio let out a collective sigh.
Sixx’s side began to burn—a sensation he was no stranger to—and he gritted his teeth.
Boden slapped a yellow button on the wall. The screen above it read PRESS HERE FOR EXPRESS LIFT. NOTE: USE ONLY FOR EMERGENCIES.
“This classifies as an emergency,” Boden said as he tapped the screen. “That should get us to our floor without more interruptions. Well, unless they stop us from the control room.” He noticed Hari rubbing her ribs where a black hole now showed on her coveralls. “You’re shot.”
“I got lucky. It didn’t get through my chest plate. Did Critch get shot?”
“He’s clear,” Sixx said, and touched his side. He pulled his fingers away to find them warm and wet with blood. “I didn’t get so lucky.”
Boden gave him a concerned look. “How bad?”