Supernova: Sci-Fi Romance (Far Hope Series Book 3)

by E. A. James

  “If we even had an idea of where to start looking, we wouldn’t be having this conversation,” Artanis continued. “But we have nothing. Grimm’s coup was well planned and by all accounts of T.A.F. intelligence, there’s no trace of him to speak of.”

  “It’s crazy,” Kira muttered. “It’s completely insane.”

  “Is it really the only option?” Thor asked.

  “What if it is?” Kira replied. “Are you seriously considering doing this?”

  “If it’s the only way…,” Thor started.

  “It’s the only way to ensure our deaths!” Kira quipped.

  “I’ll do it,” Dario said, standing up quickly.

  Kira and Thor immediately fell silent as everyone turned their attention to the older, grey-haired doctor. Kira knew that his age and size were deceiving. He was agile, strong, and intelligent. But, still, he would stand no chance in the high-security prison.

  “Dario, no,” Alaria said, grabbing onto his hand and attempting to pull him back down into his seat.

  “You realize what this mission entails?” Kira asked. “Dario, it’s suicide.”

  “If it’s the only option we have, someone has to at least try,” Dario explained. “Every second we spend just sitting around; Grimm’s forces are getting stronger, his weapons more advanced, and his mental state more fragile. If doing this brings us closer to stopping him and freeing Thane, I’m more than happy to volunteer.”

  “We can’t let him go in there alone,” Thor said, turning to face Kira.

  “We can’t let him go at all!” Kira replied emphatically.

  “We don’t have another choice,” Artanis said, looking at both of the Commanders.

  “He has a point, Kira. We can’t just keep sitting around waiting for Grimm to act first. What if the next course of action he takes is detonating one of his Supernova weapons?” Thor said.

  “Commander Rockhold has a point,” Artanis agreed.

  “And, he’s about to have a bounty on his head,” Thor said, looking over Kira’s head at Dario. “I’m in.”

  “What?” Kira said, spinning around to face everyone in the room. “No, no, no. We were supposed to be helping in the fight, not going undercover. I’m not qualified for something like this.”

  “It’s not necessarily undercover…,” Thor began.

  “Are you sure there’s no other way?” Kira asked, looking desperately at Artanis.

  “The only other option is to run sector by sector searches of the entire galaxy, and that could take years,” Artanis replied.

  “We don’t have years,” Dario said nervously.

  Letting out a slight huff of defeat, Kira turned to face Thor, a scowl etched across her face. “You owe me a hell of a lot of simple if we make it through this,” she said firmly.

  “I’ll start searching for office jobs right now,” he replied with a smirk.

  “Fine,” Kira said spinning around to face Artanis. “You’ve got three wanted fugitives, ready and waiting.”

  “Thank you very much for your bravery,” Artanis said, pushing out his chair and extending his hand in her direction.

  “Don’t you mean thank you for my neck? Because this isn’t a mission. It’s more like a death sentence,” she replied, slipping her hand into his and shaking it firmly.

  “That makes your bravery even more appreciated,” Artanis replied, sliding back into his chair. “Especially because…”

  “Because? There’s more, isn’t there? There’s always more,” Kira said, shooting Thor a frustrated look before slumping back down into her chair.

  “Especially because given the circumstances and the fact that Jaantu 7 is owned by a private company, the T.A.F. will not be able to be involved in the mission in any way,” Artanis finished.

  “As in, once we’re in, we’re screwed?” Thor asked as he retook his seat next to Kira.

  “As in, we can provide your ship with supplies, but once the bounties are re-instated, it’s up to you and your crew to devise your own escape plan,” Artanis explained.

  “Oh, no problem,” Kira said sarcastically. “All we have to do is break out of the prison with the highest level of security in the entire galaxy.”

  “It doesn’t sound so bad when you put it that way, does it?” Artanis replied, shooting her a half-smile. “Come on, Kira. What happened to the adventure-seeking, daredevil pilot that used to purposely put herself in these types of situations?”

  “I never got myself into something like this,” Kira said defensively.

  “You’ve gotten pretty damn close.”

  “I have,” Kira admitted with a chuckle. “Fine. I’m still in if the others are.”

  Thor and Dario both voiced their agreement in unison as Alaria let out a soft, heartbroken sigh.

  “Wonderful,” Artanis said, slamming his fist down on the table with zeal. “I will reinstate your bounties to ensure your transport to Jaantu 7. I suggest you find a creative way to get arrested. You know, make it more believable.”

  “I don’t think Kira will have a problem with that,” Thor said.

  Artanis laughed and nodded his head. “No, I don’t think she will.”

  “Okay, okay,” Kira said, sitting up straight. “That’s enough of that. What do we need to do, Admiral?”

  “Well, I suggest you get back to your ship and regroup with your crew,” Artanis said. “Explain the situation to the others, and start planning. You won’t have long, but I will give you as much time as possible. Once you’re ready to head out, come find me, and we’ll finalize everything before your big departure.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  "You're going to do what?" Bron asked, leaning back on his heels and crossing his arms over his chest. The look of disbelief and slight judgment on his face was hard to miss.

  “It’s our only hope,” Kira replied.

  “Are you joining in on his suicide mission?” Bron asked, glancing over at Alaria.

  “No,” she replied, shaking her head. “But my father is.”

  The sadness in her voice was as easy to note as the criticism in Bron’s. They were all feeling some sort of frustrated negativity. They were just beginning to accept that they were free. They were just beginning to let themselves be happy and relaxed.

  There was one individual among them, though, that met the news with excitement.

  “I don’t know what you guys are so upset about,” Vinnie announced. “We’re going to get to see the inside of Jaantu 7! We’re going to get to see the galaxy’s most infamous prison!”

  “Not all of us are going to get to see inside,” Bron said, glancing down at his side-kick over his shoulder. “Only the ones with a death wish.”

  “I might have…” Vinnie started.

  “No, you don’t,” Bron replied gruffly, the ridges engrained in his brow becoming even more defined with his scowl.

  “Well, shit,” Vinnie muttered. “So, while they’re out there getting to see all the action what are we going to be doing?”

  “Working on the ship,” Kira replied.

  “How exciting,” Vinnie mumbled.

  “How exciting,” Vinnie’s repair bot mimicked, the hint of sarcasm somehow apparent in the mechanical voice.

  “You’ll be working on the ship,” Kira continued, “because it’s going to need to be in the best shape possible.”

  “That could take years,” Thor replied with a chuckle.

  “Let’s hope not,” Kira said. “Because we’re going to need the three of you to find some way to get us out of that hell hole.”

  “What?” Bron asked.

  “What?” Vinnie mirrored. “We’re going to bust you guys out of the Jaantu 7?”

  The young Terran teen began to bounce around excitedly. His usually contagious energy didn’t spread to the rest of the group, though. Even his metallic side-kick seemed to emanate uncertainty

  “Let me get this straight,” Bron said, shifting his gaze between Vinnie and the others. “You are going to wil
lingly get your asses thrown into the notoriously dangerous maximum-security prison to search for two known criminals with the hopes that they’ll agree to work with us. And, once you find and sweet-talk those criminals, you expect us to swoop in and bust you out of said maximum security prison?”

  “When you say it like that, it sounds crazy,” Thor replied.

  “It sounds like a suicide mission, which it is,” Bron said firmly.

  “It’s our only hope,” Dario said. He wrung his hands together and shook his head. “It’s our only hope. We have to do something. Even if we die trying, we have to do something.”

  Kira walked over to him and draped her arm around his shoulder. “I agree,” she said firmly. “We knew what we were getting into when we all got on board with this crusade against Grimm. We can’t just give up now because we don’t like the plan. Every day that goes by is another day that Grimm is out there, probably killing innocent people on behalf of his screwed up ideology.”

  “To be fair,” Bron spoke up, “Vinnie and I never fully got on board. We were just kind of dragged along.”

  “Speak for yourself,” Vinnie said, still bouncing around slightly. “I was on board from the moment those pirates raided the Hangar!”

  Alaria smiled at Vinnie’s enthusiasm. Walking up to Bron and lacing her arm with his, she said, “I think it’s a very brave plan. And, we will do everything in our power to make sure the Curio is ready to whoop ass when the time comes.”

  Bron surprised both by Alaria's uncharacteristically crude language and the fact that her hand was still wrapped tightly around his forearm, perked up. The critical expression almost instantly melted off his face as his cheeks flushed red and his lips pursed together nervously.

  “We’ll do our best,” Bron agreed, trying to play it cool.

  “I’m glad to hear it,” Kira said, stepping forward and motioning for the others gather around. “So now, we need to talk technicalities. I know that, personally, my main concern is how you are going to get us out of Jaantu 7.”

  There was a pause as they all thought. That silent pause was quickly ruptured, though, when Alaria clapped her hands together and let out an excited, high-pitched, “I have it!”

  Everyone turned to look at her.

  “I did some work for BanCor a few years back. I was working for Artech, the Telani engineering company. Have you heard of it?”

  Everyone shook their heads "no" and waited, somewhat impatiently for her to continue.

  “Well, it’s not important,” she said, pushing a strand of platinum blond hair back from her porcelain white face. “The thing is, BanCor hired Artech to do some work, and while I was there working, I saw some plans for Jaantu 7. Apparently, BanCor was commissioning some new construction or something. I guess that’s not very important, either. The point is they have copies of the plans at Artech!”

  Everyone stared at her, waiting for her to say more. But, it was clear that she didn’t think she needed to.

  “Okay,” Kira said calmly, “while that is interesting, how will it help you guys bust us out?”

  “We can get them—well, we’ll probably have to steal them, to be honest—and use them to find weak points in the prison’s exterior, or a secret entrance or exit or whatever,” Alaria explained. “They were architectural and security plans, so we could do just about anything with them we needed.”

  “That is a good idea,” Dario said. “It definitely would give you three an edge on figuring out how to get us out.”

  “Artech has an outpost in the Galactic Bazaar for customers,” Alaria explained. “They’ll have a copy of the plans in their system there, I’m sure.”

  “We could go undercover, too!” Vinnie yelled, bouncing excitedly. “Pretend we’re customers to get access to the place.”

  “Sounds like a plan to me,” Bron said, ruffling Vinnie’s hair.

  “Ok, good. So, now all we need to do is figure out how to get ourselves captured,” Kira said.

  No one spoke.

  “Well, isn’t this an interesting twist,” Thor observed. “We’ve spent the last few months trying not to get caught, and now that we actually need to, we seem to be blanking on how.”

  “That’s it,” Kira said, smiling up at him. “We don’t need to think of new ways to get captured when we’ve already perfected a few! We just need to get ourselves in the same situations we always do.”

  “Like running through the Galactic Bazaar, for example?” Thor recommended.

  “That does make sense,” Dario agreed. “We don’t want to do anything too over-the-top and look like we’re trying too hard, but we don’t want to be too obvious either.

  “And it just so happens that our ride is heading to the Bazaar, anyway,” Thor added.

  “That is definitely somewhere we would get caught for sure. We can get off in Vandor, do some running through the market, maybe run into a few bounty hunters searching the Bazaar for their next payout,” Kira said.

  “We definitely know that it’s possible to get spotted on Vandor,” Thor reminded her.

  Kira laughed as she remembered the start of their adventure, running through the busy market place, pirates chasing them from one direction, Arcanum soldiers from the other, and a Rengar bounty-hunter somehow getting thrown into the mix, as well. It was there that they met up with Bron and Vinnie. And it was there that Kira first started to look at Thor as more than a wrongly accused criminal turned partner in crime.

  “We fought our asses off to get off that rock alive,” she said with a chuckle. “And we’re just turning around and going right back.”

  “It’s symmetry,” Thor said.

  “It’s ironic,” Kira replied.

  “It’s time to get inside,” Bron said, motioning up to one of the viewscreen hanging down in the corner of the repair bay.

  There, illuminating the screen was an image of Kira with a sizeable bounty flashing underneath her name. She held her breath as the image changed to a picture of Thor, then to one of Dario.

  “Artanis certainly didn’t wait long, did he?” Kira said, her eyes still fixed on the screen.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Scanning the repair bay quickly, Kira held her breath, hoping that no one around was paying attention to the viewscreen. It seemed that they were safe—for the time being. Still, the fact that their faces were now being broadcast on the entire space station meant that they needed to finalize their plans as quickly as possible.

  “Bron, Vinnie, and Alaria,” Kira said quickly, still looking around them nervously, “Artanis promised to provide resources to make some upgrades to the Curio, so take advantage of that. We’re going to need this thing in top shape.”

  “I don’t think we have time for that,” Thor replied. “Just make it work.”

  “More than that, make it invincible,” Kira urged.

  “We’re mechanics and engineers, not miracle workers,” Alaria replied, “but we’ll do our best.”

  “No matter what, we will get you out of that hell hole,” Bron said confidently. “You can count on us.”

  “We know,” Kira said, smiling at the half of her crew she was planning to leave behind. “I wouldn’t be putting our asses on the line if I didn’t think you could.”

  “We still need to get to Artanis and let him know what we’re planning on doing. He’ll want to track our progress up until we get captured, at least,” Thor said.

  “Right,” Kira agreed. “We’ll go back and tell him about our plans. You start making a list of the items you’re going to need.”

  “That sounds good,” Bron said with a nod. “But, we’re still going to need to do a few things to the ship before we can take off.”

  “Do them quickly,” Kira said.

  “Let’s get moving then,” Dario urged.

  Despite the sadness he felt at the prospect of having to leave his daughter, there was a renewed spark of energy in Dario’s step. Kira and the others noticed it as he purposefully marched down the repair bay
, only looking back when he realized that Kira and Thor weren’t following him.

  “Come on!” he called to them, waving them on with the enthusiasm of a child.

  “Damn, is he going to turn into Vinnie?” Kira muttered as she and Thor rushed to catch up with him.

  Thor chuckled as they fell into step behind their silver-haired companion. The trio moved quickly through the repair bay but paused before they emerged into the heart of the bustling TFS Arbiter promenade.