45. Chapter 45
Chapter forty-five
-Bryce-
I curled in on myself. Whatever Chief was doing to him, it was bad, and getting worse. He was torturing him.
The Aldar were gathered around me, talking rapidly. Arcay seemed to have frozen, staring at me, his face drawn.
He looked up as an Aldar appeared, running at full speed through the trees from the direction of the camp. He spoke quickly to Arcay, gesturing back the way he had come. Some of the others fell quiet to listen as well.
“What is it?” I asked.
Arcay barked orders at the others, who picked up their weapons and moved away. “The humans are leaving,” he said.
I followed after him. “Leaving? But what about—“
“The scout saw the humans taking Kitari onto their ship.”
He started to jog. I staggered behind him, but I couldn’t keep up. I held out a hand. “Wait, don’t leave me behind.”
Arcay looked back at me, then barked, “Koum!”
Koum, who was already some way ahead, stopped.
“Eearn em,” Arcay said, nodding back toward me.
Koum scowled. “Esk? Ai.”
Arcay raised his eyebrows and Koum grimaced, bowed his head in one quick bob, and ran back to me. He glared and, without a word, grabbed me and threw me over his shoulder like a sack of week-old, unwashed skivvies.
“I am doing this for Kitari, human,” he hissed as he started to run, jostling me up and down.
I tried to thank him, but he jumped over something and the jolt made me wheeze.
The jungle passed in a blur of pounding feet.
Hold on, Kitari, we’re coming.
The sound of engines bursting to life roared through the trees—it was the shuttle. They couldn’t have demobbed everything already!
We crashed into the clearing as the engines roared, and I kicked to get off Koum’s shoulder. He let me down. The shuttle was in the middle of the camp, pods still arranged around it in their neat rows. Equipment littered the ground, boxes and loading cranes left abandoned.
Aldar ran towards the shuttle, but before they could reach it, it lifted off the ground, letting out a blast of pressure and hot air that knocked the closest of them back. They were leaving it all behind.
“No!” I shouted, running after it. The shuttle hovered for a moment just out of reach, then rose, up, up, over the trees, passed over the fluttering leaves, and was gone. “Kitari!”
I spun in a circle, looking for something, anything that I could do. Arcay was staring after the shuttle. I ran to him.
“What do we do?”
“We must return to Amalya. We will need a ship to pursue them.”
“But that’ll take too long.”
“Unless—“ he stopped talking abruptly, blinked a few times, and turned to look over the trees in the opposite direction. There was a flash in the sky and a smooth white ship hovered over the clearing. The Aldar dove aside as it landed, kicking up a flurry of leaves and dust.
The door slid to one side, and there was Clay, leaning out with a rakish grin. He was wearing what looked like a pair of cargo pants, but made from gauzy, shimmering material. Like a pilot uniform, if it was made by a fairy godmother who was big on embellishments.
“You guys need a lift?” he asked.
Arcay stopped in the entrance of the ship to grab hold of Clay and kiss him.
“ Selador, “ Arcay said.
“Hey, babe.”
Arcay went in for another kiss.
“I don’t want to interrupt, but we’re kind of in a hurry here,” I said.
Arcay straightened and cleared his throat. “Apologies.”
Clay swung himself into the pilot seat, and the engines roared to life.
“Where am I heading?”
Arcay pointed in the direction the shuttle had gone. Clay’s hands moved across the controls, and the ship lifted from the ground. It was so smooth; I was used to the bump and rattle of the company shuttles, but this was like gliding on air.
We rose above the trees, and I could just make out the shuttle in the distance.
“There.” I pointed. “We need to catch up with them.”
The shuttle wasn’t out of sight yet, but it was getting smaller and smaller.
“So what exactly is going on?” Clay asked. The ship surged forward with a sudden speed that made my stomach lurch.
“Kitari’s on that shuttle,” I said.
“What? Oh, fuck. Why?”
“Did the message reach Jursin?” Arcay asked.
“No, but I could sense through you that shit was going down. So I followed your trail the fastest way I knew how.” He patted the console in front of him like it was a beloved horse.
“Your judgment is impeccable,” Arcay said. He gripped onto the back of Clay’s chair so hard his knuckles were white.
Clay preened. “Thanks, babe.” He dropped his voice. “And I put a puke bag under the seat, ok?”
He reached around and briefly put his hand over Arcay’s.
We gained on the spaceship.
“Wow, this thing is fast.”
“The jet would have been faster, but it can only carry two.”
“How do we stop them?” I asked.
“I brought one with firepower, just in case,” Clay said.
My stomach lurched at the thought of firing on the shuttle that held not only Kitari, but my entire team too.
“I am unsure if shooting them down would be the best option,” said Arcay.
“I’m just saying the option’s there, I’m not saying we use it.”
“Is there a way I can talk to them?” I asked.
Clay nodded, his eyes set on the shuttle ahead. “We should be able to hail them from here.” He pressed something on the panel in front of him.
I waited for the connection. There was a communication unit in the cockpit of the shuttle, as well as in the main cabin. It made a noise and there was a red light that flashed when an incoming hail was picked up. No connection came.
Arcay glanced at Clay.
“We cannot allow them to leave the planet with our First’s son. If they do not respond, we will have to open fire.”
“No,” I said. “Just give them a moment.”
Come on, someone pick up. Clyde, Rand, O’Neill. Any of you, please.
Clay tried to hail them again.
Finally, there was a fizz of static as the line connected, and then a voice filled the small ship.
“Hold fire and cease pursuit immediately,” a familiar voice rattled off. “We are within range of the I-S-S Destroyer, and we will be forced to—“
I cut over it, “No we’re not, Clyde, the I-S-S is three systems away. Turn the shuttle around and come back.”
There was a pause. I could hear tense voices in the background and got the impression that there had been an argument before the hail was answered.
“Gunner?”
“Yeah, it’s me.”
Another voice interrupted. “What the fuck is going on?” Rand.
“Chief never wanted to rescue Clay, he wanted to take him to experiment on him.”
Clay looked startled. “Erm, what? Excuse me?”
“Whoever sent us here wants to know how the bond works, to use it for their own ends. And now he’s taken Kitari so he can experiment on him instead, because I’m bound to him.”
“Is that true?” Clyde asked, as Clay looked to Arcay in disbelief.
“Why else would he make you leave without me or Clay?”
In the background, Rand said, “I told you this was fucked up. He tells us to move out, leaving one of our brothers behind, and abandoning the mission? And we have to take this fucked alien dude with us? None of this was in the brief, it was supposed to be a rescue mission.”
Rand could be loud and obnoxious, but he never questioned orders.
“Where is Kitari? How hurt is he?”
Another pause. “He’s in the cargo hold. He…looked pretty banged up.”
I could still feel the pain radiating from him through the bond, and the pulsing fear.
“You have to bring him back,” I said.
“Yeah, this doesn’t feel right, guys,” O’Neill said in the background.
“Look, this is all damn confusing,” Clyde replied. “But we have our orders. We have to do what Chief says.”
“No you don’t,” I said.
There was a shout, then Chief’s voice as if from the far side of the room.
“Cut that line!” he shouted. “Now!”
“It’s Gunner, sir,” said Clyde.
“I said—“
The line went dead.
“Shit,” I hissed. “Try them again.”
“No,” Arcay growled. He was furious. Hearing about how they had planned to take Clay to study him had hit a nerve. “You have failed to convince them. Bring them down.”
“No, you can’t. It’s too dangerous.”
Clay brought the weapons online. “Sorry, Bryce. I’ll go for the thrusters, bring them down slowly. I’ll be as gentle as I can, although at this speed it’ll be tricky.”
He took aim, locked on, and fired.