Starbreaker

by Amanda Bouchet

  Fiona reached out and gripped my wrist as I met her in the doorway. Leaning forward, she whispered, “I’ll take care of him.”

  Emotion welled in my throat. Jax would be in good hands, even if they weren’t mine. “Thank you.”

  She nodded. I swallowed.

  “Merrick!” I called across the bridge. “You’re the best Big Guy around!”

  “See you in three days, Tess.” Merrick smiled and waved me off from the navigator’s chair, a green grid of coordinates flashing out a confirmation behind him. All set for Maylewatch.

  Biting my lip, I backed off the bridge. This was it. I had to go.

  Another blast rattled the ship, finally spurring me into turning and sprinting toward the main cargo hold. My burned palm was already better, thanks to my accelerated healing, but the new beating didn’t help as I bounced off walls and careened around corners. An explosion growled. Alarms wailed out warnings. The lights flickered, and I ran even faster.

  “I’m ready to go, Tess. Door’s open.” Shade’s words hit my earpiece, clipped and urgent. The sound of his engine and gunfire blasted down the corridor.

  “I’m almost there!” I raced into the central cargo bay and straight into hell. Engine heat blew my hair back. Noise screamed over me. I pushed through beating air, deafening pops, and gritty smoke and lunged, reaching for the hand Shade held out to me. His fingers latched around my wrist. He pulled and I leaped across him, sprawling shoulder first into the passenger’s seat.

  Scrambling around, I righted myself and reached for my harness. As I strapped in, Shade took off.

  “We’re out!” he called, flying straight toward the hovercrafts. Neither of us flinched. They should be afraid of us, not the other way around. The one-man cruisers were a different story.

  “Look out!” I cried.

  Shade banked hard, narrowly avoiding a bright-blue energy blast from one of the fighter pilots. It hit the dock, and an explosion rolled upward, licking at the bottom of our cruiser.

  I glanced over my shoulder, my heart banging against my ribs. The Endeavor’s cargo door finished closing just as a great ball of fire slammed against it. The flames died out. A hole gaped in the platform.

  I turned back around, blowing out a quick breath. Okay then.

  Shade flew with the skill of a military pilot, but that didn’t keep me from gripping the edges of my seat until my fingers cramped. He went vertical, straight up the tower, drawing fire and getting the Dark Watch cruisers to follow, and then dove hard, speeding back down and forcing the hovercrafts to scatter.

  Our front console flashed out damage warnings—minor for the moment. So far, we’d avoided any direct hits, but we couldn’t keep this up forever. Maybe I should have let Merrick help us. Fiona was good at math. She could have set the freaking coordinates and handled the bridge with Jax.

  A warning blared. Shade barreled into a roll to keep a fighter cruiser from targeting us. Buildings. Sky. Ground! A scream rose in my throat. I choked it down when Shade straightened and pulled up hard. He zoomed back toward our platform and challenged the two hovercrafts blocking the Endeavor’s exit to a game of do-or-die chicken that had me curling into my seat, my eyes half closed.

  I braced for impact just as both hovercrafts suddenly dropped, avoiding our charge only to ram into each other. One’s engine exploded and blew a hole through the side of the other. They spiraled toward the ground, a mess of smoke and fire. Soldiers abandoned ship, leaping over the sides and activating the gliders on their backs to take them down to street level.

  “Holy shit.” I glanced at Shade. His mouth was set in a grim line of concentration.

  More hovercrafts moved in to block the Endeavor.

  “Fuckers won’t get…the way,” Jax muttered, interference chopping at his voice midsentence. “Should I ram them?”

  He could bully the remaining hovercrafts out of the way, but those one-man cruisers had firepower that could ground the Endeavor. We had to get the ship out now. The crew needed to get to safety, and this was my one chance to get to Reaginine with the blood bags before my uncle dragged either Mareeka or Surral off to prison.

  “How many incendio charges can we still blow?” I asked Shade.

  Wordlessly, he put the multidetonator box in my hand. Three out of five buttons still jutted out, waiting to be activated.

  “Brace yourselves,” I warned. “You’re about to lose half that platform.”

  “We’re ready to fly, Tess. Do it.” Jax knew the Endeavor could take a roasting. It was high-intensity electromagnetic radiation we had to worry about. Phasers burned holes through metal, messed with systems, left ships dead or limping.

  Steeling myself, I pressed all three buttons. One hell of a conflagration erupted, throwing a thundering arm of fire out from the platform. I winced away from the burning wave, and even though the cruiser’s outer armor protected us from the heat, we bumped and rattled like particles in a reactor. I grabbed the handle above my window panel, my teeth clacking. On my right, goons dove for cover behind the chest-high walls of the open hovercrafts. Their pilots kicked it into reverse and then banked away from the inferno, emptying the area of the hulking obstructions.

  “We’re up and clear,” Jax announced. “Leaving.”

  I craned my neck to watch the Endeavor emerge from utter chaos, her gray metal wavering in a heat mirage of engine fever and explosion fire. She lifted away from the jagged edge of the dock, sending loose bits of platform flying. Debris pinged against our front panel, and both Shade and I jerked. The flames died down, but black smoke billowed, climbing up and out and everywhere. As soon as the Endeavor cleared the tower, Jax tilted her nose toward the spheres and punched up the power.

  In front of us, a ragged blister glared at me from where Platform 252 used to be. I could almost smell the ignition fuel, feel the sting of smoke in my eyes, and taste the melting tar on my tongue. I swallowed, fear of the whole tower crumbling to the ground spreading through me like battery acid and biting into me hard.

  “I put the incendios where they’d chew the hell out of one side of the platform but not cause major structural damage.”

  I looked at Shade. Was I that obvious?

  Clearing my throat, I murmured, “Thank you.” If I could trust anyone to know how sturdy a docking tower was, it was Shade. And I was relieved to know he chose not to go any further than necessary with potential damage.

  Our radar beeped. Once. Twice. Faster. We turned our eyes to the sky. Several one-man fighters came at us. Shade evaded, but we took a glancing blow and lost altitude. I gasped, gripping my harness. Shade’s hands flew over the controls, steadying his cruiser and quieting the warnings. He launched a counterattack that sent some of the Dark Watch fighters scattering. The rest stayed on us.

  Shade accelerated and rolled in a dizzying spiral down a huge avenue, towers hemming us in on both sides and shots chasing us until we swung hard around another building. Heavy g-forces dragged at my body, and I held on tight, holding my breath, too.

  We came back around to…nothing?

  “What the hell?” I leaned forward, then swiveled my head around. My eyes flicked up. “They’re after the Endeavor!”

  With a well-placed tap, Shade coaxed our sputtering visual-aid system back into working order and zoomed off in pursuit. “Time to show them what we’ve got, starshine.”

  “They could ground her.” Or worse. I wouldn’t voice worse out loud, though.

  “They won’t.” Shade pushed a button, and a panel opened in front of me. Automatically, I reached for the joystick that emerged from inside the front console, my thumb already hovering over the little red button. A target monitor lit up behind it.

  “Shoot ’em out of the sky if you have to,” Shade told me.

  I nodded, doing my best to ignore my cramping stomach. I hadn’t shot anything but bullets before. And I’d ne
ver shot to kill.

  As we came up on the Dark Watch cruisers, a few of the fighters swung around to engage us while others stayed hot on the tail of the Endeavor. I picked one and tracked its movements, my fingers tensing around my control column. It was getting closer to us. Too close. It shot off an energy blast that sizzled down our left side and caused a damage warning. Shit. I couldn’t just sit here. I clenched my jaw and fired.

  A beam shot from our weapons system and engulfed the Dark Watch cruiser. The goon’s scorched and pockmarked craft went dead in the air and dropped. The pilot ejected, spiraling backward.

  “Whoa!” My eyes widened. I looked down. The cruiser exploded below us. “It’s a good thing no one walks around outside here!”

  “I might’ve souped that phaser up a bit,” Shade said, grinning.

  “You think?” I swung the megaweapon toward an incoming cruiser. The Dark Watch pilot got the hell out of my line of fire.

  Another fighter closed in on our right, spitting shots that left our ship shaken and blaring alarms at us. Shade fired back but only managed to destabilize it. Watching my monitor, I adjusted my aim, locked on, and fired. The pilot ejected, popping up and out before what was left of his cruiser crashed and burned on the empty avenue alongside the other.

  I whooped. Adrenaline pumped through me as I scanned for my next target. “My gun is bigger than your gun,” I teased, a little smirk in my voice.

  Shade rattled off more shots with his itty-bitty phaser. “I’m steering and shooting. That shows talent.”

  “Being able to multitask doesn’t make up for size.”

  He flashed a quick smile as two incoming cruisers banked away from us. “Watch this. You might reevaluate.”

  Shade accelerated like a fiend. My whole body pressed into my seat, and I couldn’t move a muscle. He came up between the Endeavor and the two remaining Dark Watch cruisers, leveled out so fast my stomach flipped over, and started shooting. The fighters veered off in separate directions. We waited, blocking their path to the Endeavor. After a moment, it was clear they weren’t coming back again.

  I sank into my seat with a heavy exhale and then caught a spark of sunlight off gray metal. I looked over my shoulder. The Endeavor hadn’t jumped yet. She picked up speed, racing spaceward and getting smaller and smaller. She made her way toward freedom, and my heart lurched after her. My hands fell from the joystick. I stared up at the shrinking dot, unblinking. The second she leaped into warp speed, I’d be out of contact.

  Watching her go, I felt suddenly lost, untethered. Static already droned in my ear, the distance growing too great for our outdated communication system.

  “Jax?” Tears stung my eyes with abrupt intensity. He was my home. I was his. We’d built each other for seven years now.

  My hands crunched down on my knees, squeezing so hard I’d leave bruises. “Partner?”

  “I’m here, Tess.” Increased interference didn’t hide the strain in Jaxon’s voice. It equaled mine. Was maybe greater.

  I started shaking and gripped my legs harder as Shade rose quickly, following the Endeavor out of Korabon’s atmosphere. We jiggled from the force of the climb, and my skin pulled back against my bones again, flattening. Hot and cold flip-flopped inside me with sickening volatility, and my vision went spotty as blind panic took over.

  I made a noise—something between a whimper and a choking swallow. How had I ever thought this would be okay? Jax and I didn’t separate. We hadn’t been apart for longer than eight hours since the day we met on Hourglass Mile. Prison created bonds, a pressure cooker that fucking fused people.

  “Jax!” My scream flew out before I could stop it. My breath came short. I pounded my hands against my window. I couldn’t help it.

  Shade looked over, frowning. Was I scaring him? Well, I was scared shitless.

  “You’re a fucking badass rebel capt…” Jax’s words garbled and then cut off completely at the nearly broken connection. “I’ll see you in three da…partner.”

  A bright spot in the distance glowed hot and then winked out—the Endeavor jumping away from us.

  Vomit rose hard and fast in my esophagus. I held my breath and swallowed. Emotion punched up and I punched it back down, squeezing my eyes shut until I could breathe without stomach acid hurtling up my throat again.

  I shook. The hot-cold sensation wouldn’t leave me. It gathered, pooling in places that felt deep and empty and afraid inside me.

  Shade reached across the middle of the cruiser and squeezed my knee. “We did it. We got them out. Brace yourself now. We’re jumping.”

  I nodded, closing my eyes again. I swallowed convulsively. Seconds later, we jumped the hell out of there—and likely straight into our next disaster.

  Chapter 4

  SHADE

  Tess finally spoke for the first time since we popped out of warp speed within sighting distance of the green and blue planet. People called Reaginine earthlike. As if they’d ever been to Earth. I knew I hadn’t.

  “Reaginine is pretty,” she said numbly, watching out her window as we approached the Temple Lands after a long cruise over the jungle-covered southern continent. I’d wanted to arrive somewhere with next-to-no air traffic to make sure we hadn’t been followed before flying into this busier area.

  I glanced over at her. She looked nauseous, which normally I’d blame on the long jump—my stomach still felt a bit twisted up also—but she’d looked sick before the trip through hyperspace. Leaving Jax was the problem.

  “You’ve never been here?” I asked, hoping to distract her.

  “Dad—I mean, the Overseer—never let Mom and me come. We celebrated Emergence on Alpha Sambian, when it was actually autumn on our part of the planet.” She shrugged.

  “Better than the dead of winter, like in Albion City. The cold made it hard to pray all day outside under Her rays of sunlight—metaphorically, anyway.” I winked, dragging a weak smile from Tess.

  When it was midsummer at the Grand Temple on Reaginine, it was Emergence. It didn’t matter where you were in the galaxy—on a planet, in the Dark, whatever season on your rock or not—the citizens of the eighteen Sectors celebrated the birth of the Sky Mother on the summer solstice here on Reaginine. The Great Star was here, shining on us right now. And the heart of the Church of the Great Star rose before us in the form of pyramidal temples. My current destination was a hidden gem several kilometers beyond them.

  “On Starway 8, it didn’t matter. There are no seasons on a spacedock, and we followed the universal calendar. It was just another date to me anyway, except we made cookies and didn’t have lessons.”

  “That sounds better than freezing my ass off on a rooftop to get as close as possible to Her far-off rays of holiness.”

  A fuller smile quirked Tess’s lips. “Careful, you’re sounding blasphemous.”

  “Nah. My Sky Mother is concerned with the bigger picture.”

  Tess snorted. I didn’t pick a fight. I got where she was coming from. The bigger picture didn’t look great.

  She turned back to the jungle after only a cursory glance at the temples. “Do you think they have flervers here?”

  I held back my amusement. The conflict in her was obvious, just like it had been on Albion 5. Cautious but curious. Nature scared her. She also loved the adventure of it. She’d face down an armed city goon with only her fists and feet for weapons, but she’d run screaming if an animal came near her.

  Not that she was wrong. Some of the animals here could gobble up a human in one bite.

  “I think flervers are a Sector 2 thing. I’ve never seen them anywhere else—although they do have snakes here.” And other things Tess didn’t need to hear about right now.

  Her head thumped the back of her seat as she looked straight ahead again. “Great.”

  I reached over and twined my fingers through hers. “The biggest snake m
ight be your uncle. According to my watch, we have sixteen hours before meeting day starts.”

  She sighed, her gaze straying back to the crowded temples. “Let’s find a place to dock, then.”

  “I have that covered.” I let go of her hand and, with a swipe of my fingers, woke up my new com unit. I baptized it with a call to the automated reservation service on Reaginine. “Aisé Lodges. Private bungalow for two. Two nights total,” I ordered.

  SEARCHING scrolled across the screen in green block letters.

  Tess shot me a wary look. “Whatever that is, it sounds expensive. I can’t afford that.”

  “I can.” The only thing I had left from my pre-outlaw life was currency. Might as well use it.

  “Money can run out,” Tess said.

  “Don’t worry, starshine. Unless I need to finance the entire rebellion on my own, the money’s not going to run out.”

  Her lips puckered. The huge stash of universal currency I’d amassed to try to buy back my docks from Scarabin White obviously left a sour taste in her mouth. Her chin lifted. Her eyes hardened to blue ice, and my gut sank. I should’ve known better.

  Here was the reckoning. I could feel it coming on at warp speed. It wasn’t the money itself that bothered Tess. It was how I’d made it. I’d wanted to treat her to something special. Instead, I was about to get a fight—one I’d had coming for a while.

  She turned away, her hands curling into fists in her lap. They drummed against her thighs with light, steady beats. The rest of her stayed stony and silent.

  Fuck. “Say it.”

  She glanced over with a crisp turn of her head. “Say what, Shade?”

  “Say what’s on your mind.”

  Her frosty gaze dropped the temperature inside the cruiser to subzero. Would she refuse to talk and pretend everything was fine? Or would she finally spit out all the hurt and anger and disappointment that had been festering like a sore between us since Albion 5?

  “Fine.” Anger suddenly charged the air around us, replacing the chill with something fury-hot and fierce. “You want me to say it? How’s this?” Tess’s nostrils flared, and I braced myself, every muscle inside me tensing. “How could you? What were you thinking? How could you live like that? How could you live with yourself? Do you have any idea how many people you’ve hurt? The damage you might have done to the rebellion? To my friends? To the whole freaking galaxy?” Her voice rose. Her eyes spit fire, nothing icy in her expression now. She growled at me. Literally growled, her teeth clamped together and her face all flushed.