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I slide into my seat on the bridge and my breath catches at the flare of pain that sears up my limbs.
“How’s your leg?” Bethiah asks.
An alarm sounds on the docking bay and I immediately fire up the ship’s thrusters. “Can we talk about that later?”
“What happened to Jamef’s leg?” Dora asks, coming onto the bridge. Simone is a few steps behind her, a worried look on her face. “That’s the second time you’ve mentioned it. What’s going on?”
An alert overrides the comm waves. “CRIMINAL ACTIVITY REPORT. BE ON THE LOOKOUT FOR VANORA VA SITHAI, ACCOMPANIED BY A CYBORG BODYGUARD OF UNKNOWN IDENTIFICATION —”
I switch it off and shoot a look at Bethiah. “Get the humans settled. We’re using the slingshot drive to get out of here. We can talk later, or we can talk in prison. Take your pick.”
Bethiah gives me a tight-lipped look, but nods. She turns away from the bridge and puts a hand on Dora’s back. “Come with me, fluffit. You too, Simone. We need to strap in.”
The doors shut behind them and I feel like I can breathe. I power up the slingshot drive - the one-time-use high-speed power burst that will allow us to surge out of range…and chew up a boat-load of credits in the meantime. I keep one slingshot fuel cell on board for emergencies, and now looks like the emergency I’ve been waiting for. I belt myself in and flick over the ship’s monitors as we lift away from the dock and into one of the travel chutes that will open to the blackness of space. We’ve got a very brief window of time before things are locked down entirely and we’ll be trapped here.
It’s a matter of seconds.
My leg twinges again, heat shooting up my calf as if I’m being burned. I ignore it, because it’s a metal limb. It’s not real. You’re not burning.
The ship chimes with an onboard alert. “Five passengers secured and belted for slingshot.”
It’s go time.
I slam a hand over the control, and we whip away from the gambling satellite so quickly that my head snaps back in my chair. I’m pressed against the seat with the force of our launch, my limbs frozen as the ship’s environmentals pause for a brief second to send all power to the slingshot drive.
Something pops, and then red-hot pain shoots through all of my limbs, not just the malfunctioning one. I bite back a bellow of agony and slump over in my seat as wave after wave of black agony pulses through me.
One Hundred Eighteen
DORA
It’s the first time I’ve felt the “slingshot” drive and it’s overwhelming. I huddle against the cushioned seat, feeling as if I’m being slowly pressed into a pancake by the force of the ship. At my side, the new girl whimpers, and Bethiah’s hand is pressed over mine on the seat. She probably can’t move it, but I’m still glad it’s there.
Then, the surge finishes with a gradual slowing, like a carnival ride coming to a stop. The change in pressure is so stark that I want to roll forward and collapse on the floor, but the belt at my shoulders and hips is holding me in place.
“Ugh,” announces Bethiah. She quickly unbuckles herself and races away, leaving me alone with the new girl. I watch as Bethiah staggers down the narrow hall, heading to the lavatory. A moment later, I hear the sound of vomiting.
“You okay?” I call after her, fumbling with my straps.
“I hate a slingshot,” Bethiah calls back, and then the sound of puking hits again.
Oh. I’m a little queasy, but nothing like that. It’s good to know that Bethiah is affected by something, oddly enough. It makes her human. Well…mesakkah. Whatever. I turn to the woman next to me. She has a terrified expression on her face and gives me a pleading look. I instinctively know this isn’t a rival. This is Bethiah and Jamef saving another human, and I want to hug them both for it. “Did I introduce myself? I’m Dora. I live here on the ship with Jamef and Bethiah.”
“Simone,” she tells me in a trembling voice. “They’re helping me escape.”
“I guessed as much,” I tell her, helping with the straps of the harness for the couch we’re seated on. I’d wondered about the fold-out ultra-squishy bench with lots of straps in the hall near the control room, and now I guess I know what that’s for. “You hungry? Thirsty?”
She shakes her head, getting to her feet and wobbling.
I feel a little unsteady myself, and I suspect the ship is still surging from our launch. Isn’t that how space works? You keep going at the same speed indefinitely until you run into something? Then again, my clone brain might be misremembering. “Let me see what’s going on with Bethiah and Jamef,” I say to Simone. “Then we’ll get you settled. You can stay in Rhonda’s quarters since she’s not using them at the moment.”
