by Elsa Jade
A clang from behind him—Jash tipping another oblivious sleeper down the chute—made him wince. So he shot again to distract their foe.
No lights went out this time, and the out-of-tune ping told him his shot had gone astray.
“Don’t make this harder than it has to be.”
He’d always made things harder. It had taken a hardrock miner to show him the pleasures of soft.
But he fired off another round. There was still a place for hard.
Another clang from behind him. That was five of the six caskets. Would they survive the fall? Hopefully at least enough of them to seek revenge on Ming Waller.
“You aren’t getting out of here,” the voice called, not wrongly. “The question is how angry you make us in the meantime.”
He had never once let others make his decisions, not until he’d had the procedure. And then he’d turned over his judgment to Boss Kemet, making himself little more than a bot with a questionable AI. And now he had to decide for himself—and for Jashanna—how to live.
Or maybe die.
The sixth clang made him close his eyes.
The invaders were distracting him with the chatter, of course. Whatever they were planning, the runabout barricade wouldn’t be enough. The only reason he and Jash weren’t already dead was because the attackers were flying on the same arrogance that had propelled a foolish young ag worlder to the dangerous edges of the Obsidian Rim.
He emptied the pistol in the general direction of the voice and scrambled back to the hatch.
Eyes wide, Jash had his backup pistol in her hand. “I was just about to come to you.”
“They’re gone, the caskets?” He peered past her at the wide mouth of the chute.
“All of them.” She gazed at him. “It’s just us.”
“It’s a strange sort of freedom, being at the end.”
She reached out to touch his cheek. “Who has poetry in his heart now?”
“Except you showed me it’s not really the end. There’s still that little hole…” He stepped into her embrace. “Are you ready?”
Her eyes widened even more, catching the intruders’ lights bouncing off the rock around them. “Ready for what? Are you wormy?”
“Maybe. Thought I’d burned it out of me. But if I’ve dug up one more thrill, I want it with you.” As he kissed her, he plucked the pistol from her slackening hand. “We’re going to blow the runabout behind us and drop down that chute.”
“Definitely wormy,” she growled, but breathless from his kiss.
He smirked. “Together?”
“All the way to the bottom.” She spun away from him and vanished into the hold again.
He crawled under the chassis one more time and wedged the pistol behind the power supply. Jostling the last of Jash’s det cord timers in his palm, he hesitated.
Was this another—maybe his last—bad decision? Maybe Waller’s crew would see reason… No, he’d been like them once. There would be no quarter given there.
Resolute, he shoved the timer into the hardening cord and hastened back to the hatch. She was just jumping down with the thin padding from the bunk they’d shared.
When he lifted one eyebrow, she shrugged. “It’s not much, but it’s what we have.”
Clambering into the chute, she hooked one elbow around the mouth to hold them steady while he slid onto the pad. It hadn’t felt like much under his knees while he straddled her, and it felt like even less now.
She took a deep breath that locked them together. “Are you sure?”
“Timer is counting down,” he said. “As for what we have… What we’ve had on this vaccing mission is beyond anything I would’ve ever dreamed.”
She kissed him hard and released her grip.
The darkness swallowed them an instant before the world behind them exploded.
Chapter 15
After that last blast of light, there was nothing to see, only feel. And it felt like being beaten to death for a century.
She knew the chute would’ve been bored smooth, first by the construction then by turns of tumbling rock. And yet every miniscule bump was magnified by their speed, pummeling her breathless.
The fall would kill Fenn.
She tried to curl around him, to protect him, but with every collision against the walls, she feared it was her body that would batter him to death.
And still they fell. How deep was Ydro-Down?
In the havoc of her lost senses, they seemed to be falling upward. Impossible.
And then in the darkness, she saw a flickering light. Panic gripped her tighter than her lock on Fenn. Were they falling back into the burning runabout?
“You don’t always have to be strong.”
Who was saying that? She tried to twist to see over her shoulder. Was it Waller’s crew, mocking her from the dark?
But the voice continued softly, “Let me help.”
“Mama?” Not her mother, who was dead. Her father? No, he was gone too. Then who…?
Ah, she’d gone wormy, deep in the creeps. “Let me help,” said the voice again.
Fenn this time.
They’d died because she hadn’t been strong enough, and then there’d been no one to help her.
“Not all walls are stone.”
Tarnished silver, like hazy sunlight. But she looked away. If she didn’t, if she reached out, she’d get burned again.
Hurt less to fall in the dark forever.
The light brightened, demanding and heartless. She cowered, making herself a small, hard ball against the pounding blows—
And flew.
Only for a second, but long enough for her eyes to snap wide in terror, taking in the tumbling view of the peaks, as if the mountains themselves were falling upward. No, she was falling, rocketing out the bottom of the chute into the last light of day.
And then they hit the downward slant of waste rock deposited below the chute. She wrapped herself tight around Fenn—no time to scream—and they skidded out of control. If not for the panic and pain, she might’ve dropped him, but her muscles were frozen. They were the rockfall…
In a billow of sparkling powder from a century of broken ore, they finally came to rest.
She choked. Buried alive…
Clutching hands reached through the dust, plucking Fenn from her arms, and this time she screamed, flailing. The gang had followed them—
“Jash!”
More hands, lifting her higher. Gavyn, her friends, the rebels who she’d fought beside. She didn’t need to fight them too.
She sagged into their arms even as they hauled her up like a particularly unwieldy rock. Twisting just enough, she caught a glimpse of Fenn, raised in other matte-black hands—the gloves of the Nazra crew.
Though she croaked his name, there was no response from him or those carrying him. She tried to reach for him but they were too far apart.
The shining metal of a hull—the Nazra shuttle—made her blink, and when her confused gaze cleared, they were aboard. The dull gray plasteel of the cryo units were already there—crammed all six, lights faint but glowing—and she let out a sob of relief as she was laid on a slab beside them.
The hard cant of the shuttle made her head swirl, and the rumble of powerful engines seemed to throb all the way through her muscles, as if trying to shake her apart.
More hands—though not the ones she wanted—steadied her face. Lalabey peered down. “What have you done?”
“Bashed a lot of rocks,” she whispered.
“And saved Ydro-Down.” Laly brushed a hand over her brow. “Do you know who they are?”
She shook her head against their hand. “Just that QueCorp hid them.”
“One is the daughter of the Princep of New Nuyorka in the Octavia System and another was a lead prosecutor on Al’Amal who’s been missing for turns.” Laly whistled. “Kemet’s running background on the rest, but it seems Ming Waller stole some very perilous treasure indeed. Whatever intrigues he had in play, whoever h
e thought were his tools—it’s over now.” The cackle was pure Laly.
And she wanted to smile, but… “Fenn?”
Laly cocked their head. “Yeah. Fin. The end, like I said.”
“Fenn Alexos,” she whispered again. “The merc. Is he…?” The dust clogging her throat made it impossible to go on.
Like it would be impossible to go on if…
Not all walls are stone.
Laly wrapped their hands around hers. “It was a hard fall. Even you were barely strong enough to take it.”
“He’s not dead.” She used Laly’s grip to pull herself upright. Let me help…
Laly didn’t let go. “He’s hurt, bad.”
She shook her head, refusing to hear. Walls of stone let me be strong.
Her friend tried to hold on, but the Nazra shuttle banked hard, engines howling, and Laly had to grab ahold of the slab.
“Pursuit,” someone shouted. “Over the ridge.”
Jashanna rolled to her boots in a cloud of dust.
Ignoring Laly’s call, she charged toward the cockpit. Through the viewport, the Sultanas caught the last rays of sunlight, the rock gleaming like teeth.
The attacking shuttle was a flash against the gray sky.
“Fenn interfered with their sensors once,” she snapped. “He had a grenade…” He’d saved her.
The Nazra boss swiveled to eye her. “Viral load?” When Jashanna shrugged, Kemet turned back to the crewman at comms. “See if he used our usual. Might still be an exploitable weakness there.”
Jashanna didn’t even watch as the crewman flashed through his screen, all her focus on the Nazra boss. “Don’t let him die.”
Kemet’s jaw hardened. “I command this crew in a lot of ways. That ain’t one of them. Sadly.”
Whirling on her heel, Jashanna marched back to her merc.
He was strapped to a med bed, with delicate lines strung from him like the finest det cord. Of course mercenaries had a well-stocked med bay and a competent medic. She reached out, but stopped herself. Where could she touch him that wouldn’t make him worse?
Everywhere were bruises, except where there was blood. The dust in her throat turned to ice. She was going to lose him.
All the strength in her hands to break rock and yet she couldn’t hold him.
Sinking to her knees beside him, she leaned her forehead against his hip. At least she couldn’t see the bruises through his pants. She lolled as the shuttle tilted hard. The wail of weaponry and the triumphant cry of the gunner and then the rest of the crew cheering clattered like more dull rock against her pain.
The treasures of Ydro-Down had always been buried deep, and her life had been a struggle of digging it out. All the while, she’d refused to reach for any shining gem of her own, no matter how small, for fear she’d lose it.
She’d made herself a rock, as heartless as the hollowed hills where QueCorp had stolen any chance of a life.
Until now. Now she was holding out for tarnished silver.
Lifting her head with more effort than hauling a hundred caskets, she gazed at her sleeping merc. With one fingertip, she traced the puff of his bottom lip—not bruised or broken, just the soft puff of his flesh and breath. “We saved my world, together,” she whispered. “But only mostly.”
When she rested her head again, even the cold press of a med spray against her neck couldn’t rouse her.
“Rest,” Gavyn said, catching her around the shoulders. “You don’t always have to be strong.”
A distant whistle made her frown. Such a terrible noise, like an air leak she should probably check if she didn’t want to die of asphyxiation. Or how she imagined a mouse might squeak.
When she rolled her head to focus on the irritation, her skull was cushioned on the softest pillow ever. Her hands clenched in alarm—on the softest sheet ever. Where…?
She opened her eyes to the softest blue ceiling ever. Yeah, where was she?
“Jash?”
She flinched. Apparently she was dead and gone. “Fenn?”
He appeared over her—was he flying? Angels flew, didn’t they?
No, he was just standing, on his own two feet, and she was lying there next to him.
In an instant, he was on the bed beside her, holding her close, whispering her name over and over. “Don’t cry,” he added.
“You’re alive!” For some reason, her tone sounded accusing, so she tried again. “You’re alive.” Still, her voice broke.
He cradled her face and kissed her, once across each wet eye and again on the mouth. “Because of you.”
“I couldn’t hold you.” Her breath caught. “When we fell, I couldn’t hold you tight enough.”
His arms wrapped hard around her. “It was tight enough.” Unlike hers, his voice was fierce, strong. “I’m here, aren’t I?”
“You looked terrible.” She pulled back just a little—not much, because she couldn’t make herself be that strong. “You still look terrible.”
His lips—not bruised, soft but swollen from their kiss—curled. “Took some hits, yeah. Had a quick round of microsurgery for a lacerated liver and some spinal cord nicking, then a nanite booster. No sunshine or table dancing for me for a while. But here I am.”
“You’re here.” She buried her face in the side of his neck and cried again.
He held her curled against his chest while the sobs cleared the last of the dust from her insides and she felt light, floating.
When she finally raised her head to let him wipe the tears away, she found herself gazing out at… “Stars?” They were floating.
“We’re on the Nazra.” He tipped her chin upward to kiss her again. “I told you I’d take you on a spaceship.”
He helped her sit upright on the bed. Leaning back against the bulkhead, he pulled her back into his arms.
Glancing around, she focused on a small hologram waving gently on the bedside storage unit. Some sort of plant with wide leaves and small purple flowers. “This is your bunk,” she guessed.
His chin bumped her forehead lightly as he nodded. “You had a concussion, but our medic said you’d be fine after some rest.” His lips brushed the spot again. “So I brought you here to sleep it off.”
Next to the hologram was…her whistle. “That’s what I heard.” She tilted her head up to frown at him. “You were playing my whistle. You were terrible.”
“Something else you might teach me.” His half-closed eyes caught a shimmer of that purple flower glow. “I thought I could call you back from wherever you went, but you were so deep.”
“You got me,” she whispered, turning slowly in his arms to face him. “Now what?”
“You said I’m a quick learner.” And after he stripped her of the softest sleep tunic ever, he proved it, with his hands and mouth and the most thrilling vibrating mechanism ever.
She cried out his name when she came, but when she returned the favor, his whisper was softer than starlight. “What if a heartless merc loved a hardrock miner?”
“Who better to dig for his heart?” When she kissed him, the faintest tang of salt stung her tongue. “I just think it was hidden deep.”
As the Nazra orbited in its silent patrol, Ydro-Down rolled beneath them.
“It’s so small from here.” Her voice cracked again, in wonder this time and a bit of fear.
“Boss is furious that Waller’s crew sneaked through on our watch. She’ll move heaven and more earth than a miner to safeguard this world now.” He pulled her close. “And I’m not going anywhere.”
She swirled a fingertip through the hologram, letting the purple flower dance across her knuckles. “Do you think something new like this could root here?”
“Maybe. It’s not all just rock anymore.”
Resting her head against his shoulder, she gazed down at her home. “Sun’s coming up.”
As they watched, the silvery arc of the moon’s profile slowly flushed golden with sunshine, and not the kind she distilled to forget. From here,
the edge of sunrise was poised like a promise, sweet and strong, that someday the fight would be won. Until then, they’d claim this love deeper than any precious vein and with a hope brighter than all the stars in the Obsidian Rim.
About the Author
Elsa Jade grew up reading SFF, buying the biggest books she could with her chore money. While she loved the action, adventure, and exciting worlds, most of those stories were missing…kissing! Now she reads and writes paranormal romance and science fiction romance which she says mixes the best of all worlds. She also writes urban fantasy romance as Jessa Slade and sexy contemporary romance as Jenna Dales.
She spends most of her time at her computer thinking about stories, in her garden thinking about stories, or walking her dog thinking about stories. Hmm, there seems to be a theme.
To learn more about Elsa Jade, visitor her website at: http://www.elsajade.com/
SNEAK PEAK - MERCENARY ETHICS by Shona Husk
Marita watched the body for another count of a hundred, but no one approached. That didn’t mean there wasn’t anyone else watching. There was always someone watching. Between the cameras and the drones, there was never any peace.
Her stomach grumbled loud enough to alert anyone in the vicinity to where she was hiding. The person in the burgundy Riel Corp uniform hadn’t moved. If they were already dead, they didn’t know how lucky they were. She took a sip of water, no more, and pressed her cracked lips together to make the most of every molecule.
Everything she did was to prolong her life. After nearly ten days, she had to wonder why she was bothering. This couldn’t be called living. Dehydrated, hungry, and waiting for death. She picked up the sharpened piece of metal that someone before her had turned into a makeshift knife and cautiously stood.
No shots.
Overhead a drone watched. Who was watching the drone’s feed? Three days of crying and yelling that Riel was a sick bastard hadn’t gotten her anywhere. The drones hadn’t killed her either. She tried to be glad about that, but the drones hadn’t delivered her a weapon for testing either. She needed a weapon.