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Then the tunnel jerked, its clamps releasing the trader’s hull.

Draanth, they were uncoupling already.

The tunnel tore free of the trader with a hard metallic shriek, and he threw himself toward the tunnel, tumbling head over heels until he landed on the top of it. Dropping flat against the outer plating, he hooked one arm around a raised seam as it began to retract beneath him. The clamps folded back in sections, huge mechanical limbs dragging the tube toward the ship.

Shoving one knee into a recessed panel, he pressed tight to the metal and tried to make himself smaller.

The other ship loomed closer with every second. It was bigger than the trader by a long way, ugly and blocky where the other ship had been old but almost graceful in its own battered fashion. External housings lined its flank that he could only guess the function of, but no obvious airlock.

Of course not. Nothing was that easy.

He craned his neck, searching as the gap narrowed. There—between two broad housings near the tunnel cradle. A thin service channel, dark and tight. Too narrow for a human in a suit.

He could fit.

He hoped.

The tunnel’s segmented plates began folding inward, each section locking over the next. If he waited another two seconds, he’d be crushed between them and the housing.

Planting both feet on the narrowing edge, he jumped.

And drifted.

Trall… Too far left.

His stomach dropped as the service channel slid past his outstretched hand. Twisting hard, he felt every muscle wrench against the stiff suit but managed to grab a conduit with one hand. His shoulder screamed as his momentum swung him toward the hull.

He slammed against it, the impact driving the air from his lungs. For a second, he just hung there, visor pressed against cold gray metal, and fought to fill his lungs. He couldn’t stay here, though, so he forced himself into movement.

Hauling himself into the gap between the housings, he wedged his body into the narrow space as the tunnel folded flush into its cradle less than a meter away.

He turned to look at the trader.

The old ship drifted, the torn hull around the cutter breach black and jagged.

Then a weapons port just above his head rotated.

Oh, draanthing hell.

Blue-white light built inside the cannon.

He curled tight between the structures, arms over his helmet as the cannon fired.

13

The explosion burned behind her eyes, playing over and over again in her mind.

Blythe stood in the passage with a restraint cuff around one wrist and a chain running from it to Stevie beside her. Hope was chained to Stevie’s other side, with Layla and Callie linked behind them. The metal cuffs bit into their wrists every time one of them stumbled, but they all helped each other stay upright.

Her cheek throbbed where they’d hit her, and all she could taste was blood. Every breath hurt, partly from the kick she’d taken in the tunnel and partly because she couldn’t stop seeing the trader breaking apart.

Rann had been on it.

She forced the thought down hard and locked it away.

Joe walked ahead of them at an easy pace, hands folded behind his back. His guards spread around the group, rifles hanging loose in their hands. Five unarmed women in chains weren’t going anywhere.

“You know,” Joe said, not looking back at them, “I’m often accused of being unreasonable.”