“We can retreat,” one of them mentioned. “Go down. Short circuit the elevator, or lay a trap. We can overpower him at close range if there’s nothing to shield him.”
Oh, fuck no.
“We’d be sitting ducks down there. Our best chance is going up, not down.”
“Our best fucking chance? We have no other chance!”
They argued.
Ely was down there. He wasn’t letting another man get close to her if he could help it. Gunner pushed himself from the wall, flinching as his flesh shifted and tore. Several more pulses went off, causing cascading lapses in his mainframe. The more he moved, the worse it got.
He dropped his gun but caught it before it hit the floor.
“We can get the prisoners on our side.”Elodie.“Tell them it’s a matter of survival.”
“Like hell that’ll work! What do you think those half-starved lumps can do? They know my face. I fried the balls off of one of them their first day.”
“We need one of the new recruits to convince them.”
Gunner edged closer to the corner, listening.
“If you haven’t looked around, they ain’t here, or they’re dead. I’d take my chances with one enemy, not several dozen. And if Juke comes out—”
“Juke ain’t coming out! Look, a patrol went down before all this happened, and that one fucker, the one that won’t stop talking—”
“Kallan?”
“Yeah, he’s down there. Maybe he can convince them.”
Gunner gritted his teeth. How’d he fucking let Kallan get by? The lech had a special place on his death list.
And I left Elodie down there with him.
“I don’t like the guy. He can’t be trusted.”
No fucking shit.
“What other choice we got? Even the fucking androids have been pulled back. If I get my hands on Juke...”
“I like the idea of having a shit-ton of metal between us andhim.”
The men quieted down as if contemplating. Gunner skirted his eyes across the area around him.I can’t let them get to the elevator.He had noticed the androids withdrawing before, back when he sensed Ballsy leaving on an escape pod, but it hadn’t occurred to him why.
If he could get to them, he could control them, but they weren’t close and he was weak.
He eyed the second elevator shaft, the one that went up.I could go up and take the ship. Forget about the others. I’ve already been discovered.Juke would possibly know where his ship was.
The codes that ate away at the freighter's systems were still doing their job. Gunner knew that the captain had changed course—he just didn’t know to where. But if they were headed straight into enemy territory his job was going to get a hell of a lot harder.
I could go up and take over the ship...And hope that nothing happened to those below. Elodie wouldn’t have protection. But he would steer their course.If I did that, the rest of the pirate fleet would know.
Gunner spat out blood.No. It could take me hours, maybe days.It depended on what he was up against. Even if Ely remained safe, there would be no one to keep her and the other prisoners fed until he wrangled the androids.
He rubbed his gun over his brow.When did everything get so fucking complicated?
“Let’s go!” one of the pirates urged. He heard them move.
“Wait!” Gunner roared. It was the first time he’d spoken. “I don’t trust Kallan either. No one in the brig does.”
