Chapter 51
Vytln
Vytln had never fought Yl’ln before. He’d seen her fight, and he’d been the target of her anger and her blows back when they were lovers.
He knew how hard she hit. He knew how dangerous she could be.
He respected that about her, even now. He admired how she didn’t give up.
How, even at a disadvantage, she still put up a fight.
But she wasn’t nearly as good as his Haven.
Haven had taken over and destroyed an entire starship on her own. She had seen him injured and gave him the ability to fight. She’d seen him struggling and given him the advantage. She was a wonder to him. For him.
Even now, as Vytln was grabbing Yl’ln by the mask of her helmet and throwing her out into the hall, Haven was hauling the body of the male he’d killed – he was pretty sure that was a cousin – out of the evac pod.
Without gravity, it was easy for her to move even that large body.
She tossed him into the air and let him float away as she pulled herself back down.
Vytln, one hand on the ceiling, his body floating weightlessly – relieving the pain on his broken knee – looked out as Yl’ln got back up.
She glared at him, her teeth clenched in an angry snarl.
“Let me go,” she said, voice reaching him through the comms. “You owe me that at the very least, J’tll.”
His old name in her hissing tone was almost nostalgic. If he was the kind of male that was affected by things like nostalgia.
“This is the life you chose,” he said simply. “This is the death you chose.”
“Give me one evac pod! Let me go! I swear, you will never see me again!”
She wasn’t pleading with him. Like Kldyn, she still had her pride. But she didn’t have the arrogance like she believed she was owed that evac pod.
“I already will never see you again,” Vytln assured her. “Go. Find a pod. If you can get it to launch, you can escape with your life.”
“None of them are launching!”
“I don’t control that,” he grinned.
“Vytln!”
He looked down at Haven as she popped her head out of the hatch.
“Come on!” She said, gesturing at him. “We’re going!”
He turned his eyes back to the hall, but Yl’ln was already gone.
He was glad for it. He didn’t feel good harming a female with his own two hands.
He would, of course. If Yl’ln kept coming at him, he would have killed her with the same lack of concern he had the other males whose bodies littered the bridge and not lost any sleep over it.
But she had chosen her own life, as she always did. She was trying to bet on an evac pod getting away from the two of them. She wouldn’t succeed, but she was going to go down fighting for her own life in her own way.
And he respected that too.
Yet, he still felt nothing for her as he turned and pushed himself down to join Haven in the evac pod.
The one for the bridge wasn’t as large as the pods that would be around the ship.
Those were meant to get as many people as possible evacuated.
This one, however, was just for the bridge crew.
It was plenty spacious enough for Vytln and Haven together, but it wasn’t huge.
There was a singular pilot seat and two rows of crew seats lining the walls and nothing else.
Vytln closed and sealed the hatch. Not that he really needed to. There was no air in here either, and there wouldn’t be until air was put back into it. They had to stay in their envirosuits for now. But Haven could turn gravity back on if she wished.
She didn’t, however, she lifted her tablet and typed out one more command before grabbing the release latch.
She pulled it down, hard and quick. The entire evac pod shook as it detached from the ship.
The engine purred to life as the readouts on the screen directed her forward.
It was a very simple system, meant for even those with no flight experience to control.
Haven, of course, was more than smart enough to figure it out as she moved around the debris of the Humility that fully surrounded Kldyn’s ship.
“We having just a few moments,” she said, focused on flying.
“Until it explodes?”
She nodded, glancing at him quickly. “Are you okay?”
“You’re here,” he said, touching her back, stroking upward, under her leather jacket. “I’m more than okay. Let them all die.”
It happened with just a simple beeping of an alert from the pod computer.
A small hitch in the evac pod’s flight. A warning that there was debris moving past them.
The shuttle didn’t rock violently. He didn’t hear a bang, a pop, a pow – nothing.
It was over just that easily. The void of space consumed the power of the explosion like it was a whisper in the wind.
“They’re gone,” Haven said, bringing the ship to a halt, stopping it from moving. She let out a short breath, staring at the readout of the pod like she was waiting for something to go wrong.
But of course, it didn’t. They were safe now. The debris would still be moving, but the bulk of it was already past them. The Humility’s debris field, funny enough, would have shielded them as they moved into it. Their ship protecting them one last time.
“Good,” Vytln grunted, glad to be done with that. Now, they could move onto to actually important things. “Let’s see if we can find our crew.”
Haven gave him a look, like she was checking to see how he was doing. She was precious. He liked her worrying over him, even if it was pointless.
No, the only thing he was focused on now was the others.
The shelter room was completely shielded. Scans would not be able to even detect life in it – which was why Kldyn’s scan hadn’t found them even when he checked twice. Vytln wouldn’t be able to find it by scanning.
He’d have to go look for himself.
He had the evac pod scan the area and give him a rough map of the debris field.
It wasn’t anything specific or super accurate, only enough that they would be able to pilot out of it and avoid all the big pieces that could damage the pod.
But it also showed the pieces large enough for him to identify as possibilities for the shelter room.
“These here,” he pointed to a few of the clumps. “I’m going to check to see if they’re the shelter room. Stay here, I’ll need you to guide me.”
“Stay here?” Haven repeated, turning to him, stunned.
Vytln was already gone, however. He’d moved to the back of the pod.
There, in storage lockers, were a few spare envirosuits.
He moved them out of the way, reaching for the thrusters in the bottom.
They were pulse emitters that were able to move a body about in the void of space.
It was the same technology used in trikball to help the players move around in zero gravity.
They strapped onto his boots and onto his wrists.
Haven watched him suit up with a frown.
“You’re going out there?” She frowned, eyes darting up to the hatch then down to him again. Clearly worried. “There’s… there might be bodies. Or…”
“I imagine there will be,” he shrugged, unconcerned.
He added a flood light to the top of his helmet, letting it connect to the suit.
He grabbed the ladder that led up before turning and touching her helmet, wishing he could stroke her face.
“It’s going to be dark and it might be dangerous to move about the debris field.
So, stay here so you don’t have to deal with any of that.
I’ll go find the shelter and hook it up to this pod so we can haul them out of here. ”
Haven blinked, then tightened her jaw. “I’m coming with you.”
“You’re staying,” he told her.
She cocked a hip, giving him a look that dared him to tell her no again. “I can going with you now or chasing after you when you have already left. You picking.”
He glowered at her. She cocked her chin up at him.
He wanted to kiss and spank her in equal measure – and would do so at his earliest possible convenience.
But he knew he couldn’t stop her from following him as she threatened.
There was a lock on the inside of the evac pod, but the hatch closure on the outside would not lock.
He couldn’t keep her here, and he knew very well that she wasn’t giving him an idle threat.
“You stay on me,” he ordered, leveling a finger at her. “I mean it. Don’t stray from me. If you get lost out there…”
He couldn’t finish the statement. It wasn’t likely. The ship would be able to detect the envirosuit, so he should be able to find her if they got separated. But there was always a chance, and he was sick at the very thought of losing her to the void.
But she looked excited as she put on the pulsers.
She strapped them to her feet and wrists the same way he had.
He’s the one who put the light on her helmet.
He stroked her shoulder one time before turning and pulling himself up the ladder.
He only needed one hand. The other he used to unscrew the hatch and push it out.
Totally zero gravity, completely airless, freezingly cold. Kldyn’s suit was much better than Vytln’s had been, and he didn’t feel any of it as he pulled himself out into the void.
To his surprise, the area wasn’t completely dark. And he realized that, in the distance, there was a sun that was shining its light on them. It wasn’t as bright as when the exterior lights had flooded the area, but he could still see beyond the cone created by his helmet light.
Their ship and the Humility had created a debris cloud of metal and broken objects.
The field was bigger than both ships combined, it went on in every direction.
And it was impossible to tell what was part of one ship and what was part of the other.
They were all just mashed and crushed together, most of it still moving apart, but the larger pieces had all bumped into each other, halting their progression, and were now just floating and spinning.