It’s time for the final snippet from Accursed Space, book four of my space fantasy series, Star Mage Saga, which goes on sale tomorrow. The mercs’ ship, Duchess, has come under attack, and Carina faces a nearly impossible task. If you missed the first three snippets, start reading here. 

Chapter Four

Carina had almost reached the docking port, when—

“Brace for acceleration,” ordered a voice over the shipwide comm.

It took her a moment to recognize the speaker: it was the former co-pilot, Hsiao, who had taken over from Stevenson.

She scanned her surroundings for somewhere to prop herself against or something to hold onto before the Duchess sped up. Only the hand bars that lined the corridor just above head height—for use if the ship lost a-grav—were available.

She reached up, but just as her hand touched a bar the full acceleration force hit, flinging her along the passage and into a wall. Her skull and back smacked into the hard surface and air whooshed from her lungs.

The ship continued to move so fast she didn’t slide to the floor but remained pressed against the wall.

Hsiao was really gunning it.

Struggling to breathe and trying to ignore the pain radiating from her head and spine, Carina hoped neither the kids nor Bryce had been hurt.

What was Cadwallader’s reasoning behind the massive acceleration?

The last time the Duchess had faced Lomang’s wife’s ship, the fate of the battle had seemed sealed before it had even begun. The destroyer carried a particle lance, a weapon the mercs’ vessel had little defense against. Pulse cannon fire could disrupt the particle beam somewhat, and a well-aimed shot could take out the lance, but at close quarters and unimpeded, a particle lance was deadly. A single direct hit, or rather ‘slice’, of a lance’s beam would breach most ships’ hulls.

Decompression would be fast and fatal to anyone unlucky enough to be caught in the path of the escaping air. Unlike the last time the Duchess had been hit by the lance, its occupants were not wearing EVA suits.

Had Cadwallader ordered Hsiao to try to outrun the destroyer? But the mercs’ vessel didn’t have the capability.

Then it hit her. The lieutenant colonel was trying to reach the Bathsheba. If the Duchess moved between the destroyer and the inter-sector ship, Lomang’s wife might hesitate to fire, reluctant to risk damaging the larger vessel.

It was a smart move. In the circumstances, it was the only move.

Carina also had an idea what Cadwallader’s end game was. If she was right, he would need her at her station.

She was pressed against a wall where the corridor turned around a corner. Grimacing at the effort, she twisted herself around and reached for the nearest handhold. Her fingers closed around the bar and she pulled herself forward against the force of acceleration, in the direction of the docking port. She gave out a grunt as she reached for the next bar, and the next, hauling herself hand over hand along the wall.

At the far end of the corridor, another merc appeared from an adjoining passage. He was also crawling along the vertical surface toward the port.

Cadwallader’s voice barked from her ear comm, “Where are you, Lin? Why aren’t you at your station?”

“On my way,” she replied with some effort. “I’m trying, but—”

The lieutenant colonel cut her off. “Never mind. I need you there ASAP. I want you to lead a boarding party.”

“A party to board the Bathsheba?”

“Unless you had somewhere else in mind?” Cadwallader’s tone was sharp and sarcastic. “We’ve taken out the lasers defending one of the airlocks. ETA four minutes. Make it.”

The comm went dead.

Shit.

Why her? Why not Atoi? As a captain, her friend was the obvious choice for the job.

Carina hoped Atoi hadn’t been hurt, and that it was only that Cadwallader had another task in mind for her.

She grasped the next rung and pulled with all her strength. To run the distance to the port from her position would have only taken thirty seconds in normal conditions, but at the Duchess’s current acceleration she would be lucky to reach it in ten minutes.

Cadwallader had said she only had four. It was an impossible task.

She groaned as she dragged her body forward. By pushing her toes into the bars behind her she could propel herself onward a little and lessen the strain on her arms, which were already in agony. The sweat oozing from the skin on her hands also made gripping the handholds difficult.

The ship shuddered. It had been a hit.

Yelling echoed down the corridor. Someone was issuing orders, but she couldn’t make out what they were saying. The Duchess must have received some damage.

How long had it been since Cadwallader had comm’d her? It had to be thirty seconds or even a whole minute.

The docking port remained frustratingly far away.

The merc ahead of her seemed to be barely moving too.

Another problem popped into Carina’s mind: she wasn’t in armor or carrying a weapon. According to Lomang’s responses while Enthralled, the Bathsheba carried no crew, but his wife would probably also attempt to board the ship. If that happened a fight for control was a given.

An armory was situated near the port but reaching it would take additional time—time she didn’t have.

Then she realized the flaw in her thinking. She’d been imagining the acceleration would continue, but if the Duchess sped up, that meant the ship also had to—

“Brace for braking,” instructed Hsiao.

Carina quickly clutched two bars with all her might and scrabbled her feet around, trying to hook her toes under another bar.

The deceleration hit—hard.

When the reversal in forces came, her slippery hands couldn’t hold onto the metal bars. As she flew down the passage, she lifted an arm to try to protect her head.

Her elbow took the full force of the impact.

She screamed as its bones shattered.

The deceleration was pushing her into the wall but it wasn’t sufficient to hold her upright. She slid to the floor. Her right arm was strangely bent and blood soaked into her sleeve.

The other merc who had been trying to get to the port hit the wall beside her, but he was wearing armor that protected him.

He lifted his visor and pulled a face when he peered closer at Carina’s wound. He slipped a knife from a sheath on his thigh and slit her sleeve open.

Bone shards were poking through her skin at her elbow.

“I’ll comm for a medic.”

“No,” she gasped. “It’s okay. Just…” she ground her jaw to prevent herself from crying out, “…just take the flask from my hip and pour some of the liquid into my mouth,” she finished through clenched teeth.

The merc’s eyebrows lifted but he did as she instructed.

The flavor of elixir was usually disgusting, but at that moment she didn’t think she’d tasted anything more delicious.

She closed her eyes, forcing away the agony from her arm that threatened to consume her mind. She wrote the Heal Character in her mind’s eye, and sent it out.

A second or two later, the pain began to fade.

She opened her eyes and looked at her elbow.

The bone shards had withdrawn into her skin, and the wound was closing up. Within a few beats her arm resumed a regular shape. Soon, all that remained of her injury was rapidly drying blood.

“Stars,” breathed the watching merc. “I knew you could do magic but I didn’t know you could do that.”

“It isn’t magic,” said Carina irritably.

“Shit,” she added, recalling Cadwallader’s command. “We have to get to the docking port.”

She screwed the lid onto her elixir canister, replaced it in its holster, and leapt to her feet.

The Duchess had continued to slow with brutal force while she’d been Healing herself, and the braking continued. Good. It meant they still had time before the ship attempted to dock with the Bathsheba.

She began to run, pressing her hand against the wall to counteract the rapid deceleration.

The armory appeared ahead of her, the doorway open. She ran inside, snatched one of the few remaining suits, and hastily put it on. Only two rifles remained. She grabbed one from its cradle.

As she’d been suiting up, the deceleration had eased.

“Lin,” blurted Cadwallader from her ear comm, “where the hell are you?”

It was a rhetorical question. The lieutenant colonel knew exactly where she was. Her armor would have identified her from her bio signatures and logged her position in the ship’s system.

“Nearly there, sir,” she replied.

Sir? Where had that come from?

She’d automatically slotted back into merc mode, but there was no time to ponder it.

Carina sprinted out of the armory and headed for the port.

As she was running, the Duchess jerked violently, throwing her to her knees. Had the ship taken another hit?

Or maybe they hadn’t been hit—maybe they’d clamped onto the Bathsheba.

She rounded the final corner and ran directly into a bunch of ten or more mercs in armor. The men and women were checking their weapons and lowering their visors.

Names appeared on her HUD, identifying the soldiers. Bryce was not among them, which wasn’t surprising—his battle station was at the Duchess’s airlock. Yet she found herself wishing he was there.

The mercs turned to face her, awaiting orders.

Thanks for reading! To find out what happens to Carina, her mage family, and the mercs, download Accursed Space.