by Eva Delaney
Shit, were they rebels thinking we were Supremacy or Supremacy thinking we were rebels? I didn’t know if I should shoot them or not.
“Hold the ship steady,” I ordered Po, “and do everything you can to keep those shields working.”
“Yes, Commander,” he said as I raced from the cockpit. I ignored the ladder to the lower deck and jumped down instead. The airlock door hissed open as I reached it. Good timing, Po.
I glanced down at Orion, Hamal, and Rux. Their backs bent under the weight of stolen servers. Rux leaned on Hamal, his face and body bloody and his eyes hazy.
Orion pointed twin blasters up at me. “Cali,” he breathed in relief, holstering his guns.
I reached out a hand and he jumped, grabbing it in a tight clasp. I grunted, hauling him into the ship. He stripped off his backpack of stolen servers. Hamal lifted Rux, and Orion and I pulled him into the ship. Rux crumpled to the floor.
I knelt, pulling up his shirt to check for wounds. My breath caught in my throat. A gash cut across his abdomen from pecs to ribcage. It was a clean, deep cut, throbbing blood in a stream.
Shit. He couldn’t die. His ghost would return to haunt me and insult me about everything.
The floor thumped as Hamal jumped into the ship. The door hissed shut.
“Rux saved us,” Orion said, simply.
“We better return the favor,” I said.
I pulled the backpack straps from Rux’s shoulders, working his arms out of them. Hamal slung Rux over his shoulder, and the rage-y man didn’t protest. His head lulled limp on Hamal’s back.
My heart constricted. I was going to lose one of my crew.
Hamal climbed the ladder carefully with Rux over his shoulder.
“Get him strapped in,” I ordered. “It’s going to be a spinny ride.”
Orion threw his arms around my waist. I pressed my face against his neck and breathed deeply of his warm scent.
“Were you worried about me?” he said.
“Never,” I said.
He chuckled, knowing it was a lie. “I never doubted that you’d save us.”
The ship trembled as enemies—or maybe allies—fired on it.
I broke off the hug. “We need a gunner.”
Orion nodded and ran for the gun banks at the end of the hall. I raced up the ladder and into the cockpit, strapping into the pilot’s seat. The ship shook and the world tilted around me and my stomach lurched.
“They’re everywhere!” Polaris shouted. “I don’t even know if they’re Supremacy or rebels!”
“I got this,” I said, grabbing the controls, hands flying across the dashboard to lift off from the palace roof.
I flung the ship forward in a tight arc around the spire, almost close enough to reach out and touch the gold that glowed red from plasma shots. The maneuver threw off the patrollers who failed to turn as tightly and overshot us.
I faced the square and beyond it, the main city center of Etrea. A Blade Star darted among the smaller, clunkier cargo ships, spitting fire and death. The smaller, rebel ships burned and exploded under his onslaught.
I would recognize that skilled, perfect flying anywhere.
I set my eyes on Castor’s ship. I was going to bring him down.
Chapter 45
As Castor and I chased each other over Etrea, we cut a swath of destruction. Him destroying ships painted with the blue of rebels. Orion and I destroying ships painted with the gold or green of the Supremacy.
Between us, we had brought down most of the competing fleets over the palace. Below, the palace burned and melted from falling wreckage.
That was the part I hated. The burning and falling buildings were so much like the ones that killed people I knew on Erow.
I tried not to think about it. I had to keep my mind clear, my focus on Castor.
I swooped our ship around a patroller splashed with blue and dove toward Castor’s Invictus. Orion rained down plasma that shattered on Castor’s shields.
“Can we tell how his shields are doing?” I said.
“Umm….” Polaris said in the co-pilot’s seat. “A few more hits should down them.”
I pushed my ship after Castor. He swerved around a fighter painted in red, and our plasma blast enveloped the ship. Its flaming wreckage crashed to the palace square below.
Castor zoomed through the wreckage, aiming right at us. Fuck! Somehow, he had turned his ship around while we shot the fighter.
His plasma shot blocked out the world as it engulfed the viewport.
Our shields screamed their warnings. I ground my teeth and clenched the controls hard enough to make my fingers ache. One more hit would crash the shields, and then it would only take one or two shots to explode our whole damn ship.
I might not outlast Castor.
I might lose to that arrogant piece of shit.
It made my blood burn. I saw red as I spun the ship in a tight circle and chased after Castor.
The alarms blinked green, warning of incoming ships. I spared a glance at the scanners and blinked in surprise. These ships weren’t flying out of the palace or docking bays.
They were coming in from the gas giant above.
I glanced up and my heart stopped.
The jumpship circled around the curve of the planet, blood-red against sea-green.
“It never left,” I said.
“Shit,” Po squeaked from the co-pilot’s seat.
“They tricked us. It was here all along, waiting to strike.”
Its docking bay opened like the jaws of the Becal worms that fed on proto-planets. Its maw opened and poured out its fleet.
The one we had seen with thousands and thousands of ships.
Lady Camilla had fucked us again. Damn it, she was more dangerous than she seemed.
“We can’t fight all those,” Polaris said.
“I know.” My heart was heavy as though a stone dropped into my chest cavity. “We’ve lost. Again.”
“Maybe not,” Po said. “The palace is falling. The communications spire is melting; their ansible hub might go down. There are still rebels in the air. They can do what we Etreans always do. Strike, hide to survive another day, and strike again.”
We exchanged a quick glance. His twilight blue eyes were sad and hopeful all at once.
I started to answer when a movement caught my eye.
High above, a section of the sky lost its sheen as the dome shifted to a matter shield. It kept the air in, but let solids pass through.
Solids like the jumpship’s fleet.
Once those ships entered the dome, we would be overwhelmed and shot down. We had to get out of here before then.
I turned back to the Invictus as it swooped in a tight circle to face us. Fuck, Castor rushed toward us, his guns spewing super-hot plasma.
Our own plume of plasma shot out to meet his.
I dodged around the attack. Alarms blared, and I glanced at the radar. Somehow, Castor had gotten behind us.
I adjusted my grip on the controls and zigzagged through the air. Plumes of blue super-hot plasma streaked past us on both sides, trailing death through the sky.
My stomach bounced left and right and up and down as I dodged Castor’s fire and raced toward the open bit of dome.
A streak of plasma shot by on our right, making the ship shake from its heat waves. It hit the dome and spread out, cooling to red.
I jerked the ship to the right and held my breath. If Castor had guessed my movement, as he usually did, another one of those blasts would take down our shields.
A plume of plasma cut the air to our left, and I laughed.
My ship blasted through the dome’s opening and into open space. The gas giant shone above us like a glowing jewel. I paused a moment to smile at it, then spun the ship to face the jumpgate beyond the rest of Etrea.
A battle swarmed between us and it, with Castor still on our tail.
I swerved through the chaos. Castor followed, firing on me when he could and destroying rebels
when he couldn’t.
“We can’t leave them to fight this alone,” I said. “We have a better ship than most of the rebels here. I’m a damn good pilot and Orion is a damn good gunner. They need us. We can down Castor—”
“We could if our shields were at a hundred percent,” Polaris said. “But one or two more hits and we die.”
I wanted to squeeze my eyes shut against the painful truth, but I couldn’t while flying.
“I don’t like it either,” Polaris said so softly I barely heard him over the alarms. “I don’t like leaving my people again, but Cal, you and the others gave me a chance to fix my mistakes here. I partly did. Now, we can fix the rest by getting this intel analyzed and to The Uprising.”
He was right. We had info that might locate Winters or deal a blow to the Supremacy. We could send a message to Star Keeper to ask The Uprising to come to Etrea’s rescue. One of their fleets would do more to help the Etreans than we could alone.
That didn’t make leaving feel right.
My hands shook with the effort of not turning around and flying directly at Castor with all guns blazing.
“We’ll be back,” I promised Polaris and myself. “Etrea will be free if it takes the rest of our lives.”
I swooped around a stalled cargo ship. Blue light flashed in the dark as Castor shot it. I winced and swallowed the urge to turn back. Instead, I aimed straight for the jumpgate.
“Enter coordinates for….” I paused. Where could we go?
“Luto,” Polaris said. “It’s a day away. We can regroup there.”
I nodded. “Do it.”
The rippled surface of the jumpgate rose up before us. The ship shuddered, blue plasma shots licking along the sides of the viewport.
The alarms screamed to say that the shields had died. One more shot and the engines would explode.
“Come on, come on,” I urged on the ship to go faster as I raced for the gate’s surface.
Blue plasma flashed from the corner of my eye, and I turned to see Castor’s Invictus swooping in from port. His cannons spewed death.
The light of the plasma made my eyes ache. It ate up the world as it rushed toward us from the left.
“Fuckity fuck fuck,” I said, pushing the ship faster.
The jumpgate’s rippled surface filled the viewport and then swallowed us. Its speed threw me back into my seat, and the world turned to the colored stripes of starlines.
Castor and his attack were gone. The battle was gone. Etrea and its rebels were on their own.
The world was suddenly calm and quiet—and I felt like crap because of it.
“Systems check,” I said.
“The ship is holding together, but barely,” Polaris said. “It’ll need extensive repairs.”
I sighed. I’ll destroy you next time, I silently promised the prince.
Chapter 46
“How’s Rux?” I said, stepping into the infirmary. Unlike most of the rooms on this new ship, the med bay was the same as the one on Castor’s Invictus.
Rux lay on its sole bed, asleep and shirtless. Hamal had patched his body with false skin that would soon merge with his own to replace the injured tissue.
Hamal’s usually warm brown eyes looked tired as he turned to me.
“He’s lost a lot of blood, but he should recover, thanks to the false skin and the nanos repairing the internal damage.”
“Can one of us donate blood to help him heal faster?”
Hamal frowned deeply, his eyebrows furrowing. “I wish, but his blood type…it’s something I’ve never seen before.”
“Like he’s not human?”
Hamal gazed down at the sleeping man. “I’m uncertain. Whatever he is, he saved our lives and the mission.”
For the first time, I was glad Rux was here. I gazed down at him. His wavy blond hair spread on the pillow like spun gold. Yet he scowled, even in his sleep. His face was scruffy with a week’s worth of facial hair. It suited him.
Another crew member full of mysteries.
“What happened in the communications hub?” I said.
“It was full of assassin bots.”
I hissed. “I’m sorry I sent you there.”
“Leaders have to make hard decisions,” Hamal said. “You know we would have gone even if you hadn’t ordered us.”
I snorted. “Reckless men.”
Hamal smiled tiredly.
“And brave ones. Thank you.”
He saluted, and I flushed despite myself.
“It was mostly Rux,” Hamal admitted. “We just got him out alive.”
I guessed there was a reason the general had picked him for this mission after all.
“Well, he looks like shit,” Antares said, and I startled. Fuck I hadn’t heard him coming. He stood in the doorway, holding a mug with steam rising from it.
I eyed him and he stared back with his impassive expression. “We don’t have to play games for beds anymore,” I said slyly. “This ship has four bedrooms. The captain must not be banging his gunners. Were you one of Castor’s crew members?”
“No,” Antares said flatly.
“A royal courtesan?”
I had hoped that would get a reaction from him, but he simply said, “No.”
“A friend?” I ventured.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” he said and pushed off from the door frame to stalk down the corridor.
So, he was friends with Castor, then, and maybe more given their kiss. Was he a noble, some baron or duke’s son? He didn’t talk like one.
I turned to Hamal, who stared after Antares. “You should get some rest. We’ve moved Ursa, Major, and the cat to the bedroom nearest the cockpit. You can take the second one.”
“I like to keep an eye on my patients,” Hamal said. “I won’t be able to sleep until everyone is awake and well.”
“You enjoy looking after people.”
He smiled. I nodded and left him to care for his crew.
In the cockpit, Orion slumped in the pilot’s chair with his eyes closed and fingers drumming on the armrest. Behind him, Polaris knelt on the floor among a tangle of wires. They ran between the ship’s computer to a dozen waist-high servers stolen from the communications hub.
“I’ve programmed the computer to search the comms for Winters, Agent, and the codename the Supremacy gave her.”
“What’s that?” I said.
“Citrus Lemon,” Antares said behind me.
I startled. Fuck, even the cat made more noise when creeping around.
“Did Castor hire you to find Winters?” I said.
“No,” he said.
I sighed and pinched the bridge of my nose. “Why do you never tell us anything?”
“I tell you everything,” he said, sounding confused. “I just told you Winters’ codename.”
“You tell us little about yourself.”
“What I used to do doesn’t matter. Only what I do now, right?” Antares raised an eyebrow and flicked his gaze between Polaris and me.
The bastard wasn’t using Po’s and my pasts against me. “Depends on what you did.”
He shrugged and said nothing.
I rolled my eyes and turned back to Polaris. “How long until we have results from the search?”
“A while,” he said. “Antares wanted four months of comms, which is millions of interactions.”
“Why four months? Winters had only been on Etrea for the last one.”
“Because the men who captured her might have been there for longer,” Antares said. “Any info about them will help me figure out where they went. People are predictable; they return to familiar places, they follow patterns. Figure those out and you find the target.”
Was that why I always felt like he was staring at me and seeing through me? Because he was building a profile of me?
I side-eyed him. His gaze trailed over me slowly, like fingers exploring bare skin. My nipples hardened under his stare, and he smirked as though he knew.
Fucking hell. Well, I was going to get back at him.
I shot him a glare before wrapping my arms around Orion. He tilted his head up toward me. “You sure you’re okay with this? With Po?” I whispered.
He grinned. “As long as you remember that when you’re done with him, you’re still mine. You’re still the light in my universe and the sun that I orbit.”
He kissed me then, deep and long.
“I don’t belong to anyone,” I said with my mouth still against his.
He winked as though he didn’t believe me. I tugged his hair, but he just laughed. He was maddening like that.
I turned to meet Polaris’s eyes. He stared back at me with his earnest, open look. I jerked my head toward the hall and the bedrooms.
A small, shy smile played on his lush lips.
I pushed past Antares and strolled down the hall. No hurry, even though my skin goosebumped and my pussy started to throb at the thought of what was to come.
I hadn’t been with any other man since I started seeing Orion six years ago. I wasn’t certain if I would enjoy different hands, different lips, different cock. What it would feel like to have a new man inside me?
What it would feel like to turn all that teasing with Polaris into reality?
I entered the last bedroom in the hall. It was narrow with a double bed and a battered dresser. A soldier’s room, not a prince’s. It felt familiar and comfortable.
The door hissed shut behind me.
I turned to face Po and took a deep breath, breathing in his sandalwood scent. He looked at me with wonder as though I were a breathtaking nebula, something beautiful and strange he had never seen before.
But I was just me.
In Po’s eyes, I was something else. I was heroic and inspiring and amazing—traits I never felt.
But he always saw them in me anyway.
I had never tried to help him feel brave or to be a hero. Somehow I had, just by being the imperfect, fucked-up, and sometimes awesome, me.
He cleared his throat. “Ah…Cal?”
“Yeah, Po?”
“I’m, um, ready to cross your event horizon, if you are.”
I laughed. “Polaris, will you do something for me?”
His eyes widened.
I pressed my hands against his chest, feeling the rise and fall of his breath, the quickening of his heart under my palm. I brushed my lips against his, just enough to taste him.