“You can do this,” she whispered, jogging into the cargo hold.
Meows, whimpers, whines, grunts, and nervously wagging tails greeted her. If the men hadn’t been armored, she might have unleashed her animal army on them, but no, they would only get hurt if she tried something like that. Better to keep a fight from breaking out in here. She did a quick mental check on Alfie and found her still in Masika’s cabin. The hatch had shut, leaving her inside. Probably as good a place for her as any.
Jelena stretched out with her mind again, this time studying the airlock tube. Telekinesis wasn’t her strength, but it was a simple device. Maybe she could tear a little hole or disengage it somehow.
The men opened the exterior hatch on their ship. She didn’t have much time. She prodded at the spot where the tube connected to her ship’s O-ring. If she didn’t mind damaging her own ship temporarily, and making it so they couldn’t dock until they fixed it, maybe she could—
“Hah,” she whispered as she broke the seal with a soft tearing from her mind. She imagined the hiss as air flowed out into space. She made another tear in it, and the tube, with three of the men walking across, unfastened and swung away from the hatch.
The men inside, protected by their self-contained combat armor, weren’t in danger from the vacuum, but she imagined their alarm as the tube whipped about. The man still inside the ship hit the button to withdraw the tube, pulling his comrades back into their airlock as he did so. Jelena sensed them standing in their chamber, looking across the gap to her ship. Discussing their options.
She walked to the camera display and turned it on. Watching them with her eyes would save her brain some effort, especially since the painkiller hadn’t kicked in yet, and her head was still throbbing.
One of the men pointed across, seemingly right at her. The camera was beside the hatch. He squatted and pushed off, maneuvering across the gap with a jet pack built into his armor.
“Well, that didn’t delay them for long,” Jelena muttered as the others followed suit.
Soon, all four men, clad in gleaming silver armor that looked brand new and state-of-the-art, gripped the Snapper’s exterior, their magnetic boots helping them latch on like ticks.
Jelena resisted the urge to check in with Erick, knowing he was doing the best he could.
What else could she do to delay them? She could stand toe-to-toe in a fight with someone in combat armor, as long as she could deflect blazer bolts and keep him out of arm’s reach with her staff, but with multiple opponents, her odds got a lot dicier.
As the man with the torch climbed toward the hatch, Jelena tried to hurl a blast of energy at him to knock him off her hull. But these people knew what they were dealing with. As if he expected it, the man found a handhold and clamped down. His legs flew away, but he quickly brought them back to the ship, and his comrade gripped his shoulder to help support him.
Jelena focused on the torch for her next blast of energy, but the man kept a solid grip on that too. Perhaps her attacks weren’t as effective out in space—it wasn’t as if there was any air to channel and throw like a spear. Erick might have peered into the works of the torch and known which little switch or mechanism to break, but Jelena only saw a confusing mess.
The torch came on, the red glow of its tip contorting oddly in space, but not so oddly that it wouldn’t be effective. The man lifted it toward the hatch, and Jelena grimaced. She didn’t want to see her ship damaged—it was bad enough that they might have to do some repairs in NavCom before they could fly away. Using her mind, she pressed the button to open the exterior hatch.
The man who’d been about to cut a hole twitched in surprise and almost dropped the torch. Jelena snorted. Sure, now he loosened his grip.
He and his cohorts gathered around the airlock chamber and peered in. They hesitated, seeming to expect a trap.
“If only I knew how to make one.” Jelena imagined gouts of fire shooting out from the walls as her foes entered, followed by spikes coming out of the deck and the ceiling to stab and macerate them to death. A shame the previous owner hadn’t installed any such features.
The men talked for a couple of minutes before entering the airlock chamber. If Jelena hadn’t been worried about what they would do once they got in, she might have laughed that opening the door and inviting them in was giving Erick more time than if she’d let them cut through the hatch. They debated for another minute, judging by their gestures, about whether to try to get the lock to cycle and fill with air or if they should apply the torch and barge their way in.
Jelena pressed another button with her mind. The outer hatch closed, locking them in. If they hadn’t had tools, she would have happily left them there, but they would only destroy her inner hatch if she did. Instead, she cycled the lock. They seemed content to wait. That provided another two minutes.
“Hope you’re making use of this time, Erick,” she muttered. “I’m expecting something genius.”
Jelena created a barrier in front of her as the inner hatch finally opened. She tried to appear casual, gripping her staff in one hand, the butt resting on the deck. She’d seen men in combat armor before, plenty of times. Nothing to get worried about. Just because Leonidas was resourceful enough to beat Starseers in battle didn’t mean they would be.
The four big men stomped in, all pointing rifles in her direction.
Not being able to get any sense of their intent left her uneasy, and she double-checked her barrier, wrapping it completely around herself. The leader looked at her through a tinted faceplate, so she couldn’t even gauge him by his eyes. His helmet turned toward the pens.
A couple of the dogs barked, but most of the animals hunkered fearfully along the back wall. Jelena debated whether she needed to extend her barrier to protect them—the larger and more complicated she tried to make it, the more difficult it was to keep her concentration.
“Where is she?” the leader asked.
She?
Did he mean Masika? Jelena couldn’t imagine who else they would be referring to, unless one of the female monkeys had been somehow significant, but had the corporation truly sent all these people and all those ships after them just for a security guard? Jelena had a hard time picturing them caring about their employees that much. They certainly hadn’t cared about the animals. She was surprised there had been pursuit at all, at least after the Snapper escaped that canyon.
“The cyborg?” Jelena asked for clarification and to further stall.
The leader looked back at one of his men, not answering right away. Or maybe speaking on his comm to someone. Jelena couldn’t hear their communications through their helmets.
“Masika Ghazali,” the leader said.
“You’re more than welcome to her.” Jelena almost pointed to sickbay, but remembered Erick was in there too. “I’ve been trying to find a place to drop her off since we inadvertently acquired her.”
“You will return her now.” The leader looked over his shoulder again. “Graf, go hack into the comm, and make sure they didn’t send any medical information off to anyone. Noh, check sickbay. See if they took any samples. Byun, find the man. She wasn’t alone.”
“Yes, sir,” came out of three mouths, and the men jogged toward the corridor that led to the cabins, sickbay, the mess, and NavCom. Another identical hatch in the back led to engineering and the machine shop. Interestingly, they didn’t hesitate with their choices. Had somebody looked up the model of her ship and its layout? These men definitely weren’t amateurs. If only she could say the same about herself and Erick.
Erick? she spoke silently into his mind. You’re about to have company. They want our cyborg. And they seem to think we’ve been taking scans of her or blood samples or something, so they’re going to rifle through all our stuff.
Jelena shifted from foot to foot as the sole remaining soldier walked toward her, that unreadable faceplate pointed in her direction. He held his rifle casually, but his fingertip was wrapped around the trigger, and some
thing about the way he seemed to be trying to make her think he wasn’t aiming at her made her believe he intended to take her by surprise, to shoot. Or to get close enough to yank her staff away. Her barrier would block such an attempt, unless he led with something that startled the concentration out of her.
I think they may have orders to kill us, Jelena added, gripping her staff to help with focus.
You can read them?
Just a hunch. I—
The rifle whipped up, and a crimson blazer bolt streaked at her from only a few feet away. It bounced off her barrier.
She sprang at the man, hoping to startle him, and thrust her staff toward his armored chest. To her surprise, he didn’t try to dodge or block the blow. Did he think this was a plain stick?
It cracked against the chest piece, his armor not giving at all, and a jolt ran up her arm, but she let her mental energy flow into her staff. The tool enhanced and altered that energy, sending lightning against his chest and out to his limbs.
He jerked, stumbling back, the power seeping through his armor in a way normal weapons did not. She attacked again, feinting toward his faceplate. This time, he reacted, jerking his head back. But she hadn’t expected that attack to hit and followed up immediately with a more committed one, jamming the tip of her staff into his solar plexus.
He brought his rifle up again, even as her energy poured into him, sizzling and scorching him through his armor. She knocked the rifle aside, and spun with the movement, lifting her leg for a side kick. She slammed it into his armored groin, throwing her mental energy behind her physical power, adding far more strength to the blow than she would have had otherwise. She doubted it hurt him, but she had the slight satisfaction of seeing him stumble back.
“Sergeant?” came a surprised bark from the direction the rest of the men had gone.
Jelena cursed. She’d been dealing with one, but how was she supposed to handle two?
Expecting the attack, she erected her barrier again. It wasn’t for naught. The man in the hatchway fired at Jelena without warning. The blaster bolt struck her barrier, bouncing off. She gritted her teeth and focused, knowing she couldn’t let annoyance at his appearance affect her concentration. But she couldn’t attack the first man and defend against this newcomer at the same time. And the first man was recovering, raising his rifle toward her again.
She backed away, so they couldn’t flank her.
Several dark shapes streaked past her, and she almost lost her concentration at a fatal moment. The dogs. They’d leaped out of their pen and were racing toward the man in the hatchway, their jaws snapping. To her surprise, the pigs followed, bowling through their fence as if it were no more obstacle than a spider web. They moved surprisingly fast, catching up with the dogs and hurling their substantial masses at the man.
The animals wouldn’t have been able to bite him through his armor, but he snarled and aimed at one of the dogs, regardless.
“No!” Jelena cried, and with fear, horror, and anger mingling, she hurled all of her mental energy at him.
Her foe flew backward, his boots leaving the deck as he crashed into the bulkhead behind him. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the closer man trying to take advantage, lunging toward her. She attempted to fling a second attack at him, but he closed too quickly.
A gauntleted hand wrapped around her shoulder, a vise clamping on and crunching. Pain surged up her neck and down her arm, and she flailed at him with the staff, batting ineffectively. Without her mind’s power behind it, the weapon thwacked uselessly against his armor.
The ship lurched wildly, the deck tilting under them. Startled, the man loosened his grip.
Though she was afraid the Snapper had been damaged, Jelena took the split second to gather herself. She clenched her staff with both hands, and this time, she threw her mental power into her thrust, aiming it squarely at her attacker’s chest. As it struck, lightning flared so brightly that she winced and looked away. The man flew away as if she’d struck him with a battering ram. His rifle fell out of his hands and clattered across the deck.
She started after him, but paused, glancing toward the second man. He hadn’t regained his feet. He sat against the wall, his helmet slumped forward, his weapon fallen at his side. The dogs were growling and barking at him, while the pigs butted their heads against his armor, but he seemed oblivious.
Jelena was surprised she’d struck him hard enough to cause that, but she did not object to the result. She picked up the rifle on the deck, tossed it into one of the animal pens, and ran toward the man she’d just struck, having a notion of battering him into unconsciousness with her staff.
But he sprang to his feet, yelled something over his comm, and ran toward the airlock hatch. Jelena stopped, staring after him. He ran into the airlock chamber and waved toward the corridor as two men came out of it, dragging the unconscious one. One of those men looked like he’d been caught in a fire, with his armor charred and soot-covered. The other one’s helmet was dented, and he ran crookedly.
“You forgot your cyborg,” Jelena called as they ran by, confused by their behavior.
She kept her staff up and ready, anticipating parting shots. But they charged into the airlock chamber and closed the inner hatch. The panel beside it flashed, indicating that they’d forced their way out without waiting for the lock to cycle.
She strode up to peer at the camera display in time to see them jetting back to their ship. An open hatch waited for them, the same as before, but the ship was tilted to one side, and she gaped when she spotted a ragged hole in the hull. The Snapper hadn’t fired. Something on their ship must have exploded.
Erick appeared in the hatchway, leaning heavily on the jamb, his face white. The dogs had scattered as the armored troops ran out, and now, they simply sat back on their haunches or milled, as if their work was done and they were waiting for treats.
“What did you do?” Jelena asked. “Are you all right?”
“I think I overexerted myself.” One of his eyes squinted shut. “Can brains cramp?”
“Maybe you need some potassium.” Jelena walked toward him, patting a few dog heads on the way by. She wanted to slump against a bulkhead and recover, but whatever had happened to that ship, she was sure they would find a way to fix it. The Snapper needed to get out of its sensor range while it could. “There are still some bananas from that island on Halite where we dropped the monkeys.” They had, indeed, found some favorite human fruits growing in the tropical zone.
“We should have some time,” Erick said, stepping aside as she passed. “An important part of their engine had a pressure failing.”
“Does that mean it exploded?”
“Yes. Handily taking out the grab beam generator at the same time.”
“That was handy. If you could learn to do that to every enemy ship we meet within the first thirty seconds of them threatening us, it would keep me from having to dent my staff on combat armor.”
“I’d have to be intimately familiar with all the possible designs and specs of every potential enemy ship in the system for that.”
“Yes, and? You’re an engineer. Aren’t you supposed to memorize all the ships out there?”
“I don’t think so. I wouldn’t have any time to play Striker Odyssey, then.”
“I’m not sure you’re committed enough to your career, Erick.”
He stopped in the corridor as she stepped into NavCom and looked toward sickbay. “Are you going to leave her sedated?”
“I’d like to put her back in her spacesuit and leave her out there for her friends to pick up.”
“You’d have to give her your spacesuit, since her helmet is still cracked. Are you saying I should have let them have her?”
“You should have thrown her at them. Apparently, she’s the reason Stellacor is still after us.”
“Oh? That’s surprising.”
“I thought so too.” Jelena grimaced at the dent in her console and verified that the grab beam no longer h
eld them. Fortunately, she was able to put the Snapper back into motion. The pterodactyl ship hadn’t moved. It remained in place, its wings tilted at an angle that made the ship look broken. “I’m now rather curious about her and thinking that tissue samples and gene scans would be interesting if we had the equipment to do either.”
“Technically, I think we could take a tissue sample with a paring knife.”
“True, but we wouldn’t have any way to analyze it. It doesn’t matter. I’m definitely dropping her off at the next stop. Had I known she was what Stellacor was after, I would have left her on that island with the monkeys.”
“We can leave her on Arkadius.”
Jelena leaned back in her seat, making sure the enemy ship was still receding on the camera before turning to meet Erick’s eyes. “Actually, I don’t think we can.”
“What?”
“You heard that captain when he commed. Stellacor knows we’re going to Arkadius, and they’ve got people—probably ships—watching out for us there.”
“We can’t not go,” Erick said. “What about Leonidas and his surgery?”
What, indeed?
The idea of not being there when Leonidas—her dad—underwent a potentially deadly surgery horrified her. What if he didn’t make it through? What if they couldn’t cure his problem? What if she never saw him again? Never got to make any more jokes about his tree-trunk arms? Never again got to help the twins pick out stickers to put on his armor? Never got to lean on him when the Starseer training was too hard and Grandpa didn’t understand? Never got to show him that even though she’d decided not to go to a university right away, as he’d thought she should, that she could do something important with her life? Be someone who added value to the universe. She wanted him to know that just as much as she wanted her mother to know it. If he was gone from the universe too soon, it just wouldn’t be fair.
“Jelena?” Erick prompted softly.
She sniffed and looked away, wiping her eyes. “We’re going to get to Arkadius, and we’re going to get there in time, but I don’t want to lead trouble into Mom’s lap. Normally, I’d be happy to take these bastards straight to the Nomad so Leonidas and Grandpa could deal with them, but Leonidas can’t deal with anybody right now, and I don’t want them—it concerns me that Stellacor knows our heading. They may know all about the family business. And the family.”