Starborne

Chapter 39

On my way to the interrogation room, I went through a harried checklist in my mind. As soon as we entered the atmosphere, ALYX was to send a radio ping to the Terran base. They would be en route in about a half hour, give or take ten minutes for the flow of information to get to the right hands.

The few administrative mercenaries left in the control room would be easily disabled by the armed Pilots. There were about 18 male Terran prisoners, by ALYX's count, listed in the ship's manifest. Two or three would be too weak to fight, along with any civilian prisoners who had been picked up along the way, but with the rest, we certainly had enough for a small army.

The groups of Pilots would all fall back to the control room once the Terrans engaged, so we had until then to get the rest of the ship secured. With all armed mercenaries locked in the landing bay, they wouldn't be able to move three feet in either direction until we touched down in the jungle.

A quick tinge of anxiety raised the hairs on the back of my neck. That's where things got less predictable…

The ship was roughly the size of a large apartment building, with plenty of smaller cruisers equipped, as well as emergency landing pods. In the weeks prior to setting a course to Cynabar, the mercenaries had taken a massive victory on a previous Terran stronghold. This was bad overall, but it meant the majority of their forces were left there to maintain control, while the rest were supposed to take the ship back to an occupied planet to regroup.

Jack's own hubris had allowed him to set off on this side quest for revenge, with only roughly six hundred men at his disposal to run the ship. By ALYX's estimate, 542 of those men were currently packed into the smaller cruisers or landing bays, prepared for a ground invasion.

They may realize something was wrong, but with ALYX mimicking communication from the control bay and no response from Jack, they would continue with their orders, just like we wanted them to.

Two men guarded the interrogation room, and I had not even a moment of hesitation before I tazed them to the ground with a laser gun.

My newfound disdain for drawing blood couldn't possibly last the whole invasion, but I nevertheless took a precious 20 seconds to handcuff the unconscious men to a large utility pole, rather than resort to bullets.

Stefin was back to ignoring me as I slid open the doors, but both men were prepared and ready to go as I unlocked their cuffs.

“I hope you know what you're doing,” Koryn didn't seem nervous at all. Though I could see he was favoring his left ankle, he rubbed his hands together with gleeful anticipation for the fight to come.

“Of course I don't.” I tossed them the guns that I'd pulled off the guards in the hallway, pocketing an additional small pistol and shoving a low-grade electric knife in my boot. “Lucky thing is, neither does anyone else.”

“You were gone for a while,” Stefin muttered under his breath as we cautiously made our way out of the cramped cell and into the hallway.

As we passed the guards, I gave them another jolt of electricity, not wanting to take chances with how long they'd be out.

“Elaborate coups take time.” I skirted the question he was really asking. “You're welcome, by the way.”

“You don't get points for solving problems you created,” his tone was firm, despite our whispered exchange. Even though his words were unfriendly, Stefin's low growl did little to soothe the anticipation building uneasily in my stomach.

My body was brewing for a fight, the dose of adrenaline still coursing through my veins. I mentally added another clock to my running total - time until I overextended myself and passed out cold.