Page 48 of Jarran

Instead she said, “Hand me one of those ration packs.”

He handed it to her. Their fingers touched and she held on for a second longer than necessary. He noticed, and his eyes softened, but she let go before the softness made her lose her composure.

She had her own plan. She hadn’t told him. If Xill Rin’s neural conditioning technology was a specific, reproducible neurological procedure, she could map it and build a medical case that would hold up in any tribunal. Proof that Jarran Bando was a victim of an engineered identity replacement. Proof that could mean the difference between a possible death sentence and a medical finding.

She would do it whether he asked her to or not. That was her decision, and she also wasn’t going to change her mind.

The alert hit out of nowhere, with red lights strobing across the docking bay ceiling. An alarm blared, bouncing off the metal walls. Evie flinched so hard she nearly fell over. Automated announcements in a mechanical voice started cycling in languages she didn’t recognize.

Her first thought was that the Virilians were here for Jarran.

But Jarran didn’t seem to think so. He grabbed the blaster from the back of his pants and checked the charge. His whole body had gone tense. “This isn’t right.”

The way station’s docking bay doors began to seal. Magnetic barriers shifted from passive to full containment. The few aliens in the bay scrambled for cover, abandoning cargo and scurrying toward the interior corridors.

“That’s not a Coalition approach,” Jarran said. “They identify themselves on approach. This is a hostile alert.”

Evie’s stomach dropped. “Durik?”

“Durik.” He said it with grim certainty as he jumped to the ground and helped her down, too. “We need to find cover.” He pointed to a cluster of heavy cargo containers near the far wall. “Over there, behind the crates.”

She ran alongside him and they crouched behind the cargo containers. Evie pressed her back against the cold metal, her heart pounding so hard she could hear it.

They came in hot and fast. A shuttle punched through the magnetic barrier and skidded into the bay without clearance or finesse. The ramp dropped before the ship had fully settled and bodies poured out. Six, eight, ten of them. Sifter soldiers in dark tactical gear, armed with blasters, moving in formation. They fanned out across the bay. It was no mystery who they were looking for.

Jarran fired from behind the container. The first blast caught a Sifter in the chest and dropped him. The second went wide as the soldiers scattered for cover. The docking bay erupted into noise and light and the acrid smell of ionized air.

Evie pressed herself flat behind the crates. Blaster shots scorched the air above her, punching into the containers with sharp metallic impacts. She could hear Jarran moving, firing, repositioning. He was faster than anyone his size should be, and accurate, picking off Sifters as they tried to advance across the cluttered bay. But there were too many of them, and they kept spreading out, flanking, working around his position.

A blast hit the fuel drum three feet to her left. The metal buckled and something inside hissed. Evie scrambled sideways, keeping low. If that drum ignited, they were both dead.

Jarran dropped another Sifter and changed position. She lost sight of him behind the shuttle and those few seconds were the longest of her life. Then she heard his blaster again and exhaled.

A blast caught him in the leg. He was crossing between cover positions, exposed for maybe two seconds, and a Sifter on the upper level got a clear shot to his right thigh. He staggered, caught himself on the edge of a cargo pod, and kept moving. Her doctor brain quickly ran the assessment: Lateral thigh, mid-quadriceps. Minimal bleeding. Painful, but not immediately life-threatening. That last part was what kept her from panicking.

He kept fighting. Slower now, favoring the leg, but he dropped two more Sifters from behind the landing strut of a battered cargo hauler. Then a Sifter raider stepped out from behind a support column ten feet to her right, his blaster leveled at her chest. She saw his cold, focused eyes and knew he was going to shoot her.

Jarran threw himself between them. The blast meant for her chest hit him in the shoulder instead and knocked him back. She reached for him but he shook his head.

“Stay down.” His voice was a rasp. He got one foot under him, then the other. Blood spread across his shirt. His face was taut and his jaw was locked tight.

Just then, she saw something that made her blood run cold. Jarran squeezed his eyes shut for a second and a coldness moved over his face, like a shadow passing under the surface: Pella Rin. The combat, the pain, and the adrenaline were lighting up the old pathways. It lurked in his subconscious like a virus, waiting for exactly this kind of trigger.

He opened his eyes and blinked. Still Jarran. She let out a breath of relief. But the effort was visible, a strain in his expression that had nothing to do with the wounds. He was holding the door shut with everything he had.

He raised the blaster and kept firing.

Suddenly, a low roar reverberated through the floor. Evie flinched, thinking it was an explosion, but the sound was steadier than that. It was a new ship blasting its way into the battered docking bay.

TWENTY-ONE

Another ship had arrived. Evie gasped to see Taron’s shuttle skid to a halt. Its hull smoked from the heat of breaching the magnetic barrier while in lockdown. But it was still a welcome sight.

Taron burst from the shuttle at a run, a blaster rifle braced against his shoulder. He moved as fast as his brother. His lean frame covered the distance between the shuttle and the nearest docking pylon in seconds, and his appearance disrupted the Sifters’ coordinated attack.

He dropped behind it, sighted, and fired three times into the Sifter flank. Three shots, three hits. He didn’t look at Jarran. Didn’t acknowledge him. Just fought.

Then the bay shook and a massive ship slid into view outside the barrier. Evie gasped at the sight of it, as it was enormous and military-level, bristling with weapons arrays and running lights. It dwarfed the way station. Shuttles began launching from its belly, sleek and fast, streaming toward the station’s docking ports.