Death of a Neutron Star - Eric Kotani [14]
She smiled and nodded to the guard.
The fool smiled back, then turned, pretending to get back to work. A half step beyond him she turned and knocked him out with the statue.
He went down with a soft thump.
She hoped she hadn't hit him too hard. There was no point in killing anyone. She quickly checked. He was still breathing, but she bet he'd have a hell of a headache in the morning.
She stepped back and around a corner as the other guard came down the hallway. He saw his companion and did what anyone would do, and what Tyla wanted him to do: he bent over to check the condition of his friend.
Tyla knocked him out, also, not as hard as the first one. The second guard went down with a grunt.
He'd have a headache too, she was sure.
Since she had planned her route before leaving her cabin, in less than a minute she was inside the shuttlebay. The human shuttle seemed small, and plain compared with the prince's yacht. It was square, with no real beauty to it. The door was open and she crawled inside, taking her time to study the instruments. She was sure she had a few minutes before the guards would be found, and then even longer before they thought to look here. She had time to make sure she didn't kill herself in this escape process.
Or at least she thought she did.
Suddenly the ship seemed to shimmer around her, and then it somehow vanished, as if it had been nothing more than a dream.
Then, without seeming reason, she found herself standing, facing a very angry Captain Janeway.
Beside her, guns drawn, were the two guards she had knocked out just a minute before, both not looking happy.
This wasn't possible. None of it was. How had she gotten here? She had been sitting a moment ago, now she was standing. How had the guards recovered so quickly?
None of this was possible. Yet to the captain, it all seemed normal.
"I'm waiting for an explanation," Janeway said.
Tyla glanced around, then stepped down toward the captain and the two guards. Forcing herself not to think about how the captain had pulled off such a trick, she faced the human woman. "Captain, I need to warn my people."
"Why?" Janeway asked, the sound of her voice clear with anger. "Can they alter the path of a runaway neutron star, as you claim the Qavok can?"
"No, no," Tyla said. "But they can die trying to stop the Qavok. My people's leaders are hostages. We are at war." Why didn't this human see her point? It was so clear, so obvious.
"So you hit my people, attempt to steal from my ship, even though we helped you? And now we are in the process of rushing toward the neutron-star binary to stop the Qavok."
Tyla couldn't stand to look Captain Janeway in the eye. The truth of her words hurt, but she had done what she had needed to do. "Captain, I will do what I think is right to help my people."
Captain Janeway snorted. "You have a great deal to learn about helping anyone but yourself. Let alone what is right."
"But-"
Janeway waved her comment away. "Take her back to her room and make sure she stays there this time. Understand?"
"Yes, Captain," one guard said.
Janeway turned away, moving toward the door.
"Captain," Tyla said, forcing the shaking out of her voice to make it sound even more confident than she actually felt. "What would you have done in my place? You impound my ship, imprison me. What would you have done?"
Janeway stopped and turned. "I would have spent a little more time understanding who was a friend, and who wasn't, before I took chances of making new enemies."
Tyla stood straight, shoulders back, and stared at Janeway. "You claim to be a friend of my people, yet I'm not free to go. Why?"
"At the moment, it's because you assaulted the two men standing beside you for no reason at all. They were not detaining you." Janeway stepped back toward Tyla. "Before that, it was because your ship was damaged and was not space worthy, and I didn't have the time to have my people fix it, considering that we might be going