Daxar didn’t answer. He just kept pushing his ship forward, hoping that the Ithos and the basestos would still be at the asteroid when he got there. He didn’t want to argue with Nova right now. He did care deeply for her, and he had felt such a surge of relief when he saw that she was alive. But that relief was tainted by the realization that she had essentially handed over the basestos to the Ithos, even if that hadn’t been her intention. How could she have done that? How could he forgive her if anything happened to Zocrone?
Forgive her? You’re the one who needs forgiving. You should never have left the basestos unguarded in the first place. Daxar sighed. It was true. He had made mistakes in all of this, too. The bottom line was that both Nova and he were doing their best to save Zocrone. They needed to work together rather than trying to figure out who shared the greatest amount of blame for this sludge-up.
“There!” Nova said, breaking the uncomfortable silence between them. “I see them!”
Daxar looked where Nova was pointing. Sure enough, there were three Ithos ships surrounding a rather unremarkable asteroid. Two of the ships held back a bit, and a third had actually landed on the asteroid. Several Ithos were slowly and ever so gingerly lifting crates of basestos into the parked ship. It looked like they had two crates left to go.
Suddenly, Nova pointed to Daxar’s right. “Look! Over there! The Ithos who stole my ship is coming back!”
Daxar looked, adjusting the magnification on his helmet’s visor so that he could see better from such a great distance. He saw the Zocronian spaceship Nova had bought being pulled along by a small Ithos ship. The Ithos ship pulled up to the other Ithos ships, and an Ithos man got out and started talking to the Ithos who were loading the crates. From the wild gesturing, and the frequent pointing back at Nova’s spaceship, Daxar figured they must be discussing the fact that Nova had gone missing.
“Looks like they realized you were gone,” he said with a chuckle.
Nova visibly shuddered. “It’s a good thing I’m gone. Once they discovered that they didn’t need me to open the biolocks, I would have been dead.”
“Well, they’re the ones who are going to be dead in a minute. I think we should put an end to this before they look up and realize we’re here.
Nova nodded slowly, but her eyes grew concerned. “How are you going to do that, though?”
“I’m going to shoot the basestos crates, of course. If just one explodes, then it will start a chain reaction and explode all of them. You know that. That’s what you were planning to do, too, wasn’t it?”
“Well, yes. But you’ll have to get closer to shoot them. And you’ll probably get caught up in the explosion. You can’t die! You’re the Chief of Zocrone.”
Daxar laughed. “Look, this ship is equipped with some very long-range weapons. I only need to get a little closer to be able to hit them. I think I’ll still be able to get out on time. And even if I do get caught up in the explosion, it’s a sacrifice I’m happy to make. You were happy to make it, too, remember? You would have died for sure if you tried to shoot the basestos crates from that dinky little ship of yours.”
“But I’m just Nova. No one cares if I die. You’re the Chief.”
Daxar looked over at Nova and smiled. His voice took on a low, husky tone as he spoke. “I think you’re wrong. I think there are a lot of people who care if you die. Your crew. Merkin. And yes, me. You’re more cared about than you think.”
Nova looked down at her hands, obviously flustered. “Dax…”
Daxar’s smile widened when he heard her calling him by his nickname again, even though he’d thoroughly chewed her out for it earlier today. Perhaps there was hope for the two of them to patch things up after all. Assuming they survived this attempt to blow up the basestos crates. He reached over and put a finger to Nova’s lips, telling her to be quiet.
“Shh. No more arguing. We have to do this now. Are you willing to risk it with me? If my ship gets caught up in the explosion, your life is just as over as mine.”
“I’m willing to risk it. But you…you are the Chief.”
He grinned. “You keep saying that like it means I’m irreplaceable or something. But trust me: Zocrone has plenty of procedures in place for finding a successor if anything were to happen to me. Besides, it is because I’m Chief that I should do this. It is my duty to sacrifice my life for my people. As Chief, I should be the first in line to defend the city dome when it is under threat. And so today, that is what I will do.”
Nova looked for a moment like she might protest again, but then she nodded.
“Of course. I understand. But if we’re going to do this, we should do it now. They’re loading the last crate, and then they’ll be getting out of here as quickly as they can. Their ships likely all have FTL drives, and if they jump away we’ll never catch them. And trust me: if they notice you here, they’re going to jump as soon as possible.”
Daxar nodded. “If I shoot, though, will the crates explode? They’re not biolocked anymore, but they’re still shut, aren’t they?”
Nova grinned at him. “It doesn’t matter if they’re shut. When I set all of the boxes down on the asteroid and unlocked them, I also twisted the latches so that they won’t fully close. It’s an old smugglers’ trick so that you can make it look like a box is closed, but it’s really not. I use it all the time to come back and get valuables out of boxes after the owners are out of sight and think the boxes were safely closed.”
Daxar looked at Nova and shook his head. “You little trickster.”
She shrugged. “I had to be a trickster. You’d never survive in the smuggling business if you weren’t one. I never thought I’d be using that trick on a bunch of basestos crates, but hey. It works. At least I think it works. Hopefully when you shoot, the basestos crates will be unsealed enough that they explode.”
“Only one way to find out,” Daxar said. “Let’s do this.”
Nova nodded, although she was starting to look nervous. Daxar smiled at her in what he hoped was a reassuring manner. “Hey, one more thing…”
She raised a questioning eyebrow in his direction.
“Just in case I’m wrong, and this ship isn’t fast enough to escape the explosion, I want you to know that I love you.”
Her eyes widened. “Dax! But…”
“I know we’ve had our differences, especially this morning. I’m sorry I was such a jerk, and if we do make it out of this we have a lot to talk about, and I have some apologizing to do. But just in case we don’t…I love you.”
He reached up and ran one of his fingers along her cheek. Her human skin looked so soft and creamy next to his rough, blue finger. He could have sat there all day touching that skin. But he had an important job to do, so he forced himself to pull his hand back. He leaned over and quickly covered her lips with his, giving her a warm, firm kiss. Then he sat back, reaching over to snap her helmet’s visor shut.
“Make sure you’re buckled in,” he shouted. “It’s gonna be a wild ride.”
She nodded, checking the safety harness in the copilot’s seat. And then, she looked over at him and said, “I love you, too.”
He smiled, his heart melting all over again. He could barely hear her muffled voice through the visor of her helmet, but he could read her lips clearly. She loved him. He loved her. Somehow, they would make it through this. And when this crisis was over, he would show her just how wonderful it could be to be loved by a Zocronian Chief.
Chapter Fifteen
Nova gripped the edges of her seat in Daxar’s spaceship, as though holding on tightly would somehow protect her from the blast if the basestos explosion did reach them. She knew that nothing would save her if they got caught up in the blast, but she couldn’t stop herself from at least trying to exert some control over her situation by holding on. Human nature is to hold on, even when there is nothing concrete left to hold onto. We all just want some tiny sense of security, and we’ll get that sense of security however we can.
&nb
sp; These were the sorts of thoughts running through Nova’s mind as Daxar pushed his spaceship forward at top speed. He was getting so close that Nova couldn’t believe the Ithos hadn’t looked up and noticed them yet. The Ithos were just starting to close the hatch on the ship they had parked on the asteroid, when one of them looked up and saw Daxar’s ship. Wild screaming and hand waving ensued as the last of the Ithos began running back toward their ship.
Come on, Dax. Hurry. They’re going to jump just as soon as they can get coordinates loaded into their FTL drives.
Nova wasn’t sure how close Daxar needed to get to be within firing range, but she figured they must be close. If he really thought they could get away in time to escape the explosion, then they couldn’t afford to get too much closer. The fireball this explosion generated was going to be huge.
A moment later, she had her answer. Daxar slowed the ship slightly, and began firing his long range plasma guns. For the few moments that it took for the plasma beams to reach the Ithos ships, Nova held her breath. She gripped the seat even tighter than she’d thought possible, and she closed her eyes against what she knew was coming.
But then, she opened her eyes again. She decided she wanted to see this. Whatever happened, she wanted to know. If she was going to die today, she wanted to die with her eyes wide open. She wanted to face this moment with courage.
When Daxar’s plasma beams reached their mark, the explosion was brighter than Nova would have ever thought possible. She shielded her eyes from the blinding glare, her mouth dropping at the amount of power that the basestos had generated. How was it possible for a few crates of the stuff to do this much damage? She’d heard stories of basestos’ incredible power, and she’d even seen pictures of places that had been devastated by its power. But there was nothing quite like witnessing it in person.
And then, Daxar was turning the ship around. He swung it so fast that Nova nearly lost consciousness. All the blood rushed from her brain, and it was all she could do to hold back the blackness threatening to overtake her. Then they had straightened out, and they were flying, ever faster, away from the explosion. With some difficulty, Nova managed to turn her head just enough so that she could see Daxar. He was staring straight ahead, his lips set in a hard, determined line as he pushed the space ship as fast as it would go back toward Zocrone.
Nova wasn’t sure whether she was imagining it, or whether the heat from the explosion really was raising the temperature of space around them and breaking through the thermal shielding of the spaceship, but she found herself sweating profusely. Perhaps it was just her nerves. She looked over at Daxar and didn’t see a drop of sweat on him. She told herself to calm down. If their ship hadn’t caught on fire yet, then they were likely going to make it out of this, weren’t they?
Daxar suddenly cursed, then jerked the spaceship sharply to the right. Nova probably would have thrown up if there had been anything in her stomach to throw up. But she hadn’t eaten anything since she was woken up this morning by Maisie’s urgent knocking at her apartment’s front door. That seemed like a lifetime ago now.
Daxar cursed again, and this time veered the ship to the left. Nova wanted to bury her head in her hands and cry, but she refused to give in to that weakness now. Daxar wasn’t crying. She wanted to show him that she could be strong, too. And so she forced herself to look straight ahead out of the ship’s window. That’s when she saw the problem.
There were fragments of asteroids everywhere. Some of the pieces were relatively small, almost like pebbles. These bounced off the ship easily. But other fragments were larger. A few were much, much larger. The explosion had set off a literal mine field of asteroids, and Nova watched in horror as Daxar did his best to maneuver around them. He obviously had great piloting skills, because he got them past some spots where Nova was sure they were going to be hit. But no matter how skilled of a pilot he was, there was no way he was going to be able to avoid every last asteroid chunk. Nova gritted her teeth together and tried not to panic. She didn’t want the last thing he remembered seeing before he died to be her crying hysterically. So she gripped the seat as tightly as ever, and stared straight ahead. Swerve after swerve, they managed to avoid the giant chunks of doom. Space around them seemed to slowly become less cluttered, and Nova wondered if she dared to hope that they might be lucky enough to make it through this.
No sooner had she had that thought, though, that something struck the back of the ship, hard. Nova was thrown forward in her seat, her ribs screaming in pain as the safety harness pulled her back.
“Oh, sludge,” Daxar said, his fingers flying over the controls of the Havoc. But no matter what he did, he couldn’t stop the sudden tailspin that the ship had gone into.
“Do something!” she yelped out, even though he was clearly trying to. Nothing he was doing made a difference. The ship continued to spin, until its out-of-control movement was abruptly checked by the impact of another large asteroid chunk. Nova’s body lurched to the left, and she screamed as she felt a sharp, searing pain through her left shoulder.
Daxar cursed again, his hands looking like blurs as he tried to bring the ship back under control. But Nova could already tell it was useless. They had come so close to clearing the asteroid field and the explosion completely, only to be taken out at the last moment.
Daxar was yelling something now, although Nova couldn’t quite make out what it was. He was reaching over and pointing to a red button near her seat, but she didn’t understand why. All she knew was that she was getting dizzy from the constant, rapid spinning of the ship. Then, Daxar loosened his safety harness so that he could reach the button he’d been pointing to. He pushed it, and suddenly Nova found herself shooting out of the space ship. The hatch had swung open in a split-second, and she had flown through it. She was still attached to her chair, but the chair was no longer attached to the ship. For a moment, she felt confused. And then, the fog in her brain lifted a bit and she realized what had happened.
He pushed the eject button. Daxar had ejected her from the spaceship. But why? Had it been that bad? Nova twisted herself around to look at the spaceship, and saw that it had, indeed, been that bad. The whole back half of the ship was in flames now, and the front was dented so badly that the thing didn’t even really look like a spaceship anymore. But where was Daxar? Fear gripped Nova for the thousandth time that day as she looked around for him. She was still strapped in to her seat by her safety harness, which made it difficult to turn around and look, but she managed to peek in all directions around her. She couldn’t see him at first, and she began to panic. Was he still stuck in the ship? That thing was almost completely on fire now. Nova whimpered and willed herself to keep looking. He had to be around here somewhere. He would have ejected too, right after her. He must be here. He had to be here.
Finally, her eyes landed on a large form free-floating through space about a hundred feet away from her. Tears filled her eyes as she realized it was Daxar. He wasn’t attached to a chair, although his survival suit did seem to be intact. But he wasn’t moving, and Nova couldn’t help but imagine the worst.
“Daxar, no!” He couldn’t be dead, he just couldn’t. They had made it this far. They had escaped the basestos explosion, and the very worst of the asteroid shrapnel. How could he have made it this far only to be killed at the last moment?
Nova tried desperately to move herself toward Daxar, but maneuvering through open space, especially while strapped to a chair, was no easy feat. Nova started trying to unbuckle herself from the chair, until she realized that an emergency disaster signal device was attached to the chair. Perhaps it was better, then, to sit tight and see if anyone came for her. If they came for her, they’d also be able to help Daxar.
Nova took a few deep breaths to calm herself, and then she looked back toward the direction where the basestos explosion had occurred. All she could see was fire, dust, and pieces of asteroid. It seemed unlikely that the Ithos or any of the basestos had survived that blast. She coul
d hardly believe she had survived, although it still remained to be seen how much longer she actually did survive. She had about three hours of oxygen left in her survival suit’s emergency oxygen tank. For the second time today, she found herself drifting through space, wondering if this was how she was going to die.
But surely, someone would find her. She had the disaster beacon, and besides, someone was going to come looking for Daxar. When they did, they would find her, too. She would be fine. She hoped.
She tried to turn again, to see if there was anything to see in the other direction. She didn’t expect anything, but she had to try. What else was she going to do with her time, anyway?
There was nothing to see, though. A few more asteroid chunks were flying by here and there, and beyond that there was just the open, black void of space. With a resigned sigh, Nova began trying to spin herself around again so that she could once more watch Daxar.
But getting back around was even more difficult. It just wasn’t easy to move out here, with nothing to brace yourself against. Nova turned her neck around as far as she could, trying to see if she could get a view of Daxar that way, without turning completely around. No sooner had she managed to get her head turned enough to catch a glimpse of the burning spaceship and Daxar beyond it, that she saw a giant piece of asteroid floating straight toward her.
She screamed, and tried to get out of the way, but it was no use. She could hardly move, and the asteroid was moving quickly. The next thing Nova knew, she felt a sharp pain as the asteroid collided with her. Then everything went black. She was unconscious too quickly to even hear or worry about the sudden hissing sound from her suit. For the second time that week, she was wearing an oxygen tank with a hole in it.
Chapter Sixteen
“Daxar! Daxar!”
The voice was coming from somewhere down a long tunnel. Daxar tried to open his eyes, but the bright lights were so painful. He tried to move his hands, but they felt as heavy as a hunk of Zekkardite.
The Alphas of the Seven Galaxies Page 15
