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“Hold it right there!”
Rattigan blinked, hesitating.
It was enough.
I raised my blade and deflected his attack from me. I ground my teeth and rolled toward a familiar pair of boots marching into the engine bay.
My heart leaped. There she stood, my savior.
My hero.
My lover.
She cradled a blaster in one hand as if it’d been tailor-made for her. She aimed it squarely at Rattigan’s ugly pinched grill.
He growled but didn’t lower his weapon. “Interruptions are not allowed during the Challenge!”
“This isn’t an interruption,” Alice spat. “This is an intervention!”
Rattigan frowned at the distinction. Most of the crew were. I certainly was.
Hurried footsteps rushed up behind her. She must have bolted as fast as her legs could carry her to reach me so far ahead of the others. She’d saved my life.
As the men entered behind her, my grin of hope curdled by the heat of despair.
They were not our rescuers. They were our doom.
Almost twenty-four hours earlier, after consuming the first meal devoid of the poisonous Absor I’d had in three weeks, we were interrupted by a knock at the door. It was Stryder, informing me we’d picked up a distress beacon a few minutes ago and wanted my input into how we should proceed.
I played my little game on Alice, almost managing to get her to undress me, before proceeding up onto the deck. There, I learned, just a few short hours from our position, was a ship in distress. Wrapped within the beacon was a recording of the call to action.
“Play message on the screen,” I said.
The captain of a Vestoil ship appeared onscreen. The image was grainy and cut out every few seconds. His crew worked at their consoles in the background.
“I am Captain Morstaad of the Vestoil Cruiser, Raesdok, identification number: 81634152. We have suffered a critical engine malfunction after we were attacked by a merciless brigand of pirates. We were able to fight them off but our engine suffered severe damage. By our calculations, in less than a week, it will explode. The best we can do is patch it up. I doubt we’ll be alive long enough for anyone to hear this message, but if you do, perhaps there is still time. You can find our coordinates embedded within this message. Please save us. We need your help.”
The message turned fuzzy and cut out.
“What do you think?” I said to Stryder.
“The message is less than a day old,” he said. “They could still be out there. And if they’ve been fighting with pirates, there’s a lot of potential salvage material.”
“It’ll take us off course,” I said.
“Only by a few hours. We could clean up with this haul.”
“Their engine could explode at any moment,” I said. “You heard him.”
“He gave us a timeline. Assuming it’s marginally accurate, it ought to give us enough time to evacuate them, collect as much salvage as we can, expel the fuel cell from the damaged engine, and take one or both of the ships with us.”
“And the survivors?” I said.
Stryder shrugged. “We can hold them for ransom. The Vestroil always pay well for captured personnel.”
I pressed my lips between my fingers. It wasn’t every day you came across not just one but two damaged ships. The earnings were considerable.
I felt the sickness beginning to make a fresh sweep over me once again. I nodded. “Do it. And you take point on the mission. I don’t want any mistakes. We need to be in and out as soon as possible.”
