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“Where are they?” Levi interrupted.
“They’re on Egshur. What are the chances, huh?” She smiled cheekily as Levi dove at her, catching her up in an exultant embrace. He rolled with her until she rested on his belly and tickled her.
“Oh, man! I should’ve seduced a tech genius years ago! When did you get these?”
Cora giggled and settled her chin on his chest. “I used the downtime to look at Egshur, to see if I could spot my family somehow. And I saw all of these Jorvlen dots and remembered the warehouse I wandered into. I realized that must have been what the secret was, and I took down the coordinates.”
Levi beamed. “Did I mention you’re a genius?”
“You might’ve. But it never gets old.” She slapped his hand away as he tried to ruffle her hair.
Springing into action, he threw his clothes on and tossed Cora’s at her. “Well, what are we waiting for? Let’s go!”
Cora rolled her eyes in mock annoyance. “But I was just getting comfy!” She rubbed her hands sleepily up and down the length of her body.
Levi groaned. “Okay, you are definitely in charge of the distraction.”
She sat up in alarm. “Me? How am I gonna get the attention of a shipful of Jorvlen meatheads? You should do it. I may be the tech genius, but you’re the battle tactician.”
“Then put your clothes on so I can think,” Levi returned. He paced the room and weighed his options. “Okay, once I get this going, it’ll move quickly. Can you do something to the ship to make it so they can’t follow us?”
“Sure.” Cora shrugged. “I can disable the main transformer so the signal never makes it to the hyperdrive.”
“Okay, but we don’t want them calling for backup. It has to be something they can fix themselves.”
“They can.” Cora grinned mischievously. “The first thing they’ll do is have the engineer pull up the codes. They’ll know what happened right away. They’ll even know we did it.”
Levi pinched the bridge of his nose. “And the part where that helps us get away?”
“Once a transformer powers down, it has to recharge for several hours before it can sustain something as large as the hyperdrive for a ship this size.” Cora’s smile turned triumphant, but Levi still wasn’t getting the picture.
“Okay, so why wouldn’t they call for help? Extra batteries and whatnot?”
“Would you want to admit that you and your whole crew lost the Desolation Stone and your hyperdrive to two stowaways you picked up at a fuel station?”
Levi nodded, a matching smile spreading slowly across his features. “Ah, ha! No, I would not. And Jorvlens are even worse about those things. Pride before practicality. So here’s the plan…”
Fifteen minutes later, a small explosion rocked the cargo bay. Alarms blared, ventilation systems shut down, and the whole bay shut down, blocking passageways to and from the bridge.
As Levi suspected, due to the nature of the cargo, everyone on the ship sprang into action, returning to their posts and waiting for orders. Hiding near the doors of the observation deck, Levi waited for the stream of crew members who had been taking their break to go back to their posts.
Not a moment after he was sure the last Jorvlen officer had made it off the deck, Levi entered the stairwell and began to climb. Only halfway up, however, he heard footsteps coming down. There were no landings, no outlets, and no way to beat them down without attracting notice.
Levi sheathed his blaster and sighed. The charges would only ricochet off the walls and endanger him as well. He would have to do this the old-fashioned way. I hate stairwells, he thought, and he climbed to use gravity to his advantage.
Backing down a corner, he removed a flash grenade he had taken from the hold. He waited until he could hear the fleshy, under-the-breath grunts from the Jorvlens before lighting the explosive and tossing it as far up as he could manage.
He closed his eyes and plugged his ears in advance of the disorienting blast. Then he jumped up the next two flights of stairs as quickly as his legs would carry him. He had caught three burly monsters, but a fourth had been too far back to feel the full effects of the blast.
Jumping his way past the three on the floor, he hit the fourth squarely in the chest with his boot and brought him down onto the stairs. Stomping just below the throat, he broke the animal’s neck on a metal step and turned to greet the other three.
He took the skull of the first in his hand and bashed it sideways against the handrail, shattering it at the temple. Leaving his knife in the eye of the second, he finished just in time to face the last, who had recovered his faculties considerably and moved to unsheathe his weapon.
A stun gun.
The memory of lightning traveling through his veins sent ice down his spine, and Levi broke into a sweat. He knew that if he came into the smallest contact with those metal prongs, he was a goner, and not just him. Cora, the Desolation Stone, and the war would be lost.
The Jorvlen jabbed. Levi parried, sending the ghoul’s fist into the wall. The prongs hit metal, sending sparks flying. The Jorvlen bit his arm, pinning it painfully with his teeth, and hit him in the ribs with a sharp uppercut.
