Page 34 of Escape from Nova Nine
Zade met her at their ship’s platform, and together they stumbled through the airlock. Mayek warbled a greeting to her.
Once inside the ship, which was small but sleek, she wasn’t the least bit surprised to see the loading area held at least a dozen rock griffins, and a few more representatives of the other three breeds. They followed Zade like a lodestar. The smaller hold where Visser directed them soon looked like an animal rehab center for griffins.
Visser pointed toward some jump seats and told them to strap in. He muttered something about wobbly ships as he left them alone with the griffins.
Their seats were about a meter apart. Keeping in mind the ship was at least one hundred fifty years old, she tested hers first before committing her full weight. “Was it your idea or Sutrio’s to get the rock griffins to attack?”
“The griffins, actually, but they kept bouncing off armor. Sutrio remembered their stomach contents are extremely caustic. Sutrio directed them to the guardians. I convinced them it was a good idea.”
She smiled and touched two fingers to her heart. “Please thank the griffins for me.”
“I hate to ask, but...” Zade hooked a web across his lap. “Where are the mine guards? Where are the rest of Kanogan’s guardians? What about the mercs? This feels too… easy.”
“I think lucky feels like easy, sometimes.” She hooked her own web tight and let her short legs swing. “The mine guards are operating the weapons platforms. Kanogan will keep some guardians for himself. We don’t know about the mercs, but they only signed on to protect the labs. And only the gods know what the mine staff or the pharma researchers are doing, but we think they’re non-combatants.” She closed her eyes for a long sigh. “We’re not out of the dust swarm yet.”
One of the ghost-colored rock griffins sidled over to Zade and curled its tail around his boot. The griffin hissed in obvious contentment and rested its beak on its forelegs. Two others sidled closer, too.
“What about the fish-in-a-barrel problem?” He frowned. “Or the fish jumping out of the barrel problem, for that matter?”
She kept forgetting that his immunity meant he couldn’t have learned all their plans from the prisoners’ telepathic connection. “We have a couple of illusionists in our network. We’ll all amplify them for the next ten minutes until the airlocks open.” Her eyes felt gritty and her mouth tasted metallic. “After that, we’ll use chaos patterns to fly as far and fast as we can. We hope with twenty ships, the guns won’t know where to shoot.”
“I don’t know if it’s important, but if you believe the interrogators, the jackers asked for Waorani, not me. They interrogated me because I was recruited in the same bunch. They thought I might be his partner and know what made him so valuable.” He frowned. “Captain Fazhian doesn’t usually triangulate like that. She’s a berserker when she’s mad, and an ambush stalker when she’s not.”
Julke shook her head. “I don’t know what it means, but I’ll tell the net.” It took just a moment to reconnect and share Zade’s information. Her energy reserves were nearly gone. “I tank at military strategy. My gift is getting people to work together. Now we have to trust the pilots and navigators and engineers to get us out of here and keep us alive until our rescuers arrive.”
And she still had to pass on key information to her people. Then she wanted to sleep for ten days, then get lost somewhere for a while with just Zade and maybe a griffin or two to keep them company. She hoped bold little Moonlet had made it into one of the ships.
The airlock clanked and beeped as it finished closing. The pilot announced that it was six minutes until launch. Though she shied away from the thought, she knew they’d lose some ships. Stress and exhaustion jangled her nerves. Right now, all she wanted was to climb into Zade’s lap like little Mayek already had.
He must have felt her distress, because his empathy talent wrapped hers in warmth and sympathy. “So, since we have time to kill, tell me more about this Volksstam claiming thing. What if the claimer is a princess among her people, and the claimee is abeschaafdnoob? An orphan who spent all his savings on a down payment for a frontier planet homestead, but will lose it when he doesn’t show up within the next two standard days to register the claim?”
That startled her. “Do you want to live on a planet? They have an awful lot of... weather.”
A smile creased his face. “We have this new invention called buildings. Perhaps you’ve heard of them? But never mind. Meeting a pirate princess has given me other ideas.” His emotional containment dropped, hiding nothing. “I meant it when I said I love you. I’d like to stay with you, but not if it puts you at odds with your people. I haven’t forgotten that you have information they need. If they’ll listen better without me as a distraction...”
“They’ll either listen or they won’t.” His honesty humbled her. She let her emotions dance with his and showed him everything in her heart. “I love you, Zade Lunaso. I want to stay with you. And just so you know, you are sexy as hell. I want to do more than just hold hands. It involves lots of skin on skin.”
“I can’t begin to tell you the hot dreams I had about you.” He gave her a saucy grin. “But I’d like to show you.”
“Launch in two minutes.”
The announcement brought her back to reality. Nearly a hundred lives depended on surprise, boldness, and luck. And it was all out of her hands now.
She hoped the gods of Chaos were in a generous mood.
14
Zade clamped down hard on his containment as the airlock opened. He didn’t want to stress Julke with his nervous anticipation. She had enough to deal with.
The Volksstam starshipArs Memoriaethat was about to receive them belonged to Julke’s grandmother andfamiliestammatriarch, Benthe Robynsdytr. She’d brought staff and trusted allies with her. Not to mention nine other Volksstam ships.
In spare moments, he’d been poring over the holos of them, since he’d only ever seen one from a distance. He bet Lantham, who had thankfully made it out alive, had been doing the same.
Julke’s plea for aid had also drawn a small fleet of indie traders, and even a few ships from the frontier worlds in her former trading network. The group of thirty-six ships was far more than she or anyone else had anticipated.
The three days between the desperate launch and the arrival of the rescuers had been a pendulum of terror and boredom. Their shipmates declared the ship to be spaceworthy, but not trustworthy enough for anyone to remove their exosuits. They only had one flavor of mealpacks that the prisoners had been hoarding for the escape.
No flux fuel meant they weren’t going far, but that was just as well, since none of the crew wanted to take a chance on the ship’s wildly out-of-date navigation data. The system engine was more than enough to get them out of weapons range in a hurry.
