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Don’t worry, little one. I’m coming for you. Then we’ll have our fun and burn this station to ash.
CHAPTERTHIRTY-ONE
Shae
* * *
The longer we sit here, the more this small room is starting to feel claustrophobic. I alternate pacing and then sitting. Then pacing again. Until I’m pretty sure Raela is ready to tie me up and shove me in the corner.
I’m up pacing again when the small door into the room slams open, and the young orc female ducks inside. The three of us turn expectantly, waiting to hear what she has to say.
“The plan is in motion,” she pants. She must have run all the way back here to tell us. “The Federation is on the move, and Kurrahstka is running.”
“We need to stop him,” I hear myself saying. “He can’t get away.”
“He won’t,” Raela assures me, resting her hand on my shoulder. Then she turns back to Adri, who is tapping away at her comm. “Is everything set?”
“Yes,” the elfin female assures us. “All exits are blocked, and his private ship has been tampered with, so he won’t be going anywhere in it.”
Raela nods.
I doubt that will stop him from just taking someone else’s ship, but at least it will slow him down.
Raela turns to me with a grin. “Let’s go join the party then.”
“Fucking finally,” I breathe and follow the three women back into the hidden passageways.
We weave our way through the walls to another small room. This one is packed with weapons and guarded by a scantily dressed male. He’s pretty, almost feminine, and not a species I’ve encountered yet, with mottled green and pink skin and long tapered ears that remind me of fins. He also has anime-sized violet eyes.
“The battle has begun,” Raela tells him. “Be ready to defend our cache.”
He nods, his eyes falling to me with a wink. “I’m ready, Rae. It’s aboutkurvingtime.”
Crates filled with every science fiction weapon I’ve ever seen in movies or could have imagined fill the room.
“Have you ever used a blaster?” Raela asks me as she pulls out something that looks surprisingly like a handgun.
“No. But I’ve done target practice with guns, which I think is similar.”
She nods and then holds out the blaster. “Safety. Charge. Point. Pull,” she explains as she shows me. Then she shows me how to eject the ammunition cartridge and hands me two more, which I tuck inside my waistband.
As soon as we’re armored up, we head back into the passageway.
The blood is thrumming through my veins at the prospect of finally doing something and being part of something big. I’m going to make a difference. By helping everyone trapped in this station, others who are here in much the same way I am—or at least was—I can do something meaningful.
When we get to another hidden door, Raela presses her ear to it and scrunches up her nose. “I can hear running.”
Of course, there is no way to tell who might be doing the running. Is it Kurrahstka’s team or ours? So, we wait for what feels like a damned eternity, until it finally goes quiet. Raela eases open the door and peeks outside. When it’s clear, she waves us through, and just like that, we’re back inside the station.
Holding the blaster with both hands in front of me, like I’ve seen on cop shows, I follow Raela, the orcette, and Adri. My body is on high alert, and my ears open for any sounds of footsteps. I’ve never done anything like this before. Unless you count the one time I played laser tag at a birthday party when I was a kid. I wrinkle my nose, remembering that I didn’t last long before being taken out by teenage boys pretending to be in a real-life Call of Duty.
We’re coming up on the end of a hallway when suddenly a volley of lasers shoots past us. Raela pushes my back against the wall and holds me there with her arm across my chest. Adri and the orc female duck around the corner and start firing back before disappearing. When the lasers suddenly stop, I hear the orc’s small voice shout, “Clear!”
With Raela at my back, we turn the corner and come face to face with several bodies spread out across the hallway. At the other end of the hallway, Adri is talking with another group of women.
“You doing okay?” Raela asks me when she catches me staring at the bodies, shot through with smoldering holes.
“Yeah. I’m good.” I lie. I’m doing my best to disassociate myself from facing the fact that these creatures aren’t movie- or video-game dead, butreallydead.
