She wished she could be more positive, but theories were just that until confirmed. This experiment would prove several theories that had been running through the scientific community for years . . . or disprove them.
Luna shook her head. “I’m not willing to take that risk. Someone will need to be there to monitor the molecular build and modulate the ionization. Remote access is too risky with all the cosmic radiation in the sector.”
She closed the battery panel on their newly constructed wormhole generator.
Ian scowled and began to pace the limited space in their workshop in The Starboard Mist’s engineering bay. “But, Luna, that means one of us will have to be on that planet until the very last second.”
Luna shook her head. “Not the last second. Once the wormhole forms, it should last a good half hour. The shuttle can be back up here in about fifteen minutes. Plenty of time.”
“I still don’t like it. To be left behind in this dismal place . . .”
Oh the man’s drama.
“Ian, we both know it won’t be you down there. You’d never stand the pressure.”
He sucked in a huge breath and expelled it. “Of course you’re right. I’ve never claimed to be heroic in the least. But that only leaves you, my dear. I doubt any of the others could even grasp the concepts needed to keep the ions stable.”
“Yes, it has to be me. We are agreed on that. So I’ll do it.”
It wouldn’t be all that dangerous, providing one of the million complications that could happen didn’t.
“So, if you don’t get back here before the wormhole collapses we wait and try again?” Rik had only understood half of Luna’s explanation, but the part that bothered him the most was her not being on the ship when the wormhole formed. “I’m not leaving you behind.”
She smiled that winning smile that always melted his heart. “I’ll have plenty of time to get back. You just need to be ready to micro jump into the wormhole as soon as I get the shuttle back onboard.”
Gods, how could she not be nervous. He didn’t understand everything, but he knew she was taking one hell of a chance.
She kissed him then. A soul-rocking, I-need-you-forever, sex-till-dawn kiss that hardened his cock as she pressed against him. She was drinking him in, and he gave her everything he had. But deep down his gut knotted. This didn’t feel like a promise. It felt like goodbye.
He broke off the kiss. “There’s something you’re not telling me.”
Luna sighed. “We only get one try at this. We’re using all our polonium to create the astatine needed to hyper-modulate the stasis field. The gods know where we’ll be able to get more in this galaxy.”
Yeah, he didn’t get any of that except the one try part. “So?”
“So, no matter what happens. If that wormhole opens, we need to get to it before it closes again, or we’re stuck here. Probably forever.”
“And?” He knew there was more, something she didn’t want to say.
“And I’ll see you once the wormhole is active and we’re back in our own galaxy.”
Luna guided the shuttle from the bay and programmed in the coordinates to the small planetoid where she’d be setting up her equipment.
“You weren’t completely honest with Captain Mazar, were you, Miss Callista?” Harvey’s query brought to a head her own misgivings.
“There is a very, very slight chance that, if the wormhole is unstable, I will have to stay and manually modulate the ion flow. They will still have to go, and leave us behind. It probably won’t happen, so why worry Rik and the others about it.”
“He stated quite clearly he would not leave you behind,” Harvey said. “He loves you, you know.”
Now I’m getting relationship advice from a droid?
She needed Harvey along to move the heavy equipment into place, and run the complex equations during the procedure. She hadn’t expected an inquisition.
Of course she knew Rik loved her. She loved him too. But there was so much more at stake here.
“I know. I just . . . he’s going to have enough on his shoulders up there without that. If it happens, he’ll do the right thing. He always does. But it’s not going to happen, so there.”
Of course there were also about two dozen other things that could go drastically wrong in the next hour.
Chapter 28
“Captain Mazar, I’m picking up a fleet of vessels to starboard.”
Kyra’s warning set Rik’s stomach roiling. “Fiery faculae, more bugs?”
“It looks like it, sir.” Kyra put the tactical map up on the main monitors for all to see. “I make out three . . . no four groups at the edge of our scanning range.”
The small red blips flashed within the dark tri-dimensional display representing their current sector of space.
Tarsk Mueller’s voice thundered over the com link from The McCaffrey. “We’ve got more than that, Captain Mazar, our scans go a bit farther than yours. We’re tracking over one hundred of the bug ships . . . and something else. Something big.”
The ship was huge, the size of a small planet, dwarfing even The McCaffrey. Spherical in shape, it had eight long arms, like the propellers Rik had seen in holovids of old Earth helicopters. Four around the top, four around the bottom, and from these wings the small bug ships launched and landed as it tracked toward their position.
A carrier or mothership of some sort.
There was no way they could stand up to scores of bug ships, let alone whatever firepower that monster ship had, but fleeing wasn’t an option either. If they wanted to get home, they needed to defend this section of space.
And Luna was down planetside.
Hurry up Luna, for the gods’ sake.
Rik linked The Starboard Mist’s intercom with the open channel to The McCaffrey. “Attention all hands. We’re about to come under fire. We need to defend this sector if we want to get home. Be ready for anything.”
Rik took a deep breath then added, “McCaffrey, as soon as you see the wormhole open, jump into it. We’ll be right behind you.”
Mueller’s response was terse. “Aye.”
Rik closed the com channel. “Shields up Praxis. Quatrain, Markus, Carter, start firing as soon as they come into range. Tina, watch for the wormhole and get ready to plot that course.”
Fleet protocol suddenly went out the window. This wasn’t just a crew. This was . . . family.
The oversized space suit chaffed at the thigh and elbow, where the extra material had gathered, but Luna ignored the discomfort. With no atmosphere on the planetoid, the pressurized suit was a necessity.
Just a few more minutes.
“Ion flow is stable.” And there was one less butterfly fluttering around in her stomach. “See, Harvey, I told you there was no need to worry Rik with that problem.”
“You are indeed the queen of problematic simplicity, Miss Callista,” the droid quipped.
Who added snarky to your programming?
But there wasn’t time to ponder. She looked up to see the darker wisps of energy forming against the star-filled sky above. The wormhole was forming. Six of their theorems had already been proven. Ian will be ecstatic if he can get the information back to the coreworlds.
And it looked like they were on track to do just that. Just one more reading on the Astatine for good measure.
Yes. Even more than she’d hoped for. The wormhole should hold for at least forty minutes. Plenty of time for her fifteen-minute shuttle ride back to The Starboard Mist.
“Okay, Harvey, let’s head home.”
Home. It sounded so good. But did going home mean she’d be losing Rik? They’d never committed to anything past this mission. They hadn’t talked about what happens next. Would he go back under cover? Would she lose him?
&nbs
p; Time enough for that when we’re actually back in our own galaxy.
Flashes in her peripheral vision drew her attention toward where The Starboard Mist had settled into geosynchronous orbit around the planetoid. “What the . . .?”
“Our ship appears to be under attack.”
Luna’s gaze swept down toward the horizon, to a spherical object rising rapidly over the mountainous vista. “I don’t recall another planet that close in this system.”
Harvey shook his head. “That is no planet, Miss Callista.”
“Frack! We need to get back to the shuttle.”
She could just make out the bug ships, closing in on The Starboard Mist like a cloud of gnats. There looked to be dozens, but three looked bigger than the others.
No, they aren’t bigger. They’re closer. The three bug ships were headed directly toward her.
The rocky outcropping where she’d needed to set up the equipment had no place level enough to land the shuttle, so she’d had to park it at the base of the hill, over two-hundred meters away from her current position.
She and Harvey had barely reached the base of the hill when the lead bug ship fired its plasma weapon. With no atmosphere, and nothing to carry the sound waves, she didn’t hear the explosion, but she saw her shuttle reduced to twisted metal just ten meters in front of her.
The shock had barely registered, when a plasma bolt expelled from the second closest bug ship . . . heading directly toward her.
“Harvey, move.” She plowed into the droid, sending them both to the ground behind a rocky ridge. The flash was blinding, and she blinked rapidly to try and clear her vision.
In those seconds, her fate registered. She hit the communication switch on the side of her helmet. “Rik. My ship’s gone. You’re going to have to leave without me.”
“Luna!” Rik could hardly breathe.
“Go, damn it. You have to go now.” Her voice crackled over the intercom.
By all the gods, no.
“Is there a way to get the other shuttle down to her?”
“Negative, Captain.” Kara Jansky had tears in her eyes. “There’s at least two dozen bug ships between us and the planet’s surface, and the shuttle is unarmed.
“Carter?” Rik knew he was grasping at straws.
“Sorry, Rik. It’s all we can do to keep them off us.”
A second wave of explosions rocked The Starboard Mist.
“Shields at twenty percent, Captain,” Pyxis reported.
There was no time, delay meant they all died, but they all waited for Rik to give the command.
Defeated, he closed his eyes, willing back the tears. “Jump.”
Luna’s vision cleared in time for her to see the blur of the hyper drives kicking in overhead. The ship elongated, then disappeared. They’d gone. They were safe on the other side. She could see the bug ships avoiding the churning blackness of the wormhole. Turning to fly back toward the huge craft that hung just above the horizon.
All but one.
That ship was setting down not fifty meters from where she and Harvey lay behind the rocky outcropping.
It’s over. Just give up. There would be no going back anyway, just a slow death here on this planetoid when the air in her suit ran out. Still, it went against her nature to give up.
She struggled to her knees in the bulky spacesuit, and drew the blaster from its holster at her side. I may be going down, but I’m not going down easy.
Chapter 29
Rik stared through the ship’s porthole at the spinning cloud of inky blackness. Empty, like he felt inside.
“We made it, Captain,” Tina reported, but her voice wavered, thick with emotion. “We’re back in the Milky Way.”
And my heart is still back there.
Love? He hadn’t been prepared to face that. It wasn’t something in his game plan. But Luna had found that secret place inside him where he’d locked it away. And she’d kicked in the door.
Rik’s gaze settled on The McCaffrey. Love was gone, but vengeance burned in his heart. He hit the ship-to-ship connection on his console. “Captain Mueller. I want Kristin Devenport in shackles and on a shuttle over here within the hour. Then you are free to go. My thanks for your assistance.”
“She’s . . .” There was a hint of panic in Tarsk Mueller’s voice. “The crazy bitch hit the launch button on her life pod just before we jumped into the wormhole. I never thought . . . Gods, Rik. I’m sorry.”
A defenseless lifepod in a swarm of bug ships? Maybe justice was served after all.
“Don’t sweat it, Tarsk.” Rik drew a deep breath. “And if I were you, I’d find a friendly port to abandon that ship in, then get the hell out of the Dark Nebulan sector.”
Once Rik reported back to headquarters, there would be a justice fleet dispatched for sure, and they’d be looking for The McCaffrey in that sweep. It was time to put the Pirates of the Dark Nebula out of business.
“Aye, Rik. I appreciate the warning.”
Mueller signed off, and The McCaffrey limped away. The damage to the Umberhulk had been extensive, and Rik wondered how many men Tarsk had lost. Not that it mattered. Not that anything mattered anymore.
“Captain, there’s another ship coming out of the wormhole.” Surprise registered in Kyra Jansky’s voice.
The lone bug ship slid out of the inky blackness. Rik’s gut twisted. Maybe vengeance hadn’t been totally denied him. “Mr. Arcturus, lock your cannon onto that bug.”
“Aye, Captain.”
The damn bug ship must have blundered into the wormhole before it closed on the other side. Capturing the ship would give the squints more to work with . . .
But they took Luna from me.
“Prepare to fire on my mark.”
With a thunk the elevator door swept open. Magda rushed out breathless. “No, Rik . . . The oracles . . . They’re back . . . That’s her . . . It’s Luna.”
The ship-to-ship com crackled to life and a voice Rik thought forever silenced spoke to him. “Don’t you dare weapons lock me, you big lug.”
“Luna?” Gods! “I love you.” It was out before he even knew what he was saying.
Luna’s laugh crackled over the com. “Ditto, Rik, but do me a favor and open your shuttle bay door. I’m running out of air.”
Luna’s head spun. Her oxygen tank read empty and the bug ship had no capacity for generating any kind of breathable atmosphere. Didn’t the bugs breathe?
There was so much to learn, and she just needed to keep it together a few more minutes to be part of the research.
“Hang on, Miss Callista.” Harvey’s voice sounded far away. “You have to hang on.”
Dear Harvey. He’d provided the extra pair of hands she’d needed to pilot the bug ship after blasting the damn creature and stealing its vessel.
None of the other bug ships had even so much as turned her way, as she’d sped for the collapsing wormhole.
But her tank had run out before she’d even made the jump. Now stars exploded in her vision. She was suffocating just moments away from the open shuttle bay of The Starboard Mist.
Well, I almost made it. At least I’m dying in my own galaxy.
Luna woke in the sickbay. A facemask flowed blessed oxygen into her nose and mouth.
“You awake, honey?” Magda’s voice dripped with concern.
Luna drew in a deep breath, her throat ached. “Yeah.”
As sensation returned, she felt a rough hand holding hers. She turned her head to see Rik’s profile, calm and reposed. His eyes closed.
“Poor boy hasn’t left your side for over twenty hours.” Magda smoothed her hair. “We’ve all been pretty worried. How are you feeling?”
She hurt. All over. “I’ve been better.”
&nbs
p; “Yeah, well, sometimes destiny’s a bitch.”
Rik’s hand tightened on hers. “And sometimes destiny’s pretty damn fine.”
Those golden, sensuous tones. I still need to get Harvey to record me some of that. Unless, of course, she could find a way to keep the real thing around for the rest of her life.
“Hey there sexy man. Miss me?”
He nodded, those golden brown eyes misty with emotion. “Yeah, let’s not do that again, okay?”
Luna took another deep breath. The oxygen felt so good. “Not if I can help it. How’d I survive?” She’d known at the end she wouldn’t have enough oxygen.
“Harvey,” Rik answered. “When you collapsed he opened the bug ship’s hatch door and used the cold of space to slow down your bodily functions, then managed to dock the craft using his hands and feet on the controls. Pretty amazing.”
He ran his other hand down the side of her face. “You know I’d kiss you if you didn’t have that damned oxygen mask on.”
She chuckled, even though the effort made her hurt in places she didn’t even know she had. “You know I’d let you if I didn’t have this damned oxygen mask on.”
Chapter 30
Rik fidgeted in his seat as Grand Marshal Eric Halon reviewed his report.
“Excellent work, Marshal Mazar.” He placed the data pad on his desk. “This is just the information we needed to move ahead with our mission to clean out the Dark Nebulan system.”
“Thank you, Commander.” Rik itched to be away. He’d only been back at his desk three days, but that had been three days away from Luna.
Pirates of the Dark Nebula (Hearts in Orbit Book 2) Page 22