Eliana turned to find Ganix running toward her. “All my people are in the pods!” she yelled over the noise.
Boom. Boom. Boom.
“Why aren’t you with them?” he shouted.
“They’re safe! I want to help! What can I do?”
“Shields at twenty percent,” the calm female voice announced.
“Nothing!” Ganix shouted. “Get to a pod!”
“I can help!” she insisted. “Just tell me what to do!” Whatever they needed, she could do it a hell of a lot faster than they could.
Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom.
“Shields at thirteen percent.”
Ganix grabbed her arm, apparently saying to hell with the rules, and urged her back the way she had come. “You have to go! Now!”
“At least let me get more people into pods!”
“There’s no time!”
They were almost to another line of escape pods when the wall beside them exploded. The percussive blast lifted Eliana off her feet and hurled her backward as flames seared her. Her head and body slammed into something hard. Bones broke. Pain engulfed her.
She slumped to the floor.
Darkness.
Somewhere in the distance a voice spoke, dragging Eliana toward consciousness. She moaned as pain inundated her. The left side of her face and body burned as though flames seared it. Every time she drew in a breath, sharp spikes seemed to drive themselves into her rib cage.
Clenching her teeth, she kept her eyelids squeezed shut and hoped the agony would pass.
The voice spoke again. Male. His words incomprehensible.
“What?” she whispered, trying to make sense of his speech.
He addressed her once more, but she had no more luck deciphering his words.
“What?” she muttered again. “I don’t…” Her thoughts remained muddled. “I don’t understand. Do you speak English? I can’t understand you.”
Silence.
Then another male spoke, his voice deep and resonant. “This is Commander Dagon of the Ranasura. Our allies the Lasarans lost contact with the Kandovar and have enlisted our aid in searching for it. Are you from Earth?”
“From Earth?” she repeated. “Earth as opposed to where?” Her mind and body finally adjusted to the pain enough for her to open her eyes. When she did, her heart slammed against her broken ribs and sheer terror swept through her. “Oh shit.”
Endless dark space stretched before her, stars twinkling in the distance. She glanced down.
“Oh shit!” And she was free-floating through it in nothing but a baggy spacesuit and helmet. No ship. No escape pod. Just a freaking suit!
Her breath quickened.
“Where…?” She frantically looked around as much as she could and saw only a few jagged pieces of metal. “What the hell? What happened?”
“You are one of the Earthlings who was on board the Kandovar? You are from Earth?”
“Yes. I’m from Earth. What happened? Where the hell is the ship?”
Memory slowly returned. She remembered being on the Lasaran ship. She had been serving as one of the guards for the gifted ones who were traveling to Lasara. The journey was supposed to take thirteen months or thereabouts. She’d spent the first four immersing herself in Lasaran culture. It had been amazing. Then alarms had suddenly blared and the ship had begun to shake.
“Can you tell me where you are?” the man asked.
“No. Where’s the ship? What happened? Are you Lasaran or Yona?”
“I am Segonian. We are allies of the Lasarans and received a distress call indicating one of their ships had been attacked while passing through a qhov’rum.”
A qhov’rum. Right. That was the wormhole-like tunnel that had been propelling them toward Lasara.
“Where are they? Are they okay?” And how the hell had she gotten separated from everyone else?
“The Lasaran sovereign fears the ship was destroyed. The last data it transmitted indicated that escape pods were being deployed. But none have yet been recovered because they were flung out of the qhov’rum at different intervals, scattering them across vast sectors of space. All allies of the Lasarans are currently searching for survivors.”
Eliana stared through her clear visor. No escape pods surrounded her. “I don’t see anything.”
“We can lock onto your location if you activate the beacon in your escape pod.”
“What escape pod?” she cried. “There is no escape pod. It’s just me, floating here in a suit!” She didn’t care for the strident note that entered her voice but couldn’t help it. Panic was riding her hard.
A heavy pause ensued.
“You aren’t in an escape pod?” he asked, his voice grim.
“No.”
Rapid speech erupted, multiple males, conversing in another language.
The Lasarans had given each of the gifted ones and Immortal Guardians from Earth a universal translator implant that would enable them to decipher most alien languages. But Eliana’s body had rejected it, so she’d had to wear one in her ear like an earbud. She must have lost it in the chaos of the attack, because she couldn’t understand a word these men were saying.
“Hello?” she called, interrupting them.
The commander cleared his throat. “I wished to check the accuracy of my language translator. You are not in a pod? You are only protected by a suit?”
“Yes.”
“And neither the ship nor any pods are within your view?”
“Right. There’s nothing.” Although her helmet did limit her view. “Hold on. Let me see if I can twist around and get a better—” As soon as she swiveled her hips in an attempt to turn around, agony shot through her right side, all the way up into her chest. “Ah! Shit!”
Resting a hand on her side, she held her breath and clenched her teeth.
“Earthling?” he said sharply. “Are you all right?”
“Yes.” Maybe the pain would ease if she remained still.
“You are injured?”
“I’m fine,” she gritted. But she could feel warm moisture creeping down her right arm, down her side, down her hip, and recognized the signs of bleeding.
“Earthling—”
“Eliana,” she corrected. “My name is Eliana.” Even in her current, terrifying circumstances, being called Earthling was just too weird.
“Are you injured, Eliana?”
“Yes.”
“How badly?”
She glanced down. “I don’t know. I can’t exactly open my suit and take a look, but—judging by the feel of it—I’ve had worse.” Hunting and slaying psychotic vampires on a nightly basis sometimes resulted in injuries that would prove fatal to ordinary humans. As an Immortal Guardian, however, she usually recovered in anywhere from minutes to a few hours… if she had a goodly supply of blood on hand.
He spoke softly to someone in that foreign language.
“What’s happening? I can’t understand you,” she said.
“Because you have no beacon, we will have to determine your location by tracing your comm signal. Once we do that, we can come to you, but it will take time.”
“Okay.”
“How much oxygen do you have left?”