The Fringe Wars

3.3

Dromadier Dilemma

Devil Town space docks, Spate

Throttle saw the squad of dromadiers the moment they entered the dock. Even though there were nearly a dozen other ships ahead of the Gryphon in line, she knew which ship they were headed for. She wheeled back to stay out of their view. She was only about halfway finished refueling, but she shut down the system without hesitation. The cables detached and retracted into the dock's fueling system.

She tapped a sequence of codes on her wrist comm, and a green light indicated she'd connected to the ship. Seconds later, two thin metal plates slid down the hull. The smaller one covered the ship's real registration number with a dummy number Demes had set up for her last year. She prayed the number still worked. The second, larger plate covered the teardrop painted on the hull. Since droms leaned toward a "shoot on sight" approach to any torrent they came across, she chose caution over chance.

After both panels clicked in place, she glanced under the ship to see the soldiers' legs. The squad was almost to the ship. Her breath caught. She sped up the ramp, placing herself in partial view, and boarded the Gryphon. The sound of running boot steps followed her until the door closed with its usual resounding boom of metal connecting with metal. She locked the hatch. Heart racing, she hurried to the bridge.

Behind her, a pounding on the door ensued. She could hear shouting, but the rilon hull muffled the voices too much to make out any words. Even so, she had no doubt they were ordering her to open up.

"No viggin' way I'm letting you onto my ship," she yelled back.

She didn't slow down as she reached the bridge, and plowed into her instrument panel hard enough to smash a kneecap. Good thing she couldn't feel anything from the waist down. She started to enter additional lockdown commands. Now that she was back on board, her mask fogged up, and she tore it off so she could see what she was doing.

A warning sounded, and the panel displayed the notification Throttle most certainly did not want to see:

Spate Dock Control initiating override control of your vessel per Collective Authority Code 468294. Prepare to be boarded.

Throttle flinched. "No."

She thought she'd have hours before the CUF initiated an override code, giving her time to come up with a plan. That they were already initiating the code meant they'd been onto the Gryphon the moment it hit orbit. No one had ever blocked the CUF override hack, not even Demes, which meant the Gryphon was about to be boarded and there wasn't a thing she could do to stop it. She entered a code on the panel and shoved away. Behind her, the wall opened to reveal a closet space barely wide enough for her wheelchair. She backed into the space and hit the only button on the wall. The door closed, leaving her in darkness.

Another warning sounded on the bridge, followed by the metallic sound of the ship's large door opening. The noise was soon followed by a stern male voice. "Your ship has been randomly selected for a dock check. Come out immediately, or you will be arrested."

Randomly selected, my ass. As the footsteps drew closer, she tried to calm her breathing. Light crept through around the edges, reminding her that even the smallest sound could be heard on the other side of the wall.

Reyne had built the space for her when she was seven years old. Back then, Reyne—her father not by blood but in all the ways that really mattered—drew plenty of attention of the unwanted kind from his involvement in the Fringe Uprising. His protectiveness drove her crazy, but she'd be damned if she didn't appreciate this tiny hideaway right now.

The sound of boot steps reached the bridge. Throttle's breath hitched, and she became a statue, even though every cell in her body thrummed with adrenaline. If they found her, they'd run her fake ID. Chances were, they'd also run a DNA scan, something far too expensive to fake. One scan, and she'd spend the rest of her life in a work camp, if she were lucky.

She'd had a few close calls with the CUF, but she'd never had to face them alone before. She now realized how much she'd depended on them to get her out of trouble. Adrenaline gave way to insecurity when she realized that, for the first time, there was no one there to help her. She was completely and utterly on her own.

She pursed her lips and girded her confidence. The hell she'd let insecurity get in her way.

The light around the door broke as someone walked far too close for her comfort. She held her breath until after the light returned, and until she heard the intruder tap on the ship's instrument panel. She cringed. No one had ever touched her panel before, and the action felt like a violation of her privacy.

While whoever was on the bridge pounded away on her panel, the other droms conversed with one another as they searched the ship, but they were too far away for her to make out anything. No one yelled out again for her. After interminably long minutes, the bridge crasher quit hitting keys, and the bridge grew silent. Several minutes later, what sounded like a squad of boot steps walked off the ship, down the ramp, and left the Gryphon in silence.

Absolute silence.

Throttle's eyes widened. There was no constant hum of the ship's bio systems. No air circulation. The ship was perfectly sealed. Even without systems, she'd have breathable air for days. The problem was she'd never heard the ship door close behind the droms. Every bit of breathable air would be lost to the oxygen-depleted Spaten atmosphere.

She sucked in a breath. Another minute passed, and she found it harder to breathe. She wasn't claustrophobic, so she knew the urge to hyperventilate was coming from bad air.

In a rush, she thought through her only two options. She could close the door and restart the ship's systems, but then the droms would be back as soon as they heard the ship come back online. She decided to go with the second and only practical option. She'd grab her breather mask and hide until she was confident the squad had left the dock.

Vertigo spun her in the small space as she became more and more lightheaded. She realized then that she had a third option: die of asphyxiation.

She clenched her jaw as she reached up and hit the button. There was no viggin' way she'd die in a closet. The door opened, and she pushed herself forward to grab the breather.

Except it wasn't where she'd flung it.

Blackness tunneled her vision. In the center, she could see a masked drom leaning against her panel. He held out her breather. "Looking for this?"

She lunged for it.

He lifted the mask higher, just out of her reach.

She swung out to hit him. Her fist weighed a ton, and she fell from her chair. "Viggin' drom—" Her words slurred as she felt herself plummet into a cold black pit. She'd always figured she'd die at the hands of the CUF. She just didn't think it'd happen so soon.