Her annoyance softened, and she shared an anxious, almost contrite, look with Puck.
“I’ll do—” Puck began, but Lace cut him short.
“No, I’ll go. You take her,” she said, jutting her chin toward Adequin. “She won’t go willingly.”
Lace knelt and yanked a space suit from under the launch-control counter. Adequin blinked in confusion as Lace tugged the glimmering white suit on. Puck grabbed Adequin’s arm and pulled her back toward the Hermes.
“Lace…” Adequin croaked as she stumbled back. “Why are you putting on a suit? What are you doing?”
Continuing to tow her back, Puck mumbled, “There’s manual control access on the hull. It’s the only guarantee it’ll open.”
“On the hull? No—” Adequin shoved Puck off with Imprint-assisted force, and he tumbled out of sight. She rushed back to Lace. “I’ll do it,” she demanded. “I’ve logged a thousand more hours out there than you.”
“I know, sir,” Lace said, her tone unnervingly even. “But you don’t know where the controls are, or how to work them.”
“I’ll figure it out!”
Lace ignored her, grabbing a helmet from underneath the launch-control counter.
The faintest tug low in Adequin’s gut drew her glower back toward the open door to the operations deck. Her knees gave slightly as her balance tilted, and she felt like she was about to slide off the edge of a cliff. The few loose objects scattered throughout the derelict hangar slid toward the outward wall.
“Circitor,” Adequin growled, throwing her glare back onto Lace, voice taut. “I’m ordering you to stand down. Get on that Hermes.”
Lace continued sealing up her suit. Her narrow jaw flexed. “Sir, I lied before.”
“What?” Adequin snapped.
“I knew what mo’acair meant. I just didn’t think you did.”
Adequin blinked, unable to turn her confused stupor into a response.
“My anchor.”
A sharp heat sprung up Adequin’s neck, clawing its way up her cheeks.
“That man loves you. Always has.” Lace let out a soft sigh, brow creased. “Try to save him, if you can. Please.”
A lump clogged the back of Adequin’s throat. Her lips parted, but nothing came out.
Lace’s eyes flickered, darting for the briefest moment over Adequin’s shoulder.
Her Imprints were already running up her arm as she spun and Puck drew back his fist, but they were too late. Everything went dark.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Cavalon leaned forward so far, he almost slid off the edge of his seat. He squinted at the screen, his mind warring with the reality of the approaching ship.
Drudger vessels tended to be warped, surreal versions of Viator crafts, and this one proved no exception. It looked as if they’d taken a sleek, triangular Viator cargo ship in one of their brutish grips and bashed it into a rock—then proceeded to repair it with random salvaged debris, in the most haphazard way possible. Like a child pulling apart his toys and gluing them back together to create something new, yet unmistakably grotesque. Cavalon would take the mindless clone version of Drudgers his nefarious grandfather had conjured up any day to the barbaric version that barreled toward them now.
Jackin shook his head. “That device we saw in the air lock—they must have seen the station was abandoned and bugged the doors.”
Cavalon ground his teeth. It was typical, and not surprising. At the end of the Resurgence War, the remaining Viator-allied Drudger forces had fled to the Outer Core and beyond. Though some had settled in remote systems and kept to themselves, others traveled in warring bands, looting and pillaging their way around the galaxy.