Page 13 of Aura Awakened
“No, I don’t think so. It’s something…mechanical.”
The low buzz is getting louder and louder, shifting from a hum to a whoosh. I can see a wall of neon magenta light at the far end of the corridor, rapidly moving our way, fast-moving bots in its wake.
“Fuck! It’s a sweep! Quick, get back in the hatch.” I practically shove her into the tiny space and cram myself in behind her.
“A sweep?” she asks, confusion in her voice.
“Sensors and more. Not only would it have given them our location, but with the touch of a button, that pink light could have incinerated us on contact. The Malifects kill what they can’t keep, and there’s no way to know what that sensor was programmed to do.” The Malifect sensors are almost as famous as the Somnambulis. I once saw an escaped prisoner get zapped, and the incident lives among my most gruesome memories. The screams, the stink. The savagery.
“I’m sorry, what? We nearly got incinerated?”
“Maybe. I really don’t know. Shit.” I scrape a hand over my head, trying to think.
Panic and chlorodrine, the fight-or-flight pheromone, are racing through me, and it takes me a second to realize it’s because of her. I’m a trained soldier; facing the enemy—even facing death—isn’t a prospect I relish, but I don’t fear it, either. But my star-mate is in danger, and every one of my instincts is on high alert.
I take a few calming breaths, trying to flood the chlorodrine out of my system. Even after I feel calmer, my hands are still shaking and I can feel worry all the way down to my plastids.
What am I doing? Ditching Ramp, hauling my star-mate through the bowels of a Grim ship, possibly trapping myself—and Aura right along with me—in a fucking Wraith Nebula? Not even alerting Coalition Command of what I did? Ramp probably handled that, but fuck, I threw protocol out the airlock with this. He was pissed when I did it, and I ignored that, too. Just jumped headfirst into a dangerous situation with no real preparation, no chance for backup, like I always do, and look where it got me.
We could have been killed.Shecould have been killed.
I have to fix this.
I turn to Aura. “The mission isn’t worth it. I don’t know what I was thinking, dragging you into this, but I’m getting you out of here. I’ll bring back the coordinates and let the Coalition figure out the rest.” I pull the nanocraft and remote out of my pocket and try to transport the ship into space, where it will enlarge and where we can safely teleport aboard.
But it doesn’t work.
The ship transports just fine, but it won’t expand. The remote flashes, indicating a malfunction, and I transport it back, stowing it in my pocket once more.
I lean back, lightly banging my head against the wall. “Dammit. Fuck!”
“What’s wrong?”
I glance at Aura, at the concern etched on her exquisite face. “I can’t activate my ship from here. Something to do with the atmosphere outside. The Wraith Nebula is causing a malfunction. We’ll have to hide until this ship clears it.”
Horror crosses her face, and thanks to the star-bond, I feel it as strongly as if she’d punched me. “You mean we’re trapped here?” Her voice shoots up an octave.
I hadn’t realized how much the thought of escape had been keeping her going. “Not permanently. But for the moment, yeah. Don’t worry, though. I’ll find a way to get us out of this, I promise.”
She rolls her lips inward, steeling herself. “All right. I believe you.” She takes a deep breath and shakes out her hands, as if sloughing off the fear. “I cannot wait to get off this monstrosity. But in the meantime, there’s no use in panicking. Let’s look at this logically. We weren’t planning to leave right now anyway. If we’re stuck here, we might as well complete your mission. After all, if we stay in this crawl space, they’ll definitely find us. We’ll be ducks again. Or, I don’t know, fish in a barrel. Some sort of trapped animal. It’s safer if we’re on the move.”
I sit for a second, taking her in. Her bravery is astonishing. She’s willing to stand by my side and face the monsters who took her, just so I can complete my task. Is that simply who she is? Or is the star-bond intensifying on her end as well, compelling her to help me?
Then reality smacks me upside the head. “I don’t know if we can, not with the Malifects doing sensor sweeps of the ship. It’s obviously faster than manually searching deck by deck. I don’t think the sensors search in here, so it’ll take a little while for them to figure out where we are. But they will eventually.”
“Then we give it a few minutes, however long it takes them to finish sweeping the decks. When they don’t find us, they’ll think to look in the tubes and tunnels, so that’s when we should make our move. Their focus will be in here, so we’ll make sure to be out there.” She gestures absently back the way we came.
I nod. “You’re right. We need to stay one step ahead until I can get my ship working.”
“About that…” She hesitates. “Once we do, how long will it take to get back to Earth?”
I raise my brows. I’d forgotten that she doesn’t have any idea how far away we are. “That might be a problem.”
“Why?”
“Well, the thing is, the Malifects use jump gate technology to leap from system to system. They can cross parsecs in seconds. But no one in the Coalition—that is, my people and our allies—can do that.”
Her face turns ashen. “What are you saying?”