Page 55 of Vindicated

I wanted to believe that too. I did believe it, mostly, though watching the enemy ship loom outside the window had shaken some of that belief. I’d thought the Vandar were untraceable. People whispered that they moved through space like wraiths.

Vern cleared his throat, and when I looked at him, his shoulders were hunched, which made him look small, despite his height. "I'm sorry.”

Lettie frowned at her brother. "Sorry for what?"

"This." He gestured vaguely toward the shuddering walls around us. "This is my fault. If I hadn't brought Dell aboard with me, the Zagrath never would have found us."

My chest tightened at the raw guilt in his voice, but he didn't deserve to carry this. Not after what he’d sacrificed to help Kolt and Skye.

"How could Dell be a traitor, though?" I asked gently. "He was in that prison with you. The Zagrath threw him in there same as they threw you in there."

Vern's gaze dropped to the floor, and when he spoke again, his voice had gone quiet. "I should have known something was wrong. He told me, back in the cell, that the Zagrath were holding his family as well.” He swallowed hard. "I didn't think much of it at the time. Lots of prisoners had family being held. I never imagined he'd—" He broke off, shaking his head.

"Is that why he did it?" Lettie asked, making her way to stand close to her brother. "Because they had his family?”

Vern nodded, miserable. "He was desperate to get them back. When I caught him fiddling with that ship's comms system inthe hangar bay, he didn't even try to deny it. Just kept saying that if he proved his loyalty to the Empire, they had to let his children go."

I felt something twist uncomfortably in my chest at that, a strange, unwelcome sympathy creeping in alongside the anger I knew I should be feeling instead. Dell had endangered all of us and had doomed the entire ship to the battle currently raging, but I couldn't fully hate him for it. If someone I loved was being held by the enemy, would I do the same?

A series of strange, heavy thuds made me snap my head toward the door. They weren’t the booms of photons hitting the hull. They were deeper and more resonant, as if something was landing on the hull.

Cold terror prickled across my skin, and I swung my gaze to the view of the Zagrath ship. Fighters were pouring from openings in the side, but as I squinted, I could make out slightly larger ships moving toward us. They weren’t engaging in the dog fight but were flying steadily toward the Vandar hull without firing.

Vallia's voice dropped to no more than a whisper. "I think they're landing on the ship like Vandar raiding ships.”

“Do the Zagrath do that?” Lettie asked.

“Maybe they learned,” Hal said in a strangled voice.

“When Vandar raiding ships attach themselves on ships’ hulls, they cut their way inside,” Vallia added. “Do you think that means the Zagrath are boarding this ship?”

Hal emitted a squeak as Hatch and Ringo pivoted toward the door, squaring their shoulders. I appreciated their intention, but without weapons, their bravery wasn’t much of a defense.

If Zagrath soldiers were attempting to breach the warbird's hull, then we were sitting in warlord’s quarters with no way to defend ourselves. As we exchanged nervous glances, I think everyone realized the same thing.

Lettie planted her hands on her hips. “I, for one, am not going to sit here and wait for them to find us."

"Lettie," Hal started, "I don't think?—"

"I mean it." She jerked a thumb toward the door with her chin lifted in defiance. “We’re like fish in a barrel here, especially if they know where to look for the Raas. Who's coming with me?"

Chapter 47

Lorken

Idrove my axe blade through the shoulder of the nearest Zagrath soldier, his scream dying as he crumpled against the corridor wall clutching the wound I’d already opened in his gut. Beside me, Dawz spun and buried his own axe into the throat of another. We moved in the same tight, brutal rhythm as we had so many times before, and there was a part of me that relished the familiar cadence of hand-to-hand combat. My heart hammered so violently I could feel it in my ears, and adrenaline burned white-hot through every muscle in my body.

More boots pounded toward us from the breach point ahead, and I didn't slow to think of a strategy. I only blocked, slashed, pivoted, and slashed the way I’d been taught to since I was old enough to lift an axe.

Dawz shoved past a falling body and reached the cruel, ragged edge of the hole cut into our hull, and a curse tore from him. "Tvek!" He gestured at the mechanism still smoking at the breach's edge. “This is our own clamping system, Raas. This is Vandar tech."

I stalked past him straight into the mouth of the small enemy vessel still latched to our hull with my axe raised. I found the pilot scrambling for a weapon of his own, but I didn't give himthe chance to reach it, driving my curved blade through him in a single motion before storming back out.

"That does not make them raiders," I growled, though the words tasted bitter and pointless even as I spoke them. Stolen technology or not, the enemy had found a way to burrow into my ship like parasites, and that fact alone made my rage burn molten.

I peered over the railing into the vast, gaping chasm at the ship's center, and the sight below shifted my fury. Vandar raiders swarmed across every bridge and down every staircase, fighting with a ferocity that filled me with fierce, unwavering pride. Zagrath soldiers flipped bodily over suspended walkways and tumbled through the open air below, while others were hurled from platforms or cleaved in two with blood-soaked axes.

Despite my pride at my raiders’ skill, I despised the sight of so many enemy soldiers crawling through my warbird. No Zagrath should ever board a warbird unless it was to be interrogated, and the only way one should ever leave was through an airlock.