The Defiant
Chapter Thirty Nine

\The food was plain reheated potato stew with chunks of freeze-dried mystery meat floating in it. I missed Six’s cooking.

They had neglected to give us cups, so we took turns suspending the pitchers above our mouths, water splashing down like a fountain.

An hour later, I was already starting to go stir crazy. Three had found some blankets in a crate and made herself a little nest. I wasn’t sure if she was asleep or just blocking us out. Six, Two, and Seven had improvised a game using a box of toothpicks that had been in another crate.

I sat against the wall and worried. Worried for the fate of the Sedha people if we couldn’t take the ship back and Eight brought the prisoner to the Aerzhu. Worried for us and the ship if Eight tried to take it through Kryllian space (which we would have to pass through in less than a week) with a less-than-experienced captain. Worried for Four.

Where was Four? Eight and Five hadn’t mentioned her when they’d come in. She wasn’t here with us, so she must be an accomplice of theirs, either willing or unwilling. It was entirely possible that they had kept her to work on the engines, as Seven had suggested. Or she could have changed her mind and joined them. Or she could be dead.

My mind ran wild with the possibilities. She could have struggled while they took us in here and they killed her to keep her out of the way. They could have done it out of pure malice. Or, since she was so small, they might have accidentally given her too much of the drug they used to knock us out and she fell ill or died.

I had no way of knowing, which of course meant my brain worked at triple speed, filling the gaps of knowledge in with speculation.

Time was meaningless in the cargo bay. Seconds stretched into minutes, minutes stretched into hours, and hours passed in a single heartbeat. I fell asleep and woke up a dozen times, each time more disorienting than the last.

There weren’t windows, and even if there were there would be no sky to guess what time of day it was. There were no timepieces or watches in the cargo bay, and no Four to track the time with her eerily accurate inner clock.

We could have spent days or minutes in there, and I never would have known. The only break in the monotony came long after we had finished our lackluster meal.

“I’m coming in. Don’t kill me,” Four’s voice came on the speaker, softly, like she was afraid of being heard. I exhaled in relief, glad she was alive, though I wasn’t sure I’d be able to take it if she came in and mocked us as Eight and Five had.

The door slid open. We all sat tensely as Four’s tiny frame slipped inside.

“Don’t attack. I’m on your side.” The door closed behind her. “Here.” She handed something to me, a small silver device.

“What is it?”

“It’s a primitive comm. I rigged it up. It’ll only work once, and it won’t contact me, so don’t try to use it; you might burn out the circuits. Listen carefully—I haven’t got much time.

“I convinced them I was on their side, but I’m not sure they totally trust me. I’m supposed to be in the engine room right now. If they catch me, I’ll be thrown in here with you.

“The device I gave you—it’ll go off when I send it a signal. Once Eight and Five fall asleep, I’ll release the door controls from the bridge. When it goes off, go to the specified place. If the device beeps once, they’re in their rooms. Twice, bridge. Three times, somewhere else.

“I’ll try to time it so they’re asleep when I break you out, but I had to program a command hole to be able to unlock the door without Five’s voice consent, and it’ll be easy for them to find if they look for it. If they’re about to find it, I’ll release the door and destroy the command hole. When the door unlocks, go immediately and subdue them however you can. Rope, sedatives, whatever.”

“How will we change the course without Five’s voice command?” I asked.

“I don’t know. I might be able to program a way around that, but that’s a secondary priority compared to getting them out of control of the ship. I’ve got to go before they get suspicious.” She stood up.

“Wait, why can’t you just let us out now?” Two asked.

“I want to make sure the coast is clear if possible. Also, if I let you go now, they’ll know it was me and punish me if you guys don’t take over the ship. My way, you know exactly where they are and you can use the element of surprise. Plus, if they win the fight, I can say it was a malfunction, and they’ll let me stay out there so I can help you escape again.” She opened the door.

“Four?”

“Yeah?”

“Thanks.”

She smiled tightly at me and left.

We waited for what felt like hours. Everyone was nervous and fidgety. The comm Four had given us sat in the middle of the floor, and everyone startled when a small movement or noise was made. Six and Two had fashioned weapons from the materials in the crate; two planks full of sharp nails, a heavy metal bar in a scrap of fabric for swinging, a small knife made of a shard of glass, a sharpened stick.

I was focused so intently on the little device that when it went off, I half-thought I’d imagined it. It shrieked twice, then shuddered and shut off, a small plume of smoke coming from it. The odor of burned plastic filled the air.

They were on the bridge. Four hadn’t succeeded in waiting until they were asleep. Something might be wrong.

As one, we stood and grabbed our makeshift weapons, moving in a wave toward the door. I clutched the shard of glass, a piece of leather wrapped around it to protect my hand. I sincerely hoped I wouldn’t have to use it. I didn’t want to give anyone a scar like the one on my own face.

“Open door,” I called, and sighed in relief as the door slid open with a whisper.

We crept out into the hallway and into the lift, barely breathing. It was silly that we were being so quiet, after all, they couldn’t possibly hear us all the way down here.

The lift stopped at the bridge and the doors slid open with their quiet ping. We jumped out onto the bridge.

“What were you doing?” Eight screamed at Four, who stood at the back computer console.

“Eight, look!” Five pointed to us, and we rushed into action.

Seven ran to Four, clutching the smaller girl against her chest and waving her board out in front of her.

Six went directly to Five and punched him in the face. Five attacked back, blood dripping from a cut on his lip.

“You.” Eight was suddenly in front of me, glaring at me with hatred. She raised her hand and scratched at me, but I took a leaf from Six’s book and socked her in the side of the head. She stumbled back, and retaliated with a vicious kick that sent my legs flying out from under me. I yanked her to the floor as I fell. Her head hit the floor hard, and I wrenched her wrists behind her back.

“Three, the rope!” I called. Three ran up to me and helped me tie Eight’s hands. It was harder than it sounded. Eight writhed and screamed and kicked the whole time, trying to dislodge me, but I clung on and secured her wrists while Three tied her feet.

“Tie her to the console,” I told Three, then ran across to the other side of the bridge, where Six had Five in a headlock. Two and I roped him up, and Six released him to the floor, rubbing ruefully at a growing lump on the back of his head.

We dragged Eight and Five down to their respective rooms and locked them in, then retired to the med bay to nurse our wounds.

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