the signals; it relies on quantum resonance to broadcast a message.”
“How do you know all this?” EJ asked. She smiled at the youngster as he grew flustered. “And what’s your name? I should have asked earlier.”
“There wasn’t time,” Nokx muttered, and gave her a sideways look. “There still isn’t.”
EJ shot him a dirty look as the Klonz’s feathers flared a sickly green. She gestured for the youngster to speak, though she kept part of her attention on the screen displaying the various signals passing between the ships stalking the Hollbrd. Everything looked encrypted and scrambled, with only the occasional stray emission intelligible when the fighters failed to follow protocol.
The Klonz sidled closer to EJ and fiddled with a removable panel on the side of the terminal. “I am called Klee. Before my family chose to leave Klonza, I wanted to be a radio operator for some of our surface ships, so I studied as much as I could. Anything with signals or energy, even some of the quantum devices. When we boarded this ship, I found one of the engineers’ closets and they had so many manuals for all the latest and even some of the ancient technology. It has been a very long journey and there is not much to do while in our quarters.”
“And we are so glad you did all that,” EJ said. She got up to help him remove the panel and stood back to watch as the delicate fingers maneuvered quantum bridge links and ionic couplers. She held her breath as something else impacted with the ship and the Hollbrd’s structure groaned and tilted.
It felt like an eternity before Klee trilled with delight and held up the comms puck, which flashed with multiple colors and signs in a variety of combinations. EJ blinked, impressed despite herself, and peered at it to decipher how it worked. She definitely needed an instruction manual. “Is it working?”
Klee set it on top of the terminal. “It appears so.”
“Uh-oh,” Nokx said under his breath, and EJ jumped to feel him close behind her at the terminal.
EJ frowned and shrugged her shoulders, feeling trapped with the giant Xaravian right behind her and the terminal in front of her, and dragged her attention away from the puck to where Nokx pointed at the screen. “What?”
“They’re closing in,” the pirate said. He gestured at several of the attack ships approaching the Hollbrd. “They’re in a typical board-and-seize configuration. With the transfer arms already in place, it won’t take them long to take the ship. Particularly if the Hollbrd crew isn’t going to fight.”
“They’re in league with the Slasu,” EJ said. “This whole ship was a ruse to harvest new slaves. They’re just finishing their plan.”
Klee stepped back in alarm. “What is this you say? I do not think—my translator is not the highest quality. Did you say they will board the ship? Take the passengers?”
EJ’s chest ached with regret at the horror and betrayal in the youngster’s face. She started to explain but held tight to the terminal as the ship lurched again and stilled. The curious sense of drifting ran through the ship and the ever-present hum of the propulsion systems silenced. She looked around and held her breath. They’d just run out of time.
Chapter 38
Nokx
Nokx vibrated with the urge to grab EJ and run for the nearest escape pod, regardless of what his communicator said about the Sraibur being out of range. The feeling only increased as he watched the fleet of Slasu move into a typical attack-and-board formation on the indifferent screen. That three different transfer arms already seized various parts of the Hollbrd just made it easier. He couldn’t tell what the Sraibur or the mystery ship were doing, since his rudimentary knowledge of the tracking systems didn’t help decipher the more complex symbols.
He didn’t know what was going on with the weird comms puck that Violet gave EJ, but he couldn’t worry about that much given the multiple more immediate threats. They needed to get to the hull of the ship so they could navigate to an escape pod and get out of there before the Slasu locked everything down. “We need to go. Quickly.”
But EJ’s expression softened when she looked at the young Klonz, he fretting over the impending threat of the Slasu slave-takers. Nokx didn’t blame the youngster. He and his family thought they headed toward a fresh start, after whatever drove them away from their home planet, and spent all of their meager savings on