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Levi felt a rib crack as his breath left him. Hovering over him with the gun, however, the Jorvlen took the time to smirk. “Filthy human,” it gloated, brandishing the electrical device like a sword.
Seeing his opening, he brought a knee into the thing’s groin. Reaching to cover the point of pain, the prongs came into contact with the Jorvlen’s inner thigh. His muscles seized, holding the gun firm as his body cooked in its own fluids.
“Not so thick-skinned there, are ya?” Levi wheezed. He didn’t wait for a reply. Limping the rest of the way up the stairs, trying not to breathe, he searched the observation deck until he saw it—a faint, opalescent glimmer.
The multifaceted stone gleamed blood-red in the dim starlight and emitted a whitish-blue glow as if it had been chipped from a fiery shooting star. Levi picked it up and dropped it. It was so cold that it would be several minutes before the feeling returned to his fingertips.
Taking off his shirt, he wrapped the stone in it and held it away from his body. Time to get this thing home.
Chapter 33
Cora was finding it hard to breathe. She and Levi were both crammed into a utility closet that they had jumped into to avoid a squad of guards coming around the corner. She wriggled her arm free to get a look at the holo-map on her comm.
The image flashed up in the cramped space between them. “Looks like this corridor is clear,” she said quietly. “If we can get to this block here, we should be able to access the vents.” She highlighted the area they needed to head for.
Levi slid the door open a crack and double-checked the corridor. “All clear,” he said, slipping through the gap in the door.
They sprinted down the corridor to an intersection and then pinned themselves against the wall to check that both directions were clear before they crossed to the next sector.
Cora paused to check the holo-map, and it was lucky she did. Squads were approaching from both directions. Have they locked on to our location?
“In here,” she hissed, opening a door at random.
They both bolted through the door into a store room. Racks of ration packs and various equipment were neatly stacked on racks. “Some of this stuff looks useful,” she said, stuffing ration packs into her pocket.
“Let’s not hang around here,” said Levi. “We need to get clear of this sector. Crew members are swarming everywhere here.”
Cora flashed the holo-map back up. “Hey, look, there on the map. It’s a service hatch, in the corner there. You think we can get through?”
The hatch itself was set low to the floor, and it was tiny—no more than a service point. It did not look designed for crawling through at all. They removed the grill and looked dubiously at the space they would have to crawl through.
“What do you think?” Cora asked. “Looks like it’s only a few meters like this, and then it enters into the main service channel.”
“I can try,” he said, crouching down. “But it’s going to be tight.”
“Let me go first, and I can make sure.”
“Okay, but be careful,” he said with concern.
Cora squeezed herself into the gap. It was a little tight for comfort even for her, so it would be much harder for her big Lorr lover. She wriggled her way along the duct, using her comm as a flashlight. Just before it opened up into the main tunnel, the roof narrowed.
“Damn,” she said. “How the hell will he get through that?”
She maneuvered her way into the wider tunnel and took a measurement of the narrow aperture with her comm. She wasn’t sure how much room his horns would take up, but it looked like it could be close.
She made her way back to Levi and told him the bad news. “I’ve always wanted my horns to be bigger,” he said. “I envied my older brothers for their horns. But sometimes I think they’re more trouble than they’re worth.”
“Let’s measure them,” she said. “Just to be sure.” She scanned his horns with her comm unit. “They’re about two millimeters smaller than the gap. It’s too close. Let’s go around through the corridors.” She pulled up the holo-map, but the situation outside their hiding place had gotten even more dire. Crew members prowled everywhere, or so it seemed.
“I’ve got to try it,” he said. “I think I can do it.”
Cora was dubious, but Levi insisted he at least try. She scrambled down the hatch first and wriggled into the tunnel beyond.
It seemed like ages before Levi came into sight inching his way through the cramped space. He already had no room to maneuver, and she seriously doubted he was going to make it through the last meter, which was even narrower.
“You’re coming up on the tight bit,” she warned. What if he gets stuck? What if he can’t move? They’d be doomed, she realized.
“I don’t know if this is a good idea,” she said, panic rising up in her throat.
