by Susan Grant
"Let's go," he said to Tee.
Invisible barriers blocked the entrances to the cells. Muffin and Quin were in one, and Gredda in another. Ian stood with Tee in the area between.
"Greetings, Captain." Muffin rolled up his sleeves, revealing massive forearms. Though the air was cool, his skin gleamed. But his sheepish grin shattered the image of a merciless warrior. "We got in a bit of trouble."
"They tell me you were the aggressors." Ian's voice held a certain approval, despite their now compromised position.
"I might have been a little rough with him," the big man admitted readily, "but he deserves much more."
"Aggressors, bah." Quin's face contorted in the grumpy scowl he'd once reserved only for Tee. "Pretty boy got off lucky. Just a bruised chin and a good scare."
"Wish they'd have let me finish with him," Gredda said. "He wouldn't have been so pretty… in the end."
"All right, listen up," Ian snapped. "The good news is that the charges will be dropped. I made a generous contribution to the local economy."
Tee snorted. "A sizable bribe, he means."
"What's the bad news?" Muffin asked warily.
"They won't release you until you appear before the magistrate tomorrow morning. I guess we'll leave after that."
"No, Captain." Muffin stood so close to the invisible barrier that the air rippled like a layer of phosphorescent film. "Don't wait. Take Tee and go. The ship's mostly repaired. Randall's on his way home, and you have to go after him."
"I understand that. But it doesn't mean I'll desert my crew."
"With all due respect, sir, Gredda, Quin, and I have more time in space than you've been alive," Muffin said."We'll be fine."
"Listen to him, Ian," Tee urged. "Push is on the Sun Devil. He'll stay here when we leave. He'll take care of the crew."
"He'd have to secure lodging," Ian said thoughtfully. ,
"You bet, Captain," Quin piped in. "For as many days as we need before we get transportation off-planet."
Ian massaged the back of his neck. He didn't like being forced into making a decision before he could give it proper consideration. But what choice did he have? His homeworld was descending into chaos stirred up by a man who'd like to see him dead.
Tee came to rest on his arm. "Your crew will be fine, but if we wait another day Earth won't." Her gold eyes glinted strangely. "The needs of the many outweigh those of the few," she whispered.
He searched her ardent face, drawing strength from her certainty; her faith in him. The needs of the many outweigh those of the few—a passage from the Treatise of Trade, the holiest document of the Vash people and the foundation of their society. His mother and stepfather had drawn strength from that particular quote through some rough times. Sometimes Ian felt as if he lived and died by its close cousin: The welfare of the group comes before the desires of an individual. From both passages, he now drew the confidence to finish what he'd started.
Chapter Seventeen
By the time Push arrived at the jail, allowing Tee'ah and Ian to depart, the main road out of town was deserted. Where the sun had set, the sky was soaked with shades of purple, indigo, and streaks of pink Tee'ah leaned forward, as if she could somehow make the Harley fly swifter than it already was toward the Sun Devil. And, ultimately, to Earth.
Lately it felt as if her life was speeding by faster than any motorcycle, sweeping her with dizzying speed from one adventure after another, an existence as volatile as her days at the palace had been predictable and dull.
As Ian brought the Harley to a stop, she pressed her cheek to his strong back and briefly closed her eyes. A poignant pleasure, she thought, for each heart-pounding minute brought her closer to the day that she and Ian would have to go their separate ways.
"Get her up and going as fast as you safely can," Ian said as they climbed off the bike.
"You got it, Captain." The words seemed so horribly formal after their intimacy hours earlier. She turned to the gangway, but he caught her arm.
"I just wanted to say… thanks for this morning."
Her cheeks warmed. She'd been so awkward, so unskilled. "You don't have to say that. I'm sure the palace courtesans are far better—"
"No, Tee." His mouth tightened, as if she'd insulted him. "They wouldn't even come close. No one does."
His esteem for her as an individual was an aphrodisiac like no other, and her sexual awareness of him skyrocketed. His intense gaze told her he felt the pull between them as strongly as she did. Smiling sadly, she touched her fingertip to the dark prickles of his beard, scratchy on his upper lip and cheeks. He looked so wild, so exotic. How could he truly be the rule-abiding prince she knew him to be?
But he was. And soon he'd return to the very life she'd fled.
She dropped her hand and left him standing at the bottom of the gangway. All through her pre-flight preparations, she remained focused on her tasks. But as the Sun Devil launched, thundering up and away from the forest, she couldn't help wdn-dering what level fate destiny hid beyond the cloak of the night sky.
Onboard the Sun Devil, Ian closed the instrument panel on his desk, then stood and stretched. He joined Tee in the forward section of the cockpit, where she sat at her flight station, waiting until they cleared the space lanes before taking the ship to light speed. "I heard you talking," she said.
"I sent one-way encrypted messages to Rom B'kah and my evil twin, Ilana. Now they'll know I'm coming to Earth."
She raised a brow. "Evil twin?"
"Yeah. Black and white. Yin and yang."
"Am I going to have to fetch the translator?" she asked dryly.
He laughed. "No. I call Ilana my evil twin, and she calls me Goody-two-shoes. Which isn't fair, of course," he added quickly. "But we have different outlooks."
"How?"
"I like to think things through. She rushes into action headfirst. She also doesn't care much for rules, and she has no discipline." He chuckled. "She'd make a terrible Vash. And that's fine by her."
Tee was listening intently. "I believe I would like this woman," she said slowly.
The lights flickered and went out. The emergency lights came on but the thrust levers flew back, all on their own. The sudden deceleration threw Ian to the floor, but by some miracle he floated away from what would have been a bone-crushing encounter with the flight console.
"Gravity generator failure," called the flight system computer.
"No kidding," he muttered.
Tee worked at putting the thrust levers back where they belonged. "For the love of heaven, Ian! Are you all right?"
"Yes." He floated like a kite above the empty chair. "Just relocated."
He tugged himself into his chair, buckled in, and inventoried his body parts. What ached from ricocheting off the floor didn't appear to be broken. Amazingly, his pulse had barely jumped. It meant he was getting used to the almost surreal, 007-like quality of his new existence. Though he couldn't decide if that was a good thing or bad. "What the hell happened?"
"I show multiple systems failures." Her green-brown, red-gold hair floated around her face. "Crat! Systems are dropping off-line faster than the ship can put them back on. And now the computer's not giving me the backups."
"Do it manually!"
"I am!"
The lights went out, and the auxiliary lights kicked on, dim and tinted amber.
"ELECTRICAL FAILURE, UPPER DECK," droned the computer's voice.
His stomach dropped with a wave of nausea, and he felt suddenly heavy in his seat. He swallowed convulsively, cold sweat prickling his forehead.
"I got the gravity generator back on-line," Tee shouted.
There was a jolt and the ship went silent. It took him a few seconds to realize that the ever-present sound of the air-recyclers was gone.
"PRIMARY LIFE-SUPPORT SYSTEM FAILURE. BACKUP SYSTEM UNAVAILABLE," the computer reported.
"There goes our air." Ian unstrapped. "We're out of here."
Tee slammed her hands onto
her desk. "Great Mother, I don't show any pressure change on the status instruments. It's got to be a computer malfunction."
"We don't know that," he shouted back.
A klaxon blared. "ABANDON SHIP. ABANDON SHIP."
"Abandon ship?" Tee gaped at him. "How are we going to do that?"
"The external maintenance pod will do," he said as the thought occurred to him. It was a chamber of about three hundred square feet, little more than a launching point for space walks when needed for outside repairs. "We can detach it, then drift away from the ship."
"HULL BREACH DETECTED. FIVE MINUTES UNTIL STRUCTURAL FAILURE."
"Let's go!" He unbuckled her harness even as she battled to throw more failing systems on-line. Dying he could handle, if he had to, but he couldn't wrap his mind around the possibility of losing Tee. "Computer!" he commanded. "Transmit mayday message: 'Situation desperate, need immediate assistance.' "
Tee smacked her open hand on a red disc on the comm panel, activating a distress signal. Then she had the presence of mind to dislodge a portable emergency beacon to bring with them to the pod, to guide a rescuer to their location in case they drifted too far from the Sun Devil.
No doubt about it: the pixie was clearheaded in a crisis.
They stumbled out of the cockpit. Pushing her ahead of him along the gangway, he scrambled after her and they sprinted down the corridor.
"Something's affected the ship's warning software," she speculated, gasping as they ran. "It's disabled the alerts that were -supposed to tell us something was wrong. Now the computer thinks we have massive failures."
"THREE MINUTES UNTIL STRUCTURAL FAILURE. ABANDON SHIP. ABANDON SHIP."
"Or," she shouted above the klaxon, "we really do have massive failures and we're about to depressur-ize."
He swore. "Now's not the time to turn pessimistic."
Ahead was the hatch to the external pod. It looked like a golf ball with a white padded interior. He shoved her inside and pushed the heavy hatch closed, but it jammed a finger's width from sealing.
"SIXTY SECONDS UNTIL STRUCTURAL FAILURE."
He cursed viciously past his clenched teeth. If he couldn't get the hatch closed and the ship in fact depressurized, they'd lose all the air in the pod, with little time to grasp the thought before their lungs exploded and their blood boiled.
"FIFTEEN SECONDS UNTIL STRUCTURAL FAILURE."
"Kick the door shut!" he shouted. They rolled on their backs, pounding their boots against the jammed hatch. Close, damn it, close.
"STRUCTURAL FAILURE. ABANDON SHIP."
Tee made a strangled scream and rammed the bottoms of her feet on the door. "No!"
"ABANDON SHIP. ABANDON SHIP."
The hatch sealed shut with an ear-popping hiss, and the life-support system inside the pod took over. The air was dry and stale-smelling. Ian sucked in huge, lung-filling gulps. "By your right arm—the manual release—pull it! "
Tee yanked the release handle.
His heart pounded like a sledgehammer.
The pod detached with a jolt and floated free, bobbing in space like a fishing lure in a rippling pond.
"This thing has propulsion jets. Somewhere." His fingers searched an unfamiliar control panel. The manufacturer had familiarized him with the pod's operation once, on the starship's maiden voyage. "There." He activated the nozzles and used a tiny joystick to back away from the Sun Devil—even at full speed, maybe too slowly to save them, should the ship blow.
Tee must have read his thoughts. "At least this way we have a chance," she insisted. "On the ship we'd have none."
They braced themselves for the explosion, huddled together, eyes shielded. But all that thundered around them was their labored breathing.
The Sun Devil held together.
"Well," he said. "It looks like we're still in the game."
She huffed. "You'd better believe we are. We're going to get back in that ship and start her up. I'll have you on Earth before Randall's engines grow cold."
He didn't know whether to shout a war cry or kiss her senseless. "Let's do it."
They fell away from each other and went to work. Ian fired the steering jets rearward, stopping their backward movement. Holding the joystick, he tapped the steering jets, expelling just enough force to start the pod moving toward the ship. Tee crouched by the porthole to offer additional visual guidance. It was a fair distance to the ship, and there was no guarantee they'd make it; the little pod wasn't designed to fly long through open space.
"We're not getting any closer," Tee observed, frowning.
He gave the jets more fuel. But the Sun Devil maintained its position relative to the pod.
"We need more," she said.
"Fuel's almost gone."
"Already?"
"We traveled a good distance, though it doesn't look like it."
She stared outside, her expression grim. "The Sun Devil is drifting away from us at a greater velocity than this pod can manage."
If they didn't catch up with the ship, they'd be stranded in the pod that, unlike the Sun Devil, held a very finite volume of air. "How much time do we have if we're stuck in here?"
Tee held her palmtop with trembling hands that revealed the truth about her outwardly cool and calm demeanor. "Approximately five standard galactic hours."
Five hours. The clock was ticking.
He gave the jets another spurt of propellant.
"Low fuel," cautioned the onboard computer in a soft, feminine voice.
"We're gaining on her now," Tee said excitedly.
Ian manipulated the joystick. "I played a lot of Nintendo as a kid." he said. He sent more propellant into the jets. Come on, come on.
Adjacent to his joystick, a red light blinked in warning. "Jesus, not yet."
The jets drained the last of the fuel. Ian threw up his hands. "That's it," he said.
"Fuel depleted," agreed the pod's computer. Though it did no good, the voice sounded ever so sorry.
On Grüma, Lara emerged from a cafe wearing an expression of triumph. Her delicate silver jewelry sparkled in the moonlight. "They tell me the princess' crew is staying at that inn"—she beckoned with her chin—"across the street."
"That's odd." Gann walked alongside her. "Why aren't they on their ship?"
Her breath misting in the chill predawn stillness, she said, "Well, according to that man in the cafe, these folks just got out of jail. They were released only an hour or so ago. Perhaps their ship is impounded, like mine."
He gave her a small smile. "By the looks of it, yours will soon be back in your hands."
Once they reached it, Gann banged his fist on the door to a guest room within which the man in charge of the crew supposedly slumbered. He hoped, for Tee'ah's parents' sake, that the gentleman in question wasn't at that moment sharing his bed with the princess. Vash royal women were expected to be virgins when they married. But then, Vash royal women were expected to stay home, too.
He knocked again. Sounds rustled from inside the door. Then a deep and very irritated voice called out, "Coming."
Armed and ready for trouble, Lara stood a few paces behind him, her collar turned up to ward off the chill. There were a few more thumps. "You Grümans don't let up, do you?" the man grumbled from inside. "This had better be good." The door slid open.
For a heartbeat Gann lost his vision in the bright light spilling out from the room. Then a shadow loomed in the doorway. Gann bunked, squinting at the giant towering above him. "Great Mother, Muffin! What in the blazes are you doing here?"
In the pod, Tee sat back on her haunches, her expression one of utter disbelief. "We're out of fuel?"
"We even used up the fumes." Think. There had to be another way out.
"I don't believe this," she said. "The ship is right there"—she slammed her open hand on the porthole—"full of air. And we're here."
Four hours and forty-one minutes. The air-remaining readout was extrapolated out to the ten-thousandth place. The speed-blurred d
escending digits were a taunt, a challenge. What are you going to do now? He dug through boxes, storage lockers, lifted the padded flooring and peered underneath. There was a solution hidden, somewhere. There had to be. The thought of passively waiting for rescue revolted him on the most basic level.
Tee's hand rolled into a fist. "It's the computer. It did this to us." Her knuckles turned white, and she let out what sounded suspiciously like a growl. "I swear to you, Ian, if I ever get my hands on the manufacturer, I'll wring his neck." She gave a wan, crooked smile. "Pilot, negotiator, cook… murderer—look at all I'll have on my resume after this stint. Oh, and marksman. We mustn't forget about that."
Her attempt at humor coupled with her obvious apprehension drove a stake through his heart. He thought of her jump-in-feet-first enthusiasm, her desire to make the most of each moment. The likelihood now loomed that her life would be stolen from her, too soon and unfairly.
"I shouldn't have dragged you into this mess," he said. "I'm sorry I ever offered you a job that day on Donavan's Blunder."
"No, you aren't." She crawled to where he sat and placed one hand on his raised knee. "And neither am I. No regrets—do you hear me, Earth dweller?" Her chest rose and fell, and her eyes grew strangely bright. "These past few weeks have been the most glorious time of my life."
Her confession drove home the sacrifice he'd made when he'd put aside his personal wishes for the good of the Vash Empire. He wanted Tee as his wife, though reason told him a future with her was as frustratingly out of reach as the ship floating out-side the porthole. In a quiet voice, he admitted, "I feel the same."
She sighed, and he pulled her close. For long moments they stayed like that, cheek to cheek, breathing in unison. Succor and sexual arousal mingled as naturally as scent and smoke from burning incense.
Four hours and twenty-seven minutes.
"Hold me tight," she whispered. Their arms came around each other, their legs tangling. As the contours of their bodies fitted together, their lips met in a kiss—soft, warm, and loving. She clung to him as he buried his face in her hair and, before he had the chance to analyze all the reasons he shouldn't, he murmured, "I love you."