“Understood,” he said after a short while, then looked at Dykan. “Sly and Boda just informed me they found the human.”
Kat’s heart stopped. “Is he alright? Please, tell me.”
“He’s alive, but he is very agitated. I guess he finds it somewhat hard to believe that Makaen are here to rescue a human. It’s best if you go to him now, to calm him down.”
“You take her to that human,” Dykan ordered Selvin, “and get them off this ship. I will place the explosives and return to the freighter with our transporter. Make sure you put some distance between this ship and our freighter. We don’t want to get hit by debris.”
Selvin nodded, handing his backpack over to Dykan. “The explosives are in here. One separate switch activates them all. And once they are armed, you have fifteen minutes to get away. As a fail-safe, there is no way to stop the countdown, so, you’d better be out of here when things go boom. There’s also a communicator in the backpack so you can let us know when you’ve armed the bombs.”
“Got it.” Dykan slung the backpack over his shoulder, then turned to Kat. “Good luck with your human. I will see you soon.” He lifted his hand to touch her face but faltered when he saw his claws were covered in Zzjitzzeën blood, and he lowered his hand.
Kat felt torn. She really, really wanted to see Lucas, but she also didn’t want to leave Dykan. After all they’d been through, being separated from him seemed…wrong. She understood why Dykan had decided to place the explosives himself. As their captain, his first responsibility was his crew’s safety, and it was only logical he would make sure they wouldn’t be followed. That also meant he would leave this ship last. Yes, it was logical, but it also sucked.
Standing on her tiptoes, Kat leaned in and pulled Dykan’s head down by his pointed ears and pressed her lips on a clean spot on his forehead.
“Don’t keep me waiting too long, space pirate,” she breathed before she let him go and followed Selvin off the bridge.
Chapter 19
“Lucas?”
The man who turned around had a beard and was scruffy and skinnier than the Lucas she knew, but gazing into his familiar beautiful dark brown eyes, she recognized him immediately. He was standing in the middle of the cargo hold, clutching the bars of a big square crate like his life depended on it.
His eyes went wide with bewilderment and his jaw dropped.
“K-Kat?” he stammered faintly. “What are you doing here?”
“We’re here to rescue you. Thank the gods you’re okay.” She raced toward him and threw her arms around his waist. He smelled so bad it made her eyes water, but she didn’t care. He was alive and safe.
Lucas cupped her face, looking at her as if he had seen a ghost.
“Is it really you?” he murmured. “I can’t believe this.” His hands slid around her shoulders, and he rested his chin on the top of her head.
“Yep, it’s me,” Kat said softly, doing her best not to cry. “Lirid and Mitha are here too. And we brought them.”
Kat nodded toward Selvin, Sly and Boda, who were standing at the entrance, speaking to each other with serious expressions on their faces.
“You got Makaen to help you?” Lucas asked, stunned.
Kat grinned. “They’re not so bad once you get to know them.”
Selvin walked toward them. “You two can reminisce when we’re off this ship. We need to go now. Dykan has placed the explosives. Follow us.”
Lucas released Kat and shook his head fiercely. “No, we can’t go yet. We have to take them with us.”
He pointed to the crates. No, not crates, Kat thought, cages. Were there more prisoners?
Kat stepped closer to the cage Lucas had been holding on to and glanced inside, peeping through a narrow opening in the metallic plating. First she couldn’t make out what she was looking at—something big and hairy—then it slowly dawned on her. With her jaw on the floor, Kat turned her baffled gaze to Lucas, who was nodding his head, a big smile covering his face.
“Are those…?” Kat asked in disbelief, still in processing mode.
“Yes. Those are Marban beasts. Eight of them. Five females and three males.”
Kat shook her head. “That’s impossible. They are supposed to be extinct.”
“Apparently they’re not,” he replied with excitement in his voice. “And before you ask, they are the real thing, not clones or something. The Zzjitzzeëns checked their DNA.”
“Why the delay?” Boda asked, now standing next to Selvin. “We need to go.”
Kat looked at Selvin. “Is it possible for us to take all these cages with us?”
“Why?” he asked. “What’s in them?”
“Marban beasts,” Kat replied.
Boda stepped forward, peeking into the cage. “Are they food?”
“No!” Kat shrieked. “They’re animals that were thought to be extinct, like dinosaurs or dodoes.”
Boda shrugged his shoulders ignorantly, giving her a questioning stare. “So, not food, then?”
“No, not food, Boda. They are very important. We can’t leave them.”
Selvin’s ridges frowned. “The animals are too big for us to take through the hole we made to enter this ship, and too big to fit in our transporter. We can only take them one by one, but we don’t have the time for that.”
“I’m not leaving without them,” Lucas declared. “I’ve been taking care of these animals from the moment I was captured. We must take them with us. Please.”
Kat bit her lip in thought and scanned the hold. “What about the Zzjitzzeëns’ shuttle?” She pointed at the vessel at the far side of the hall. “It’s much bigger than your transporter.”
Selvin’s eyes went from the cages to the shuttle and back. He nodded. “That might work.”
He gestured to Sly. “Do you think you can get that shuttle working?”
Narrowing his eyes, Sly gazed at the shuttle for a moment. “No problem. Give me one minute.”
“Okay, everyone, start hauling those cages to the shuttle,” Selvin yelled out. “Move it!”
Even though the cages were constructed to be mobile, hovering above the floor, as Lucas explained, they still were ginormous and weighed tons, as did the creatures inside them. So Kat had to leave most of the work to the Makaen. After Sly had managed to get the Zzjitzzeëns’ shuttle to function and open the shuttle’s back entrance, he started helping to push the cages inside.
One of the smaller beasts in a cage at the end of the line started to pace back and forth restlessly. Kat tried to comfort the creature by speaking to it softly. At least she could help a bit this way, she figured.
“It’s okay, big boy…or girl. I know this is scary, but we’re here to help you. And don’t worry about the grumpy Makaen who wanted to eat you. His bark is louder than his bite. And I’ll make sure—”
When she heard two loud bangs that made the floor shake, Kat spun around in the direction of the noise, her heart pounding in her chest. She realized that the bangs hadn’t come from inside the hall but from another part of this ship. What the hell had happened? Was Dykan okay?