The Spiral Path by Lisa Paitz Spindler Page B

fear. No amount of resolve could stop the tremor. Either Mitch had just stepped into another dimension or he was losing his mind.
    With a shout, a pale Sabine stepped away and stared at one of the monitors. “Give me that commlink, Yoshida. Now.”
    “There is no way—”
    She pointed at the monitor. “Give it to me before that guard shoots Lara.”

Chapter Eleven
    “Move away from the control panel, Captain.”
    As the guard barreled toward her, Lara swung her legs around. The waves swept the ship to and fro, enough to sway her stomach. With feet planted forward, she caught the man in the chest and heaved him away. She timed her thrust to the ship’s hitch and knocked the officer into the hull. His head hit the metal behind and for a few seconds stared at her with eyes glazed over.
    Lara pivoted back to the console and tore open the cap covering the controls. Her fingerprint opened the last lock. She plunged her hand into the now open cylinder, grabbed the handle and twisted. Metal creaked and snapped. The moorings scraped and the pod wrenched free. They all tilted sideways almost ninety degrees, now more at the mercy of the huge waves. Spray drenched her as she slid forward, but the railing held both of them on board.
    The guard’s commlink chimed. He moaned and Lara took that as her exit cue. She slid past him on the narrow catwalk. Using the inertia of the pod’s sway, the man plunged himself toward her and tackled her around the waist. Lara managed a few more steps, her thigh muscles burning with his added weight.
    Time ticked down. At any moment the Calypso would take off with the Interlace humans in tow, along with Mitch and her mother. They couldn’t wait for her. Had ten minutes passed? Mitch would risk missing the shuttle too if it meant not leaving her behind. As the distance between the two pods lengthened, Lara heard the shuttle powering up just a few hundred feet away.
    She dropped to the decking and the guard latched on to one ankle. Getting to her knees, Lara kicked her free foot into his shoulder and his grasp lapsed. She broke free.
    And ran until her lungs burned and the sound of the Calypso’ s   engines powering up overtook the clamor of sea and wind.
    She made it twenty feet to the shuttle before the militia caught up to her. Chandra already had the Trans-D potentials fired up. The engines revving, the kid must have overridden the plasma fail-safes in order to keep the gangway open for them. Up ahead, Cam shuffled the last of the Terrans into the cargo hold.
    Mitch and Sabine ran full out onto the other end of the tarmac. A plasma arc smoked at Lara’s feet. She fired at its origin and then chased after them up the ramp.
    Once in the shuttle cockpit and her mother safely seated in the back with the Terrans, Lara connected to the Gryphon ’s cloudbase. She tabbed through the launch logs as Chandra folded up the gangway and sealed the shuttle. Mitch sat beside her and she slapped on a new wrist-sync.
    Lara opened her commlink. “XO, spin up the Trans-D engines and initiate horizon potentials.”
    “Already done, Captain. Coordinates are set for Alpha Haven. Just waiting for you to come aboard.”
    “Understood.”
    In preparation for the jump, Lara adjusted the frequency on their wrist-syncs as Chandra took the shuttle into high orbit and beelined it for the Gryphon’ s landing bay.
    Cam hadn’t been kidding about having the Gryphon ready to jump. The phase anchors de-synced as the Calypso touched down.
    Cam’s voice came over their commlinks. “Synchronize wrist-sync on my mark.”
    With no time for them to reach the bridge before jump, the three of them remained in the shuttle. Mitch tabbed through the launch screens. “Thorne-Sagan shell is holding.”
    Lara nodded. The ship pulled forward, its momentum pushing them all against their seats. The air buzzed when the negative matter shell armored around them.
    She’d escaped again. This time Lara brought with her not only the Terrans