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8
KAAV
Isensed subtle cues. There were barely perceptible movements beneath my feet, but no one else seemed to notice.
I brought up the map of the guard detail. There were actually three clusters of guards, not just two. I’d failed to take any real notice of the third, because it was always there around Thuliak. I had to assume he had Airlock Eve near his quarters, which were already permanently defended about as well as we were now defending Weapons’ quarters.
Now though, I noticed some of the guards around Thuliak move around and shift.
And finally, as if by total luck, a new order appeared on my HUD.
30 minutes break in the mess hall.
A few other armored Khetar were stretching their arms and heading toward the mess hall. On the map, Khetar who had been guarding Emissary Eve began moving too.
The movement I felt beneath me, the shifting of guards near Thuliak, and then letting some of the guards have a break to eat.
It all pointed toward Weapons and Emissary having been sent through the ship’s transportation system to be with Airlock or Thuliak.
And I now had 29 minutes to move freely about the ship. I had 29 minutes to find a way to get to her.
We’d switched over to using minutes—a very human measurement—ever since we set our course toward Eden. Part of forming a Breeding Swarm meant taking on norms and customs of the female species. We were dominating them in many other ways, both sexually and culturally, the least we could do was allow them to keep their units of measurements.
I was used to minutes now, and 29 of them were not very many.
The other thing thatreallybothered me was that Thuliak was probably looking at Weapons right now. What was he doing? Sizing her up to figure out which other fucking scion to offer her to? I refused to let that happen. Especially if he was going to give her to Tschenkar.
The guards were still posted outside both Weapons’ and Emissary’s doors, so it looked like he was going to send them back to their rooms once he’d finished doing whatever he was doing with them.
I had the gear needed to try something fucking insane, but it would take me nearly fifteen minutes to recover it, then another ten to get it all set up.
I wasted a minute or two thinking it over, and decided it was my best option.
I moved as fast as I dared. If I moved too fast, someone might ask me where I was going in such a hurry. Since I was armored and holding a plasma spewer, anyone who saw me running would assume there was fighting to do. I walked just fast enough that I looked busy enough that no one would bother talking to me, but I was careful not to move so fast that I could trigger any Khetar battle lust on Thuliak’s ship.
It took me 9 minutes to reach the burrowing gun I’d built and hidden onWrathyears ago. I touched the wall, and my hands sunk in. I pulled out a little bladder which had attached itself inside the ship, and I tore it open. Along with some gooey fluid, my burrowing gun spilled to the ground. I switched out my plasma spewer for it, tucking the plasma spewer into the bladder, just in case I needed it later.
The burrowing gun looked like a standard-issue plasma rifle, but it didn’t shoot out plasma—or anything else deadly. It simply made the ship open up tunnels for me.
I studied the map as I moved around, visually inspecting various rooms and mentally adding them onto the map on my HUD. I could only really account for about 65% of the rooms on the ship. The others didn’t show on the map for me due to my low rank, or I didn’t have time to visually inspect them. With my shitty, patchwork map on the HUD, I tried to guess how the ship would tunnel Weapons back to her quarters.
I found three possible paths. I labeled them Red, Green, and Blue. Red was the straightest path, but it went through a big dark section of ship that I’d guessed is where the fabricator particles were being stored and generated. The ship wouldn’t be able to tunnel Weapons through those densely packed particles, so Red was unlikely the path she’d get sent on.
I decided Blue was the most likely route, but it felt only a little bit more likely than Green. Worse yet, the moment I used the tunneling gun, the more likely I was to get caught. I’d have to time things perfectly, and I’d have to be on pretty much the exact correct path to have any chance of intercepting her before she was back in her room and swarming with guards.
I took in a deep breath and settled over a place on the Blue path that was in a little-used corridor, a location I assumed I was least likely to run across anyone else.
There were just a few minutes left until I had to report back for guard duty. If I left in the next minute or so, I could probably get back to my post without drawing any suspicion. If I waited even a few minutes longer, I was all-in. I either got her, or Thuliak got me. I had other options I could resort to if I couldn’t get her with the tunneling gun, but they weremuchworse options.
Just as the last minute approached, the guards on Thuliak started to move around again. I got my order to return in that same instant, but I decided to wait.
I watched on the maps as the guards shifted their locations. Warriors who had been walking slowly from the mess hall back to their posts were picking up speed now.
I closed my eyes and listened as carefully as I could. I listened with my body as well as my ears. If I felt the slightest sign of her tunneling beneath me, I’d pull the trigger, and I’d get one shot to pull her out before she got sent back to her heavily guarded—and probably even more heavily observed—quarters.
I waited even as it became painfully obvious on the map that I was out of position and not heading back to my post. All the warriors meant to be guarding Weapons were color-coded orange, and I was a lone orange dot off on its own, nowhere near the big, growing blob of orange around Weapons’ quarters. Then, amazingly, my position on the map started to move, even though I was still standing still and waiting for my shot to tunnel into Weapons. My lone orange dot started heading toward the big blob, even though my big feet were planted firmly in place.
“The fuck?” I whispered.
