It was rush hour on NOMAD Station, or what passed for it. More vessels came and went during this window than any other time in the cycle. That meant the port was teeming with people—which made it the best time for Mik to act.

When she asked Neal to get her the passcode for the Vex 970, she wasn’t sure if he could really do it. There were other ways to get on board a ship, she knew from experience, but none so quick or quiet.

Mik didn’t believe in miracles, but she couldn’t think of a better explanation for how Neal had managed to get his hands on the passcode. Even as she punched it in, she was braced for it not to work.

The door slide open with a pneumatic hiss.

A little rush went through Mik as she stepped inside the ship—fear, or anticipation. It brought her back to her time with the Blue Moons, the feeling that shot through her when she and Kono set a plan in motion.

Until now, she hadn’t realized how much she’d missed that feeling.

Mik pulled up the hood of her jacket and tied a scarf around her face to hide it. Although the security cameras outside were nonfunctional, she didn’t want to be recognized later by anyone she might encounter now.

A skeleton crew ran this ship, according to Neal—minimum personnel, minimum costs, maximum profit. He claimed it was unlikely that she would find more than one person on watch; the others were probably at the gambling hall, making most of their time stranded on this station.

Slavers never seemed especially worried about their “cargo” outnumbering them, Mik thought grimly. Then again, she supposed, there wasn’t usually much reason to fear a frightened group of unarmed people in chains.

She let the bolt cutter she’d hidden up her sleeve slip down into her hand. A few other tools, borrowed from Neal, were clipped to her belt.

Mik’s uneven footsteps echoed a little on the metal floor. Her pulse was pounding so hard she could feel it in her throat.

When she heard a scuffle on the floor behind her, she turned in time to see an alien of indeterminate species round a corner into the corridor. He was taller than she was, green-skinned and damp-looking.

For a second, neither of them moved. Then the alien surged toward her, his heavy footsteps shaking the corridor.

Mik wasn’t fast. But she was stronger than she looked. She smashed the end of the bolt cutter into the alien’s knee, as hard as she could—and when his leg buckled, sending him crashing to the floor, she brought the tool down again, this time against his skull.

She felt something give—bone, probably. He sprawled helplessly onto the floor.

For a second, Mik didn’t move, bolt cutter half-raised. But he didn’t move again. Finally, she turned and limped on.

Mik knew she’d found the cargo hold when the smell hit her.

The air reeked of sweat and stressed human breath. A strip of auxiliary lighting along the floor illuminated the room just enough for Mik to make out the shapes of more than a dozen humans, huddled together. Each one appeared to be chained to a metal bar anchored to the bulkhead.

The moment Mik entered the cargo hold, all chatter and movement stopped. The only sound was ragged breathing and the occasional clink of a chain shifting.

The nearest human was a girl not much younger than Mik—nineteen at the oldest, dark-eyed, her hair mostly shaved off, probably to get rid of lice. She cringed when Mik turned to her, like she was waiting for something terrible to happen.

Mik knew the feeling—that primal fear. She remembered.

After a second’s hesitation, she uncovered her face. The girl’s eyes widened a little when she saw that Mik was human, like her.

“I’m Mik,” she whispered. She dropped her shoulders a little to make herself look less threatening. “What’s your name?”

The girl hesitated. Then she said, “Cielle.”

“I’m going to cut you loose, Cielle, if you let me,” Mik said, indicating the tool in her hand. “OK?”

Cielle didn’t respond at first. Mik guessed she was attempting to gauge the likelihood that this was some kind of trap. But at last, reluctantly, she nodded, the barest movement of her head.

Mik knelt in front of Cielle, regretting it as a hot shock of pain flared through her bum leg. She gritted her teeth and used the bolt cutter on the chain cuffed to the girl’s ankle. She would deal with the metal cuff later. For now, it was good enough that Cielle could move freely.

“Do you have an implant?” she asked, glancing up at Cielle.

“What?” Her voice was thin. Worried.

Mik pulled her hair aside far enough to show the scar on the back of her neck. “Like this?”

Cielle seemed to know what she meant. “Ah. No.”

“Does anyone else?”

There was a low murmuring throughout the cargo hold. The consensus was no.

Mik was privately relieved. Whoever bought these people originally must’ve been the stingy kind. Implants were expensive to put in, unless you cut corners—but that often resulted in slaves dying of infection after a botched surgery or getting blown to pieces when the device malfunctioned. Many slavers chose to forgo the cost and the risk entirely.

When Mik moved to stand, her bad leg wobbled under her and almost gave out.

Cielle offered a hand to help her up.

“OK,” Mik said, rising. She adjusted her grip on the bolt cutter. Next came the hard part. “Once I cut you all loose, you’re going to get off the ship in small groups. Two or three at a time.”

“There’s a guard posted,” said one of the humans, a middle-aged man with a bruised face.

“Don’t worry about him,” Mik said. There was still a smear of blood on the end of the bolt cutter. “Outside, someone’s waiting to give you clothes and idents.”

Delphine was stationed outside, close enough to watch the ship but far enough not to be conspicuous. She had the items in a bag: the documents Mik had forged and a range of shawls, hoods and scarves. With luck, the humans could move quickly and blend into the crowd. Then all Mik and Delphine had to do was shepherd them to their temporary hiding places.

Mik took a deep breath. The air was foul, but outside this ship, it was clean. Soon she would breath it again.

“We’ll have to be fast,” she said. “Are you ready?”

[Can Mik and Delphine smuggle the human slaves to safety without getting caught themselves? Tune in next Saturday for NOMAD: Episode 11.]

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