Zakota

  Zakota

  Star Guardians, Book 5

  Ruby Lionsdrake

  Contents

  Copyright

  Foreword

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Epilogue

  Afterword

  Copyright © 2017 by Ruby Lionsdrake

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Foreword

  Zakota is the final novel in the five-book adventure that started with Orion. I appreciate you following along with the series, and I hope you enjoy the way everything comes together. The epilogue for this one breaks the mold and includes scenes from the perspectives of Katie, as well as all of the previous heroines. I’m assuming that you’re not picking up this book without having read the earlier ones, but just in case, I thought I would warn you about the long (but fun!) epilogue. I do recommend that you start with Orion if you’re new to my Star Guardians.

  Before you jump in, please let me thank my beta readers, Rue Silver and Sarah Engelke, for sticking with me for this series, and also my editor, Shelley Holloway. Finally, thanks to Deranged Doctor Design for all those man-chest covers. It’s amazing how many ways they can present those things, isn’t it?

  1

  “Is there a reason we’re doing our morning walk through the corridors of the ship instead of on the funky treadmill in the rec room?” Indi asked. “Aside from the fact that one of them flung you on your ass a couple weeks ago and broke your wrist?”

  Katie shot her a dirty look as they strode along the top level of the Falcon 8. “That isn’t reason enough? And it was a slight fracture, not a break.”

  Katie flexed her wrist, but it no longer ached. Even though she was going nuts after being cooped up on this ship for weeks—or maybe she’d lost track and it had been months by now—she had to admit the medical technology was amazing. As was the fact that they were flying through space, taking wormhole gates from star system to star system.

  If only someone would give her the chance to pilot the ship. She didn’t want to take anyone’s job necessarily; she just wanted to do it so she could say she had. And she wanted to do it often. How amazing would that be?

  “I’m pretty sure those are synonyms,” Indi said.

  “You’re a database programmer, not an English teacher. I refuse to accept you as an expert on medical terminology.” Mostly, Katie refused to accept that she’d fallen off a treadmill and broken something. Sure, it had been a legitimate surprise that the crazy machine went up and down—vigorously—as well as forward and back, but still. How embarrassing. Her hiking buddies back home would mock her endlessly if they found out.

  “Right, because database programmers are poorly educated schmucks who struggle to string words together into sentences,” Indi said. “Why are we stopping?”

  They had reached the sliding door that led to the bridge.

  Katie nonchalantly leaned her shoulder against the wall. “I need to rest.”

  “Rest? The person who does the Grand Canyon’s rim-to-rim trail for fun every month needs to rest?”

  “Technically, I usually do the rim-to-rim-to-rim trail. It’s forty-two miles, not twenty-four. Extra if you have to climb rocks to get around rattlesnakes.”

  Indi, who was famous for her hatred of snakes, javelinas, coyotes, bears, bees, mosquitoes, and other vaguely dangerous wildlife that called Arizona home, shuddered visibly. She seemed less scared of her shadow these last few days, since her strange mission down on that ancient alien planet, but Katie doubted Indi would volunteer to go hiking with her when they got back to Flagstaff. Especially since their last outing, an extremely sedate stroll along the loop trail in Buffalo Park, had led to them being kidnapped by slavers from another planet.

  “So it’s obvious why you’re winded after a two-minute walk from the rec room to the bridge,” Indi said.

  “Well, we did have to climb a ladder.” Katie dug out her smart phone to check the time. It was running cheerfully again thanks to the battery chargers the engineer, Hierax, had built for her and the other rescued women. Though, without access to Earth’s cell towers, it was limited to being a clock and a music player right now.

  “Are you planning to—”

  The bridge door slid open, and Indi stepped toward the wall to get out of the way.

  Knowing exactly who was coming, Katie pocketed her phone and stepped into the way.

  “Captain Sagitta,” she said cheerfully as the man appeared in the doorway.

  The Star Guardian captain, with his fatigues ironed, his jaw shaven, and his short hair neatly trimmed, usually wore a cool and unflappable expression, but when he saw Katie, alarm flashed briefly in his eyes. He glanced behind him, as if he was considering fleeing back onto the bridge. This wasn’t her first time accosting him, though it was the first time she’d arranged to be right outside his door at the start of his mid-shift break period. She felt a little bad about pestering him, especially when he probably needed to pee, but how else would she get what she wanted?

  “Miss Katie,” Sagitta said, ultimately deciding to continue forward instead of fleeing. Maybe he figured that a man with a reputation for winning hundreds of space battles and singlehandedly slaying ferocious aliens shouldn’t flee from an unarmed woman. “Miss Indigo.”

  “Your ship’s AI has been giving me flight simulations to practice on,” Katie said, launching into her spiel without preamble. She knew how quickly Sagitta could make an excuse to get by her. “I’m very familiar with your Falcon 8’s helm now, and I understand that you’re short on pilots because half of them are assigned to flying the alien warship you captured.”

  “Yes, Miss Katie,” Sagitta said, walking toward her and doing his best to step around her.

  She thought about planting herself in front of him so that he couldn’t step around her, not without lifting her up and putting her to the side, but he was a strong, fit man, and she could see him doing that. Which would be almost as undignified as falling off a bouncy treadmill. Instead, she turned so she could walk at his side.

  “But as I said before on numerous occasions,” he went on, “piloting a spaceship takes years of training and—”

  “I’ve had years of training on civilian and military planes back home. I fly for my job.” So what if she flew airplanes, not spaceships? If anything, space ought to be easier to navigate. No gravity, no weather, no tricky atmospheric conditions to compensate for.

  “And,” he continued, not sounding amused by being interrupted, “we’re navigating through a system full of hostile aliens right now. On our way to possibly engage in battle once we reach our home system. Even if it would make sense to train you, there’s simply not time for it.”

  His stride lengthened, so Katie had to jog to keep up. He swung abruptly into the first ladder well they reached.

  “But what if something happens to your existing pilots, and you need more people?” Katie called after him as he climbed downward. “You’re going into a battle, right? A war zone. It’ll be dangerous. Why not let me practice a little in case of an emergency?”

  “You and the other women will be dropped off before we fly into the war zone,” he said,
his voice floating back up. “Please continue to use the flight simulator software if you wish.”

  The captain stepped out of the ladder well on the deck below and disappeared from sight.

  “Dropped off?” Katie looked at Indi, who was strolling toward her, her hands in her pockets. “What did he mean by that?”

  “Hierax said the ship is stopping to get some repair parts—and also supplies for him to build weapons he’s making based on the Wanderer drone tech—at a station in the Ios System. It’s the system between the one we’re flying through now, home to the hostile Scyllans, and the Dethocolean one, home to half of the crew and the seat of the Confederation. The place the Star Guardians think the Zi’i are invading right now.”

  “I know all that. I meant, why would they drop us off?”

  “Because we’re innocent civilians, and it’s not right to take us into a war zone?” Indi suggested.

  “Haven’t we already been dragged through like twenty battles? Against multiple enemies? What’s the difference?”

  “I believe it was only two battles if you count the fight to get that Zi’i warship and the squabble with the slavers down on that marsh planet.”

  “What about all the times we got fired at by their own people?” Katie wondered if Sagitta would be welcomed with open arms when he showed up in his home system again, or if his government and military were holding a grudge because he’d taken off, against orders, to take Katie and the other women back home. Not that that had happened. Things didn’t seem to go to plan much out here.

  Indi spread her arms. “I still think that only counts as three or four battles.”

  “You’re the numbers person.” Katie propped her fist on her hip and scowled down the empty ladder well. Being dropped off to spend however long on some space station sounded almost as boring as being cooped up on this ship. She itched to stretch her legs. And her wings.

  “Maybe your odds would be better if you asked someone less authoritative and by-the-book than the captain.”

  “Like who?”

  “Lieutenant Zakota?”

  Katie wrinkled her nose. “The bald pilot who thinks he’s a shaman? He wears teeth around his neck and has all those weird charms dangling from his helm station.”

  “Juanita says he’s cute.”

  “Juanita can have him. Maybe Orion is into threesomes.”

  “Zakota is the lead helm officer,” Indi pointed out. “And he seems like he would be more flexible than Captain Sagitta.”

  “I hear that’s a good quality for a threesome.”

  Indi spread her arms. “I think your only other option would be to ask Lieutenant Asan. And he’s over on the Zi’i warship.”

  Katie sighed. Maybe it was worth dealing with a weirdo if it got her a chance to fly the ship. Would Zakota consider letting her handle the controls during some late-night shift while the captain was sleeping? And if so, what would she have to barter to get him to go along with it?

  Clangs came from the ladder well.

  Katie started to peer in, but was almost bowled over as the captain jumped off the rungs and into the corridor again. Judging by the determined set to his face, he hadn’t come back up to talk to her again.

  He raced past without acknowledging either of them and disappeared into the bridge, the door sliding shut behind him.

  “Think that looks like trouble?” Indi asked.

  A shudder coursed through the ship, the deck vibrating under Katie’s feet.

  “Like battle number twenty-one,” Katie said.

  “We’re not going to argue about numbers again, are we?”

  The ship lurched, and Katie planted a hand on the wall to keep from falling. “That’s probably not important now.”

  “Crew to battle stations,” the captain’s voice sounded over a speaker. “Scyllan interceptors are attempting to keep us from the gate home. Guests, head to the mess hall or rec room and buckle yourselves into your seats. We have engaged the enemy.”

  “Definitely not important,” Indi said.

  Katie supposed it was crazy, but she couldn’t help but wish she were on the bridge flying the ship instead of being ordered off into hiding. She hated not having control of her own fate.

  • • • • •

  Zakota kissed his favorite charm, rubbed four others, and prayed for luck as he held course for Gate 205 to the Ios System. Four Scyllan ships sped after the Falcon 8 and the Star Stalker, the Zi’i warship they had captured the last time they’d been in this system.

  Zakota’s fingers twitched—he wanted to engage in evasive maneuvers, badly, but he couldn’t right now. The warship’s tow beam was locked around them, preventing them from straying from their path.

  “I don’t think it’s working,” Chief Hierax said blandly, his arms folded as he stood next to the navigation helm and gazed at the view screen. It was focused on the Scyllan ships, all four closing from behind rather than the route ahead.

  Zakota already knew the route ahead wasn’t clear. The holographic sensor display hovering between his and “Killer” Ku’s stations showed two more Scyllan ships hovering in front of the gate.

  One of the rear ships fired, some weird alien plasma projectile slamming into the Falcon’s shields.

  “What makes you say that?” Zakota glared at Hierax, wondering why he wasn’t in engineering, tinkering with his tools. If they didn’t abandon this charade soon, there would be plenty for Hierax to work on. It might have worked in the beginning, but the Scyllans had clearly seen through it.

  “Just a hunch.”

  “Prepare for evasive maneuvers,” Captain Sagitta said from behind them, not from the chair in the center of the wedge-shaped bridge, but from the communications station where Lieutenant Coric usually sat. He tapped a button. “Coric, are they talking to you?”

  “They were,” came Coric’s voice over the comm—she was on the warship with Lieutenant Asan. “And I talked back to them, but I’m not sure they found my Zi’i convincing. I can understand the language perfectly well, but my vocal cords aren’t good at snarls and yips.”

  “I thought you were going to stick to text-based messages.”

  “They were suspicious right off and wanted to hear my voice.”

  “I see,” Sagitta said, not sounding pleased. “Have Asan release us so we can all maneuver freely, and have him fall back behind the Falcon. That warship is a tank and should be able to withstand a lot more hits than we can. I’m also hoping the Scyllans will be less likely to fire upon a ship owned by their allies.” His lip curled at the last word, understandably so.

  The stand-offish Scyllans hadn’t had allies, at least as far as Confederation Intelligence knew, for centuries. They’d utterly ignored all attempts humans had made to befriend them. The fact that they’d decided to allow the Zi’i to use their system as a staging area was disconcerting.

  “At least it worked for a few hours,” Sagitta murmured.

  Yes, Zakota had been sitting at the helm for the six hours since they’d flown out through the newly replaced gate from the Wanderer System and into the Scyllan System. The warship had been towing them the whole time. Sagitta had hoped the grumpy aliens would believe they were Zi’i prisoners. At first, the Scyllans had merely watched from their various planets and stations around the system, but an hour ago, they’d commed the warship, asking questions in Zi’i. Coric had done her best to make them believe Zi’i were at the controls of the warship, and for a while, it had looked like they would make it without opposition. And then this had happened.

  “Moving into position, Captain,” Asan said over the comm. “Any chance the chief has our new super weapons working yet?”

  “I’ve started them,” Hierax said, “but I need more raw materials to finish them. I’m hoping Tyrax Station has them.”

  “Tyrax Station is in the next system over,” Asan said.

  “Yes, Lieutenant, your geographical knowledge is to be commended.”

  Zakota thumped Hierax in t
he stomach. “Don’t pick on my officer. That’s my job.”

  “I thought you were busy kissing your charms.”

  Zakota sighed inwardly, though he was used to the rest of the crew teasing him for being—he hated the word—superstitious. It was just that it made sense to ask the spirits and the gods for luck whenever possible. Aluluei, the god of navigation, was known for answering prayers and looking favorably upon spacefarers. Technically, that was seafarers, but seafaring wasn’t quite the death-defying adventure that it had once been. Zakota wasn’t the only one who believed Aluluei kept an eye on his people in space.

  “Nah, I finished doing that two minutes ago,” Zakota said, offering a lazy smile and pretending he didn’t mind the razzing. As usual.

  A light on the control panel flicked off. The tow beam had released the Falcon, and the warship dropped behind to block them from the Scyllan interceptors.

  Zakota hated hiding under anybody’s skirts, but with two more interceptors blocking the gate out of the system, it wasn’t as if he was escaping battle.

  “You ready for some action, Killer?” Zakota asked, glancing at the officer who sat at the console next to his, the man who never came to the bridge wearing fewer than ten knives and who had eighty or ninety more hanging on the walls of his cabin.

  “Always ready.” Ku caressed the controls on his weapons console, then tapped his temple, where an embedded chip helped him interface with the system even more quickly than he physically could. “I don’t have to waste any time kissing things before I can shoot.”

  “No? You can’t tell me you don’t have a lucky knife.”

  “I have three, but I don’t kiss them.”

  “Maybe they’d treat you better if you did.”

  Ku sent him a withering look.

  Zakota, one hand on the Z-axis guider and the other on the flight stick, didn’t bother to glare back. One of the Scyllan interceptors maneuvered around the warship, ignoring it as it tried to get line of sight with the fire falcon. That meant he had to concentrate on not letting that happen. He could resume his bickering with Ku later. They never had any trouble picking up where they left off.