Linao was getting special treatment because they didn’t like her and blamed her for their ship exploding but it could also be that they were gambling that they wouldn’t actually come under heavy fire if they kept Linao, because she was a special case. Maybe they were hoping that was a threat the Cores weren’t going to carry out, in case they harmed Linao in the process.
“How did you come to be switched out with Ritter?” Linao turned to look at them, and Velda made a face.
“One of the guards let the Cores crew know that we were prisoners. You and Ritter had been taken, and so they decided to offer an exchange.” She shrugged.
“Well, it worked out for Ritter,” Linao said, voice sharp. “And you seemed happy enough to out me. What difference did it make to you?”
Velda shrugged again. She really had been fifty fifty on whether to lie about Linao or not, but in the end, the more the Caruso trusted her, the more leash they might allow her later. Leash she could use to escape with Ethan.
Plus she believed the Cores would be much less likely to obliterate the Caruso—if that was a possibility—if Linao was still with them, than otherwise.
Linao narrowed her eyes at Velda’s response then sat down on the bay floor, forcing the guard beside her to shuffle back a bit.
She’d been hit by laz fire, so Velda guessed she was probably still a little weak.
She watched the Caruso load items into the small runner that must come from the ship, and one of those things, she noticed, was the box of silver balls.
The Caruso had boarded the Cores ship when they’d picked up the ore, and Velda guessed the Caruson warship wasn’t able to dock ship to ship with this vessel. Which meant they’d have to risk taking the ship’s runner to escape.
She’d rather not be on a runner, being shot at, but the leader shouted over to their guards, and the one holding a laz on Ethan prodded him with it, forcing him to move toward the ramp.
Velda moved with them, then glanced back to look at Linao.
She rose up carefully, as if she was in pain, and the guard lowered his weapon as he stepped back to give her room.
She used that moment to suddenly break for the bay door, running side to side in an evasive maneuver.
The Caruson guard gave a shout and fired, and he got her just as she reached the doors, hands outstretched.
She slammed into the doors as the laz fire struck her, bounced backward, and then fell on her side.
Ouch. That would have hurt.
And she was in for a world of pain when she woke up later, too.
The guard herding Velda and Ethan snapped at them to hurry, and then restrained them in seats side by side before he jogged out to help his crew.
Ethan tilted his head, able to see out a bit better than she could.
“She’s alive.” He grimaced as she was carried in and dumped on the floor. A guard attached restraints to her hands and feet, and then looped them through a metal rail that ran beneath the seats.
“Now we see if their gamble pays off,” Ethan murmured, as the whole Caruso crew got in. The ramp began to close up as the engine roared to life.
The Cores soldiers must have been close by, listening for the sound of the runner starting up, because the doors to the bay opened in a hail of laz light when the ramp was half closed, a team of six storming in and laying down heavy fire.
The runner began to move before the ramp was closed, but it slammed shut moments before they shot through the airlock membrane at the bay entrance. She felt the runner dip down and then spin the opposite way.
“They’re flying under the Cores ship,” Ethan said, voice low. “It’s a good strategy.”
Right now, whatever strategy meant they didn’t take a hit was a good one, as far as Velda was concerned.
She reached out to touch Ethan’s hand, the way her wrists were tied making it only just possible to reach him with her fingertips. He looked at her and then did the same, curling his little finger around hers.
For a moment all the noise around them shut off, as if they were alone somewhere, and then reality intruded as the little runner shuddered, spun again, and then accelerated away.
From the loud sounds coming from the Caruson, Velda guessed they’d successfully gotten away, and they were celebrating their escape.
Then the ship shuddered again, and the front end seemed to crumple, crushing the pilot and throwing the Caruso against the runner’s walls.
