Chapter 14 #2
Justyn stared at the three glowing blips on the sensors. He didn’t like this. The usual MO for space pirates out here was to wait in ambush. These ships were coming in fast from behind.
Almost like they knew exactly where the Mercury would be.
Another alarm blared and he cut it off. “The ships are gaining. They can fucking see us.” It should have been impossible. Unless their pursuers had the exact code for his cloak.
“They have your cloak code.” Nissa put the clues together at the same time he did. “How?” She thumped a hand against the console. “The mole.”
“Bingo.” Justyn ground his teeth together. “Find us somewhere to hide, Nissa.”
“Right.” Her fingers flew across the screen. “There is a tiny asteroid field. About seventy-five million kilometers away.”
“Too far.” And Hydrae was also still too far away. Even if he pushed his girl at top speed, the ships would reach them well before they arrived.
“There’s a small triple-star system. There are three exoplanets orbiting one of the stars. Two are small iron-planets.”
Uninhabitable hunks of iron-rich rock. “And the third?”
“A Super-Earth. Habitable. Covered in heavy vegetation.” She kept tapping. “It’s emitting low level radiation—not enough to harm us, but enough to mess with sensors a bit.”
“And if it messes with our sensors, it should do the same to our incoming friends.” He leaned across and smacked a kiss on her mouth. “You are brilliant.”
“I’ll give you a proper kiss if you get us out of this alive.”
“Well, with incentive like that...” He winked at her before he turned back to the ship’s controls.
They raced through space, and soon the planet came into visual range. It was a bright-green jewel filling the screen.
But seconds later, Justyn was cursing. “The ships are almost on us.”
“How can they have caught us?” she asked.
“I don’t know what’s powering their engines, but they are fast.” He made to circle behind the planet, but his gut was already telling him it wouldn’t be enough. “Send a distress trans to the Nomad.”
With a nod, she hurried to obey.
He scanned the planet. If they could set down somewhere, maybe they could find somewhere to hide. But the vegetation below redefined the word “dense”—and besides that, who knew what was hiding beneath the thick sea of green?
“It’s not going through!” Nissa’s voice was tight. “Something’s jamming the signal.”
Who the fuck were these guys? With this sort of serious tech, they definitely weren’t simple space pirates. “Okay, hang on.”
Justyn used every single trick he knew. He maneuvered the ship in ways it wasn’t designed for, her hull shuddering under the pressure. But he knew what his girl could handle.
It didn’t matter. Nothing shook their persistent attackers. Soon the ships came into visual range.
Nissa gasped. “They’re Raspian Firebrands!”
Sleek, well-equipped, and deadly.
The lead Firebrand fired a laser shot right past them. The Mercury shuddered.
“Dammit.” Justyn threw them into a hard, left-hand spiral turn.
Another shot.
This one hit.
Justyn and Nissa were thrown around like unsecured cargo on take-off, held in place only by their harnesses. He fought to keep control. “Come on, girl. We’ve been through worse than this.”
A flash of color across the viewscreen. Another hit.
“Goddess,” Nissa breathed.
The blare of an alarm.
The hull had been breached.
The Mercury had been designed for stealth and speed. Her shield capacity was negligible compared to the weapons the Firebrand fighters were packing.
“Why aren’t they hailing?” She gripped her harness so hard her fingers were white.
“They aren’t here to take prisoners. They’re here to kill us.”
Her mouth firmed. “Well, I don’t really feel like dying today.”
“Me neither, sweetheart.”
But the next barrage of laser fire tore open the side of the Mercury and the ship spiraled out of the control.
The heavy door to the cockpit kept the room safe, but the artificial gravity in the cockpit disappeared. Anything not strapped down floated upward, and Justyn felt the straps of his harness dig into his shoulders.
“Dammit!” He worked furiously, cutting the engine power to throw it into the stabilizers.
Nissa’s hands danced across her console. “I’m shutting off non-essential systems in the damaged areas.”
They worked together, doing everything they could to stabilize the ship and coax out every last drop of power the Mercury had to offer. But it was no use.
As they spun, Justyn watched the glowing green globe of the planet grow, filling the entire viewscreen.
It was a hell of a lot closer than it had been a second ago.
Another few minutes and they’d enter the atmosphere.
“Anything?” she yelled.
“No.” Sparks exploded from the consoles in front of them.
She yelped and he swore. His screen went blank.
“I’ve lost the controls.”
She turned her head. “Me, too.”
Flames flared across the viewscreen as they hit the atmosphere. He prayed the fire suppression system was still functioning or they’d be crispy long before they smashed into the planet’s surface. Neither choice was remotely appealing.
He stared at Nissa’s strained face. Dammit. Those elegant features with that gorgeous mouth. He hadn’t done any of the things he’d wanted to with her. Now he wouldn’t get the chance.
No. He wouldn’t let her die. A galaxy without Nissa was something he couldn’t allow.
He unclipped his harness.
“Justyn! What the hell are you doing?” She strained against her harness, trying to reach him. “Strap back in.”
“I need to slow our descent. I can’t do it from here.
” Keeping one hand on the armrest of his chair, he let his body drift upward.
He pulled his way toward her. Holding the back of her chair, he cupped her face with his other hand.
He pressed a rough kiss to her lips. One filled with desperation, despair, and the love he’d never dared confess to her.
“You’re going to the engine? You’ll die for sure!”
“But you won’t.” He stroked her cheekbone, down to the point where her pattern ended.
“No. Justyn, I won’t let you—” Her voice had taken on her captain’s tone.
“You’re not the captain here, Nissa.”
“Justyn—” This time there was a wobble to her voice.
He winked at her. “I’m pretty good at getting out of tricky situations, remember?”
She gripped her harness. “I’m coming?—”
“No.” He stilled her hands. “I need you here. If I can get the controls active, you need to fly the ship.” One last caress of her jaw and he pushed away from her. “Hold on tight, sweetheart.”
And live.