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It was designed to do this, I told myself. But that doesn’t mean it has to enjoy it.
“The Creator high above!” Brislax said. “Something else is happening! I knew it! I knew this was going to happen!”
“What?” I said. “Is it Vicky’s ship? Has it already taken off?”
“No. It’s not that. It’s—”
His words were warped and garbled by static.
“Uncle?” I yelled. “What is it?”
I passed through the atmosphere, the ship rattling like a geriatric patient carrying a box of bolts. Then, just as quickly as it had come, the noise faded.
I was on the cusp of space. I glanced at the monitor, back at my own planet.
Now, I was a wanted fugitive. I couldn’t turn back now, not that I wanted to.
I turned toward the two ships waiting to approach the hyperspace gate. As I drew up to Vicky’s ship, its identification number stenciled on the side, I breathed a sigh of relief.
With me approaching the ship, the pilots wouldn’t be allowed to enter the gateway. Not when it endangered others’ lives.
Even the idiot with an illegally chipped shuttlecraft.
“Wait…” I said.
I noticed something very strange about Vicky’s ship. It almost looked like…
The blood drained from my face, and it had nothing to do with the lack of gravity.
“Changelings?” I said.
It must have been what made Brislax start gibbering nonsense before the transmission cut out.
He was well-known for his crazy conspiracy theories. They always came to nothing.
Except this time.
He appeared to be right. The Changeling ships opened fire on the transport ship.
They were attacking us.
And right now, they were boarding Vicky’s ship.
9
VICKY
I coughed and sputtered as the pod roof whirred open. Waking up for the second time in one of these damn infernal machines was a lot easier than the first. Still, it wasn’t exactly a pleasant experience.
I blinked, and my eyes felt raw. While I’d been asleep for that fraction of a second, instead of the few hours that might have passed when we went to bed each night, this time, in reality, days or weeks or even months might have passed.
My dreams had been fraught and rolled from one into another, all starring the same one-man cast.
Dyrel.
A shame I couldn’t control my dreams. I would have focused only on happy memories, and not the heartrending final scenes of our doomed relationship.
Still, it was over now, no matter how much I might wish it wasn’t. I was on the far side of the galaxy and I would never see him again.
