by Elsa Jade
“Redirect all remaining power to the final landing sequence,” she ordered. “Override standard safeties and crew comfort. Just get us down.” Sting might have taken the brunt of that terrible blast, but he was strong.
And so was she.
They would tumble, burning and breathless, but at least they were together.
“Recommend shunting all data gel support resources to emergency landing,” the AI said.
Lana swallowed hard. That would kill the AI completely. She’d be on her own. “Do it,” she said hoarsely. “And goodbye.”
“A hie kharea-lan,” the ship said.
“Sweet night tide to you too, Diatom,” she whispered.
She reached over to touch Sting and gave a tug on his restraint harness. It was wrapped tight around his chest, and she’d never been so jealous of an inanimate object in her life—however much remained of it.
All sensors and scanners were down except one, barely flickering. But on the dull, fuzzy image she recognized little Earth—blue-green as Sting’s blood, silver-white clouds like his eyes—looming before them. Luckily, Big Sky Country was low population density country. There’d be little chance of being seen and even less chance of actually crashing into someone. Taking one last breath of the almost depleted air, she touched Sting one last time and braced herself…
Fire.
Gasping.
Thunder that shook her bones.
This was an infinity times worse than her prom night misfire.
An even mightier jolt as if all the lightning of every storm in the universe had merged into one bolt of sound and sensation and violence threatening to rip her apart.
…Silence.
The stink of burning pinched her nostrils, and she coughed. Or she would’ve, if there’d been more air. The ship that had protected them was now choking them and burning around them, not fair.
Though every atom in her body hurt, she unfastened the restraint harness. Two of the straps were severed and one buckle shattered from the violence of their crash. Sting’s was in worse shape.
She refused to check to see if he was as badly mangled.
No way she could carry his much greater weight. And yet she did. When she staggered out through the main corridor—okay, technically she was half dragging him—she almost cried to see the churn of roiled water rising through the hold. So much easier to float him.
She hauled him out into the darkness under the Montana night sky, full of stars and a few lingering wisps of smoke. They were back in Sunset Lake, right where she’d been before.
With her pajamas plastered annoyingly to her body, she struggled through a side stroke for the shore, one arm wrapped in a lifeguard rescue carry around his chest and neck. Had she saved him? By sacrificing Tritona and maybe Earth?
But she didn’t stop swimming.
Though it seemed the night and her paddling would never end, finally muddy gravel raked under her grasping hand. She missed a stroke, gulped lake water and weeds, almost cried from relief.
She heaved Sting up beside her and collapsed across his chest, clinging as tight as that restraint harness had been—and feeling almost as shattered.
When his big hand weakly cupped the back of her head, she did cry.
He flinched. “Did I hurt you?”
She butted into his hand again. “Only when I thought you were dead.”
“Die? From just one laser overload? Or just one spaceship crash? Or just one—”
She kissed him, partly to silence whatever threat might come next but mostly just to kiss him.
When they both ran out of air again—more pleasurably this time—she lifted her head. “At least I didn’t have to worry about drowning you.”
Gazing up at her, he touched her cheek. “I could’ve drowned as the Diatom sank. I was unconscious and wouldn’t have been able to purge my gills. You saved me.”
Her eyes prickled again. “Together,” she reminded him.
“Help me up,” he said softly.
Her breath hitched again that the powerful man needed her help for such a simple task—but she should be grateful he could speak or she could breathe at all. Carefully, she levered him to his feet, grunting a little to catch him when he swayed.
“Functional but suboptimal,” he reported.
She let out a chuckle that was part sob. “You’re doing better than the Diatom. Our poor ship…”
“That you held us together at all impresses me.” He took a step away and gazed down at her. “You’ve come a long way, Lana Wavercrest.”
She laughed again, more bitterly this time. “Actually we are in the same pond as before, but this time there’s no resurrecting the Diatom.”
He shook his head. “Not many could have done what you did, even trained and experienced fighter pilots. I wonder if using your power to revive the data gel gave you some synergy with the Diatom that enhanced performance.”
She grimaced. “You mean like the Tritonesse made us into better weapons?”
He tilted his head. “Something like that.”
“I didn’t ask the ship to die for us. That seems wrong.” She looked over her shoulder at the dark water. “But we have more immediate problems. We’re stuck out here on the shore with the wreckage of the spaceship sticking out of the water.” If planetary security happened to catch an intrusion on the defunct trajectory—
As if her very words had conjured their doom, an indistinct shout echoed through the dark trees that ringed the lake.
At least the impromptu swim had washed all the blood away. But it had washed away what was left of Sting’s burned and shredded clothes too. All that was left was the very stripped-down version of his battle skin, minus all the pockets, with only enough coverage to prevent immediate X-rated exposure.
And her shredded pajamas were almost as bad.
They looked at each other, and his lips twitched. “We are going to need many words to explain,” he murmured.
She scowled at his amusement. “You hide over there, when they get here, I’ll tell them I was abducted by aliens—”
“I’m not sure how that is concealing an extraterrestrial presence on earth,” he interrupted.
She gave him a look. “And then while I distract them, you jump out from behind them and take their keys.”
“You have given this significant thought,” he said approvingly. “I will follow your command.”
But before they could jump some hapless camper and steal their truck—or, perhaps more complicatedly, grapple with closed-world security forces—the shouting became more distinct “Lana! Sting?”
A moment later, Evens emerged from the trees in a sweep of flashlight beam. The light traced over them and then fell to their feet when Lana raised her hand to shield her eyes. Where were her protective lenses when she needed them? More protective clothing would’ve been nice too.
Sting stepped in front of her as if he’d heard the thought. “Lana says I should sneak up behind you and take your keys,” he told the shopkeeper.
Evens scowled. “You already have my motorcycle.”
“It was a fine conveyance,” Sting said solemnly. “It awaits your return at the Wavercrest abode. Unless it too was bombed.”
Lana swallowed. “And my mom?” She almost hadn’t wanted to ask because what if…
“She also waits,” he assured her. He wrapped one arm around her shoulders when she sagged.
Evens gestured them up the path. “Thomas messaged me when he caught the signal for the Diatom. I’ll take you back to the house and then…” He shook his head.
The return ride to the estate seemed to go by in a blink. Lana wasn’t sure if that was shock or the fact that Evens’ car was a four-door Maserati with far too many horses under the hood. And he had a motorcycle too? Curious choices for a man who ran a glorified thrift store.
Though her pajamas were still soggy and clammy as a dead fish, Sting kept her tucked close under his arm in the back seat. Good thing he didn’t mind dead fish.
Ugh, maybe she was still shocky too.
She decided to blame the shock when she couldn’t stop herself from asking, “So what you said to me when I was on the Cretarni ship…” She swallowed hard. “Was that as much a lie as saying the Diatom had enough firepower to destroy them?” Though there was plenty of oxygen in the Maserati, she found herself holding her breath.
His arm tightened, but he looked out the window on his other side. “I did not know at that time that the Cretarni had taken your power,” he said softly. “That…changes things, and you have more choices now.”
For the first time, she couldn’t read him, and his words seemed opaque, hiding the feelings he’d once told her he didn’t have. After a moment, she too looked away. “I guess everything is different.”
When they got back to the house, she paused next to the fountain, gawping at the damage. Evens whistled through his teeth.
“I didn’t realize…” She fisted her hands at her side. “They grabbed me before I got a dozen feet from the music room. They knocked me out with some sort of stun gun, and I never saw what they did.”
Before Lana could take another step, her mother burst from the house and ran across the cobblestones. They embraced hard, and when she finally looked up to see Thomas a step behind her mother, she included him in the hug.
“I’m so, so sorry about the house,” she said in a ragged whisper. “This is all my fault.”
“Did you drop the bomb?” Thomas asked with a lift of his eyebrows.
She grimaced. “Not this time, no.” She hugged her mom again. “Really, it wasn’t me.”
“I know, honey. You saved my life.” Her mother gestured to Sting and Evens. “Come to the kitchen,” she called. “We have snacks. And we left the first aid kit out.”
But when they walked into the house, Lana froze in horror at the doorway to the library. “No,” she breathed. “Oh, those monsters…”
The heavy marble chair that she’d thought of as Marisol’s throne and that had kept her zaps at bay was cracked in two, and the fireplace where Sting had pleasured her was a blackened maw.
And the aquarium…
The heavy glass was shattered, the water pooled across the floor, reflecting only the ghostly glow of one bulb. The kelp and anemones hung in sad, limp streamers.
This time, she had no tears, as if the salt water had drained out of her too.
“Why would they do that?” Her voice cracked like the glass. She didn’t know anything about weaponry or war, but even she could tell from the spiderwebbing pattern on the remains of the glass that it had been a direct fire. One of the Cretarni had done that on purpose.
“It is war,” her mother said softly.
“Where are the seahorses?” Sting asked.
He was right; despite the devastation, there were no little bodies. Lana shot a hopeful look at Thomas who held up a cautioning hand. “I was able to retrieve some of the animals,” he said. “I transferred them to the cleaning tank for now. But I don’t know if they’ll all survive.”
“No one was at war with seahorses,” Lana whispered.
“That was always the Cretarni way,” Sting said, “to fight the fighters and the innocent alike. Nothing’s changed.”
She’d changed. Into what though, she wasn’t sure. But she was different, just as she’d told him.
And there was only one way to find out how different.
“We need to get a message to Marisol and Coriolis and the others,” she said. “Warn them that the Cretarni are coming.”
Thomas shook his head. “The bombing knocked out our passive array, and if we contact planetary security, they’ll hold the Tritonans as responsible as the Cretarni.”
“Which will end Tritona’s chance for rejoining the intergalactic community,” Sting finished.
Evens cleared his throat. “I can salvage the wreck in the lake. No one needs to find that.” When they all looked at him, he shrugged one shoulder. “The least I can do.”
Her mother hugged her again. “There’s nothing else you can do. You have to trust your friends are wise enough to be on the lookout and strong enough to hold up against another attack. Remember, they’ve survived this long.”
Lana hunched away from the comforting touch. “Not against my power.” Whatever they might say, this was her fault.
So many times, she’d run away. And this time, when she most wanted to avoid the truth, she was stuck, with no way to escape…
“The Atlantyri,” she blurted.
Sting shook his head. “The parts we could’ve used to rebuild the array, I already scavenged for the Diatom.”
Which was a smoldering, sodden ruin—again, thanks to her.
“Not to send a message,” she said. “To go to war.”
Chapter 17
Evens offered to drive them as close to the Atlantyri’s resting place as they could get via roadway. Since there was no way Sting was going to reveal the location of the exodus ship to the shifty shopkeeper, he reminded Evens that he’d already offered to dismantle what was left of the Diatom before it was discovered. Evens hesitated—the value of alien tech moving like shadows in his hooded eyes—then agreed.
“But I’m not just being a scavenger,” he reassured Sting. “I genuinely want to preserve the quietude here in Sunset Falls.”
“So you can reopen the IDA outpost.”
“Well, yes.” Evens peered at him. “You think it’s a bad idea? After I gave you all that good advice about winning Lana?”
“No,” Sting said softly. “I think you should put more love in the universe. The universe is more vast and dark than any sea, and love is one of the lights to guide us through the deeps.”
“The Big Sky Intergalactic Dating Agency: a light for lovers in this dark universe… I like that. Can I use that in a meme?”
Sting had no idea what the man was talking about. He held out one hand. “Keys.”
Evens blinked. “For?”
“Your faster vehicle.”
Which was how he got the keys to the Maserati.
With Thomas’s help, he quickly loaded up the Earther vehicle with a few important supplies. At the last, the guardsman handed over a box labeled ‘baking’.
“Everything is here that you need to make chocolate pudding cups,” he said. “For when you win the war.”
“You have confidence.”
Thomas smiled serenely. “The power of chocolate. The power of love.” His smile turned fiercer. “Miss Lana’s power.”
As they’d prepared for the return to Tritona, they’d shared everything that had happened and their thoughts on what would happen next. “Lana’s power was taken from her,” Sting reminded the guardsman.
“Was it? That wasn’t the power I was talking about.”
Sting blinked. “Then what?”
But his focus was hooked by Lana appearing in the doorway. With her small figure framed by the damage behind her, and with the reminder that her power had been stolen, she should’ve looked vulnerable, even weak. And yet every part of his body exposed by his refurbished battle skin felt the impact of her presence as if she’d attacked him with a fighting pulse.
Thomas chuckled under his breath, but Sting was too focused to respond. Without her fire-witch curse, if they fought off this latest Cretarni attack, the Tritonesse would welcome her as a long-lost cousin, boosting Tritona’s census. She would have her choice of powerful Tritonyri males—or none at all, since her calm cleverness would be much valued in the Tritonesse halls of science and study. If she decided to forgive them for infecting her unknown ancestors with a biogen weapon of Cretarni design. She had a future on Tritona, if he could win one for her.
Thomas nudged him. “Go get her,” he urged. “This is a big step for her.”
Sting eyed the shallow stone stairs. Which he’d seen her navigate easily many times before. “I could carry her,” he said thoughtfully. “I always like to do that.”
“Not that step,” Thomas said pat
iently. “Leaving her home. Again.”
“But she’s done that many times too,” Sting pointed out.
“And it hurt her. This is where you can help.”
With a nod of understanding, Sting strode toward Lana. She was embracing her mother again. “I’ll be back,” she said in a hoarse voice.
“Or I’ll come see you.” Although Kailani smiled, her dark eyes, like Lana’s, glistened with tears. “I know you’ll always find your way. Not because of any magical mermaid power, either, but because you were always stronger than you believed. I love you, honey.”
“Love you, Mom.” She stepped back, meeting Sting’s gaze. “Ready to go?”
For a moment, he—who never hesitated to dive into battle—was frozen in place. How could he take her into danger? Abducting her to return her to her friends for a new life on Tritona had been one thing. But plunging her into the heart of a war? She didn’t even have the power of her zaps anymore.
And yet… With her hands on her hips, staring up at him, he hesitated to cross her. She might not zap him with electric shocks, but there was a different kind of fire in those dark eyes—a fire to lure a Titanyri into the depths.
She had donned the e-suit again but it had been modified with alterations from the 3D printer to fit her almost as snuggly as his battle skin—although it covered more of her skin, to his disappointment.
“Does it have pockets?” he wondered.
She nodded and patted her body as she pointed out each compartment. “Gill pouch. Utility tool. Datpad. Retractable knife. Field med kit. Plasma grenade—”
“Grenade?”
Evens cleared his throat. “She mentioned that she missed shooting some of the Cretarni and she wanted a less precise weapon.” He shrugged one shoulder in a self-deprecating manner. “I had a couple grenades I could part with.”
Sting sidelonged a glance at Lana. “A couple?”
“In case I miss the first time again.”
“Just don’t get stopped on your way to the Atlantyri,” Evens cautioned. “There’s not a comic-con within a thousand miles right now so you’d have trouble explaining yourselves. And you do not want to have to explain the grenades, believe me.”
