The first blast came a day later and almost startled Inrit out of a light nap. It was only the second, much harsher strike that made her ears pop and jostled her to the edge of the bed that yanked her from slumber and punched her in the face with danger.

Actually, the blow to the face came from Max, whose own arm got jostled in the strike.

“Are you okay?” he asked, worry insistent and strident enough that she thought she must be bleeding rather than just surprised.

Inrit brushed her fingers over her cheek and didn’t feel any pain. “No worries, big guy. I’ll survive.”

The third blast came with a bang and threw Inrit and Max against the opposite wall of the room. “The deflector shield is holding,” Inrit noted as she righted herself. She grabbed a jacket from the closet and slung it on over her clothes. Both she and Max were almost fully clothed in anticipation of this attack.

She flipped open the storage compartment over her own bunk and grabbed for her cache of weapons. Her heart pounded hard, but her hands were steady and her mind clear. Nothing even resembling surprise hinted at the back of her mind. The only question she had was who exactly was attacking them and what firepower did they possess.

Inrit braced for a fourth charge at the ship, but nothing happened. “The cannons should have re-fired by now,” she said.

Max had his own weapons to strap down. In the dim light of their room, he was a deadly god, holsters full of blasters, sheathes of knives. Her very own cyborg of death. “Let’s say our thanks that they haven’t.” He slid a slim cloth mask over his head. It covered everything but his eyes and protected him from blasters and light las fire. Inrit did the same. They were a matched pair of deadly beings, ready to deal pain to anyone who stood as a threat.

“We need to get to an active comms station to figure out what’s going on.” Their own comms system had been disabled upon their imprisonment and Inrit hadn’t wanted to waste time hacking it.

“If Morvellan sees us, we’ll be a distraction. Especially if he thinks that you’ll betray the crew to the pirates out there.” It hurt to hear Max’s words, but Inrit didn’t flinch. She knew that he believed in her.

“Morvellan has his head up his ass and he was stupid enough to imprison his head of security while under a security threat.”

Inrit must have been desperate to leave Tarni. She rarely questioned her own judgement, but right now those retroactive warning bells rang.

“And what about our friend on the other side of the door?” Max asked. He already had a blaster in hand and Inrit got the feeling that there was a dark side hiding in him. She wanted to see it.

“Let’s hope he’s reasonable.” As she said that, she knocked on the door. No one responded.

“Does reasonable mean that he abandoned his post?” Max came to stand beside her and leaned against the wall next to the door, blaster out.

“If he knows how many weapons we had stored in here, he should have.” The ship rocked again but this time she and her mate were able to wedge themselves into place. Pressure built on her wrist as the ship turned and twisted, but after a moment, it rocked back and Inrit was able to let go. “And I’d hope he’s smart enough to know who the real enemy is right now.” She banged on the door again.

Still nothing.

“Fine. I’ll do it myself.” She pulled out her stiletto and slid it into the crack between the door and the wall. With a flick of fingers, the stiletto turned from an elegant killing machine to a superheated laser that could cut through the hull of the ship, given enough time. Inrit only needed a minute to destroy the lock and force open the door. The only sign of trouble on the other side would be the growing stench of burning metal and sizzling wires.

“Where did you get that?” Max asked, awed.

“I made it.” Inrit jerked her hand, trying to speed up the process, but the laser could only work so fast. “Do you want one?”

“I love you,” he said instead of answering.

Inrit shot a grin over her shoulder. “I’ll take that as a yes.” The knife practically jumped out of her fingers, pulling her attention back to her work. “Lean against the door,” she told her denya. “We don’t want it opening as a surprise.”

Max maneuvered around her until his back was pushed up against the heavy door. The ship hadn’t rocked with the power of a blast for several minutes, but that didn’t mean they were out of danger. Inrit wouldn’t believe that the pirates were gone until she saw it with her own eyes.

“Once they’ve found a weakness, they’re going to try and board the ship.” She’d seen this scene play out too many times to count. “And if the pirate captain is smart, he’ll leave his flank unguarded so that some of Morvellan’s people can board the pirate ship.”

“Because Morvellan won’t try to blow up his own crew.” Max hadn’t been a pirate, but his ruthless mind was able to follow anywhere she led. “And I’m guessing that an ambush will be waiting for our forces?”

“Most likely.” Her hand tensed and cramped from the hard clasp she had to maintain to keep the laser steady. But she was nearly there.

“Will the pirates expect a second wave of assault?” he asked. He played idly with his blaster as she worked, and from his posture she wouldn’t have known that a battle raged a few meters away.

With a final fizzle, the lock gave way and Inrit drew her knife back. She held it up gently. After being activated for several minutes, she couldn’t easily holster it. “The utility closet at the end of this hallway will have the closest comm station. But the one in the engineering deck is the closest secure location. You’re the security chief, you make the call.”

Every moment that ticked by was another that the ship was at risk, but Max didn’t rush into his decision. He took a moment to think, eyes blinking as something in his cybernetic machinery processed the information concurrently with his organic brain. “How much time do you need with the computer?” he asked.

Inrit blew out a breath. “At least a few minutes, more if there’s any help I can provide remotely.”

Max froze as still as a statue, his eyes bleeding completely to silver. A full thirty seconds passed and Inrit almost waved her hand in front of him to snap him out of his trance, but this wasn’t a glitch. This was deliberate. “Are you more useful in the fight or controlling the tech?” She heard the fight in his words. He wanted her safe, out of the way, and he’d forced himself to ask the question anyway.

So Inrit really thought about it. She’d taken a dozen or more ships in the fray with a band of rogues, and she had the scars to show for it. Everything in her rebelled at the thought of letting Max fight this battle alone, but he was made for it, bone by bone and wire by wire. He could take much more damage than she could and come out the other side barely scathed.

And she was the woman who’d figured out how to fix him overnight with scavenged tools.

“If the captain hasn’t put anyone else there, I’m better in the engine room.” She had to fight to say it as much as Max had fought to ask. Her guts twisted into a hard knot at the thought of Max fighting alone. But given the right controls, she could become this ship’s owner and god. “If you get killed, I’ll never forgive you.”

He stepped close and tilted her chin up. “If you get killed, I’ll walk through the hells and bring you back.” He captured her lips in a harsh, soul crushing kiss, but let her go before either of them could get other ideas.

The door had started to fall open now that there was nothing forcing it shut. It knocked into Inrit’s shoulder, a reminder of the world, and the battle, outside. Her knife had dulled from red hot to merely scalding and she placed it back into her hidden sheath. With her hands bare, her claws flexed under her skin, but she kept those under control. No need to give up her secrets just yet.

“We go quick and quiet,” Max said with one hand on the door. “If we can avoid the fighting, we avoid it. Once you’re situated, we’ll determine where I should go and you’ll figure out whether we can outrun these fuckers or if this is a fight to the end. Clear?”

Inrit nodded. “There should be a portable comms link in the engineering room. We’ll be able to maintain communication.” He stood so close, but she forced her hands to stay down at her sides. No touching, not unless they were pulling each other out of danger or pushing on to safety.

“Stay close. Stay Sharp.” Max yanked the door open and they were off.

***

Max almost had to spare a backward glance to confirm Inrit was behind him. She moved with a cat’s grace, her steps even and silent, almost weightless despite the artificial gravity. This wasn’t her first battle, and if she thought she was better used outside of combat, he wondered what kind of trickery she could pull on the machines. He knew she was a born fighter, just from the way she moved.

He should have been happy that she was staying out of the fight. The engine room would be the safest place. Unless the ship became completely compromised, it would be the last place to suffer structural damage. But the thought of leaving her alone in the middle of battle was a dagger to his heart.

The lights flickered overhead and the sounds of battle echoed up the metal walls of the hallway.

With a final blast of light and a pop the main overhead lights went out, leaving only the emergency backup to ward off the darkness. Max’s ocular sensors compensated seamlessly, the only noticeable shift coming from a loss of some of the cover. But Inrit stumbled behind him, tripping over a bag that someone had dropped in the long run to wherever they ended up.

Two turns down central hallways and the sounds of fighting faded, but the lights didn’t come back on. As they moved further into the ship, Max expected to find passengers and crew, but they kept moving and saw no one.

“There’s no way they’ve rounded everyone up already,” Inrit said, reading the course of his thoughts. “It’s not even been half an hour.”

Max knew just how fast a battle could be lost, but he agreed. “Maybe they’ve found a hiding place. Or perhaps Morvellan is more competent than we thought.”

“Yeah, right.” They kept moving.

A few minutes later, they came to a break in the hallway and Max had to make a choice. If they continued straight, they’d end up at the engineering deck sooner than if they went left. But going straight took them to the inner edge of the cargo decks before looping back to the safety of the ship’s interior.

Max placed his hand against the wall and sent his senses down the metal. It wasn’t the deep connection he’d experienced when he dove into the data, but sometimes metal spoke to him, if he chose to listen. A symptom of his not-quite-human state. But right now, the walls rang with too much information, too many voices coming from across the entire ship.

It was no help.

Max chose forward. They walked again, but this time Max took it slow, his steps chosen with care. Crashes, clangs, and blaster fire were too close for comfort, too close to his mate, and he itched to take them all down until she was safe.

Caution, man. He needed to keep his head.

When the first pirate came, Max was ready, his blaster out and shooting before his eyes even recognized the enemy.

The man went down in a crumple, dropping a modified blaster and moaning as the shock of the shot ripped through him. Max kicked the gun away and crouched, eyes wide and ready for company. Inrit mirrored him, knives in her hands, body low. Footsteps came from behind, running down the hall at their backs. And then more coming from in front of them.

He and Inrit jumped up and found cover near the walls, burrowing into opposite crevasses to avoid blaster fire as it came at them hard. But it only lasted for a few seconds as the pirates realized they were shooting at each other in addition to the enemy. Inrit pointed to herself and then to the left. Max nodded, pointed to himself and then opposite her.

One pirate was coming up behind them while two were coming towards. Max held up three fingers and counted down, watching Inrit but keeping the rest of his senses on the incoming enemy. When he got to one, she nodded and they both burst out, taking off towards their chosen opponents.

Cyborg speed gave Max the advantage, even against two aggressors. He blasted out a shot at the closer pirate, a young woman in all black with a las gun as big as her arm. She went down to a knee, but didn’t fall. As Max shot the squat alien running beside her, the las gun’s chamber flared red.

Max flattened himself as she took the shot. Las fire could burn through flesh and didn’t stop until it ate everything in its path. As a cyborg, he was especially vulnerable.

Las fire ate through metal and wiring quicker than anything else and a cyborg could burn to cinders in minutes. But he avoided the fire and sprang back up between blasts, rolling towards her and shooting again. She took a second hit and grunted, but stayed on her knees.

Damn it! He caught the glint of armor peeking out the neck of her top and gave up firing. Her friend would recover from any shot before she went all the way down. Armor could deflect blaster shots until they felt like uncomfortable punches. If it was unexpected, one might bring a person to their knees. But once you knew the shots were coming, you could adapt.

Unmodified blasters were intentionally non-lethal. A few adjustments to the heat source and they could be almost as deadly as las fire. From what Max could see, both pirates carried modified.

The las gun warmed again and Max dove out of the way, but with a sputter and a burst of smoke, it failed and clanked to the ground as the pirate cursed it away. Her momentary distraction gave Max a second to recover from his dive.

And then they met in a hail of blows. While his blaster had little effect, his fists did the trick. He hit the woman in her side, pulling back just enough to keep from killing her. But she didn’t give up that easily. His head rang with a blow to the jaw and blood bloomed where an unseen blade cut at his abdomen.

So she didn’t want to play nice. Fine.

With a spin and a flick of his leg, he kicked her chest and saw her fly back several meters, where she finally crumpled into a heap at the foot of a small stairway. Max kept his hands up and bounced on the balls of his feet, waiting to see if she stood back up. Her chest rose and fell with the stutter of injury, but other than that she remained motionless.

He picked up the blaster that her partner had dropped and disabled the power source on the las cannon. It would slow them down too much to carry it.

Footsteps pounded, but Max could sense Inrit through their bond. He dropped his hands and offered her the modified blaster. “A gift for my lady,” he said.

Inrit held up a similar weapon. “Aw, you got me the same thing!”

Then her gaze darkened and her eyes darted down. “Which one of them marked you,” she demanded, fire in her eyes and ice in her voice. She tried to walk past him towards the still unconscious pirates, but Max put out an arm to stop her.

“It’s barely a scratch.” He shifted to put both arms on her shoulders. “I promise. It’ll be healed by the time we reach the engineering deck.”

Inrit stared at him, jaw set, doubt warring with the bond within that told her to trust him. That told her he wouldn’t lie. Finally, she nodded. She stuck the blaster she’d acquired into a pocket and kept her expression fierce. “Let’s keep going.”

There was no talk of turning back and going the other way. One pirate had already come up behind them. There was no reason to believe they’d be safe taking the longer route anymore. Max stayed in the lead, but even as they skirted towards the edge of the cargo bay, they didn’t run into any pirates or crew. The ship was big, he reminded himself. There were plenty of places to hide and fight. No reason to think it strange that they’d only found foes.

As Max led Inrit up the stairs, that little nick from the pirate screamed at him, and he bit down on the inside of his cheek to keep from flinching. He pressed a hand against his stomach and it came back wet with blood. Then he pressed a little harder and had to stop moving for a second as the pain crashed over him.

“Is something wrong?” Inrit asked from behind. She’d only be able to see the rigid line of his back.

“I thought I sensed something,” Max responded. It wasn’t a lie; his inner sensors were busy alerting him to the poison that had begun coursing through his system several minutes before. They needed to get to the engineering deck quick. The more he moved, the more the poison swirled through him. And until he had the time to analyze it, he didn’t know if he was in for pain.

Or death.

The air seemed to coalesce around him into a thick soup and with each step, his legs grew heavier and heavier. Sweat beaded on his brow and poured down his back, soaking his shirt until it clung to him like he’d showered in all his clothes. They made it across the gangplank and down the opposite ladder, and on the final rung, Max stumbled, recovering with a small jump, but it was enough.

Inrit jumped down after him, landing with a metal clang as her boots met the ground. She rounded on him and cradled his face in her hands, thumbs wiping at the sweat on his cheeks. A dozen thoughts passed behind her eyes, but Max’s head was as heavy as that las cannon he’d abandoned, and even holding it up was an effort. He couldn’t parse unspoken thoughts, not even from his mate.

“We’re almost there,” she said. Her voice took on the tone his own trainer had used more than a dozen years ago, and he found himself standing straighter with every word. “At the end of the hallway we’re home free. There’s going to be a med kit and possibly some friends. I will not leave you out here, but if I have to drag you, you’ll get even more injured and I’ll be vulnerable to attack. So I don’t care what it takes. You stand up, you walk, and you live. Do you understand me?”

Max managed one nod, but his mouth had gone dry and he couldn’t speak. He used the wall to climb up from the crouch he’d unknowingly stumbled into and then placed one foot in front of the other. The hallway beyond them had narrowed into a pinprick of light, but he knew where they were headed. Sight was secondary at this moment.

Inrit stepped in front of him, as if she could sense his struggle with vision. With her in front, Max ran a scan of his internal system and found what he’d expected. His mechanics were in perfect working order. It was the other 63% of him that was failing.

The pain ate into time and an eternity bloomed between every step. But those little eternities collapsed in on themselves and dissolved in a blink, and then they were in front of the door to the engineering deck. Max leaned against the wall while Inrit placed her hand on the palm reader, but though he meant to stay standing, his thighs gave out and he began to slide downward.

“No you don’t,” said his mate. She forced him back up to his feet and slung his arm over her shoulder, taking on most of his weight.

“I can stand,” he mumbled, feet shuffling back to the palm reader.

“I believe you,” she replied, “but it’s easier to keep you standing than pick you back up.”

He shifted as she reached out to scan her palm a second time and it distantly occurred to Max that the captain might have revoked her access. But the door slid open after the sensor beeped.

Max had just enough time to see the barrel of a blaster pointed in their direction before his legs crumpled under him and everything went black.