Authors: Evanne Lorraine
A bu
bble of shiny, fragile hope quivered to life and expanded in his chest.
She took another step and another, and
then in a horrible slow motion, she bent her knees and pushed off into the void.
H
is bubble of hope burst.
Streaks of frothy white atmosphere feathered over New Eden’s green surface, creating a holocast-perfect image. It was a sight few experienced since it was only visible from the space station or one of the three moons orbiting the planet. To view New Eden without the filter of a remote was a great rarity. The pretty images barely registered with Aegis. He kept his eyes on the uneven surface of the outer hull and the markers guiding his path as he raced the relentless chron.
After anchoring Cami to a handhold, Aegis sprinted for the station’s core and a service access hatch he recalled from a long-ago tour.
The portal was farther from the edge than their fighter, he dashed across the metal top at twice the pace he’d used on the trip with Jaxon and Cami. Even this dangerous speed was much too slow.
He pushed harder. The service panel zoomed into view. He caught the handle and yanked open the exterior hatch. In his scramble through the narrow passage, he dislodged his oxygen line and discarded the bulky pack.
None of the equipment mattered if he failed to rescue his stranded mates.
As the entry pressurized, he cranked the release valve on the
portal to one of the main corridors. He needed oxygen packs, a net, and rigging. And he needed every single item on his Goddess-damned list five minutes ago.
Contrasted with the
blackness of outer space, the station’s interior lights glared. Despite a tinted face shield, he squinted against the brightness as he strode forward. Through stinging eyes, he spotted a two-man service cart idling in the corridor. Not a good sign. The working vehicle meant Baldoreans.
Although out of oxygen, he
left his suit sealed. He didn’t need to breathe yet. Better to conserve his strength for fighting than waste any on projecting glamour.
A pair of Baldorean soldiers emerged from an access corridor, on course for the cart. He knew precisely when they saw him. They stopped moving.
“Where’d you come from?” The shorter of the two humans stepped in front of his companion and unfastened his blaster’s sheath.
Aegis
halted a meter away from the enemy soldiers, drew off his gloves, released the connectors, and snapped off his helmet.
“Effin’ demon!”
Urine puddled on the deck, wetting the man’s uniform and fouling the air even more than the men’s stench.
Aegis did not wait for
him to expand on the demon theme or recover his composure. He swung the helmet in a fast arc, connecting solidly with the side of his target’s skull. A quick kill was better than he deserved. Had Aegis not been pressed for time, he would have made his ending slow and very painful.
One Baldorean down
, a few million to go.
The other soldier learned nothing from his companion’s example. He too reached for his weapon. Before he completed the action, Aegis clipped his chin with a teeth-jarring uppercut. The enemy’s head lolled back. As the soldier’s legs crumpled, Aegis caught hi
m in both hands and snapped his spine at the neck. Another instant and much too merciful death.
He piled the bodies into the cart and stowed the refuse.
Two Baldoreans dead in under a minute. A favorable beginning.
In the dimmer light of the deserted hallway, the number ten glowed on the floor. He grabbed his equipment and the enemy blasters, and checked his chron. Eight minutes had elapsed since lea
ving Cami and Jaxon. They were almost out of air.
He turned, moving toward the exit
with long strides, gaining speed.
An impatient voice came from the direction of the corpses. “Chief Grosan, why haven’t you released the bay doors for the warship?
Report.”
Aegis hesitated
—torn.
His mates were in peril.
The primal imperative—to rescue them—roared in his veins. To ignore the comlink summons meant passing on a rare opportunity to take out a warship—a craft carrying thousands Baldoreans and capable of killing hundreds of thousands allies.
Compelled by duty, he turned back. He stumbled.
Sank to one knee.
Cami. Jaxon
. Their names screamed in his soul. Numbly Aegis regained his feet, patted down the dead enemy soldiers, and recovered the com unit. He recalled the human’s voice and answered in an East Baldorean accent, filling in with vocabulary from his stint in the pit of Baldor’s deserts. “Aye, sir. Workin’ on it right now. Mechanism’s effed up sumptin’ awful, sir.”
“Do I need to divert the warship to another bay?”
“Negative, sir. Fixin’ the effin’ piece of New Eden dung.” He tagged on an imaginary grunt of effort.
“I’ll advise the warship’s captain. Carry on, Chief.” The officer closed the link.
Decided on his course of action, Aegis moved with smooth efficiency. He entered the control booth, tossed the com unit, set down the blasters, and accessed the docking system. At his command, the outer bay doors rolled open.
He watched the booth’s viewer as the massive vessel eased into the slot.
Once the warship settled, he activated the clamps, initiated the door seals, and began the sequence to pressurize the chamber. Abruptly he interrupted the pressurization and switched the duranium dispenser on.
Immediately the fuel system’s er
ror light blinked, warning the procedure had been aborted. “
Warning, faulty fuel lock detected
,” the artificial voice intoned.
Aegis overrode
the sequence in less than a second. Thanks to the fighter’s notoriously flawed fuel-intake design, he had memorized the override commands. The fuel indicator switched to a benign green as a steady fine mist of suspended duranium dust filled the vacuum.
When the dust swirled through a third of the
confined area, he reinitiated pressurizing the bay, adding oxygen to the volatile fuel. The resulting poisonous atmosphere made a death trap for the evil ones.
He checked his chron. Another ten minutes gone.
Too long. His mates were out of air. The mating connection between the three of them snapped off, leaving him with the sharp edge of grief wrenching his heart. He had failed them. Insanity and death would soon eliminate his shame and misery.
H
is neck bowed by the weight of loss. A rare Tethysian tear splashed onto the deck.
Suddenly
the bond with Cami flickered to life in his synapses. At first he dismissed the tingle of her sweetness as the denial of a too-painful reality, but the connection strengthened as Jaxon’s vitality joined with hers.
Relief flooded through him. The
Goddess granted him another chance. This time he would not fail them.
He did not wait to watch the Baldorean troopers die.
He ran for the exit, snagging his equipment on his way past. Back on course, he sprinted all out for dock twenty-three and his mates.
The ponderous
creaks and thumps coming from the bay doors jerked his attention. Behind him the wide access to dock fourteen clanged opened. Without slowing, he projected a glamour, which blurred his image enough for him to blend in with the passageway. As long as none of the enemy soldiers touched him, the illusion of invisibility held. He planned to stay far ahead of the Baldoreans.
He
slowed to enter an access corridor, he darted a look back. The troops flanking the doorway wore the black armor and tinted face shields of elite guards. They raised their right arms in unison with both index and little fingers pointing up from their fists.
The blood mage
, H’nai strode past his honor guard.
* * *
* *
A feminine chorus surged around Cami. For a moment, the sound brought a yearning for her old, simpler life. She dismissed the longing
, because she couldn’t imagine Aegis and Jaxon on Earth, let alone sharing a disciple’s existence.
Any
future without her warriors was even more impossible to picture. Just thinking of them warmed her. This time they weren’t here to influence her with their intoxicating scents, and addictive flavors. Certainty filled her with indisputable truth. She loved them both.
P
erilous reality flooded back.
Dear Goddess, are they alive?
She struggled to speak as helpful hands took off her gloves and helmet, peeling away the clumsy space suit and wrapping her icy body in a warming blanket.
She gulped deep breaths of recycled air, her teeth still chattering despite the wrap. “Aegis, Jaxon, must find them.”
“Be at ease, breeder. I am Captain Winifred, and you are safe with the sorority.” A round, gray-haired disciple with stern features and shrewd eyes spoke.
Cami opened her mouth to protest.
The c
ommander held up a palm. “I’ve already sent two of our soldier-disciples in search of your companions. They will report when they have news.” She added more gently, “You can do nothing to assist your companions until you recover.”
Nodding her understanding, Cami said a prayer for Aegis and Jaxon’s safety. “Thank you for saving me, Captain.”
“You are welcome. We will try to aid the men. Their fates remain in the hands of the Goddess.”
Cami bowed, ignoring the captain’s sour-fruit tone when she said
men
, and pulled the blanket tighter under her chin. “How did you manage to rescue me?”
“What do you remember?”
“I thought you must have erected a safety net, but then I was floating and the net was just a dream.”
The captain smiled, and the skin around her eyes crinkled into well-worn lines. “
It was real enough. I prayed for the Goddess’s guidance in erecting the webbing. ”
Three puffy suited figures emerged from the equalization passage. The two smaller struggled with the far larger and frighteningly immobile
body.
Jaxon
! She pushed through her rescuers, dropped to her knees, and frantically fought with his releases. Disciples took the helmet from her numb fingers.
She scanned him anxiously. His normally bronzed skin had paled to a sickly gray-tan. Worse, he wasn’t breathing.
Soft hands tried to tug her away. She shrugged them off with a growl. Fighting with the releases on his gear, she finally undid the space suit’s front piece and laid a shaky hand on his broad chest.
An echo of her own racing pulse was all she felt. Then a faint heartbeat
tickled her palm. Dimly aware of the disciples circling them, she cried, “Please, he needs a healer.”
A gentle voice answered, “I am a healer. Will you allow me to tend him?”
“Of course,” she snapped without taking her eyes from her mate.
“I need more room.” The
source of calm drew closer. Slender fingers fastened a mask over his nose and mouth.
An
apparatus turned on with a quiet whooshing. She watched the steady rise and fall of his chest with relief. A medi-scan hovered millimeters above his still form as the healer continued her examination. Occasionally she paused, humming.
At first Cami’s shoulders bracketed her ears with tension each time the healer
slowed. When nothing more alarming happened, she gradually eased. A significantly longer than usual pause, made her glance at the woman tending Jaxon.
The healer’s eyebrows lifted, and he
r hum grew louder, her focus returned to the medi-scan’s display.
“Is he going to be all right?”
The healer blinked and stared at Cami as if she had just returned from a long and exciting journey. “Hmmm, did you say something?”
Cami repeated her question more sharply. “Is he going to be all right?”
“He’s most virile and potent.”
“Wonderful.” Cami ground her molars and repeated her pervious question.
“Oh, dear Goddess, of course.” The healer carefully unfastened the mask from his face and removed it. “He’ll regain consciousness soon.”
His color had improved.
Better yet, his chest rose and fell in a steady rhythm without the breathing apparatus.
Cami laid a proprietary hand over his heart and narrowed her gaze at the healer.
The disciple flushed, gathered her equipment, and rose to her feet in a single graceful movement.
Her slender
frame and long legs did not soften Cami’s distrust. It took her a few beats to recognize the prickling itch and suspicion as jealousy. Her cheeks heated at the silent admission of envy. She didn’t move away from Jaxon. He belonged to her as she belonged to him. She stayed right where she was, crouched beside him, ready to fight for what was hers.
She eyed the
women keeping a respectful distance. “Who found him?”
A pair of soldier-disciples, still
in space gear, stepped forward and bowed politely.
“Thank you.” Cami paused to swallow the
sudden fear clogging her throat. “There were no signs of Aegis?”
No sooner had they’d shaken their heads than the harsh sound of metal pounding metal ended the conversation as effectively as a mass silence spell.