Phillip rose slowly, shaking his head to clear the daze from striking the bulkhead. He was surprised no one had shot him while he was down and grateful that, for the moment, everyone else appeared to be recovering from the explosion as well.

He looked across Engineering and saw G’Dahn at one of the control stations. The Serpis’s hands moved rapidly over the panel, initiating some process Phillip could not identify. Red warnings began pulsing across gauges throughout the compartment, demanding the attention of crews who were no longer available to respond. When G’Dahn finished, he drove both hands into the console, tearing through the controls until nothing remained that could easily stop whatever he had started.

G’Dahn turned and fixed Phillip with a malevolent stare.

Whatever understanding had existed between them was over. The Serpis lunged.

Phillip scrambled backward and dove through an opening in the dense machinery surrounding the engine housings. Pipes and conduits crossed the compartment in every direction, creating narrow gaps that should have slowed something G’Dahn’s size. Instead, the Serpis compressed himself and followed without losing momentum, one long arm reaching through the machinery toward Phillip. Phillip caught an overhead pipe and hauled himself upward just before G’Dahn’s fingers closed around his ankle.

One of the dazed pirates groaned from the deck below. G’Dahn reached down and casually snapped the man’s neck, venting his frustration without even turning away from Phillip. He took the dead man’s rifle and sprayed needles into the piping overhead.

Another rifle opened fire from across the compartment. The bursts were panicked and badly aimed, but they forced G’Dahn to twist behind an engine housing.

“Kill them both!” Varna shouted as he dragged himself upright.

He still held Phillip’s pistol, though the explosion had left him unsteady. Phillip hoped Varna remembered that the weapon could penetrate more than flesh. Engineering contained too many systems capable of turning a missed shot into another disaster.

Needles hissed upward from the deck. Phillip shifted to another pipe as the magnetic projectiles struck the machinery around him. Below, a second pirate pulled himself to his feet while firing toward G’Dahn’s position.

A dark limb slipped around the pirate’s head. The rest of G’Dahn followed, coiling around the man’s torso before he could turn. The Serpis contracted with sudden, crushing force. Bone broke beneath the pressure, and the pirate collapsed inside the alien’s grip.

G’Dahn released the body, collected another rifle, and resumed firing at Phillip.

Phillip threw himself across the piping. Needles cut through his sleeves, grazed his arms, and rang against the metal around him. He dropped hard onto the deck near another groggy pirate and drove his heel into the man’s face before the pirate could raise his weapon. Phillip rolled away, searching for cover. He could sense G’Dahn moving through the machinery behind him, slipping between the pipes in pursuit.

Then he saw Varna.

The pirate captain stood several yards away, taking aim with Phillip’s pistol. Phillip dove. The weapon fired.

Unlike the needles, the bullet did not glance harmlessly away from the nearby equipment. The machine behind Phillip buckled beneath the impact, erupting in sparks and fragments of metal.

Phillip used the flashing cloud as cover. He climbed into the piping above and pressed himself against one of the larger conduits.

The whine of the engines grew steadily louder. Smoke from the damaged machinery spread through the compartment, obscuring the walkways and adding another layer of confusion to an already tangled battlefield.

Phillip counted the opposition.

At least four pirates had already been inside Engineering when Varna brought him in. Two more had escorted him, making six men plus Varna. G’Dahn had killed two. Phillip had incapacitated another. That should have left three pirates, Varna, and the Serpis.

G’Dahn remained the most dangerous thing in the room.

“I believe you’ve outlived your usefulness!” Varna called. “But thank you. You were right—the Serpis came for you.”

Phillip did not answer. He caught sight of G’Dahn coiled across a higher section of machinery and shifted to place another conduit between them. Below, Varna and the remaining pirates moved cautiously through the smoke, sweeping the platforms and pipes with their weapons.

Varna gestured toward the damaged engine controls.

One of the pirates crossed to the station and began trying to initiate a cooldown.

A stream of needles poured from the rafters. Most curved away from the pirate’s field, scattering across the deck and control surfaces. The man turned and fired toward the source.

The others joined him.

Phillip followed the line of fire and saw a needle rifle wedged between two pipes. A broken strut had been forced against the trigger, holding it down. No one was operating the weapon. G’Dahn had placed it there to draw their attention.

The pirate at the controls saw the deception too late.

G’Dahn dropped behind him. The Serpis wrapped himself around the man before he could turn, folding his body around the pirate like a spring closing in half. A series of sharp cracks followed as the man’s spine gave beneath the pressure.

His rifle struck the deck. The remaining pirates spun and fired.

G’Dahn charged them while still wrapped around his victim, using the dead man and the suit’s magnetic field as mobile cover. Needles bent away from the corpse or buried themselves harmlessly in the body.

Phillip saw Varna steadying Phillip’s pistol toward the advancing Serpis.

He jumped from the piping. Phillip struck Varna just as he fired. The shot went wide and smashed into the engine-control console.

They crashed into the station, sending the pistol sliding across the deck as they rolled apart. Phillip recovered first and drove a fist into Varna’s face. He followed with another strike, forcing the pirate captain backward while Varna could do little more than shield himself.

Phillip drew back for a final blow. Varna triggered his helmet.

Protective plates swept across his face and locked into place just before Phillip’s fist landed. Pain shot through Phillip’s hand as his knuckles struck the armor. Varna backhanded him away and reached for the mass driver at his waist. Phillip landed beside his own pistol. He snatched it from the deck and turned as Varna brought the heavier weapon to bear.

They fired almost simultaneously.

Varna’s projectile shattered the piping above Phillip. Phillip’s round struck the edge of Varna’s helmet, cracking the visor and breaking the pressure seal.

A ruptured line released a jet of steam between them.

Phillip rolled through the cloud and came up with the pistol extended, sweeping the room for a target. The last two pirates lay twisted and broken across the deck.

G’Dahn was gone.

So was Varna.

Phillip moved to the ruined engine console. The impact from his pistol had destroyed whatever remained of the controls. Red indicators continued pulsing across the compartment, and the engine whine had climbed into a pitch he could feel through his teeth.

There was nothing he could do from here. He had to trust Thomas to recognize the overload from the bridge and find some way to stop it. Then Phillip remembered the men Varna had sent to regain control of the command level.

He ran.

Varna knew the route between Engineering and the bridge and covered it quickly. He had torn off his damaged helmet and discarded it somewhere behind him. Blood ran from a cut near his temple, but the glancing impact had done less damage than Phillip had intended.

Near the bridge entrance, Varna found the two men he had ordered to restore access.

“What the hell are you doing out here?”

“We called you from the bridge,” one protested. “You didn’t answer.”

“Were you able to get inside?”

“No. It’s locked from within. We started cutting through, but when you stopped responding—”

Varna snatched the cutting torch from his hand.

“There is someone behind me,” he said. “Kill him.”

The men raised their rifles and hurried back toward Engineering. Varna turned to the bridge door.

G’Dahn had disappeared again and was almost certainly still hunting Phillip. Varna hoped the two would keep one another occupied until he transferred the warheads and abandoned Artemis.

He did not waste time attempting a clean cut. Instead, he burned through the locking circuits and severed the mechanical catches. Within seconds, the damaged locks fell free.

Varna threw the torch aside, forced the door open far enough to pass, and climbed rapidly into the bridge.

Morgan lay dead beside the command station. Two other bodies remained where they had fallen during Phillip’s assault. Varna swept the compartment with the mass driver, but saw no immediate movement.

The communications indicator was flashing. He crossed to the station and opened the channel. Tweed’s broad, furious face appeared on the monitor.

“Are you prepared to dock, Mr. Tweed?” Varna asked. He forced his breathing to slow and kept his voice calm, as though nothing unusual was occurring aboard the ship.

“Why the hell haven’t you answered our hails?” Tweed demanded.

“Minor problems with the communications system.”

“My men report that your ship is venting radiation.”

“One of the regulators failed,” Varna said. “It has forced us to revise the timetable. We need to transfer the merchandise immediately and destroy Artemis before the Concordat fleet locates us.”

Tweed looked away, speaking to someone outside the image. “Fine. We’ll prepare to dock.”

“Not yet.”

Tweed glared at him.

“Under our agreement, half of the payment is due before transfer. The remainder follows delivery.”

For a moment, Tweed appeared ready to argue. “Fine.” He entered a series of commands into the console before him. “It’s done.”

Varna set the mass driver on the communications station and removed a data pad from a pouch at his waist. He connected it to the console and waited while the systems exchanged information.

The pad beeped. The full advance payment appeared on its display.

“Excellent, Mr. Tweed.” Varna disconnected the pad and moved toward the weapons station. “Now, if you’ll give me a moment to disarm—”

He stopped. The tactical system had already established a targeting solution on Fortuna.

Varna raised one hand toward the weapons interface.

Behind him, metal tapped softly against metal.

He remembered setting down the mass driver as he turned, his hand moving toward his empty holster.

Thomas stood behind the communications station holding Varna’s weapon. He had hidden himself among the dead and damaged consoles while Varna forced the bridge door. The lieutenant’s face was pale, and blood had soaked through Kales’s improvised dressings, but the mass driver remained steady in his hands.

Thomas said nothing.

He fired.

“Varna?” Tweed called over the open channel.

Thomas pushed the pirate captain’s body away from the console. The weapons station already held the target solution he had prepared while waiting for Varna to enter.

He armed one of the antimatter warheads.

The display confirmed Fortuna as the target.

Thomas pressed the launch control.

Artemis rocked as the missile left its bay.

“Varna, what the hell are you doing?” Tweed screamed.

Thomas closed the communication channel and activated the bridge shields. Heavy shutters sealed across the forward windows. There were several clever things he might have said.

Instead, Thomas gripped the edge of the console and prayed that Artemis was far enough away to survive the blast.

Next Chapter: XX