They made for a pathetic fighting force. Max, Inrit, Kayleb, and Tessa left the engineering deck behind and made their way for the heart of the fighting. If either side turned on them, there was nothing they could do but run. And in space, that didn’t turn out well.

Krayter had stayed behind to guard the passengers while Symes and the Tronx planned to take the bridge when Inrit gave the word.

Max’s muscles felt like they were covered in coarse sand that ripped him up just under his flesh. His hands shook when he didn’t clench the grip of the blaster or keep his hand in a tight fist. And the strange ringing in his ears wasn’t getting any better. But he was alive and walking into battle beside his mate. There was no better place to be.

The silence in the hallway gave way to their footsteps, the echoes eerie. The ship was normally full of life, and now they couldn’t even hear the battle.

“Krayter says that most of the pirates are pinned down near the outer storage bays,” Inrit said when she brought the group together to go over the plan. She didn’t think like a soldier, which was why Max didn’t try to take the lead. They needed a pirate right now.

“There’s a catwalk that crosses from one end of the hall to the other. Neither the pirates nor our crew have been able to take it. The ladder is too exposed.” She paused and looked each one of them in the eye before continuing. “There are several bodies piled up under the ladder. At least one of them is ours.”

Tessa covered her mouth and Kayleb grew grim. He leaned closer to Tessa, but she went rigid at the touch. The blue man’s face darkened but he stayed away. Max almost asked if there was a problem, but they didn’t have time to sort out personal issues.

“There’s a maintenance shaft that runs alongside the outer bay. We’ll be at risk from stray fire, but they won’t see us coming. Once we’re up there, you aim to wound until I give my signal. Then I’ll do my thing.” Inrit holstered her modified blaster as she finished speaking. “Questions?”

Tessa lowered her hand from her mouth and held steady. “What’s the signal?”

“You’ll know it.” Inrit didn’t give them the option to back out, and she didn’t warn them that it was going to be dangerous. It didn’t need to be said. “I’ll go first. Max brings up the rear. Once we’re up there, we start firing as soon as we have shots. None of the pirates will hesitate. Good luck.”

Inrit pressed a panel in the wall in a few places and it slid back, revealing a hidden maintenance shaft. She entered first and didn’t wait, walking along the narrow path and leading them toward the faint sounds of battle.

Max sealed the shaft shut behind them, plunging them into almost total darkness. Light sparked ahead as Tessa lit a portable torch. They walked for several minutes, the passageway getting colder and colder as they reached the outer edge of the ship. Max wasn’t worried about a hull breach; if there had been a structural problem, shields would have sprouted up to close the section off and protect the rest of the ship.

They reached a dead end, a wall blocking them from moving forward. But a shaft opened overhead. The group climbed up as battle raged outside. Max burned with each pull of muscle, but he didn’t let it show. He kept his senses alert for danger, but no one had followed them, and no one on the other side of the wall realized they were there.

The passage twisted again and they were once more horizontal. Inrit found the opening and yanked. Smoke poured in, sending everyone into a fit of choking coughs. But Inrit didn’t hesitate. She pulled out her blasters and jumped, trusting that the catwalk would still be there when she landed.

He heard her fire and yell and Tessa and Kayleb followed behind. Almost as soon as they made it through, a woman screamed. It was so loud and so close that he knew it had to be Tessa. He didn’t think Inrit knew how to shriek.

Max jumped down and crouched, blaster ready. Below them, pirates and crew exchanged shots, bright bolts of blaster fire streaking through the thin wisps of smoke. Tessa knelt beside Kayleb, who had a nasty gash cutting the side of his head open. She paid no attention to Inrit, who was firing her blaster so fast it was just one steady stream of light coming out of her muzzle.

Rather than try to snap Tessa out of it, Max stepped around her and brought up his blasters, aiming for any pirate who didn’t have cover.

Inrit tossed something down and tugged on his jacket. She covered her ears and nodded for him to do the same. Max didn’t question it. He plugged his ears and waited.

Three… two… one…

Bang!

Blocking his ears took the resounding blast from deafening down to painful. But for some reason, the loud noise knocked the ringing from his ears. Dark smoke billowed from below, covering the entire floor and making it impossible for any of the fighters to see. The blasts stopped as the risk of friendly fire grew too dire.

As high up as they were, the smoke hadn’t obscured them completely. It dissipated as it billowed up, shadowing them in a faint haze—making them the only visible target.

“Talk fast,” Max commanded. His fingers itched to pull the trigger and he’d shoot to kill anyone that fired at his mate.

“If you want to get out of here alive, Captain Wayt, I’d hold your fire,” Inrit yelled down to the pirate crew. A flash of blaster fire shot between them and dissolved into the ceiling.

Max curled his fists around the railing, ready to jump over to attack. The fall would hurt, but he was built to take worse.

Inrit kept her hand low, but spread out her fingers and flattened her palm, signaling for him to keep his calm. His senses were on overdrive, a battle enhancement calculating the exact angle he’d need to jump to take out most of the pirate crew. But there were too many for him to do it himself. Even running the calculation a second time, he’d be dead in fifteen seconds with at least four of the pirate crew remaining. So he let Inrit talk.

“Control your man, Captain, or I’ll shoot him. If you’re the same creature I pulled out of that pit on Jorku then you’ll listen.” Her voice grew louder. Her blaster was out and, despite the smoke, Max believed that she’d make good on her threat.

And if she didn’t, his mechanics were good enough that the smoke wouldn’t impede his shots.

“Not many know of Jorku,” a harsh, masculine voice responded. It echoed throughout the chamber, some sort of amplifying device scrambling the sound so no one could pinpoint the captain’s location.

“I’m calling in my blood debt, Wayt. Take your men off my ship and leave us be.” She stood taller with every word and Max could imagine her at the helm of her own vessel, a more able captain that Morvellan could ever hope to be. The more he imagined it, the more he liked the thought.

“Blood debt don’t mean anything to weaklings.”

Inrit scowled. She raised her blaster and fired just over the line of where the pirates stood. Shadows scuttled as the smoke started to settle. Max eyed a group of fighters huddled around a large metal container as tall as a man and as wide as ten. He held his fire, though his finger twitched.

“Your crew going to take scoffing a blood debt?” she yelled. “Seems like that’ll make ‘em turn quick. Only they’re not dumb like your old captain. They’ll see to it you’re dead before they kill the rest of us.”

The pirates shuffled, some turning back towards the captain. Perfect. Max spotted the large Oscavian man, the dark purple of his skin darker still in the smoke. He could take the shot now and end this, but if he did, the pirates would fight back. They’d want revenge. “Who am I speaking to?” Wayt demanded. “Identify yourself.”

“M’Inrit,” she said, adding an M to her name.

Max glanced over but she wasn’t looking at him. Her eyes were trained on the spot where the captain cowered.

“They said you were dead.” Even through the scrambler, his voice quavered. “Ain’t got no debts to a dead woman.”

“They were wrong. Take your men. Leave my ship and the debt will be repaid.” She practically vibrated with tension and for a moment, Max thought it would work.

But pirates had no code.

“It’s my ship now, dead girl.” The captain shot, but he missed them. A metal beam clattered down and the catwalk trembled. But that wasn’t enough to bring it down.

Inrit and Max both shot the man beside the pirate captain and he went down. The shooting stopped again.

“If you won’t let us go, then I propose a different solution. In the name of the debt.” They were both crouched below the railing, and Inrit had her head tilted up to be heard. “My man against your best man. A fight to the death.”

“We could just kill you all!” the captain screamed.

“But you want us as slaves.” This time it was their own crew who chattered. Apparently, the reason for the pirate attack hadn’t spread. “What do you say, Wayt? One on one, a fair fight. And the rest of your men get to stay safe, no matter what.”

The captain was silent, but his crew huddled around him. A moment later, a towering being stood up from where he’d—it’d—been hidden. It was more than two meters tall, its skin glowing orange and thick with scales. Max couldn’t see its teeth, but tusks protruded from its chin and spikes poked out of the back of its head and down its back.

Max glanced over at Inrit to find her looking at him. They shared one of those glances that was too dense for simple sentences.

And then his crazy mate grinned. “Good luck, honey. They won’t play fair. Now go before he changes his mind.”

Max stared at her. He’d been injured and on the verge of death less than an hour before. Only a week ago he’d thought he would die from the glitching that threatened his systems. And now his mate was trusting him to save the ship by fighting a monster who looked like it could eat him for breakfast.

He grinned back. “Try to miss me while I’m gone.” Max vaulted over the railing and flipped in a tight ball. The ground came up fast and he rolled as he landed, springing to his feet in the empty space between the crew and the pirates. He rolled his neck from side to side and nodded to his opponent. “Good luck, my friend.”

“Gryxlax doesn’t need luck,” the beast growled.

Of course he didn’t. Gryxlax stomped out from the cover of the large metal wall and the ship shuddered under him. Up close he looked dense, almost like he was made of stone.

Max bounced on his feet, watching every step Gryxlax made. The beast lumbered, he was slow. But those spikes could do real harm, and up close Max caught sight of the giant claws on his hands. Next to him, Inrit would seem downright dainty.

Gryxlax made his move, charging full bore at Max, his head down and arms out. At the final moment, Max side stepped him and almost got impaled as the orange monster threw himself to the side and towards Max.

So he wasn’t as dumb as he looked.

Max let his human mind recede and trusted his mechs. The calculations flew through him, meeting a punch with a block, a kick with a dodge, another punch with an evasion followed by a strike to Gryxlax’s chest.

An unavoidable strike to his gut left Max sprawled on the ground, his newly healed knife wound leaking blood. And though his human instincts screamed at him to jump back up and fight, his inner machine urged caution. It told him to wait.

A half a second stretched into eternity as Max watched the Gryxlax get closer. It took its time, or at least it seemed that way to Max’s primed senses. The beast let out a roar loud enough to make Max’s ears pop and lifted its arms up in celebration.

Now! screamed the machine inside.

Max lunged, flipping a knife out of his concealed sheath and pulling it upward, plunging through the monster’s fleshy chest and bringing him down with one huge blow.

Rather than celebrate, Max darted back and waited. Gryxlax clutched the two split pieces of his chest together as if doing so would hold the innards spilling out of him. He burbled and stepped towards Max, but toppled over and fell flat on his face, one arm flailing out.

A shudder rang through his body as dark blood soaked the metal floor and the rotting stench of sulfur filled the smoky air.

Everyone froze in shock at the fight’s abrupt end, but Max wasn’t done. He leaned gingerly over the back of Gryxlax, careful to avoid his horns, and drew his knife from one side of the monster’s throat to the other. He held him up as the blood poured out. His glossary of alien life didn’t recognize what Gryxlax was, and Max wasn’t about to risk a regeneration.

The blood slowed to a trickle and Max let the alien fall. He didn’t have the strength to decapitate him swiftly with merely a knife, and he wasn’t about to provoke the pirates.

His senses registered life forms circling him, but he was too focused on making Gryxlax dead that he didn’t sense the blasters until he looked up to find the Oscavian captain pointing one right at his head.

“Surrender the ship, M’Inrit,” Wayt said into the vocal scrambler attached to his collar. “Or I’ll kill your man.”

There were eight pirates around him, all armed. Unless Max could trick them into shooting each other, he couldn’t fight them all.

A red dot appeared on the captain’s chest. “Shoot him and die.” All emotion had dropped from his mate’s voice, a cold so deep it would burn. Max risked a glance up and saw that she was holding one of the modified blasters. This one had a laser sight affixed to it.

“If you kill me, he’ll still be dead,” said Wayt. He held up a hand to her and his tone changed, softened. “Let’s put this aside, M. Come with me, join my crew. I’ll even take your man here. Leave these… weaklings behind.”

The red dot climbed up Wayt’s chest and ended between his eyes. “Let him go and leave us as you agreed. Now.”

The captain and Inrit stared each other down. Max could practically feel the blasters pressed up against him and he held completely still. If any of the pirates got jumpy, this would be a bloodbath.

And then Wayt relented. He holstered his weapon and nodded to his men. “My debt to you is repaid, M’Inrit.”

“Get! Out!” she yelled from the top of her lungs, and the pirates ran, not even bothering to retrieve their dead.

A moment later they were gone. The ship was saved.