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  By the time he was finished, he could feel the vibration from the engines under foot. He ran the short length to the cockpit at the front of the craft. Two seats faced a three-panel window and an instrument panel with a combination of button control and touch interfaces. A HUD on the central window was presently displaying the engine initialization progress.

  “Have you tried asking the station what the alarm is about?” Jack asked Alyssa as he took the seat on the right.

  “No response,” she replied, keeping her gaze focused on the systems checks displayed on the HUD. “We’ll meet Triss at our planned rendezvous.”

  “I’m in support of any plan that involves being somewhere other than here.”

  Alyssa scowled at the controls. “And we would be somewhere else already if this ship didn’t take an eternity to warm up.”

  “That’s on your boss, not me,” Jack said, raising his hands in defense. “I would have gone for something other than the base model if I’d had a halfway decent budget.”

  “She would have, but—”

  The ship lurched to the side.

  “Uh…” Jack began.

  Alyssa rose partway from her seat to get a better view out the front window. She immediately sat back down and strapped into the flight harness.

  Jack only needed a moment’s glance outside to do the same thing. There was a hole in the hangar wall, and it wasn’t an open door.

  He had barely strapped in when the Little Princess careened across the floor toward the vacuum.

  Alyssa made rapid entries on the control panel to force a quick-start of the engines—a risky maneuver indoors, but launching on an uncontrolled vector into a potential debris field was way more dangerous.

  “Argh!” she exclaimed with frustration when the systems were nonresponsive.

  “You have to reverse the polarity!” Jack shouted.

  “That doesn’t even make sense!”

  “It works… for some reason. Just do it!” he insisted.

  Alyssa made the necessary inputs to modify the power flow through the engines. System lights lit up green across the board.

  “Huh,” she murmured, dumbstruck.

  “Fly!” Jack shouted, involuntarily ducking as the ship passed dangerously close to a cargo crane that had been wrenched free from inside the hangar.

  The Little Princess and loose equipment from the hangar passed through the maw in the side of the station and entered into open space.

  Alyssa grabbed the controls and fired the thrusters to begin countering their uncontrolled spin away from the station. With careful maneuvering, the tumbling slowed and she was able to swing the ship around under her control to get a view of the Luxuria.

  Rather, what was left of the Luxuria.

  “Stars…” Alyssa breathed.

  Jack gasped as he took in the sight. The hole in the hangar was one of several gashes around the structure. It appeared that the station had resembled a four-pronged star in its whole state, but one of the arms was broken off entirely, and it appeared that all power had been lost.

  “I guess that explains why they weren’t replying to your calls,” Jack murmured.

  “Did any of them make it out?” Tears were forming in Alyssa’s eyes as she took in the destruction, searching for signs of escape pods. “What could have done this?”

  Her question was immediately answered by a near-miss laser blast across the nose of the vessel.

  Jack spotted the origin of the shot off their port side—a nasty-looking warship with unnecessary spikes along the dorsal support beam, armored plating, and comically large guns. Many, many guns.

  He gulped. “I’m going to suggest we jump to—”

  The stars were a blur outside his window before he could complete the sentence.

  The hyperspace jump had Jack pinned against the back of his seat for the initial five seconds of acceleration. As the ship achieved velocity, he was able to breathe normally again, and he took several deep breaths to calm his racing heart.

  “Do you have any idea what’s going on?” he stammered.

  Alyssa set the autopilot and slouched in her seat. “I’d heard rumors, but didn’t think they’d come after us.”

  “Who?”

  “The Vorlox.”

  Jack shook his head. “Can’t say I’ve heard of them.”

  “Consider yourself lucky.” Alyssa ran her hands down the side of her face. “Do you think anyone made it out in time?”

  “I have no idea.” It was then that Jack remembered the women on the station were—or had been—her friends. That was a lot of potential loss to process. “I’m sure they’re fine,” he added.

  “We’ll find out when we meet up with Triss, I suppose,” Alyssa said. “Just need to stay focused on the mission.”

  “You’re being rather calm about this, considering that your home was just destroyed.”

  “I wouldn’t say it was my home, exactly. And they were my friends, but not really a family.”

  Jack examined her out of the corner of his eye. “You seemed ready to take some pretty big risks for them.”

  “Not for them,” Alyssa clarified. “This was a job for me.”

  “But still...”

  “We all just try to find our way through life.”

  “Wow, that got deep suddenly.”

  Alyssa shrugged it off. “It’s been a tough few minutes. Can you not make a joke for once?”

  “Sorry, it’s involuntary.”

  “Yeah, I got that impression.” She sighed. “Look, if the Vorlox are after us, this may change the plan.”

  Jack was unnerved by the idea of having a crazed, heavily armored group of… “Wait, so who or what are the Vorlox, anyway? Aliens or—”

  “Oh, no no,” Alyssa cut in. “They’re human, based on every account I’ve heard. They just spent a little too much time on spaceships with subpar radiation shielding. Rumors have been floating around about them attacking space stations and freighters.”

  “So, went kind of…” Jack circled his index finger horizontally near his ear.

  “Yep. And murdery.”

  “That’s unfortunate.”

  “Yeah…” She got a distant look in her eyes. “You’re right, they probably got out.”

  Jack nodded. “That’s the spirit! So, where are we meeting Triss?”

  “A secret weapons dealer hangout,” she replied. “Fortunately, Triss left an hour ago so I know she got out before the attack.”

  “That’s a relief.”

  Alyssa’s mouth twitched into a subtle smile. “Yeah, it is.”

  “Wait… you two are a thing, aren’t you?” Jack realized.

  “That doesn’t matter,” Alyssa shot back and turned her attention out the front window.

  “Oh, come on—you can tell me!”

  “Not important right now,” she said. Her tone had turned serious.

  Then, Jack noticed the warning light flashing on the control console. “What’s wrong?”

  “The fuel line must have been damaged in the attack. We’re running on fumes.”

  “Where are we?”

  Alyssa grabbed the yoke on the flight controls. “We’re about to find out.”

  CHAPTER 5: A Stroke of Luck

  The Little Princess dropped out of hyperspace within half a kilometer of an asteroid.

  “Whoa!” Alyssa quickly buried the yoke to the left, away from the giant rock.

  “That could have been better or a whole lot worse,” Jack commented as soon as they were clear.

  “Dropping directly into an asteroid would be bad, but drifting endlessly through space without any fuel might be worse.”

  “Well, we’re in luck.” Jack pointed up ahead.

  Alyssa’s gaze followed his arm. Their new course was leading directly toward a space station built around another asteroid. “Well, that’s convenient.”

  “I’ll take it.”

  The space station was a rambling sort often found in the more backwat
er systems, cobbled together with random parts salvaged from other vessels. Though not pretty to look at, it should at least have a fueling depot to help get them back on track.

  Alyssa directed the Little Princess to the tanker at the far end of the station—the most likely location to procure fuel.

  A chirp sounded on the front console.

  “Docking control,” Jack said and accepted the communication request on the holodisplay in front of him.

  “Business and duration?” a woman asked in the monotone of someone who needed to ask the same question dozens of time each day.

  “Fueling and… however long fueling takes,” Jack replied.

  “Go to Berth E-792,” the dock controller replied and ended the call.

  “You really have no idea how to be a functional adult, do you?” Alyssa questioned.

  Jack groaned. “What did I do wrong now?”

  “Any worthwhile pilot knows exactly how long it takes to fuel their vessel.”

  “Guess what? I owned this ship for eight hours before Svetlana’s goons came after me, so it’s not like I really had time to read the instruction manual.”

  “Excuses!”

  Jack then noticed the smirk playing on Alyssa’s lips. “You’re just messing with me.”

  She gave him a sidelong glance. “Well yeah. You make it entirely too easy.”

  “I really can’t figure out your angle. You save my life—sort of—then make everything worse, then are mean to me, then joke. I don’t know what to think.”

  She was silent for several moments. “This whole thing wasn’t my idea,” she replied at last. “I don’t have a personal problem with you—actually, I find you kind of entertaining in that way you’d watch a slow motion video of someone’s fail.”

  “Hey!”

  “Sorry.” She blushed slightly. “But in all seriousness, there are no ill feelings on my end. This was a chance for me to use Svetlana’s motivations for my own benefit.”

  “What are you after?”

  “Now is not the time or place to get into that.” Alyssa kept her gaze focused ahead as she maneuvered the ship toward the designated berth highlighted on the HUD.

  “Not even a hint?”

  “Let’s just say that both of our problems will go away if we can pull this off. And it will require us to work as a team. A win-win.”

  Jack examined her in the pilot’s chair. “Okay… What do I have to do?”

  “Follow my lead, don’t question what I tell you to do, even if it seems crazy, and trust that your money problems will soon be a thing of the past.”

  “Sounds like wishful thinking.”

  She shrugged. “You might be surprised.”

  They pulled into Berth E-792 and docking clamps secured the Little Princess to the station. Alyssa coordinated fueling with the docking attendant while Jack took inventory of their supplies. He’d been in the process of figuring out his provisions when he’d been stunned and dragged back to Svetlana’s base. Though only a matter of days prior, it felt like an eternity.

  The incongruous sense of time passage was underscored by the odd rapport he’d developed with Alyssa. He’d begun the day in the role of prisoner, but over the past hour it seemed like she was viewing him more as a business partner in whatever her master plan may be. Though strange and unexpected, he wasn’t opposed. Given his chronic ill-fated ventures, he was eager to jump on any opportunity to try something new. Losing an eye was less than ideal, but in the larger scheme of things that was a small price to pay for the possibility of getting out of debt and on the path to success.

  “Should be all fueled up in twenty minutes,” Alyssa announced, coming to find Jack in the store room behind a hatch in the living area.

  “We have rations for two weeks. Will that be enough?” he asked her.

  “That should work,” she confirmed. “We can always stock up after we get Finn out of Hellana.”

  “Oh, right. I forgot about that part of the plan.”

  “It really won’t be as difficult as you think,” Alyssa insisted. “Triss is really good.”

  Jack made a dismissive shrug. “I guess I’ll just do what I’m told.”

  She smiled. “So you are trainable. Excellent.”

  “Maybe you can make a functional adult out of me one of these days.”

  “Let’s not go overboard,” Alyssa said with a chuckle. “But speaking of functional, I should probably activate that implant.”

  “Oh right.” Jack reached up to feel the eye. “What does it do, anyway?”

  “Well, it will be able to detect things that we can’t see with normal vision. Infrared, UV, and also electrical fields. In addition, it can generate signals in specific frequencies and patterns.”

  “Such as fooling a biometric scanner?” Jack asked.

  “You’ve got it,” she confirmed. “It’s half of the key to breaking past GiganCorp’s security.”

  “What’s the other half?”

  “Me, of course.” She grinned.

  “I have no doubt that your charm will win anyone over.”

  “That or my gunslinging. This really could go either way.”

  Jack chuckled. “All right. Well, I’m excited to have more than half my vision.”

  “It’ll be better than before, once you get used to cycling the modes.” Alyssa directed Jack toward the couch. She pulled out a slim black case from her hip pocket and selected a delicate metal implement from inside. “Hold still,” she instructed as she leaned over in front of him with the metal tool in hand.

  He couldn’t see what she was doing to his left eye, but he detected a slight pressure on the implant as she poked at it. Then, there was a flash of white light on the left side of his vision, followed by a ‘Thingamado’ logo with a progress bar loading in a circle around it. When the circle was completely full, his left field of vision restored in full color with only slight pixelation to differentiate the image from his organic eye.

  “Oh that’s much better!” he exclaimed. “Never again will I take depth perception for granted.”

  “It’s on Normal mode right now, correct?”

  “Seems that way.”

  Alyssa nodded and extended the metal implement toward his cybernetic eye—which was decidedly more unnerving now that he could see it coming toward him. She made contact and his vision switched to infrared. She appeared in a rainbow of color with bright red at her core and a mixture of green and yellow on her hands; in contrast, the ship in the background was mostly cool blue.

  “This is really trippy,” Jack murmured.

  “But super handy for detecting guards in low light.” Alyssa made another adjustment and his vision switched to UV.

  The vibrant colors shifted to almost monochromatic, but he could suddenly make out details that were completely invisible to his other eye.

  “What do you see?” Alyssa asked.

  Jack looked around the room and his gaze rested on several stains on the couch. “Uh, looks like the UV is working just fine.”

  “All right, and now?” She made another adjustment.

  His vision cycled to a spectacular display of the electromagnetic fields contained within the ship—everything from his own nerve impulses to the power conduits within the walls. Staring at Alyssa and being able to almost see her thinking weirded him out while simultaneously fascinating him. “Whoa,” he managed to stammer.

  “I’ve heard that one takes the longest to get used to.”

  “I’ll say. But it’s awesome!” Jack grinned. “I like collecting random, useful things.”

  “Good, because this one is a part of you now.”

  “I like to be prepared for anything—I’m used to things going wrong.”

  She made a final adjustment and his vision returned to normal. “Well, we’re going to need this, for sure. In theory, you should be able to switch modes by thinking about it. That may take some practice to master.”

  “Nice.”

  Alyssa rose from her c
rouching position in front of him and smiled. “But for now, we have a jailbreak to plan.”

  CHAPTER 6: When a Plan Comes Together

  After getting the leak patched and paying for the fuel through an electronic credit transfer from Alyssa’s account, the Little Princess was soon on its way to the rendezvous with Triss.

  Alyssa had remained reticent about where the meetup would take place, but Jack was feeling comfortable enough with her that he was content to be along for the ride. Really, anyone willing to pick up the fuel bill was good in his book.

  Two hours in hyperspace transit passed before the ship finally dropped back into normal space. Jack was surprised to see that their destination was absolutely in the middle of nowhere with nothing in sight. “Did you enter the right coordinates?” he asked.

  She rolled her eyes. “What did I say about questioning me?” She manipulated the controls to rotate the ship one-hundred-eighty degrees. A ship four times the size of their own was in the space that had been right behind them. “Always drop out on the far side so you don’t accidentally run into each other,” she stated.

  “Oh, right.”

  Alyssa directed the Little Princess to an airlock on the starboard side of the larger vessel and lined up their own hatch. With some careful maneuvering, she made the seal.

  “Let’s go.” Alyssa rose from the pilot’s chair and led them to the ship’s main hatch. She double-checked the coupling and released the door seal.

  The hatch on the other ship was already open and a red-headed woman was waiting in the doorway. She wilted with relief when she saw Alyssa and they ran to embrace one another.

  “I didn’t know if you’d made it out,” the other woman murmured.

  “Have you heard from anyone?” Alyssa asked, pulled out of the hug so she could look at her at arm’s length.

  “A few people, yes,” the woman confirmed. “It sounds like everyone was able to get to escape pods, but many were captured by the Vorlox sometime after the attack.”

  Alyssa drew her in for a kiss and held her close. She pulled away after several seconds. “We move forward with the plan. We’ll find a way to get them back once we have it.”

  “I know.”

  The other woman turned her attention to Jack standing awkwardly behind them. “Wow, that implant really didn’t fit well.”