Page 22 of The First Spark
He must’ve dozed, though, because his eyes were shut and the strobe lights were off when the shrill chime of his holocomm roused him.
Zane shot upright and fumbled in the near-darkness for his comm. Flipping it over on the countertop, he groaned and rubbed his bleary eyes. It was four-thirty in the morning. Way too early for work to be bothering him. Especially Guest Services, of all things.
But he had a promotion on the line, so he shook himself out of the daze and put the transmission through.
A holoprojection of the Guest Coordinator’s head appeared in his palm. Sweat coated her face, and her eyes were wide. He’d seen the look on shell-shocked shinies more than once.
He gripped his holstered pulser.
“We need you on the bridge.”
His mouth went dry. “Nova,” he said slowly, hoping she’d simply made a mistake, “I’m not on shift.”
“Now, Zane.”
Nova ended the transmission. Chills raced across Zane’s skin, flushing the last of the alcohol from his system. He pocketed his holocomm, paid the bar tab, and strode towards the door. This wasn’t the normal call for a passenger complaint. For the Guest Coordinator to be so spooked, this had to be bad.
Like, maybe, a fugitive princess, whose only disguise was an auburn wig and a faulty chip scrambler.
Zane took off at a sprint.
TheChimaera’s halls were deserted this early in the morning, so he made it across the ship in record time. At the door, he popped a few breath mints and waved his wrist over the chip scanner in the door’s codebox. The screen flashed green. The metal door slid aside, and he barged onto the bridge.
It was chaos.
At the center, Captain Nyroc Stotz sat in his command chair, shouting orders at a frightened technician. The persistent beeping of the warning radar cut through the haze of voices. An officer sprinted across the bridge, waving a holopad.
Throbbing pressure pounded at the back of Zane’s skull. Cringing, he pressed a hand to his temple.
He should’ve downed another Purging Tonic.
Nova sat at a silver terminal, scrolling through a list of guest names. Faces of passengers and notes on their background checks flitted across the holoscreens. Zane didn’t dare look, in case an image showed a woman with a heart-shaped face calling herself Ariah Rivers.
Tapping her shoulder, Zane glanced at the viewport. “Nova, what?—?”
He choked on his breath mint. There should’ve been stars beyond the glass, but a shadow blotted them out. His knees gave way, and he caught himself on the edge of Nova’s terminal.
It wasn’t a shadow. It was the hull of a black Federation destroyer, hovering beside their small cruiser. Rows upon rows of cannons pointed at theChimaera’s bridge.
Zane sucked in a ragged breath. “I don’t understand.”
But he did understand, all too well.
“They say we’re harboring a criminal.” Nova jabbed at her screen, blinking rapidly. “If we don’t drop and let them board, they’re going to open fire.”
“Open fire?”
He stumbled back a step, pressing a hand to his mouth. Holy burning Mordir, they were deep in shit.
“Sir, the Federation vessel is hailing us. Should we put it through?”
The bridge fell silent. Zane’s grip tightened on the back of Nova’s chair. His other hand drifted to the pulser at his hip, but the familiar touch of steel didn’t ease the tension knotting his muscles. He hadn’t had a run-in with a Federation patrol since getting mixed up with Mira two cycles ago, and that had been terrifying enough. Now an entire destroyer was flanking them, ready to reduce theChimaerato ash and dust.
And it was all his fault.
Stotz wiped the sweat from his brow. “Go ahead.”
A holographic projection of a towering Lentivian man appeared a few feet from Stotz’s chair. Zane suppressed a shudder. His unnaturally pale skin made his cold black eyes more prominent, and his white, bloodless lips curved into a sneer.
