“Are you sure about this?” Copperfield’s voice betrayed concern, but his body language was relaxed where he lolled against the wall.

  “I’m sure.” Heath had already crossed the worst line. If they needed to steal a bit more, well what was that to him?

  “Okay. Here’s how it works. In, out, no getting sidetracked, yeah?”

  Heath nodded. The two of them strode into the shop.

  Hours later, they regrouped on the bridge, already fleeing the system after a successful heist. As usual these days, Heath checked on his [Ship Link] to the Loon. It was still quiet. He could tell they were gaining, but slowly. Too slowly for the rampaging anxiety in his chest.

  One more stop and then it was full burn towards the Shaman.

  ********

  “Jenny Mae is an intelligent and resourceful young woman,” Ekaterina announced into the silence of dinner a few days later. “If there is any one of us that could handle such a changing environment, it is likely her.”

  “True,” Heath said.

  It had become their constant refrain. Their know-it-all Administrator had a plan for every scenario. This would be no different. As he had all the other times, Heath prayed to the Nine that she stayed quiet, stayed hidden, and escaped at the first opportunity.

  “Ship, how far out are we?”

  “Seventeen hours to destination,” came the lifeless reply.

  “Try and relax. Or do whatever. This next stop will be tricky.”

  Emerald snorted. “You’re spending more money than a lot of spacers make in three seasons. It won’t be tricky.”

  “We’ll see.” Heath wished he could enjoy the same confidence, but all he could see were the thousand opportunities for their plan to fail.

  Like every night since the Loon’s capture, Heath struggled to get to sleep. He looked over his status in an attempt to distract himself, but there had been no change since the hour before when he did the same thing. His [Ship Link] skill was ticking up from the stress placed on it from the distance, but that was it. He still sat in the high forties for levels, with an odd jumble of skills that couldn’t decide between supporting his ship and supporting his delving team. And he was still flying straight towards an obstacle he had no business with at this stage.

  Problems for the next rank, if he reached it. When he reached it.

  *********

  “You want to say something, kid?”

  “Fine. You were right. They couldn’t sell to us fast enough.”

  “Thought so.” Emerald sniffed and lapsed into silence on the way back. “It’ll work, you know.”

  “We’ll see.” Heath said.

  “We will.”

  Returning to the Wraith was never quite so easy as the Loon. The expensive ship brought stares and gawkers. The pair ignored them all as they made their way inside.

  Heath fired up the ship and ran through departure procedures as fast as possible, until once more they were moving towards their goal.

  “We have a choice to make,” he announced. The Wraith was on track towards the next gate and wouldn’t need his attention for a while.

  Copperfield nodded at Heath to continue.

  “We can keep going as we have been, following the Loon’s path. Or we can aim for the Shaman’s base directly.”

  “I assumed those were the same,” Ekaterina said.

  “I did too, but I was doing some research last night and there’s a shortcut.” Heath pulled up the map and tried to ignore that this was usually Jenny Mae’s job. “Right here.” Two dots flared green.

  “Damn,” Copperfield hissed. “Is that what I think it is?”

  “Hyperspace jump.” Heath confirmed. “The Loon can’t handle something like that in her current state, but the Wraith could make it.”

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  “How much time would that save us?” Emerald asked.

  “A few days. Most of the time we’re lagging. They would still beat us to the base but we wouldn’t be far behind.”

  “Why wouldn’t we do this then?” Ekaterina said, staring at the map as though she could glare it into revealing any hidden secrets.

  “H-jumps take time. We’ll be in there for at least three days. And I doubt my link to the Loon will still work. So…” he trailed off but let it never be said that his crew wasn’t sharp enough to pick up hints.

  “So if they change course, we will be even further behind.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Too risky.”

  “Let’s do it.”

  Ekaterina and Copperfield spoke at once. They turned to each other with narrowed eyes before looking at Heath. Who in turn, spun to face Emerald.

  “Your call, kid.”

  “Fuck.”

  **********

  Captivity had taught her some things about herself she would have gladly avoided learning. Even captivity with as nice a cage as the Wandering Loon. Jenny Mae was not built for a solitary lifestyle. That was what grated the most. There was no one to talk to. No media she could access as the Loon was slowly taken over, subjugated system by system. Watching space fly by could only take up so much of the day.

  Getting kidnapped by a Cyber pirate was not supposed to be boring.

  Maybe more importantly, Jenny Mae had learned that she wasn’t going to break. At least not as things stood. There was nothing to watch or read, but the training room was still functional. She suspected the Cyber didn’t realize what it was, being so divorced from the System and argo flows in general. Poor soul. Though her sympathy had run into some hard limits in recent days.

  With nothing else to do, she trained. Target practice calmed her down between frustrating attempts to pick up another combat Skill. Dummies programmed with practice sequences were good to improve Skills, but less so to earn them in the first place. That didn’t stop her from trying.

  For an hour each day, she forced herself to use the meditation mat. Not because she had gained a true appreciation for the practice, but it was supposed to speed up with Class leveling, and every little bit helped.

  In between all of that, she planned. The Cyber hadn’t yet left the bridge since her attack, but that didn’t mean it never would. To account for the possibility, Jenny Mae had rigged up a few traps that would sound an alarm if the hatch slid open. She was convinced that if she made it in there, she could do more to help.

  The cargo bay was also adorned with a new set of traps, these a bit more lethal. Or as lethal as she could make them with whatever detritus was left lying around. Putting them together even brought back some pleasant memories. The ranch was big enough for her and her cousins to get into a whole heap of trouble without their parents finding out. Including one dry season where games of tag and hide and seek had evolved into full-on guerilla warfare.

  For a moment she had hoped the backup weapons in the cargo locker would be her ticket, but the seal was firmly locked in place, and none of her tricks had worked.

  Even with all her planning, she almost missed when they started decelerating. Like always, she had marked the jump into the system, and the time since the previous one. Her bunk was full of maps and calculations. With the Loon’s speed and never stopping, it wasn’t that hard to figure out where she was at any given time, not when [Perfect Recall] could give her perfect star map references. If, no, when she escaped, she would be ready.

  But the slowdown nearly caught her off guard. Nearly. They were way out in the Siegbahn system. So far that the local binary star looked like just a slightly larger speck amongst thousands she could spot out of the viewport.

  Another application of [Perfect Recall] and she knew there was nothing out here. No station. No dwarf planet to huddle on. Just cold black until you were out in true deep space. At least, according to the public information. It was obviously not up to date if the fortress she could see was anything to go by. She blinked, making sure she hadn’t hallucinated the sight.

  It was like no station she had ever seen, not even in vids. Why would anyone want to build a castle in space? It made no logical sense. Though fools were a dime a dozen in every system in the ‘verse. Station design was a careful science that had been developed over millennia. She looked closer. There were actual ramparts. Jenny Mae could only assume the decorations were clever paint, and not that someone had brought actual rocks all the way out here to build the walls. Castles were not vacuum-safe!

  The absurdity of the moment helped drown out the panic. Everyone knew worse things happened when the kidnappers had you in their lair. One area of the wall slid open, a force field shimmering behind. She let out a little sigh of relief. At least there would be viable air.

  Relief that was unfortunately ruined by what she saw behind it. Half ship bay, half operating theater, all creepy. Saws and clamps gleamed in the low light, big enough to cut open ship hulls. The walls were lined with macabre tools she didn’t know the names for, mag clamps jutted out from the floor, and long chains dangled from the ceiling, capped with hooks or what could pass for a hand made out of harpoons.

  It was a twisted dockyard, one meant to tear apart instead of repair. It put her in mind of her family’s abattoir, the only place she was happy to avoid on the ranch.

  Scuttling throughout like cockroaches, drones. Dozens of them. The collection of rods like the one she had destroyed, small rollers capped with hard shells, like turtles that waddled around carrying tools. Flyers buzzing through the vaulted ceiling. And so many more.

  She could only watch as they entered, nosing through the forcefield, the solid hull sliding down behind them. Like the door to a tomb after a body had been interred.

  A loud clattering echoed through the Loon. The bridge hatch! She hurried off. Not knowing what she was going to do, but planning to try something.

  She skidded to a halt facing the Cyber. It hadn’t moved from just in front of the door.

  A new set of footsteps broke the standoff. Then a series of crashes came from the cargo bay. Her traps. All of them, it sounded like. Jenny Mae prayed to the Huntress that they worked. Alas, Iata wasn’t listening. Her auntie liked to say that those who depended on the gods and not themselves got what was coming to them. Jenny Mae thought some exceptions might be made for her situation.

  The footsteps started up again. Her angle kept her from seeing anything beyond the Cyber, but she tensed, hefting her practice sword in a stance she had seen Copperfield use for unknown opponents.

  Her new captor came into view. Thick locs, encrusted with wires and pulsing with green light and mana hung from his scalp, trailing down to his waist. An outer robe covered in, or perhaps made from, circuitry flowed around him, cinched at the waist by leather belt dangling broken circuit boards and monster claws. He turned to her and smiled, and she could see more gleaming wires tracing over his teeth.

  Jenny Mae reared back at the sight, then launched herself forward. Initiative in battle was the most important thing, so said every instructor she’d ever had.

  She may as well have stood still. Faster than she could track, the Cyber stepped in front of her charge. The practice sword slammed into their body, tip first, the impact jolting it from her hands.

  That wasn’t her only weapon. She ducked down and hefted a club. This time, the Cyber grabbed her. Thick arms wrapped around her torso, pinning her arms to her sides and stalling her rebellion before it had gotten underway.

  The newcomer laughed. Loud and long.

  “Who’s this? A little mouse who thinks herself a lioness?”

  “Let us go!” Jenny Mae shouted.

  Another manic giggle. “As you wish, little mouse. You’re free to go. But I will be keeping your fascinating ship.”

  Jenny Mae pursed her lips but held in her insults. Bullies were all the same. They wanted to see their victims struggle. It was obvious she couldn’t leave without a ship. No need to call attention to it.

  He tapped his wrist where a screen was embedded into the skin. Another drone rolled in, this one like a crab, grasping arms and elevated sensors as it rolled on all-terrain treads. “Let her go. Keep her away from any weapons.”

  At the order the Cyber dropped her to the deck, her recently healed leg wobbled but held her up from total humiliation. It stomped out, leaving the new drone in place. Testing, Jenny Mae stepped to the side. It mirrored her but made no move to stop her.

  When she reached for her practice sword, a grasper shot out and clamped down on the faux weapon. It retracted the chain, pulling the item out of her reach. She could work with that. She was not broken and she would fight until the end. Heath and the others would come, she just needed to be patient. And ready when they got there.