Their hands tightened like vises on her, hanging on for dear life.
Garfield shouted in alarm, and Victor bit out a stream of curses against Raven's ear as they all fell together, his hard metal chest pressing against her back. Koriand'r and Dick's fingers dug into her skin hard enough to bruise.
Their fear rushed through her in a poisonous flood. She blocked it out as best as she could, focusing only on their destination, that little room in the ship hovering thousands of feet above them, dragging them towards it.
They fell, impenetrable darkness swirling around them in an infinite void, no stars, no light, no sound. Just the five of them, their breaths strangely muffled, eddies and currents of energy rushing past and buffeting them against each other.
Then, as suddenly as they had been sucked into the darkness, the world rematerialized around them.
A sharp wave of vertigo swept through Koriand'r and the boys as Raven pulled them back up through the floor of the cell, the world turning on its head as their free-fall down through space pushed them upward through the floor without any discernable change in direction.
They all released their grips on her as fast as they could, flinging themselves away from her as if she had lit on fire.
She held still, kneeling on the floor quietly, trying to center herself.
Victor nearly fell over backward, his dark skin ashen, the panels of his metal chest glinting beneath his tattered sweatshirt as he fought to get his breath under control. Koriand'r and Dick gripped each other's arms tightly, their eyes wide. Their pupils narrowed to pinpricks as they blinked around at the little metal-walled room, the dim light suddenly bright after the pitch-black darkness.
Garfield curled over his knees, leaning over the floor. He clutched his stomach, one hand over his mouth.
"I think I'm gonna be sick," he groaned.
Raven swallowed, feeling the nausea roiling through the others. She had gotten used to the strange reversal of direction that sometimes happened when she shadow-walked, but their disorientation was bleeding over into her. And this had been a particularly long jump, dragging four bodies with her over a huge distance, their weight slowing her down.
Dick shook his head, still slightly dizzy, but by the time he had turned back to look at Raven he was grinning again.
"Well," he said softly, "being able to open up portals will sure come in handy."
"Not portals," she said quickly, shaking her head with a sharp movement. "I can't—portals are permanent, they require a constant power source, or an anchor of some kind." She clutched at the tiny necklace hidden under her collar and fought to keep her breathing steady. "I can only move through space, or bridge two locations temporarily."
"Yeah well, whatever it was, it was horrible." Garfield shuddered, one hand still clutching his stomach.
Raven shot him a look.
"I mean—uuh—" he winced, backtracking furiously— "it's so cool!" He gave her a thumbs up with this free hand, smiling weakly.
"But it worked—holy shit." Victor stared at the small monitor on his arm, his biological eye widening in shock and his metal eye whirring as he scanned the data scrolling across the screen. "We're on the ship."
They all looked around at the small room they had landed in, barely big enough for the five of them. The ceiling stretched above them, taller than a normal, human-height room, the metal walls dark and scratched. A hole gaped open in one wall where a large door had once stood.
Light filtered in from the brightly lit corridor outside. The wall directly across from the opening in the cell was caved in, the thick metal slab of the door that has struck it lying dented against the floor. Smears of blood painted the smashed section of wall, pools of it partially hidden beneath the door where bodies had been pinned…
Something flickered on the edge of Raven's awareness, a glimmer of feeling, of emotions emanating from other people somewhere outside of the room, and in the distance, she heard the muted thud of heavy footfalls. Coming down the hallway right towards them.
She and Dick looked at each other at the same time, his reaction much faster than hers.
"Get back!" he hissed, hauling Koriand'r up.
Raven scrambled to her feet, throwing herself back against the wall. She ended up between Gar and Victor, Dick and Koriand'r on the opposite side of the cell.
They all stared at each other, eyes wide with fear, hearts racing, none of them daring to breathe as the footsteps thundered towards them.
A flash of movement, enormous armored figures passing by the open door to the cell in a near run, and then they were gone, their footsteps echoing away down the hallway.
Raven let out her breath, letting her head drop as she fought to slow her racing heartbeat. Then she looked up sharply, to Koriand'r.
The girl's fear spiked, higher and higher, quickly spiraling into absolute panic, her breaths coming in sharp, short gasps as she clutched at the wall.
Raven groaned as the force of Koriand'r's emotions hit her, making her double up in pain, icy claws slicing deep, tearing through her. The room darkened, the light from the hallway dimming as the shadows thickened. She focused on her breathing, trying to shut herself off from the other girl.
The air around the alien shimmered with heat as the rest of the room fell into shadow, light and color flickering in her vivid hair as if it was a living flame, her eyes sparking with green fire.
Dick grabbed her arm, then jerked back, the metal scales of her armored sleeve scalding hot.
"Hey, its ok." He got in front of her face, his bright blue eyes locked on hers. "Koriand'r, it's gonna be ok, they aren't going to get ahold of you again. We won't let that happen, I promise."
Her eyes flicked around the cell, his words not really reaching her. Heat poured off of her tall form, but whatever the cell walls were made out of, they absorbed most of it, the air staying cool. This cell had been designed to contain her, and it was still doing its job.
Dick needed to get her attention. "Koriand'r—look, can I call you something shorter? Maybe Kori?"
She looked at him, not registering, her eyes wide in terror.
"Or maybe Star? You said that's what your name means, right?" Her eyes latched onto his, and he smiled. "You know, like a nickname?"
"Nickname?" she rasped out, and the razor-sharp edge of her fear dulled just slightly.
Raven leapt on her chance, pushing back against the blind panic, smothering it, trying to force a sense of calm over the other girl.
Koriand'r shook her head, confused and momentarily numb under Raven's influence. "I do not understand, my name is not Nick…"
"No." Dick gave her another easy smile, like this was just any other, normal conversation, but Raven could feel the tension in him. "A nickname is just a shorter version of your name that your friends call you, something that's faster and easier to say." He put his hand against his chest, "Like Dick—or Gar, for Garfield."
Dick spared a glance for the shapeshifter as he said his name and had to bite back a laugh. Gar was pressed up against the wall next to Raven, frozen, watching the shadows writhe around her with a comical mixture of awe and fear.
Dick ignored the boy, and reached forward again carefully, resting his gloved hand gently against Koriand'r's shoulder. Her armor had cooled enough for him to be able to touch her.
"I know you're scared," he said softly, his voice low and calm, "but we need you. You are amazingly strong, and you know this ship, these Gordanians—right? If we don't stop them, they will destroy the city looking for you. They will kill hundreds of thousands of innocent people. We can't do this without you."
Koriand'r swallowed, finally coming back to herself. Raven's shadows began to fade away. "I know, I am sorry—I—this room holds memories, I was not prepared." She twisted her arms around her torso, closing her eyes, trying to relax her body.
"My k'norkfa told us stories of these ships when we were little," she whispered in a small voice. "Of the Gordanian slavers that would take unwary children who ventured too far from home. But they were meant merely as frightening tales to keep us from misbehaving, I never thought they were real, I never thought…"
"Are there others?" Dick asked, his eyes widening. "Are there more of your people on board?"
She shook her head. "I was the last, the treaty forbids any more from being taken." She opened her eyes, taking a deep breath. "I will do what I can to assist you. It is my fault they are here, after all."
"Kori," Dick said softly, "they aren't going to get their hands on you again."
She smiled half-heartedly at the name, then squared her shoulders, that fierce glint returning to her eyes. "Then it will be my turn to get my hands on them."
He grinned savagely back at her.
"Ok," Dick turned back to face the others. His posture straightened, an aura of command settling over him. "We have to do this as quickly as possible. We need to find the bridge—the command center—or a control room or something. Somewhere that we can either deactivate their weapons or sabotage the ship badly enough that they can't use them."
"Well, that's great," Victor snapped, tearing his attention away from Kori's near-meltdown and focusing on Dick. "And how exactly are we going to do that, oh fearless leader?"
He looked desperately back down at the computer screen in his arm, shaking his head. "We don't even know where we are on the ship! I can't just magically hack into their computer systems and pull up a schematic. This is…well this is alien technology we're dealing with here. I don't even know what language it's in!"
"Kori, can you read their language?"
She shook her head quickly. "No. I can speak it, but that is all."
"Damn—ok—"
"But, I saw a room with many screens in it," Kori said, looking nervously between the two boys. "They had writing moving across them, just like that," she pointed to the lines of code flashing on the screen on Vic's arm.
Dick turned back to her sharply, "where?"
She bit her lip, trying to remember the path she had taken trying to escape the ship, but the endless metal hallways all blurred together. "I…am unsure, I was trying to get away and that room had many Gordanians inside. I might be able to find it again though…" She trailed off apprehensively, looking back out at the corridor beyond the cell.
Raven's low, quiet voice cut through the silence.
"She went left. This hallway hits the main corridor. Right goes towards the bridge, left to the engines and shuttle bay."
All eyes turned to her in absolute shock.
"How the hell do you know that?" Victor whispered.
Raven shrank back into the wall, cringing at the inadvertent slip. "I—uh…I could see it when she showed me her memories of the ship."
"I thought you said you couldn't read minds!" Dick snapped.
"I can't—not really…I…" her words died out, her stomach twisting.
"Shit." Dick looked at her like she had just grown another head. "That is really unfair, you know that?"
She felt a faint squeeze in her chest, her body mirroring the briefest flicker of emotion coming from him. It was gone in an instant, but not before she realized what it was. Envy.
Raven clenched her teeth, her temper immediately clawing its way to the surface, the stress and apprehension from the five of them cooped up in the tiny cell creating a palpable tension in her body.
"You want my fucked-up powers?" she spat out. "You can have them. I'll trade you any time."
"That's not what I—" Dick took a deep breath, giving his head a quick shake. "Sorry."
Kori peered out into the brightly lit hall in the direction Raven had indicated, strands of scarlet and magenta hair curling around her face.
"I…I think that is correct, that is where I saw the room." She gave Raven a nervous smile, and there was no sense of outrage or violation at the intrusion into her memories, just fear at being back in this cell, at the idea of fighting her way through her captors a second time.
"Yeah, but what do we do when we get there?" Garfield peeled himself off of the wall, looking between them all in alarm. "Just start smashing stuff? We could blow up the ship!" He threw his hands out, his voice rising, "and what about the giant, angry aliens?"
"Keep your voice down!" Dick snapped at him.
They all froze, listening for the sound of voices or footsteps in the corridor, but none came.
"Yeah," Vic said after a few heartbeats of silence, his voice dropping back to a near whisper, "the giant angry aliens are gonna be a problem. If we can get onto the bridge, there may be a terminal I can access, something I can interface with, but—" he rubbed a massive hand over his bald head, his metallic fingers scraping softly over the plates covering the left side of his scalp— "I'll need time to figure out what I'm doing…"
"We'll keep them off of you," Dick said quickly.
"Oh yeah? And when they come at us with those weapons?" Vic asked incredulously. "Those things can melt rock."
"Plasma blasters," Koriand'r added quietly. "Without the effect of the restraints I should be able to absorb most of the heat, but they can still cause damage." She clenched her jaw. "And their armor and shields are made of a material that can block my attacks—" she absently rubbed the delicate metal plates covering her arms— "as is mine. I cannot generate enough heat to damage it, even when at my peak strength. Much of the ship is made of it." She gestured to the cell around them, to the scratched dark metal covering the walls.
Dick twisted to stare at Raven, his blue eyes piercing. "That shield you made, can you do that again?"
She gave a stiff nod, still fuming silently.
"Can you block a shot from one of those guns?"
"I…I don't know…"
Dick chewed on the inside of his cheek, studying her, then he looked to the boys standing on either side of her. "You two keep an eye on her, make sure she doesn't get hurt."
Raven clenched her jaw. "Dick, I can take care of myself—"
"No," he cut her off sharply. "You are the only one of us without any tactical training. Garfield and Victor have been training for this kind of stuff for years, and Kori obviously has some sort of combat experience."
He stared her down, steel in his eyes. "I wouldn't have even let you come with us under normal circumstances, but I needed you to get us onto the ship. I'm not going to let you get yourself killed because you don't know what you're doing, and—" he paused, putting as much weight into the word as he could, his tone leaving absolutely no room for argument— "you may be our only way off of the ship."
Raven shook her head in exasperation, "Dick—"
"Have you ever actually trained with using your powers?" he asked tersely. "Have you ever done anything other than try to contain them?"
She snapped her mouth closed, unable to contradict him honestly.
"I know you can take care of yourself, but this isn't the same as dealing with a few drunk teenagers."
Garfield raised his eyebrows, looking her over with a new appreciation.
Dick turned again to the other two boys, meeting each of their eyes, making sure they understood his instructions. "Stay with her."
Victor dipped his chin once in solemn agreement. Garfield nodded quickly, then looked at Raven.
He grinned at her with what he obviously thought was a reassuring smile, specks of green and gold catching the light in his hazel eyes. "We'll keep you safe," he said confidently, "don't worry."
She scowled at him with as much venom as she could muster, then back at Dick. "Great."
He ignored her, his mind back to the problem of infiltrating the ship. "We need to get as many of them away from the bridge as possible," he said, thinking hard. "We need a distraction, something to draw them out and keep them busy so you can get in and hack their systems—actually…" he trailed off, his blue eyes sliding slightly out of focus. "That's not a bad idea…"
"What?" Victor frowned.
Dick flicked his eyes to Gar. The corner of his mouth twisted up in a small, wicked smile. "Blow up the ship."
"What!?"
Dick turned to Kori next to him. "You got to the shuttle bay before, where they keep all of the smaller ships? We need to keep any more of them from getting off of this ship anyway, so if we can sabotage the escape pods—"
"Dick, we can't blow up the ship! We're on the ship!"
"Shh! I know! Just enough of an explosion to cause a distraction." Dick rested a hand almost nonchalantly on one the larger pouches at his back. "I've got small charges with time-delay detonators. I'll go with Kori while you three—"
"You're carrying explosives!?" Victor hissed. "Are you fucking insane?"
Dick arched an eyebrow. "Clearly, you've never worked with Bruce."
"Oh, and since you have, then you're automatically in charge!"
"Yeah, actually—"
"You're the one that got us into this mess in the first place!" Tempers sparked, a nauseating mixture of hot and cold emanating out from the two boys, fear and anger battling for dominance.
"Um, no—" Dick stepped forward indignantly, stretching upwards to try to match Victor's height— "I'm the one—"
"And you want us to split up? That's your big plan?"
"Do you have a better one?"
"Wait, you want us to split up?!" Garfield's gaze shot rapidly back and forth between the other two boys in the darkness of the cell, his confidence melting away. "How is that a good idea?"
"It gives us the best shot at getting through this."
"Says you!" Vic shot at him.
"Guys," a note of panic crept into Gar's voice, "splitting up is how we all get eaten by aliens! Starting with the good-looking comic relief guy!" He pointed at himself in alarm. "Have you never even seen a horror movie?"
"No one's going to eat you—" Dick snapped.
Victor swung his arms out in outrage, silver palms flashing in the dark. "You're gonna get us all killed!"
"No, I'm not!" Dick hissed back, his voice rising.
A pulse of darkness lashed through the center of the room, making everyone flinch backwards. "Now?" Raven growled. "Really?"
Victor closed his mouth with a scowl, icy fear churning in his gut.
"They're going to attack the city, Vic," Dick said softly.
"I know!"
Dick pulled back control of the conversation, trying to keep his voice as low as he could. "You said you needed time to disable their weapons, well, this will give you time." He gestured between himself and Kori. "We'll go to the shuttle bay, you three go to the bridge. We'll meet you there, and hopefully we can figure out a way to neutralize their weapons systems."
Victor frowned, his shoulders rigid, anxiety rolling off of him in waves, but didn't say anything more to challenge Dick's plan.
"Alright Boy Wonder," he said darkly, "I really, really hope you're as good as you think you are."
Dick flashed his teeth at him, that wicked little smile back on his face. "I am."
Victor rubbed his metal hands roughly over his face with a quiet groan.
"We're all gonna die," he muttered.