Starfall

by Melissa Landers

  “I guess that makes sense. I can’t blame him for staying with her.”

  Neither could Cassia. She didn’t want Fleece in the same time zone as Doran. For that reason she’d sent Doran and Solara halfway around the globe to investigate the settler outbreak. The only problem was they’d taken the shuttle and left her without a ride. “Let’s ask Renny to drop us off south of the cattle ranch,” she decided. That would give him plenty of time to return the Banshee to its hiding place before the arrival of Necktie’s ship, and more than enough time for her to meet her troops in the field. “And wear your good boots. We’ll be doing a lot of walking.”

  An hour later, she regretted those words.

  “I shouldn’t have worn my good boots.” She grimaced when she stepped into another cow patty, her sole making a wet sucking noise as she pulled free. In such high grass, it was impossible to spot the land mines, and they were everywhere. So were the flies, drawn in by the hair-curling reek. She cupped a hand over her nose, but it didn’t help. The stench clung to her sinuses.

  Kane flashed a toothy grin as he passed by, paying no heed to where he stepped. “What’s the matter? You don’t like the smell of money?”

  “Not this particular currency.”

  “It’s just honest manure. It’ll hose right off.”

  “Honest manure? As opposed to what, the devious kind?”

  “I’d offer to carry you piggyback, but we’re almost there.”

  “Uh-huh,” she said. “Sure you would.”

  All of a sudden he froze and whipped his head toward the row of trees separating the grassy pasture from the wild underbrush beyond. He raised a hand, signaling for her to stop. “I think I found your troops.”

  She didn’t see anything at first. But then movement in the distance caught her eye, and she was able to make out a tall, green-camouflaged body standing from a crouching position in the underbrush. She recognized the general’s broad shoulders even before his voice called through her bracelet. “Take cover, Highness. We just got word that Fleece is arriving early. He won’t expect you to be here yet.”

  As she glanced up at the noonday sky, thankful there was nothing in sight but a few wispy clouds, Kane took her hand and towed her toward the tangle of thorny bushes behind the trees. Once they were in the thick of it, someone tossed her a length of green mesh. She caught the netting and knelt on the ground with Kane, pulling it over both their heads.

  From her new vantage point, she counted the soldiers around her. The squadron was smaller than she’d expected, no more than a dozen men, but each was armed, crouched, and ready, watching the skies with laser focus. Nearest to the pasture, two men sat in front of the group with a suitcase-size box she recognized as electronic hobbling equipment. Their job was to disable the ship from taking off once it’d landed. Beside them, about two yards away, another man gripped a set of hydraulic pliers, perfect for forcing open the boarding hatch. Then the rest of the soldiers would storm the ship to capture Fleece and his men.

  She had every reason to be hopeful.

  But the waiting was torture.

  She had to keep wiping her sweaty palms on her pants. Kane passed the time by inspecting his pulse pistol, which only added to her stress because it forced her to picture him in the line of fire. Planning the raid had seemed simple, just a matter of applying the right strategy. She hadn’t given much thought to the soldiers who would carry out her orders. But now, surrounded by all these men, it occurred to her that as their queen, she was responsible for the lives of every single one of them.

  That turned her stomach.

  A distant roar drew her attention skyward, where a passenger craft descended toward the pasture. At least twice the size of the Banshee with three times the thruster power, the ship was long and sleek, bearing the name ORIGIN in block lettering painted on its underside.

  “Here we go,” Kane said, holstering his pistol. He repositioned into a crouch, like a runner poised at the starting line.

  Cassia felt the sensation of being watched. She glanced to the left and met Jordan’s gaze, who pointed at her and then at the ground in a message to stay put. She nodded and tugged on Kane’s sleeve. “Hey, let’s hold back and let the soldiers do their jobs.”

  He opened his mouth and closed it again as a hot gust of wind from the ship’s thrusters pelted them with dust and debris. The Origin had reached the pasture and was hovering above the ground about twenty yards from the tree line.

  She shielded her eyes and watched its landing gear lower. Two camouflaged soldiers jogged onto the field with the hobbling equipment while the rest of the squadron crept cautiously out of the brush. The Origin’s landing gear had nearly touched the ground when suddenly something small and round dropped out of its waste chute, and the ship rose sharply into the air in takeoff.

  There was a moment of confusion, followed by yells of panic. The soldiers dropped their hobbling gear and bolted toward the trees, shouting warnings that Cassia couldn’t hear over the ship’s roaring thrusters. Kane pivoted to face her. He must have understood what was wrong, because she’d never seen so much terror on his face. He mouthed the word bomb and then launched himself toward her, tackling her to the ground. His body landed on top of hers and knocked the air from her chest. The back of her skull connected with hard, packed dirt. There was barely enough time for the pain to register before a burst of scorching wind blew over her, followed by an explosion so violent it shook the ground.

  Heat was everywhere. It tightened her skin and singed her clothes. Objects hit the ground all around her. She felt the impact of pebbles on her boots and sensed a staccato series of blows landing on Kane’s body. She peeked out from below his arm and saw patches of flame through the smoke. Her mind’s eye flashed to the soldiers she’d seen running for cover, but she quickly shut down that train of thought and focused on the ones who could be saved.

  She squirmed out from beneath Kane and started with him. He had blood in his hair and patches of pink burns forming along both forearms, but otherwise he seemed all right. She helped him sit up and made sure he was lucid before scanning the area for more wounded. In their scorched, bloodied uniforms, the men were hard to distinguish from one another, but she identified General Jordan as he guided two limping soldiers toward the group he’d already assembled in the safe zone.

  If there was any control to be had in this situation, he’d found it.

  Amid the chaos and the ringing in her ears, Cassia took a moment to process what had gone wrong. In such a large ship, there was no way Fleece could have seen any of them on the ground. He had to have known they were waiting for him, which meant someone had told him the plan.

  Kane tapped her shoulder and pointed at the Origin as it shrank to a pinpoint on the horizon. She couldn’t hear him, but she understood the concern on his face. Fleece was getting away. She nodded, but then a sudden realization turned her blood to ice. If someone had told Fleece the plan, then he knew where the rest of the crew were hiding. The bomb had only been part of the setup.

  Fleece was going after Doran and Arabelle.

  Powered by adrenaline and an army-issued jet pack, Kane rocketed two miles east of the pasture, where the Eturian squadron had docked their cruiser beneath a cloaking tarp. He loosened his grip on the throttle and scanned the ground, praying the ship’s hiding place hadn’t been leaked to the mafia. That cruiser was their only source of medical supplies, not to mention his only hope of reaching Doran in time. The jet pack was fast, but not powerful enough to propel him to the other side of the planet ahead of the Origin.

  His earpiece beeped, and Renny’s faint voice followed.

  “Louder,” Kane hollered while continuing to study the ground. “I can’t hear you over these thrusters.”

  “I said,” the captain shouted, “Doran knows Fleece is coming. I ordered him to report back to the quarry with Solara. I’m tracking the shuttle so I can meet them in the middle.”

  “What about Arabelle?” Kane asked. He’
d assumed Renny’s first priority would be finding her a safer hiding place, not bringing her out into the open. “Fleece will try—”

  “She’s right beside me. Fleece will never touch her.” There was a serrated edge in Renny’s voice, sharp enough to cut steel. “Not her, or anyone else in our family. Not today—not ever. Is that understood?”

  “Yes, Cap’n.” Kane spotted the ship and dove toward it. “I found the cruiser. I’ll report back once I deliver the med supplies.”

  He hit the ground running and wasted no time in yanking off the tarp until he found the boarding hatch. After entering the access code, he jogged up the entrance ramp and sprinted all the way through the ship to the pilothouse. There wasn’t time to shed his jet pack, so he perched on the edge of the pilot’s seat, prepared the cruiser for takeoff, and grasped the wheel.

  But he’d never flown anything this large.

  The ship lurched violently into the air. He overcompensated, which caused the cruiser to wobble as it gained altitude. There were too many switches and blinking lights. He scanned the control panel three times and still couldn’t figure out how to retract the landing gear, so he left it in place and continued to the pasture.

  The flight wasn’t a smooth one, and neither was his landing. He touched down with a clatter that shook a few pieces of equipment loose. The cockpit alarms blared as he powered off the thrusters. Cringing, he backed out of the pilothouse. He supposed any landing he could walk away from was good enough….

  Good enough for anyone but Jordan, who was waiting at the bottom of the exit ramp with his mouth hanging open. The general lifted a hand toward his ship, sputtering a series of incoherent words because he couldn’t seem to find a curse strong enough.

  “My ship!” he finally yelled. “You told me you could fly her!”

  “She’s here, isn’t she?”

  “Not all of her—I think you dropped the transmission during that sloppy free fall you call a landing!”

  Kane was almost positive the general had exaggerated, but he darted a sideways glance beneath the cruiser to be sure.

  Cassia came running over from the trees, what little was left of them. Most of the trunks had been reduced to charred stumps with jagged, protruding edges where the tops had blown off. It seemed she’d formed a triage among the wounded. Soldiers were separated into three groups based on the severity of their injuries. One group worked to repair weapons while another sat nearby cradling burnt or dislocated limbs. The third lay motionless on the ground.

  “Any word from Doran?” she asked.

  Kane repeated everything he knew. No sooner had he finished his recap than Renny pinged both their com-links. “Something’s not right,” he said. “I’m tracking Doran, and he’s veering off course. He and Solara won’t answer their coms. I wouldn’t mind some backup. How fast is that Eturian ship you were telling me about?”

  Jordan raised an index finger. “Don’t even think about it.”

  Kane didn’t want the cruiser. However, the brand-new shuttle nesting alongside the ship was another story. He thumbed at the craft. “Is that a Hypersonic Deluxe?”

  “Yes.” Jordan’s eyes turned to slits. “And you’re not touching that, either.”

  “If I’m not mistaken,” Kane said, nodding at Cassia, “that ship, its shuttle, and everything on board are property of the Rose dynasty. Even your tighty-whities belong to the queen.”

  “Take it,” Cassia told him. “I’ll stay here and treat the wounded. Let me know what…”

  Kane didn’t hear the rest. He was already running back inside the ship to access the shuttle’s docking station. “Stand by, Captain,” he said through the link. “I’m on my way.”

  As Cassia watched the shuttle rise toward the clouds and launch into the distance, she felt a pulling sensation behind her ribs, as though her heart were made of taffy being stretched in opposite directions. She wanted to go to Doran and Solara, and to keep Kane in sight. She wanted to be with Renny. Her crew needed her; they were in trouble.

  But so were her soldiers.

  Jordan refocused her attention with a gentle touch. “Let’s get the men inside. The cargo hold can double as an infirmary. It’s not the cleanest room on the ship, but it’ll do.”

  “All right.”

  “And at some point, we need to talk about him.” Jordan didn’t look at her, instead fixing his gaze on a shard of metal on the ground.

  She could tell he meant Kane.

  “There’s something you should know,” he continued, and when he peeked up at her, his eyes seemed heavy, as if he understood the news would be hard to take. “Something I just learned, otherwise I would’ve told you sooner.”

  “What is it?”

  “Later. First we’ll see to the injured.”

  She nodded because he was right. The longer wounds were left untreated, the greater chance of infection setting in. Whatever he had to tell her could wait.

  She helped haul the critically wounded on board using impromptu stretchers made from blankets. The ship stocked an impressive medical supply, even plasma and synthetic skin, which she put to use on two patients who’d suffered blood loss and extreme burns. Once the first group was stabilized, she began setting broken bones and administering Marrow Bond to accelerate the healing process. Finally she treated the minor wounds such as abrasions and light burns. She’d just set down her last tube of suture gel when she realized there was still a patient she hadn’t seen—the general.

  She peered around the cargo hold for him while stretching her lower back. She didn’t know how many hours had passed, but the beam of sunlight shining through the open hatch had shifted to the opposite end of the room. She didn’t spot Jordan in the cargo bay, and come to think of it, she couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen him. After grabbing a med-kit, she wound her way through the maze of soldiers sleeping on the floor and continued to the corridor leading to the main part of the ship.

  She eventually found him in the pilothouse, poring over transmission data. He didn’t hear her approaching, so she stood in the doorway and watched him rub his eyes with one hand while bracing himself on the equipment with the other. His face seemed pale beneath the overhead lighting, pale enough to make her suspect he’d hidden an injury from her. Now that she paid attention, she noticed that unlike his pants, his jacket was clean and unburned.

  He’d changed it.

  “Where’s your other coat?” she asked, causing him to flinch. “The one you were wearing earlier?”

  He held a hand over his heart. Even startled, his skin didn’t fill with color the way it should. “It was dirty, so I pitched it.”

  He was lying. Guys like him didn’t mind grit on their clothes. She strode to the pilot’s chair and swiveled it around to face the open portion of the bridge. “Sit down.” When his boots failed to move, she added, “That’s an order from your queen.”

  His lips slid into a sideways grin. Once he sat down and leaned against the seatback, she moved in front of him and began unfastening his jacket. As her fingers moved, she found her cheeks prickling with heat. She had imagined the general shirtless a time or two—a girl would have to be dead not to wonder what he looked like under his snug-fitting fatigues—but in her daydreams he’d never been this close. The body heat radiating from his clothes and the sound of his deep, steady breathing made this a more intense experience than she’d bargained for. It was all she could do to keep her hands steady as she opened his jacket and pushed it over his shoulders.

  Then she saw why he’d changed his coat.

  “You should’ve come to me,” she said, cringing at the dried blood that caked his T-shirt. He’d probably been cut by flying debris. Gently, she peeled the crusted fabric away from his skin and then tore his shirt in half to expose a six-inch gash on his lower belly.

  Jordan sucked a painful breath through his teeth.

  “You need sutures,” she told him. “But first I have to clean you up. Sit tight while I find a sponge. And undo
your trousers.” She glanced down as her face warmed again. “It looks like that cut extends beneath your waistband.”

  She left the pilothouse and returned with a clean cloth and a bowl of warm water. Still seated, Jordan lowered his pants to midthigh and rolled down the waistband of his boxer briefs, exposing a set of V-shaped hip flexor muscles that were bound to make an appearance in her dreams tonight. She handed him the bowl and forced herself to study the contents of her med-kit instead of watching him sponge his bare torso.

  When he was done, she knelt on the floor between his legs, but then quickly changed into a crouch. She’d vowed never to kneel before any man again after Marius, and she meant to keep that promise. She didn’t talk as she sprayed antiseptic over the scrapes on Jordan’s chest. When the time came to clean his deeper wound, she peeked up at him.

  “Ready?”

  Nodding, he gripped the chair’s armrest. His grasp tightened as she sprayed the length of his gash, but he didn’t make a sound.

  “Now for the fun part,” she said, holding up the suture gel. “This is going to burn like hellfire.”

  “And you wondered why I didn’t come to you.”

  She carefully pinched his wound closed. Then, one slow inch at a time, she spread the gel in place and cringed in sympathy as its chemicals bubbled and sizzled over his flesh. He clenched his teeth and grunted. The pain wouldn’t last long, but she knew from experience it was intense.

  To ease the burn, she blew lightly on his abdomen. He gasped, and she immediately glanced up, expecting to find him hurt. But the heated expression in his eyes told her he wouldn’t mind if she did it again.

  She knew that look.

  She had seen it a dozen times on Kane’s face, most recently on the afternoon she’d spent with him in his bunk. The sobering thought jerked her to her senses. She felt a stab of guilt, but she couldn’t tell for whom.

  She cleared her throat and stood up. “You wanted to talk to me?”

  Jordan raised both brows.