“Shit,” Delphi says. Just as the boy leads us into what appears to be a control room.
“What?” I ask, then take out the two borgs manning the control station.
The boy stands there watching with his mouth open as plasma fire burns through their heads and the force of the beam hurls them backwards against the wall.
He swallows hard, then looks at me. “This room has access to everything. All the slaves are in this sector too, and we can free them while you work on getting your ship here.”
Maybe the little fucker does have balls.
I rush over to the main console and take a seat, my fingers flying over the keyboard. “What were you saying?” I ask Delphi while I type out access commands.
“Flicka says that the poison she used will be wearing off by now.”
“Great.” I sigh. “Just what we need. More hordes of Loathsome Borgs.”
The boy is fucking with another control panel, making better progress than I am. Because he says, “Yes,” then leaps up out of his chair just as doors start clicking open out in the hallway.
Dozens and dozens of Akeelian boys appear. All about the same age. Maybe twelve or thirteen, at most. And again I get that sick, sick feeling in my gut when I picture my twin in a place like this.
Our boy starts telling them the details. Then he grabs the two rifles from our blown-up friends and hands them to the oldest ones for backup.
“Where are the girls?” Delphi asks, taking the extra rifles from my shoulder as I continue typing.
“They don’t keep them here,” our boy says. “This is the semen farm.”
“Gross,” I mutter.
“Where do they keep them?” Delphi asks.
“I don’t know. Some other station like this, I guess.”
“Do you know where my brother is?”
“Not here,” the boy says. “Probably with the girls. He’s… the right age.”
“Got it!” I say, after ending my last command. “Docking bays are unlocked!”
“Then let’s go!” some random boy shouts at me.
I glare at him over my shoulder and say. “You can go wherever you want, but I’m waiting to see my fucking ship appear.”
She doesn’t appear.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT – DELPHI
“She’s not dead,” I say. Because I can tell that Jimmy is starting to lose faith. “She can’t stay on this side of the gate for more than thirty-seven seconds, remember?”
“So she has no idea what’s happening? Or when to even try to come back?”
“I don’t know,” I say. “I was so worried about my part in the plan, I didn’t get filled in on hers.”
“Well, that’s fucking perfect,” one of the random boys says. “We all just escaped our cells and now there’s no way off this fucking station?”
“Hey, you,” I say, pointing at the kid. “Stop being an asshole. You’re lucky your friend here got you out in the first place. So just shut up and let the grown-ups work things out.”
He’s got one of the rifles and he’s older than the rest. Almost as old as me, probably. Maybe seventeen. No wonder he’s being an asshole. He’s about the right age too, isn’t he? Gonna be a daddy soon.
Just like Tycho.
I shudder at the thought.
“Come on, come on, come on,” Jimmy says. He’s propped both his hands on the monitor and he’s staring down at it with intense concentration.
“There’s borgs coming!” some random boy screams.
I grab Jimmy’s rifle, toss it to another random, then say, “OK, boys. Time to fight like girls. Everyone with a rifle, blast that shit until you’re empty. Everyone without a rifle, grab something heavy or be prepared to pull hair.”
“What?” one kid asks. “They don’t have hair.”
“It’s a figure of speech, kid. Just… hit them with whatever you got, for fuck’s sake!”
Just as I finish speaking three things happen at the same time.
Jimmy says, “There!”
The borgs burst through into the hallway.
And shit hits the fan because almost a dozen untrained kids start firing plasma rifles and two dozen more leap out into the fray to attack.
I wish I could say that goes well. But it doesn’t. Half the kids who rushed the borgs get hit by friendly and unfriendly fire, most of the kids with rifles do nothing more than hit the lights, so now this whole area is dark and the only thing I can see are crackling streams of firefight.
Then Jimmy takes a hit to his shoulder.
“Retreat!” I scream, rushing over to Jimmy. He didn’t even fall down, just backed himself into the control console. “Come on!” I say, wrapping my arm around his waist. “We have to make it to the docking bays! We have to!”
“Lead the way, princess,” he says.
But I don’t know the way.
My eyes meet the boy’s and he nods. Then he yells, “Everyone follow me!”
I don’t know how we make it through the next hallway, because there are borgs streaming in from open doorways in every direction. But somehow, some way, these kids with the rifles get their shit together and actually pick off a few. I hand my rifle off to someone else because I can’t fire while I’m holding on to Jimmy.