Wells placed a hand on Vega’s shoulder.
“Breathe, Mira,” he said, rubbing her arm. Blood stained his sleeve and pain warped his face. “Breathe.”
Vega turned, and Kalie’s mouth fell open. Her tawny skin had morphed into a darker brown. Agony twisted her hard features.
Shapeshifter. Kalie edged away, glancing at the sealed exit ramp. Shapeshifters couldn’t really exist.
Vega’s chest heaved. “The cybermod?—”
Kalie did a double take. The floor rumbled beneath her, and she nearly lost her balance. Vega had a transporteranda cybermod?
“It exploded, broke the morph?—”
A thunderous jolt rocked the ship, and Kalie crashed into the floor. A booming explosion drowned out the roaring thrusters. The world swam around her as she pushed herself up, shaking her head to clear her vision. Alarms flashed red and screeched through the ship’s dingy cabin.
Vega bolted through an open door. Wells hobbled after her, wincing with each step. His lips moved, but the sound didn’t reach her ears.
He vanished through the door.
Kalie stood, wobbled on her feet, and pressed a hand to her sweat-soaked forehead.
“Thruster’s out, dammit!”
Vega’s voice hadn’t changed with her.
Another blast rocked the ship, and Kalie caught herself against a rusted ladder. The metal was rough and flaky under her palms.
If that was the only thruster, they wouldn’t be able to move. Whoever was attacking them, probably Carik’s minions, would destroy the ship. They’d saved her, sure, but Wells was only out for himself. She didn’t know what to make of Vega, but someone who made killing a competition didn’t seem trustworthy.
Explosions boomed beyond the shaking walls.
“Thirty degrees, portside!” Wells roared. “Blast them!”
There had to be an escape pod here. Any ship this size would have one, especially if it had fighting capabilities.
Kalie’s pulse hammered in her ears. There weren’t any doors in the sleek kitchenette, which—if she overlooked the shattered plates sliding across the floor—was the only decent part of the rundown ship. Bright light shone through the open door beside it, where Vega had disappeared. That had to be the cockpit.
Sidestepping the metal column at the center of the room, Kalie scanned the far wall. Four metal doors, all scratched and chipped, spanned the wall between the folded-up ramp and the cockpit. Thosewere out. An escape pod usually had an airlock door to defend it. There was an airlock door next to the ramp, but that spot was always reserved for a boarding tube.
An impact hurled her into a battered chest of drawers. Pain pulsed down her spine. Groaning, she pushed herself into a crouch.
Beneath a filthy old rug was a sunken yellow hatch with three concentric dials.
An airlock.
“Get to the gate!” Vega bellowed. “Cybel,to the gate!”
Kalie scrambled across the floor, brushing the stained rug aside. Lights flickered above her. She’d never learned how to open an airlock as old as this one, and with her rudimentary knowledge of flying, she’d need a miracle from Azura to escape.
But she had to try.
Each dial had a thin black stripe on it, and a single dot was etched on the metal panel. Her muscles burned as she twisted the largest dial, aligning the stripe with the dot. The second dial wasn’t as heavy, but when she turned it, the metal screeched.
Flinching, Kalie glanced at the cockpit.
No one appeared in the doorway.
She turned the second dial into position, then the third.
