Eliana grinned. “Excellent.” She motioned to the pretties. “May I…?”
“Of course.”
She reached for a katana first. In the tight confines of a spaceship’s hallway, the katana might not be the best tool to use, but it had been her weapon of choice ever since Seth had given her one shortly after her transformation.
Eliana held the weapon in both hands, admiring the workmanship Joral had put into the scabbard, the cord wrapped around the handle, the engravings on the guard, the blade collar… She slid him a look. “You’re good.”
Crossing his arms over his broad chest, he arched a brow. “I’m better than good.”
She smiled. “Let’s see, shall we?” Curling her fingers around the handle, she slowly drew the blade from its sheath.
When Dagon held out a hand, she passed him the scabbard.
Eliana held the sword horizontal to the floor and rested it upon the index finger of her free hand, shifting it until she found the balance point several inches distant from the guard. She nodded approvingly. “This sword has good cutting power.” The farther the balance point from the guard, the stronger the cutting power. And any sword wielded with preternatural strength needed that.
“Every blade I craft has good cutting power,” Joral stated with unabashed pride.
“I can believe that.” She had wielded many swords over the centuries and knew quality when she saw and felt it.
Glancing behind her, she backed away until she stood in a large bare area, then tossed the blade into the air. The sword came close to striking the high ceiling before the ship’s artificial gravity drew it down again. As soon as the handle was in reach, she gripped it and started swinging. Familiar whooshing sounds filled the silent room as she swung the sword as if she battled multiple vampire foes. Though she carefully refrained from using her phenomenal speed, the blade still blurred as she spun and thrust and slashed at imaginary enemies in front of and behind her, twisting and ducking as though they fought back.
By the time she finished with a flourish, she was grinning big. It felt exactly like the katana she had lost in the battle with the Gathendiens, like an old friend with whom Joral had reunited her.
“I love it!” she proclaimed as she looked up from the blade.
Every man in the room stared at her, the workers with wide eyes, Joral with his arms now at his sides and a smile creasing his craggy features, and Dagon with obvious admiration… and something else.
Desire, perhaps?
Or was that merely wishful thinking? Because she sure as hell desired him.
Joral broke the silence. “You’re good.”
She grinned. “I’m better than good.”
Barking out a laugh, he shook his head. “I believe you. But even the best swordsman or swordswoman can’t repel blasterfire with a blade.”
Eliana did not doubt she could, but opted to respond with “We’ll see.”
“Commander Dagon.” Janek’s voice emerged from speakers Eliana couldn’t spot, his voice taut with tension. “Your presence is required on the bridge.”
All levity left Dagon’s handsome features as he tapped his earpiece. “I’m on my way, Janek.” He handed Eliana the katana’s scabbard. “Report.”
Eliana didn’t hear whatever Janek said because Joral murmured, “I’m glad the sword pleases you,” as she sheathed the katana.
Dagon strode toward the doorway. “You’re certain?”
Eliana kept her eyes on him even as she thanked Joral.
Stopping, Dagon looked at her over his shoulder. “You may wish to accompany me, Eliana. Janek believes he has located an escape pod.”
Her breath caught.
Joral took the katana. “I’ll hold this for you. You may retrieve it and inspect the other weapons later.”
“Thank you.” She hurried to join Dagon. “Has Janek communicated with whoever is in the pod yet? Is it one of my friends?” she asked as they strode down the corridor.
“He has attempted to communicate with the occupant but has received no response.”
Anxiety rose. “Could it be empty? Could one of your allies have already rescued whoever was inside it?”
“No. All commanders in the Aldebarian Alliance are notified when a pod, a survivor, or a casualty is found so we can map the trajectories of their expulsion from the qhov’rum and use it to estimate where more may be located.”
“That’s smart.”
“Also, whenever Alliance-sanctioned ships retrieve survivors, they collect the pods as well to return to the Lasarans.”
She could understand that. It probably cost an arm and a leg to manufacture those things. Leaving them to float in the middle of nowhere would be a waste of both money and resources.
It might also give anyone outside the Aldebarian Alliance access to at least some of the Lasarans’ advanced technology. Back on Earth, military outfits sometimes took pretty extreme measures to keep their technology from falling into the hands of enemy nations. The Lasarans would likely want to keep the Gathendiens from acquiring anything that might make them a more formidable opponent or help them survive space battles in the future. Based on the little bit of history she’d learned on the Kandovar, the Lasarans were likely already planning to attack the Gathendiens in retribution and either destroy them altogether or decimate their armies to such an extent that the Gathendiens would never again be able to wreak destruction upon others.
Though some might view that response as harsh, Eliana didn’t. The Gathendiens wanted to kill every man, woman, and child on Earth. As far as she was concerned, they deserved to meet the same fate they intended to dish out.
Tension thrummed through her as she and Dagon reached the bridge.
Janek glanced at them. “I picked up a distress beacon and traced it to a Lasaran escape pod.”
“Show me,” Dagon commanded.
Janek glanced at Galen. “Sending you the coordinates.”
Galen’s fingers moved across his console. A holographic map rose above his station. “Here.” A bright red dot appeared amid the stars.
Eliana had no experience at all when it came to reading star charts. But her Second, Max, had an app on his phone that would alert him to nights when a comet, planet, eclipse, meteor shower, or the like might be viewed with the naked eye or through his fancy telescope. So she knew enough to understand that some of the bright specks in the sky that her fellow Earth dwellers mistook for stars were actually planets.
The red dot they now studied was awfully close to a cluster of lights that she was pretty sure weren’t all stars.
“What are those?” She pointed to the cluster.
Dagon answered, never taking his eyes off the hologram. “The pod appears to be nearing a solar system similar to yours in which five planets observe elliptical orbits around their sun.”
“Is that a good thing or a bad thing?” Images of an escape pod barreling through a solar system, getting caught up in a planet’s gravitational pull, and crashing onto one of its moons danced through her head.
“Neither. Janek will seize control of the pod using the override code the Lasarans gave us, then will input a course devised by Galen to guide the pod toward us instead of away from us. Once that is accomplished, we should reach it more swiftly.”