Chapter 26
Thatcher
I stared in horror at the way the screen in front of me lit up with the explosion.
I’d caused that. I’d fired at the shuttle that had my mate aboard it, the woman I loved, the woman I would die for.
We should have traded places; it should have been me, blown to bits in the wreckage of that tiny vessel.
The roar of pain that burst out of me was louder than the first, louder than the second, too.
It tore through my throat until I tasted blood.
Yanking the visor I’d used to aid in targeting from my face, I slammed my fist through the screen before rolling out of the seat and hitting the hallway at a dead run.
She was out there, alive or not, I didn’t know, but I’d retrieve her either way.
The last she’d said was that she loved me, that she believed in me.
I’d fired on those engines because that’s what she wanted, and I’d known it was a mistake even as I squeezed the trigger.
I’d killed her. How could I consider myself her protector when I was the one who’d taken her last breath?
The hangar bay doors were locked tight. Even with all the extra strength at my fingertips, I could not budge them.
I whirled, frantic with fear, and aimed myself toward the nearest airlock.
I’d throw myself out of one and search for Ysa with just the boosters in my damn boots if need be.
It was better I perished out in the cold of space if she was lost to me anyway, better for everyone.
I reached the airlock before I realized there hadn’t been any bulkheads in my way.
When I tried to open the first door, an alarm went off, loud and strident.
I didn’t care if I’d caused it, but I focused on getting through that door.
She was out there, floating in space—lost, hurt, running out of air.
Or worse, already dead or bleeding out. There was nothing that was going to stop me from reaching her. Nothing.
With a growl, I engaged every bionic joint and forced all of my nanobots to flood my muscles with strength.
There was a rushing in my ears that matched the tidal wave of fear crashing in my chest. Pain exploded across my ribs, crushing the air out of my lungs.
I thought it was just more pain from losing Ysa, but when my head collided with the deck, I discovered a white, snarling maw above my face.
Glacial blue eyes pierced me like ice, and the growl he let out rattled through my chest.
Flack had tackled me in his hybrid-form, a massive, fox-like monster on two legs.
He crushed me into the deck and prevented me from reaching the airlock.
I clawed, metal pushing through my skin and reaching deep into his fur.
“Let me go!” I snarled at the howling beast. “I have to get to her. I have to get her!” I kept shouting that, bucking and fighting, but Flack would not let up, even when his blood spilled hot down my wrists, soaking his flanks.
A moment later, it was the Sineater that ended my struggles.
He came bolting through the hallway so fast I felt his approach vibrate through the deck.
He hauled Flack off me and piled on, not like a human, not in any shape I could fight.
Sleek black liquid, hard as metal, coated me, pressing me down into the deck, restraining me until all I could do was rage and breathe and feel the terrible pain of knowing I’d lost the only person who truly mattered to me.
“Shut up!” the Sineater demanded, leaning down to snarl it in my face with eyes like pools of darkness.
Darkness as black as space, as black as the entity.
All I could do was think of Ysa, trapped in that darkness, killed by it.
Killed by me when I pulled the damn trigger.
It was beyond me to obey that command the Sineater—and Flack before him—had given.
My body, my mind, locked back into the familiar rage that the pain of the past had created. It drowned me.
“The Vagabond approaches. They’ll find her,” Flack panted through the pain of his bloody wounds. “Listen to me, Thatcher. They’ll find her!” Find her… they’d be too late.
***
Ysathea
My comm had broken. It must have happened when I was tossed against the shuttle’s floor after the engines blew up.
Thatcher had never heard me say that I was getting out, and he couldn’t hear me when I tried to tell him I’d made it, either.
It had been a close call, a very close call, but I had made it out of the shuttle.
My lungs still struggled to draw air, my ribs bruised, and my back aching.
The laser cannon still hung from a strap around my body, but it floated weightlessly just in front of me.
My arms trembled from the force of the blowback and the frantic scramble through the hole I’d created.
It was really a miracle that the cannon had come with me and nothing else.
My pulse still raced as I searched around me to confirm it.
In space, everything looked different, confusing.
My body did not know what was up or what was down, and the three suns that lit this solar system seemed massive and too small at the same time.
The shuttle was speeding away, rapidly vanishing against the blinding light of the purple one of the three stars.
I knew the entity could not change its heading, especially with the engines broken beyond repair.
All that ship would do was hurtle on in the same direction, at the same speed it already had.
At some point, the gravity of that small sun would grab it, and then it was all over.
My helmet’s visor had tinted itself dark to protect my eyes and skin from the radiation.
It also made it much harder to see if anything was approaching, and I screamed when something thumped into my leg.
Debris from the engine exploding. My head spun as I tried to get a look, and I saw the shape of the Varkartoom in the far distance.
Barely visible, she was black against black, with a tiny, dreary waterworld below her.
I’d saved that ship—though I couldn’t be certain until after I’d scanned and made repairs—but I was beginning to think she’d been rescued. Now… if someone could just rescue me…
My breath hiccuped, my heart still pounding.
I had to slow this down, had to get myself into a calmer state, or I’d run out of air way too quickly.
I’d managed to escape the shuttle unhurt, and I would hate to then die by running out of air because nobody could find me.
With a broken comm, it was kind of hard to tell anyone where I was.
Each suit came equipped with a tracker, though; I had to hope that still worked.
I didn’t have much hope that I could actually fix my comm, but it gave me something to do while also helping to calm me.
I had to survive this, for Thatcher. I promised him I’d come back, that I’d make it.
He had to be devastated right now, probably blaming himself for everything that had gone wrong in his eyes. He didn’t know yet that I was alive.
A flash of something drew my attention to my left.
A ship dropped out of FTL almost right on top of the Varakartoom.
It was smaller, sleek, and silver; a Star Class cruiser in exemplary condition.
My eyes locked onto it, hope surging in my chest. The Varakartoom was still adrift, her engines turned off, just as I’d ordered Grunn and Ivo to do.
This Star Class cruiser cut through the dark like a prowling beast, her engines glowing with power.
The Vagabond. Given its last known location, it had flown fast—really fast—to reach us.
It had risked a terribly dangerous and extremely precise FTL jump to get here, but they’d made it.
When a shuttle launched and arrowed straight toward me, I knew I was saved.
***
Thatcher
The Sineater hauled me to my feet when I finally collapsed against the deck, dragging me up after draining me of all my pain and fury, my fear.
His symbiont had fed on those terrible, dark feelings, and now I was a trembling, empty mess.
“She’s alive,” he said, but it barely penetrated.
“She’s alive, Thatcher. The Vagabond gladiators managed to retrieve your mate. ”
My head shot up; my eyes met the darkness that swirled in his.
I didn’t see darkness that time, but a reflection of myself, and the hope that burned like a flame inside my mind.
Alive? She was alive? The Sineater released me, shoved me toward the hangar bay.
“They’re bringing her in now. You did it—the ship’s saved.
Good job.” I barely heard those last words, my feet already breaking into a run that brought me right back to the place where I thought I’d lost her.
I thundered past the open doorway that led to the turret and discovered the hangar bay doors were open.
Not long ago, we’d arrived there, and I’d been denied greeting Ysa thanks to Aramon’s whining.
Nothing would stop me this time from hauling her into my arms, and I was pretty sure that once I did, I’d never let her go.
A small, sleek silver shuttle had landed inside the bay and taken up an empty reserve spot.
The hatch was only just beginning to open, so my arrival came awfully close to theirs.
I caught her scent before I saw her, and leaped for the narrow gap to squeeze myself through.
I barely noticed the weapons leveled at me from several directions. My eyes were for Ysa only.
She rose from a seat along the side of the small vessel.
Her armor was still ice-cold from space, but her helmet was undone and her long braid dangled all the way down to the floor.
Her blue eyes were huge in her face, her smile radiant as she saw me.
“Thatcher!” She raised her arms, and I did not hesitate, sweeping her into mine and hauling her tightly against my chest.
“Ah, Ysa, my love,” I moaned against her hair.
“I thought I’d lost you. I thought I’d killed you with that shot!
Never, never again are you leaving my sight, you understand?
” She tilted her head back, found my mouth with hers, and then the world became just me and her.
Weapons aimed at me? They didn’t exist. Gladiators staring, then hooting?
They didn’t matter. It was just my mate and me, and it was going to stay that way.
“I told you I’d fight to get back to you. I told you to trust me, didn’t I?” Ysa gently reminded me, her lips whispering against mine. “I love you, Thatch, and never leaving your sight sounds perfect to me.”