Nia backed away, refusing to grab hold. The cabin brightened as they entered the hangar. “I can’t shoot you.” More bile rose in her throat.
Defenders hurried around the ship as they were taken further and further into the Guardian’s belly.
“Shoot me, goddamn it!” he yelled, forcing her finger on the trigger.
“No,” she whispered a second before the ship lurched and hit the deck. Nia fumbled, the gun pressed between them. A shot went off and he crumpled.
What had she done? Nia couldn’t move as the ramp of the shuttle was forcibly lowered from the outside. Her gaze remained fixed on Mace’s inert body. So lifeless.
Lights flashed in her face from the defenders’ weapons as they swarmed the ramp. They screamed at her, but her head was in a fog, and she didn’t understand the words.
“Drop your weapon!” One voice broke through her haze.
She jerked, not realizing she still held the thing, and let go like it was an infectious disease. She placed her hands on her head.
Her eyes shifted to Mace. Was he okay? He was so still.
Through the yelling, she heard a voice demanding she identify herself.
That she could do.
“Surgeon Lieutenant Colonel, Euphenia Jannex,Elara Five, ID number 435801.”
She squinted against the lights in her face, heart pounding. Mace’s weapon had been set to stun, right? He wouldn’t have made her really shoot him, would he? She couldn’t see any blood, but he lay face down and could be hiding a true wound.
A defender stepped forward, blocking her view of everything except the width of his chest in his silver uniform. She looked up. Her blood-splattered face reflected off the defender’s visor. He grabbed her wrist.
Unadulterated panic bubbled in her chest. She rolled her eyes into the back of her head, imitating the loss of consciousness as best she could.Fewer questions to answer.
Nia fell, not expecting the defender to let go. When she bashed her head against the side bench of the ship, stars exploding behind her eyelids, she hoped to hell the performance had been worth it.
Chapter thirty
Thefamiliarbeepsandclicks of medical tools should have comforted Nia, but they didn’t. She’d been feigning unconsciousness for a while. How long could she continue the façade?
Once she’d been deposited on a hover bed in the hangar, they’d secured her with metal restraints, making her heart race with panic. She hadn’t dared open her eyes to see what was happening to Mace, but heard the slurs against him, the dull thuds making her think they kicked him while unconscious. It took everything in her to remain limp and lifeless when all she wanted to do was scream and attack.
The hover bed wound through corridors, onto a lift, then back out until she arrived at what sounded like a medical bay or lab. A scanner hummed over her head and torso, all the way to her feet. Someone loosened her Tellusian bonds, the organic metal parting from her skin. Nia resisted the urge to rotate her wrists.
The bed’s restraints remained. A regenerator buzzed, healing the cut on her throat, then the laser burn on her arm. She thought there was more than one person in the room, but no one spoke.
A few minutes later, a door whooshed open and closed. A masculine voice barked, “You two out. You stay.” Feet shuffled, and the door opened and closed again.
“Report,” the same voice demanded.
“The usual, sir,” a feminine voice from beside Nia answered. “Tracker has been removed, ocular implant deactivated. There was a cut to her throat and a laser burn on her arm, which I’ve healed. Preliminary scans showed evidence of recent sexual assault, confirmed by untreated scratches on her other parts of her body.”
“Revive her.”
“She’s already awake, sir.”
Nia’s eyes flew open. Two men stood on her one side. The sandy-haired one with shrewd brown eyes had four emblems on the shoulder of his silver uniform, indicating a high rank in the military. The man beside him wore the black of a medical officer, his features bland and cold.
She swallowed, her eyes going to the woman on the other side of the hover bed also wearing black. The doctor wouldn’t meet her gaze.
From her position, Nia couldn’t see much of the room, but it looked a lab. The smooth, white architecture of the place made a block of ice settle in her stomach instead of being comforting.
“Euphenia Jannex,” the first man said, grabbing her attention. “You were declared missing and presumed dead forty-five days ago along with a third ofElara Five’smedical personnel.”
