“What is he talking about?” I said.
“She… She wasn’t supposed to be there,” Horn Tusk said. “She wasn’t supposed to be in the kitchen. The young human female was meant to be alone. But Maisie wouldn’t let me pass, wouldn’t stand down.”
The truth knocked the wind from my lungs. “You killed her?”
“No!” Horn Tusk said. “I would never harm her. She’s the best cook I’ve ever known. I didn’t hurt her. When I tried to move past her and into the pantry, she suddenly clutched her chest and fell down. I didn’t touch her, I swear.”
Maisie was the closest thing to a mother the crew had ever known.
I wiped the spittle from the corner of my mouth. Anger surged in me. Not only because they had tried to kill Alice but because their selfish greed had led to the death of the kindest woman I’d ever known.
I roared and ran at Horn Tusk, blade poised to skewer him the way his appearance in the kitchen had skewered Maisie’s heart.
And then I froze, poised to deliver the final blow.
Horn Tusk clenched his eyes shut, unable to watch as the blade hovered less than an inch from his eye.
I breathed deeply, struggling to comprehend why anyone would want to harm Alice or Maisie. They were innocents.
“Yield,” I said.
“Wha—What?” Horn Tusk said. “You’re not going to kill me?”
“I said, yield!” I barked, threatening my sword’s edge once more.
“I yield! I yield!” Horn Tusk said.
I backed away, fearful I might carry through with the hate and the venom poisoning my veins. The crew had succeeded in turning my soul black, even if it wasn’t with the tool they’d expected.
The news of Maisie’s death was a gut punch. I couldn’t bear it.
“We’re done here,” I said. “We’re finished.”
“We’re not done here,” Rattigan sneered. “I can see the weakness in you. You can barely stand on your feet.”
Horn Tusk struggled to his feet and moved to block Rattigan, who shrugged him off.
“I refuse to let any more profits slip through my claws just because of our weak captain’s conscience,” he said.
He drew a sword and aimed it at me. “I Challenge you, Captain.”
Rattigan was a more opportunistic foe than Horn Tusk. He was quick, mean, and always quick to seize an opportunity. A true survivor.
Meanwhile, I limped from the sickness, struggling to keep myself upright. This time, it wasn’t an act, and by the dangerous glint in his eye, I think he knew that.
He came at me, swinging viciously. He stabbed and probed, checking my defenses. I fended him off successfully but sustained a shallow cut above my eyebrow. His tail flashed and wrapped around my limping ankle. Too slow to re-balance, I swung as I fell, giving me a fraction of a second to see his next attack before responding.
He leaped and raised the blade in both hands, following through with a solid thrust.
I rolled to one side at the last moment.
The blade’s tip cut a swathe through the metal floor, joining a pair formed in earlier Challenges.
I couldn’t keep up with his attacks. It was a new experience for me, feeling inferior to another fighter.
Rattigan screamed, “Hah!” as he followed up with one strike and then a second.
And this time, I would be done.
“Hold it right there!”
Rattigan blinked, hesitating.
It was enough.
I raised my blade and deflected his attack from me. I ground my teeth and rolled toward a familiar pair of boots marching into the engine bay.
My heart leaped. There she stood, my savior.
My hero.
My lover.
She cradled a blaster in one hand as if it’d been tailor-made for her. She aimed it squarely at Rattigan’s ugly pinched grill.
He growled but didn’t lower his weapon. “Interruptions are not allowed during the Challenge!”
“This isn’t an interruption,” Alice spat. “This is an intervention!”
Rattigan frowned at the distinction. Most of the crew were. I certainly was.
Hurried footsteps rushed up behind her. She must have bolted as fast as her legs could carry her to reach me so far ahead of the others. She’d saved my life.
As the men entered behind her, my grin of hope curdled by the heat of despair.
They were not our rescuers. They were our doom.
Almost twenty-four hours earlier, after consuming the first meal devoid of the poisonous Absor I’d had in three weeks, we were interrupted by a knock at the door. It was Stryder, informing me we’d picked up a distress beacon a few minutes ago and wanted my input into how we should proceed.
I played my little game on Alice, almost managing to get her to undress me, before proceeding up onto the deck. There, I learned, just a few short hours from our position, was a ship in distress. Wrapped within the beacon was a recording of the call to action.
“Play message on the screen,” I said.
The captain of a Vestoil ship appeared onscreen. The image was grainy and cut out every few seconds. His crew worked at their consoles in the background.
“I am Captain Morstaad of the Vestoil Cruiser, Raesdok, identification number: 81634152. We have suffered a critical engine malfunction after we were attacked by a merciless brigand of pirates. We were able to fight them off but our engine suffered severe damage. By our calculations, in less than a week, it will explode. The best we can do is patch it up. I doubt we’ll be alive long enough for anyone to hear this message, but if you do, perhaps there is still time. You can find our coordinates embedded within this message. Please save us. We need your help.”
The message turned fuzzy and cut out.
“What do you think?” I said to Stryder.
“The message is less than a day old,” he said. “They could still be out there. And if they’ve been fighting with pirates, there’s a lot of potential salvage material.”
“It’ll take us off course,” I said.
“Only by a few hours. We could clean up with this haul.”
“Their engine could explode at any moment,” I said. “You heard him.”
“He gave
