Page 32 of Hooded (Gladiators of the Gryn #5)

KLYNN

I do not trust the creature my Fern calls Narlix. But because Fern wants her with us, I will need to make sure she is never out of my sight. And certainly not allow her near any weaponry.

The artificial gravity slams back on, and my body is unimpressed by feeling all my weight again. Through her helmet, Fern exhales, her eyes closing briefly before she marches into the umbilical, a clear tube with a metal walkway, bouncing and shivering as we continue to forge through the nebula. I flick my head at Narlix to follow her. She hurries ahead as I check the dock for any signs of life.

There are none. I doubt we are going to continue to be this lucky.

The umbilical shakes as I step into it. I check the airlock. Is the nebula affecting this structure? As far as I can tell, it is the electrical fields it is disrupting, almost like I can. One thing is clear—if this was the only way the Tormelek felt they could travel, then they really needed to avoid what was on the outside of this nebula. The damage done will cost many credits to fix.

I move swiftly to catch up with my Fern and the creature, Narlix.

“We need to move faster,” I say. “I’m not sure how much integrity this umbilical has.”

Fern doesn’t say anything, but she increases her pace to a slow run, her breathing ragged. Up ahead, I can see where the thing terminates and, through the clear covering, the last ship in line. As Fern speeds up further, I suspect this is her ship. Behind us, I hear a loud crack.

The airlock to the umbilical shuts like an eye, cutting us off from the Tormelek ship.

“Go now!” I roar as one by one, the pressure hoses holding the umbilical detach. “Or we die!”

Ahead, Fern runs, turning a sharp right into the airlock on her ship. She’s followed by Narlix as I feel the pull of a vacuum. The air rushes past me, catching my feathers and meaning I have to work hard to get to the ship. Narlix stands in the airlock looking back at me.

“Come on, Gryn,” she yells over the rushing of the air. “Your mate and youngling need you.” She grabs hold of my arm, pulling me inside as the airlock closes and the umbilical falls away into the emptiness of the nebula.

“Where is my mate?” I growl as she releases me.

“Getting this thing started.”

I stride through the ship. The air is musty, swirling in eddies around me with dust and the faint, foul scent of Tormelek. Fern has removed her helmet and is working at the main pilot’s console.

“Come on,” she grinds under her breath. “Start, damn you.” She punches in a selection of start up modes, and after a brief pause, there is a slow whine from the engines.

“Yes!” Fern celebrates. She goes to swing the ship to the right, but the entire structure shudders violently. “No!” Her fingers rush over the console. “We’re tethered to the other ships.”

“Where?” I ask.

“Rear left quadrant,” Fern says. “But it’s no use. The tether has to be released by the mothership. We’re stuck.”

“We are not,” I growl. “We are leaving the Tormelek to their own demise today.”

I race to the rear of the ship, running my hands over the structural struts which are indicated by slight indentations in the ceiling of every passage. The tether is instantly obvious, glowing a bright white in the metal ceiling. I place my hand on the wall, feeling out and out until I tune into the threads which bind the impulses to the metal. It’s complex, but as I follow up to the patch where it sits, the field evens out and I can “talk” to it.

It releases its grip on the hull, and I instantly feel the ship surge away, dropping out of the long line of stolen craft and diving. Racing back to the bridge, I see we’re heading into a denser part of the nebula than the one the Tormelek are following.

“Won’t we be affected like the Tormelek?” Narlix says with alarm.

Fern’s face is set. Her skin is paler than usual with a blue tinge I dislike.

“We’re small enough a nebula of this size won’t disrupt our systems like theirs,” she says. “This is the quickest way out, and the one place they cannot follow.”

“They’ve locked on pulsars.” I drop behind the weapons console.

“They won’t fire. They risk blowing themselves up if they do,” Fern says. “They can’t trust their systems to correctly discharge any pulsar bolts.”

We spin into the dense black heart of the nebula as it lights up around us with pulsar fire.

“I got that wrong,” Fern mutters to herself. “I knew our luck couldn’t last.”

“Are they following?” I ask.

She peers at her console. “No.”

“Then we have all the luck in the galaxy, even more so if they attempt a second firing, because that may be the one which…”

All around us, the gasses of the nebula change color, as the entire structure of the ship shakes violently.

“They didn’t…” Fern gasps, her fingers flying over the console which seems like it was made for her.

“They did,” Narlix says with a shake of her big head. “They fired twice.”

“They have destroyed themselves?”

“I…I think so,” Fern says. “The nebula and the pulsar discharge are affecting my instruments, but there has been a large implosion.”

The shaking of our ship ceases, and as suddenly as we were in the nebula, we are in dark, star studded, clear space. My wings flare involuntarily at the change.

“A ship filled with Gryn must be an interesting place,” Narlix says, studying me.

“It is.” I shake out my feathers at her. “One I will show my mate in time.”

“There’s an inhabited planet within a nova-day from here,” Fern says, working her way through the star charts. “Fenes.”

She turns to look at me.

“I go wherever you go, my mate,” I say. “I am yours to command.”