our sled next to the alcubium. Blaster bolts sailed overhead and into the part of our sled not protected behind the alcubium sled.
Loch handed over his blaster. I took a deep breath then stood up and started shooting with a blaster in each hand. It wasn’t the smartest thing I’d ever done, but it focused attention on me while Loch transferred alcubium cylinders to our sled.
And with a pallet of alcubium between me and the soldiers, I could almost feel their reluctance to shoot at me and miss.
When a bolt sailed close enough to my head that I could feel the passing heat, I ducked back down with a warning to Loch. He’d moved five cylinders.
“Once again?” I asked. The soldiers had blasted through nearly a third of our water containers. If we wanted to make it to Polaris with any shield left, we’d have to make this quick.
Loch nodded. I moved over slightly, so I would pop out in a new place, then stood and started firing. The break had given the soldiers time to prepare. They returned fire with furious intensity.
My left arm went white-hot then icily numb. The blaster slipped from fingers I could no longer feel. I shot twice more with the blaster in my right hand, until it clicked empty.
“Down,” I called to Loch as I half ducked, half fell back into the protection of the cargo sled. I refused to look at my left arm, happy to leave it in a state of numb unknown until we were safe. “Time for a strategic retreat,” I said with a grimace.
We pulled the sled toward Polaris. And by we, I mean Loch; I mostly held on and tried not to fall down as we were forced to walk backward. With flagging support from the ship—they must be low on ammo—the soldiers became bolder. They were trying to disable our sled.
We were four meters from Polaris’s cargo ramp when they succeeded. The sled slammed down a mere centimeter from my unprotected toes.
“We’re going to have to drag it,” Loch said.
I grabbed the webbing, dug in my feet, and pulled. Loch strained beside me and the sled creaked into motion. I was so focused on pulling, moving my feet, and ignoring my arm that Rhys’s appearance caught me by surprise. He grabbed the webbing and pulled with Loch. The sled rocketed into motion so quickly I had to dance back or risk my toes.
Show-off.
We hit the end of the cargo ramp and finally had the protection of Polaris’s shield. Of course, if any Rockhurst soldiers got inside the shield, they could still shoot us. Rhys handed me a cylinder, then he and Loch grabbed four each.
Veronica covered us with sporadic blaster fire as we made our way up the ramp. As soon as we were inside, she hit the button to close the cargo door and retract the ramp.
“Can someone get us out of here?” I asked. “I’m not sure I’m fit to fly, even if I don’t have to go manual.” My left arm throbbed with increasingly difficult-to-ignore shards of agony. It felt like crushed glass had been embedded under the skin and the pieces grated together with every movement. “And does anyone have a blaster with ammo left?”
Loch left for the flight deck. Rhys handed me a blaster. “What are you thinking?” he asked.
“I’m going to shoot their alcubium supply,” I said.
“Are you sure that’s a good idea?”
My smile was full of teeth. “No.”
“I’ll let Loch know to expect a boom,” Rhys said. “Then I want to see you in the medbay.” He turned to Veronica. “Make sure she gets there, okay?”
“She’ll get there. We didn’t rescue her just to have her die on us now,” Veronica said.
Rhys grinned then disappeared behind me.
I went to the control panel and activated the external PA. “Dear Rockhurst soldiers, I’m going to blow up that pile of alcubium. This is your ten-second warning. I suggest you flee,” I said. I felt better having given them at least a chance to run.
I flopped down on the deck of the cargo bay with a jolt of pain, but the door opened from the bottom. I didn’t want to open it all the way in case the explosion was bigger than I anticipated. “Polaris, open the cargo bay door ten centimeters,” I said.
A chime indicated that the ship still saw me as its captain. Richard hadn’t had time to crack my personal codes with brute force or he hadn’t bothered, thinking me