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"There is only one," E'rel stated. He sounded as robotic as she did. "We should take care of her. We're wasting time." He raised his blaster.
She raised hers just before two more Iri appeared in the doorway.
"Our numbers are more than one," she said again.
"So we see," J'avet said.
"Your numbers are more than two." The Iri turned and aimed her blaster toward the bunk room. She got off a shot that missed my head by a hair. Actually from the smell of singed hair, it didn't miss.
"Fuck." I ducked down further. I almost didn't see J'avet raise the device and point it toward the Iri woman.
She froze.
The Iri behind her took aim at J'avet. Before he fired, E'rel used his device on him. He too froze. J'avet froze the third.
"What the—" Before I finished my question, nanobots started to trickle out of the Iritauri, to lie in a puddle on the pod floor.
I should have known. Part of the box of Slek-tech was a couple of anti-bot devices. He'd managed to switch off the bots on the Halcyon, but I hadn't known anyone was working on a personal, handheld version.
Cool.
J'avet exhaled loudly, then moved in a blur to catch the woman before she fell to the floor, face Freytauri blue again. He lowered her down and tried to grab one of the men, but only managed to keep him from falling too hard.
E'rel wasn't close enough to help the last man, who toppled sideways against the door before making a graceful slide to the floor.
None were Danec or Slek, or even Zarex.
"Is that all of them?" I asked as I rose to my feet.
"Stay here." J'avet gestured for E'rel to step through into the other pod with him.
Since he didn't specify where 'here' was, I hurried to crouch beside the former hosts. None seemed to be injured, but they would take time to fully recover from being invaded by nanobots.
I glanced through the doorway. J'avet and E'rel stood beside another Freytauri, also a woman, device still in their hands.
"There's no one else here," J'avet said. "We'll need to move everything from one pod to another."
E'rel sighed as if he'd been asked to walk the length of a marathon.
I mean, sure, it was a hassle, but at least we were alive.
"We have another problem," Brinley said. "We're not stocked with enough supplies or fuel for eight." She'd already made herself comfortable in the pilot's seat of the new pod and checked over the controls. At least, I think that was what she was doing.
"We'll need to take them to the Gamma," J'avet said. He looked as impressed as E'rel, but this time with good reason. Taking the former hosts to the ship would take time and delay our mission. Still, it couldn't be helped. Gamma was a better place for them than here.
"At least we know those anti-bot things work," I said. Even when he wasn't here, Slek was helping us. "Have we got any more of them?"
E'rel looked at me as if he thought I was the last person on board who should have one.
"Three more," he said finally. "I'm working on a fourth. We need many more."
J'avet nodded. "The sooner you get back to work, the sooner we will have them." To Brinley, he said, "Plot a course to meet up with Gamma and let Captain Marshall know we're coming."
Brinley nodded. "Done and done. There's four, no five, IF ships approaching. They seem to be heading toward Infinity."
"That will keep them busy." J'avet looked satisfied at that. "I'll send them the specifications for Slek's ship-wide…anti-bot device." He gave me the faintest of smiles to acknowledge his adoption of my term. It was as good a one as any.
I shrugged and turned to help the first Freytauri woman to sit up.
