“So what’s this plan of yours?” Jara asked skeptically.

  “Did you know that antimana shackles only block external applications of mana, not internal?”

  “So? How’s that going to help us?”

  “Listen, what I’m about to reveal is a secret, but I don’t really have a choice. Don’t freak out.”

  With that warning, I activated Elf Form and reverted back to my dragon form. It was a quirk of the spell that it was an entirely internal use of mana, despite the fact that clothing and such got absorbed—including the antimana cuffs. I wasn’t a thaumatologist, so I didn’t understand exactly how that worked, I just knew it did.

  The others gasped as they saw me in my true form.

  “Dax?” Isa asked tentatively.

  “It’s me—I’m actually a dragon,” I replied in High Draconic.

  The Draconic language was divided into two main dialects—High Draconic and Low Draconic. The reason for this was that dragon mouths could make sounds that elvenoid ones couldn’t and vice-versa. As such, the set of syllables between the two differed, but syllables in one matched perfectly with syllables in the other, making it easy to learn to understand both. Since official speeches and such were often in High Draconic, most people had at least some semblance of ability to understand it.

  “That’s awesome!” Isa exclaimed in the way of something trying to keep their voice to a whisper but mostly failing.

  “Okay, so what’s your plan now?” Jara asked, still skeptical.

  “Watch,” I rumbled as I turned to the lock on the cage. With a careful application of Telekinesis, I forced the latch open and stepped through the doorway.

  “What about the rest of us?” asked Ani.

  “Wait here for now. I’ll find keys to your shackles and return to unlock them, then we can take this ship over.”

  The others looked a bit unhappy with being forced to wait, but they acquiesced quickly enough. I then proceeded to slink along, thankfully for my petite, lithe frame. Listening carefully for any sound, I crept through the cargo bay, ensuring that no one was around before heading for the door to the rest of the ship.

  When I arrived at the door, I did my best to listen for anyone on the other side. Not hearing anything, I opened it and slipped into a hallway. Crawling slowly and silently, something dragons as a partial ambush predator are good at, I carefully checked each room I passed. As I approached the third room, I heard voices. I wasn’t sure how to handle multiple people together without them throwing an alarm, so I stopped just before the doorway and listened.

  “No, no, did you get a look at that sidhe? She’ll definitely go for the most.” I recognized him as the first voice I heard during my capture.

  “Sure, she’s probably worth more than the gnome, but these are the squids we’re talking about. They’re gonna like the human best—she’s more muscular.” That was the second voice.

  “I wouldn’t count the gnome out. Those little ones are useful for fitting into tight spots, so while they don’t need quite as many of them, the ones they get are well-used.” That made a third person I hadn’t heard speak before.

  I continued to listen to their disgusting conversation for almost fifteen minutes before the second voice grumbled, “I gotta take a piss.”

  Figuring this was my chance, I ducked into another room back behind me, having checked and knowing there was no toilet there, making sure to keep the door open. When I heard the other door open, I waited a few seconds before creeping out and scurrying towards the dwarf up ahead. Thankfully, he didn’t hear me, and I was able to get close.

  Since the hallway was too narrow to use my wings, I pounced from the ground toward the man so that I could lock my strong jaws around the back of his neck. His attempt at a scream lasted only a fraction of a second before I jerked his neck enough to snap it, and he collapsed to the ground.

  I quickly searched his pockets, something doable thanks to the dexterity of my paws but definitely not as easy as it would have been as an elf. It still only took me a few seconds before I found what I believed to be the key I was looking for, along with a mage pistol of a model I wasn’t familiar with.

  Placing both items in my storage bracelet, the only thing that wasn’t subsumed in my transformation, I quickly hurried back to the cage. There, I used the key to clumsily unlock Jara’s cuffs, then shifted back while she unlocked the others’, followed by mine.

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  “We have to hurry before they find the body,” I said, pulling out the pistol and gesturing for the others to follow. As we headed out, I activated a low-power Shield and indicated for the others to do so as well.

  We moved as quickly as possible to the room we knew had two more men in it, and I opened the door while the others stood off to the side.

  “Finally, dude! What, did you decide you had to crap?”

  As the sidhe man turned to look at me, I fired two lethal shots in quick succession, taking each of them in the head. I waved the others to follow and quickly searched the bodies, finding two more handguns, which I handed to Jara and Ani, both whom I had learned were better shots than Isa.

  We continued through the ship, taking out people in small groups, very few of whom managed to even draw their weapons before dying. Being supposedly safe on their ship, none of them had a Shield up, an understandable weakness that I was glad to exploit. I did take one shot from someone who was particularly quick on the draw, but thankfully my Shield absorbed it.

  By being careful and methodical, we probably managed to clear two-thirds of the ship without setting off an alarm, but our luck wasn’t going to hold forever. Someone must have discovered one of the bodies because eventually an alarm went off quickly followed by an announcement.

  “Hostile prisoners escaped! Be on guard! Remember, we need the elf alive!”

  “Does the reason they’re after you have something to do with you being a dragon?” asked Isa.

  “I void-damned hope not,” I muttered. I could tell she wanted to ask more questions, but that was clearly not the time.

  We found a spot to bunker down temporarily, propping up steel tables to hide behind and taking aim at the only door. Jara also suggested we bump up the power on our shields, so I did so as best I could, though I didn’t want to run out of mana, a real risk given how much shifting could take.

  It took a few minutes before a group found us. They had five people, but the door limited their ability to engage with everyone, so we easily picked them off, though Isa took a hit to her shield.

  The next time, someone tried throwing a stun grenade into the room, but I had anticipated that happening and was ready with Telekinesis to throw it back at them, causing their plan to backfire.

  This repeated two more times before the fourth group called in our location. After taking them out, we hurried away to a different room and set up the same way, being more careful since our shields were starting to weaken.

  We only managed to take out two groups in our new location before it was revealed, a concerning situation. Nevertheless, we hurried away, trying to find a new room even further from our previous location.

  Unfortunately, enemies appeared before we could get secured, and the resulting firefight greatly weakened our shields. It was only because Jara and I were especially good shots that we managed to take them out first.

  “We need somewhere to hide,” she pointed out as the last one fell.

  I slowly nodded, trying to think of a good location.

  “Why not hide outside?” Isa suggested.

  “What, like outside the ship?” asked Ani, clearly thinking that was a terrible idea.

  Isa nodded. “Yeah, why would they look out there? We just need some EVA gear and the ability to hide long enough to restore our mana, then we can return and keep up the fight.”

  “That’s a terrible idea!” Ani exclaimed.

  “Actually, it might work,” I replied.

  Ani sighed. “Aye, ma’am.”

  I led our group to an exit I had identified earlier, and we slipped on the gear we needed to survive the airless outside without wasting our own mana. We’d need a couple crystals to keep up with the demands, but it would work.

  We slipped outside, and I froze. It was extraordinary weird to be outside the ship like that, and quite a bit unnerving. The outside of the ship had a short-range artificial gravity field to hold us to the hull, but beyond that was the void. It was also hard to ignore that the mana barrier protecting us from the hostile aether was only a short distance away.

  We managed to wait out there for nearly an hour while our reserves recharged. Once everyone was full up on mana, we snuck back inside and ditched the EVA gear.

  From there, we returned to our previous pattern, though we benefited from having full mana for shields as well as the fact that our opponents were clearly getting tired. It was difficult to remain in a combat mindset for hours as well as maintaining a Shield spell that long.

  Eventually, they seemed to change tactics, as no one came for us. We began searching the rooms again at my direction, but no one was around. I was certain, though, that we hadn’t taken everyone out.

  We searched the entire ship until the only place left was the bridge. Figuring they must have all converged on the bridge to defend themselves in the same way we had, I formulated a plan. Once we were ready, I opened the door to instant gunfire. Having expected that, we were standing off to the side. Hoping that our opponents weren’t as capable as me, we all chucked a pair of stun grenades into the room.

  I heard cursing and screaming as they realized what was happening, and one person managed to chuck the grenade back at me, but I caught it with Telekinesis and returned it back where it belonged.

  “Who would have known wallball was excellent combat training?” I mused to everyone else’s confusion.

  Once the grenades had gone off, I ducked my head out briefly to check the room. With that many grenades, most of the crew was down, but there were four still standing, though their Shields looked to be down. When they saw me, they fired, but they didn’t quite react quick enough.

  When the firing stopped, I waited a few seconds, then counted down with my fingers so the others could see—three, two, one.

  We filed into the room as fast as possible, firing at the targets. Since our shields were full, it was easy to take them down.

  “What do we do with the stunned ones?” Isa asked.

  Jara responded, “Kill ‘em.”

  Ani shook her head. “We might need them.”

  Everyone looked to me. I took a deep breath. “Jara, Ani—keep them stunned for now. Isa and I will go fetch more of the antimana shackles, then we’ll lock them in the cages. Ani is right that we might need them.”

  “Aye, captain,” called Jara, surprising me.

  “I’m not—”

  She interrupted me, saying, “Yes, you are. You captured an enemy vessel. You’re the captain.”