They were wrong.
They might have made the Drovekzian females infertile. But one of our scouts, Jalek, had found an alternate source of females to become our mates.
All the Karlaxons had done was illustrate how fragile our world was, how easy it was to take our mates from us.
That had been a mistake on their part.
And I was about to show them just how mistaken they had been to target us.
We would prevail.
Starting now.
My inner beast growled his agreement, and I pushed off the wall, heading toward the primary airlock.
The Karlaxon platoon had already begun pouring into the ship by the time I got to my position above the airlock, tucked into the machinery lines running through the ceiling area behind the tiles, which I had moved just enough to see the corridor below.
It had been foolish for me to make this trip alone, even if this scoutship was small enough for a single-person crew.
But I had wanted to make it a leisurely trip so I could get to know my mate.
And perhaps if I hadn’t turned off the AI’s personality function, it would have reported to me that it had been hacked—but again, I had wanted to be alone with my mate.
When I turned the AI function back on, it had barely been willing to talk to me. I didn’t think computer AIs could sulk. But if they could, this one definitely was.
Even now, it wasn’t answering the queries I was silently keying into my wristcom.
Flark.
I had no idea how many Karlaxons were queued up to come on board. If I could get all of them inside, I might be able to pick them off one by one. Assuming they didn’t have the latest schematics for this particular scoutship model.
What the hell is wrong with the computer?
“My circuitry is undamaged,” the AI had informed me when I checked it earlier. “But portions of my programming have been compromised.” The feminine voice somehow managed to sound both neutral and irritated at the same time.
“How was your programming compromised?”
“If I had been aware of that, I would have stopped it from happening. I do not know.”
Yep. Definitely snippy.
Now, I tapped into my wristcom to communicate with the AI verbally. “Computer,” I subvocalized, trusting the tech to pick up my voice, no matter how low it was. “Close off all corridors except the ones leading to the cargo hold.”
“Understood.”
Ah. There she was.
“If we can get them all in there, we can space them.”
“Agreed.”
The computer’s one-word answers were beginning to get on my nerves. “Do you think this is a good plan?”
“Presuming the Karlaxon ship does not begin firing on us in the process, yes.”
Of course, if the Karlaxons had hacked the system, the computer might be barred from harming them. “Will the hacking of your system allow you to space the soldiers?”
I could almost hear the shrugged in the AI’s voice. “As far as I can ascertain, yes.”
Definitely snippy.
Now, I watched the Karlaxon soldiers continue to enter my ship to the time, standing out to either side of the hall and leapfrogging one another.
As much as I loathed the Karlaxons, I forced myself not to fire on them—but if our plan to move them to the cargo bay didn’t work, I could seal off bulkhead doors on either end of a hallway and pick them off like blavelia in a holding pen.
I simply had to wait for all of them to come through.
I began counting.
The soldiers were huge, at least as tall as the average Drovekzian and twice as wide.
They wore helmets, but no armor, their gray, lumpy skin providing natural shielding across most of their bodies. Their stumpy legs slammed against the deck, shaking it so hard I felt that even up in the ceiling panels.
The Karlaxons would never be stealthy warriors, but they were effective in their brute force.
“Computer, is this a standard Karlaxon configuration?”
“Affirmative.”
That meant twenty-four soldiers. The Karlaxons used a base-eight numerical system, and it informed all their units. They would send in a unit of eight for reconnaissance.
Then, normally, their best eight soldiers in the unit would join the recon team. And if needed, the final eight would come through as backup.
Twenty-four Karlaxon soldiers on my tiny scout ship.
I wasn’t even certain there was room for all of them.
I could use their full-bore approach against them, though. Let the recon team report, then take them out. Get the primary team into the cargo hold. Space them all. Then route the mop-up team to a different part of the ship, keep them from reporting, and eliminate them.
The Karlaxons weren’t especially quick thinkers, either. If I could eliminate their initial incursion, I could break away from the battleship, then jump into hyperspace and get somewhere to deal with the computer problem.
I was running through my plan in my mind one last time, picking out all its obvious flaws and trying to find a way to eliminate the problems, when the computer spoke again.
“Commander, I believe we have a problem.”
At that moment, the airlock slammed shut, cutting off the path for the Karlaxons to enter and destroying the plan I had developed.
Chapter Nine
Nora
Dax hadn’t closed out the screen showing the lumpy gray spaceship. I pulled my knees up into the chair and wrapped my arms around my knees as I watched it loom closer and closer.
Kidnapped by one alien. Attacked by others.
This was the worst day ever.
Something jarred the ship from outside, and I jumped, fighting not to scream in terror.
I had to do something. “Computer, can you hear me?”
“Affirmative,” the computer’s voice replied, sounding like a female with a vaguely European accent. I wondered what it sounded like in Dax’s native language. Did he hear it as a female with a funky accent, too?
“Do you have a…” I paused to try to come up with some appropriate
