“Wha—?” Ira can’t adequately vocalize his confusion, with his jaw broken, his cheek shredded.
I grab his rifle, and my motion pulls him toward me, because the strap is still over his shoulder. In a heartbeat, I’ve aimed the gun up, pressing the barrel to the underside of his chin, angled toward his skull.
“No!” he croaks, spewing blood.
I pull the trigger.
The top of his skull explodes. Blood, gelatinous clumps of gray matter, and shards of bone rain over the room, but they pass right through me, leaving me untouched by the carnage.
Deep inside me, the beast howls in triumph. Glorying in the bloodshed.
“Guard’s down,” I whisper into my own earpiece.
“Ours too,” Zamora replies.
Dreyer gives a satisfied cluck of her tongue. “Starting the engines, but I’m going to have to blast my way through the bay door. Coleman, wake up sleeping beauty and get the fuck out of there.”
“On it,” I say as I fold back the other half of the metal crate. I touch the polymer lid to wake the screen, then I tap on the button to open the pod.
It hisses as the clamshell pops open an inch. I fold it open the rest of the way, and while I wait for the woman inside to wake up, I reach under her for the folded nano-tech suit hidden beneath her backside.
She blinks as I shake the battle gear out.
“Coleman?” Her voice sounds right, but her intonation doesn’t. Which makes sense, because my mate doesn’t address me by my surname. “Is it done?”
“Yes. Get changed.” I drape the battle gear over the side of the pod, then I turn to face away from it. “Then get dressed.”
At my back, the pod creaks as the weight inside it shifts. I hear the whisper of cloth being pulled over flesh. Then a new voice speaks. “Let’s go.”
I turn to find Sotelo pulling the nano-tech shirt over his head, stretching it to fit over a chest and shoulders nearly as broad as my own.
“Any surprises?” he asks.
“Not so far. Dreyer says cloaking, shields, and warp are in good shape. Zamora’s all set to disable the tracker. We need to move.”
“Let’s go.” He reaches for the door, but it doesn’t open.
I guess the lock was to keep us in.
“Just a sec.” I let that sensation flow through me again, then I step over a puddle of Ira’s blood and gray matter and walk right through the door. As I expected, it opens easily from the outside. Sotelo shuts the pod, then he closes the crate and follows me down the hall.
We part ways at the elevator, where he splits off to follow Dreyer’s directions toward the landing bay where our new ship is. I get into the elevator and head back up to the roof.
Five armed men have been stationed to watch the Dinghy. Meshach hasn’t returned from his family meeting, and his men seem surprised to see me.
“The ship checked out,” I tell them. “I’ve relinquished the crate to Ira, so we’ll be going now.”
“Wait,” one of the men says, his hand out to try to stop my approach. “I’ll have to clear that with Meshach.”
I shrug. “Do what you must.” Then I push past him, as the Dinghy’s ramp begins to lower for me. I race up the ramp before it’s even settled onto the roof, and I punch the button the second I’m inside. “All good here?”
“No one’s been onboard,” Lawrence confirms, as Jamison drops into the pilot’s seat.
“Good. Zamora and Dreyer should be—”
“Sotelo’s on board. Hold onto your asses!” Dreyer shouts into our ears. A second later, an explosion echoes from the other side of the building. “We’ve breached the hangar and we’re headed your way.”
“Meet us at thirty-thousand feet,” Zamora adds. “Go!”
“Strap in!” Jamison shouts. Lawrence sinks into the co-pilot’s seat while I drop into the one at my console.
I open a com to the cargo bay. “You ladies all good?”
“Buckled in and ready to go,” Grace says.
“How’s Carson?” Lilli adds.
“He’s fine. He’s onboard the new ship. You’ll see him in a few minutes,” I promise her. “But this ride’s going to be a bit bumpy, so hold on.”
“Are you okay?” Grace asks.
“I’m all good. Your plan worked perfectly,” I tell her, and I let her hear the satisfied thrumming sound echoing from my throat. “In half an hour, I’ll show you just how proud I am of my beautiful, brilliant mate.”
“You certainly will,” she says. And I cut the com with a smile on my face.
“Hold on,” Jamison says as he pulls back on the controls. The Dinghy rises into the air faster than I’ve ever felt it move, and our ascent is not smooth.
“I’ve got a bunch of angry chatter from the ground,” Lawrence says. “We’re being told to return immediately, or they’ll come after us. They’re already scrambling fighters.”
“Punch it!” Zamora shouts over the open line. “You won’t be able to outrun fighters in that tin can!”
“Already going as fast as I can!” Jamison shouts back, as our new ship appears above us in the sky. “Just make sure you’re ready, with the hatch open.”
“You sure this thing’s going to fit?” I ask.
“It’s going to be tight, but it should work,” Dreyer says. “Assuming Jamison can thread this particular needle.”
“You want to know if I can shove something big into your tight little…space?” Jamison snorts. “I think we know each other better than that, by now Tirzah.”
“That’s why I’m worried, Burke,” she fires back.
Lawrence snorts, and I manage a smile—noting their rare use of first names—as I clutch my seat with a white-knuckled grip.
Pressed to its limits, the Dinghy begins to shudder around us.
“We’ve got company.” Lawrence swipes his display up onto the viewshield, and an inset window opens in the upper left corner to show us the view from the rear of the Dinghy, where four fighters are racing toward us. “They’re ordering us to turn around, or they’ll open fire.”
“Can you evade?” Zamora asks in our ears.
“In the Dinghy?” Jamison snorts again. “Not for long. Does our new ship have a rear-facing gun?”
“There’s room to expand, but for now, we only have a single three-sixty-degree cannon,” Sotelo says. “I’m on it.”
Lawrence opens a com to traffic control. “Gebose, be advised that if you continue to pursue, we will be forced to defend ourselves.”
“Remind them that if they shoot us out of the sky, they’ll never get Meshach’s cargo back,” I say.
“Grace seems to think he’d rather kill her than let us have her,” Jamison says.
“Yeah, but she could be wrong. If we dangle the possibility of him catching up to us, he might decide to bide his time.”
“I wouldn’t count on it, but it’s worth a shot,” Jamison says.
Lawrence relays the message, then he goes silent while he listens to a reply I can’t hear. “No go,” he says. “Meshach advises that if we don’t turn around right now, they’ll fire.”
“Captain, buy us some time,” Jamison says on the open com to our new ship.
“I haven’t manned a cannon in a while,” Sotelo calls back. “This ought to be fun.”
“Well, have your fun quickly, please,” Lawrence says. “They’re opening fire!”
Jamison tilts the controls to the right, and the Dinghy veers sharply in that direction. A series of surprised shrieks echoes from the cargo hold.
“Hold on tight, ladies!” I call down to them.
A red flash of light streaks past us in the viewshield. An instant later, Sotelo returns fire, aiming his shots below us.
After three streak past us, he shouts in triumph over the com. “Got one!”
“There’re still three more firing on us!” Jamison reminds him, as the Dinghy tilts sharply to the left to avoid another round of laser fire from behind.
Sotelo fires
again, and this time he scores on the second shot.
“I’m going to slow down and let you catch up,” Zamora says into our ears, from the bridge of the new ship. “For every fighter we shoot down, they’re going to launch five more. We need to get the fuck out of here.”
“Ready to thread that needle, Burke?” Dreyer asks.
“I’m always ready,” Jamison returns. “Though the analogy I’m thinking of is a little less clean-cut.”
“Whatever gets your shuttle into my cargo bay the fastest,” she teases.
Jamison groans. “Open wide for me, baby. I’m comin’ in hard.”
“Oh my god, get a room,” Lawrence says. But he’s reading them wrong. As smitten as Jamison may be—though I think he’s really just a flirt—Dreyer’s not over Daire Hardesty, the fallen seventh member of our original team. And I doubt she ever will be.
Dreyer laughs, calm as always in stressful situations, and the cargo bay door of the new ship begins to open. In mid-air. Fortunately, there’s nothing inside to fly out at us. “Straight and steady,” Dreyer says. “And make sure you shove it all the way in.”
Jamison groans again, glancing at me over his shoulder. “Oh my god, I’m going to wreck that woman, when this is all over.”
Dreyer laughs. “You left your com on, dumbass.”
“Meant too,” Jamison says, but when he turns back to the viewshield, his face is beet red.
“Liar,” she says. “But I tell you what. You put the Dinghy safely on board in the next two minutes, and I’ll wreck you. Just once. For old-time’s sake.”
“You should have opened with that offer.” Jamison shoves the controls forward, and the Dinghy lurches as our flight evens out. “Sotelo, keep them off my ass for the next ninety seconds.”
“On it.” Sotelo lets loose another volley of laser rounds, and the inset window in the viewshield shows fighter jets peeling off as they evade.
“Now or never,” Dreyer calls.
Jamison aims us right for the open cargo bay, and my hands clench around the arms of my seat as we barrel toward it.
“Shit, we’re going to crash,” I growl, as the new ship grows larger and larger in the viewshield.
“The hell we are. Zamora, in fifteen seconds, hit the gas.” At the last minute, Jamison pulls back on the controls. At this speed, that isn’t enough to arrest our forward motion, but it kills our momentum enough that we slide into the cargo hold just as Zamora hits the gas, launching the larger ship forward. Jamison scrapes the bottom of the Dinghy all the way in, and the port side makes contact with the side of the bay door opening for a bit as well.
But then we come to a halt, and an exhalation bursts from my lungs. Through the viewshield, I can see that the nose of the Dinghy has stopped inches from the cargo bay wall.
“Holy shit!” I shout as adrenaline races through me. “Holy fucking shit!” I release my lap belt and launch myself across the main deck to plant a kiss on the top of Jamison’s head.
“Fucking Coleman just kissed me!” he shouts into the com, and I can hear the smile in his voice. “Tirzah, you better come at me with something better than that!”
“Close the bay door and get us out of here, Zamora,” Sotelo calls. “We’ve still got incoming. Jamison, get your ass to the bridge. You and Dreyer can settle your bet on your own time.”
“On my way.” Jamison unbuckles himself and tears across the main deck to slap his hand on the big red button. The Dinghy’s ramp lowers just in time for us to see the new ship’s ramp folding up. And beyond that, I count five fighters on our collective ass.
Jamison races out of the dingy and around it to the right, shouting into his earpiece for someone to give him directions to the fucking bridge.
“Shields up!” Sotelo orders, as the cargo ramp finally closes, cutting off my view of the ships on our tail.
“Power the Dinghy down, and go see what you can do to help,” I tell Lawrence. “I’ll check on the ladies.” Then I jog down the steps into the Dinghy’s small, crowded cargo hold.
“What’s going on?” Grace cries the second she sees me. Lilli and Hannah are both clutching the arms of their chairs. “We’re being thrown all over the place.”
“Sorry about that. Everything’s fine. Jamison just landed the Dinghy inside the new ship, and he and Zamora are about to take us out of the atmosphere.” And even as I say it, the whole ship—both the Dingy and the new, larger one—lurches forward, throwing us back with the new momentum.
“Two down!” Sotelo shouts into my ear, as he continues to fire the cannon.
“We’re hitting atmo in three…two…one!” Zamora calls.
The ship begins to shake even harder, and I crouch against the wall next to Grace’s chair, which is still strapped to the floor. “Give it another minute, and this’ll smooth out,” I tell the women. I can only imagine how scared they must have been down here, without knowing what was going on all around them. Without being able to see through the viewshield or hear through the earpieces.
The rough patch lasts longer than a minute, of course. It takes us closer to five minutes to get through the atmosphere, and Hannah clutches Lilli’s hand the whole time. But then the flight smooths out and the ship stops shaking. All three women breathe an audible sigh of relief.
“We’re off Gebose?” Grace reaches for my hand. “We’ve escaped?”
“We’re definitely off the planet. But I don’t think we’ll truly have escaped until we hit warp.”
“Wait.” Lilli unbuckles and stands from her chair. “Did you just say Jamison flew the Dinghy onto the new ship? Is the new ship big enough for that? Was that always the plan?”
“Yes, and no,” I tell her. “We’d hoped to fly both ships out of orbit and leave this one on Miscellany to be sold. But we had a change of plans.”
“So, can we see the new ship now?” Grace’s eyes light up at the thought. “I can’t wait—”
“Hold onto your asses,” Jamison says in my ear. “We’re about to kick into warp.”
“Wait one more minute,” I tell Grace. “Lilli, buckle up again.”
She straps herself in and grabs Hannah’s hand. The ship lurches beneath us for half a second. Then the ride smooths out so well that I can’t even tell we’re still moving.
“Okay, we’re all clear,” Jamison calls.
“No sign we’re being followed,” Zamora adds. “I think we lost them. Tell the ladies they can come explore our new home.”
“We’re clear.” I rip the belt right out of Grace’s chair and pull her up into my arms. “We’re free of Meshach, and there’s no way he can follow us.” I kiss her, while Hannah and Lilli unbuckle, and behind me, I hear footsteps pounding down the stairs from the main deck. “Do you know what that means?” I whisper into Grace’s ear, as Lilli squeals and races past us to throw herself at Sotelo.
“Let’s go claim a suite,” Sotelo says.
I laugh as I punch the button to lower the ramp. “Yeah. What he said.”
We step off the Dinghy to get a first good look at our new home, and Grace pulls me to a stop as she stares up in amazement. The cargo hold is three stories tall, bordered on three sides by elevated walkways, with doors opening onto them. “So…?” She turns to Sotelo and me. “What are we going to call this thing? If it’s our home, we ought to give it a name, right?”
“She’s right,” Sotelo says, and I hear other affirmations over my ear piece, as we follow Hannah around the Dinghy, still staring up in awe at our new surroundings. “Suggestions on what to call this flying bucket of bolts?”
Silence echoes over the line; we’re all stumped by what seems to be a momentous task. And finally, Grace smiles. “I have an idea. Let’s call it the Vendetta.”
“That’s perfect,” I tell her, as I pull her in for a kiss. “Thoughts?”
“The motherfucking Vendetta!” Zamora shouts. “I love it! And I’m going to love it even more when we fly this thing straight up Universal Authority’s ass!”
> “Works for me,” Dryer says, and the others echo their agreement in my ear.
“Well, then…” I take Grace’s hand and tug her toward the staircase leading up into the rest of the ship. “Let’s go claim and christen a room on the Vendetta!”
EPILOGUE
GRACE
“HEY!” I say as I wander into the galley, as relieved to have found Hannah as I am to have found a source of food. “Did you pick a room?” I ask as I sink into the chair across from hers at the long table.
“No, I…” She frowns down at the water pouch in her hand. “I wasn’t sure if I should just…take one. That seems presumptuous.”
“Did no one show you around?” My face warms when I realize that Vaughn and I basically abandoned her the minute we were offered a moment of privacy and a real bed. And that Captain Sotelo and Lilli probably did the same thing. “Tirzah? Did she give you a tour?”
“No, but that’s okay. I saw her go into one of the rooms with the pilot, and they looked like they wanted privacy, so I just kind of wandered around until I found somewhere to sit.”
Tirzah and Jamison? That’s…unexpected.
“I’m so sorry! Here.” I stand and motion for Hannah to follow me. “Let’s go get you a room. The one next to ours is open. Then we can head back to the Dinghy for bedding and clothes. This place’ll feel like home soon, I’m sure.” Yet Hannah clearly feels out of place. And I can’t really blame her. She hasn’t even met all the crew members yet, and the ones she does know abandoned her to answer the call of their own libidos.
We’re halfway to the galley door when footsteps and voices echo in the hallway. “You sure it’s okay to leave the bridge unattended?” Lawrence asks.
“Not forever,” Zamora tells him. “But the auto-pilot on this thing is pretty solid, and I’m dying for something to—” They round the corner into the galley and both men stop cold. Staring. Gazes bouncing from Hannah to me and back.
“Holy shit,” Lawrence breathes, running one hand through his reddish hair. “That’s even weirder, now that you’re both awake.” He shakes his head, then offers Hannah his hand. “Sorry. That was rude. I’m Everett Lawrence.”
“Hannah.” She accepts his hand and smiles up at him.
Vendetta (Project Vetus Book 2) Page 31