“I’ll draw him away.” Ryce got up, dusting himself off. “You get to the lifeboat before he makes another pass.”
“Draw him away in your jet? Seriously?” Matt demanded. “He’ll shoot you right out of the sky! Stop trying to be a damn hero!”
“I’ll dodge him,” Ryce said with a confidence Matt did not share in the slightest. “Just go!”
Without waiting for Matt’s response, he ran toward the discarded Sparrow. But he didn’t get very far. When he was merely yards away from the jet, the Waxwing came in again, this time forgoing the hiding spot amidst the rocks to focus on the stationary jet. Ryce threw himself on the sand as a volley of laser beams hit the aircraft, several of them penetrating the hull. A sharp smell of jet fuel wafted in the dry air, the fetor of absolute bad luck.
“Get back!” Matt yelled at the top of his lungs and bounded toward Ryce’s huddled form in complete disregard of his own command. “It’s gonna blow!”
Ryce managed to heave himself up and run back to Matt a split second before an explosion shook the desert. The blast tossed both of them to the ground, leaving them stunned by the impact, as a wave of fire billowed across the taller rocks.
Matt rolled on his back, gulping the sweet oxygen in his mask, staring at the indigo vastness above. Heavy smoke rose from the charred remains of the jet, blocking the sun.
Ryce stirred beside him, and Matt took his hand, the two of them helping each other stand on unsteady feet. Ryce was saying something, but Matt couldn’t hear anything over the ringing in his ears. Warm fresh blood seeped from his nose to his mouth underneath the mask.
Ryce pointed to something behind his back, and Matt turned to see Tony jump out of the lifeboat hatch, laser rifle in hand. She shouted something, and then, when they failed to respond, waved at them frantically to join her. She pointed the rifle in the Waxwing’s general direction and fired a few shots.
A rifle was no match for a fighter-jet caliber laser gun, but it gave them some semblance of cover as they sprinted toward the lifeboat. Matt felt rather than heard the engine already purring as he reached the hatch and unceremoniously shoved both Ryce and Tony inside.
“He’s coming!” he yelled, glimpsing the jet gaining altitude before slamming the hatch shut. He hoped Ryce had heard him because his own voice was coming to him as if from under water.
Ryce headed straight to the tiny bridge as soon as the pressure chamber door opened, taking off his mask and linking his adapters on the run. He didn’t waste any time getting the lifeboat in the air. The thrusters strained at liftoff, going at full capacity, but the angle of ascent made them a vulnerable target. The laser beams cut the air around them in rapid succession, several of them grazing the hull but none hitting the ship directly as Ryce swerved among them, sacrificing speed in his struggle to dodge the shots. The control panel beeped in alarm.
Matt flung himself into the copilot’s chair, tearing the mask from his face.
“Strap up!” he ordered, and did so himself, without bothering to look back. Tony and Val knew what to do; right now, his biggest worry was to avoid sustaining a direct laser hit. The lifeboat wasn’t robust enough to withstand it, and it was no match for an aerojet when it came to speed and agility—as long as they remained in the lower layers of the atmosphere. Their best bet was to reach escape velocity as quickly as possible since the jet couldn’t follow them into the mesosphere. But attaining it seemed as impossible as reaching the sun when they had an angry fighter jet hot on their tail.
Getting into the lifeboat and off the ground was a tactical mistake, but it was hardly one they could have somehow avoided. Their chances of survival, however, didn’t look great at the moment.
The lifeboat dropped abruptly as the Waxwing fired another volley of laser beams at them, and Matt clutched at the chair armrests. They were definitely at a serious disadvantage and losing altitude rather than pushing upward. There was nowhere to go, nowhere to hide, and the other jet was locked on target.
“Those stims could have come in handy right now,” Ryce said pointedly.
“No time. You said you could dodge him anyway.”
“I wasn’t talking about a lifeboat.”
“When life gives you lifeboats, you make the fucking lifeboats work!”
Ryce barked a laugh, and the ship sped up again, taking a sharp turn to the right. The desert stretched far beneath them, an endless sea of sandy dunes peppered with stone formations, barely visible in the distance. The Waxwing followed, dogging them every step of the way. This was another race, but this time, there was no set course, no time frame, no prize. This was about survival, and Ryce was doing everything he could to stay one step ahead of the laser beams coming his way—with varying degrees of success. Each glancing blast shook the small vessel, and it was only a matter of time till one of them hit the fuel tank or took out the electronics.
“Let’s make it work, then,” Ryce said, once again as cool and collected as Matt was used to seeing him when he was helming a ship. “I’m going to try a disengagement maneuver. Here’s hoping this thing can take it.”
He switched to full manual and took hold of the control stick. The lifeboat sped up, simultaneously tilting to the side. Matt grabbed the chair, even though he was strapped into it. The lifeboat rolled over, and everything that wasn’t affixed to the walls tumbled down. Tony cursed from the passengers’ seats in the salon.
The lifeboat dived, now flipped at a 180-degree angle. Matt’s stomach jumped all the way to his throat as he hung upside down from his chair. The Split-S was a tried-and-true move in aerial combat, going back centuries to the very first human-invented aircraft. But a lifeboat was not a fighter jet, as Ryce had already made abundantly clear.
Matt kept his eyes on the screen, just in time to see the Waxwing overshoot them from above, speeding on its original trajectory while they nosedived. Then Ryce pulled the control stick. The thrusters keened, fighting against gravity. For a split second, everything seemed to be suspended midair, and Matt could have sworn the lifeboat was going to stall and plummet, losing momentum. Angry red alarm messages flashed across the screen. Ryce ignored them, keeping his hold steady. The ship’s bow lifted, and it came out of the half-loop, once again aligning horizontally. But Ryce, uninterested in keeping a straight course, kept the pressure on the stick. The engines roared, emitting a totally different sound to their earlier wail, and the lifeboat soared, cutting through the gradually thinning air and the wispy layer of clouds, taking advantage of the Waxwing’s momentary lag to make its escape upward.
Chapter Twenty-Two
MATT SLUMPED IN the chair and closed his eyes. The dark embrace of outer space had never felt sweeter. The lifeboat shot out of Elysium-5 atmosphere, leaving the planet behind. Stahl, at least, was off their list of things to worry about for the time being.
Ryce exhaled softly beside him. Matt opened his eyes and turned to him. A slow smiled spread on Ryce’s face, warming his gray eyes.
“I guess you were right about those lifeboats,” he said.
Suddenly Matt couldn’t care less about Stahl, Griggs, Ander, and the entire damn galaxy. He undid the straps, and pounced on Ryce, practically climbing into his lap and claiming his lips. Ryce responded eagerly, throwing his arms around Matt, holding him painfully tight, deepening the kiss. Their teeth clashed, and Matt tasted blood again from his abused nose, but neither of them could get enough, drinking each other like air.
“Ahem,” Tony said, entering the bridge. “Sorry to spoil the party, boys, but it’d be nice to get a status report.”
They broke the kiss reluctantly, and Matt sat back in the copilot chair, mainly to hide his body’s involuntary reaction to Ryce’s proximity.
“Why do you always have to be the responsible adult?” he complained.
“Do you really have to ask?”
Ryce tapped the control panel, still grinning. “We should be back at the Freeport in little over an hour.” He glanced at Tony.” How is Val?”
<
br /> “As well as he can be at the moment.”
“Good. We need to get him on board Randy Reid’s ship and off the station right after we dock,” Matt said. “I’ll give Randy a call to make sure he’s ready to bolt as soon as his passenger arrives.”
The unexpected altercations with Ander and Stahl had cost them precious time. The plan was to get back to the 73 before Griggs had the chance to return and raise hell. He could still do it long-distance, of course, but in Matt’s experience, things ran much smoother when the boss was around to oversee them.
Sending Val off was their top priority since it stood to reason he’d be the main target of both Griggs and Ander’s wrath (provided Ander was still alive to be angry). But realistically, they were all in the same kind of danger. If it weren’t for his poor stranded Lisa, Matt would have them all evacuated in a heartbeat. But a captain didn’t abandon his ship if he could help it, and he had this thin, barely tangible thread of hope that, somehow, he could make everything all right again—if his plans panned out.
“You should both go with him,” he told Tony and Ryce. “I have to sort things out on the Freeport, but I’d be much calmer knowing you were all safe somewhere else.”
“Didn’t we already have this conversation?” Tony scoffed. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Ryce said nothing, merely giving Matt a very pointed glare.
Matt’s throat closed. If this was what it felt like to have a family that had your back no matter what, it was the best feeling in the world.
“Thanks, guys,” he said when he was sure his voice wasn’t going to betray him. “And in case I won’t have the chance to say it later, I love you all and I appreciate the support. Truly, I do.”
He looked them both in the eye to make sure they understood he was being sincere. They nodded.
“Okay, then. Now—” Matt fished Ander’s commlink out of his pants pocket. He hoped it had survived him rolling around on the craggy ground, and there was no time like the present to check. “Let’s see what the dead man has to say.”
REID’S SHIP, THE Siren, was berthed at Dock F13, and after talking to him en route, Matt requested the Station Control’s permission to land there. To his relief, the lifeboat was yet to be reported as stolen. He was cleared to come in—not before the operator reminded him there were docking fees pending in his name for his Phaeton vessel, registration number 050420 slash 11.
“Kinda hard to forget,” Matt muttered. Unpaid fees were low in priority right now, but he knew he’d have to somehow address that issue—if he lived long enough for it to matter.
“Is everybody ready?” Ryce asked as he navigated the curve of the outer ring of the Freeport station. The adjacent jumpgate, built and left there by the mysterious Mnirians millennia ago, was active, its four detached corners glowing bright against the dark backdrop, dimming the distant stars. Ships were already queued up, waiting for the precise space-folding technology to take them to their respective destinations throughout the galaxy.
“Ready.” Val was the one to answer in that low, rumbling voice of his. His tall, broad figure seemed to occupy all the available space as he stepped onto the tiny bridge, but the presence of all four members of their little crew, finally together, filled Matt’s heart with undiluted joy. He didn’t mind sharing cramped quarters, eating canned soup, and desperately hunting for the next underpaid job, as long as they were all safe—even if some of them eventually chose to follow a different path.
He glanced at Ryce, but this time, the thought didn’t carry anger, only deep sadness.
“And thank you all. For everything. I mean it,” Val said. “I’m sorry I got you in trouble, and—”
“Don’t sweat it,” Matt said. “We all get in trouble from time to time, and we’re here to have each others’ backs.”
Val’s mouth quirked. “Aye, Captain.”
A few minutes later, the lifeboat glided into the open mouth of the dock and then through the huge pressure doors into the main area. It landed softly on its shock absorbers without so much as a jolt, which made Matt a little jealous of the quality. Lady Lisa’s shuttle was much more cumbersome in comparison—not to mention a lot less luxurious when it came to interior design.
“All right, let’s get the hell out,” Matt ordered after Ryce shut down the engine. He could see the elegant silhouette of the Siren behind a few other ships, beckoning with a promise of safe passage (for one of them, at least). Its main hatch was open, as if in welcome, and the ship’s thrusters were already glowing, warming up before the anticipated takeoff.
They all spilled out onto the dock, looking like they’d indeed been in some sort of shipwreck—Tony and Matt still in the dark blue uniform of the Medusa crew, both he and Ryce covered in a thick layer of brown-gray dust, and Val with his bloodstained clothes and bandaged hand. Dock F13 was a busy one, and they must have drawn some startled glances, but Matt didn’t get the chance to find out if that was true.
A small group of people was waiting for them as they stepped onto the ramp—and it didn’t include Randy coming to greet them. There was Tex, her arms folded across her chest, an unreadable expression on her face, flanked by three large men in nondescript gray clothing, their hip pockets bulging with the shape of concealed blaster guns.
Another man stood beside and slightly ahead of her. He was middle-aged, of average height, his dark hair graying elegantly at the temples. His suit was much too expensive to be worn at the docks. Matt could only presume this was the elusive Griggs himself, finally gracing them with his presence. Eddie Ander was notably absent from the party.
“You’ve gotta be kidding me,” Matt muttered wearily. He wasn’t even really surprised; being ambushed when they thought they were in the clear was only par for the course for how the day was going.
“Captain Spears,” Griggs said. His cultured voice, like his attire, was incongruous with both the surroundings and his brutish entourage. “I see you’re in quite a hurry, but I do believe we need to talk.”
“Do they wanna talk too?” Matt nodded toward Tex and the armed men. The tension in his friends was palpable, and he didn’t have to turn around to see Tony and Ryce’s hands hovering above their own weapons.
“After some of your recent antics, I must take the necessary precautions,” Griggs said almost apologetically and then gestured toward the lifeboat. “Shall we? This should give us all enough privacy.”
Matt was reluctant to go anywhere with so many guns present, but settling the score on the shuttle definitely beat disappearing into the bowels of the station.
“After you.” Tex nodded toward the lifeboat, and they had no choice but to file back inside. Tex brought up the rear and shut the hatch closed when everybody was on board.
At Griggs’s gesture, they sat in the passenger seats. Val was glaring at Tex, Tony was sizing up the three guards, and Ryce was focused on Griggs, his lips tightly pressed. No one had actually drawn a weapon yet, but the air crackled with impending violence.
“I’d say it’s a pleasure meeting you all, but that would hardly be true under the circumstances.” Griggs came to stand in front of them. “In fact, Captain Spears, you and your bunch have been quite the pain in the neck.”
“I’m sure you’d agree not all of it was our fault,” Matt said. “It’s not like any of us actually wanted to find ourselves in this situation. In fact, I’m known to be a very reasonable and amiable person—as long as nobody kidnaps my friends and threatens me with their body parts.”
“Be that as it may,” Griggs said, unimpressed. “I’m a businessman, and you have done more than enough damage to my business. As well as my private property.”
“I don’t think killing us is going to solve that,” Matt said cheekily.
“Indeed, it’s not. But I must say it would bring me no small amount of satisfaction,” Griggs said with a pleasant smile. “As well as serve as a warning to others not to interfere with my enterprises. And all I have to do is report finding your bodie
s on my stolen vessel, apparently having killed each other in an argument gone wrong over the division of the loot.”
Ryce tensed in the seat next to him, and Tony shifted uncomfortably in hers. Matt didn’t know if Griggs was being completely serious (after all, it would have been easier to just shoot them outright instead of sitting them all down first to be scolded like misbehaving schoolchildren), but he didn’t want to test whether the man would carry out his threat.
“Now, I had a feeling you’d see things this way,” he said, doing his best to match the put-on civil tone of the conversation while hoping Griggs didn’t notice how sweaty his palms were, or how fast his pulse was. “I hate to be a pain in the neck again, as you put it, but I don’t think this’ll work at all. As a matter of fact, I think you’ll let us all go.”
Griggs raised a perfectly manicured eyebrow. “I’ll play along. Why would I do that, exactly?”
“Because it just so happens I have your buddy Ander’s commlink.” Matt produced the incriminating piece of evidence from his pocket. “The one where he kept detailed records of everything pertaining to the organization of the illegal races on Elysium-5—including the recordings of every single race and the stakes made on it. That kind of information will be hard even for our status-quo-loving station authorities to overlook if it fell into their lap, wouldn’t you agree? And before you try to pry it out of my cold dead hands,” he added hastily at seeing the dangerous gleam entering Griggs’s eyes, “you should know an encrypted transmission of all the relevant data has already been sent to Admiral Cummings of the Federal Fleet, to be opened in the case of my untimely demise.”
A deathly quiet settled in the cabin as everybody seemed to hold their breath. Griggs stared at him, and Matt held his own gaze steady, drawing on every ounce of courage he had in his body to weather the other man’s scrutiny. He’d sent a copy of all the files stored on Ander’s commlink to Lady Lisa’s computer before they touched down on the station, but he was lying through his teeth about getting the same transmission out to his father. Admiral Cummings would in no way welcome anything that came from his wayward son unless it was a humble apology. Matt just needed a name which sounded impressive enough not to be easily dismissed—and a plausible one, in case Griggs had done his homework on Matt’s background. For some reason, he was reluctant to bring Nora into this, even if it was only a bluff.
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