The goblins and trolls and other riff-raff are only told they all have equal contribution to keep them in line. While they’re useful for filthy jobs their betters aren’t eager to do, the galaxy doesn’t need them. I would rather we just admit that and got rid of them for good.

  – Jaxis Undermine, Chancellor of Thane (Attributed, contested quotation)

  PAN

  He awoke to the crackling and hissing of exposed wiring.

  The light was dim, and this time he didn’t have a light. That didn’t matter… his eyes were very good in low light, and he’d been here long enough for them to adjust – albeit most of that time collapsed and unconscious.

  Pan pulled himself up to a sitting position, drawing in a deep breath. He couldn’t tell how long it had been, exactly, but he knew it had been at least a few hours. It couldn’t be days, either. He felt more refreshed than tired or thirsty, aside from the annoyance of the film in his mouth he was trying to get rid of.

  “Blech,” he mumbled, before covering his mouth. He’d crawled into the ducts when he’d heard the invaders boarding the ship, but he hadn’t expected to collapse. Now he was left wondering why they hadn’t found him… but he had no reason to make their job easier by making noise.

  Maybe they weren’t in the ship. Maybe they weren’t looking for him. Pan didn’t know, and didn’t intend to find out the hard way. Though surely they had some means of finding him in the maintenance tunnels? Heat sensors or magic or the like, he assumed.

  As he looked around the small chamber, he realized why that wouldn’t help.

  It was very warm here. Warmer than normal, even. Pan could feel the heat working at him, and that might have been why he collapsed after the shock of the invasion. The heat here wasn’t quite oppressive, but it did make him want to roll over and nap more.

  Instead, he tucked his communicator behind one ear and tapped it.

  “Apex, are you awake?” Pan didn’t whisper, but he kept his voice low. With this much insulation around him, he doubted anyone could hear him even if he shouted. He only stayed cautious in case they were in the tubes for some other reason.

  Silence answered him.

  Pan scooted back, resting against the wall as he examined the room. The damage through the ship had been pretty extensive, and this little hideaway was no different. Part of the roof and one wall had buckled inward, making the place seem even more claustrophobic than it had been before. Several of the mana conduits on that side had snapped and lay split apart, small flares of mana bursting at one frayed end of each tube.

  “Of course, you’re broken…” The gobling’s ears drooped as he took in the damage, then scrambled up into the maintenance tunnel to creep forward. If he could find something to use to repair the dragon, that would be ideal. He still remembered Apex’s warning.

  “Also do not touch the mana conduits. If there is a break in them you can’t see, it will run through you even worse than a normal person. If you are lucky, you will be dead instantly.”

  Being dead instantly did not sound like something he wanted to experience. Pan eased carefully through the cramped passage, looking at possible exits and passageways. If he could find something to fix the conduit break – some kind of repair kit – he could get Apex operational again and this nightmare would be over.

  The gobling froze as he heard loud thumping footsteps pass near. The echoing of the passageway made it hard to know where the noise was coming from, but it was a splash of cold water on his thoughts. The ship was still occupied.

  “What am I doing?” Pan whispered to himself, rolling onto his back to stare at the ceiling of the tiny passage. He had no idea where the parts were kept, and trying to explore the entire frigate to look for them would almost certainly lead to his capture. He also wouldn’t know what the repair tools looked like, or even how to operate them if he did find them.

  He was a useless, stupid halfbreed that was in way over his head.

  Closing his eyes, Pan took a deep breath. At least the life support was still working. Artificial gravity was on. He’d die comfortably enough, if he stayed here.

  “It is up to you to decide if you are finished, and what your limits are.”

  “Stupid dragon,” Pan muttered.

  He turned himself around and slowly crawled back toward the damaged chamber. He knew he probably couldn’t be useful, but he wasn’t going to lay down and die without trying something. Apex would do the same for him!

  Pan paused, then shook his head. “No, probably not.”

  Apex didn’t really care about him. Every time he’d helped Pan out, it had been from convenience or boredom. The dragon didn’t have friends, he only had a purpose. Everything else was secondary to that.

  The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  But the dragon was the closest thing Pan had to a friend right now… and the only possible way he could get out of this situation.

  Don’t touch the conduits. That had been a very clear when he’d spoken to Apex before.

  Pan peeled off his shirt, wrapping it around his right hand, then shrouding his left in the rag he still carried from the galley. He didn’t know the first thing about how magitech systems worked, but if he wasn’t supposed to touch these things directly, maybe this would be enough insulation to keep them from killing him. He’d noticed the wording… that it was only a break in the line that would cause a problem.

  Here, he knew there was a break in the line. It was right in front of him. If he could pull the wires together, maybe the break wouldn’t be broken, and everything would just start working. That was his thought, desperate though it might be. It was the only thing an uneducated gobling could think to do.

  “Apex… if you can hear this… I hope this helps.”

  He reached out with his left hand… and grasped the broken conduit nearest the unmarked door that it lead to.

  After several seconds, Pan cracked open one of his eyes, realizing that nothing had happened. The cord was limp and lifeless in his hand, easy to tug down closer to the other half that pulsed and crackled ominously.

  “Okay, I guess if it’s not glowing it won’t hurt me,” the gobling mumbled, feeling silly at the realization. His heart still hammered in his chest, and his fingers trembled, but a few quiet breaths of air soothed his nerves enough to get back to work. He silently thanked whatever spirits watched over him that he hadn’t spiraled into a panic attack like he’d done at Thistlerock Station.

  Even the reminder of that meant Pan had to take a few moments to gather his wits and courage all over again. The last one hadn’t hurt, but this next one surely would. His thoughts wavered, as did his hand. It had been easy to grab the first in a moment of impulse… but now his doubts were surfacing, and he hesitated to move forward. He’d accidentally given himself more time to think about the consequences.

  “Or I could just die here,” Pan mumbled to himself. He reminded himself why he’d made the choice in the first place, breathing in deeply.

  Now, or slowly of starvation?

  The choice was easier then.

  The gobling clenched his jaw and grabbed the crackling conduit.

  Pan was no stranger to pain, but this pain was different from what he usually felt. The aching of his joints was there, more intense than ever, but his right hand burned. His chest flared as if someone was hammering spikes into it, and his ears rang. Spots in his vision cleared only reluctantly, with his cheeks wet from the tears he blinked away in rapid flutters of eyes.

  He remembered reaching for the conduit. What had happened after that?

  A rattling cough shook his body, and the young gobling smelled something burning.

  His shirt. The shirt he’d wrapped around his hand was still smoldering and on fire. Jerking his arm to the side sent another series of popping, stabbing pains through his shoulder and arm, and revealed the half-charred fingers of his right hand. He fought down a sudden gorge at the sight of his own burnt flesh, before quickly turning away to gasp for air, his left hand on the chest suffering those stabbing pains.

  Something was wrong with his heart. It fluttered under his hand, jerky and erratic, his body frantically trying to calm a half-dozen crises at once. It alternated between pounding inside his chest and barely twitching, but the waves of pain from that were ebbing slowly. Hopefully it isn’t anything long-term, he thought to himself drily. That might ruin my last two months of life.

  Coppery warm blood filled his mouth. Pan spat lightly and let out a groan, waiting for his vision to adjust more fully. He could see his hand, but the rest of the room was dim, his eyes trying to adjust to the purple-tinted light that pulsed from behind him. It was bright enough to foul his night vision, dim enough that he couldn’t see clearly. He’d have to wait for his eyes to adjust further.

  “That had better be you in the usual spot, Pan.”

  The rumbling voice was full of static and a few pops, startling Pan enough that he jolted up – and send another screaming protest through his body. The gnawing worry that his injuries might be worse than he thought tickled at his mind, but he shoved it away.

  “Apex. You’re back.” Pan breathed out a sigh. “I wasn’t sure you were still alive.”

  “I’m getting a lot of interference. You should probably leave that spot, the mana saturation could prove fatal.” The dragon paused after saying that. “I see we have some unwanted guests. I think I understand what is happening now.”

  “Yeah. Think you can do something about them? It’s not safe for me to leave.”

  Only the hum of the ship systems – and the still-present ringing in his ears – replied to Pan at first. He felt a faint throbbing, a pulsing that tugged and massaged his body. It was an erratic sensation, one that left him dizzy after a few passes, vision swimming. Whatever Apex was doing, it was something he could feel here as well.

  “The intruders have been neutralized.” Apex stated that with some mild annoyance. “They are very large. You will need to step around them for now, until I can locate and retrieve my crew.”

  Pan felt the dismissal in those words, but that was fine. “Glad you’re back.”

  An attempt to turn and crawl toward the exit just led to the gobling toppling over, slamming into the metal flooring with a soft grunt and another flash of pain from his injured hand. His left hand also felt the prickling of a burn starting to blister, but compared to the damage to his right hand, it was easy to ignore the left.

  What he didn’t feel was any of the pain in his legs or hips. His heart pounded again, sharp and piercing jabs felt in his chest amidst the racing pulse, but nothing from his legs.

  He didn’t panic. Instead, he rolled to his back with a deep and resigned sigh, his arm throbbing from that motion. “I’ll leave in a moment.”

  Pan didn’t have to be a doctor to know that the damage to his body was worse than he’d thought. The chest pains didn’t seem to be a heart attack, as far as he could tell, but the complete unresponsiveness of his legs and hips wasn’t a good sign. Dragging himself out of here with one good arm didn’t sound pleasant, but it was better than dying in this pocket of runaway mana.

  And then what?

  It felt strange for him to worry more about how the crew would see him than his own lost mobility. The barely-hidden looks of pity… or perhaps disdain. Why did that bother him more than the growing realization that he may never be able to walk again?

  He bit his lip. He could taste blood, still… his tongue maybe, or his nose. Didn’t matter. He’d been prepared to die, but that hadn’t happened. The words Apex used came back to him once again.

  “If you are lucky, you will be dead instantly.”

  He wasn’t dead.

  He wasn’t lucky.

  Untapped

  WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU

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