Chapter Three
Thanh
I felt sick at the sacrifice of the captain, but there wasn’t time to grieve. The ship we’d fled to had warning bells going off as an explosion rocked the vessel. The airlock closed and we didn’t wait around for the umbilical to disengage, there was an entire crew to save.
“Get the engines primed, we need to get out of here!” Jax ordered once we were out of the airlock.
“The pilot was lost back there,” said one of the pirates holding a long coolant tube. “And we’ve taken a direct hit to the coolant core. We’re trying to fix it but—”
“I can fly the ship,” I said.
The pirate nodded.
“Come on, I’ll take you to the cockpit,” Jax motioned ahead of him and we took off at a run.
We raced through what looked like a small freight area where several of the crew were scrambling at computer stations. Jax led the way down a corridor and then around a sharp bend that took us through a common area. Beyond that was a wide hall and we’d just reached it when the ship was shaken violently.
I fell against the wall as the trembling of the ship only grew worse. Jax grabbed me and fell to the floor with me, shielding me from a piece of the ceiling that had come down, just barely missing him, as it dangled by its wires. When the shaking stopped, more alarms went off and someone was shouting about a fuel leak.
“Are you alright?” Jax asked, his body perched over mine.
When he’d held me earlier, I’d still been shaking off the drugs and hadn’t been able to really focus on his face or body. But now it was unavoidable and I hated how damn beautiful he was. Most Zorestrans were walking fantasies, with the libido to match, and Jax was definitely the poster child for his species stereotype.
Even though his hard body wasn’t pressed against me now, it had been mere seconds ago, I grit my teeth against the flutter of arousal in my belly at the memory of his muscles shielding me.
I pressed my hands to his enormous chest, ignoring how small I looked compared to him, and pushed him off me.
“I’m fine,” I answered.
I scrambled back while Jax knelt on the floor with a look of disbelief on his face.
“What?” I challenged.
“A thank you maybe is in order?”
I glanced up at the ceiling panel. “Thanks.”
“Yeah, whatever, I hope you can fly the ship. This isn’t some fancy shuttle from a private shipyard or a special Gex-Corps one. It’s a hodge-podge. You know, like real people fly?”
I bristled at the dig. He’d never let me forget that I’d come from money and a family reputation that demanded respect, while he’d been at the academy on a scholarship.
“I’m sure I’ve got it,” I snapped. “Why don’t you go do something useful like man one of the guns?”
“Yeah, cause I’m just a trigger jockey, got it.”
“No, you’re also a whiny bitch and if you don’t move we’re all dead.”
I didn’t bother waiting for him to get up because I’d really had enough of being in his presence. I skirted around his body, which was broad enough that my thigh couldn’t help but brush against his arm, the skin tingling at the contact, which only angered me more. Why did my body have to betray me in so many ways?
Chronic pain.
Constant rash from the metal on my back.
PTSD from an operation and post care that I couldn’t remember.
And a pussy that had absolutely no fucking taste.
That was the only explanation for the attraction that had plagued me ever since Jax stepped foot on the Intrepid. It only made me angrier at him knowing that he’d never let me live it down if he found out that I’d had some scorching hot, kinky fantasies about him over the years. Mostly with me denying him an orgasm and making him cry while I got multiple ones. But he wouldn’t see it as a torture fantasy, he’d only focus on the part where he was a fantasy at all. And, that was actually the part that pissed me off.
Why him? Of all the fucking jerks I’ve been with, fucked, wanted over the years, why is it Jax Vabaris that can get me wet with a single graze of his crazy sexy arms?
The ship trembled again, but not as drastically as last time and I focused on flying this bucket of bolts so we didn’t die before I could yell at Jax for telling everyone I was his mate.
The cockpit was a narrow space, but more than big enough for me, and a copilot. Two seats were in front of me and a third was an emergency jump seat that was jutting out of the wall behind the copilot chair. The computer system was indeed a hodge-podge, but I’d had plenty of experience with such things before I came to the academy. A quick glance, and a few buttons later, and I knew the system I was working with. The base engine was pretty slow and meant for a much larger, heavier freighter, but the crew had made some creative modifications that made the engine fuel efficient and much faster than the base model.
As I prepped the engines and figured out how to take manual control, I realized that the ship was actually two different ones, with an additional cockpit at the rear. The front where I was sitting had once been its own shuttle before it had been joined to a heavy, armored part of an old freighter. The mods to the engine ensured that the armored section of the ship didn’t weigh down the lighter section. But the mods also gave both sections speed and maneuverability when the pieces were separated. It was pretty damn ingenious and if we had time, I’d want to dissect this ship and find out how they did it.
But for now, I’d settle for us not dying.
I was about to tell the crew to disengage the umbilical when the engines shut off.
“Shit,” I grumbled, punching the coms button. “What happened?”
“We have a fuel leak,” cracked the com. “Patching now but had to turn off power.”
“How long? We’re a sitting duck here.”
The com crackled again but I couldn’t understand the answer.
“Say again?”
“We’ll have engines in two minutes.”
I was about to tell them that wasn’t good enough when a fighter that I recognized quite well came at us and shot the umbilical. My stomach dropped for two reasons.
One, the K’Tavi were out there.
And two, we were now drifting, with no engines, on the edges of a dog fight.
I hurriedly punched buttons and brought up a fuel and engine schematic.
Any ideas? I asked Tohm-Tohm, my Seahdohn symbiote.
They were a species that couldn’t live off of their home world unless they were bonded to a host. Most species knew, or had learned, how to bond to Seahdohn, who were endlessly curious creatures. I’d been one of the first humans to be given a symbiote, and I had no memory of the experience beyond brief and traumatizing flashes in dreams. But Tohm-Tohm and I were a team from day one, no matter what, and both of us were determined to make this work and be the best pilot in the entire GUP. I could communicate with him with my mind and his presence was always there, sometimes to my frustration.
“Switch to that auxiliary power. According to the fuel read out, it won’t last long but it should give them enough time to fix the main engines.”
I input the command and within seconds the ship lurched forward with the barest touch of the control wheel.
“What was that?” Jax asked over coms.
“Nothing, we’re getting out of here. Everyone hang on!”
The sensors picked up on six incoming fighters, approaching in groups of two from starboard, two from under and two from forward. I switched to entirely manual flight so I could thread the needle between the groups. I knew that Jax would be ready. He may have been an annoying as hell fuck boy, but he was a crack shot when it counted.
The power signature on the computer screen told me that the auxiliary was going to be much more powerful than the regular engines, but I still wasn’t quite ready for the burst of speed we put on. It was like someone had shoved us from behind. One second we were by the half destroyed station and the next, we were barreling toward four of the six fighters.
A soothing warmth flowed through me as Tohm-Tohm flooded my body with the substance his species naturally secreted inside their hosts. I knew it had a Seahdohn name but the GUP took to calling it Xenocor. A little of it was constantly coursing through me. It was part of what helped me walk, what made it possible for me to communicate with Tohm-Tohm, and it helped me be a little quicker than most humans. But there were times when I needed to be much faster, much more attuned to the minutia around me, like right now. That’s when Tohm-Tohm would release a burst of it, giving me heightened senses that bordered on precognition.
The problem was that, for some reason, it was extremely hard on my body and I could only handle short doses of the increase. Even then, I had wicked withdrawals.
As I looked around, everything slowed to a fraction of what others were experiencing. I could see the exact degree of pitch to adjust so we didn’t crash into one of the fighters, I knew when to spin the ship so that Jax and the other turret gunner’s shots would rotate at exactly the right angle to hit.
The bolts hit the fighters and they went up in flames just as we flew past them at breakneck speed.
Jax cheered in the coms.
I grinned, high on the Xenocor but also on the thrill of flying. I was good before Tohm-Tohm; with him, I was untouchable.
I dove at speed and came around toward the fighters that had tried to get the jump on us from below. The gunners hit one and the other veered away. I swung around, faster than this ship was probably designed to do if the small red light was any indication, and one of the fighters was blasted out of the sky.
Now I cheered right along with Jax, my body buzzing and just shy of too warm.
I knew this sensation. In fact, I was terribly familiar with it.
“I’m gonna have to cut it off.”
Not yet, there’s still fighters around us and we haven’t gotten engine power back yet.
“Thanh, you know the consequences. I can’t.”
Bullshit, you can.
“You asked me not to do that again. Remember how long it took you to recover? You really want to be that weak in front of Jax?”
Damn it, don’t you use my nemesis against me.
“What else is he good for?”
I grumbled inside, knowing Tohm-Tohm was right about the Xenocor but pissed all the same.
The sensors picked up on a signal just outside the debris field of the fight that would look like nothing but strange static to anyone else. But Zephyr had told me that this is what I’d see if there was an emergency and we were separated.
Before I could set a course, another two fighters came up on our tail. The auxiliary power was just about out and the main engines hadn’t come back on.
“Engineering, status?”
“We’re almost…got it!”
The lights in the cockpit went to full power, and the computer showed a tiny bit of slowing as the auxiliary shut down and the main engines took over. It was enough for the faster, lighter K’Tavi fighters to close the distance to firing range.
The alarms for missiles went off and I veered down at an angle, turning upside down right before the missiles reached us. One of the turrets shot out a stream that the fighter deftly avoided. These ships were a bit more nimble, flown by better pilots than the ones we’d engaged before. I tried to out maneuver them, coming up on their rear but they shook me off, circling around to fly above me. I dipped down and to the starboard side when a hot spike of agony shot through my head.
Apparently I was fresh out of Xenocor.
My arms felt like there were ants crawling beneath my skin and sweat began to drip down the side of my body, even though a chill raced down my spine.
I need a little more to shake these two, I can’t be compromised right now.
Tohm-Tohm let out a series of growling clicks, which was apparently the Seahdohn language. He always slipped into it when he was upset or stressed.
“Fine. But only a little to keep the withdrawals at bay.”
From one moment to the next, the pain became a distant ache and suddenly my head was completely clear of the fog and discomfort from before. I circled around to position myself in front of the fighters. The way the fighters were veering, their formation indicated that they were going to cross paths and shoot at us simultaneously.
I made for a particularly dense spot of debris and started flying between the larger hull pieces. I came close on purpose and one of the turrets tried to shoot the debris out of the way.
“Leave it, gunner, I’m using it.”
“Damn it, Thanh, this ship is not the Intrepid!” Jax chided.
I ignored him and wove between the debris as the fighters came closer. More than once, I nicked the ship against a piece, sending it flying off to the side or behind us. The fighters now had to dodge the debris and try to find us.
“Thanh, just get us out of here!” Jax shouted into the coms.
“We can’t shake them with speed, they’re too fast!” I said.
“Well at least —”
I turned his com off and concentrated on heading to the edge of the field. At the last minute, I dipped down and came up directly in front of one of the fighters. It was close, a little too close.
The fighter altered course, straight up, but not before hitting us with the underside of his ship. But he was also too close to several huge pieces of shattered hull and when he tried to avoid one, he flew right into another. The explosion caused a ripple effect, and a wave of debris came our way. Though I dove, some of it still slammed into us and alarms blared at me in judgment. I struggled to hold onto control off the ship as several more hit the hull. One of the turrets ended up being damaged and there was a fire warning in that area.
I finally got us into a good spot in the field and turned my attention to the remaining fighter. I found him pretty quickly since he was also trying to find us. When I did, we were playing yet another game of chicken. But this time, I didn’t want to cause another debris collision with our ship. I turned around and headed for the edge, once again weaving between the debris. With my heart beating a staccato against my ribs, hands tight on the wheel in anticipation, I brought us around just as the last fighter came out of the field.
“Fire at the remaining fighter!” I yelled to the gunners as I reactivated Jax’s coms.
A beautiful rain of orange bolts flew through space, and though the enemy vessel tried to avoid the shots, he only succeeded in colliding with the debris. One of the gunners took advantage of the situation and landed a direct hit, blowing the fighter up.
I let out a long breath and slumped over the wheel before double checking that there were no more out there.
“We’re clear, gunners,” I said with a shaky laugh.
“Copy that,” Jax ground out in a low growl.
A second later, a signal came over the long range scanners, something that most would dismiss but the pattern looked like the one Zephyr had taught me a few days ago.
She’s waiting for us out there. All we have to do is not kill each other long enough to get to her.
I was too tired to care that Jax was probably marching toward the cockpit to rip me a new one. Especially when the Xenocor was suddenly gone.
The lack hit me like a piece of the debris I’d just flown through. The immediate body aches stole my breath for a moment and everything sped up suddenly creating an overload to my senses. Jagged pain stabbed my head and I saw bright spots in my vision. I closed my eyes for just a second and rubbed my temples, forcing myself to ignore the increased misery in my back and hips. Pins and needles raced up and down my legs at such an intensity that I had to bite back a cry.
“He’s coming.”
I wanted to curl into a ball and sob but I would not, in a million years, let Jax see me like that. So I set the navigation on auto, dug my fingernails into my palms, took a deep breath and forced my body to come to standing. I managed to lean against the back of the chair I’d been sitting in, letting it take the brunt of my weight, as I positioned myself with arms crossed as if I didn’t have a care in the entire world, while my body sang with pain.
I heard the animal-like stomp of his boots moments before he stormed into the cockpit, purple eyes flashing.
“What the fuck were you thinking?”
“That I wanted to live to see tomorrow. You’re welcome, by the way.”
He sputtered and pulled at his horns with wide eyes before advancing on me. He leaned down and jabbed his finger in my face as he raged.
“You are unbelievable ! Do you have any idea the damage you’ve done? This isn’t fucking Gex-Corps!”
“I know that, you made it very clear that I don’t belong here, but I did my best to save our lives.”
“You damaged the ship!”
“And they’ll repair it! They got the engines up pretty damn fast, they seem pretty talented.”
Jax let out a growl through clenched teeth and stepped back from me. I’d never seen him this angry and I was starting to wonder if maybe I really had stepped in it this time. But that thought was quickly squashed by the years of seeing Jax’s smug face any time I made a mistake. No, this time I wouldn’t budge. I saved our fucking lives by doing some pretty spectacular flying, and his response was to yell at me?
I was about to dismiss him with a wave of my hand and take a load off my legs when he met my gaze. His eyes still blazed with anger, but there was something else there too, a hardened expression that I wasn’t used to seeing on Jax.
“You caused a fire in their hydroponics lab and half their food supply is now gone,” he said, voice low and dangerous. “You tore off a part of the hull that’s next to one of the engines and that panel has to be a specific type of metal that is not easy to come by so now that part of the ship has to be closed off. And the gunner in the other turret has third degree burns on his arm.”
“I didn’t mean for —”
Jax leaned in again and cut me off.
“These ships don’t get repair teams or unlimited credits to replace things that get damaged like the Gex-Corps ones do. They can’t just call up their daddy and ask for money to bail them out when they fuck something up. They have to scrounge and work their asses off for every single credit, every single repair. And you just set them back for a good long while.”
Fury and guilt warred inside of me. I wanted to scream at him for once again making me out to be the spoiled princess that doesn’t care about anyone else. But how could I when he’d made a pretty convincing argument that I was acting exactly like that?
“You could just admit that.”
Tohm-Tohm was right, I could. I should. This wasn’t just a simple disagreement. Lives had been put at risk, were still at risk if the food situation got bad. I had caused these people harm when all they’d done was help us out, and they’d lost their captain in the process.
“I’ll go see if I can help them,” I said, silently asking Tohm-Tohm’s assistance to move without wincing.
But before I could so much as push off the support of the chair, Jax sneered at me.
“I think you’ve done enough, princess.”
The guilt burned away with a quick flash of anger. No one, in all the universe, could get me more pissed off quicker than Jax fucking Vabaris.
“You come in here and give me a guilt trip –”
“Guilt trip?!”
“— and then won’t let me help? You just wanted to make me feel like shit, is that it?”
“No, I wanted you to understand that sometimes you should really shut up and listen to me.”
“Oh, fuck you!”
“And if you went out there, you’d just make it worse.”
“I actually do know my way around a ship you —”
“They think you’re my mate. So, you marching out there to magnanimously offer your help would only embarrass them in front of the new Seventh Daughter. You did a number on their ship, can you just leave their pride alone?”
That stopped me short and my mouth just hung open as words disappeared from my brain.
His mate…right, we still have that lie.
“Why not just tell them the truth? That you lied to get me out of a situation that I was completely capable of handling.”
Did I have to include that last part?
Nope.
But it sure felt good to see him sputter.
He pulled on his horns again as he took two steps away from me and then spun around.
“Stay. Here. For once, just fucking listen to me.”
He was about to leave when I remembered the signal.
“Wait, I picked up a signal from our…mutual friend.”
That stopped him in his tracks and he turned back around.
“And?”
“She’s not far away. I’m assuming the beacon means she wants to meet.”
“Fuck,” he sighed. “Yeah, but I can’t bring these guys. They don’t trust easily as it is and it’s gonna look suspicious as hell that I’m meeting with a Gex-Corps ship.”
“Don’t they know you’re in Gex-Corps?”
“Not exactly, long story that I’m not really inclined to share at the moment.”
I held up my hands.
“Fine by me.”
“I’ll find out if the ship can separate and still be sustainable for them. I’ll have to leave this part at a Titus friendly repair station. I’ll figure this out you just…stay here.”
“Yeah, I got it. I’ll play the good little mate and listen to my lord.”
He snorted.
“Ancestors, you’re a brat.”
I shrugged and agony in my shoulders nearly made me hiss in pain.
“You mated me.”
Jax frowned, and his eyes ran down my body but what started as a lustful perusal, turned concerned rather quick.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, his voice just a touch softer.
“I just got yelled at by a big blue asshole.”
“No, that’s not…you’re in pain, aren’t you?”
My teeth ground together, nails biting into my palms again, as pain and frustration tore through me.
“No.”
“Thanh —”
“Go help the crew and leave me alone, Jax. I don’t want or need your assistance.”
“Fine,” his voice rough.
I tried not to feel anything as he gave me one last look before walking down the hallway. I waited until I couldn’t hear his footsteps before falling to the cool metal floor and curling into a ball.
My joints were burning, and my muscles were cramping. The headache that had been threatening since I came out of a drug-induced haze in Jax’s arms now squeezed my head like a vice.
Help…please…
“You won’t like it.”
Don’t care…please, friend.
Seconds later I was unconscious as Tohm-Tohm took over my nervous system and put me to sleep.