“Once again?” I asked. The soldiers had blasted through nearly a third of our water containers. If we wanted to make it to Polaris with any shield left, we’d have to make this quick.
Loch nodded. I moved over slightly, so I would pop out in a new place, then stood and started firing. The break had given the soldiers time to prepare. They returned fire with furious intensity.
My left arm went white-hot then icily numb. The blaster slipped from fingers I could no longer feel. I shot twice more with the blaster in my right hand, until it clicked empty.
“Down,” I called to Loch as I half ducked, half fell back into the protection of the cargo sled. I refused to look at my left arm, happy to leave it in a state of numb unknown until we were safe. “Time for a strategic retreat,” I said with a grimace.
We pulled the sled toward Polaris. And by we, I mean Loch; I mostly held on and tried not to fall down as we were forced to walk backward. With flagging support from the ship—they must be low on ammo—the soldiers became bolder. They were trying to disable our sled.
We were four meters from Polaris’s cargo ramp when they succeeded. The sled slammed down a mere centimeter from my unprotected toes.
“We’re going to have to drag it,” Loch said.
I grabbed the webbing, dug in my feet, and pulled. Loch strained beside me and the sled creaked into motion. I was so focused on pulling, moving my feet, and ignoring my arm that Rhys’s appearance caught me by surprise. He grabbed the webbing and pulled with Loch. The sled rocketed into motion so quickly I had to dance back or risk my toes.
Show-off.
We hit the end of the cargo ramp and finally had the protection of Polaris’s shield. Of course, if any Rockhurst soldiers got inside the shield, they could still shoot us. Rhys handed me a cylinder, then he and Loch grabbed four each.
Veronica covered us with sporadic blaster fire as we made our way up the ramp. As soon as we were inside, she hit the button to close the cargo door and retract the ramp.
“Can someone get us out of here?” I asked. “I’m not sure I’m fit to fly, even if I don’t have to go manual.” My left arm throbbed with increasingly difficult-to-ignore shards of agony. It felt like crushed glass had been embedded under the skin and the pieces grated together with every movement. “And does anyone have a blaster with ammo left?”
Loch left for the flight deck. Rhys handed me a blaster. “What are you thinking?” he asked.
“I’m going to shoot their alcubium supply,” I said.
“Are you sure that’s a good idea?”
My smile was full of teeth. “No.”
“I’ll let Loch know to expect a boom,” Rhys said. “Then I want to see you in the medbay.” He turned to Veronica. “Make sure she gets there, okay?”
“She’ll get there. We didn’t rescue her just to have her die on us now,” Veronica said.
Rhys grinned then disappeared behind me.
I went to the control panel and activated the external PA. “Dear Rockhurst soldiers, I’m going to blow up that pile of alcubium. This is your ten-second warning. I suggest you flee,” I said. I felt better having given them at least a chance to run.
I flopped down on the deck of the cargo bay with a jolt of pain, but the door opened from the bottom. I didn’t want to open it all the way in case the explosion was bigger than I anticipated. “Polaris, open the cargo bay door ten centimeters,” I said.
A chime indicated that the ship still saw me as its captain. Richard hadn’t had time to crack my personal codes with brute force or he hadn’t bothered, thinking me safely in his grasp. He likely would’ve demanded the codes once we were married.
Ha.
“Veronica, can you get ready to close the door?” I asked. She nodded and moved to the controls. “It might get a little explody in here,” I warned.
The door raised just enough for me to see the alcubium. A line of soldiers frantically tried to move cargo in as a barrier, but they were too late. I checked the charge on the gun then fired two warning shots. The soldiers fled. I waited until I couldn’t see them, then fired on the alcubium.
It took three shots.
On the third, the pallet exploded in a bright orange fireball that kept growing as more and more cylinders ruptured. The flames licked against the ship’s shield as warning messages blared. Even with the shield, heat seared my face before the cargo door slid closed.
I blinked the black spots from my vision. Okay, that was a little more energetic than I had expected.
At least the inferno was in a landing bay. If all else failed, they could put out the fire by lowering the atmospheric field and letting the vacuum of space work its magic.
It also meant they’d be less likely to close the blast doors and trap us inside.
“Let’s get you to the medbay,” Veronica said. She helped me to my feet when I wobbled on the way up.
“I should make sure Loch isn’t having trouble with the ship,” I said.
“He’s fine, but you’re not going to be in a few more minutes. You’re going to get patched up now,” she said in her best mom voice.
“Triage now, fix it later,” I said. “There’s a first aid kit on the wall.”
Her mouth compressed into a hard line, but when I didn’t budge she sighed and grabbed supplies out of the kit.
I risked a glance at my left arm and wished I hadn’t.
Blood soaked the sleeve of my shirt and dripped in a sluggish stream from my fingertips. The bolt had caught me on the outside of my arm, halfway between my shoulder and elbow. A large chunk of flesh was missing, leaving a bloody mess.
The hole in my sleeve was singed around the edges, as was my flesh. This was beyond the capability of my nanobots. They’d have their work cut out for them just to stop the bleeding.
I swayed, light-headed, as renewed pain stabbed me with vicious barbs. Veronica returned with a trauma bandage. “You’re just lucky that it was an outside hit,” she said. “Looks like it missed the bone, which will help with recovery.”
I looked away and willed my stomach not to crawl out of my mouth while she applied the compress.
“This bandage buys you fifteen minutes. After that, I expect you in the medbay, even if I have to drag you there myself.”
“Thanks,” I said.
The stairs up to the flight deck were daunting, but Veronica had given me a shot with the bandage and I felt awesome. Which meant it was probably a shot of foxy, and I’d crash hard about the time my bandage was due to be changed. Sneaky woman.
Both Loch and Rhys looked up when I entered the flight deck, but Loch was too busy trying to get us out of the landing bay to yell.
Rhys had no such qualms. “Why aren’t you in the medbay?”
“I will be, just as soon as we’re clear. Veronica stabilized me.” At least I assumed she had because blood no longer dripped from my fingers.
The vid screens were up. We were nearly out of the landing bay, but fire still raged behind us. Gas visibly leaked through the atmospheric field. They were lowering the field slowly, which was smart, as long as they didn’t let the landing bay burn down in the process.
In front of us, a handful of fighters offered heavy resistance. Richard must’ve launched the ships from the other landing bay. The fighters were doing their best to keep us pinned in place. Richard probably wanted them to keep us here until the retrieval ship launched.
Our shields were taking the brunt of the damage, but so were theirs. We couldn’t punch an opening in their line, and Loch needed to get us free of the landing bay so we could jump without risking damage to both Polaris and Santa Celestia.
“Strap in,” Loch barked. I sank into a seat and clipped in. Veronica did the same.
The fighters were playing chicken with our ship. They hovered close enough that if Loch kept creeping out of the landing bay, he ran the risk of overlapping our shields and theirs. If he did, the results could range from nothing to explosive failure of both shields.
Loch eased farther out of the bay, centimeters at a time. He was not going to flinch first, but the fighters must have been under orders to stand their ground. His hands flew over the manual control console.