"Minna, where did you..." I heard the voice of Minna's father suddenly trail off. I looked to the door and saw him standing in the doorway. He was staring at the exposed compartment with a look of surprise plain on his face.

It faded almost instantly and was replaced by an angry scowl. I saw his grip tighten on the weapon he held, and he took a step into the room.

An Ilrivian stepped into view in the corridor. The alien pinned his cat-like ears back against his head as he took in the sight of the crawlers, and he reached for the gun at his side. He had it in his hand and aimed into the room in an instant. I hissed out a warning, but the two Kymari were facing the opposite direction.

The weapon made an angry bark and shot a yellow bolt of energy towards me. I let myself fall out of the air and felt the skin crawl underneath my scales as the shot narrowly missed me.

"They found the crawlers!" The alien shouted down the corridor and began aiming at somebody else. I didn't take the time to find out who - there was too great a chance it was Minna. And even if it wasn't, the next shot certainly would be. Waiting would mean too great a risk for her.

I let my instincts take over and began to work the oily saliva into my mouth. I flapped my wings to get into the air and began growling, hearing a change in my tone as I felt the fire building between my jaws. The heat grew and grew, until my instincts told me I was ready to unleash flame at the alien before me.

"NATE, NO!!" I heard Minna yell from the back of the room and I flinched in my flight... but it was too late to stop. The fire was already leaving my mouth as I spat a stream of burning saliva right at the alien's face.

Several things happened all at once.

The leash tugged hard against the harness, and I was yanked backwards towards Minna.

The weapon in the alien's hand unleashed another blast of yellow energy. It shot across the room and burned into the armor of Minna's father.

My flames spread out through the air as a result of my being yanked backwards. They almost made it to the attacking alien, and I saw his eyes widen with terror as the flames blossomed in the air right before him... but none of them actually reached him. They spread through the air instead and found various items around the room to land upon. A few embers fell onto the blanket covering the bed, and a few more fell over an electronic gadget lying on the desk, and they both began burning as the flames caught on them.

And lastly, a horrible klaxon began blaring all around me.

"SHIELDS!" Minna's father yelled over the blaring sound. He dove towards the alien in the doorway and tackled him to the ground, then punched him right in the face. The alien slumped and went still, even as the Kymari jumped back to his feet.

I heard the mechanical bark of other weapons being fired out in the corridor, followed by the sounds of Kymari weapons... then the soft thuds of two more bodies falling to the floor.

Minna snatched me out of the air and pulled me against her. She held me close in one hand and used her other to dig something out of a pocket. I got a brief look at it - it looked like a thin strip of metal, though I could make out strange indents along the edges - as she slapped it down over the wrist holding me. It curved with the motion and formed into a bracelet around her wrist, then began to glow a soft green color.

I heard a hum come from the bracelet and the air seemed to shimmer around me. Minna reached back into her pocket and pulled out a net attached to a short baton. She pushed something on it and the baton extended into a longer handle, then she looked down at me and hesitated. "Sorry about this, Nate. But I need to keep you close for now."

She promptly stuffed me into the netting.

I squawked and tried to get free, but the thin ropes tangled around my wings and legs. Minna pulled something on the handle and the entire thing collapsed back around me, closing off the opening she had just shoved me through. I flailed a bit more but I only ended up tangling myself up worse - whatever the thing was made of, my claws couldn't cut through it.

The klaxon continued to blare around us. I hissed and fought with the netting more, but Minna just pulled me close against her chest. She ran out into the corridor and looked at the other Kymari. "Shuttle?"

I had somehow managed to turn myself upside down in the netting, and I caught a quick glimpse of the corridor. The other two Ilrivians were collapsed on the floor, both of them bleeding from multiple wounds. With the exception of Minna's father, each of the other Kymari had slapped a bracelet similar to hers onto their wrist, and the air shimmered around them. The air was also shimmering around Minna's father, but I couldn't spot a bracelet over his armor.

A sudden roaring sound filled my ears. The fallen Ilrivians began to slide across the floor towards the nearest vents as if pulled by an incredible pressure, but I felt nothing against me. The floor beneath Minna shuddered, and I heard a distant sound of something heavy crashing down.

Minna's father looked right at me. "How long is your shield rated for?"

I felt Minna inhale sharply. "Thirty minutes."

Her father looked up and eyed her sharply. "For the both of you?"

"...we haven't tested that."

The roaring sound faded to a distant howl of wind somewhere far away... then it ended.

I stopped struggling against the net and tried to get as close to Minna as I could. I had a nasty suspicion that all the air had just been sucked out of this part of the ship. The bracelets the Kymari had used must be keeping air close around them, but past the edges of that shimmering...

I tried not to think about what that would mean for the Ilrivians that had been lying on the floor.

Minna's father spoke again, but his voice sounded oddly different. Tinny, and as if it was coming from behind me instead of from him. It took me a few words to realize it was coming to me from the speakers in Minna's helmet. "We might not have time to make it to the shuttle. Those were blast doors coming down; they aren't going to be easy to get through." He motioned at the Ilrivians lying motionless on the floor. "They got the word out before we brought them down. It's likely the rest of the crew isn't going to cooperate with us or turn off the fire suppression. We shouldn't count on having air between here and the shuttle."

Minna glanced at the other guards, but they just looked grim. Morton shook his head. "Your father has more experience with ship battles than we do. I think he's right."

Kilpin began tapping furiously at the device on his wrist. A few seconds later he looked back up. "There's another dock closer to us. There should be shuttles there."

All of the guards looked at Minna. "Can you fly one of the shuttles on this ship?"

Minna nodded. "If nothing else I'll be able to get the life support working."

"Let's go then." Minna's father looked at Kilpin. "Which way?"

Kilpin nodded and started running towards the far end of the corridor.

A heavy metal door had slammed shut at the end of the corridor. We came to a stop in front of it and one of the younger guards began ripping apart the controls on the side of the wall. He exposed some wires underneath the panel and started stripping the covers off the wires.

Morton tapped at the device at his wrist a few times while the other guard worked. He frowned, then shook his head. "Communications aren't working. I can't even reach your units; they've started jamming us. We don't have any way to get word to the shuttle or the escort ships."

Most of the Kymari looked worried at that, but Minna's father just nodded as if that was no more concerning to him than being told the sky was blue, or that water was wet. He didn't seem overly confident, but he didn't seem overly worried, either. It... was actually a bit reassuring. I got the distinct impression he knew what to do to survive in this type of situation and would make sure we got out safely.

The young guard kept working. A spark suddenly leapt between the wires, and a second later the door shuddered and began to slide up into the ceiling.

I heard a faint sound of wind as the door opened, as if it was coming from somewhere in the distance. The Kymari didn't wait for the door to open all the way - Kilpin rolled beneath it as soon as it had risen high enough for him and Minna followed right behind him, taking care not to crush me as she rolled beneath the door.

They shot back to their feet and took off running again as soon as they cleared the door.

Another heavy door waited at the end of this corridor, and they repeated the same process of opening the door and dashing underneath it, then ran down the next corridor.

The Kymari were fast. I had known they could move very quickly if they wanted to, just from observing them when I had lived on my own, but I had never actually seen them running for their lives. It was at least as fast as I could fly if I was going all out and had a good tailwind. Maybe even faster.

It was not very smooth, though.

The net I was trapped in bounced and jostled around with each step Minna took. She kept the handle close against her and for the most part I stayed inside the shimmering field of light that surrounded her, but every couple of steps the net would swing far enough out that part of me would bump into the barrier. Whenever that happened I felt an unpleasant tingling just short of pain, and a numbness spread through whatever part of me had bumped it.

It got harder to move as the Kymari ran on, and before long I had become thoroughly tangled in the netting. I was too numb to struggle and simply hissed in frustration as I dangled upside down in the netting.

Minna seemed frustrated and whispered a quick "Sorry, Nate," but she kept her attention on moving.

We had made it through three more doors when the entire ship shuddered around us.

Minna inhaled sharply and began running faster.

"Nate! What's going on?!" Ivy's sudden voice was filled with worry. "The freighter just began moving; what happened?"

I grimaced, realizing I had completely forgotten about Ivy in all the excitement. "We found crawlers! The Ilrivians were hiding them in between rooms, inside some kind of tanks. They attacked us when we discovered them and it sounds like they're blocking us from calling anyone. We're trying to get to one of the docking bays now." I hurried through the explanation of the last few minutes, and left out the embarrassing detail of setting off the ship's fire suppression systems. Ivy didn't need to know about that part.

"Do you know which one? We can have a shuttle waiting for you?"

I glanced at the walls flying by, but they were just as nondescript and generic as they always seemed. "No idea. And everybody is too busy right now for me to ask."

"Okay. Hurry. The Kymari here are talking about shooting the freighter if it doesn't stop; I don't know how much time you have."

"We already are. Nobody wants to stay here any longer than they have to." Because we probably wouldn't have air for much longer... but I didn't think Ivy needed to know that, either. "Let me know if anything changes."

"Will do. I'll let Trenil know what you found."

Ivy went quiet after that, and there was nothing else for me to do but swing uselessly in the net.

We had to get through five more of the heavy doors before Kilpin pointed at a normal door in the wall of the corridor. The younger guard set to work on it, and a second later that door opened to a room similar to where we had landed our shuttle.

There was no sound of rushing air this time, though. The entire back wall of the room was missing - the floor simply ended, and where it did an ominous black emptiness stretched outwards. I could see a few stars in the darkness, but I tried to avoid looking in that direction.

A strange looking ship rested on the floor. Minna slowed and looked at it in surprise. "That's a Kergarian ship..."

Her father came to a stop beside her and glanced at the unusual vessel. "Can you fly it?"

Minna hesitated and I heard uncertainty in her voice. "I think so. Just wasn't expecting to see one of their ships here."

"Probably stolen. If they were smuggling crawlers, I wouldn't put anything else past them. Don't worry about that right now; priorities. Get it open, and let's get out of here."

"Right." Minna nodded and began running again, pulling the tablet out of the pocket in her armor as she crossed the room. She reached the shuttle and shot a quick glance at the bracelet on her wrist. Whatever she saw on it caused her to grimace, and she began tapping furiously at her tablet. The other Kymari took up a position around her and watched the door we had just come through.

I tried to focus on taking slow, calm breaths as Minna worked on opening the shuttle.