Chapter 27

CHAPTER 27

ALINA

" A re you okay?" Alina felt for Kaia next to her in the post-jump blackness. She was there, moving. Assured Kaia was alive, Alina squinted toward the center of the space. It was too dark to see Threxin. She supposed if he were dead, the ship would announce it. But just because he wasn't dead didn't mean he might not be dying or gravely injured. Besides, his wound was still pretty fresh. What if it had opened up?

Kaia's low voice in her ear drew her attention.

"Go to the rear docking bay," she instructed as quietly as she could over the roar of the ship. "Tell Isabelle we're ready."

"Now? You want me to go now?" The question was punctuated by the sudden angling of the ship, throwing Alina forward into her harness. They had just come out of the jump, which Alina knew was the most dangerous time to be unstrapped in the ship. Plus Alina had no idea how she was meant to get all the way to the rear dock in this darkness, with equipment flying like that in the turbulence. "Kaia… I'm not registered for Upload yet." If she got hit by a flying projectile, she was fucked.

"You'll be fine. Go. "

It was a bad idea, but if Kaia was asking her to do something, there had to be a reason for it.

Ready for what though? What was "we're ready" even supposed to mean?

Alina worked to unstrap her harness, hands still trembling with the residual sensation of dissolution and subsequent reformation.

She fell out of her seat as soon as the harness was off, mouth gaping in a silent scream as her knee cracked against the floor. Alina forced herself up through the searing pain in her kneecap. Damn, she had only just begun and she was already hurt.

She felt her way through the darkness toward what she thought must be the door. Lights began to flicker overhead, illuminating some of her way. They gave her enough of a glimpse to see that Threxin was conscious and talking to Orion Halen, who had at some point made his way over to the seat next to him.

He's okay.

Satisfied, Alina focused on the trek at hand. It was a straight shot through one of the main halls to get to the rear dock, but with the ship as unstable as it was, it wasn't going to be easy.

It must have taken nearly an hour of stumbling, clutching the walls, and crawling out of side passages the jerking of the ship had thrown her into on the way. Alina was relieved to see the halls were empty, with people having been given enough warning to secure themselves in shelters or their cabins. There were always injuries after a jump, most fortunately minor. The medbay would be busy once things stabilized.

"Well?" Isabelle asked when Alina appeared in the dockmaster's office .

"Kaia said… she said to tell you we're ready," Alina caught her breath, bending over to rub at her aching knee.

The dockmaster and Isabelle exchanged short nods. "Come here. We may need hands."

They made their way slowly through the strobing lights toward the utility closet where Alina had gotten the scrubbing equipment for her shifts. Everything had mostly been nailed down, various bottles and boxes stored safely for the jump, but one metal shelf had toppled to its side on the floor, its contents spilled all over.

Isabelle and the dockmaster picked their way through the collapsed framing, stepping on anything and everything in their way. The wall against which the shelf had stood contained a door, presently blocked by the fallen frame.

"Pull it back," the dockmaster barked, bending to grip the frame and start pulling it to the side. Isabelle and Alina followed suit, adding their efforts to dislodge the weight. Alina couldn't put any weight on her right leg but did her best with what she had.

"Shit," Alina cried when the ship rocked, dislodging the shelf and sliding them—and it—into the other wall. It took her a second to register the bone-splitting pain in her hand. It had gotten pinched between the frame and the corner of a dislodged metal container.

"Shit," the dockmaster concurred. He lifted the frame a few inches so Alina could pull her bloodied hand out from the entrapment. It went numb at first, fingers twitching of their own accord as she lifted them to her face. But soon agony set back in, radiating down her wrist.

Isabelle was already at the freed door, pulling it open to slip into the darkness. The dockmaster grimaced at the sight of Alina's hand but nudged her forward. "Let's go, love. We'll look at that later."

Alina nodded, teeth clamped over her lip to hold back her watering eyes .

They were in a tiny utility room filled with cables and blinking lights. Isabelle was already at a small box that flashed with multicolored lights.

"It's got power," she said, relieved. She pulled a small legacy keyboard from a tangle of wires in the wall. The keys clacked as she tested them. "Frequency?"

"It?" Alina groaned through clenched teeth.

The dockmaster pulled a piece of physical paper from his pocket. He recited a set of characters that Alina recognized as a universal comms frequency: HDR-20581.

"You've got comms? External comms?" Alina gasped. Isabelle nodded curtly.

They were sending a message out. A message for help. Alina racked her brain for which ship or station the ID might belong to. She hadn't had the need to learn them, having known no one outside of Colossal . External comms were strictly forbidden without special permission even before a uhyre invasion. Most residents would have no idea what all the different frequencies were.

"All right. Starting transmission." More clacking followed as Isabelle poked out a message on the keyboard. She was slow—nobody used physical keyboards anymore, with people signaling their messages through their Neurosync interfaces.

"What are you sending?" Alina asked.

Isabelle frowned as she searched for the next key. "That we've been attacked. That we're approaching the outer sector, well within reach of Hydra Company's defensive fleet, and require aid."

"Hydra Company… But they're?—"

"The most powerful entity in the known universe, and armed to the teeth to defend their mining operations," the dockmaster explained. "And they will be discreet. Won't want to sow panic. Colossal is one of their biggest buyers. They will help. "

"Even if it's the uhyre?"

"I'm leaving that part out," Isabelle said wryly.

Alina was skeptical. The message would certainly be cryptic. Who would Hydra Company think attacked Colossal , out in the unexplored reaches of space? Pirate ships circled the edges of the known universe sometimes, sure, but none of them would be a match for Colossal . Surely they'd guess this was something bigger…

"Won't they need to know what to prepare for?"

"That's why," Isabelle tapped out more keys, "I'm telling them to bring all they have."

"Assuming they listen…" Alina said.

"I guess we'll see."

Alina walked around to stand behind Isabelle and look at the screen.

"CS Colossal attacked. App outer sector 02A. Defensive aid req. High severity, high impact. Danger to humanity. Do not transmit back. EMPH: DO NOT TRANSMIT BACK."

Of course, that last part made sense. If the company replied to their message via comms, the uhyre would know a communication had been sent out. Threxin would know.

"Set it to ping once every twenty-four hours for one week," the dockmaster said, and Isabelle nodded. "That monster will probably be too busy stabilizing parts of the ship post-jump to notice. This one will slip through. After that, we'll need to find a new window or it might get suspicious."

"Peter would've known all this shit," Isabelle complained as she looked for the appropriate keys.

"Peter was involved?" Alina swallowed .

"He was the one who found this comms link," Isabelle said as she stashed the keyboard away. "And then disappeared."

"Might be back," the dockmaster chimed in.

"I doubt it," Alina muttered under her breath.

Isabelle looked up to the dockmaster, shaking her head slightly. "Yeah, wouldn't bet on it. He was already unstable. Probably holed himself up on the CRD somewhere."

"Do you need me for anything else?" Alina asked quickly.

"No. Get back to Kaia. Tell her it's done."

"But did it work?"

"No way to tell until someone comes to our rescue."

By the time it was done and they had made their way out of the utility closet, Alina could feel herself crashing. She was just so damn exhausted, wanting nothing more than to curl up in bed with a quilt and forget about the day. Unfortunately, she'd have no such luck. Kaia would surely be waiting for her to report back, so Alina stumbled through the still-flickering halls to return to the command center, the pain in her leg and hand intensifying with each step.