by Anna Hackett
“We need to get to the office and check the stuff we had stored on the consoles,” Nissa said.
The three of them jogged to the cabin housing their makeshift office and accessed the computer consoles.
The virus had targeted everything they had referencing the Nero and the Constitution. And had wiped it clean.
Nissa pressed a shaky hand over her mouth. “Who would have done this?”
“Someone who wants the Constitution.” Justyn scowled.
Rynan had just finished talking with Nico. “At least the virus only targeted the records referencing the Constitution. The rest of the Nomad’s systems look okay.”
Justyn nodded, his gaze distant. “We have a mole onboard.”
She sank back into her chair. It had to be one of the crew or one of the passengers. “How would they know what we have planned?”
“Who did you tell about our hunt?”
Nissa’s heart skipped a beat. No way was she telling him that Admiral DeRuyter knew. Besides, the admiral wouldn’t have sabotaged the hunt. “No one.”
“Your crew, your bosses?”
“I told them I was taking a leave of absence.” She gave a small laugh. “Goddess, if I told them what I had planned, they’d have thought I’d lost my mind.”
“Sorry.” He rubbed the nape of her neck with his thumb. “Don’t worry. We’ll stick with our plan of going to Hydrae.”
She swallowed. Why did it feel so terrible to lie to him?
He glanced at his brother. “Ry, you able to get anything back?”
A brief nod. “We should be able to get most of the records back. It’ll take some time, though.”
“And we’ll be able to recreate the important stuff. Besides, we’d found everything we could. Now we’ll just have to see if Hydrae really does have any answers.”
“Wait!” Nissa sprung to her feet. “I found something. It was the reason I came down to your cabin in the middle of the night.”
“Oh, so you weren’t after my body?”
She pulled a face. “Unlike your lost friend.”
Rynan cleared his throat. “Think I’ll join Nico in the security center. When you’re ready, Nissa, I’d like to hear what you found.” He made a swift exit.
Justyn held his hands up. “Hey, I told you the pretty little colonist was after Dare’s body, not mine. He usually takes his pick of the ladies on a convoy, keeps one for the duration.”
Nissa tilted her head. “Never longer?”
“Never. A bit better than Rynan. He never sleeps with the same woman twice.”
“And you?”
A wicked smile. “A gentleman never tells.”
“You are no gentleman.”
“Right. Well, let’s just say I’ve had my eye on a certain Patrol captain for a while.”
Nissa’s insides warmed. Those words affected her, even if she suspected they weren’t true. She cleared her throat. “So, I was going to tell you what I found.”
He leaned a hip against the table. “Let’s hear it.” He touched a finger to her cheekbone, stroking softly. His voice lowered. “I am incredibly happy you found whatever it is since it brought you to me in the middle of the night.”
She tried to fight the smile, but it won out. “I found a reference in the document that I’m sure is talking about Griffin.”
He straightened. “What?”
“It talks about a group of Terran adventurers whose ship was attacked. They barely survived, but were rescued and brought to Hydrae. The timing’s right. About a thousand years ago.”
He rubbed his nose against hers. “Sounds like we’re definitely on the right track.”
“You haven’t heard the best bit.”
“Hit me.”
“It talks about the fact they were carrying a sacred old-Earth treasure.”
Justyn punched a fist in the air. “We’re going to do this, Nissa. We’re going to find the US Constitution.”
She answered his wild smile, but then it slipped away. “Unless whoever destroyed my notes also saw the information. And passes it onto someone else.”
Justyn straightened and used a few creative curses. “We need to get to Hydrae. Fast.” He leaped to his feet. “And we need to tell no one where we’re headed or when. Let’s keep our mole in the dark.”
***
“Strapped in?”
At his question, Nissa glanced up from the co-pilot’s chair in the Mercury. “Strapped in.”
Justyn set about firing up the engines. It was nice to be back in his little runnership. He loved the Nomad and the company of its crew, but there was something about being off by himself, in charge of his direction, headed wherever the hell he wanted to go that appealed strongly to him.
Though—he stole a glance at the woman beside him—it was kind of nice having Nissa in the chair beside him.
Justyn tapped the console and Rynan’s face filled the screen. “Ry, we clear to leave?”
“Yes. See you at Hydrae, and be careful, bro.”
Justyn tossed his brother a salute, then focused the viewscreen. The main hangar of the Nomad was big. It housed Justyn’s runnership, Rynan’s medium-sized cuttership, the Pathfinder, Aurina’s scoutship, the Ariel and two shuttles.
With a touch of the controls, his girl responded instantly and rose just a few centimeters off the deck. Another touch and she turned to face the external door covered with the purple shimmer of a huma-field.
“All right. Next stop Hydrae.”
Justyn maneuvered the Mercury out of the hangar, and moments later they were alongside the bulk of the Sky Nomad. He set the course. “Once we hit interstellar speed, we’ll reach Hydrae in just over an hour.”
Nissa rubbed her hands together. “Great. I can’t wait to see what we find.”
He didn’t warn her they might not find anything. He liked seeing the flush of excitement on her face.
Soon they hit interstellar speed, the stars turning to a stream of silver-white blurs that streaked past them.
Justyn sat back. “Hey, I have something for you.”
She eyed him, trying to hide her interest. “Another present?”
“Yep.”
“I’m not so easily bought.”
“Nothing easy about you, Captain Smooth.” He pulled the small object from his pocket and handed it over.
She studied the small blue box wrapped with a slightly crooked cream ribbon. He had big hands, that weren’t designed for tying neat bows, but she didn’t seem to mind. She pulled the ribbon off, opened the box and lifted the tiny, metal dog out.
It sat on the palm of her hand. “He’s so cute.” She smiled. “Thank you.”
Damn, he’d do just about anything to see that smile. Justyn reached out and touched the switch on the side of the dog. The minute robot came to life, emitting a tinny bark, sitting, then bounding to his feet to turn in circles.
“Wow.” Nissa’s smile widened. “It’s wonderful.”
“My cousin, Malin, makes them. They’re modeled after her real-life droid dog.” Justyn watched the little thing sit down on Nissa’s palm, tongue lolling. “Krypto’s a hell of a lot bigger than this guy.”
“Your cousin’s a talented metalsmith.”
“She’s a salvage mechanic. Since she shacked up with a cyborg on Centax, she learned how to make these guys from her boss at the salvage yard there.”
Nissa’s eyebrows rose. “Your cousin lives on Centax? With a Centaxian?”
“Cross-eyed in love with the guy. And he’s a CenSec to boot.”
Now Nissa’s mouth dropped open. “Your cousin is in love with a Centax Security cyborg? A lethal, emotionless, feared-across-the-galaxy CenSec?”
“Well, since he’s just as in love with her, I think the emotionless part might not be accurate. The rest of it…well, Xander is one scary son of a bitch—”
“Xander Saros?” Nissa said incredulously.
“Y
ep.”
“He isn’t just a CenSec, he’s the head of Centax Security.”
“Yep.” Still shocked the hell out of Justyn, but he’d seen them together and didn’t doubt the cyborg would kill anything that harmed a hair on Mal’s head.
Suddenly, the sound of an alarm cut through the cockpit.
Nissa frowned. “Problem?”
Justyn tapped at the screen. What he saw chilled his blood. “That can’t be right.” He tapped a few more commands and studied the sensor readings. “Fuck!”
“What is it?”
“Three starships en route to intercept us. And their weapons are hot.”
Nissa tensed. “Can you tell who they are?”
“Nope.” Justyn altered the Mercury’s course. “Time for me to use some of my mad evasion skills.”
“Yes, I’m aware that you have a few of those,” she said dryly.
“I need to drop out of interstellar speed to engage the cloak.” That would take them off their pursuers’ screens and give Justyn time to lose them.
“Do it.”
“Engaging cloak now.” He programmed in a couple of his standard evasion flight patterns. They zigzagged across space, moving well away from the location the ships had on them but still in the general direction of Hydrae.
“Nissa, pull up the sensor readings and the maps Ry uploaded. See if you can find any nearby planets, an asteroid field or a moon. Any place we can use to hide.”
With a nod, she set to work.
Justyn stared at the three glowing blips on the sensors. He didn’t like this. The usual MO for space pirates out here was to wait in ambush. These ships were coming in fast from behind.
Almost like they knew exactly where the Mercury would be.
Another alarm blared and Justyn cut it off. “The ships are gaining. They can fucking see us.” It should have been impossible. Unless their pursuers had the exact code for his cloak.
“They have your cloak code.” Nissa put the clues together at the same time he did. “How?” She thumped a hand against the console. “The mole.”
“Bingo.” Justyn ground his teeth together. “Find us somewhere to hide, Nissa.”
“Right.” Her fingers flew across the screen. “There is a tiny asteroid field. About seventy-five million kilometers away.”
“Too far.” And Hydrae was also still too far away. Even if he pushed his girl at top speed, the ships would reach them well before they arrived.
“There’s a small, triple-star system. There are three exoplanets orbiting one of the stars. Two are small iron-planets.”
Uninhabitable hunks of iron-rich rock. “And the third?”
“A Super-Earth. Habitable. Covered in heavy vegetation.” She kept tapping. “It’s emitting low level radiation—not enough to harm us, but enough to mess with sensors a bit.”
“And if it messes with our sensors, it should do the same to our incoming friends.” He leaned across and smacked a kiss on her mouth. “You are brilliant.”
“I’ll give you a proper kiss if you get us out of this alive.”
“Well, with incentive like that...” Justyn winked at her before he turned back to the ship’s controls.
Soon the planet came into visual range. It was a bright-green jewel filling the screen.
But seconds later, Justyn was cursing. “The ships are almost on us.”
“How can they have caught us?” Nissa asked.
“I don’t know what’s powering their engines, but they are fast.” He made to circle behind the planet, but his gut was already telling him it wouldn’t be enough. “Send a distress trans to the Nomad.”
With a nod, Nissa hurried to obey.
Justyn scanned the planet. If they could set down somewhere, maybe they could find somewhere to hide. But the vegetation below redefined the word “dense”—and besides that, who knew what was hiding beneath the thick sea of green?
“It’s not going through!” Nissa’s voice was tight. “Something’s jamming the signal.”
Who the fuck were these guys? With this sort of serious tech, they definitely weren’t simple space pirates. “Okay, hang on.”
Justyn used every single trick he knew. He maneuvered the ship in ways it wasn’t designed for, her hull shuddering under the pressure. But he knew what his girl could handle.
It didn’t matter. Nothing shook their persistent attackers. Soon the ships came into visual range.
Nissa gasped. “They’re Raspian Firebrands!”
Sleek, well-equipped and deadly.
The lead Firebrand fired a laser shot right past them. The Mercury shuddered.
“Damn it.” Justyn threw them into a hard, left-hand spiral turn.
Another shot.
This one hit.
Justyn and Nissa were thrown around like unsecured cargo on take-off, held in place only by their harnesses. He fought to keep control. “Come on, girl. We’ve been through worse than this.”
A flash of color across the viewscreen. Another hit.
“Goddess,” Nissa breathed.
The blare of an alarm.
The hull had been breached.
The Mercury had been designed for stealth and speed. Her shield capacity was negligible compared to the weapons the Firebrand fighters were packing.
“Why aren’t they hailing?” Nissa gripped her harness so hard her fingers were white.
“They aren’t here to take prisoners. They’re here to kill us.”
Her mouth firmed. “Well, I don’t really feel like dying today.”
“Me neither, sweetheart.”
But the next barrage of laser fire tore open the side of the Mercury and the ship spiraled out of the control.
The heavy door to the cockpit kept the room safe, but the artificial gravity in the cockpit disappeared. Anything not strapped down floated upward, and Justyn felt the straps of his harness dig into his shoulders.
“Damn it!” He worked furiously, cutting the engine power to throw it into the stabilizers.
Nissa’s hands danced across her console. “I’m shutting off non-essential systems in the damaged areas.”
They worked together, doing everything they could to stabilize the ship and coax out every last drop of power the Mercury had to offer. But it was no use.
As they spun, Justyn watched the glowing green globe of the planet grow, filling the entire viewscreen.
It was a hell of a lot closer than it had been a second ago.
Another few minutes and they’d enter the atmosphere.
“Anything?” Nissa yelled.
“No.” Sparks exploded from the consoles in front of them.
She yelped and he swore. His screen was blank.
“I’ve lost the controls.”
She turned her head. “Me, too.”
Flames flared across the viewscreen as they hit the atmosphere. He prayed the fire suppression system was still functioning or they’d be crispy long before they smashed into the planet’s surface. Neither choice was remotely appealing.
He stared at Nissa’s strained face. Damn it. Those elegant features with that gorgeous mouth. He hadn’t done any of the things he’d wanted to with her. And now he wouldn’t get the chance.
No. He wouldn’t let her die. A galaxy without Nissa was something he couldn’t allow.
He unclipped his harness.
“Justyn! What the hell are you doing?” Nissa strained against her harness, trying to reach him. “Strap back in.”
“I need to slow our descent. I can’t do it from here.” Keeping one hand on the armrest of his chair, he let his body drift upward. He pulled his way toward her. Holding the back of her chair, he cupped her face with his other hand. He pressed a rough kiss to her lips. One filled with desperation, despair and the love he’d never dared confess to her.
“You’re going to the engine? You’ll die for sure!”
“But you won’t.” He stroked her
cheekbone, down to the point where her pattern ended.
“No. Justyn, I won’t let you—” Her voice had taken on her captain’s tone.
“You’re not the captain here, Nissa.”
“Justyn—” This time there was a wobble to her voice.
He winked at her. “I’m pretty good at getting out of tricky situations, remember?”
She gripped her harness. “I’m coming—”
“No.” He stilled her hands. “I need you here. If I can get the controls active, you need to fly the ship.” One last caress of her jaw and he pushed away from her. “Hold on tight, sweetheart.”
Chapter Fifteen
Nissa woke to a throbbing head, a wet sensation down the side of her face and a cloying heat sticking to her like an out-of-work pleasure worker.
Her vision was blurry but blinking a few times brought the world slowly into focus.
She saw a giant pink flower covered in cracks.
What the—? She squeezed her eyes closed, shifting in her chair. As aches and pains assailed her body, she stilled and opened her eyelids once more.
The cracks were the shattered viewscreen. The flowers were part of the vegetation outside.
She’d never seen anything like it. Thick vines tangled with giant plants full of oversized leaves and huge flowers. Everything was in neon colors—greens, yellows, pinks and blues.
Memories rushed in and hit her all at once. The attack, the Mercury’s wild freefall, the ship stabilizing at the last minute…the crash.
Justyn!
Nissa struggled to unclip her harness. She shot to her feet and nearly crashed to the floor as her body sagged. She gripped the console to stay upright and pressed a hand to her head. It came away covered in blood. A quick probe and she realized it wasn’t life threatening.
She went to leave the cockpit when something yanked on her foot.
She tripped and hit the grated floor with a hard thump. She groaned and rolled over. And spotted the dark-green vine wrapped around her ankle.
What the hell?
The vine had come in through the viewscreen. She kicked at it and it tightened. She stilled. Was the damn thing sentient? Reaching down, she gripped the thick tendril and yanked.
It tightened more and dragged her across the floor, closer to the viewscreen.
