“Captain, please wake up. Captain...” There’s a small zapping sound.
“Sweet boneless Christ!” Wil hisses, waking from his sleep and rubbing his butt cheek. “What’s going on? Bennie was that you?”
The groggy Brailack opens one eye and sees Wil rubbing the wound. “What? Like did I bite your butt? No, no, I didn’t bite your butt, krebnack.” He rolls over.
“It was me.” Two small yellow circles are staring at Wil and the crew from beyond the bars of their cell.
“Gabe?” Zephyr says, waking.
“Affirmative.”
Maxim sits up. “I thought you were offline.”
“While the energy pulse was certainly powerful, it was insufficient to incapacitate me.”
“It’s been a day...” Wil says, getting to his feet as the droid approaches the door to the cell.
“Despite this new body, I am still an engineer, not a warrior. I decided to wait and see what Lorath and her associates did before acting.”
“You could have let us know,” Wil insists.
The bot shrugs, then grabs the lock and crushes it in one hand.
“Okay, now what?” Cynthia asks.
“Well for one, we leave your ass here, and Gabe bends the door or something to keep you contained,” Zephyr all but snarls.
Before Cynthia can reply Wil holds up both hands. “Ladies. I get it, you hate each other. It’s time to either get over it or at least set it aside. Cynthia has proven she’s with us on this. She’s on our side, Zee.”
Zephyr straightens, mulls what Wil said over, then extends her hand to the feline ex-criminal secretary. “Okay, he’s right. Truce?”
Cynthia grasps Zephyr’s forearm. “Truce.” She looks around, “Now, let’s go make Lorath regret locking us up.” Her grin makes Wil shudder.
Wil looks up at Gabe. “You still connected to the ship’s computer?”
A shake of the head. “Negative. They have disabled the wireless network.”
“Smart,” Bennie says. “Lorath doesn’t need it, and she probably assumed that if we got free, we’d use it.”
Cynthia looks down at Bennie. “Don’t underestimate her. She survived a long time before joining Xarrix. That’s not easy, and even less so for a woman. She’s ruthless.”
Wil shudders, remembering his first meeting with Lorath, shortly after the crew stole the crate with Gabe in it for Xarrix. He’d sent his new team off on shopping errands, while he delivered the news that he would not, in fact, be providing the droid to Xarrix, or his proxy, Lorath. “Yeah, she is.”
Zephyr eyes the hatch leading out of the brig. “Okay, so what’s the plan?”
“I think I have an idea,” Wil says, smiling.
Just then the Ghost lurches, then tilts wildly.
“They’re a kilometer long, it shouldn’t be that hard to hit them!” Lorath is shouting at the lanky Sylban occupying the weapons station.
Its wood-like limbs are moving over the controls. “This console is a mess!” it rattles in its rustling leaves-like voice. “Who configured it?”
“A Peacekeeper—hold on!” she shouts, banking the Ghost hard over to avoid an almost head-on collision with one of the smaller Behemoths. She glances at a Trenbal sitting at the sensor station—younger than Xarrix, a cousin if she recalls. “What’s happening? Can you reach the salvage team?”
“I’m working on it!” the rattled reptilian replies, then at the expression on Lorath’s face, adds, “Ma’am.” A moment later, he says, “I have Captain Gub of the Huflo.”
The overhead speaker beeps. “We’re evacuating this one! There seems to be some type of defense mechanism—Aghh! Watch out Nolpe! Dammit!”
“What’s going on over there, Captain!” Lorath shouts, watching the screen as the Behemoth that’s been attacking them veers off and collides with another. “Captain Gub?”
The comms link is silent. Just as she turns to ask if they’re still connected, it bursts into life again. “We’re aboard the Huflo. You have to destroy this thing!” On the screen, the Huflo and two other salvage vessels detach from the wild Behemoth and jet away on different flight paths, engines flaring brightly at maximum thrust. One vessel isn’t fast enough, shattering like glass against the thick space-being’s hide.
“Target that thing!” Lorath orders the Sylban weapons officer. “Fire everything we have!” A moment later she can see several missiles appear at the bottom of the screen, arcing towards the Behemoth that is now turning back on to an intercept course with them. The first missiles impact against the armor-like outer skin, showing little sign of serious damage. Then the third missile strikes and in a blinding flash breaks the rogue living starship in half. “What the grolack was that?” she asks, turning to the Sylban.
“They have XPX-1900s,” the wood-like alien says, possibly grinning—Lorath finds it hard to tell. “Well, they did.”
Pressing a button, she says, “Captain Gub, the rogue vessel is destroyed. What happened?”
“Good to hear, thank you! One of my assistants cut the wrong fiber. Whatever it was, it almost immediately caused the creature to reactivate. We tried severing the connections like normal, but it activated internal defenses. Small creatures came out of nowhere—violent little yellow things, with blasters and other weapons attached to them, hundreds at once.”
“Good to know, I’ll make sure to pass your experience along to the other teams. Make sure your people are careful, Jurrella won’t like that we’ve had to destroy one of her prizes.” She’s about to cut the connection, then adds, “Oh, and document which fiber your assistant cut so we can share that with the rest of the salvagers.”