More gunshots roared over the coms, so loud I knew they were point-blank. My world spiraled out of control. No one survived that.
“I’m in the air lock,” Tess panted out. “Just blew the station-side control panel.”
“Thank the Powers.” My leg gave out, and I slid down the wall, landing next to Frank.
The doctor threw me an anxious glance. “Is she all right?”
I nodded.
“Are you?” he asked.
“Stun blasts.” I flopped my hands and one foot. “Still recovering.”
He nodded and went back to examining Frank. It occurred to me that he might not have been asking about my physical state.
Caeryssa caught my eye and gave me a reassuring nod with her sharp chin.Things are moving along just fine, she seemed to say.
I blew out a breath.A day in the life of a Nightchaser. I might go gray before my time, but at least I’d go gray with Tess.
She updated us on her progress. “I’m opening the second lock. It’s a fancy one again.” Her only way out of here now was in that cargo hold. “Someone shot me in the ass,” she added, outrage firing up her voice.
“The ass?” I croaked. “Can you walk?”
“Yeah. It hurts like crazy, but I can walk. Or limp,” she said.
“Holy shit, Tess. What can I do?” Gabe over the com, sounding panicked.
What can you do? Zip it and man the damn air lock.
“It’s fine,” Tess ground out, her growing impatience either due to the slow override of the sophisticated lock or to Gabe’s stupid question when she had other things to worry about. “Surral will help.”
My jaw flexed. That was Tess’s solution to everything—Surral will fix it. Well, Surral wasn’t here. What happened if Tess couldn’t get to Starway 8 before she bled to death?
“Can you fly that hold?” I asked. After she broke the vacuum seal, maybe someone already inside it could pilot the box.
“I can do it.” She didn’t elaborate, and I waited for the lock to beep over the com. It finally did. The door whooshed open, and her breath hitched. “It’s the same. A hundred people, at least.”
The door swooshed again as Tess sealed herself inside with the human cargo. “Ignore the uniform,” she told the people in the cargo attachment. “I’m here to help. I’m breaking you out of this place.”
Soft murmuring and cries of relief came through to us. A shiver rippled over my half-numb body, the discernible reaction of the people trapped in that place painting a sudden wash of goose bumps across my flesh. My blood pumped harder, making me giddy and sick and fearful and alive all at once.
“Lock door and…detach,” Tess muttered to herself. “I’m loose, Merrick. Pick me up as soon as I’m far enough out.”
“Put pressure on the wound,” Merrick answered back.
“I am.” She sounded distracted, already on to her next task. “I’ve got a joystick in one hand and my ass in the other. That sounds like fun, but it really isn’t.”
Frank snorted and then winced, earning himself a frown from the doctor for jostling himself.
“Grazed rib. No organ damage that I can see.” The man gently probed Frank’s injury with one hand, keeping the blood-soaked uniform out of the way with the other.
“Stitches?” Caeryssa asked.
He nodded. “Several.”
Great. Another patient for Surral—ifwe could get to her.
“Or this.” The doc pulled something from his back pocket that made my jaw drop.
