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He slammed sideways against a wall, denting it, gasping for air. Lucca couldn’t breathe. She felt herself choking with him—dying with him. If he died—she would.
“What are you doing?!” she blurted.
“Yousent him over. Now I get to play with him.”
Caligher’s struggles turned frantic. Lucca grasped at straws for what to do.
“Stop this, please.”
“No,” says the pirate, bored.
Lucca would say or do anything to stop this scene from playing to its end. Anything, anything, anything. Her hands worked at the controls on her console—releasing a detonator robot. It was the last one left.
She flipped her audio, body working. Her mind was useless. “Cal, how many steps in did you get?”
“T—en.” His agonized groan raised the hairs on the back of her neck.
Back to the pirate. “I made a mistake, I’m sorry. Please stop this and we can talk.”
“Extreme temperatures don’t penetrate the shell. But certain kinds of acid can dissolve it. Let’s hope he has a molt left or his hunting days are gonna be cut short—”
“Please for the love of god!” she cried. “What do you want?”
“Trade yourself, and he goes free.”
She didn’t even think.
“Fine!”
“Truly?” asked the pirate. But Caligher was still burning and now he was beating at the door with the kind of desperation that had her truly frightened. She saw the pain’s grip on his body—gruesome enough to turn her stomach foul. Her fist continued guiding the bomb out.
“Please let him gonow!”
She was on the verge of tears and the pirate wassavoringit.
The robot settled on the belly of the ship, scuttling along like the Mars Rover and sending back a grainy camera feed. If she misjudged the distance, she wouldn’t get a second chance. There were no second chances in space.
“Not just yet,” said the pirate. “I wonder how much longer your bounty hunter can stay upright. Most would have fainted by now. But this one is… much stronger than most. Nothing’s getting through that shell.”
She detonated the bomb.
The explosion licked into Caligher’s hallway. He took his exit immediately, appearing around the top of the pirate’s ship. He flashed like sunlight hitting a row of mirrors, fucking with her visual, blinding her.
He couldn’t see their invisible ships.
She dropped the cloak—blocking Caligher’s ship from a courtesy strike sent by the pirate. She really didn’t know what she was doing and she was shaking like an earthquake. But she wasdoingit. She pressed buttons and yelped and prayed they escaped with their lives.
“Surprisingly resourceful for a ship with no guns,” noted the pirate.
This was a bad day, Lucca decided. Just a bad day she needed to survive.
“Lucca. Shit.” Caligher gasped in pain as he landed in his seat.
“Lucca?” repeated the pirate. “That’s your name? That name is… not Ternetzi in the—”
Her hand moved without thought, muting the pirate who she was bloody convinced was about to reveal what she was. To Caligher.
This was stupid. She needed to get out of this star system because that had been stupidly close.
