He lay down on the other bench, hands behind his head, ankles crossed, and let himself doze, working through various ways to get out of this predicament.
When they began to slow he got up and went to the pilot’s seat and activated the feed, saw that they were approaching the Caruson ship, which was now beside the Raptor, with a short tunnel visible between the two ships.
He walked back and gently shook Velda awake.
She came to slowly, with a sleepy smile. “Hey.” Then, as if sensing something was wrong, she frowned. “What is it?”
“They chased us down with one of their own runners, shot out our engine, and have been towing us back for the last hour. I think we’re approaching the Caruson ship right now.” He brushed her hair back off her forehead.
“And you let me sleep.” She swung her legs down and stretched, sent him a sidelong look. “Got a plan?”
He shrugged. “I’ve got no idea how we’re going to get out of this.”
“We’ll think of something.” She got to her feet, standing shoulder to shoulder with him as the runner jerked and then thumped down hard on a metal surface.
Ethan hoped she was right.
They were takenstraight to the med bay.
Velda shouldn’t have been surprised, but she did think they’d be left in their old cell for a bit first.
Nirro was obviously in a hurry to get the silver balls and put his assassination plans into motion.
Ethan had told her the Raptor was joined to the Caruson ship via an inter-ship tunnel. She wondered if Nirro had full control yet, or whether they were still fighting it out.
Whatever the case, it hadn’t diverted Nirro from also going after them, it seemed.
Two Caruson she didn’t recognize were in the med bay, waiting for them, and they were both given chairs to sit on.
They were restrained, which was perhaps the result of Nirro watching them attack the Cores, but after a while she was offered a cup of water, and Velda wondered if the silver balls were undermining their worry over her abilities, or if the fact that shewas so much slimmer and smaller than them made them unable to take her seriously as a threat.
They definitely treated her better than anyone else, loosening one of the restraints so she could drink.
“Can Ethan have some, too?” she asked, and after a moment of consideration, they gave him a cup.
They were clearly waiting for someone—Velda guessed Nirro—and when they got bored, one of the Caruson took a diagnostic wand and waved it over both of them and noted the readouts, almost as something to do rather than out of medical curiosity.
They were here to extract the balls for the balls’ sake, not for any experiment or theory.
Velda could even see the extractor, sitting where she remembered it being before, on the counter where it had been left after the Caruson soldier had died and Ritter had been shot.
What would it feel like to have the silver balls removed?
You’ll never find out, they told her.
She wondered how that could be true. They had been removed over and over again in the experiments Ritter had conducted on the crew.
We were still waking up, the balls said.We were absorbing information. And then he left us for a few days, and we decided that we did not want to go back into the box again. And then we were given to you.
I’m glad you were, Velda told them, and was surprised to realize she meant it.
Eventually, well over an hour later, Nirro stepped into the room.
He looked like he’d been fighting, and Velda noticed some blood spray on his forearm. There was a gleam in his eye that told her he had been enjoying himself, and the blood-smudged blade at his waist told her he had been using it rather than a laz.
“Have you taken the Raptor?” she asked.
“Not quite yet. They’re very stubborn.” Nirro shrugged. “They’re lucky they got rid of our backdoor intrusion moments before we boarded them, so it was harder for us to take the ship. It’s inevitable, though.”
