Page 10 of Survivor
5
The sun was up, and I needed to meet Vartin in two hours. Lore was still asleep, but Tide was pottering around the ship doing odd jobs to keep his mind off the fact that we’d lost an income stream. I pulled the hoverboard from its hiding place between two heating units in the entranceway to the ship. Xavier was the uber techy one, but Tide and Lore knew their stuff too. It was time to come clean.
I took a deep breath and joined Tide in the engine room.
He slid out from under one of the units he’d been fiddling with and looked up at me with concern. “Rogue, is Lore all right?”
“Yeah, he’s fine. Fever’s gone. I need to tell you something.”
He stood and wiped his hands on his pants. His gaze fell to the hoverboard in my hand, and he canted his head slightly. “Okay?”
“I went out yesterday.”
His body tensed. “You went out?” His gaze flicked to the board once more. “Is that where you got the board?”
I nodded. “I think I’ve found the solution to our problems.”
I could see him battling with the need to berate, the need to tell me all the reasons why leaving this ship had been a bad idea. But I was here, and I was fine, and I had a solution.
He took a deep breath. “Go on.”
I bit back a smile. I did love the logical side of Tide. Vex would have bawled me out, then crushed me to his chest just to reassure himself I was still there.
I tugged the crumpled poster from my pocket and handed it to him. “There’s a gauntlet. That’s the prize. If we win, we’re out of here.”
He studied the poster. “It says there are qualifying rounds.”
So, he wasn’t dismissing the idea. Good. “Last round is today. I’m going.”
His head whipped up, and he studied me through narrowed eyes. “Xavier told me you had skill. That you fought like a demon in the arena on Vesper. You saved my life on Limera … I understand why you’d want to do this, but it’s too dangerous. We have no idea what alternate species you’ll be fighting.”
“I can handle myself, Tide. I can take a beating.”
“And so can I. I’ll do this.”
“Your training isn’t dirty enough.”
His mouth lifted in a sadistic smile. “Oh, I can get dirty if need be.”
“Fine, then we both apply. Two chances of winning.” I offered him a close-lipped smile.
He massaged his temples. “Vex and Xavier would give us four shots at a win, but we can’t risk their jobs just in case …”
In case we all lose. “It has to be the two of us.”
“You have a contact, I assume.” He held up the paper. “I doubt you could read this yourself.”
I smiled. “Yes. I’m meeting him in an hour.” I held out the board. “The deal is, I fix the board and he’ll take us to the location of the gauntlet in the Cogs.”
Tide took the board and turned it over. “I can fix this. It’ll take a few minutes.” He looked past me toward the door. “We should make Lore comfortable before we leave.”
The idea of leaving Lore alone didn’t appeal, but his fever had broken, and the wound already looked much better.
“Vex and Xavier will probably get back before we do. We need to leave them a note.”
Tide sighed. “Do it.”
I left him to wrap up his ministrations in the engine room and headed to the main chamber we shared.
