Page 71 of Cloverleaf Station

Kieron stayed where he was, pressed against a matte-gray plasti-steel wall, and shut his eyes. He listened to the pound of incoming feet, mapped their owners out in his mind, and—

“Two meters.”

He turned, ducked down under the arm swing of the man in front, grabbed him by the knees, and threw him back into the rest of his squad even as he relieved him of his weapon, a low-energy stunner. Kieron immediately turned and shot the bot, which had been bringing its own stunner to bear—a far more powerful version, one that could cause paralysis with a single pulse if it got him somewhere vital.

His first shot made it whirr a bit but didn’t knock it out. Kieron shot it again as he launched himself into the pile of people ahead of him, bracing his free hand on an indignant guard’s shoulder as he kicked the man behind him in the face. He spun, sweeping three sets of legs out from under their owners, then punched each of the landed ones in the throat—not hard enough to break their hyoids, just hard enough to make them convulse and wonder if he had.

Of the last two, one was still on the ground from the head kick, and the other was struggling to get a clear shot at Kieron around his team. Kieron took the chance away from him by stunning the man himself. All five of them down, he turned and—

Bzzt! He dove for the pile of bodies, the shot that would have taken him in the head hitting his left shoulder and upper back instead. He gritted his teeth at the sudden numbness and forced himself to roll, shooting the bot again and again until it finally began to smoke. “Fuck,” he muttered.

A familiar voice immediately began to chide him. “What the hell have you done to yourself? No, scratch that, get to Lizzie, there’s a situation, then you can tell me about whatever dumbass thing you just accomplished.”

“You suck,” Kieron wheezed at Elenus as he forced himself to stand. The stunner’s blast had gone deep enough to impact his breathing. That wasn’t good. It would wear off, but the tissue paralysis in the meantime could make things … challenging.

“You suck, now go save Lizzie and Pol!”

Save them? Why did they need saving? He rolled to his feet, keeping the stunner close and casting a wary eye around for more people. The alarm might be silenced now, but he didn’t trust it. “Lizzie?”

“It’s okay,” she crooned. Not just to him, but to Pol. “It’s going to be okay. I’ve got you. Just wait oooone moment.”

“Lizzie, what happened?” he asked as he ran for her, best route be damned. The hatch was on the other side, and as he rounded the back of the ship, he saw what he’d dreaded—Pol held fast in a guard’s arm, a smirk on the man’s face as he turned to look at Kieron.

“Put the weapon down right now, or—”

That was as far as he got before the hatch he was standing in front of abruptly opened just far enough to crash into the back of his head, hard enough to shatter the helmet he was wearing. He fell to the ground just as Kieron dashed forward to grab Pol, who was shaking but otherwise looked all right.

“She saved me!” Pol exclaimed, looking at Lizzie with stars in his eyes. “She said she would save me, and she did!”

“She’s the best,” Kieron agreed as he awkwardly got the two of them on board. “Lizzie, we need to go, now.”

“Yes, Kee.” The hatch was already closed, the flight sequence already finished. He felt Lizzie began to shake as the engines engaged.

Kieron got Pol strapped in, then grabbed the portable Regen unit and fixed it to his shoulder just as Lizzie began to lift off. He sighed as feeling slowly seeped back into his damaged tissues.

“You are a godsdamn idiot, you know that? If I was there right now, I would smack you silly.”

Kieron snorted. “Love you too, El.”

“Damn right you do. Ready for rescue number two?”

Did he have a choice? In truth, though, he was more than ready. “Let’s do it.”

They soared out of the port, and Lizzie put on extra speed to get them to atmosphere level in under a minute. Soon the blue sky was left behind for the soothing darkness of space, and Kieron sighed with relief.

One last thing, and then they could head home.

***

The ship that had looked massive on the ground was surprisingly small set against the stark blackness of space. Still bigger than Lizzie by far—it held over a hundred lost souls, after all—but much smaller than what it should be for a group of that size. Kieron didn’t even want to speculate on the state of the ship inside. It had to be horrendously cramped, with no thought given to human comforts or cleanliness.

Over a hundred people, set adrift in space. They didn’t even have an escort of Traktan vessels along with them. They’d simply been … jettisoned. Set into motion toward a distant planet, and whether they made it there or not was no longer the government’s concern. These people had been disposed of, cruelly, and in such a way that they had to be aware of it. A planet suffering from shortages of Regen wouldn’t waste any of their medical supplies on safe cryosleep for a bunch of refugees. No, they were all awake, living out this new nightmare.

And one of them had figured out how to use the radio.

“—mergency, I repeat, this is an emergency!” It was a man’s voice, low and hoarse, like someone just barely keeping it together. “For the love of—we’re people, we’re not things, you can’t just get rid of us, like a suit of clothes that doesn’t fit you anymore! You can’t abandon us out here, or we’re all going to die before we reach a safe port! Are you listening to me? Is anyone listening to me?”

“Lizzie …” Kieron began, but she was already linking their signals. “This is Kieron Carr, out from Cloverleaf Station,” he said briskly, once the connection was made. “Give me a sitrep for your ship.”