Nick woke up screaming.

"Sorry," a fuakala he didn't know told him in Kthufu. "You need heal."

Nick stopped screaming at once, but mostly because he couldn't draw enough breath. He blinked back tears and watched uncomprehending for a moment as the fuakala pulled his shirt up—tearing that loose was probably what caused his scream—and proceeded to wrap a long strip of cotton around and around his chest, working quickly but skillfully. She has to have been a nurse or a doctor before her world ended, Nick was sure.

His brain started up again. "Petra, how long was I out? Asleep, I mean." He was in a different, very small cabin in the shuttle. I slept through being moved?

"Four minutes, eight seconds." Nick realized that he could feel some acceleration, though it wasn't intense like he imagined spaceship takeoffs.

"How long until we reach the...mother ship?"

"We go to Kalash-Quovo in eight minutes, forty-four seconds."

Yikes. Not much time left. I was hoping the trip would take longer.

"Petra, can you take over the Kalash-Quovo the same way you did the shuttle?"

"Yes, Nick."

"Great. Print the dongle we need."

"Which one?"

Uh-oh.

"Petra, how many dongles do we need?"

"Three."

"Why isn't one enough?"

"Goldaskian ships have three parts."

"So, we need to plug in a dongle in three different places?"

"Yes, Nick."

"Can the places be close to each other?"

"No, Nick."

Crap. We're going to need to run through the halls—passageways—looking for ports? We'll never make it. We'll probably be found out the minute we arrive.

"Can one of them be in the landing bay, right outside the shuttle?"

"Yes, Nick."

All right, that might be doable, if this thing has a back door or something...but how the hell do we get to two other places? And...even if I can stand up and put on armor, I can't be in three places at once. This has to be a team effort.

"Petra, tell Jenkins all of this."

"Geh!kin knows all of this." Nick was surprised, then realized he shouldn't have been. You don't have to do everything, dumbass. You're not the great white hero man leading savages and teaching them how to fight. You're helping friends learn some new gadgets on the fly, and half of them are better at it than you are.

I'm glad Jenkins is on top of the problem, because I've been sleeping on the job. "Does Jenkins have a plan?"

Petra paused. "He says he has two thirds of a plan."

"Tell him—" Nick tried to get up and bit back a scream. He looked at the unfamiliar fuakala nurse. "Nick," he said, pointing to himself, then at her.

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"Foh!una." Call her Fortuna, Nick decided. That's a name, right? He didn't have time to do better. "Help me up. Please. Uh...Help me go up." Belatedly he realized that Petra was translating for the nurse at the same time and doing a better job of it.

"That, too," he said, pointing at the tablet, which had been brought back to him at some point. One of her ears bent a bit. Is that like a raised eyebrow?

Fortuna sighed, then folded her ears back and helped him to stand. Nick bit his lip and started sweating, but managed not to let out any yells or whimpers. He might be breathing loudly through his nose, though. Don't be a wuss, Nick. You can fall down after we take the ship.

After we try to take it.

Shut up, brain.

Fortuna opened the door and helped him through it, into a larger compartment crammed with people. There was some shouting, and jostling that blacked out his vision a moment, but when his vision cleared, he was being supported standing in a small cluster of people.

He recognized Geh!kin, and Geh!aoa, who was moving around despite the green glow coming from her chest. Seeing it, Nick felt a moment of fury towards the nameless Goldaskian soldier stupid enough to shoot and nearly obliterate the healing swarm. There wasn't enough left to save her. There wasn't. I didn't do the wrong thing, telling Petra to heal the others. Saving three people was better than wasting the power on Ktheg!lik when it wouldn't work.

There was also a tall, fairly dark green fuakala wearing Goldaskian armor minus the helmet, which they had under one arm. The armor looked singed, but that was fine. They were supposed to be fresh from a fight. "Hello. I am Nick," he rasped.

"Zaa!nu." Xanadu, Nick's brain picked.

"You help me. Thank you," he said in Kthufu, badly, without the click sounds. Xanadu dipped her head a moment. Apparently his meaning got through his accent.

Jenkins turned around a tablet to show him, and Nick blinked. Petra's got full schematics on the mother ship? Someday, girl, we have to sit down and talk about where you learned all this shit. The schematic was divided into three parts.

"Nik!eh, we cannot fight hundreds of bad guys," Petra translated for Geh!kin.

"Yes."

"One person in suit go wall, here or here." Petra helpfully set the points blinking for a moment. The spots were in the landing bay.

"Good."

"One person go sick room, here." He pointed at a spot in a different section.

Nick grinned and nodded. "That's smart. I like it."

"You do this?"

Nick froze a moment, then nodded slowly. "Yes, if I can."

"You can have suit." Jenkins held up a hand to indicate Nick's height. "You have suit now. Six zegs."

Nick nodded, but paused before going. "What about the third one?"

"I think, I think!"

Nick peered at the schematic, eyes ranging over the third section of the ship. He had no way of recognizing anything except maybe...

"Oh, shit." His thoughts fell into place. He reached out and tapped the spot. "Fake Petra in box." He gestured vaguely. "Say you leader Killish. Go Leader ship. Captain Foh. The bridge." The fuakalas started talking about it rapidly in Kthufu. Nick stared at the schematic.

That's going to suck for whoever has to do it. He searched his soul. Suicide mission. But, if nobody does it, we all die. Am I willing to die for these people?

I helped them. But I also brought this trouble to their door. I got half their people killed.

Yeah. Guess I'm doing it.

Shit.

Really?

Nick thought really hard. Yeah. Really. He screwed up his courage.

"I go there," he volunteered.

They looked at him for a moment. Jenkins shook his head. "No, Nick. You go sick room. You...walk small. You are sick. You no can go to bridge. Now, get in suit. I think."

"Who go to bridge?"

"I go," Xanadu told him. "I walk good in suit." Her ears flapped a bit. "I walk more good in suit. Get in suit, Nik!eh. Get in now."

Fortuna helped him over to the spare sets of armor. It wasn't built with humans in mind, but it was mostly close enough. He winced as he tried to fit his crotch in place, though. That's gonna chafe.

He looked for a place to put Petra. She's the hot potato. The big prize. The McMuffin, or whatever you call it. Reluctantly, he decided to put her into a compartment of the belt on the suit. He had to wait a moment, as Petra was printing the third dongle. Then he carefully stashed both.

Jenkins appeared to be telling Petra what to say on behalf of each of them. Nice that I don't have to remember my lines, at least. Nick painfully managed to suit up the rest of the way. Fuck. It's only for a few minutes. After that, I'll either be dead, or I can take this off.

Another fuakala was being helped into a different armored suit, then was handed a dongle. They immediately dropped it. Nick observed that, and thought, yup. We're dead. There wasn't anything he could do about it, though, so it wasn't his problem.

He practiced walking, and had to be caught a couple of times. He was actually helped because walking incorrectly hurt his junk like hell, so he had real good motivation to get it right. He made sure he could retrieve the dongle and Petra while wearing the suit gloves.

There was a mad scramble as the rest of the survivors crammed themselves into spaces other than the loading bay. Someone handed Xanadu a box and a dongle before they fled.

The noises of the engine changed, and there was a clang. Nick swallowed.

Showtime.

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