“The Santa Celestia has enough extra energy storage on board to jump again in less than twelve hours, possibly as few as six,” I said. They could only do it once or twice before the energy was depleted, but those extra jumps mattered.
All three Houses were racing to get the energy requirements down and the energy storage capabilities up in our new ships, especially personal House ships. Smaller House von Hasenberg ships could jump once, jump again in six hours, and jump again in twelve hours. After that, they required two days per jump and nearly a week without jumps to fully recharge the system.
“We’ll be on-planet before they make their first jump,” Loch said.
“Yes, but I’d rather be off-planet again before they make their first jump,” I said. “So I’m going to try to get some sleep. Once we land, there won’t be time.”
“So eager to be rid of me?” Loch asked. He stood and stalked toward me.
Yes. “No, but the faster I’m off-planet, the easier it’ll be for me to hide,” I said. I ignored his approach and snapped the cot into place.
He stopped close enough that I brushed up against him when I reached up to raise the safety rail. I refused to back away. I met his gaze with a flat stare of my own.
“Do you know,” he said conversationally, “that you’re the first person in a very long time willing to stand toe-to-toe with me without flinching or backing down? Even the mercs had more sense. It makes me want to see how far I can push you before you’ll break.”
That drew a dry chuckle from me. “The mercs weren’t von Hasenbergs and they hadn’t spent their whole life dealing with the sharks of the Consortium. I’ll break, and thanks to my childhood, I know exactly when.” I kept those memories tightly locked down and held his gaze. “But it won’t be today.”
He pushed closer until our chests touched. My nose hit him in the chin and I had to tilt my head back to meet his dark eyes. I gripped the cot’s safety rail to keep from retreating. I’d gotten myself into this little pissing contest, now I had to get myself out. Preferably in one piece.
Loch’s nose ghosted along my chin and down my neck. I stood stock-still as his breath heated my collarbone.
“You’re afraid, but you don’t let the fear rule you,” Loch rumbled against my skin. My belly did a little flip that had nothing to do with fear. “You manipulate those around you to suit your will, but you risked being left behind to save a bunch of mercs and soldiers intent on capturing you. You’re a puzzle, Ada von Hasenberg.”
“If you’re done with the intimidation routine,” I said calmly while I trembled internally, “I’d like to get some sleep.”
Loch threw his head back and laughed. I could feel the deep vibrations where our chests still touched. It wasn’t exactly the reaction I had expected, but it did get his teeth away from my neck, so I’d call it a win.
Eventually he stopped laughing, but he took one look at my face and broke out into a chuckle again. “Don’t look so put out. I wasn’t laughing at you.”
“Right, of course not. My mistake.” I glanced away, strangely hurt.
Loch eased my face back to him with a gentle hand. His thumb traced a blazing path of fire over my jawbone. “I’ve never met a woman quite like you,” he said.
“That’s because you haven’t met my sisters,” I said lightly. “I have three of them and they’re all just like me.”
“Oh, I doubt that. I’ve met a fair number of Consortium ladies. None were like you. You’re far more interesting than any of them.”
I didn’t want to be interesting. It would be better if Marcus Loch thought of me as a quick payday that he needed to protect until we reached the agreed-upon spaceport and nothing else. And when had he been exposed to Consortium ladies?
I was still contemplating the answer to that question when Loch wrapped his hands around my waist and lifted me up to the cot, nearly two meters off the floor. And he did it with complete ease.
Heat curled low and threatened to send me up in flames. I slid away from temptation and to the middle of the cot. “Thank you,” I said.
“You’re welcome,” he said with a knowing smile. “Sweet dreams, Ada.”
“Good night, Marcus.”
I pulled the lightweight blanket from its storage compartment and spread it out. I laid down with my head toward the back of the ship, facing out from the wall. I could see nearly the whole room from here, including Loch sitting in the captain’s chair.
Under the cover of the blanket, I slipped a sheathed knife out of my pocket and clutched it close to my chest, like a child cuddling a teddy bear. I didn’t think Loch would attack me in my sleep, but I was not above being prepared.
I slowed my breathing and let my eyes wander. I drifted off watching Loch gaze into space.
I awoke with a racing heart and a death grip on the knife. I knew my dreams were dark, but they dissipated like mist in my conscious mind. The hand clamped around my forearm, however, didn’t dissipate.
I jerked back and the hand slipped away.
“This is the second time you’ve pulled a blade on me,” Loch rumbled. “I’m starting to take it personally.”
My eyes popped open. A quick glance confirmed I still held the knife. It also confirmed it was sheathed. “I hardly think a sheathed knife is dangerous,” I said. “Besides, you should know better than to grab a sleeping person.”
“You were having a nightmare,” he said.
I slid the knife back into my pocket and sat up. Grit gathered in the corners of my eyes. I rubbed my hands over my face and tried to get my brain to kick into gear. “How long was I out?”
“A little over five hours. It’s almost time to clip in for entry.”
Five hours shouldn’t have left me this groggy. I’d kill for a cup of real coffee. Hell, I’d be happy with a cup of the synth stuff at this point. I shook myself out of caffeine dreams and climbed down the ladder set into the wall between the cots.
Every muscle protested. I must’ve been tense in my sleep, fighting off invisible demons. I didn’t have nightmares often, but when I did, I usually went all out. I stepped down to the floor and lifted my arms overhead, stretching left then right. I folded forward and put my hands on the floor, enjoying the stretch along the backs of my legs.
After I’d put sufficient distance between me and Rockhurst, I was totally getting a massage. I figured getting captured by mercs and fleeing for my life with a murderer meant I was overdue for a little luxury. And the one true perk of being daughter of a High House was the ability to afford luxury. My House accounts might be under surveillance, but I’d funneled money into several private accounts before I escaped.
I straightened to find Loch watching me with deep brown eyes. Every so often the light would catch them just so, and they’d flash, luminescent. If one of the other Houses had achieved ocular implants of his level, this was the first I’d heard of it.
All of the implants I knew about permanently altered your eye color to milky white and glowed in even the faintest light. It made it easy to determine who could see in the dark. If implants existed that could be hidden behind normal-looking eyes, that would be a strategic advantage.
I tilted my head, studying him as he studied me. I hadn’t planned for more than escaping the ship then running again. But I was tired of running, especially now that every merc in the ’verse had heard of me. I wanted a house and not to have to look over my shoulder every minute of every day.
My von Hasenberg genes kicked in—perhaps Loch was the key to that future. Father would drop my bounty if I gave him Loch. Oh, he wouldn’t do it easily, but Father could be swayed with the right incentive.
I shook off the thought. Loch had helped me, even if it was just for the money. While a true von Hasenberg would have no trouble stabbing him in the back in appreciation, I tried to keep my backstabbing to a minimum.
But by the calculating look on Loch’s face, I wasn’t the only one contemplating a double-cross. I’d need to be vigilant once we land
ed. After I paid him, I needed to disappear.
I stretched one last time then dropped into the navigator’s seat. Tau Sagittarii Dwarf Nine loomed large in the front window. We were approaching at the border of light and dark, so the planet looked like it was broken in half. Only a few faint lights glimmered on the dark side of the planet—a giant metropolis this was not.
“Atmospheric entry in five minutes,” the computer chimed. The window shutters slid closed, leaving us with video screens. I tried not to think about how long it had been since this ship had received routine maintenance. Landing was hard on ships.
The screens showed a bleak brown planet. A line of white-capped mountains marched across the border between light and dark. No greenery or oceans broke up the monotony.
We were close enough to tap into the planet’s information network. I pulled up the depressingly short wiki entry. It was dated a month ago. TSD Nine used to be a Yamado mining planet. Then the ore ran out. The miners and the diplomats moved on to the next planet, leaving behind the seedier elements that were all too happy to take over.
The wiki warned that the dark side of the planet was best avoided. Smugglers had taken over the abandoned mining shafts, and outsiders were unwelcome. Those who wandered in often went missing.
Lovely place, this planet.
The light side wasn’t any better, as it was rife with mercs. Every so often they’d go bounty hunting through the smugglers’ tunnels. The largest city, Gamamine, sat in perpetual twilight on the border between the two worlds.
Getting a better ship was going to be tricky. Usually I’d just book passage on the first ship off-planet, but I had a feeling the options were going to be few and far between—this wasn’t exactly a booming tourist location. I could afford to buy a new ship, but throwing that much currency around after landing in an escape shuttle would raise some eyebrows.
“Atmospheric entry beginning,” the computer chimed.
Loch settled into the captain’s chair and clipped in. The planet filled the video screens. After time in space, it was always weird to realize that you were intentionally hurtling yourself at the ground in order to land. And that there was ground at all.
It’d been over a year since I’d set foot on a planet, because I mostly bounced around between space stations. Stations always had flights available at the last minute and weren’t always the strictest about checking documentation. And the biggest stations were larger than surface cities anyway, so it was easy to get lost in the crowd.
The escape ship shivered as it decelerated. We had to slow down before we slammed into the atmosphere or we’d end up in itty-bitty pieces spread over half the planet. All of the data on my screen showed our entry was proceeding as expected, but the next ten minutes were the hardest on the ship.
A few minutes later, the telltale buffeting of atmosphere vibrated through the ship. The turbulence got worse as we descended. Thankfully these seats had shoulder harnesses. I’d landed in a subpar ship with just a lap-belt before and came out bruised for my effort.
We were on course to land at the small spaceport in Gamamine. The city was both our best chance of getting off-planet again and our best chance of getting caught. If the mercs caught wind that the two highest bounties in the ’verse had just landed in their backyard, we wouldn’t have a moment’s rest.
Loch’s hands moved across the screen and the ship blared a warning. Before I could ask him what he’d done, the ship dropped like a rock, throwing me into the shoulder harness. Blood rushed to my head and I fought the redout that lingered on the edges of my vision.
If I didn’t know better, I’d assume we were accelerating toward the ground.
Another alarm went off before Loch silenced it. The uniform brown landscape shifted into hills, valleys, and fields as we descended. We were coming in way too fast.
My hands flew over my own console as I tried to slow our descent, but he’d locked me out. “What are you doing? We can’t come into the spaceport like this; they’ll shoot us down.” When it came to casualties, spaceports defaulted to protecting the assets already on the ground unless they had a really, really good reason to do otherwise.
“We’re not headed to the spaceport and we’re sitting ducks in the air. The faster we’re on the ground, the safer we are.”
“We won’t be safer if we hit the ground at this speed—we’ll be splattered.”
He grinned at me with a flash of white teeth. “Trust me, sweetheart. I know what I’m doing.”
Trust was earned, and so far, Marcus Loch had done some, but not nearly enough to earn mine. I debated trying to override the lockout on my control panel while I watched the ground hurtle closer. But trust was a two-way street and I didn’t think Loch was suicidal, so I clutched the edge of the control panel and did nothing.
Giving up control of my fate was harder than I anticipated. Even though I knew Marcus must have a plan, doing nothing went against everything in my nature.
Proximity alarms blared to life. Loch was laser focused on the control panel. I dug my fingernails into my palms and said nothing. Distracting him would not help us land.
We were coming down in a gently rolling area gouged by deep canyons. Flat areas big enough for the ship were few and far between. As we got ever closer, I realized the canyons were both deeper and wider than I first thought.
And we were aiming directly for one.
We were nearly even with the ground at the lip of the canyon before Loch fired the thrusters to slow our descent. The ship shuddered and groaned under the strain, but Loch only cranked the thrusters higher. We were nearly at the thrust level that would be used for takeoff and still we descended deeper.
The engine whine ratcheted up a notch and our descent slowed. My screen showed our landing location to be a relatively flat spot at the bottom of the canyon, still a hundred meters away. At fifty meters, the engines screamed as Loch pushed the thrusters to their maximum output.
“Brace!” Loch shouted. I crossed my arms over my chest and pushed my head back into the headrest designed for exactly this scenario.
We achieved a survivable rate of descent just two seconds before we slammed into the ground. I felt my chair give on its pedestal, absorbing some of the impact force, but we still hit hard enough to stun me for a few seconds.
The engines shut off, leaving behind a cacophony of alarms.
I hurt. I wiggled my fingers and toes before moving on to my arms and legs. Nothing appeared to be broken, but my whole body felt bruised from the inside out.
“You okay?” Loch asked after he silenced the alarms.
“You crashed our only escape vehicle,” I said. My voice sounded eerily calm to my own ears, like someone else was speaking.
I heard him groan and unclip from his seat. The sound of his pain did nothing to calm my temper. I unclipped my own harness with clumsy fingers. I felt heavy and slow. Only part of that was due to the crash—this planet had slightly stronger gravity than the Earth-standard most ships and stations used.
“You crashed our escape vehicle,” I said again.
“The landing was within tolerance,” Loch said. “Now get moving. Anyone who saw us come down is going to come investigate and we don’t want to be here when they arrive.”
I locked the pain and fear and anger behind a wall of icy calm. I found my rucksack and started filling it with food rations and water from the emergency supply. Water was heavy as hell, but I’d seen no indication of surface water, so I’d only have what I carried until we reached the city. I also threw in the ship’s first aid kit. It was heavy, too, but worth the weight.
A quick check of the outside temperature proved that I was underdressed. I grabbed a second set of clothes from the storage locker. They were too big, but they’d work as an extra layer. The clothes and several emergency foil blankets went into my pack. I’d kill for a heat field or two, but Captain Pearson had been too cheap to equip the escape shuttle with them.
There were no winter clothes at
all in the storage locker. I put on two long-sleeved shirts and shimmied into a pair of too-big pants. A belt kept the pants up, the shirts tucked in, and the drafts out. I wrapped a final pair of pants around my head and neck like a weird scarf/hat combo. I looked ridiculous, but I hated being cold.
I was slightly gratified to see Loch was wrapping himself up in much the same way. “Ready?” he asked.
I downed a bottle of water and dropped the empty container. My pack was close to twenty pounds and not designed to carry that load. It would be uncomfortable, but it would get lighter as I went along. “Ready,” I said.
Loch nodded and picked up his pack. We headed to the exit at the back of the ship. He checked the tiny embedded window then opened the door. Ice-cold wind with a slightly acrid smell blasted through the opening. It cut through my layers like I was naked. If the city was more than a few hours away, we were going to be in deep trouble.
Loch disappeared through the door without a backward glance. I followed him out into the dim light.
Chapter 6
Brown rocks, brown soil, brown grass. Even the sky seemed vaguely brown in the twilight gloom. We’d been walking for what seemed like forever, but it was impossible to judge time because the sun hidden just behind the horizon never moved. At least it worked as a compass.
The extra gravity dragged at me, making every step a little harder than it should be. The cold bit at any exposed skin, and I couldn’t feel my hands, even though I’d pulled them into my sleeves long ago. My nanos would be healing any frostbite, but unfortunately they didn’t help regulate body temperature or give me any extra energy.
The sides of the canyon were steep and rocky. We were still on the canyon floor, trying to find a way up. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to climb out at this point.
Loch stopped and scanned the area. I dropped my pack and dug out a bottle of water. The air here was oxygen-rich but extremely dry. I’d be out of water before the end of the day. I laughed to myself, a little loopy. The day never ended here, so technically I’d be dead before the end of the day, too.
Polaris Rising Page 6