Which was totally crazy. I needed to be planning my own escape, which was rife with difficulty. Givnia was not a promising destination. Trying to escape into an enslaved city may not even be possible. We could be leaping out of the frying pan, into the fire.
The thought of jumping ship bothered me from another perspective—theStardrifterwas my home. Leaving it at all would be difficult.
What was the alternative? To fly off in the ship, we’d have to eliminate the Drakes. Kurt would never agree to help us. It would be Yani and me against four seasoned and lethal warriors. Four that we knew of, anyway. Who knows how many might actually be on board.
Wouldn’t like to calculate the odds on dealing with them. We’d be lucky just to die. We had phasers on the ship, but there was a reason we were allowed those weapons—when they had their scales, Drakes just shrugged them off. Unless you managed a lucky head shot. We were not permitted to carry anything more lethal.
I stared again at the images. The sheer amount of metal binding them was testament to one thing—fear. Fear of what would happen, if they got loose. Despite the injuries, and the cage. And the fact they had multiple Drakes guarding them.
Whoever these guys were, they were considered formidable.
I lay back on the bed, stared at the ceiling, and let my mind run wild.
Which did me precisely no good until Yani returned… and helped me pull it all together.
My pulse pounded as I linedStardrifterup within the slipstream portal and hit the engage sequence.
Usually, Drake transports were given priority among the ships waiting for the portal closest to Earth, but our resident overlords didn’t insist on any kind of special attention. Yani and I exchanged a look as I entered the destination coordinates. Our passengers clearly didn’t wish to draw attention to themselves.
Looking through the windows, I scanned the ships. A scattering of those about the same size asStardrifter, and a few a little larger amid three mammoth freighters similar toStonehenge.All wereno doubt loaded with resources stripped from Earth. And then there were the slipstream transports, which were loaded with smaller ships that lacked their own drives.
Fortunately, we only waited a couple of hours for our chance to be hurled many lightyears away from Earth’s solar system. I spent the entire time on pins and needles. It helped that the Drakes didn’t appear on the bridge, but stayed down in the aft storage bay.
I didn’t want to know what they were doing in there. I thought of the talon marks on the captive Drakes, and my stomach churned.
From deep within the ship, the slipstream drive rumbled, and then growled. The stars and planets around us blurred and became lines, before vanishing altogether.
I took a deep breath. Hours from now, the portal would spit us out at our destination solar system. We had until then to enact our plan.
Yani said nothing as we stood and left the bridge. I wouldn’t need to pilot theStardrifteruntil we were nearing the end of the portal. Which was good, because I had other things to be doing.
We headed for my quarters. On the way, we passed Kurt, who leaned against the wall. He grabbed his crotch. “Going to be a boring slipstream ride.”
“Hope you brought a long book,” I returned as we sailed past. “With lots of pictures.”
I sensed the hostility in his glare as we vanished into my quarters,and was glad Yani was with me. Kurt had never gone past rude comments and the occasional arm grab, but I didn’t doubt his inclination to cross the line, either.
I put the listening device back into piano music purgatory, and we sat down at my table. Pulling out a board game, I scattered the pieces around us as though we were playing.
Then we heard it.
Echoing through the air duct. Thuds, as if flesh were being impacted. And snarling.
I hadn’t noticed anything from the bridge. I guessed it was just far enough away not to carry. My stomach twisted at what it meant.
“Drakes are tough. And the Taziers haven’t gone to all this trouble to kill them now,” Yani told me. Her eyes reflected her own dismay. But she wasn’t wrong.
I tried not to imagine all the nasty ways in which they couldn’t be killed. And then I reminded myself that these were Drakes, and responsible for all kinds of human suffering, so why was I even worried about them?
But I was.
Forty minutes later, I was beginning to think it would be better to witness what was going on, rather than having my imagination supply the details.
“It won’t be long, now,” Yani added.
Almost as soon as she’d said it, there was a bang, and the entire ship shuddered. It was punctuated with a whine right at the outer limits of human hearing.
I rubbed at my ears. It was irritating, but for the Drakes’s sensitive hearing, it would be excruciating.
