Orion found himself flat on his back on the deck when he woke from the wormhole jump. He groaned and rolled onto his side, his body stiff after the fight. The soreness made him feel like he’d been out for hours, even though he knew that the ship only would have traveled for a few real-time minutes in gate-space. For the pilot, up on the bridge, whose brain was plugged into navigation, it would have seemed much longer, as he guided the damaged ship through the strange space between gates, but everyone else would have experienced the few minutes of unconsciousness that Orion had felt. And what the two women would have felt for the first time.

It was still dark in engineering, with only a few indicators glowing yellow and red, and he groped his way over to the woman who’d run out of hiding to help him. Juanita. A surge of emotion ran through him, emotion he didn’t quite have a name for. He was beyond pleased that she had risked herself to knock out some of his enemies even though she had no idea who he was or why he was attacking people and disabling this ship.

By the faint light, he found her and scooped her up. She groaned in a semi-conscious state, and he forced himself to ignore the way she felt in his arms, the warmth of her body against his, the faint desert plant smell that drifted up from her hair. A scented shampoo? Or just leftover smells from the dry part of that world where they’d found her? He had an urge to lower his nose to inhale more deeply, and maybe to brush his lips against her temple.

She groaned again, stirring in his arms, turning toward him. Her breasts pressed against his chest, soft and delightful.

Heat stirred within his groin, and he rolled his eyes at himself. This was not the time for sexual urges. And to lust after some helpless prisoner was despicable. It wasn’t as if she chose to be here with him. Just because she’d run out to help him didn’t mean she wanted any of this. She certainly hadn’t given any indication that she wanted him. She probably wouldn’t want anyone for a long time after being pawed over by Bray.

She shifted against him again. She would waken soon, as would everyone else on the ship. The alarms were still going off, and everyone on the bridge would know that the shield generator was offline. He was surprised a security team hadn’t already charged into engineering.

He carried the woman over to the nook where she’d been hiding with her comrade earlier. With the lights on, it wouldn’t be much of a hiding spot, but now, it was in complete darkness. Only by touch did he confirm that the other woman was unconscious and wedged in the space.

Even with the darkness, it wouldn’t be wise to stay there. He would grab the other woman, hopefully before she woke fully and tried to fight him, and take them… he wasn’t sure where. They would have to find a spot to hide on the ship until Sage’s people boarded and subdued the rest of the slavers.

Orion trusted that his brother would board and subdue them, even though he was puzzled that the slavers had been permitted to reach the gate.

“My fault,” he grumbled.

If he hadn’t delayed, if he hadn’t taken so long to blow up the shield generator, the Star Guardian ship could have boarded this one earlier. But Sage should have plenty of time to catch up before the slavers could slip through another gate and disappear into the network. From the trip to the women’s planet, Orion recalled that the next gate was located on the far side of the system from where this one was anchored.

The other woman—Tala, he reminded himself—stirred in the dark nook, pushing herself to her feet. He reached out, knowing there once again wasn’t time to explain or insert the translator chips. He would just have to throw her over one shoulder, and Juanita over the other, then run off into the bowels of the ship. With luck, he would pass a monitor or porthole and get a glimpse of what was going on outside. Sage’s ship had better be coming out of the gate right behind this one.

There were, of course, reports of ships that didn’t make it through gate-space and were never heard from again, but that rarely happened, and it certainly shouldn’t happen to a top-of-the-line fire falcon ship. If the damaged slaver ship had made it through, Sage’s vessel would have no problem.

The hatch to engineering clanged open, and Orion jumped.

He hadn’t heard footsteps over the wailing of that alarm. His notion of running off with the women fled, and he jammed himself into the gap between the bulkhead and the navigation machinery.

He detected surprise from the Tala woman as she hurried to back away, her mind probably still groggy from the jump. Fortunately, she had the sense not to make any noise.

Four men stormed into engineering, three of them armed. Their logostecs projected beams of light, but they mostly highlighted the deck and machinery, so Orion couldn’t see their faces. He had to assume Cutty had sent security experts, men with combat training superior to that of the engineers, so he would have a hard time if he had to fight them.

If he had to, he would jump out and do exactly that, but he would prefer to lay low until Sage’s boarding team arrived. Otherwise, it would end up being him against the entire ship as more and more squads of reinforcements were sent into engineering.

The newcomers strode into the room without glancing toward his corner, but they did split up. Two rushed to check on the fallen men to see if they were dead or alive. Another rushed to the workstation while the fourth headed for the damaged shield generator.

Orion doubted they would be able to get the shields back online without hours of repairs. Sage would be here long before then. Still, he leaned back, feeling the weight of his bolt bow digging into the back of his vest. He found it reassuring. If he had to, he would leave the women and leap out to stop the repairs.

“What the fuck happened in here?” one of the men checking the fallen asked. “Vax, Auriga, and Swifty are dead. Broken neck, stab wound, and shot.”

“We have a saboteur is what. I bet it’s that new guy. Urnion or whatever his dumb name is.”

“Shit, I didn’t trust him from the start.”

Well, his cover was blown.

Not that Orion had expected anything less. If something crazy happened and Sage didn’t show up… he was going to be screwed. He was good in a fight, but even he couldn’t possibly kill the sixty or seventy people crewing this ship. He’d caught the engineers by surprise, but as soon as these men reported to the captain, he wouldn’t catch anyone else by surprise.

Juanita stirred again in his arms. He sensed that she was fully awake now. He set her down as quietly as he could, this time glad for the noise of the alarm, as it would keep the others from hearing the rustle of clothing. The tight space made movement awkward, and she ended up pressed to his chest with her back against the navigation drive. Tala had to be even more cramped. His shoulder was brushing her, though she seemed to be trying hard to melt into the back wall and avoid touching him. She was nothing like Juanita.

He lifted a hand to Juanita’s face, bumping her chin in the dark. He didn’t want to have to flatten his hand to her mouth to keep her from talking—he hoped she would sense the trouble they were in and not speak out—but he did find her lips with one finger. He pressed it gently against them, a silent warning for quiet.

She nodded, and he found himself pleased again at how willing she was to go along with him. He didn’t know why she was, but he was grateful that she was a help instead of a hindrance.

He lowered his hand from her lips, and it brushed her shoulder. He decided to let it rest there. A protective gesture, he assured himself, and nothing else. Nothing that would be inappropriate.

A ping sounded, a comm channel opening.

“What’s the status, engineering?” the captain asked, his irritated voice coming over a speaker above Orion’s head.

He hoped none of the men would look toward that speaker—and the dark corner where he and the women hid. It might be shadowy now, but all it would take was someone flicking a light beam in this direction to reveal them.

“It’s a complete mess down here, sir,” someone said.

“How? We didn’t take any direct hits to engineering.”

“Sabotage. We got five men dead down here, and another unconscious.”

The captain cursed, and the thump of him hitting something came through the speaker.

“Can you get the shields up?” Cutty finally asked.

“Working on it, but someone shot the shield generator. I was thinking it was the rookie.”

Another thump came over the speaker.

“Get it fixed, and then find his treacherous ass. I’ll flay him alive and make a bedspread out of him. My cabin’s in need of some new decorations.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Sir?” the man at the generator asked. “How long do you think we have? Won’t the Star Guardian ship be right on our asses?”

“Not if we’re lucky.” The captain sounded smug, and a tendril of worry snaked through Orion’s gut.

What did that mean?

“That gate is a four-way from the Gaia end. Unless he gets lucky, he’s not going to guess right. I don’t think this system we’re in now is even on the Confederation’s map. And we’re going to hightail it over to the next gate and disappear for good from any Star Guardian’s radar.”

The comm channel clicked closed, and Orion leaned his head against the bulkhead. A four-way gate? He knew there were a handful of three- and four-way gates in the system, but they were extremely rare. As far as he knew, modern science said they were impossible. But modern science also didn’t know who had built the original gates or how. Humans had been exploiting them since gaining spaceflight capabilities a few centuries ago, and there were tons of guesses about where they’d come from, but nobody truly knew. At least nobody human.

“You heard him,” one of the men said. “We’ll handle repairs. Socks and Jaslok, you find that traitor. And kill the bastard. The captain wants a fresh bed covering.”