Tyra couldn’t even look at her comm to confirm her emergency beacon had activated. She’d done exactly what Eric had instructed, pressing the power button three times in rapid succession and then holding it down for a three-second count. After that, she’d dropped it to the bottom of her med-kit and continued pulling out the instruments she’d need for a surgical procedure she had no intention of performing.

The ship she was on was the epitome of luxury. The area she could see had soft lighting, deep taupe carpets that muffled the sound of the engines, and tasteful furnishings that made the most of the limited space. There was even a small dining area with a polished wooden table and matching chairs.

“How’d we get away from the Malora without them noticing?” She asked.

Downs was still piloting, but she twisted around in her seat to answer. “The ship’s AI thinks we’re still sitting in the shuttle bay. I’m relaying our transponders’ signal through another nifty gadget my employers provided me. Getting the bay doors open was a little trickier, but nothing this ship’s AI couldn’t handle. It’s a lot smarter than the Malora.”

“Where do you want to do the procedure? I’ll need to sterilize the area, and it should be somewhere you can lie flat. It would be best if you were sedated, too, but I don’t imagine you’re going to agree to that.”

“Sedation? Not going to happen. If I take a nap, I’m going to wake up in restraints…if I wake up at all.”

Tyra finished sorting through her med-kit. She’d been looking for anything she could use was a laser scalpel. It wasn’t long enough to do serious injury, but it was better than nothing. “You still haven’t explained why you think I can remove your chip without setting off the explosive, or how you knew I’d taken Nico’s chip out.”

“Nico’s chip has similar anti-tampering technology to mine. The difference is that his was only designed to emit an alert if it was messed with. Mine has, well, let's just call them far more aggressive settings.”

“If I didn’t set it off, how did you know about Nico’s?” She was missing something, and if she ended up doing the surgery, she needed every bit of information she could get.

“You didn’t set off the primary alert. You set off the backup, which is triggered when the chip is exposed to normal atmosphere for more than two minutes.”

“And yours has the same settings?”

“As far as I can tell, yes. Which means once you get it out, your next move will be to toss it out the nearest airlock. Right over there.” She pointed to a hatchway mid-way down the room.

“It would have been safer to do this back on the Malora. I’m not sure either one of us is going to survive this. What if we went back and—”

---

“No. Everest isn’t the only one who can detonate my chip. There are others, and I need to put as much distance between us as I can. These things have to have a finite range, and I’ve got a head start. I’m not giving that up.”

She pointed to the dining area. “We’ll use the table. Don’t worry about sterilizing it. The incision isn’t going to be big enough to be a concern.” Downs fixed her with a fierce stare. “Right?”

“Of course not.”

She took everything she’d need and set it up by the table. Downs was still at the controls, which worried Tyra. By now, Dante and the rest of the team should be coming after her, and she didn’t want Downs spotting their approach.

“Ready when you are.”

“I suppose this is far enough. The computer can take it from here.” Downs tapped in some commands then rose from her chair and stepped out of the cockpit.

“I’m going to administer the pain blocker myself, and I’ll be making the incision. Nothing personal, but there’s no way I’m letting you near my throat with a scalpel.”

“You’re going to operate on yourself? How?”

“You’re going to help, but I’ll hold the blade.” There was an odd gleam in Down’s eyes now, a tiny spark of madness that warned Tyra the other woman was at her breaking point.

“Whatever you want.” Tyra gestured to the laser scalpel she’d laid out with the other instruments. “It’s right there.”

The second one was already tucked up her sleeve. She didn’t know when her opportunity would come, but it had to be soon.

“Then let’s get this done.” She walked past Tyra, set down the blaster, and grabbed the bottle of old-fashioned antiseptic Tyra kept in the kit for emergencies. For a moment, Downs was vulnerable. This was her chance.

She dropped the scalpel into her hand, activated the blade, and drove it into the other woman’s neck as she tried to push past Downs to reach the weapon. She fumbled the grab, only managing to knock the blaster off the table out of her reach.

Downs screeched and turned on Tyra, tossing the antiseptic solution at her. The solution stung her eyes, making it almost impossible to see.

Downs was on her a split second later, lashing out with wild, uncontrolled strikes that sent Tyra scrambling backward. She still had the scalpel in her hand, and she slashed the air in front of her in wild sweeps, trying to hold the other woman at bay while desperately rubbing her eyes with her sleeve, trying to recover her vision.

They fought like that for what felt like forever but was likely only a minute or two.

“Proximity alert. Proximity alert. There is another ship approaching rapidly. Maintain course?” The ship’s AI interrupted the fight.

“That’s the Malora,” Tyra announced triumphantly.

“No! You’ve killed me. Do you understand? I’m a dead woman!!”

Downs came at her again, and this time Tyra managed to slice open her cheek with the blade. It cauterized as it cut, but that didn’t lessen the pain.

“I’m not the one who chose to work for monsters. You brought this on yourself.”

Downs stopped fighting. She dropped to her knees, her injured face cradled in her hands. “That may be true, but I still don’t want to die.”

Tyra looked down at the broken woman and made an offer that surprised them both. “I can take it out. Right here. Right now. I just need to let the others know I’m alright, first, and then I’ll do it.”

“Why would you do that?”

“Because I still remember the oath I took when I became a doctor.”

Downs lifted her head a little and parted her fingers so she could look up at Tyra. “Contact them. Do what you need to. Just please, don’t let me die. I’ll tell you everything I know, just like I promised.”

“Prove it to me. Tell me something valuable, right now.”

Downs sniffled. “You couldn’t find the cobalt because we added it directly to the water supply at the factories. Only the workers were supposed to get it, but someone got greedy. Stupid. They sold it as recreational pharma. Some of the factory workers tried it and overdosed because they already had it in their system and didn’t know it. That’s when the trouble started, and by the time we got the mess cleaned up, word had gotten out. The people I work for don’t tolerate mistakes like that, and they terminated anyone they thought might have been involved.”

“And my team? Why were we targeted?”

“Bellex should have never let you on the fraxxing planet. When they caved to outside pressure, it caused all sorts of problems. By the time they told us you’d arrived, it was too late. Your team had seen too much to be allowed to leave, and we couldn’t move on to the next stage until you were out of the way. I’m sorry about your team, but I had my orders.” She touched the side of her neck. “It was them or me.”

“You killed some of the best people I knew. They were my friends.”

“I know. And for what it’s worth, I really am sorry.”

“Darner had a chip in his neck, too. You removed it during the autopsy, right? That’s why he killed himself.”

Downs nodded. “Yes. There, I’m cooperating. Do you think that’s enough to get Nova Force to agree to protect me?”

For Tyra, it wasn’t nearly enough to make up for what she’d done, but it was a start.

“If you continue to cooperate, I believe they’ll protect you.” Tyra kept the scalpel in her hand and gave Downs a wide berth on her way to her med-kit. She retrieved her communicator and sent a ping to the entire team to let them know she was ready to communicate. It was only a few seconds before Dante’s face appeared on the screen. “Tyra? Tell me you’re okay. Where’s Downs? What happened to your face?”

“I’m okay. Dr. Downs and I had a fight. I’m not badly hurt, but she is. She’s ready to surrender and give you all the information she has in exchange for Nova Force’s protection. If you agree, she’ll come quietly.”

Dax joined the conversation, his face appearing as an inset image in the corner of the screen. “Tell Dr. Downs she has herself a deal.”

“I will. I just need to remove a chip from her neck before you all come aboard. There’s a small chance it might explode, so you should probably stay away until I’m done.”

Dante stared at her through the monitor. “What the hell am I going to do with you, Shortcake? You can’t keep trying to save the people who want to kill you.”

At her feet, Downs wailed in pain and clawed at the side of her neck, leaving bloody tracks carved into her skin. “No. No. Please, no. Not this.” She looked up at Tyra with wild eyes full of terror and pain. “It’s burning me. Inside.”

“Tyra? What the hell is happening?” Dante demanded.

Tyra ignored him and stared at the woman kneeling broken and bleeding, on the floor. “The chip?”

She gave a frantic nod, her breathing ragged now. “You have to get away from me.”

“Maybe there’s still time to get it out.”

Downs shook her head, and her last word came out as an agonized shriek. “Run!”

“I’m sorry.” Guilt at abandoning Downs to a horrible death tore through her as she turned and ran toward the airlock, the doctor’s screams accompanying her every step of the way.

She made it to the door and slapped at the controls until it opened, then hurled herself inside. She forced herself to stop and think before touching anything on the inner panel. If she hit the wrong key, she could wind up dying in the vacuum of space instead of being blown up. She closed the door and moved away from it, pressing her back against the outer wall of the ship. It was quiet inside, but the agonized screams of a dying woman still reverberated inside her head.

“Tyra! Damn it, talk to me! What’s going on?”

She finally remembered she hadn’t told Dante what was happening. She lifted the communicator and tried to muster a reassuring smile. “I’m okay. But… keep the Malora clear. Someone activated the chip in Debba’s neck. She’s going to die, and I can’t stop it. She told me to run…”

“Where are you right now?”

“The airlock.”

Dante’s expression softened the slightest bit. “Okay. Airlock is good. Solid. It should survive—” An explosion tore through the ship, sending her to her knees as the floor jerked and bucked beneath her. The screen of her communicator flickered and then died. The artificial gravity ceased, the lights went out, and she was left floating in total darkness, listening to the random pings and groans of the wounded ship outside the airlock door.

She curled into a ball and drifted, eventually remembering to try the communicator again. It turned on, but no one answered her messages. She was alone again.

Dante had been in more crisis situations than he could count in his life, but none of them hit him as hard as this one. Dax had ordered him to retrieve Tyra before he could even ask for permission to go, and he’d made the trek to the shuttle bay at a full sprint

Whoever had triggered Dr. Downs device had gone for a double event and taken out Everest as well. The simultaneous explosions had rocked the Malora and temporarily taken down some of her systems – including communication. He had no way to talk to Tyra. No way to know if she had survived the blast that had blown a hole in the smaller ship’s hull.

It was the first time he’d left his team during a crisis. The Malora was damaged, her systems crippled. He was needed on board, but Tyra needed him more.

Magi updated him on the condition of both vessels as he ran, and once he fired up the smaller of the Malora’s two shuttles, he could see the readouts for himself. He cried out in relief as a single life sign appeared inside the Bellex ship. Tyra was still alive. “Hang on. I’m coming, sweetheart.”

As he maneuvered the shuttle toward the drifting wreck of the Bellex ship, he could see the damage for himself. The explosion that had killed Downs had punched a relatively small hole in the hull, and the shattered contents of the ship were now floating around the wreckage. The explosive decompression had forced everything through the hole, making it wider and tearing the larger items apart in the process.

There would have been a similar hole in the hull of the Malora, but her hull-plating was military grade and contained the blast. The only permanent damage had been to Everest himself. Their prisoner was dead, his body reduced to a bloody jigsaw puzzle with most of the pieces gone.

The explosions had happened at the exact same moment, a clear announcement that someone, somewhere, had deemed it time to tidy up their loose ends. Dante suspected the decision had been triggered by Tyra’s action. He’d been too focused on her to notice anything else, but Magi had noted that when Tyra had opened a channel to them, she’d done it without activating the encryption keys. They could never be certain, and he’d never tell her, but that small lapse likely gave their enemy enough information to know their assets had been compromised.

He docked the two ships via their airlocks, grateful again that Tyra had the good sense to pick one of the most reinforced parts of the ship to hide in, as well as the one with the easiest access for rescue. He stepped into the airlock and began the process of sealing, then opening, the various doors on his side. If Tyra was hurt or unconscious, he’d have to override the other ship’s airlock from the outside, costing him precious time. There was breathable atmosphere in her part of the ship, but the room was small, and there was no life support. He had to get her out of there before she ran out of oxygen or froze to death.

The outer door on his ship finally opened, exposing the hatch of the Bellex vessel. He reached for the release handle, but someone was already moving it from inside. Tyra.

The second the door opened, she cried his name, launched herself into his arms, and then tumbled as she crossed over into the artificial gravity of his shuttle. He caught her before she reached the ground, cradling her close to his chest.

He couldn’t stop smiling as he looked down at her bruised and bloodied face, part of his mind taking inventory of her injuries. Someday, someone would pay for this. The deaths. The suffering. The hurt. But for now, he was grateful to have her back in his arms, alive and well. “Hey, Shortcake. You okay?”

“I am now.”

He bowed his head and kissed the cold skin of her forehead. “Don’t you ever scare me like that again. I thought I might have lost you back there.”

“The thought crossed my mind, too.” She reached up and slipped a freezing cold hand behind his neck, pulling him in closer. “That’s when I realized something kind of important, and I promised myself I’d tell you as soon as I saw you again, so here it goes. I love you, Dante. I know the timing sucks, and it’s probably too soon, but well, I do.”

“About time you figured it out. I’ve known how I feel about you for a couple of hours at least.”

“Yeah? And how do you feel?”

“You’re going to make me say it?”

She laughed, nodding, and the last worry and fear fell away from his soul. “You bet I am.”

He lifted her higher in his arms, his mouth a fraction of an inch from hers, now. “I love you, Tyra Li. To the end of the universe and back again.”

He didn’t know which of them moved first, but once their lips met, he poured his heart into that kiss, crushing her to him. She was his, now, and no matter what it took, he’d find a way to keep her with him, always.