Polaris Rising (Consortium Rebellion, #1)(78)

I had a stretcher, a glass window, and a locked door, plus a roomful of soldiers waiting outside. These were not the ideal circumstances for escape.

I kept pacing, stretching the muscles that had tensed into knots under the onslaught of the stun rounds. Once pacing no longer hurt, I boxed an invisible foe. My arms felt heavy and slow, but I kept at it until the muscles warmed and softened.

Richard walked out of sight, the commander trailing behind him. The rest of the guards stayed, though they lounged around more with their superiors gone. Plans flitted through my head, but I discarded them as fast as I thought them up. Richard had been thorough and I didn’t have much to work with. Only one option presented itself and it was guaranteed to get me stunned again.

Yay.

With nothing to lose, I picked up the stretcher and slammed it into the window in one smooth motion. The handles penetrated the window and glass shattered into a million tiny pieces. I kept pushing, ramming the guard who watched me. Before the other guard could react, I’d caught him by the belt and pulled his blaster from the holster, using him as a human shield.

The room froze, as if they couldn’t quite believe their eyes. I did not waste time. I’d hit three soldiers with incapacitating shots by the time they regrouped and took cover.

The guard I held tried to pull away. I jammed the blaster in his kidney. “Move and die,” I said.

“You won’t shoot your shield,” he said. His voice came out muffled thanks to his helmet.

“Oh, but I will. I have this nice wall to hide behind. And if you don’t quit squirming, you’ll see how serious I am.” I jabbed him again with the gun.

“What the fuck is going on here?” Richard demanded. He walked into sight, his face furious.

The man should know better than to walk into a combat zone. But perhaps he hadn’t heard the blaster shots, just the shouting.

“My lord, get—” an anonymous soldier tried to warn him.

I took a potshot at Richard. It went wide, but it forced him into cover. The guard in my grasp spun, trying to pull me off-balance. Instead, I let him go and shot him point-blank.

I mentally boxed up the revulsion caused by my actions. I would mourn him later. I would mourn them all. But for now, I was still trapped. A half-full blaster was the only thing standing between me and a stint aboard Richard’s ship.

It would not be enough. I knew it even as Richard yelled for the soldiers with stun pistols to pin me down. Stun bolts slammed into both the wall I hid behind and the back wall of the room, sending sparks flying everywhere.

A quick glance out the window proved the guard commander was back and issuing silent orders via hand signals. The remaining soldiers fanned out. I jerked my head back as a barrage of blasts plowed into the wall.

There was no substantial cover between me and the soldiers. The second I went over the wall, they would stun me into next week. But the longer I stayed here, the more prepared they became.

“Richard,” I yelled, “call your men off. I do not want to have to keep killing them.”

“You have a single blaster and are trapped in that room. Give up now and I won’t let them beat you to death,” he yelled back.

It wasn’t a bad deal, all things considered, but if I was going down, I was going down in a blaze of glory. It might be a near-zero chance of success, but I’d been lucky before. Another glance showed me two soldiers on my left and three on my right. Both Richard and the commander were also on my left but they were now tucked out of sight. I pulled back before they shot at me again.

I took a deep breath, held it, then released it slowly as I mentally prepared myself to do something that I knew was going to hurt—a lot. Success rested on surprise and speed. Any hesitation due to fear of pain would guarantee failure.

I transferred the gun to my left hand. I wouldn’t be able to shoot worth shit but I needed my right hand to help me vault the window ledge. Without stopping to think too much, I launched myself out of the window while shooting at the locations I’d last seen the guards.

I made it far enough that I began to hope.

Then the pain hit in vicious waves as stun bolts slammed into my sides and back. I think I must’ve screamed but the pain was so intense my brain shut down for an indeterminate amount of time.

I slowly came back to myself. Several people nearby cursed angrily in loud voices. My sides from my shoulders to my ankles throbbed with a deep, bruising pain. Maybe they had tried to beat me to death after all?

“Enough!” Richard shouted over the general ruckus. “Sedate her then scan her for internal injuries. I want her loaded up and ready to go as soon as the ship returns. I do not want her awake causing trouble. She is valuable to the House. The next person who hits her dies.”

Something cool pressed against my neck with a short hiss. I didn’t fight the fall into blissful oblivion.





Chapter 21




I felt a hundred years old. My bones creaked as I rolled over and nearly fell out of the bed. I caught myself just in time, balancing precariously on my side in the narrow cot. Both my mouth and my head felt stuffed with cotton.

What the hell had happened?

It came back in bits and pieces. Richard had captured me; I’d become a liability to House von Hasenberg. Fuck. I only hoped Rhys and Loch had made it back to Father with Polaris so he would feel like rescuing my sorry ass.