Katie stood on the box again to look at the sensor display and the visual of the alcove outside. Nothing moved in their nook yet, but she spotted what Zakota must have seen, some kind of energy readings in a corridor that ran parallel to the shaft. It was accessible through a hatch in the back of their alcove—the men had gone that way.

“Those aren’t people—or aliens—are they?” she asked.

Zakota was pacing behind her, talking softly and listening in on what the combat teams had to say. From what she could make out, listening to one half of the conversation, they were several levels away now.

“Shit,” Zakota said, his voice louder. He thumped a gauntleted hand against the hull.

Katie glanced back, but not for long. She was trying to figure out what the sensor display was telling her. Energy readings—two of them—but not life readings. So, those couldn’t be Zi’i warriors approaching.

“They’ve run into Zi’i in the corridors,” Zakota said, turning toward Katie. “They’re fighting, and they haven’t even figured out where to plant the warheads yet. That doesn’t bode well.”

“And means we’re on our own for dealing with whatever this is?” Katie waved toward the ambulatory energy sources. They were coming closer.

“Yes.”

“Any chance you brought a bunch of weapons with you?” She looked him up and down.

The armor would protect him, but did it have offensive capabilities? He hadn’t brought a bolt bow.

Zakota lifted one arm, and a small panel opened as a metal barrel popped out. A small metal barrel. If that was a gun, she doubted it could down anything larger than a squirrel.

“It’s smaller than I expected,” she said, making a face.

“That’s not usually something I hear from women.”

“Maybe they just don’t say it to your face because they don’t want to make you feel bad.”

“I haven’t noticed that women are overly worried about my feelings,” he said dryly and lowered his arm, retracting the weapon. “You can defend yourself with this shuttle. You don’t have to be flying to fire the weapons. If something gets past them and inside, we’ll be in trouble for more reasons than a lack of firepower.”

“Should you go back to your shuttle?” Katie glanced at the energy sources.

They were closing on the hatch the men in the alcove had taken. It was a huge door—several men could have walked side-by-side through it—and she envisioned an army of Zi’i approaching, even if the sensors hadn’t reported life forms. Maybe the aliens were in combat armor of their own, and that was interfering with the scans.

“I’m not sure. I rigged a trap before I left.” Zakota pointed to the console. “Turn off the running lights, will you? We can’t completely play dead—I want the engines hot if we need to take off—but maybe we can look less appealing.”

Though not certain what he had in mind, Katie toggled the lights off. The interior ones dimmed, as well, though the display of the exterior and her cockpit forcefield remained up.

In the dark that enveloped the alcove, she noticed that the second shuttle’s lights were off. Zakota had also left the hatch wide open. His trap?

The hatch leading into the alcove opened. Faint light came from the corridor outside, silhouetting a dark vehicle of some kind. From what little Katie could see, it reminded her of those Razor 4x4s that raced along the off-road trails back home. Except that those didn’t usually have cannons mounted to the fronts.

She grimaced at the hefty guns protruding from the frame. As the vehicle rolled through the hatchway, a second one appeared behind it.

“Hm,” Zakota said from behind her, as close as he could get without bumping the forcefield. “That’s not what I was expecting, and I don’t think my trap will work on auto-chariots.”

“Those don’t look like chariots.”

“We use that word for almost every ground vehicle.”

The two 4x4s rolled into the alcove and stopped side by side.

“Is there gravity out there?” Katie asked.

“Not the last time I checked. They could have magnetized wheels.”

One of the vehicles pointed its cannon at the other shuttle.

“Get us in the air and point our weapons at them,” Zakota said as the second vehicle’s cannons swiveled toward them.

Katie had been ready to take off, so she obeyed instantly, lifting the shuttle and spinning toward the hatch. She hopped on the box to reach the weapons buttons.

The 4x4 fired first. Not a cannonball, but a huge blast of energy that filled the alcove with light as it slammed into the front of the shuttle. An alarm wailed, and lights flashed on the console.

Katie hammered on the weapons button, then jerked them higher into the air, feeling like an idiot for not having moved sooner. At least she was able to move the shuttle.

“You got it,” Zakota said, jumping, no doubt wishing he could reach the console to help.

The interior lights flickered, then went out completely. Uh oh.

A whoosh of air whipped Katie’s hair about, and she sucked in a huge breath, afraid the forcefield had just gone down and that there wouldn’t be enough oxygen left to breathe.

Zakota raced to the console, confirming the lack of a forcefield. He tapped at controls close to the Star Guardian device. He fired weapons she hadn’t known about. A blast of energy slammed into one of the vehicles, and it flew backward, hitting the wall.

The first one was damaged—one of the cannons and the front corner of it had melted into lumps—but it fired again.

This time, Katie was in the air, whipping them about the small alcove, making a harder target. The blast zipped past her and ripped into the ceiling. Shrapnel flew in all directions, pelting the shuttle’s hull.

A draft of air brushed Katie’s face as she drew them back into the opposite alcove. She hoped the shuttle was replenishing the cabin with oxygen.

Zakota fired again, relentlessly this time. White beams streaked over the maintenance shaft and at the 4x4s. They’d started maneuvering about, rolling here and there on their giant metal wheels, but he struck them more often than he missed.

One crumpled in on itself and slumped to the deck. The other fired one more time.

Still holding her breath, Katie jammed her palm into the gel matrix. The shuttle dove to the deck, belly skipping off the edge of the alcove as the energy blast flashed by inches above them.

Zakota fired again, taking the enemy vehicle full on. Metal melted like wax on a hot candle, and the craft slumped over next to its robotic buddy.

Katie’s lungs were burning, so she drew in a tentative breath. She inhaled something. Oxygen, she hoped.

Zakota looked over at her.

“Glad to have you firing,” Katie said, lifting them off the deck again so they would have room to maneuver if more 4x4s came through the hatchway.

“Glad to have you piloting. We’re not a bad team.”

“Though we still haven’t gotten much of a chance to race.”

“Maybe on the way out.” Zakota grinned over at her, but his grin was short-lived as he looked down at all the flashing alarms. “Oxygen is replenishing, but that first hit did some damage. A couple of interior systems have shorted out, and—”

“Look,” Katie blurted, flinging her finger toward the hatchway.

Something else was coming in. No, not something. Someone. Zi’i warriors.

Four of the big, shaggy, four-legged aliens loped in, their bodies reminding Katie of both apes and wolves, but much larger than either. All four of them walked on three legs and carried weapons with their fourth legs. Or were those arms? They seemed like both.

“Those look like grenade launchers,” she said. “Firing.”

“Wait!” Zakota lunged over and blocked her reach. “Take us into the shaft, as if we’re fleeing. Force them to check out the other shuttle.”

“What if all they do is blow it up?” Katie asked, though she obeyed him, swooping toward the shaft.

She flipped the shuttle so that they backed out instead of flying straight ahead.

“I’m hoping they’ll be curious and check it out first,” Zakota said. “They may believe we have more of those warheads. Or if they think it’s abandoned, they might try to reclaim it.”

Katie backed farther into the shaft. The alcove, the other shuttle, and the Zi’i disappeared from view, but the sensor display showed the aliens and what they were doing.

“Orion, Menekrates,” Zakota said, “give me an update.”

Two of the four Zi’i strode toward the open hatch in the shuttle. A third remained by the exit to the corridor. A fourth headed around the shuttle, probably to peer down the shaft and see if Katie and Zakota were still there.

With a jolt, it occurred to her that the Zi’i weren’t wearing any kind of armor or spacesuits. How were they alive out there? Surely, they couldn’t stroll about in a vacuum for long.

“Is there atmosphere out there now?” she asked, eyeing the weapons button.

If that big brute peered down the shaft, she was going to take his head off.

“There is,” Zakota said, sounding surprised. “They must have added some so they could come in. The forcefield we lowered to fly in must be back up again.” He leaned forward. “That’s right, my furry friends. Step into the shuttle. Damn, I was hoping more than two would go in.”

The one Katie had been watching stuck his head—and his grenade launcher—over the lip of the alcove and into view.

Katie hammered on the weapons. The Zi’i fired a split second after she did. Her beams lanced toward it, and she flew the shuttle up the instant they left their ports.

The glowing green ball that the Zi’i launcher fired wasn’t quite like the grenades back home, but Katie was sure it was a powerful weapon. She blew out a relieved breath when it zipped past below the shuttle instead of striking them. She must have distracted the alien.

Meanwhile, it jerked its head back out of the shaft, but not quickly enough. One of her beams caught it in the shoulder.

The power of the blow ripped it from its perch. The alien flew ten feet, then tumbled into the maintenance shaft, its grenade launcher dropping from its grip.

Katie thought about firing at it again, but a huge explosion flared behind them, light flashing and, for the first time, sound roaring toward them. A shockwave slammed into the back of the shuttle, tipping their butt end up.

Katie manipulated the gel, trying to steady them, but the side of the shuttle scraped along the wall, the screech reaching them even inside.

“I liked it better when we were in a vacuum and couldn’t hear anything,” she growled, again trying to steady them.

Up ahead, the injured Zi’i leaped out of the maintenance shaft and into the alcove opposite the one with the shuttle. It disappeared from sight before Katie could fire again. She wasn’t even sure if she could fire. Another alarm was flashing, one right under the row of weapons buttons.

“Zakota,” she said, “we may have—”

A flash of orange light came from the alcove ahead, and Zakota barked a triumphant, “Hah!”

It quickly faded, leaving darkness again. Katie had them steadied, floating a few meters above the bottom of the shaft, but the alarms flashing from all sides made her worry that they might not be spaceworthy anymore.

“Hah?”

Zakota pointed at the sensor display instead of the camera display. There was only one Zi’i showing up now.

“Did you plant an explosive in your shuttle?” Katie asked.

“I sure did. You stick your big furry snout in someone else’s ship, you get what you deserve.”

“You weren’t worried about damaging the shuttle?”

“Nah, those shuttles are sturdy, and it wasn’t one of Hierax’s secret weapons. Just a little BX-5. Enough to kill some nosy intruders.”

“And spatter their guts all over the walls of the shuttle?”

Zakota’s helmet swiveled toward her, and the most horrified expression came over his face. “I hadn’t thought of that.”

“It’s going to be disgusting in there.”

“Can I ride back with you?”

“Absolutely not.”

Zakota groaned. “This is why Ku handles weapons and blowing stuff up.”

Worried about that last Zi’i, Katie nudged them toward the alcove again. The sensors showed it near the parked shuttle. Looking in on its comrades?

As the alcove came into view, the big Zi’i was backing away from the shuttle. From the outside, the ship didn’t appear damaged, but Katie couldn’t help imagining the interior as she’d described it.

The Zi’i lifted its grenade launcher toward the parked shuttle, and Katie jerked her own shuttle around, pointing the nose—and the weapons—toward the alien. It might want revenge on the craft that had slain its fallen comrades, but she and Zakota might need that shuttle.

The Zi’i saw them and shifted targets. She struggled to aim at it with the other shuttle in the way, but fired anyway, afraid the alien would loose one of those grenades first. And it might have, but it was backing away as it aimed, and one of its paws caught on the 4x4 wreckage.

Katie’s beams streaked toward it, one splashing off the top of their own shuttle. The other bounced off the wall.

“Damn it,” she growled.

Maybe she also needed Ku.

But luck surprised her by coming into play. The beam that bounced off the wall bounced into the Zi’i and clipped it on the shoulder. It screamed in pain and raced out of the alcove.

Katie fired again, trying to stop it from running off and warning its allies. But she was too late. The beams hit the wall to either side of the open hatch and bounced off, striking the ceiling and almost pummeling the shuttle again before losing energy.

“All right,” Zakota said, resting a hand on her arm. “I don’t think you’re allowed to shoot anymore.”

“There’s nothing wrong with my shooting.” If there was, she blamed it on the fact that she had to stretch her arm out of its socket to reach the weapons buttons.

“You hit my shuttle.”

“You blew up two aliens in your shuttle. That’s way worse.”

“That won’t affect how it flies.”

“Yeah, we’ll see how well you fly with bits of alien guts spattering down onto your shoulders.”

Zakota reached up with swift movements and unfastened his helmet.

Katie stared at him, her first thought that she’d managed to make him angry, and that he would throw down his helmet and gauntlets for some medieval fistfight.

But when his face came into view, he was grinning. He tossed the helmet onto the console and startled her by pulling her close for a kiss.

For a second, she merely stood there, but somehow, her hands came to rest on his shoulders, and she found herself leaning into his armored chest.

“I had no idea talk of guts got you excited,” she murmured against his lips.

“Women who don’t shy away from such talk do.” He wrapped his other arm around her, and she lamented that all that hard, cold armor stood between them.

“Zakota,” came a tinny voice from his helmet. “We’re coming in hot. Enemies on our asses. Do you read? Zakota!”