We all darted back through the doorway in a rush, not knowing what kind of danger was going to come pouring out of the canister. Thick, dark smoke began to fill the stairwell, and a quick analysis from my respirator informed me that it was simple smoke – a visual barrier, rather than anything that was designed to harm us chemically.
“I would suggest finding a different stairway,” I muttered to my team, “but I suspect they’re all going to be equally well defended.”
“We can bust through this using infrared scanners,” Carver suggested. “It’s not perfect, but we’ve got a rough idea of where the stairs begin, and the fact that the hallway turns right at the top. And we’ve also got a finite amount of time before these assholes try to make an illegal jump through the wormhole. I’d much rather take this gang down while we’re still in Rendol space.”
“Not a bad point,” I agreed. “If they succeed in making a jump, we could end up in any one of a dozen sectors, and heavens only knows what might be waiting for us on the other side.”
“All right, let’s play hardball, then,” Bryce said. “Activate the thermal sensors on your visors.” He gave us all a quick once-over to make sure we were ready, then nodded. “Three… two… one. Go!”
He ducked into the stairwell, aware that we were going to be without cover until we got to the top. But the four of us set up a scatter-fire pattern, and if any of the pirates attempted to do the same to us, they’d need an extreme sort of luck to avoid getting shot. There were four bright thermal images on my screen, all of them loitering near the upper doorway, and I got brief but regular flashes of them – a head, an arm, a foot. They were being cautious, not giving us any easy targets as we moved up the stairs by feel, rather than by sight. The four pirates seemedto retreat further as we got to the top. Perhaps they hadn’t expected us to be this bold. Perhaps they just had more traps waiting further on. But so far, we hadn’t managed to injure any of them, while they were being too cautious to make a real effort at injuring us. Pirates might spend their lives causing trouble, but there was still a world of difference between them and fully trained military personnel.
Or, at least, I’d thought so, until I felt something hard press against the back of my neck, and a strong, clawed hand dug into my shoulder. “Don’t move,” a rough, grating voice announced. “Or your friend dies.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
AIDEN
Ifroze, taking the pirate’s advice, even as my mind raced.
“What the fuck?” Bryce muttered. “Jai? Carver?”
I realised, in the smoke-filled room, that he couldn’t see what was happening, and I glanced down, trying to get a glimpse of the person behind me. Except that, according to the thermal scans, there was no one there.
Instead, I looked at the hand on my shoulder, managing to make out three elongated fingers and a bony thumb through the smoke. The hand was covered in muddy green scales and had sharp claws at the end of each digit.
“They’ve got me,” I informed my team, cursing at our own stupidity. “It’s a Fenton.” We’d only seen Anicrians and Polvrons so far, both of which emitted strong heat signals. But Fentons were lizard-like creatures, and just like lizards, they were cold-blooded. This one would have been the exact same temperature as the room, and so he’d been invisible on a thermal scan. I tried to figure out how he’d got past our scatter fire, but then realised he’d probably sneaked down the stairs just after the smoke bomb went off, and then waited for a good opportunity to ambush us from behind. Jai had already warned us not tounderestimate these bastards, but they seemed to be a step ahead of us all the way.
The other pirates had fallen back now, and the Fenton pushed me forward, out of the stairwell. Doing so pushed me into Bryce and Jai, and so we were all herded out into the hallway, where the smoke was less thick. Bryce whipped around, pointing his laser at the man holding me captive… but then his face fell, and he lowered his gun. I couldn’t see what sort of weapon the Fenton was holding, but from Bryce’s expression, it was a bad one.
From behind Bryce, a Polvron stepped out of the shadows, with two Anicrians flanking him. I could see more of them further down the hall, including at least one more Fenton. The Polvron was holding a pulse projector – a weapon that could be used to pulverise an entire person in a single shot.
“Put your weapons down,” the Polvron instructed, his tone expressionless.
“Fuck,” Bryce muttered. But he placed his gun on the ground, and Carver followed suit.
“Allyour weapons,” the Polvron insisted. While Bryce and Carver divested themselves of their spare pistol and their knives, an agile Anicrian came forward to take my gun from my hand and pat me down, removing the other weapons I had as well.
But it was then that I realised that Jai hadn’t moved. He was loitering at the edge of the hallway, gun held low and aimed at the floor, but he hadn’t put it down. Oh, fuck me, he wasn’t thinking of doing something heroic, was he? We were in a confined space, surrounded by people who outgunned us, and they had at least two Fentons on their team. Fentons wereextremelyagile, and no matter how well trained he was, I couldn’t see Jai being able to take on two of them and win.
“Weapons on the floor!” the Polvron barked again, having noticed Jai’s disobedience. I felt my gut lurch at that. Over thepast week, Jai had proven that he had a unique gift for being disobedient, but as much as I wanted someone to stick it to these pirates, now wasnotthe time for that sort of lunacy.
“Jai,” I said, the words to order him to obey on the tip of my tongue. This mission was going south at an incredible rate, but at the end of the day, no one would fault us if we were forced to abandon the cargo in exchange for our lives, and the lives of the crew. If we were lucky, the pirates would lock us up, rather than killing us. For that matter, if they wanted to kill us, they’d likely have done it already.
Unless Jai continued to provoke them.
But a split second before I spoke, I found I couldn’t quite get the words out. Neither then, nor later, could I have explained why. It was a gut feeling, an odd instinct that said regardless of the odds stacked against us, I should continue giving my dimari as much free rein as possible. If I really thought about it, I could probably have justified the decision with some sensible-sounding bullshit. Jai knew what the mission was. He knew what the stakes were in terms of loss of life, not just for us, but for the rest of the freighter’s crew as well. And in the last forty-eight hours, he’d made remarkable progress in apparently beginning to trust me. I tried to tell myself that that was a good reason to try trusting him in return.
But the reality was that none of those fine-sounding reasons meant shit. Jai had proven himself, in the last week, and in the last hour, to be both a loose canon, and a tactical genius. And at the end of the day, it was pure instinct that had me holding my tongue.
Finally, after far too long a pause, Jai began to remove his weapons, setting them carefully on the floor. Guns, knives, explosives and a couple of bottles of chemicals all joined the pile. Then he stood up… but still refused to raise his hands.
Nonetheless, the two Anicrians darted forward to collect the supplies, and two Polvrons stepped up behind Bryce and Carver, securing their hands in electronic cuffs behind their backs. In an odd way, that was a good sign – further evidence that they meant to hold us captive, rather than killing us. So long as we were alive, there was always a chance we could find a way out of this mess.
I felt strong hands guiding my arms behind my back, and then I, too, was cuffed.
“Hands behind your back,” the Polvron ordered Jai. But rather than complying, Jai’s head came up, and he stepped away from the Anicrian beside him, snarling and widening his stance. Oh, for fuck’s sake, he was going to get himself killed.
A second later, he charged into the Anicrian, shoulder-tackling him and managing to get in one good punch to his face before the two Fentons were on him. Their long, lanky limbs and elongated fingers were designed for catching prey by hand, and they had a series of small suckers on each finger, that helped them to grip things in their native landscape – a planet covered in swamps and where everything was constantly wet, due to very high natural rainfall. Jai went down underneath the two of them, and a moment later, his arms were confined in cuffs, just like the rest of us.
