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Cade’s short-lived relief gave way to panic as he checked the ship’s damage reports monitor for hull breaches. He might have only seconds to activate foam sealant before lethal levels of radiation penetrated the ship. But according to the reports, only the engines had sustained damage. Someone had shot him down, but hadn’t tried to kill him.
The attack hadn’t come from the Malsain ship. How had it disappeared like that?
Was it ever there at all?
With that, he realized it had been a hologram. Someone had placed it on the dock as a distraction. And he’d been too mesmerized by the gaping hole in the facility to do a detailed scan upon arrival.
He punched his open palm, angry with himself for getting tricked. He activated his comms. “Emergency! This is Cade Martin in an Eagle IV. I’ve been shot down at the closed AED facility orbiting Equuleus. My ship’s immobilized. Please send immediate aid.”
He hated exposing his trespass, but better that than die or become a prisoner of whomever had attacked him.
Almost immediately, a notification popped up: Transmission failed.
Frowning, he re-sent the distress call, but again it failed.
“Oh great,” he groaned.
He had seen nothing about damage to the comms system. He double-checked, confirming the comms system remained online. It alerted him to an incoming message from another ship. He played it.
“Attention unidentified vehicle,” an angry feminine voice said. “You’re trespassing at a private research facility. Prepare to surrender yourselves to AED personnel.”
He dropped his head in his hands. Instead of exposing whatever AED had done here, they now had him for trespassing. And without proof, no one would believe anything he said. This day couldn’t get any worse.
Until he realized he recognized the feminine voice from the incoming comm.
“Ansa?” he asked. His brother’s ex-girlfriend had shot him down and now jammed his comm.
“Evacuate your ship,” Ansa said. “Surrender and you’ll be taken to Space City for prosecution.”
He snorted. She couldn’t return to Space City. She faced greater criminal charges than trespassing. But her bluff didn’t mean she posed no threat.
He needed to get away from her, but with his ship engines blown, his only chance was inside the facility. Retreating to the back of the ship, he found an extendable arm holding an oxygen tank. The arm secured the tank to the back of his suit. Then, he attached a backup tank, covering him for eight hours. He had to assume the radiation filled the facility, too, rendering its air system unusable. As a precaution, he also grabbed a vial of sealing bots—a nanobot solution that worked like glue. If his suit incurred damage, he could spread the solution over the hole to seal it up within five seconds.
Protective gear in place, he reattached his wrist-comp over his left arm.
When his ship’s airlock cycled open, Cade discovered how close he’d come to sliding off the dock. The ship’s nose extended out past the edge. He only had a couple of meters of room to walk alongside the ship.
It was the second time he’d nearly died in the last few months. After the explosion at the Alfar base on Orestes, he, Maellyn, and Anand had been rushed to Ourania for medical attention. However, at the last minute the Alfar had determined his injuries weren’t as severe as Maellyn’s and Anand’s, so he’d undergone a simpler medical procedure. After he’d been stabilized, he’d returned home to Space City, unlike Maellyn and Anand, who would spend the rest of their lives on Ourania due to their treatment.
He had no wish to tempt fate a third time, so he needed to get inside the facility before Ansa landed her ship. Find somewhere to hide.
The moment his feet slapped down on the dock, the magnetism function in his boots auto-fired. The facility’s gravity, if it was still online, didn’t extend onto the dock. But as long as he didn’t do anything stupid, like dive off the side, he’d get to the facility fine.
Despite being thin and form fitting, his explorer suit had great insulation, blocking out the cold of space. In fact, he felt a little warm.
Before he limped more than a dozen steps, cursing his bad leg for slowing him down, another Malsain ship landed, cutting him off from the facility. He continued forward, hoping this was another hologram illusion.
Seconds later, three figures emerged from the ship. The one in the middle wore a knockoff of the Space City explorer suits. It was dark gray, but with the same red line running along the outside of each arm and leg. The two on either side wore bulky, dark green suits. All three held large guns—S-360s—that could blast huge holes through him.
He froze, debating whether to flee back into his ship. Was Ansa one of the three figures approaching him? He couldn’t see faces inside their darkened helmets.
The figure in gray activated a flashlight on top of their gun, then pointed it at him. He blinked against the glare but didn’t raise his hand to shield his face, afraid the three figures might misconstrue the action.
A second later, his wrist-comp buzzed. He accepted and his suit comms system connected with one of the three figures in front of him.
“Cade? What are you doing here?” It was Ansa’s voice. The front figure clicked on a light in their helmet, which illuminated her face. Her upper lip rose in a cunning smile. She had control of the moment and knew it.
An idea came to him. “I’m out here on assignment, finding out why this research facility was shut down. My supervisor sent me.”
She laughed. “I doubt that. You work for the Academy paper. Your supervisor would never agree to your traveling here. He thinks you’re on a summer trip, am I right?”
Annoyed, he went on the offensive. “What did you come here to steal?”
“Steal?” She feigned hurt. “AED hired me.”
“Right.” He rolled his eyes. “To do what?”
“Better question is why are you here?” She pointed her gun at him.
His breath caught in his throat. The muzzle pointed at his chest made him keenly aware how quickly his life could end.
“You’re trespassing at a private facility,” she added. “I’m not.”
He grimaced and crossed his arms. Whether she worked for the AED or had lied, any response from him wouldn’t improve his situation. And he had no illusions about appealing to her better nature.
“Kill him,” one of the other figures hissed. It seemed their comm systems were tied in with Ansa’s, and since he’d accepted the connection request from her, it worked for all of them.
The figure moved close enough for him to see into their helmet. A Malsain with a large bolt piercing her dark green scales right below her mouth. She stood larger than Ansa or himself, reminding him of an upright Komodo dragon.
The second figure on Ansa’s other side, also a Malsain, possessed pale yellow-green scales. It was the smallest of the group. Instead of watching him, its eyes roved his ship. Was it looking for others or assessing the ship’s value? Or both?
Fortunately, his suit protected him from smelling them. He didn’t relish puking in his suit and enduring that for however long they kept him hostage.
“Anyone else with you?” Ansa asked, looking past him.
He opened his mouth to say yes, but that lie wouldn’t stand much scrutiny. Only so many people could fit on an Eagle IV. Plus, if he’d had anyone else with him, why would they send him limping out alone?
So again, he remained silent.
She approached him, clucking her tongue. “Being difficult won’t make your situation any easier.”
“Trusting you didn’t work out so well for me last summer,” he replied.
“Oh, come now,” she said, bristling. “I freed you and Aiden from Laza. If not for me, you’d both be slaves on Araxia.”
“You’re the reason I was one to begin with. Planning to repeat history?” he asked.
She shrugged. “Not to the Murgin, no. You and Space City ensured there’s no market on Araxia.” Then her lip curled in a sly smile. “There are other options. Guess we’ll see how cooperative you are while we complete our mission.”
“We should kill him,” the dark-green Malsain repeated, her gun aimed at him.
Not his best day.
Ansa threw an arm around his shoulders and pulled him in close. “Now where’s the fun in that?”
When the Malsain started to respond, Ansa overrode it as she squeezed his shoulders. “Don’t worry. Cade’s no threat.”