Hotbloods 6: Allies

“Not so fast, Mort. We’ve got things to do first. I think I should check the compass—see if we’re getting any closer to Lauren,” I suggested, knowing we needed to pick up speed if we wanted to catch up to her. So far, we’d been keeping our distance, the green dot always flashing a little way ahead of us, but now that gap needed to be closed.

The others agreed, and we made our way back to the cockpit, where Bashrik had left the compass balanced on the dashboard. It was still flashing with three green dots, but one of them was lingering at the farthest edge of the map’s domain. In the time it had taken us to get Killick out into space, Lauren’s location had shifted dramatically, pushing the limits of what we could see on the holograph. Panic bristled through my veins.

“Is she too far ahead?” Angie asked frantically. “Can we catch up to her?”

“She isn’t getting away, Ange. Don’t worry,” Bashrik assured her. He slid into the pilot’s seat and pushed the throttle to full capacity, the ship firing forward with a forceful pull that sent me staggering backward. I kept my eyes on the compass, watching our agonizingly slow progression toward Lauren’s dot, which was already halfway off the map.

“Is it just me, or has she stopped?” Navan asked, five minutes later, frowning at the holograph. True, the dot had been pushed to the very edge of the map’s limits, but it didn’t seem to be moving anymore.

I peered closer. “I’m not sure.”

“No, I think you’re right. The dot isn’t moving,” Ronad agreed, leaning over Navan’s shoulder to get a better look.

“Which planet is that?” Navan asked, gesturing to a small gold circle that pulsed on the map. Since having the compass, I’d come to realize that the silver marks represented stars, bronze marks represented meteors and space debris, and the gold marks represented planets and moons.

Bashrik scanned the map against the ship’s navigation system, picking out the planet that Navan was pointing to. His face fell as a set of symbols flashed up on the monitor. “You don’t want to know,” he muttered grimly.

“What do you mean? Where is it?” I pressed.

“It’s the Junkyard,” Ronad stated, shaking his head in disbelief. “Of all the planets in the universe, why’d it have to be that one?”

Bashrik nodded. “My thoughts exactly.”

Navan didn’t look too pleased either, but nobody was explaining what the problem was. It didn’t sound too bad—it just sounded like the kind of place we’d visited on Wander. A planet covered in trash and scrap.

“Can someone tell us humans what the hell is going on here?” Angie chimed in.

“Yeah, what’s so bad about a junkyard?” I asked.

Ronad shook his head. “Not a junkyard, the Junkyard.”

Navan slipped his arm around my shoulders. “It’s a notorious planet, rumored to be inhabited by the worst criminals in this quadrant of the universe. Pirates, scavengers, robbers, gangsters, you name it—they’re all here,” he explained. “The authorities don’t even bother with it; they’ve all taken hush money to keep their distance. Plus, the last time a Fed team tried to raid it, they all disappeared without a trace. Nobody else wants to risk it.”

“The Junkyard? That’s Ezra’s candy store. He’s always heading there to pick up weapons shipments for Orion,” Mort said suddenly, surprising us all.

I frowned, remembering what Stone had said about delivering shipments to Ezra. It was impossible to be sure whether it was the same Ezra that we knew, but two and two generally made four. I mean, it made sense for Stone to go there, if that was the case. He was a dealer in black-market goods, after all, and the Junkyard was the perfect place for those kinds of people. I just prayed he didn’t plan to trade Lauren while he was there.

“What does he collect for Orion?” I pressed, flashing Mort a curious glance. In the weeks we’d been traveling together, Mort had told us a lot about the rebels on Earth—how the base was set up, how many units they had, what they used to keep it shielded, how many failed trials they’d performed with the elixir to his knowledge, and how many soldiers Orion had at his disposal. It was a lot of useful information, which we were grateful for, but it always felt like he was holding something back. No matter how much it seemed like he’d hitched his loyalty to us, I still wasn’t sure whether I could fully trust Mort. Even he had told me never to fully trust him, and I was pretty certain he hadn’t been joking.

Mort shrugged. “Just weapons. You name it, he wanted them. I saw a crate of implosion grenades once, but I never got a good look at the rest of the booty he brought back. I just know it wasn’t rainbows and marshmallows.”

“So, this place is nasty. That’s the crux of it, right?” Angie said, her tone anxious.

Bashrik nodded. “The nastiest.”

“Well, we’ve still got some weapons. If we don’t attract too much attention, we should be fine, right?” she asked.

“In a ship like this, the only thing we’ll do is attract attention,” Mort mocked. “They’re like piranhas down there. The minute we set down, we’ll have nothing but a frame to escape in.”

“This thing does have a state-of-the-art invisibility shield, though, which I’ve been dying to use,” Bashrik remarked, gesturing to the control panel. “We’ll just have to park it somewhere isolated, where no one can accidentally walk into it. We can hide from the scanners if we’re smart.”

“Good idea. We should probably make sure we’re armed when we land, too, like Angie said,” I suggested. “We could take a look around the ship, see if we can find any extra weapons lying around. I’m sure Killick must have some tucked away.”

“I want to run a few diagnostics on the ship’s shield before we land,” Navan said, leaning down to kiss me on the lips. “Happy hunting. Hopefully, that merevin has a bazooka hidden away somewhere.”

I grinned. “I’ll earmark it for you, babe.”

“I can help you out,” Ronad offered. “I really know my way around this ship now.”

With that, Ronad and I left the cockpit and wandered through the ship, rooting through every cupboard and cabinet, determined to find something useful. We still had the guns and one knife from the Coeptis, but we couldn’t exactly walk around with the spear in plain sight. It had folded smaller so we could bring it onto the maintenance transport and carry it throughout Wander, but it still wasn’t the most discreet of weapons.

“You find anything?” Ronad asked, as we reconvened in the main space of the vessel.

I shook my head, brandishing the feeble selection I’d managed to find. There were two knives, two huge staffs, and a gun of some sort—which I wasn’t entirely convinced was a weapon at all. It looked more like a drill, or some other kind of tool. Ronad had a similar collection, though he wasn’t trying to grapple with two cumbersome staffs, which we definitely wouldn’t be able to use anyway.

“Where’s a good old-fashioned coldblood arsenal when you need one?” I joked.

He laughed. “Tell me about it. I never thought I’d wish for a set of coldblood throwing stars.”

“Do you think we have enough, with these knives and the guns we brought?”

Ronad looked doubtful. “I think we might have to see what we can buy from the Junkyard itself. There are plenty of things we can trade or sell from the ship, even without the stuff Killick took with him.”

I thought about the small bottle of serum that Kaido had made for me, and the powerful abilities it held within. If we couldn’t protect ourselves against Stone and the other criminals on the Junkyard with weapons and traditional means, then I would have to rely on that extra boost. Well, as long as it actually worked when the time came…

We went back into the cockpit, and the others turned to us with expectant eyes. “What’d you find?” Angie asked.

“A couple of knives. And a drill,” I said, chuckling tightly. It was a sorry situation.

“Same here,” Ronad added. “Although, we’ve still got the guns from the Coeptis, so we’re not going in there completely unarmed.”

An anxious air settled over the group as the Junkyard appeared through the windshield. We were approaching fast, with Bashrik turning on the invisibility shield as we came closer. It wasn’t enough to land on the planet undetected; we needed to explore and search for Lauren undetected, too.





Chapter Twelve