Free Lady Lure by Flora Speer Page A

“If he were a criminal, he would not be allowed in the
same room with the Chief Hierarch unless he was chained or under
heavy guard. Elyr’s so-called imprisonment was a ruse, a deliberate
lie invented to lure you into an act of piracy. In your heart you
know it, Perri. Admit it.”
    “No! Elyr would not betray me, not when I
risked my life and my honor for him.”
    “Admiral.” Rolli’s calm, metallic words broke
into Perri’s frantic reply. “You have exactly thirty seconds to
strap yourself and Perri into your seats before I activate
Starthruster. I calculate that it will require forty-five seconds
for the commanders of the Regulan ships now approaching us to order
their weapons to be fired and for the ensuing blasts to reach the Space Dragon. This will leave us fifteen seconds in which to
quit the immediate area.”
    “No!” Perri screamed again. “I won’t leave. I
won’t!”
    Halvo could tell she was on the verge of
hysteria. Under the circumstances, he couldn’t blame her. There was
no time to reason with her that she was better off without the
treacherous Elyr. He would do that later, if they lived long
enough. Catching Perri by her upper arms, Halvo slammed her down on
the bench. Though she was apparently too stunned by his unexpected
action to fight him, he held her with one arm and knee while he
fumbled for and found the button that controlled the straps. By the
time Perri fully realized what he was doing, she could not move.
The flexible metal bands that once had held Halvo kept Perri
immobilized. But Halvo could not move either.
    “My back!” he yelled, stiffening with
pain.
    Rolli either did not understand what was
wrong with Halvo or did not choose to respond. At the appointed
moment, exactly thirty seconds after promising to do so, Rolli hit
the button to activate Starthruster. The Space Dragon shuddered, then rocked as if it had been struck by a giant’s
fist.
    The motion threw Halvo to the deck.
Fortunately, he landed on one side. He rolled over onto his back
and lay there, groaning. Perri, equally unable to move, gazed down
at him in a decidedly unfriendly way.
    “You deserve a backache,” she said to him.
“Let me off this bench at once.”
    “I will just as soon as it’s safe,” Halvo
said. Raising his voice, he called, “Rolli, when you can leave the
controls, come and help me. I’m having trouble getting up.”
    There was no response from the robot.
    “Rolli?” Grunting with the effort, Halvo
attempted to raise his head so he could see better. “Rolli!”
    “Something is wrong,” Perri said, straining
to lift her own head. She appeared to have recovered from her bout
of near hysteria, her thoughts apparently no longer on Elyr, but
upon her robot. “From where I am, I can see the control panel
better than you. Rolli is sitting absolutely still at the controls.
Halvo, do you smell something burning?”
    “Insulation.” Halvo sniffed the air again,
just to be sure. “Can you see any smoke?”
    “No, I don’t think so.” Perri squirmed around
on the bench as much as she could, trying to get a better view of
the controls and the robot. “Rolli’s eyelights are out. Halvo, I
think the Space Dragon’s controls are on overload. I’m sure
Rolli told me that is what the big red light means.”
    “The blast from one of those Regulan ships
must have hit us just as Rolli activated Starthruster,” Halvo said.
“If the robot’s metal fingers were on the control panel at exactly
the right moment, they would be perfect conductors for the charge
from the Regulan ships.”
    “Is that why our ship is vibrating so much?”
Perri asked.
    “This ship is vibrating because Starthruster
is still working. We are hurtling through space at uncontrolled
speed,” Halvo said. “If Rolli is out of commission, then I have to
get to the controls fast.”
    “Well, I am certainly not in a position to
stop you,” Perri said in a resentful tone. She watched him struggle
to move off the