You mean that watching how he acts around a pretty girl, I might get just the slightest hint that there's something to him besides a mindless automaton? he thought sourly. And if he really is human after all, what does that say about . . . everything?
Aiden looked away from the question in her dark blue eyes. There was no judgment there, but maybe there should be. What did seeing Dax and Lana together, like any two awkward young people getting to know one another, say about the last five years?
He didn't want to have to explore the ramifications of that line of thinking.
“I realize your feelings about everything to do with the gunner are complicated, as well they should be,” his companion continued, rubbing his shoulder in commiseration. “But the longer you keep from addressing this, at least in some form, the more it's going to negatively affect you both. Ever since I've been here I've noti-”
“Incoming!” Barix abruptly snapped, for once showing some emotion besides his usual amused disdain.
Aiden had felt the slight twisting of his brain that went with the rift jump the Ishivi hadn't bothered to inform him of. Although to be fair, even he didn't really expect to be told about routine jumps like this.
But now he definitely felt it as the ship shook.
Cursing, he shoved Ali off his lap and reached for the controls. The one time he let his guard down. Of course, it would be. His companion shifted smoothly over to her station's seat, even as Aiden's quick glance at the readout on his display showed the top two layers of their shields winking out as they overloaded.
They were under attack.
Aiden immediately threw the ship into a roll, not away from the enemy that had managed to get the jump on them but towards it at a slight tangent; the enemy gunner shooting at the Last Stand would probably expect him to try to flee when caught by surprise.
More fools they; he never ran from a fight, he ran to it.
Anticipating his maneuver, the gunner was already firing back with the railgun, scoring a hit on the enemy's shields. Aiden took the Last Stand through an evasive loop that his gunner could predict well enough to stay on target, something he grudgingly had to admit the young man excelled at.
He was too focused on maneuvering to read any sensor data on their attackers. “Who is it?” he demanded. “How'd they ambush us?”
“Enemy bogey's a heavy skiff. Minimal weapons, basic shielding, basic engines,” Barix replied. He'd calmed down from his initial surprise, sounding almost amused. “My guess is they're pirates haunting a commonly used rift point who got lucky.”
“You mean unlucky?” Aiden shot back wryly.
The target lock alarms abruptly screamed to life, nearly drowning out the Ishivi's reply. “Maybe not . . . looks like they've equipped their ship with a heavy-duty missile launcher. I'm reading radioactive emissions from the incoming warhead.”
Aiden had already yanked the Last Stand into a spiral in an attempt to break the lock until the gunner could shoot the missile down, although it wouldn't have to get very close to swamp their shields with a nuclear detonation.
Atomics. Lovely.
The Last Stand's shields would've already been toast, possibly the rest of the ship as well, if the pirates hadn't been such cheap SOBs that they'd tried to take them out with lasers first to save chits on an expensive warhead. Coming out of a rift jump right into a nuclear detonation would've made the attack infinitely more effective, a tactic Aiden would've chosen regardless of expense.
Well, if he survived the next couple minutes he'd make sure the idiots never got a chance to learn from their mistake.
* * * * *
Lana woke screaming, which barely drowned out the deafening noise blaring around her.
She sat up, eyes darting wildly to every corner of the small enclosed space she was in. Her cabin. The one Aiden had given her. The same one she'd fallen asleep in. Safe.
Only it didn't seem safe with a wildly blinking light on the ceiling, not to mention that void-spawned noise! Klaxon, the part of her that recognized things she'd known before her mind wipe told her. She knew it was important, but she couldn't remember what it meant. Although logically, considering she was on a pirate ship, it probably meant they were attacking someone.
And hadn't bothered to even tell her.
Stay in her cabin? probably the best option, unless there was some emergency that required her to evacuate. Would the ship's computer or one of the crew tell her if that was the case? Would they even remember her? Maybe not the best option after all.
Go to the bridge, where she knew people would be, people who could help her? Aiden would be there, or Ali, and almost certainly Dax, since that's where he always was; they'd be able to tell her what was going on and what she should do. Also, she was embarrassed to admit, in her current panicked state it would be reassuring to hear their familiar voices.
Lana didn't so much leap out of bed as get tossed out by the ship suddenly lurching beneath her, blanket tangling in her legs so she slammed shoulder-first into the wall. Pain wasn't a new experience, since she'd had that run-in with those slavers on Midpoint, but it was still jarring and unpleasant; she clutched her hurt shoulder with one hand while she kicked the blanket away, slapping the hand plate to open her door and stumbling out into the corridor.
There were even more wildly blinking lights out here, and the jarring siren noise was even louder. What was the point of having blinding lights and deafening noises during an emergency situation, anyway? To make people more panicked and distracted?
Don't get distracted. She bolted off down the corridor, stumbling as the ship once again lurched beneath her, nearly flinging her
