I limped down the corridor and began to go room-to-room. There were a half dozen doors—leading to various ready rooms, technology bays, or control rooms. All were empty—except the last room at the end of the corridor. That final door slid open and there was Chiraine, huddled up in one corner, sitting on the floor with her knees tucked up to her chin—as if trying to make herself as small and unobtrusive as possible. Her face was bruised and battered and one eye was swollen badly. She had obviously been tortured.
I couldn’t believe what they had done to her.
She blinked in disbelief as I strode into the room and made my visor transparent so she could see me.
“Jannigan? Holy shit. Is that you?”
“Yeah. We need to get out of here. Can you walk?”
“How did you—?”
“Later. We’re running out of time.”
I helped her to her feet and then into the survival suit. She was shaky, but I held her up with one arm, while keeping my other on my gun. Just in case the Faiurae jumped out of nowhere.
Cautiously, we wound our way back to the fore deck. Chiraine’s eyes widened at the sight of the Faiurae corpses.
“There’s one still out there,” I told her. “Keep your eyes open.”
I flipped my visor back to normal and launched my last micro drone. It buzzed down the corridor in full alert mode.
“How did you even get here?”
“A starhopper I found in the Freya’s hold. It’s an old beater, but someone had added a cloaking device, so I got a little jump on our friends here.”
“It isn’t that one, is it?” She pointed to a porthole.
I followed her glance and saw the T-9—my T-9—flying away from the Faiurae ship. My chest tightened like a fist was squeezing my heart. How could this be?
But I knew how it could be. The last Faiurae commando had stolen the starhopper—leaving us trapped on a ship it knew we couldn’t fly.
Then it got worse.
An alarm klaxon sounded. It was deafening.
Chiraine clamped her hands over her ears. “What is that?” she yelled.
We raced down to engineering, and I frantically scanned the display for some clue as to what was going on. As my visor translated the warning codes, my worst fears were confirmed.
The ship was set to self-destruct.
Chiraine scowled at me. “Some rescue this is!”
My mind raced, trying to figure a way out of this. “What about lifepods? There have to be lifepods!”
“There were lifepods,” Chiraine said.
She pointed to the schematic. Both lifepods were grayed out and a Faiurae word flashed on the status display. My suit’s scanner translated the word as “EJECTED.”
Great. Just great. I couldn’t believe the Faiurae captain had left his own crew to die.
“How much time do we have?” Chiraine asked.
The display was ticking down until the self-destruct sequence would activate. It was less than five minutes. Not enough time to do anything. This was the end…
Chiraine shook me out of my reverie. “Call the Freya!”
There was no way they’d reach us in time, but she was right. I had to let them know what had happened.
“Come in Freya. This is Jannigan. We have a situation here.”
“Oh, now you want to talk to me?” Ana-Zhi Agrada’s mocking tones sounded in my suit’s comm unit.
“I got Chiraine, but we’re trapped on the Faiurae ship.”
“What?”
“I took them all out, except one. The bastard took my starhopper and set this bucket of bolts to blow. Four minutes and twenty seconds.”
“Get to the lifepods!”
“Ejected.”
“Shit! Let me think.”
I heard her yelling commands at Hap, but couldn’t quite make out what she was saying.
“I just needed to let you know,” I said. “I’m sorry. It was the wrong move to make.”
“Shut up, Jannigan. You have a suit for Chiraine?”
“Of course, but—”
“Get out an airlock. Closest one. Do whatever you can to get away from that ship! As far away as you can!”
Then it hit me. Ana-Zhi was right. There might be a way out of this.
The closest airlock was the one I came in through—at the bottom of the cargo hold. We raced down the ramp and over to the airlock hatch. Looking through the porthole I verified that the starhopper was indeed gone.
A deep, ominous rumble sounded from deep within the ship.
Mindful that we had less than three minutes left, I undid the neck strap for Chiraine’s survival suit and activated its emergency life support mode. A soft helmet/hood extended outwards and I secured that over her head. Then I worked on sealing her hands and feet.
“Jannigan,” she said. “Whatever happens…thank you. Thank you for trying.”
“You can thank me once we’re back on the Freya. Now come on!”
“And I need to tell you something.”
“No time!”
“It’s important!”
I checked my own suit. Everything looked good. Life support was in the green. Temp control was activated. Full seal. We got in position within the airlock.
Ninety seconds left.
Here goes nothing. I slammed my fist on the airlock release button and the outer hatch door flew open in a puff of air.
“Hang on!” I clutched Chiraine against me, set my boots to max thrust and then pushed off into space—propelled by the suit’s magtouch unit. Even in combat mode I knew it wouldn’t do much, but I also fired all the weapons I had towards the ship, trying to create a little thrust away from it. I was thankful I had chosen slug throwers instead of blasters.
“You okay?” I asked Chiraine. Our comm units had automatically linked once her survival suit activated.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the Faiurae ship quiver.
“Listen, this is important,” Chiraine said. “There’s something you should know…before we, um, die…”
Another voice joined the conversation. “No one’s dying just yet!” It was Ana-Zhi Agrada. “Turn around! Three o’clock!”
I turned and there—seventy-five meters away—Ana-Zhi stood upright on the Freya’s sled. She
