The ship was typical of the smaller crafts used by the Akkian Rangers: A slim thing, painted green, and adorned with the Akkian Triple Star. The pilot came in with the haste that the situation called for, brought the ship to a halt with the back facing the container, and opened the aft hold even as the ship lowered to the ground.

“Get in!” a woman’s voice announced through exterior speakers.

Zamm drove his bike in, and Saketa ran after him, into a small hangar that held a second bike, a repair station, and an airlock.

“Up, immediately!” Zamm declared as he fixed his bike to a set of clamps. “After the freighter! We drew a lucky card!”

The ship went back up, and the ramp closed. Zamm opened the inner airlock, and they stepped into the main body of the ship. There wasn’t much to see; these ships were for scouting and quick strikes, not lengthy journeys. Saketa passed by folded-up bunks, a basic hygiene station and a tiny kitchen counter, over a hatch leading to the engine room, and finally into the cockpit.

At the helm was a woman in a standard engineer’s jumpsuit, her hair the same blond colour as Zamm’s, and held in place with a couple of bands. She spared the two of them a single backwards glance.

“You really are a Kalero Warden?”

“I am. And I can board the freighter if you just get me close enough.”

“Well, let’s do it!” the woman said, as Zamm got seated in the second chair. “I am Lesi.”

“Saketa.”

Zamm took over the piloting, using a second set of controls, and Lesi got up and hurried back into the main body of the ship.

“You should sit down,” Zamm told Saketa. “Just don’t touch anything.”

There was no reason to argue, and Saketa did take a seat and strap herself in. Rangers chose their ship for speed, and modified them for even more. And again, comfort was very much a secondary concern. Even with gravity plating in place, the force of their ascent pushed her back into the chair, swaying her ribs and the lungs within, reminding her, once again, that for all her power she was still a mere human being.

Zamm had a look of intense focus, and she did not want to distract him from his task. Not with so much at stake. So she simply sat there, waiting for her moment to be useful again. It was Zamm who spoke first, as they started leaving the planet’s atmosphere behind.

“How close do you need to be?”

“It is not a matter of hard numbers,” Saketa told him. “But Shifting is far easier out in space, where not even air is in the way. Think in terms of space combat distances. Or, well, just make a straight line for them. I will do the rest.”

“And then?” he asked.

“I am no pilot, but I will try to force someone on board to land outside of that village. I will be in radio contact with you, once I have the ship secured. Just stay close, but out of their gun range, until you hear from me.”

“I will,” he replied, then chuckled a little. “You’ve made this whole task a lot easier.”

“Without your ship I could do no more than I already have,” she deflected.

They left the gravity well behind, and the ship’s sensors picked up the freighter. It had gotten surprisingly far, given its size and shape. But then, raiders and pirates that went with larger ships often played fast and loose with the guidelines of space travel, sacrificing common-sense safety measures for greater speed. Having one’s ship break apart out in the great vacuum apparently held less fear than being held to account by angry authorities.

Though the ranger ship ultimately had the edge in speed, it wasn’t drastic enough to catch up before the freighter reached the lane entrance.

“Can you make it?” he asked. “Right now?”

Saketa had been measuring her own condition, and the toll her recent exertions had taken on it, and so had an answer ready.

“No. I cannot.”

The freighter entered leap, vanishing from the ranger’s sensors.

“We’ll catch them on the other side, then,” he said.

“Right.”

“Actually…”

He consulted his starmap.

“There is another entrance very close to the other end of this one. If they make straight for it, with no cooldown, we might not get them before they leap again.”

“But we will close the distance?” Saketa asked.

“We will, yes. We’ll get these monsters, don’t worry.”

“And you two are with me? For however long it takes?”

He looked up from the controls, and Saketa saw a firmness in the man.

“I’m not letting two thousand people get reduced to property if there’s the slightest chance I can do something about it. When I put this on…”

He slapped the Triple Star emblem on his riding suit.

“... I meant it. Rangers ride. Rangers protect.”

Saketa liked him, and showed it with a smile.

“And the rest of us fools fly along,” Lesi said from the cockpit entrance.

Saketa turned to face her.

“I’m not as much of a dreamer as this one,” the woman said. “But yes. I’m all for slavers getting hacked up. Let’s do it. Till the end.”

“I do not have any personal experience with the people of Akkia, but other Wardens have spoken highly of them,” Saketa said.

“Yes, we’re pretty great,” Lesi said. “The engine is good, by the way. It hasn’t really had a chance to cool down since we got to that little dustball, but I’d wager my licence that it’ll hold up longer than whatever those raiders are flying. And I smell burnt armour.”

Lesi took a deep inhale.

“Someone got shot again, didn’t he?”

“Just a little,” Zamm replied.

Lesi went through a flash of anger that Saketa could tell was rooted in concern.

“You know that is not a comfort,” the woman told him.

“Did you get around to fixing my drop-shield?” he asked.

“I was busy, Zamm, just like you. I wasn’t putting my feet up and sipping fruit drinks while you were doing the work.”

“Just thought I’d ask.”

“What were you doing?” Saketa asked her. “What are both of you doing, outside of the Rangers’s usual sphere?”

“On the edge of it, really,” Zamm interjected softly.

“A tip-off carried down the chain of rumours and spies and informants,” Lesi said in answer to the question. “About a potential slaver raid on this planet. Specifically, on these desert farming communities. They have been springing up as a result of the war, and general migration, and generally aren’t well protected. The Rangers are stretched thin these days, and so there weren’t enough people on hand for a proper response. Not over a mere rumour. So we came to investigate. Zamm went off on his bike, asking villagers about sightings or rumours, while I used the ship to do the same. And now here we are. You know, you have blood on your face.”

“It is not mine.”

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

“Good, I guess.”

She pointed back the way she’d come.

“I’m going to keep tending to the engine. Your drop-shield can wait, Zamm.

“Well, I don’t need it right now, do I?”

Lesi did leave, and Saketa focused on recovering her strength.

# # #

Entering leap was a tremendous relief, but Qwern tried not to show it. He didn’t fully understand the powers of the Kalero Wardens. Who did? And there were no doubt quite a lot of tall tales floating around. But them being able to apparate between ships was thoroughly attested to. In fact, it was probably their most notorious feature.

He took a long breath, savouring it, letting it steady him as he decided on a voice to use, and then activated the ship-wide intercom.

“This is Captain Qwern. And what can one say at a time like this? The Kalero Wardens are… well, they are like storms, or lane trembles. There are some hazards one can never quite predict, and must simply try to survive when they do happen. Now, I know we just lost a lot of people. And I want to give my condolences to any who have lost friends or kin. But we are not quite out of danger yet, and so I need everyone to stay focused, and continue to do their part in keeping this ship running. I have a plan for seeing us all through this, now that I know what we have to contend with. We were not able to get the full stock we intended, but rest assured I will still make the sale, and all will earn the payout I promised you. Just focus ahead, all of you, and tend to your tasks. Captain out.”

He ended the announcement, and his wandering eyes found Konno looking at him intently. It was the look he had when he really wanted to talk, and he accompanied it with a slight jerk of his head to the right. To an empty part of the bridge, left unlit by the fighting.

Qwern got up and followed the man there. The dead bodies had been moved, but the little cleaning drones weren’t done with all the blood yet. He stepped around the sticky mess, and joined Konno in relative privacy.

“So, IS there a plan, or was that just politics?”

“There is a plan, relax,” Qwern told him.

“What plan could there possibly be?” Konno demanded, clearly rattled by all of this. “Because that Warden already ploughed through basically everything we had. We are pretty much out of fighters, man.”

“We can pick up new ones, Konno. Come on. At the right sort of port it is quick work to pick up cheap trash to fill up space.”

“I won’t complain about some extra bodies between me and her once she shows up again, but what happens when they die even faster than our raider teams?”

“Konno…”

Qwern scratched the back of his head.

“... I don’t like this either. Wardens are one of those things you just hope don’t happen. But let’s not start thinking that she is invincible. They are still human beings. They don’t get killed often, but they do get killed. It’s just a matter of… hiring experts.”

“What? Counter-Wardens? Look, one hears about them having old enemies, ancient, dramatic conflicts with-”

“Nothing that crazy,” Qwern told him. “But the route we have to take now, to reach the handoff… I recall that some guys will be in our path. We can hire them. Offer them the right kind of money, and the right kind of fight.”

“Who?”

Qwern felt an impish impulse, and smiled.

“I’ll just show you. When the time comes.”

Konno, already high-strung, wasn’t happy about the answer. But ultimately, he wasn’t in charge. The man did force his frustration down, but something replaced it. Concern, and it didn’t look like it had to do with the Warden.

“You seem to know what you’re talking about,” Konno said, slowly and reluctantly. “So I’ll withhold my reactions for now. But Qwern… the handoff? We don’t have a full shipment. The full shipment we promised. Three thousand people. We have a little under two thousand. And those Scorchspace lunatics aren’t known for being reasonable.”

“On average… no,” Qwern admitted. “Their society is built on violence. Which is why they are in a constant state of population crisis. Which is why they need a steady influx of slaves. Which is why Chief Brals will take what he can get from us, on the promise that the next delivery will make up for it. It may take some convincing, some smoothing, but trust me. I’ll get him to agree to a second hand-off soon, and after that we’ll be back on track.”

He shrugged.

“Besides, he would hold a far bigger grudge against us for not showing up at all.”

“I hope you are right,” Konno said. “I don’t want to go from one deadly crisis to another.”

“We won’t, we won’t,” Qwern assured him.

He looked over, at a feed that kept track of the containers they had gotten away with. All were listed to be in working order. They were hooked up to the ship’s own life-support systems, and each one contained enough water and food to keep the people in sellable condition for a while. There was no reason for a crewmember to ever set foot inside one of them, or even see or hear the people being transported. Aside from bringing the risk of an uprising down to zero, it had the neat little side effect of making this sort of work easier for more squeamish types to stomach.

“We have two thousand bodies to hand over. That’s not a small thing. And as soon as we have the Warden out of our hair, we are going to make it big. Now…”

He got the chief gunner’s attention.

“Contact the armoury.”

# # #

“Entering leap,” Zamm finally said, and took them in.

Saketa kept her eyes closed. Mid-leap was no time to attempt to Shift, even if the freighter hadn’t been too far ahead. And she had seen the strands often enough that she could skip a viewing in good conscience. Her conscience was focused on the captured villagers, in any case.

Zamm didn’t speak, and she didn’t offer anything herself. Piloting all the way through a lane was a precise process, best done with one’s full concentration. So if he wanted to keep quiet, she would keep quiet.

The energies were there, waiting for her in the quiet of her own mind. The fundamental energies she had learned to tap into, and between which she stood. Perfectly balanced, as a Warden had to be.

Her new sword rested in her lap, her hands on top of it. It was a wonderful weight; a part of her, in a way. Oh, how good it was, to be back to her old self.

She didn’t measure time, only kept vague track of her body and its immediate surroundings. Most of her memories and emotions were packed away, leaving only the core. And the core picked up a warning.

“Danger.”

Saketa opened her eyes, her body suddenly flush with high-strung energy.

“We are in danger!” she insisted to Zamm, who gave her a confused sideways look.

A moment later the console readouts supported her words, as objects appeared up ahead. They were small, and going far slower than the ranger ship. Slow enough to seem to be heading for them.

“Incoming!” Zamm announced, either out of habit or for Lesi’s benefit, as he did a comparatively harsh jank on the controls. They evaded the first of the objects, and in a moment it was far behind them. But there were more. The second one came closer, and detonated, giving the ship a slight rattle.

The freighter hadn’t broken up. It was dropping mines. There were very good reasons why this normally wasn’t done. Ejecting any weight while streaking through a lane came with a huge risk of course error, something a ship the size of the freighter almost never survived. But desperation could make people very dangerous, and so now they had this to deal with.

“It’s a whole cloud!” Zamm growled under his breath.

Sharp turns in a lane was how you died, and so like any sane pilot he went with small corrections, weaving, dancing about as the mines came in a rough spiral pattern. And all Saketa could do was sit there and hope for the best. In realspace she might have tried putting on a space suit and put her Push to work. But not in the Other. And the gun controls were off-limits too. Turning the mines into scattershot, at FTL velocities, wouldn’t help in the slightest.

Zamm was a skilled pilot, and had either been trained for this or survived such an event before. But there were a lot of mines, more tightly clustered as the gauntlet continued, and the limited range of motion he had to stay within made things all the trickier.

Saketa didn’t know if it was the latest of the near-detonations, or simply the repeated, erratic swaying at leap-speeds, but the inevitable happened, and Zamm fully lost control. The infinite, glowing strands of the Other turned into a blinding flash, the metal of the ship’s structure screamed, and a strange feeling of pressure Saketa had never felt before pushed in on her body from every angle.

And then they were out.

“I’M STOPPING THE ENGINE!” Lesi announced via a speaker, and around half of the screens and lights in front of Saketa and Zamm died.

They were out. The engine had stopped, the great scream faded away in the form of little echoes, from here and there in the ship, but it was still in one piece. They hadn’t been ejected into space, or blown into shreds.

Saketa took a breath.

“S… status!” Zamm demanded.

“We are not critical, at least at the moment,” Lesi replied. “But there is definitely damage. The leap reactor has blown some parts, and I’m worried about the thrusters. I’m sending out some maintenance drones, and I’ll be joining them in a suit. I just need to-”

“We are going to lose the freighter!” Zamm said. “I could try a mid-lane entrance! I’ve never actually attempted it outside of sims, but it might-”

“NO, ZAMM!” Lesi shouted. “There is no way we can take another one like that. As engineer of the ship, I forbid it.”

Zamm’s hands squeezed the controls with helpless frustration. Saketa sensed actual authority behind Lesi’s statement. Zamm might be in charge of the mission, but it seemed that in certain circumstances, Lesi was in charge of the ship. It made sense. Ranger ships were not personal property, after all.

“Give me a minimum,” he said, his head bowed.

“It is WAY too early for me to say anything. Now let me work.”

“MINIMUM, Lesi. Please.”

“Fifteen work hours, minimum. Now let me actually find out, damn it!”

“That freighter…” Zamm muttered, barely audible. “We might not catch up with it. We probably won’t.”

“We may not need to,” Saketa said. “I did not tell you how I arrived at that raid. My people have a long-standing alliance with the Chainbreakers, and other groups of similar bent. Rumour carried our way of a Scorchspace chief being due for a large slave shipment. Some digging was done, and I got a ride on a cargo ship heading to the northern continent. I made my way, and you witnessed my arrival.”

“Our paths crossed halfway, it seems,” Zamm replied, and hope dawned on his face. “Where?”

“If the intel is accurate, the meeting is to take place over some place called Undu-Plas.”

Zamm’s fingers flew over a touchscreen, and in seconds he had found two celestial bodies with that name. One was all the way over in the Old Kingdom, and so could certainly be dismissed. The other one was a close neighbour of Scorchspace. And not that many leaps away.

“We still have a chance,” Zamm said. “And… and…”

He operated the screen some more.

“There is a lane we can reach, without having to do a mid-entrance. It takes us through bad territory, but it can work. We could intercept them, if we’re just a little bit lucky.”

Saketa held his gaze, and saw determination build up again.

“Let us test it,” she said. “This chase is not over yet.”

“No. It is not. Let’s see if Lesi needs some extra pairs of hands.”