I was reluctant to leave the co-captain’s chair I’d been sitting in – it was paradise compared to the ass-beating of the floor inside my cylinder.
The ship lurched.
Aptat looked frantically around.
“What was that?” I asked.
Another shudder, and then sudden acceleration. I slipped from the chair and flopped to my stomach, slid across the floor just missing the pods, and slammed feet-first into the wall on the opposite side. The ship entered a steep bank and the stack of dead Vortu plowed into me like a string of pungent grass carp64 left in the sun too long. “Are we under attack?”
Aptat was back up, staring at the ceiling. “Princess Dekies’ sortie ship – it’s still docked with us. It has remotely engaged.” They clicked across to the ship’s console. Something about the suit allowed them to walk without slipping under the acceleration. “Control is disabled. They’ve altered our course.”
“What does that mean?” I asked.
“It means they broke through the security protocols. They have my ship!”
Aptat flicked through screen after screen tapping and punching. “Dock is locked down,” they muttered to themselves. “Were they planning this all along?”
I struggled to free myself from beneath the fragrant bodies, finally wrenching my legs clear of one especially ripe fellow, then crawled toward freedom. I angled myself over Dekies last. The rebreather facemask thing had been knocked off, leaving the nose and lower half of her face exposed. Words flashed in my head like a neon sign. Rhinolophus paradoxolophus. Dekies looked like a Bourret’s horseshoe bat. The entire middle of her face was dominated by an elaborate nose structure, which in paradoxolophus assumed a flower-like form, with two large petal-shaped growths layered over two more “petals” set just above the mouth, orchid-like. If the lessons of evolutionary physiology carried over to space people, it probably meant that Vortu used sonar to see in the dark.
A small light flashed on the inner surface of Dekies’ facemask apparatus.
“Ben. Chamber,” said Aptat at my loitering.
“Sure, but there’s a... thing,” I said, pointing to Dekies. “Little light. Flashing.”
Aptat strode over and flipped the mask around, then tore it away from the housing and crushed it with one hand, quenching the light.
“What was that?” I asked, still not in my chamber.
“They were transmitting the whole time!” they said, tossing the scrunched tech into a distant wall where it shattered. They went to the console and brought up a holographic map and expanded the view out over the floor. “They’re bringing us right to them.”
I scurried into my chamber. Pickles lay on its side, unharmed. I pulled the jar close. “Can you, like, detach their ship?”
“No. They’ve locked me out of everything except for life support and basic functionality. We’re slaved to the sortie vessel, which I’m guessing is under the control of this new ship, here.” They pointed to an icon on the hologram, far away, out in space. “That is a Vortu cruiser, registered name: Terror’s Glaive. So long as the sortie is docked, I can’t do anything.” They worked the unresponsive controls. “Ben!” said Aptat. “Get out of the chamber!”