Page 52 of The Captain's Bounty
A sudden rumbling vibration shook the ship all around them as the Medibay lights came back on. Air hissed from the ventilation duct, making stray wisps of her brown hair move in the artificial breeze.
The data-comm beeped. “Bruwes, do you want the good news or bad news?”
He sighed. This would have to wait. He didn’t know how to proceed with her anyway. He hit the comm. “Good news.”
Again, he needed it.
“We fixed the life support, although the engines are still offline and the thrusters are at seventeen percent. Turns out they’re not recommended for prolonged used or evasive maneuvers.”
“Can we squeeze them enough to get planetside?”
“One of life’s great unanswered questions, I guess,” Aldar said in a distant tone.
The entire ship reverberated with the metal clang of docking clamps latching onto them.
The data-comm beeped again as Aldar drawled, “We’re about to get boarded.”
CHAPTER NINE
Lissa randown the corridor directly behind Bruwes, exactly as he’d told her. They reached his room long enough for him to grab his boots and two shirts. She scrambled without a word into the one he tossed her. Already, they could hear the sizzle of the cutting torch coming through the docking hatch.
Shoving his feet into his boots, he threw on his shirt then hit a wall panel, and a drawer popped open. He stuck a sheathed knife in the back waistband of his pants, sloppily hiding it under his shirt, and then holstered a plasma gun.
Grabbing her arm, back out the door they went, running for the tech bay.
“I don’t suppose we’re going to the escape pod,” she panted as he slapped the panel.
“No pods,” Bruwes grunted, slapping the panel again. No chirp, no light. Dead.
“So, no escape,” Lissa said, mostly to herself as she stared her mortality in the face. She’d done a lot of that lately, but this time, it felt much more final.
“We’re not dead yet.”
“We might as well be.”
Bruwes threw her a side-long glare, then lunged and slammed his huge hands against the door. Before she could remind him how pointless that was, he gave a heave, distracting Lissa with a surge of entirely inappropriate thoughts as she admired the flex and roll of his broad back. And then the door began to move, groaning metallically as Bruwes himself grit his teeth in silence. A few inches, a few more, opening steadily under his force, but oh so slowly.
Somewhere down the hall, the airlock hatch slammed to the metal floor.
“They’re in!” Lissa gasped.
Bruwes grabbed her arm and pushed her through the opening he’d made. A tight squeeze, but she made it. Throwing himself once more against the door, he growled, “Go!”
The others were already in the space ahead of them. One of them—his name escaped her for the moment—jumped to help Bruwes with the door, giving Lissa a little time to assess their surroundings. This was either their cargo hold or the room where they stored their scraps and waste, it was hard to tell. Piles of scrap—hull plates from several different makes and models, scorched ship parts (including a burnt-out jump coil), and less identifiable things, semi-sorted by composition—were everywhere, forming a kind of loose maze with scarcely enough room to walk between them.
“Are you armed, Kelys?” Bruwes asked, coming up behind her at last.
The man nodded, retaking his position behind one of the taller mounds of slag.
“We all are,” Demin added.
“Why did we come here?” Cory asked, checking the power gauge on the handguns she held. “We’re trapped in here.”
“We’re trapped no matter where we go,” the doctor answered.
“But here we have the most cover,” Bruwes answered. “Who are they?”
“Looked like a scav ship,” Kelys said swiftly building heavy crates up into a barricade big enough for two to hide behind. Aldar immediately took cover, loading and checking one of the biggest handguns Lissa had ever seen. “They didn’t even bother to hail us. Not that we could have answered at the time.”
