I awoke to a sharp pain in my jaw as the top of Hailey's head slammed into it. I had turned over in my sleep, and Hailey had ended up tucked up against my chest. Before any exclamation of pain could leave my lips my heart was seized by dread as I felt her body go as stiff as the hull plating against me, and I heard that keening cry begin to build again.

I wrapped both arms around her again and attempted to hold her legs in place with mine as I braced for what I knew was coming. Soon enough, her voice reached its piercing pitch, and her limbs flailed without direction. Her arms felt like they would crush my ribs, and her legs kicked mine, leaving marks that would become some nasty bruises in a few hours.

Like last time her fit was over almost as quickly as it had begun. Her body relaxed, and her arms released their death grip on my torso. But unlike last time Hailey wasn't waking up. I pulled away from her to see her empty eyes staring blankly up at me. Panic welled up, threatening to overwhelm me as my heart felt like it was going to beat itself out of my chest and my hands shook as I checked her pulse and breathing. She was alive, her pulse slow and breathing so shallow I almost couldn't feel it.

"H-hailey? C'mon Hailey, wake up." I shook her to no response, just those dead eyes staring back at me.

I picked her up and made for the medical bay as fast as I could without risking hurting Hailey, my panic increasing with every step I took. Sliding her into the medical bed, the cold blue emergency lighting making her look even paler, I waited impatiently for it to start up and give me a diagnosis. What I saw caused my heart to drop into my stomach.

"What in all the hells did they do to you, Hailey?"

Her body was more machine than organic. A metal skeleton, cybernetic organs. Frag! Half her brain was replaced with implants! I watched in dread as the system scanned her body before zooming in on her brain pinpointing the junction where her organic brain, implants, and NIL all met. The system spat a bunch of codes and terms at me that I had no context or idea as to what they meant.

The only thing I did understand was the bar representing her brain activity growing shorter by the second. I froze in indecision as I watched Hailey slip away from me. My composure and all my walls crumbled as I gripped the side of her bed hard enough to hurt.

"No, no, no! You don't get to do this to me, Hailey. I can't run the ship on my own, you know I'll break something! What the hells do you expect me to do now?" I wasn't a doctor, I hadn't the slightest idea on how to fix whatever was causing this.

Even so, I wasn't going to let Hailey just die right in front of me without doing anything. I desperately threw my thoughts and intentions at my NIL, trying to harness that feeling I'd had before when I jail-broke the crew list. I could feel that purple haze and cold heat in my head, and I watched as a list of commands that I didn't understand the purpose of scrolled by on my NIL. The medical chair reacted, with different arms extending and injecting her with various drugs.

I watched, sagging in relief, as her brain activity stopped degrading, but there was no improvement, just a halt to the freefall. I had to hope that I could find a treatment when full power came back on, and I had access to the ship's library again.

As if in answer to my thoughts, the power chose that moment to come back, the medical bay returning to its regular warm lighting. My relief was short-lived, however, as immediately alarms started going off. The ship sent a sensor readout to my NIL showing a squadron of ships on course for the station. It was an Itzli Imperial Navy squadron, not a Merchant House fleet, but the actual navy.

You don't frag around with the Itzli Imperial Navy, Most of the policing in Itzli space is done either by the system authorities or Merchant House fleets. If you see the IIN somebody is going to end up dead, it's just a question of if you're in a prison cell or scattered across the void when it happens.

Why were they coming here? They had no way to know where I was, and the only one who would have any interest, or the knowledge, to track me was Ti'Zok who would have used his House fleet, not the actual navy. Did they detect the graviton signal? No, that doesn't make sense either, it's only been a few hours and the Itzli have never shown any sign of using any graviton tech outside their drive systems. But, even if they did have it hidden away, the timeframe was far too short unless I was the unluckiest son of a Kab to ever exist.

I went over all the information I had on the ship with no result. We'd been on emergency power for over four hours so there was a massive blindspot where we'd been without sensors. The Hab! They would have had sensor readings and logs from that period.

I didn't have time to ask for permission, that Itzli fleet was only thirty minutes out at most, and banked on nobody bothering to close the backdoor I'd found years ago. Success, nobody had probably even looked at permissions for the 'sanitary technician' role. I'm just glad I remembered the account password after all this time.

Backdooring into the system from there I used the admin privileges on the account to pull up the sensor and transmission logs for the station. Nothing unusual on the sensors, just a note about a solar flare that would pass by in about eight hours to remind everyone to be inside when it passed the station.

I glanced at the transmission logs as I surfed through the rest of the- wait a minute, why is there a message to the system beacon four hours ago? Itzli law only requires a weekly update, there should be another four days before the next one. That's right after I sent the message station-side that we were going offline to do maintenance too. Thankfully whoever did it was too ignorant, or stupid, to know to wipe their stored message drafts. The evidence stared me in the face, as rage and betrayal built to a churning storm in me. So damning that there was no room for arguing.

"Tank, you stupid scrap-brained piece of slag, you just fragged everyone!" He'd sent a message embedded in the update directly to the IIN detailing what my ship was and who was flying it.

I'm a fugitive in violation of my contract wanted for the destruction of Merchant House property, not limited to but including the docking equipment and the dozen fighters destroyed in my escape. I'm also flying a contraband ship. The entire station is dead, they just don't know it yet. They'll be judged guilty of giving a known criminal refuge, and for what? Because he wanted my bounty?

I have to get out of here. There's no time to evacuate the station, there are thousands of people on there. And where would they go? I could take a few hundred at the most. The only thing I can do is take the people I care about. If I let everyone know all that will do is cause a panic and make more problems for me. I know it's a terrible thing, but what else can I do?

I fire off a message to Tayle, Winri, Gericht, and Arvin telling them what's happening, and to grab what they can in five minutes and then get to the docking bridge. Winri replies immediately telling me she'll find Gericht and get there as fast as they can. Surprisingly, I receive a prompt reply from Arvin as well saying he'll be there, but from Tayle I hear nothing.

"Damnit, Tayle, where are you?" I hijack the surveillance cameras, rapidly cycling through them trying to find her.

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She's not in any of the common areas and checking her work schedule shows that she should be off shift by now. I take a gamble and ping her personal compad hoping that she's carrying it with her. I get a return from a corridor in an unused section of the station and my stomach burns with anger when I switch to the, thankfully still operational, camera there. Tayle is tied up in a dead-end corridor, mouth gagged.

Whoever did this doesn't appear to be there anymore, but it's a simple matter to check the footage and see Tank carrying an unconscious Tayle down the hall. I stared, stunned, at the camera feed. Was that the reason for this insanity? Because he was afraid Tayle would take me up on my offer and leave? I never realized he was this obsessed with her.

I didn't have time to think about the why's right now. I had to go get Tayle, or she was going to burn with the rest of them when the Itzli navy arrived. But, that meant leaving Hailey alone. I looked over at her face where she lay motionless in her medical bed. I knew what she would say if she was awake to talk to me, she'd tell me "Rama you Idiot-Captain, go save your friend."

"I'll be back, Hailey." I reached over and gave her arm a squeeze and then, hesitating, I leaned over and placed a kiss on her head before running for the door.

I grabbed my jacket and guns from my quarters and put them on as I ran for the cargo lift. I sent another quick message to Winri telling her I had to go get Tayle and to just wait at the lift if I wasn't back when she got there. Fastening my gunbelt as the lift began its trip to the station I urged it to go faster, my heart thundering in my chest as I anxiously fidgeted.

I did not make an unobtrusive entrance to the station dashing off the lift, there was no time for subtlety. Every minute the Itzli fleet was getting closer, and checking Tank's current location showed that he had left Tayle to take his shift on coms. and sensors, so there would be no warning for anyone.

I dove into the halls of the station, shoving people out of the way to indignant cries as I made a mad dash for Tayle. I'd pulled a map of the station up on my NIL to help with my partial memory of the station's layout. Tayle was located at the end of a dead-end hallway in an unused section near the center of the station. The fact that it was as far away from the docking bridge as possible could only be a deliberate decision on Tank's part.

I finally left the inhabited section behind, leaving me with empty halls and no one to slow me down. I poured on the speed as I sped through the maze of corridors. My arm burned from the strain as I used it to fling myself around corners, trying to shave desperate seconds off my trip.

My stress mounted as I wasted time I didn't have to backtrack around blockages or undocumented alterations to the station layout. Checking the time and sensors I cursed, I had already spent ten minutes getting this far and I hadn't even reached Tayle yet. I still had the trip back and I had already used up almost half the time before the Itzli fleet arrived.

Rounding the last corner, I finally entered the stretch of the hallway where Tayle was held. I could see her at the far end, bound, gagged, and chained to the wall. I slid to a stop beside her on my knees, wincing as they slammed into the deck hard, Tayle looking at me with wide-eyed surprise.

"Give me a second, Tayle, and I'll get you out of that." She gave me a frantic nod as I desperately went to work on freeing her.

The gag was a simple enough matter to untie, but she'd been chained to the wall with metal cuffs. I pulled my gun from its holster and held Tayle in place as I carefully aimed it at the metal cuffs. I gently squeezed the trigger and there was a brief flash of blue light as the particle weapon fired a brief beam of protons, melting a hole through the metal chain.

"Come on, there's no time to talk, Tank pulled an entire Itzli Imperial Fleet down on our heads. We have to get back to the ship and get the frag away from here."

"Is there anything you can't live without in your quarters?" She shook her head silently, still trying to cope with her universe being turned upside down.

"Then come on." I grabbed her hand as I holstered my gun and lead her back the way I came at a breakneck pace.

It soon became apparent that Tayle couldn't keep pace with me. Long hours spent in zero gravity and accumulated radiation damage had left her weak and out of shape and now she'd spent hours awkwardly sitting in that cramped corridor. I anxiously checked the time, only fifteen minutes until the fleet arrived now. I couldn't afford to slow down our pace.

I slowed slightly as I gave a sharp tug on Tayle's arm. She yelped as she lost her balance and tripped towards me. As she fell, my arms smoothly slid under her back and thighs as I carried her. I resumed my breakneck pace as Tayle looked at me wide-eyed.

"Sorry, but we need to go faster. There's no time to slow down." Tayle nodded slightly before curling up against my chest and pulling her legs in, trying to make herself as small as possible to avoid bumping into anything.

My breathing was surprisingly even as I sprinted through the abandoned halls. Even carrying Tayle, as light as she was, didn't have any effect on my endurance. Hailey had made sure I exercised regularly but thinking about it now, I'd never really struggled or had to push myself after that first week when my body was recovering.

I plowed back into the populated parts of the station again. People seemed more inclined to get out of my way now that I was carrying someone, likely thinking there was some kind of medical emergency. If it let me get back faster I wasn't going to correct their misconception.

I checked the clock again as I left the residential area behind and entered the massive cargo bays that separated it from the docking bridge. I spotted Kal out of the corner of my eye as I ran past the one repurposed as his workshop.

Finally, I entered the docking bridge. I could see a small group ahead of me by the ship's lift as I flew down the docking bridge toward them. I saw Gericht and Winri, with Winri sitting on a small pile of suitcases and bags. There was another pair of figures facing away from me, one of them hunched over catching their breath, presumably Arvin and his unknown wife.

I slid to a halt in front of them as Winri stood and the other pair turned to face me. I gently set Tayle down on her feet and held her arm as she regained her balance after our frenetic run.

"No matter what happens, get on the lift as soon as it arrives. The Itzli fleet will be here any minute." I summoned the lift with my NIL, mentally cursing whoever designed it to return to the ship automatically.

"What's all this about, Rama? Why is the Itzli Navy coming here?" Winri asked.

"They're coming here for me because that fragging idiot Tank called them down on our heads."

"What?! That's not- Tank would never- Why would he do such a thing?" Arvin demanded.

"Me, he did it because of me," Tayle said, her arms wrapped around herself, shaking in horror as she finally wrapped her head around what was happening.

"No," I immediately denied, "He did it because he's a fragged-up slaghead. You're not responsible for his obsession."

"But I still could have done something!"

"Done what? Surrendered yourself to his obsession and let yourself become his property in everything but name? That's not right either, you don't deserve to be treated that way. You really want to spend your life with the man that just left you tied up in a dead-end hallway?"

"But..."

"No, Tayle, the only one responsible for Tank is Tank. You can't shoulder the blame for someone else's problems."

I looked up as I heard the Docking bridge gates open and the lift descended, having finally passed through the airlock. Hoped welled in my chest as our salvation approached on titanium cables.

That hope quickly disappeared as I turned at the sound of a multitude of approaching footsteps behind me. Kal and Tank stood at the head of a mob blocking the entire width of the docking bridge. There had to be almost a hundred people, likely everyone they could grab from the cargo bays and workshops on short notice. Many were armed with impromptu weapons from where they worked. I saw cutting and welding lasers, saws, and drills as the stone-faced residents glared at us.

"I should have known," Tank declared, his scarred face twisted in a cruel glare.

"What? That I wouldn't let you just kidnap one of my friends?! You've gone completely mad, Tank!" If I could keep him talking until the lift arrived then we stood a chance of getting out of here without someone getting a hole drilled in them with a mining laser.

"She's not yours!" Tanked howled.

"You're right! She's not, she's her own person, and neither you nor I or anyone else own her!"

"It doesn't matter," Kal interjected, "There's no escape for you now, the Itzli are already here."

"Kal! You knew about this insanity?!" Tayle cried, shocked at the brazen stupidity of her former husband.

"It's not insanity, I'm just taking what I deserve."

"You know, I always knew you were a greedy son-of-a-slag, Kal, I just didn't think you were a stupid one too. You are right about one thing though, you are getting what you deserve. You seem to be under the illusion that the Itzli are your friends. The Itzli are no one's friend, and you're all going to die for your ignorance and idiocy."