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TARSK AND ISRA clattered up the stairs into the Brognan’s bridge, squeezing into the tight space behind the pilot and co-pilot’s chairs. Tarsk stared out the viewscreen as if he could see what was coming.
“There’s a spaceship on long-range scans.” Kara’s fingers flew over the controls, pinpointing the alert. A few brief seconds later and she had narrowed down on an unknown spacecraft.
“Give me a course, and I’ll get us out of here,” Daku called out.
The long-range scan panel wavered and flickered. Kara glared at it and gave it a solid thump and the display stabilised. She muttered under her breath about the old equipment, but didn’t slow down.
She could feel waves of stress coming from Daku and Tarsk, but Isra seemed to have collected herself again.
“Who is it?” Tarsk asked, echoing Daku’s question. He stared over her shoulder at the scanners.
“Why couldn’t my parents have a weaponised spaceship? Damn it, we could have at least rigged something up before leaving New Mornag,” Daku muttered.
“Port controls would have identified them before we even made it to orbit,” Isra said.
Kara let the words wash over her as she tabbed up the nav system, swiftly searching for a way out, but there were no settlements or outposts nearby, no other ships, except the one she’d just identified. Her gut clenched. “Daku, turn us starboard and start running at max speeds.” She cut abruptly across their conversation.
“Changing course. Co-ordinates?” Daku asked.
“Anywhere that’s not here, as fast as possible.” She pushed herself up, knowing she’d have to squeeze past Isra and Tarsk to get below decks. “I’m going to the engine room to see if we can wring some more speed out of this freighter.”
Three sets of eyes snapped to her in alarm.
“It’s not our lucky day.” She swallowed and licked her lips. “It’s Dark Raiders.”
Daku cursed very inventively, then snapped his mouth shut, giving Isra a side-long look. “Sorry, Your Highness.”.
“Don’t be. You’re just saying what we’re all thinking,” Isra said, hand braced on the bulkhead above her for balance. She slammed the heel of her palm against the ceiling. “Are they after us? And how did they find us out here?”
“I don’t know,” Kara said
She slipped past Tarsk who was staring intently down at the long-range scanner readouts. Staring at what little details they had of the incoming ship. He reached out a paw and tapped against it, bringing one set of data to the fore.
Kara stepped up to the entrance.
“Wait,” Tarsk said.
Kara whipped around to look at him, as did Isra. Daku flicked him a glance, but kept his focus on the freighter’s course.
“There’s something familiar about this ship’s code.” He looked back at them, his face puzzled.
“We don’t have time for that,” Daku snapped. “Just find us a way out of being Dark Raider fodder.”
But Tarsk ignored Daku and pulled out his flexi, snapping it straight with a quick flick of his wrist.
Kara hovered at the top of the stairs, her gaze bouncing from Daku, the nav system, to Isra, then to Tarsk. She knew that they had almost no chance of out-running the Dark Raiders. Dashing down to the engines wasn’t going to change that, not enough to matter anyway. The closest inhabited location was over ten hours away.
The Dark Raiders would easily overtake them in two.
Waiting for Tarsk wasn’t going to change that outcome by more than a handful of minutes.
He’d been flicking through files on his flexi, hissing and chirruping away to himself, the sounds sharp in the enclosed space. Finally, he sank into the pilot’s chair, holding the flexi up to the long-range scanners readout.
“There, do you see that?” he cried out, pointing between the screens.
Isra frowned at them and faintly shrugged.
But Kara rapidly cross-referenced them, seeing what Tarsk had. “Those are the same readouts. It’s the same spaceship,” Kara breathed, stepping back towards the console.
“How’s that possible?” Isra asked. “And where’d you come by this info, Tarsk?”
“I copied it from the Agate’s systems,” Tarsk replied a tad smugly. “It’s the spaceship that was on approach when we were hightailing it out of our last encounter with Dark Raiders after we disabled the first ship and rescued the settlers.”
Daku glared at him. “You hacked my ship?”
“Please, it belongs to the Queen. And as I work directly for her, you could say I had more right to it than you,” Tarsk sniffed.
“Not relevant, gentlemen,” Isra snapped. “We have a Dark Raider ship closing in on us, and you’re saying there’s every chance that it’s the same one involved with the kidnapping of civilians. We need to find a way to lose them.”
“Do we though?” Kara asked.
Isra and Tarsk whipped around to stare at her in shock.
“Are you implying we should be caught by them?” Isra demanded, a flush darkening her rounded cheekbones. “By Dark Raiders? We may as well just go back and hand ourselves over to the traitors.”
Kara just shook her head and reached out for Tarsk’s flexi. “Have you read the rest of this data?”
He scratched behind one ear, tipping his head to the side. “Not really. I mean I glanced at it briefly after uploading it, but what with everything else going on, especially with taking care of you after your extended spacewalk, and having all those settlers on board, I didn’t have time then. And well, things haven’t exactly calmed down any since.” He looked at her in puzzlement. “Why do you ask?”
“Because you picked up data that was recorded after the long-range engines kicked in,” Kara said, tapping her finger against the file. She grabbed the edge of the flexi and stretched the screen out larger so they could all make it out.
“What am I looking at? It’s just a bunch of code,” Isra snapped.
“Yes, and it’s saying right here that this Dark Raider ship fired on the kidnappers’ ship,” Kara stated. “They completely disabled it. This ship didn’t go after us, but after the other Dark Raider ship, don’t you find that odd?”
“That can’t be right,” Daku said, craning his head around to read it, even though he kept his hands firmly at the controls.
“The Dark Zone isn’t exactly cohesive,” Tarsk said. “I mean, the Dark Raiders involved in the cybernetic modifications ring may be just one small group.”
“That would make sense,” Isra agreed. “It would also explain why it took them ten years to surface again after the destruction of their main base of operations.” A thoughtful look crossed her face. “It would even explain a lot about that night, and who destroyed the base.”
“What do you mean? I thought the three of you did that?” Kara would never forget the first time she saw Isra and the Sword and Shield standing in the corridor of that base.
“The Sword and Shield, and I, helped, but the base was already in chaos when we arrived. The Dark Raiders were fighting amongst themselves. If they hadn’t been, I think it would have been almost impossible to have rescued you and gotten back off-world.”
Kara felt her knees go weak and she blinked several times. Before she knew it, Tarsk had guided her back into the pilot’s chair, giving her a quick check-over. She waved him off.
“They were fighting against each other,” Kara breathed. Her thoughts flashed to the time she’d escaped her room, how she’d trailed down the blisteringly white corridor, smearing blood in her wake. How the Dark Raiders had come for her. About the one who had picked her up and carried her back to captivity. He’d had cybernetics threaded through his arms, obvious and scary at the time, but he’d held her gently. And she remembered that he hadn’t liked taking her back to the cell they’d locked her away in. He’d been sorry.
She hadn’t imagined it.
“There were splinter groups within them long before that night.” The realisation made her blink again and stare out the viewport. But even her eyes couldn’t pick up any details of the other spaceship yet. “Maybe the ship out there is from that same group. What if not all Dark Raiders are alike?” She turned to look at them. “What if they dislike those kidnappers as much as we do?”
“Yeah, this is all really interesting,” Daku cut in, his voice tight. “But what are we going to do, right now? Because that’s a Dark Raider ship out there,” he jabbed his finger out at space, before continuing, “and we’ve got nowhere safe to go. I know it’s important to you, Kara, I know. But maybe we need to figure out what we’re going to do in our current situation because right now it looks like we’re about to be caught by them. Unless you have any better ideas,” he snapped.
Tarsk shifted, his arm brushing against Kara, and he clacked his claws against the console in agitation.
Isra’s lips thinned. “Surely there’s an Imperial ship out there that can pick up a distress signal?”
Kara was already shaking her head. “All distress signals are reported back to the Jade Fleet. We can’t run the risk of them coming to our aid.”
Daku snorted and nodded in morose agreement. “Much as I hate to say it, but running into the Fleet might be worse than being caught by that Dark Raider ship. At least we know where we stand with them. With the Fleet, we could be handing ourselves straight into the traitor’s hands,” he spat, his hands balling into tight fists.
Kara flicked her attention back to Tarsk’s flexi, considering it thoughtfully.
“I’m the heir and Princess of the Rhaslok Empire. I don’t think it would be a good idea for me to end up with the Dark Raiders either,” Isra snapped back, the strain she was under slipping out again.
Tarsk gave a faint snort, looking at Isra askance. “I sincerely apologise for what I’m going to say, but frankly, right now I don’t think anyone would take you for the princess, even if you told them to their faces.”
“Excuse me?” Isra enunciated each word clearly and distinctly in anger.
“Uh, he’s right. I didn’t recognise you in those clothes at first either,” Daku chimed in nervously, but abruptly closed his mouth when Isra shot him a lethal stare.
Kara tipped her head to the side and objectively studied Isra, trying to view her as a stranger would. Her black jacket and trousers were plain and something any one of a million people would wear on a daily basis, and her curly hair was scrapped back from her forehead and into a practical and unadorned bun. Her face was slightly pinched, stress lines showing as well as that flash of anger. About the only thing that looked familiar were the thin black gloves she wore, but then again, many freighter crews wore them to protect their hands, too. Kara compared it to the most common images of the princess in her royal garb, the rich fabrics, the long gowns, and the glittering jewels, the tiaras and coronets she almost always wore. Her current state was a far call from her usual, glamorous image.
“They’re right, you know,” Kara mused, her finger tapping in consideration against the back of the flexi. She held up a hand to forestall Isra’s ire. “Hear me out. Looking as you do, no one would recognise you as the princess or even look for that possibility. You would blend in with a crowd of civilians, and that’s a good thing.”
Isra’s jaw worked as struggled to accept Kara’s judgement.
Kara continued speaking, “We can pass you off easily as a crew member. Just...maybe slouch a bit more and let your speech slur a bit too.”
“Pass her off to who?” Daku asked in suspicion as his eyes narrowed, but they slowly widened in dawning comprehension. “No. No way. We’re not doing what I think you’re about to suggest. It’s idiotic and suicidal.”
“What are you two getting at?” Tarsk asked, looking between the two of them.
“Daku, turn the heading back on course for the mining route,” Kara said, switching back to the nav systems “Keep our speed even.”
“This is insane,” Daku breathed, but he adjusted the freighter’s course all the same.
“Shadow,” Isra bit out in a succinct demand.
Kara swivelled her chair around. “Since we can’t trust anyone in the Fleet and we don’t know who our allies are, we’re going to head where we’ll know we have to stay on our toes. We’re going where they would least expect us to go.” Kara smiled slowly, the expression almost harsh. “We’re going to the Dark Zone, and that ship’s our ride there.”