Recovery**

  Roger rode next to Zara. He was dead tired. The pain was getting to him. The buggy had a smooth ride, and Zara was a careful driver. He noticed something up ahead—it looked like the plasma repeaters. He wondered where they had gone.

  “Zara, why are the repeaters in the middle of the woods?” he asked.

  “We had to ditch them. They’re too heavy, and the power cell couldn’t handle the weight. Annalynn said to ditch them,” Zara replied.

  “Well, we should pick them up.”

  “We can’t. They’re too heavy.” Her tone was annoyed.

  “We must be able to do something. Can you lower the repulsor lift?” He knew it could be done. It would slow the buggy, but they’d be able to carry more. He could walk if needed—they were almost halfway.

  “Zara, we might need those. I really don’t want them left behind,” Roger said.

  She looked like she would argue for a second. Then she slowed the buggy, drifting it closer to the dirt.

  When they reached the repeaters, Roger jumped out and loaded them on. It was awkward, but they made it work.

  He was going to walk the rest of the way. Zara opened her mouth but didn’t say anything when Roger looked at her.

  He started the walk back, watching as Zara slowly navigated the trees. The buggy was running dangerously low. He would have to help it clear obstacles. On the plus side, Zara was going almost as slow as he was.

  It took longer than he wanted, but they made it back to the Hollow Wrath around noon. Zara parked the buggy in the loading bay while he limped to sickbay. This was not going to be pleasant.

  The door slid open with a whisper-quiet hiss. He stepped in softly. Looking around, he didn’t see Sarsha—which was a good thing. He didn’t need a lecture about not being invincible. He knew that.

  Just… sometimes things needed to be done, and he was the best person for the job.

  He went to one of the beds and sat down. The built-in sensors would do a quick sweep. He just needed to know what needed the most help. His nanites would handle most of the healing.

  The scan was humming along when the door slid open. Roger looked up and braced.

  Sarsha walked into the room, her golden hair braided and hanging over her shoulder. She took one look at him, then walked over to her med storage. Grabbing something, she stepped next to the bed.

  She turned the monitor so she could read it.

  “Roger, I’m only doing this because we might need you fighting again soon.”

  With that, she jammed an auto-injector into his upper arm.

  He heard the click and hiss. It stung where it punched into his skin. The next moment, he felt warmth flood his system. His aches and pains washed away.

  He looked up at her, not saying anything. They both knew she had just drugged him. Good ones, too. High-level pain blockers. Some kind of adrenaline substitute—it would help him recover much faster.

  And the part she hated most: the nanite juice. A special concoction that made his nanites work harder, faster. He could already feel his wounds closing.

  The downside: his nanites would burn out and need to be replaced. They just didn’t have any replacements.

  In theory, his nanites could self-replicate if given the command. Again—not something they could do.

  They both knew the cost. He would heal faster. Be better, for a time.

  But she had just taken years off his life.

  “What’s going on?” Roger asked.

  “Our guest is not what she appears. Annalynn got a large sample of her DNA. It’s been modified. Not like yours—but more than just money would allow.” She stepped away and started preparing another injection.

  The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  “What bothers you about it?”

  Coming back to him, she injected his other arm. The nanites could fix a lot. They did a better job if they had material to work with. She would have given him a mix of vitamins and other building materials.

  “I’m not sure. I haven’t seen a lot of gene mods. They weren’t popular back home. Our bio-scanner isn’t really made for DNA analysis.”

  “There must be something,” he prodded. Sarsha was one of the smartest people he had ever met. Sometimes she needed to be reminded of it. “Do you know what was altered?”

  “Not really. It was just too neat to be natural. Why would anyone who could afford that end up on a ship like that?”

  Sarsha wrapped her arms around herself. She shook her head and took a step back.

  “She never did say why she left—just that they offered to help her find a job,” she continued. “What could she be running from?”

  Neither of them wanted to go where that thought led.

  “I agree there are some holes in her story,” Roger said, “but her body didn’t lie. When she was pressed, she didn’t react like someone familiar with violence. Maybe she wasn’t on the ship willingly?”

  “Could be. But how did she end up there then?”

  Sarsha had wandered over to her desk. She stood behind her chair, one hand holding onto her braid.

  “I leave that to you and Annalynn. My job is to shoot things.”

  Roger hopped off the bed.

  Sarsha shot a scowl at him as he left sickbay.

  He went to the loading bay. The buggy was parked on the side, where Zev and Zara were working on it. He grabbed the repeaters and brought them over to the workbench.

  It wasn’t the best workbench, but it got the job done. After a few minutes, he had the weapons stripped down and was inspecting them for damage. Luck had been with them—nothing appeared to be broken, just a few things misaligned.

  He would’ve liked to do a more thorough cleaning, but he didn’t know how long they had. The repeaters could be used for ship-to-ship firing in a pinch.

  Not that he liked the idea of standing in the loading bay, holding one of the heavy plasma repeaters, firing out the back.

  But it would beat taking a missile in the aft.

  That was something that could ruin a perfectly bad day.

  With the repeaters back together and stowed away, Roger made for the galley. It had been a hard day, and he was hungry.

  It was empty when he got there—the small cooking area and table beckoning him. He would never admit it, but he could really use one of Zev’s double-fried mystery burgers.

  Instead, he settled for a protein bar and a hydration drink.

  It made him remember some of the good times he’d had in the military.

  Before the war.

  Before the fall.

  He shook his head, trying to physically banish the unwanted thoughts, and refocused on their immediate problems.

  They had been shot at in space and forced to make an emergency dive. They’d burned through most of their heat shielding.

  Someone was hunting them—hunting him.

  And that someone had the backing of powerful people.

  The crew in the woods had been good. Without Zev, he wouldn’t have made it.

  The last one had tried to grab a grenade rather than answer questions.

  He had to have known what would happen.

  And of course, that damn ship.

  That haunting death trap.

  Roger had expected it to attack when they left.

  Someone had wanted them on that ship.

  Maybe he should’ve let Zev blow it up.

  With his food finished, he stood up.

  His body felt refreshed. Between the pain meds and his nanites in overdrive, he was ready to go.

  As he made his way to the bridge, he passed by Zara. She had plugged the ship’s drive into an air-gapped computer.

  “Anything yet?” he asked from the doorway to their computer core.

  Her head snapped up, drawn back to reality by his words.

  “What? Oh, the drive. No, this computer is so slow. Those idiots didn’t use good encryption, but this thing is taking its time. We even have the key!”

  “How long before you can start pulling data?” Roger asked.

  The air gap might’ve been overkill, but he trusted Zara. This was her world.

  “Twenty minutes, if I’m lucky. Once the drive decrypts, I can start scanning files and sending them to my network. From there I can scrub them further—make sure there’s nothing nasty waiting.”

  Roger nodded as he walked away.

  That ship had really gotten to her.

  He had to admit… it had started to get to him too.

  Yeah. Letting Zev blow it up would’ve felt so good.

  The bridge was up two ladders and all the way forward.

  Climbing them was a lot easier than it should’ve been.

  The hole in his arm was gone—just an angry scar now.

  He found Annalynn sitting in the pilot’s seat, her hair cascading down her back, white as snow. Her hair was only that color when she was deep in thought.

  He walked up behind her and clamped a hand on her shoulder.

  He was rewarded with an elbow strike to the groin.

  He managed to shift his leg and avoid the worst of it.

  Annalynn glared up at him, her hair flashing from fire-red to black.

  “Zev told me what happened. What do you want to do?”

  Her tone was flat, but her hair told a different story.

  “Is the ship spaceworthy?”

  A slow nod. She entered a few commands, and a hologram of the ship flickered to life above the console.

  “We can take off. Always could have. But the atmo-drive plane’s still not responding. Zara’s been busy, and couldn’t go on a gremlin hunt,” Annalynn said.

  Roger stood there for a heartbeat.

  They wouldn’t know what was waiting for them in orbit until they got there.

  The Hollow Wrath was at its best in atmo—its shape and drive planes gave it a huge advantage over other spacecraft.

  “I think it might be better up there,” he finally said. “Rather than waiting here. We could at least bring the fight to whoever’s out there.”

  “I agree. From what Zev said, that last crew were pros. If he hadn’t taken the ship down, we wouldn’t have had a chance. No point waiting for more trouble to show up.”

  Annalynn hit a button on the control screen.

  “All hands, report to the galley. We need a plan.”