She had always known this little fantasy of hers had been a mess of impossibilities. She just hadn’t pictured it going this awry.
Running a hand over the bodice of her dress, Annie stared at herself in the mirror. Her reflection looked morosely back out at her. One pale, manicured hand ran over the bodice of her gown, fingers tracing over the thousands of crystals dotting the fabric like stars. Annie had never been this close to a diamond before. She’d certainly never thought she’d be wearing this many of them. Her auburn hair was piled on top of her head in an elaborate series of braids and curls and there was shimmering powder swiped across the lids of her grey eyes, making them seem bigger and brighter.
Annie had never looked better, and she had never felt worse.
Not for the first time since she had received the news of her own impending nuptials by way of her father drunkenly sweating through a confession, Annie cursed at the series of mundane-to-regrettable events that made up her life. She’d always been told growing up that if she worked hard enough, she could be and have anything she wanted. Bright-eyed idiot that she had been, she hadn’t realized that it was just a condescending platitude doled out to the have-nots of the universe to make them more complacent with their lot, to shift the blame away from the people overworking and underpaying their employees. Instead, she’d planted her feet, ignored the throngs of people she’d known growing up who worked hard day in and day out and barely had enough to eat, and decided to become a politician.
She’d ended up as a waitress at dive bar instead. It hadn’t been all terrible—the other servers were friendly and she got free drinks—but spending anywhere between eight and fifteen hours a day avoiding groping hands and belligerent drunks hadn’t been how she wanted to spend her life. This was without her father showing up and explaining that he needed money—just this once!—and that he wouldn’t spend it all on cheap booze, only for a friend of his to call her to come pick him up once he’d drunk himself unconscious. At the time, it hadn’t seemed like much, just a continued state of existence tinged by the frustration that she could be so much more. Now it seemed like paradise. It was funny what made you learn to appreciate what you had. Sometimes it was a death, or a breakup, or getting fired. Sometimes it was your father telling you he’d accidentally sold you into being what amounted to a sex slave for a demonic autocrat with a warship that could eat the sun and a private army decked out in gear reminiscent of Civil War uniforms.
Annie had laughed when her father had first broken the news, and she hadn’t laughed again since. The next week had been a blur of the sickening realization that no, it wasn’t a joke, and she needed to go to a meeting point, where Captain Jacob Strathmore of the ITC Appomattox had looked her over with his pale eyes like she was a side of meat and declared her acceptable as a wife so long as she knew her place. She’d been whisked away for fittings and lessons. The dress, decorations, and a priest had appeared seemingly by magic. It was impressive what one could do when his footsteps echoed across the universe. It had been so hectic that Annie had barely had time to plan her escape.
The best course of action, of course, would have been to disappear while still planetside, but that hadn’t been an option. As it were, she had looked at her choices, fluttered her eyelashes at the gaunt, spidery tyrant who owned her, and done her best to seem cowed. She had convinced him that he couldn’t see her in her dress, and he had smirked down at his pretty, witless bride-to-be and agreed to adhere to her charming little superstition. He had, of course, had a few of his agents watch her and serve as makeshift bridesmaids; all three of them lay unconscious on the floor, the spiked punch making a sticky puddle where one had dropped her cup on the way down. Annie felt a pang of remorse for the women who Strathmore would doubtlessly punish severely when he discovered her absence, but then again they had all continued to wake up and put on their horrendous uniforms and do an unhinged warlord’s bidding day after day when the mechanics behind putting a blaster to their heads and pulling the trigger were fairly simple. She quelled her sympathy and checked the hallway outside her door.
She’d demanded to be taken on a grand tour of the Appomattox in order to “acquaint herself with her future home.” This had given her general knowledge of two things: where the escape vessels were and the guard’s patrol schedules. Since the rise of technology, few people had physical patrols anymore. Instead, most relied on security measures such as bio-locks and cameras. Strathmore used both. Luckily, the room that had been given to Annie had, by her request, come with a great view off the side of the ship, and since the escape vessels were located at either side of the ship, this meant she was relatively close to the portside emergency escape station. All she could do was book it down the corridor, key herself in with an ID card she’d swiped from one of her napping guards—along with the woman’s boots—and pray.
Taking a deep breath, she did exactly that. She made it to the door just fine, which she’d expected, but as soon as someone saw her on the security feed or the emergency alert went off when she opened the doors to take off she’d have some of the best soldiers in the galaxy swarming her. Sure enough, she heard shouting as she closed the door. She looked around for something to block the doorway with, but didn’t see anything she could move. Instead, she hurried to one of the sleek, black Needles lined up for takeoff.
Needles were escape vessels designed to maneuver out of combat situations, which meant that they had both full-cover plasma shielding and a simplistic flight situation geared towards avoiding pursuers. In short, it was perfect for Annie but only if she could get in one and start it before the guards got in. She lowered the interior bay door and released the boots keeping one of the Needles in place easily enough, but as the metal shutter began to lift, Annie heard shouting from just outside the door. Cursing under her breath, she hitched her skirt up and dashed for the newly released Needle. She had just managed to get inside and close the hatch when the bay door slid open and seven guards charged into the room.
“Annie Heathcoat,” one boomed, “please exit the escape vessel. Compliance will earn you lenience.”
“Shove a blaster in it!” Annie shouted back as the Needle’s engine thrummed to life. She hit the button to activate the plasma shielding as soon as she was able. A split second after the blue-white field appeared around her vessel, a blaster bolt slammed into it, dissolving in a flash of light. A screen on Annie’s dash showed that her shield was now at ninety-five percent. Needles had excellent shielding for their size, but that wouldn’t help her for long against many more point-blank blaster bolts.
The interior bay door creaked upwards, almost complete in it’s ascent. Most modern ships required the interior bay door to be manually opened. After that, the exterior bay door was set on a timer. A countdown was programmed in, usually around forty-five seconds, from the time the interior bay door was fully up. After that, the exterior bay door would rapidly lift, allowing takeoff. This enabled the person commanding the bay doors to open to either get in a ship or get out of the room and avoid being sucked into space. As the beep sounded to alert the room the countdown had commenced, one guard hurried over to the station to stop the doors from opening. Annie watched out of the corner of her eye, breathing deeply and steading her hands on the steering column. It would take the guard far less than forty-five seconds to re-lower the interior bay door. It didn’t matter; this was why Annie had reprogrammed the countdown to two seconds.
All sounds outside the Needle abruptly cut off as everything not properly latched down was swept into the inky vacuum of space. Annie took a moment to silently apologize to the seven guards who had been ejected from the ship and then entered warp 2. She double checked to make sure the autopilot was functioning, then slumped back. Pressing a hand to her chest, she closed her eyes and breathed out. Her heart was thumping far too fast under her hand, but she refused to let herself begin to hyperventilate. She was already on a ship with limited shielding and limited fuel in the depths of unfamiliar space. She di
dn’t need to add “overtaxed the oxygen recyclers” to her list of problems.
She reached into her bodice and pulled out a scrap of paper. On it was a set of coordinates. She’d done a little research while in captivity and she’d found the location of a Class 6 planet: breathable air, civilized settlements, but not important in terms of strategy or resources. With any luck, she’d be able to stay there until Strathmore lost interest and left. After that, she’d try and catch a ship out, or maybe just stay there. After all, there were dive bars all over the galaxy.
She plugged the coordinates into the ship’s computer and closed her eyes. There wasn’t much she could do until she was planetside, and unfortunately that gave her time to do the one thing she really didn’t want to do: think. The worries and fears that had been building up for the last week surged forward in her mind, demanding her attention. With nothing to distract her, she gave in.
She wondered how her father was. She’d screamed at him, telling him he was no father of hers and that she never wanted to see him again. It had been largely to keep him away from Strathmore, but it had come naturally. At the time letting out years of frustration and disappointment had been cathartic, but now that the chances she would ever see him again being depressingly low she wanted to take it back. Carl Heathcoat hadn’t been the best father in the galaxy, but he was the only one she had. Hopefully he was so deep in a bottle that Strathmore’s men wouldn’t be able to find him.
And then there were Annie’s concerns about her own safety. She wasn’t dumb enough to think that Strathmore couldn’t track her little Needle. Honestly, she wasn’t sure why he hadn’t just caught up to her and either blown her out of the air or used a tractor beam to pull her back into the main ship. The Appomattox was capable of warp 8, despite its size; Needles could only get up to half of that. Even with the memory of sitting on her mother’s lap as she steered a patrol ship in lazy circles around buildings fresh in her mind she couldn’t out-navigate a trained pilot. The only thing she could think of was that he hadn’t noticed she was gone yet, or that he didn’t care.
Soon, a blue light lit up on her dash to warn her she was about to break atmo. She sighed, rolled her shoulders, and prepared for her descent. This was the part Annie was truly worried about. She’d never landed a ship on her own, especially not without a proper landing strip. Her plan was to try to hit a huge lake that should be right under where her coordinates put her. If she could slow down enough and hit it at an angle, the emergency ejection system should get her out of the Needle safely. Of course, this depended mostly on her not dying on impact.
As the rippling blue-green waters grew closer and closer, she steeled herself and tilted the ship slightly upwards and she cut power to the engine. The Needle shuddered for a moment, then automatically booted up its safety protocols. The plasma shielding flickered back to life around her and she felt her freefall slow incrementally. She hoped it was enough.
The impact hurt more than she expected. She was thrust forward, her ribs hitting the dash with bruising force and knocking the air of her lungs. The Needle skidded over the surface of the water before slowly sinking. Gasping, Annie hit the eject button. Her seat launching out of the Needle and hitting the water a few yards away certainly did nothing for the spinning in her head. The parachute that came equipped on the back of the seat was a relief when it meant not smacking into the water again but soon she was fighting her way out of its folds. Eventually, she managed to escape the parachute and sit back in her seat, bobbing in the water and breathing deeply.
Annie pinched herself to force her thoughts to gather. She had to get to shore, but she needed the seat to do so since its function as a flotation device was the only thing keeping her from sinking due to the weight of her elaborate, diamond-encrusted, and now soaking wet wedding dress. If she went under, she wasn’t sure she’d be able to get her head above the surface again. She awkwardly managed to maneuver out of her underskirt, which helped, but Annie knew she wasn’t a strong enough swimmer to not feel worried still. In the end, she ended up clutching the seat in as much of a death grip as she could manage and doing an awkward doggy paddle to the shore. It took longer than she would have liked, but she made it to dry land without drowning. Then, however, the dress became a problem once again. It weighing her down was arguably better on the sand where drowning was no longer a concern, but it still slowed her down. Even without the underskirt, it was heavy and the material wouldn’t tear no matter how hard she tugged at it. She had two options: strip out of the dress and run around an unfamiliar planet in her underwear or leave the whole sodden contraption on.
“I managed to get off your damn warship,” Annie mutter as she pulled futilely at her skirt, “and you’re still managing to make my life hell.”
Opting to leave the dress on, she made her way into the forest of silver-barked trees that ran around the lake. Once she was far enough in that she was certain she couldn’t be seen either from the shore or the air, she slumped against a tree and slid to the ground. Annie knew that she didn’t have the time to waste on a mental breakdown, but she couldn’t seem to will the hysteria to stop. Her breathing turned rapid and shallow as her mind began to race, showing all the worst things that could happen next in a loop. She slapped herself, the stinging pain letting her gain some control over her thoughts. She needed to make a plan, and she needed to figure out how to make that plan happen, and she needed to…
…were those voices?
Annie stopped breathing entirely, listening intently. She could only pick out fragments of what was being said, but keywords like “recover” and “bride” told her all she needed to know about who, exactly, was close by. Annie weighed her odds of survival if she stayed versus if she ran. Clenching her jaw and squeezing her eyes shut, she gathered up her skirt. Then, snapping her eyes open, she threw herself into a mad dash forward.
She had no idea which direction she was going or what would be waiting on her when she got there but anything would be better than being the property of a monster like Strathmore. Her boots pounded the ground with every step, sounding to Annie’s suddenly sensitive ears like thunder. Ahead, she saw the trees beginning to thin out. She decided to chance it; maybe there was someone who would be willing to help her.
Annie darted out of the forest and immediately skidded to a stop. In front of her was a ship, in front of which were two groups of men talking next to a stack of crates. They all turned to look at her, and more than one of them reached for a weapon. Eyes wide, Annie backed up. Sure, these people probably weren’t as bad as Strathmore, but that hardly meant they were the type she wanted to get acquainted with.
A tall, broad man with tan skin that probably had more to do with genetics than actual time in the sun and messy black hair stepped forward.
“Hold up, boys,” he said, one hand on his belt and one stretched out to calm down him comrades. “I’d rather not end this day by murdering an innocent woman. What’s your name, sweetheart?”
Annie wasn’t sure if it was a good idea to answer, or at least to answer honestly. Luckily, a man covered in tattoos spoke before she had to decide.
“I don’t care what her name is, she’s trouble. She’s clearly running from someone, and she’s seen us.”
“Look, as someone who’s had to look at your face for the last hour, I can completely understand the urge to shoot anyone who’s had the misfortune to bear witness to that monstrosity,” the first man drawled, “but let’s not be hasty.”
Annie wasn’t familiar with the gesture the tattooed man made but the meaning behind it came across loud and clear. “Fuck this, man. My job here’s done. Me and my boys are out.”
With that, he and several of the men turned and began walking towards a truck and several hover bikes.
Annie turned to look warily at the remaining men as the sound of engines starting filled the air before growing gradually quieter. Other than the man who had spoken, there was a taller, skinner man with brown hair and a blond leering
at her. She noticed that all three had gold eyes that almost glowed in the sunlight. She debated running back into the forest, but any one of these men, who were all dressed in perfectly reasonable clothing and probably hadn’t just crash landed, could easily catch her. Besides, she didn’t know if Strathmore’s soldiers had followed her into the forest.
“So, who might you be?” the man asked, smiling at her.
“My name’s Annie,” she said softly, resisting the urge to take a step back.
“Nice to meet you, Annie,” he said. “I’m Leo, and this is Rick and Custer. Care to explain why a pretty little thing like you is running around in a wedding dress?”
Joel (BBW Bear Shifter Wedding Romance) (Grizzly Groomsmen Book 5) Page 35
