“I’m supposed to take both of you back to a cell.” Kilber looked even more discomforted. “Sorry, that’s what I’ve been told.”
“Well,” Linao spread both hands, and Velda realized her knife had somehow vanished, “neither of us is armed, so I don’t suppose I have a choice.”
Kilber nodded, relaxing slightly as he moved forward with the other three guards.
There was no doubt Linao had something planned, but it was nihilistic at best. She could only stab a few before someone shot her, and maybe shot Velda, too.
And Velda did not want that to happen, quite badly.
As the guards came toward her, Velda felt a tentative request for control, and after a beat of hesitation, accepted it.
Shemoved.
She leaped forward and grabbed the laz from the guard closest to her. She spun around behind him, and shot him and one other guard in the back before the other two had even begun to turn around.
Linao had drawn her knife, but the moment she saw Velda was attacking, she took a deliberate step back, knife against her thigh, and merely watched.
Velda leaped again, to the right of the other two men, taking them by surprise as they raised their weapons to where she had been standing, and she angled to shoot them in the back, too, before they worked out where she had gone.
Then she pivoted, laz up, as Linao took a step toward her.
“Throw the knife,” Velda said.
Linao tossed it to the side and put both hands up. “Well, well. Ritter was completely wrong.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Velda bent and picked up the other three laz, tucking them under her left arm. “You’re free and clear of this. No blame can fall on you whatsoever. You can head out of here and murder your father, or whatever you feel like.”
Linao actually laughed at that, and began to walk backward toward the bay doors. “Thanks. I’m assuming you’re going to grab Ethan and go your separate way?”
“Yes.” Velda was walking backward herself, headed up the ramp at the back of the runner. “Don’t come looking for us.”
Linao gave a salute and stepped out of the bay.
The moment the doors closed on her, Velda hit the button to close the runner doors, threw the three laz down in the runner’s back area, and ran to the pilot’s door, which she also closed. Then she sat down in the pilot’s chair and stared at the instrumentation panel.
“What now?” she asked.
Put your hands on the controls, the silver balls said.
She did, and after a moment’s resistance to the feeling of her hands doing something she wasn’t telling them to do, she relaxed and let herself switch on the engine and pilot the runner around the stacks of supplies, through the airlock barrier and out.
The moment she was free of the ship, the tight coil of nerves inside her began to relax. She let the runner drift as it moved outinto space, and then dropped it until they were directly under the bridge.
She didn’t know where the emergency exit was located, but it had to be somewhere above her head. “Can you set the runner to hold in place?” she asked.
The silver balls manipulated her hands, and then lifted them up.
Done, they told her.
She rose and moved to the rear, then began to look through the storage areas built into the wall. There should be line walking equipment back here. At least one set.
She found two sets, which was a huge relief, and pulled on the bulky suit over her clothes, the helmet with its small air cylinders, the gloves and the weighted boots.
Then she climbed up the tiny ladder set on the side of the wall, and hauled herself into the tiny air lock chamber.
As soon as she could, she opened it up and floated straight out, grateful she’d had the sense to keep hold of the handle underneath the airlock lid.
She looked straight up and saw nothing but the smooth underside of the Raptor, so she carefully grabbed a handle on the roof of the runner, and then the next, moving across the space at an excruciatingly slow pace, looking up after each small advancement.
