Page 23 of Wrath

I was about to panic when I finally found the right blueprint.

“Yes!” I shouted, zooming in on the 3D image.

I took a moment to study it before psychically reaching out to Linette.

“There’s an air vent through the dorm at the left corner in the back of the room,”I said while downloading the schematic to my com.“It leads to the surface. I’ll meet you guys there to take out the outer grid.”

“Good job, girl! We’re on our way!”Linette replied before disconnecting from my mind.

Myriam and Linette rushed into the room to blast the protective grid on the ceiling. Had the schematics not indicated its location, it would have been easily missed unless you were standing at the right angle beneath it. Stone wedges on the ceiling created the optical illusion of a seamless, rough surface. In the meantime, Dread and Varnog continued to keep the Jadozors at bay. But I couldn’t stay there watching. I sent out the Nomad’s ship ID and their tracker frequency through an encrypted channel of the Vanguard in the hope that one of our patrols would manage to apprehend them if they escaped. With luck, Marcelle wouldn’t find and disable the tracker Myriam had put in after Linette disabled their vessel.

This task done, I ran out of the bridge and raced to the hangar. For a split second, I considered stopping by the Infirmary to revive Wrath’s Shell, but it would take too much time that we didn’t have. Either way, Nathalie still appeared to be unconscious. As a Portal, she could transfer Wrath’s soul from Linette’s psychic vessel back into his new body with no adverse effects for him. But if his Soulcatcher Linette had to do it herself, Wrath would suffer from rebirth sickness for three days, which we couldn’t afford right now. I was praying that Nathalie would come around soon, not only to transfer Wrath, but especially to know that she was fine. She’d been unconscious a long time, and that did not bode well.

I rushed inside a chaser and quickly took flight. Although a fighter would have been faster and easier to maneuver, the chaser had greater fire power and was already equipped with a grappling hook, whereas I’d have to patch up something on the fighter to perform the same task. I hated leaving the Defiance unmanned with the Nomad crew on the loose, but once again, saving my crewmates took precedence. I also doubted they knew that everyone but me had gone below. From what I had seen through Wrath’s body cam, Marcelle had only placed motion detectors, not cameras. Furthermore, I suspected they only wanted to haul ass out of here as soon as possible.

As if to confirm that suspicion, just as my chaser was flying past the Nomad en route to the surface exit of the air vent, the Coalition vessel stirred to life and initiated its takeoff. I cursed again, hating the sense of helplessness taking over me as I watched them make their getaway unchallenged.

I could only hope that the Vanguard had received my message, and an interception crew was already on its way. I couldn’t even waste time trying to disable their propulsion system. Not only did their frigate have far greater firepower than my chaser, but I couldn’t afford the time to battle them with these greatly uneven odds. Based on the body cam feeds from my teammates, they were already approaching the grid on the surface.

“We see the exit,”Dread mind-spoke to me.“ETA, thirty seconds. We’ve got incoming behind us.”

Grinding my teeth, I closed the distance with my destination.“I’m there,”I replied.“Don’t stand too close to the grid. I’m launching the grappling hook.”

“Acknowledged,”Dread said.

The worry seeping through our mental connection lit a fire under my ass. Dread didn’t fear for his own life, but for his mate and our three other mortal teammates that wouldn’t survive a physical battle with the Jadozors.

Hovering a short distance from the grid, my mind fell into that focused state where everything else seemed to stop existing but my target. I launched the grappling hook, which slipped smoothly through two of the bars, before pulling back immediately in order to avoid it going in too deep and targeting my friends. I fired a second one at the other edge of the large disk blocking the exit. At the same time, flashes of light inside the grid confirmed the team was shooting again at the beasts coming at them through the air vent.

“Hurry!”Linette shouted mentally to me.

“Pulling!”I replied while reversing thrusters.

My stomach dropped when the grid resisted. The flashes of blasters firing in the vent were too blinding for me to see how many creatures were coming at them, but they wouldn’t last long. For a half a beat, I considered firing a missile at the edge of the grid to loosen it, but all my weapons would inflict far too much damage and risked collapsing the tunnel. Heart pounding, I addressed a silent prayer to any benevolent higher power watching over us and changed tactics. Hovering sideways, I moved slightly forward before reversing thrusters at maximum power, repeating the movement in the hopes of loosening the grid. On the sixth or seventh attempt, the grid tore right off.

I didn’t need to tell them the path was open. My friends flew right out of the tunnel. Varnog carried an unconscious Nathalie. Dread held Myriam’s face to him, her legs wrapped around his waist while she shot at the Jadozors over his shoulders with blasters in both hands. Linette also flew around, shooting at the creatures. I folded the grappling hook to drop the grid, and reeled the hook back in while flying ahead, guns blazing on the beast. As soon as my friends were far enough from the tunnel, I launched a series of missiles to seal it so that no more Jadozors would come out. Six had managed to just squeeze out before I did.

Covering Varnog’s retreat towards the Defiance with Nathalie in his arms, we entered into a lethal ballet with the Jadozors. I wanted Dread to take Myriam to safety since she didn’t have wings, but the creatures were more interested in the easier targets that my friends represented than my vessel. He couldn’t risk luring them towards Varnog who was currently completely helpless while carrying our medical officer.

Still, I couldn’t help but be amazed by the fearlessness with which Myriam and Linette fought. The little Firefly—as Varnog affectionately called his wife—was mesmerizing. She zipped around the Jadozors at neck breaking speed, performing incredible aerial acrobatics while shooting at them, aiming for the vulnerable spots on their backs. However, as impressive as her display was, it also made it trickier for me to shoot down the creatures without risking hurting her.

It took me a second to realize she was taunting the Jadozors into following her, grouping them in a pack that suddenly made it all the easier for me to target them. She suddenly slowed down, letting them catch up on her before activating her stealth shield. The clever little brat!

“Unload on their asses!”Linette ordered me telepathically.“I’m clear.”

She didn’t have to say it twice. Being slightly above the pack of Jadozors, I fired a volley of photon torpedoes on them. Four of them immediately dropped from the sky, their dislocated bodies plummeting to the ground. Grievously wounded, the two remaining flew in a drunken pattern, appearing to want to land. Coming out of stealth, Linette dove after them, closely followed by Dread. Between Myriam and Linette’s blaster fire, Dread’s mouth darts and scorpion tail needles, the Jadozors soon keeled over as well.

To my surprise, rather than coming to my chaser, Dread handed over his mate to Linette, who immediately flew towards the Defiance. He then went down to the ground where the Jadozors had fallen to start beheading them.

“Great job, Kwan,”Dread mind-spoke to me with an affectionate psychic nudge.“Go back to the ship, they’ll need your help there.”

“What about those beasts?”I asked.

“Varnog is preparing containment chambers to bring over,”Dread explained.

“Acknowledged,”I replied.

Before turning my vessel around towards the Defiance, I did one last fly over the collapsed air vent. I ran a deep scan to make sure the rubble was thick enough so that more creatures couldn’t come out. Reassured, I went back to our ship. In the time it took me to land, Varnog and Linette were already boarding the shuttle inside which they had loaded the containment chambers. They took off just as I was disembarking from the chaser.

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