“Sorry, he isn’t with me. He’s in the shuttle bay, stripping that ship of its décor.”

  While Kisk thanked her, Baknu told Aru, “Raise the bay manager on the com and ask him what the hell is going on.” Without waiting for acknowledgment, he turned to Kisk. “Get a stasis field on that shuttle.”

  “Too late. It’s traveling a full speed and is already out of range.” Kisk gestured at the vid. The shuttle’s shape, black against the backdrop of the star, had replaced the departed zip-ship. It dwindled as it fled.

  “What’s its heading?”

  “The same direction the zip went. Towards Dantovon.” Kisk glared at Baknu. “Gabriel doesn’t know how to pilot a shuttle.”

  A chill ran down Baknu’s spine. “Nal’s the type to have places he could hide illegal cargo to sneak past officials.”

  “And Aksukts doesn’t show up on scans.” Kisk paled. “We searched the vessel, but if he was able to hide on board…”

  “I’ve tried several times, but there’s no answer from the shuttle bay, Captain,” Aru reported.

  “Give me the bay’s vid feed.”

  Yord shook his head. “The relay’s down between the bridge and the bay. Someone’s erased the passcodes. I can’t give you the feed without rebooting the entire system, Captain.”

  “Helm, follow that shuttle, full speed. When we’re in range, throw a stasis field on it.” The freighter, with its massive engines, would catch up to the escaped craft eventually despite its head start. Meanwhile, Baknu needed to find out what had happened to half a dozen of his crew, and hopefully get a firm understanding of Gabriel’s situation. He hoped it wasn’t as bad as he feared.

  “Kisk, let’s go see what happened in the shuttle bay.”

  * * * *

  They reached the shuttle bay door, which shouldn’t have been closed…a bad sign right away. It hummed at their approach, as if to open, but remained shut.

  Kisk, who’d arrived a few steps ahead of Baknu, tapped impatiently at the manual controls. “Door open!” he shouted. When it refused, he hit it.

  Baknu could have shouted too, but he clung to calm. “It’s not the automatic controls, my Nobek. I can hear the panels trying to open. Something’s holding it shut. Let’s see if we can force it.”

  Each man shoved at one of the double sliding doors, striving to pry them apart. Their faces reddened with exertion, sweat beaded from their foreheads, but neither door budged.

  “Let me.” Takat was there, his expression grim.

  Baknu wondered who’d alerted his Imdiko that Gabriel might be in trouble, but it wasn’t important at the moment.

  “I’ll take this door panel. You two shove the other.” Takat planted his feet. “Now.”

  Pushing with all their might, the doors finally began to inch apart. Through the gap, Baknu spied a thick metal beam.

  “Vacuum…bar. It’ll catch…on the lips…of the doors,” he grunted. That meant they wouldn’t be able to open it.

  “Shove the doors as far apart as you can. When you have room, give it a kick.” Takat snarled, his muscles bulging as he put all his prodigious strength into a mighty heave.

  “Motherfucker, open!” Kisk swore at the door.

  Baknu redoubled his efforts until the gap opened enough for him to put his foot through. “Letting go…hold it in place, Kisk.”

  The Dramok released the door. Kisk screamed with effort as he fought to keep it open by himself, strained to keep it from slicing his clanmate’s foot off as Baknu attempted kicking the barrier loose.

  Baknu booted the beam with everything he had. Only one side of its vacuum seal was knocked loose, but it was enough. The doors flew apart, throwing Takat to the ground as Kisk flailed for balance.

  Baknu waited for neither clanmate. He raced into the bay. Right away, he saw the crew was down, lying senseless. He checked the first man he came to for a pulse.

  “Alive.”

  “This man too.” Takat had gone to another crewmate.

  “It looks like a shockwave attack.” Kisk was on his com as he hurried to the computer podium. “Medical to shuttle bay. Six men down.”

  While Baknu and Takat checked on the rest, Kisk tapped furiously on the bay’s main computer. Baknu couldn’t help but stare at the empty space where Mit-noc’s shuttle had been docked.

  “I have that vid footage you wanted, Captain.”

  Baknu and Takat joined Kisk. They watched the vid of Gabriel and Kisk entering the bay, waving to the crew, and boarding the shuttle.

  “I left only a few minutes later.” Kisk fast-forwarded the footage. “There.”

  Medics charged into the bay. “Check them for shockwave effects,” Baknu called to the group and returned his attention to the vid.

  “Nothing, nothing, nothing,” Kisk muttered as he rushed through the recording. “Whoa.”

  He reversed the recording a few seconds so Baknu could see the bay crew suddenly drop to the floor, falling to the positions they’d found them in.

  “Definitely a shockwave. Son of a bitch,” Baknu cursed as the vid showed Mit-noc exiting the shuttle with the vacuum bar. He went to the doors and barricaded them.

  Kisk growled. Takat muttered a few expletives of his own.

  They watched Mit-noc go to the very computer podium they stood at. A few taps, and the bay hatch opened to space. The Aksukt hurried to the shuttle and boarded it. Less than a minute later, it took off.

  “The bastard has Gabriel.”

  * * * *

  I have to get out of this.

  In an ocean of growing confusion, Gabriel kept repeating that thought, struggling to maintain coherence. His brain operated slowly, however. The room insisted on reeling. There were moments when it grayed out completely.

  “Mit-noc, this is Captain Baknu. Bring Gabriel back.”

  Baknu. Gabriel peered through the growing mists towards that loved voice, as if he might see his Dramok.

  He’s on the com. Wake up.

  Mit-noc hadn’t responded to the summons. He hunched in the pilot’s chair, muttering to himself as he operated the shuttle’s controls.

  “We’re in pursuit. This ship is faster than yours, and we will catch you. Give yourself up and I’ll guarantee you’ll be treated with mercy.”

  Mit-noc laughed. “Hear that, Earther? He’ll grant me mercy. Which is the tool of ridiculous, lower creatures, such as yourself.”

  His tone was derisive, but Gabriel detected a thread of fear in the Aksukt’s tone. A spark of hope helped him fight off a little of the drug’s effects. He looked around the room, desperate for any object that would help him.

  Mit-noc must have a passcode to these shackles. If he comes near enough, if I can grab him, hurt him to make him tell me what it is…

  “Last warning, Mit-noc. Come in on your own, or there won’t be anything remaining of you to stand trial.”

  A thrill of terror filled Gabriel. Baknu’s calm had shattered. He sounded downright murderous.

  Gabriel yanked desperately, trying to pull free. The manacle held him, the chains attaching it to the wall clinking as he jerked against them. He couldn’t get loose. In a rush of frustrated fury, he grabbed at the chain with his free hand. He pulled it with all his weight, but it wouldn’t budge.

  A detail caught his attention. He stared at a rectangular hole in the manacle. It didn’t go all the way through.

  A keyhole? Perhaps. If it was, Mit-noc must have the key. Maybe in a pocket. Gabriel had to somehow bait his captor into entering the room. Tempt him towards the bed. Knock him out in such a way that the Aksukt would fall across the mattress Gabriel stood on, so he could search him, so he could unlock the manacle and get free…

  How to render him unconscious?

  The geode he’d admired before sparkled from the pile of decorating items. It was big and heavy. Maybe big enough to put a dent in Mit-noc’s skull. It appeared close enough to grab. Gabriel reached for it, but in a vicious twist of perception, the pile and the geode on top receded into the distance, a mile from his straining fingertips.

  Yet a shock of excitement blasted through Gabriel. His silvery bracelet glinted at him. His bracelet, with its removable flex metal wire. The wire he used to pick locks.

  He looked again at that rectangular hole. The manacle was thick. Primitive. Clumsy. No doubt if that was a manual keyhole, the mechanism inside would be as heavy and require some force to trigger. Flex metal bent easily. It probably wouldn’t work.

  Barring Mit-noc coming near enough for Gabriel to pound into submission with his bare hands—with one bare hand—it was all he had.

  With Baknu ranting on the com and Mit-noc muttering with increasing irritation in the background, Gabriel waited for a wave of dizziness to pass. It did recede, but he wasn’t as clearheaded as before the latest episode. The room tilted, and he swayed in the frantic attempt to maintain his balance. He braced himself against the wall at his back.

  He brought his wrist to its trapped twin. He plucked at the small nub that was the head of the removable wire. It came out easily, a finger-length strand, the thickness of a paperclip.

  He dropped it.

  Gabriel cursed and lunged for it where it twinkled on the mattress he’d stripped a lifetime ago. Like the geode, it was near but impossibly out of reach.

  His sudden change of posture fouled his equilibrium. His surroundings rocked wildly, and his stomach heaved. He fought the vertigo and nausea with grim determination, but his vision turned gray, hedging towards black. Gabriel was on the verge of passing out.

  Please. Please, make it stop. Please.

  Somehow, his sight cleared a little. The cabin eased into that slight swaying he’d gotten used to. His guts continued to churn, but they settled so he wasn’t on the threshold of puking.

  Gabriel drew a couple deep breaths and carefully straightened. He stared at the flex wire. An idea wove through the increasingly twisted pathways of his drugged brain.

  He toed his loafer off, again bracing himself against the wall and moving slowly to avoid upsetting his balance. He’d worn no socks, fortunately.

  It wasn’t a far reach for his foot to the wire. He concentrated with all his might to wrap his toes around it, to grip it.

  Gross, Gabriel. I’m not touching that when your monkey foot’s been all over it.

  He chuffed a brief laugh at Iliana’s voice in his head. She hated his habit of picking things up off the floor with his bare toes instead of bending down to grab them. Where had he gotten that tendency?

  Concentrate. You can do this.

  His big toe curled around the wire. He had it.

  Slowly, cautiously, he bent his leg upwards, reaching for that glimmering hope. An instant later, he gripped it in his palm.

  A small victory. Okay. Next hurdle.

  He worked to bend the wire between fingers and teeth, doubling it over to make it a sturdier thickness before curving it like an old-fashioned hairpin, the shape he’d used to pick Earther locks. He shoved it in what he prayed was the manacle’s keyhole and twisted.

  At the same moment, his equilibrium, set off perhaps by some motion of the shuttle, lurched. Gabriel jolted violently, and he fell. The shackle stopped his descent, jerking his arm and setting off an agonizing flash of pain from his shoulder.

  He hung onto the wire somehow. Its clumsy curve was a misshapen mess. On one hand, the sight of it cheered Gabriel. There was a mechanism inside the hole. But it hadn’t sprung open. The flex metal was probably too yielding to unlock it.

  Keep trying. It’s all I have to get out of this, to go home to my clan.

  Gabriel planted his feet on the mattress. Slowly stood as the surface beneath him pitched, as his stomach threatened to empty. He waited for the faintness to pass and tried again.

  * * * *

  Mit-noc scowled at the readout of the freighter closing in on him. Within minutes, it would be near enough to extend a containment field. Fast, cunning maneuvers would keep him out of the Kalquorians’ clutches for a little while, but in the end, they’d catch him.

  Damn Nal. The unmanned zip-ship he’d sent had provided only the barest moment’s distraction. Had Gabriel been anywhere but on Mit-noc’s shuttle when it had shown up, the Aksukt wouldn’t have had the opportunity to find and capture him.

  Lower lifeforms couldn’t be counted on for anything.

  Mit-noc was out of options but for one last desperate move, one that foul-mouthed, disrespectful Captain Baknu would never see coming. Mit-noc’s excellent piloting abilities would be taxed to their limits…possibly beyond. But win or lose, Aksukt superiority would deprive the primitive bastard’s clan of their prize.

  Mit-noc set course for the nearby star.

  * * * *

  Gabriel was ready to concede to failure. He had no alternative but to give up. The lock insisted on bending the flex wire out of shape. The nausea was crippling. He was faint, the fog thickening and creeping over his gaze with every passing second.

  One last try. It was all he had remaining in him. He’d triple-folded the metal in the attempt to make it thick and sufficiently strong to trigger the mechanism. It was short, though, hard to maintain a grip on as he stabbed it at the cuff. He kept hold of it by his fingertips, most of it disappearing into the hole. He gritted his teeth.

  Last time pays for all. He couldn’t remember where he’d heard that line before. Some book he’d read long ago, most likely.

  It doesn’t matter. Focus.

  Right. This was his final, frustrated attempt. He twisted the wire with what strength was left to him. Felt the flex metal bend. It hadn’t worked.

  The shackle suddenly sprang open. He collapsed on the bed.

  Gabriel lay where he’d fallen, surprise at his success mixing with exhaustion. Exhaustion won out. The mattress was soft. Comfortable. Sweet rest beckoned, urging him to close his eyes.

  “Mit-noc, what the fuck are you doing? Divert before you fry!”

  Why did Baknu continue threatening the Aksukt? It was obvious, even in Gabriel’s swoony state, that Mit-noc wouldn’t surrender.

  That means it’s up to me. Come on, soldier, on your feet.

  He forced himself to roll, halting an inch from the edge of the mattress to stop himself from crashing to the floor.

  Okay. Sit up. That’s all you have to do. Concentrate.

  Feet down. Pushing against the mattress. Torso upright. Waiting for dizziness to ease, for the darkness to recede.

  Gabriel stood, rising slowly, carefully. He held his balance an entire second before falling back onto the bed.

  Come on.

  Climbing to his feet. Swaying, fighting for stability, somehow finding it. What next? His gaze fell on the fist-sized geode.

  Right. He lurched toward the pile of goodies he’d collected.

  The geode was heavy in his fist. Heavier than he remembered. Maybe it felt that way because of the drug.

  Focus.

  Gabriel turned to face the cockpit. Took a few steps. He wanted to go straight, but his feet had other ideas. They walked him into the wall instead. At first, Gabriel couldn’t believe Mit-noc hadn’t heard him as he bounced off the hard surface, barely managing to catch his balance against a seat in the main passenger cabin. At least he was out of that bedroom section. He’d made it farther than he’d had any right to hope.

  Baknu’s still yelling at him. Tell him, big man. Give him holy hell.

  Gabriel planted his wobbly legs and waited for his equilibrium to return. When it failed to do so, he used the seats along the aisle to keep him headed for the white-skinned alien. He squinted against the bright vid of a sun that hovered in front of Mit-noc.

  Halfway to his goal, he stumbled. It coincided with the same moment Baknu took a break from shouting. Gabriel managed to stay upright, but Mit-noc turned. He gaped to see his prisoner loose.

  “You stupid, primitive—”

  Whatever he thought of Gabriel beyond his intelligence and state of evolution, Mit-noc forgot to say. He leapt from his seat, knobby fingers reaching, red eyes scorching with desperate fury.

  Chapter Sixteen

  For Gabriel, the next few seconds were a confusion of whirling sights: Mit-noc’s scarlet eyes burning from his skull-like face. The blue carpeted floor. The black leather seats. Mit-noc again, his gash of a mouth wide and screaming. The burning sun in the vid, full of leaping flames, a hellscape background for the chaos.

  Pain erupted from different points of Gabriel’s body as he and Mit-noc lurched throughout the cabin. They kept crashing into the seats, the wall, the cozy little dining nook behind the cockpit.

  Gabriel had only two goals during the struggle: stay on his feet and hit his captor with the colorful rock that weighed more with every passing second.

  He had better luck with the second objective than the first. His knees were made of water. Only by clinging to Mit-noc with one hand while he swung with the other did he manage to remain upright as long as he did. When the Aksukt went down, so did Gabriel.

  Fortunately, he dropped on top of Mit-noc. Filled with terror that his foe would get the advantage and imprison him again, Gabriel slammed the Aksukt’s skull with the geode. Mit-noc screeched and tried to throw him off. Gabriel hit him again. And again. And again.

  “Stay—down—you—ugly—lumpy—fuck,” Gabriel wheezed between blows.

  He wasn’t sure how much later it was when he realized Mit-noc had stopped moving. Black fluid ran in slow, thin dribbles from several cuts on the Aksukt’s head. His eyes were closed.

  Gabriel rolled off him. Lay on the floor, gasping. Watched the ceiling fade in and out several times before it steadied. Listened to Baknu, who’d started yelling again. Gabriel’s ears buzzed, making it nearly impossible to decipher what his Dramok was carrying on about. It was hilarious to hear his calm, cool Baknu so pissed off, raging like a madman.

  Gabriel giggled as the ceiling above him twisted and grayed. “You’re so screwed, Mit-noc. I wouldn’t want him that mad with me.”