Chapter Sixteen
Thanh
J ax set me on my feet and I adjusted my shorts with one hand while I drew my blaster with the other. The lights flickered and sparks started to seep through a cut in the roof of the elevator. Jax shoved me behind him and I elbowed him in the side.
“Ow! What the fuck, Thanh?”
“You can’t take lead, remember?”
I raised the blaster, hoping that Sherrod was telling the truth about how powerful it was and fired two shots. The person on the roof gave a shout and there was a loud thump. The cutter was still going though, and it fell through with a half circle of the ceiling. We both jumped out of the way of the blade and Jax grabbed it before it could carve the floor up.
A helmet fell through next, falling off the head of the Thalanite to reveal short midnight hair and dark bronze skin with gleaming white tattoos on his cheek and in the center of his forehead and pointed ears. His hand fell through next, and a blaster slipped from his grasp. Jax snatched that up and I looked around trying to figure out how to get this thing started again.
“There’s a mechanism on the lines keeping the elevator from moving,” he said, aiming the blaster up.
Before I could stop him, Jax shot the box and the elevator started moving again.
Shit, I wasn’t supposed to let him do anything!
“Better prep for the aliens down there then.”
“From now on let me decide what to do,” I snapped.
“Why? What did Sherrod tell you up there?”
“I can’t explain right now, but you really need to follow my lead, understand?”
He crossed his arms and scowled down at me.
“This really isn’t the time for games. I don’t know how Sherrod convinced you to go along with whatever his plan is, but you need to know that it’s never about you and is always, without fail, about him.”
“I know his type, I’m not stupid.”
“I didn’t think so before now.”
I gaped at him and my hands curled into fists. It was so very tempting to smack him but that would do no good. Let him think what he would, it might actually help us get out of here if he was distracted by worries about Sherrod instead of concentrating on what needed to be done.
Less than a minute later the elevator opened and I took point as Jax complained behind me. The underground tunnels were brightly lit and well maintained tubes of some kind of dark green metal. The card Sherrod gave me indicated that we had to turn right from the elevator. I took off a full run, and the only sounds were my boots and Jax’s feet slapping against the metal floor until a blaster shot sparked above us.
“Halt! We do not wish to harm you but we will be forced to if you continue to resist,” said a mechanically altered voice behind us.
“Keep going,” I said, pulling on Jax.
“We can duck into a side tunnel instead of heading to the shuttle, throw them off.”
Well, at least he was making my decisions easy.
I didn’t answer. Instead I pushed him ahead and fired at the Thalanite that was moving so fast that my eyes could hardly track him. The blaster bolt hit the wall and then the floor before a third shot hit him and he fell against the wall, clutching his arm.
“Go!” I ordered, shoving Jax down the next tunnel.
The shuttle was docked at the end of this corridor and I could see it gleaming all silver and red. The card asked if I wanted to start the engines and I hit yes just as more blaster fire erupted behind us.
“Keep going, get in the shuttle,” I said.
“Thanh, are you sure?”
My only answer was to continue running as the Thalanites shouted behind us. The ramp was down and we barreled up it as they came closer. As the ramp started to close, I fired to keep the Thalanites stuck at the entrance to the private docking bay as long as possible while Jax ran up front to the cockpit. I bolted up front with him and jumped into the pilot’s seat and took over.
“I’ll get on the guns,” he said.
“No! Do nothing and don’t ask me any questions, just let me fly this damn thing.”
He gaped at me.
“Thanh, what the fuck is going on?”
“Later,” I snapped.
The computer was showing a wide launch tube in front of us that led up to the surface. I let the navigation handle the specifics and felt the propulsion system go online with a purr, moments before we were hurtling through the tunnel and upward, like a pinball in a machine. The computer was only good for the launch tube, however, and I barely had time to take over when we burst through to the surface.
As I tried to take manual control on a ship I’d never flown before, I nearly crashed into two different civilian transports that were flying down one of the aerial causeways and I pulled up sharply. I had to get us back to Narrou and out of here before Jax decided he was done with my non-answer answers and did something stupid.
I punched in the coordinates and the nav computer laid out a course. I requested one that was more roundabout, just to possibly confuse the Thalanites more, and it gave me a route that would take us through what it called a “dark residential district”. Normally I’d ask Jax what the hell that meant, but that wasn’t an option this time.
I accepted the coordinates and took over manual control. This shuttle had incredible propulsion and I punched it through the air, weaving between the lanes of traffic and nearly taking out more than one personal ship in the process.
“Watch it!” Jax hissed. “You want to get us killed?”
“I wasn’t going to hit them.”
“That’s not what I meant, there’s –”
An explosion rocked our port side and I veered away.
The lanes were loaded with mines to keep people from doing exactly what I was doing.
“I grew up here, maybe you should listen to me?” Jax said, fuming in the chair next to me.
“Can’t do that, but thanks for the suggestion.”
Now that I knew what to look for, I was able to avoid them more easily and get to the dark residential district faster than the nav computer estimated. When we neared the edge of it, I was surprised to find that the nearly blinding lights of the district behind us weren’t nearly as bright here. In fact, everything was dim, the signs advertising products and businesses were static ridden, and a few were playing notices that were obviously from hijacked feeds with how glitchy they were presenting.
“Uh, Thanh, what are you doing?” Jax asked
I didn’t answer as I started to dart in between older, less well maintained buildings.
“You can’t be here, this territory belongs to a specific gang, they’ll shoot us down and…Thanh, I can’t protect you if that happens.”
“That’s okay, we’ll be fine,” I said with a bright sunny tone that I didn’t feel.
The computer was freaking out as a dozen red dots started moving toward us. Suddenly we were surrounded by sky bikes, their rough engines spewing brown and orange gasses. Two flew in front of us, cutting dangerously close and I saw the pierced and modified beings on the bikes.
“Shit, those are the Tansian Kings. We need to get out of here fucking now!”
I grit my teeth because now that he said it, I had to do the exact opposite.
“This isn’t as much fun as I thought I would be.”
Me either. I need the good stuff now.
“Coming up.”
As the Xenocor settled into my blood stream, everything snapped into perfect focus. The space between the buildings, the timing of a turn, the speed of the sky bikes. I was able to dodge around buildings at a breakneck speed, causing more than a few to crash into the sides of the decrepit structures, but then we hit an even denser spot and I could move as fast without risking a crash. I need space to lose them. And then I spotted the perfect opening.
“Hold on,” I told Jax.
I could see a wide stretch of clear space near to this territory. It looked like undeveloped deserts and I didn’t have time to consider why a city planet, that used every single available space to build on, might have wanted to leave this particular spot alone. All I knew was that without worrying about the haphazardly constructed buildings in my way, I could open the throttle and leave these bastards behind.
“Thanh…no, no-no.”
“I need to lose them.”
“You don’t want to go there.”
I slapped my hand over his mouth with a smack.
“If you want me to make good choices tonight, you need to shut up.”
He growled against my hand and then sat there with crossed arms, pouting. I hated to admit it was even a little sexy, so I didn’t.
The moment I hit the border between the rundown neighborhood and the open, moon touched desert, the red dots started to disappear until they were all gone.
Okay…so they’re afraid of this place…cool. Cool, cool, cool.
I flew a bit more, making sure no one was pursuing us when I saw a tall tower in the distance that looked like it might have a satellite at the top.
If it does, it can boost our signal and I can get a message to Narrou to make a run for it. If the Thalanites know we’re here, they could be searching for them.
“Where are you going?”
“What part of —”
“Thanh, that’s not a building! ” he shouted as we got up close and personal with what I’d thought was a tower. “That’s a sand worm!”
I’d been traveling fast, too fast to just pull up or go around the enormous thing. So instead, I chose to go through it when it opened its enormous maw.
“No,” Jax said.
“Yes.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“No!”
Jax let out a high pitched scream as I let out the throttle as much as I could. We dove down into the green and yellow inside as the beast roared around us. Viscera and slime flew at the view screen and I didn’t stop until we shot out the other side of the creature.
“Wooo!” I screamed, on an adrenaline and Xenocor high. “That was amazing! I have never done…what the hell?”
“I tried to fucking tell you!”
The computer was showing hull damage at an insanely accelerated rate, deterioration to be exact.
“The insides of those things are acidic, it can eat through pretty much anything, and this shuttle is now coated in it.”
“Okay, so let’s get back to Narrou as fast as we can.”
I glanced at him, wanting to ask if Narrou would be okay if the ship was covered in acid.
“They’ll be fine,” he said, reading my mind. “They can use a containment shield. But we’ll be lucky to get there before the hull melts.”
“Oh, ye of little faith.”
“Even you’re not that good.”
I gaped at him.
“Have you learned nothing about me? You say some shit like that and I have to prove you wrong.”
“Ancestors, help me,” he muttered, rubbing his forehead with his fingers.
I set the computer to automatically shield us from any large gaps in the hull and prayed that I could get us out of here in enough time to make it. The throttle was completely out as I took us into a steep climb, alarms warning me of the hull deterioration, and a fuel drain that had suddenly popped up.
I grit my teeth, trying not to worry as the acid ate away at more and more of the ship. We hit the upper atmosphere and were clear, just as a warning light let out a beep. Then another, and another.
The coms crackled with an announcement that we needed to stop at the orbital station to check in with local authorities. I ignored it and kept going, knowing we didn’t have the time for that, and wondering if it was the Thalanites trying to trap us.
Jax glanced over at me, panic and anger rolling off him. His breath puffed from his nostrils in clouds as the temperature dropped. It was getting colder in the shuttle as the engines moved power from the atmospheric controls to the engine to keep us going.
We were near Narrou, who was hidden behind a small moon. It was going to be close but —
A bright flash hit us, and then searing pain pierced my body through the Xenocor. Which meant that it was bad, very bad.
“That’s a drone from the orbital station,” Jax said, “can I —?”
“Yes…do what you have to.”
If he heard the pinch in my voice, Jax didn’t acknowledge it. And he must've been far too distracted by the disintegrating ship and the drones trying to shoot us down to notice the wound in my side before he ran back to the gun port. The drone was firing at us once more, and the ship sealed off the back because the artificial hull had been disabled.
“Thanh, this is serious. You’ve got shrapnel in you.”
I know, but I need to…just a little more, get me through this.
“It will accelerate your heart. I need to stabilize you.”
No! If you do that we’re all dead.
The agony in my side lessened to a dull ache and my eyes burned with the added focus on everything from the starlight, to the computer, to the shake in my hands. I was fighting being overwhelmed as all my senses went into hyper drive all at once. I could smell the iron and crisp after tones of my blood laced with Xenocor. I could feel the metal grinding inside of me every time I strained to keep control of the ship.
Jax took out the two drones that were after us in record time, but everything felt like it was slowing down around me. My vision was starting to get fuzzy at the edges and the cold had me shaking. I needed to land, to get help. Finally, Narrou was asking for landing instructions. I could barely type in the codes with my trembling fingers.
Jax ran in from the gun port, and skidded to a stop.
“Thanh, fuck!”
“I…know.”
“What do you mean you know?”
He took control of the landing sequences for me and I sat back. The Xenocor faded and I cried out as the scorching pain of the shrapnel hit me all at once.
I’m going to pass out…
“I know, that’s the point.”
My head fell to the side and everything became distant. It was nauseating to go from my senses being so intensely focused to being cut off from every sensation but my wound.
“Mom! Get Da to the docking bay, Thanh’s wounded!” Jax said over coms.
It sounded like he was underwater.
Why was I numb?
Someone was talking in response but the sound was muffled as the darkness tried to sweep me under. I felt us land, and heard Jax shouting. I was being lifted and I could smell Jax’s masculine spicy scent.
“Baby, you can’t die on me,” his voice was thick with worry. “Please, Thanh, you gotta hold on, just a minute and it’s going to be okay.”
“Jax…”
I couldn’t open my eyes, could hardly make my lips move.
Jax is so afraid…you have to tell him.
“No way, I’m focused on you.”
The idea of him being afraid unsettled me far more than I wanted to admit and I tried to tell Tohm-Tohm that I needed Jax to know that I was going to be okay. But then pain cut me in half and I let out a cry.
“Hold her,” someone said.
No…not that…no!
Nightmares flooded back to me and I thrashed.
“Hold her so I can sedate her!”
“No…” I tried to call out.
“I promise, it’s okay,” Jax said against my ear.
But I was too disoriented to understand at this point and I flung my hand out, kicking my legs. And then something sharp pinched my back and I was floating for a moment before falling fully into the darkness.