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“Hurry up, asshole. The cutter team are ready to detach. And you don’t want to be caught in here.”

Rann’s gaze snapped toward the door.

Cutter team.

Draanth. They hadn’t come in through the airlock. They must have cut through the hull, probably engineering or the cargo bays behind it. That was why they’d been able to board so quickly. His smile was hard and triumphant.

If they’d come in using a cutter, that meant the airlock was empty. He hauled the suit over one shoulder and moved to the door. He’d get outside, find a way across to Joe’s ship and then make every one of those draanthic regret following the human females at all.

“Rann!” The shout ripped through the air. “Emergency bulkheads! Close the emergency bulkheads!”

The sound of her voice was drowned out beneath a scream of tortured metal.

Rann was already moving. The suit tangled around his boots as he dragged it up his legs, nearly falling as the deck lurched beneath him. Slamming one shoulder against B’s locker, he yanked the seal strips closed and nearly tore them off the damn suit.

Come on.

The suit was shit. He’d thought it on the spacewalk, and he thought it now as he fought with the chest clips. The Dream’s combat EVA suits sealed around a warrior properly, knew his measurements, locked him in tight with reinforced joints and maneuvering thrusters. This thing was built for a human worker who needed to step outside and tighten a loose panel. They were not the same things.

He got the last clip closed as the ship groaned and air screamed past the door.

Snatching up the helmet, he shoved it over his head and twisted the collar ring. It locked into place just as the room gave a violent shudder.

The next second, the door blew open.

He hit the wall hard, both hands gripping the edge of the locker as the atmosphere vacated the premises at speed. The pressure dragged at him, trying to yank him through the open doorway and down the corridor toward the breach. His boots skidded against the deck.

A small metal cup shot past his head and vanished through the door. Then a loose tool from beneath the bunk. But that was it. Nothing else flew past his head.

He looked around, seeing what he hadn’t seen before. B’s clothes were packed away and tools clipped into their cases, locked into the wall-mounted shelves. There was nothing left on the narrow shelf by her bunk, no little decorations he knew human females liked, and no soft things scattered about because they looked nice.

He gritted his teeth as the wind clawed at him and he realized that she owned hardly anything.

Shoving off the wall, he ran. His boots hammered down the corridor, the oversized suit pulling tight across his shoulders with every stride. A fire ax sat in its emergency clip by the junction. He tore it free without slowing, the handle fitting badly in his gloved fist.

He didn’t know if it would be any use against rifles and he didn’t care. He didn’t plan on letting them get a shot off with the rifles.

The forward airlock stood open, its inner door already retracted. Stepping inside, he hit the outer-door control and the door rolled aside immediately. Which made sense, the ship was already vented… There was no atmosphere left to cycle.

Stars burned cold and sharp beyond the threshold. For half a second, he stood there with the ax in one hand and his pulse thudding hard enough to shake him. The boarding tunnel stretched from the wrecked side of their ship to Joe’s vessel, but that was a death trap. There would be guards and cameras. Men waiting for anybody stupid enough to use the same route they’d taken the females through.

He wasn’t that stupid.

No. He was only about to climb across the outside of a damaged human freighter to get to his target.

He stepped out into space, grabbing the rail with one hand. He had no time to clip himself to anything. Shoving the ax through one of the loops around his suit’s waist, he started along the ship’s outer hull, moving hand over hand. He kept low out of habit. The other two ships had pulled away now, hanging farther out in the dark while the main vessel held tight to the crippled trader.

Hopefully, no one was looking out a window.

He missed his combat suit. Really missed it. The Dream’s EVA armor was black, armored, built to disappear against space. This piece of trall made him look like a floating maintenance target.

Rounding the curve of the hull, he saw the boarding tunnel.

It wasn’t a temporary platform after all. A proper attachment module extended from the other ship, broad and sealed, its locking collar clamped around the torn section of hull where they’d boarded.

Okay, that was better.

A real module meant handholds and access panels. A way in that didn’t involve walking through the tunnel itself.