But he had a thousand and one things to do, especially if there was pirate activity around Jenarlis Three. The last thing the Princedom needed on one of the major trade routes was an attack that would cost lives and revenue. He sighed and sat up. His hands were swift and efficient on the controls as he started the engines in preparation for dropping out of the warp field. The tractor beam could pull them in on automatic docking but it would be faster for him to fly them in. And time would be an important consideration if they had to go into combat immediately.
“This is the Prince’s Dream to ISS Vengeance. We’re prepped and ready for manual flight when we drop out of the jump-field. Release the beam three seconds after we drop out and open up the docking bay doors. I’ll bring us in.”
The comm crackled, a slight interference that would have let Seth know they were in a jump-field even if he hadn’t already known, and then a cool, female voice answered. “Aye sir, approaching exit point in T minus thirty seconds. Ready to release tractor beam in T minus thirty-three. Vengeance out.” He looked over his shoulder at the slumbering form on the bed. She was still wrapped up as snug as a bug in the blanket. A small smile curved Seth’s lips as a sense of peace washed over him. He had her back where she belonged; everything was going to be okay.
The shuttle lurched to the side. His attention momentarily off the controls, Seth was thrown sideways against the console. “What the fuck?”
He spun in his seat as the insistent squawk of an alarm shattered the tranquility of the small cabin. Then everything happened at once. One moment the view-screen was filled with the swirling opalescence of the jump field, the next they dropped out of the field and into real space. The Vengeance’s tractor beam snapped off at the same time, leaving the two vessels side by side in the middle of a war zone.
Seth’s breath caught in his chest at the sheer carnage spread out before them. Instead of the small but bustling trade outpost he was expecting, there was just destruction. The shell of the outpost hung against the panorama of the system beyond. It had been ripped open, the spiny struts of its habitat rings exposed to cold space like ribs stripped of their flesh. Most of the guts of the station were gone, scattered and floating around the surrounding area like just so much space junk. Except space junk didn’t contain bodies.
Lots of bodies.
“Prince’s Dream, this is the Vengeance.” Jareth’s tone was clipped and no-nonsense. “Recommend you get your asses aboard this ship now.”
Before Seth could answer a raider rounded the bigger ship they were sheltering behind. Its ventral laser arrays fired in a continuous volley as it tried to rake a hole in the Vengeance’s shield grid. Seth was familiar with the technique; Sector Seven used several variations. Take out one emitter, and there was a gap in the shield coverage. Keep hitting the same area, and that gap got bigger until it was big enough to allow a boarder to clamp on and cut through the hull.
“You aren’t kidding Vengeance, you’re crawling with vermin. Check your aft side and prep the bay for a hot landing.” Seth’s voice was just as calm as his second in command’s had been a moment before. This—combat—was nothing new, but it was the first time Seth had had Jaida with him. The first time he had absolutely everything to lose.
“Have that. You’re good to go. Just make it quick, we can’t keep these doors open all day for you.”
“Sheesh, keep your hair on. I’m on it! Sweetheart, get your pretty little backside up here and strapped in. Now!”
For once, miracle of miracles, she did as she was told. Still wrapped in the blanket she slid into the copilot’s seat. Seth spared her a glance as he gunned the engines and brought the small vessel around in a wide arc to get him on the right approach vector for the docking bay. For a moment he wondered whether the toga-wrapped blanket was a fashion statement, then memory kicked in. He’d trashed the suit she was wearing.
“Lady’s mercy…”
Her eyes were wide as she looked out of the main view port at the carnage outside. The outpost was little more than a shell now. The wreckage of a base decorated by the slow blossom of explosions as the bulkheads within failed. Even now the pirates weren’t done with the carcass, the bright red of scavenger vehicles moving through the floating debris and bodies to collect anything of value. With a sick feeling in his stomach, Seth realized that also meant organs as a medical reclamation unit started to gather the corpses in the distance.
“Sick bastards,” he ground out.
The command console chirped again, warning Seth of an incoming sensor sweep. One of the raiders crawling over the Vengeance had pinged them, and as soon as it got back a confirmed signal, it peeled off from the larger ship in search of meatier prey.
Their grace period was up, just as Seth had known it would be. Now that they knew the Prince’s Dream was here, it was going to be a race against time to get aboard the Vengeance. Seth had seen what these guys could do; it wouldn’t be long before they were overwhelmed and the small vessel ripped apart by the scavenger vessels.
“Hold onto your hat,” he told her, his lips compressing into a grim line. “This may be a little bumpy.”
He wasn’t lying. His gaze flew over the command console and the scene ahead of them as he worked out how he was going to get them into the bay in one piece. As they watched, more and more of the scavengers lifted off the hull of the battle-ship and turned toward them.
Great. More company, just what he needed. With quick movements, Seth activated the weapons systems. The console lit up like a fireworks display. He fired off a quick volley to clear the left flank and gunned the engines. The air around them exploded as the Vengeance brought its lasers to bear as well, picking off scavengers as the Prince’s Dream ran the gauntlet.
“Jareth you son of a bitch, I love your ugly butt.” Seth stretched himself to the limit to multitask. The Dream wasn’t designed to be flown offensively by one pilot. They flew close to the Cruiser’s hull, fast and low, hugging its sides. They flipped under the ventral side of the ship and then roared into clear space in a graceful arc.
The docking bay doors were a battlefield. Scavengers were piled three high as they fought the ship’s point defense cannons to get into the docking bay. Already the word was spreading as several turned their noses toward them.
Seth just looked at them. How was he going to do this? He could fly the thing, weaving through the scavengers. They were quick and maneuverable, but he was better and the Prince’s Dream faster. Plus, if it came to it, it had good shields; he could ram his way through. Glancing impact he could handle, but if just one latched on the thermo-lances the things carried, they would cut through the polarized hull like a hot knife through butter. Or he could fly slower, picking them off as he went, and hope to the Goddess he managed to get them into the shuttle bay before one of the scavengers broke through. If even one got aboard, then people would die.
Unacceptable.
He was running out of time. The longer he sat here debating, the shorter his list of options got. Still mulling them over,Seth was unprepared for the decision to be taken from him.
Settling herself into her seat more comfortably Jaida reached out and activated the flight controls. “You fight, I’ll fly.” Her expression was determined as she took the flight computer offline and dumped the shuttle into full manual mode. Seth opened his mouth to argue, then remembered her piloting out in the asteroid field. Jareth had been right; she was good, but with a reckless streak he knew from experience got people killed.
His hands closed over the weapons control and he nodded. “Hard left, try and come in on a low vector.”
“Who’s flying this thing pretty-boy, me or you? You shut up and play with your guns.”
“I’d rather play with something else,” he threw back, a little surprised by the sharp quip. He’d thought she’d be pissed with him over the night before.
It seemed not though. He smiled, his attention caught on a knot of scavengers trying to create a roadblock of sorts in front of them. “Roll for firing solution in three. Three. Two. One…roll!”
The shuttle rolled and fired in one slick movement. Seth grinned.
Triumph surged through him as the group exploded in front of them. The Prince’s Dream cut through the wall of fire and debris with ease to emerge on the other side.
“Yeah, I’m sure you would.”
She didn’t look at him, all her concentration was on using the powerful engines and maneuvering the thrusters of the small ship to dodge and weave through the pirate vessels trying to lock onto them.
“Shit. These bastards really don’t wanna give up, do they?”
“Nope.” Seth brought the Dream’s canons to bear on the scavengers clustered around the shield generators at the edge of the docking bay. Damn things were like roaches. His fingers closed around the triggers and twin pulses of light lanced through the air, picking the smaller vessels off with lethal aim. “There. That enough of a clear run for you? I’d like to get aboard sometime today, if you don’t mind.”
“All over it like cheap lingerie on a porn star.”
Seth blinked and just looked at her. He’d been spoken to that way before of course, but he certainly hadn’t expected it from a gently bred noblewoman.
“What? Don’t tell me you never saw a porn holo before. Am I gonna have to explain the birds and the bees to you?” She threw him an unrepentant grin, then gunned the engines and went for a split second gap in the battle raging around the Vengeance’s docking bay.
Seth’s head slammed back against the padded headrest. This wasn’t the woman he remembered. Hands firm and confident on the flight controls, her expression was one of concentration and determination. She could fly and fly well. He wondered what she’d done in the five years he’d been chasing her…not just driving a loader, that was for sure.
“Explain…? You want me to drag you back on that bunk and demonstrate?”
“Kinda busy at the moment sweetheart, mind if I take a rain check?”
The open maw of the docking bay loomed ahead. It seemed open to space, an enticing prize, but as Seth watched, light shimmered across the gap. His eyes widened as adrenaline slammed though his body with the force of a bullet. She was heading straight for a fully powered force field. If they slammed into that, no matter how good the Dream’s shields were, they’d be flatter than a pancake.
“Come on, come on,” he muttered as the bay doors got bigger and bigger in the shuttle’s view screen. Jaida’s voice was almost bored as she activated the comm.
“This is the Prince’s Dream. Might wanna get that shield down unless you want a mess to clear up. Get the catchers and nets up too; I don’t have time to slow down.”
“You’re nuts.”
Seth grabbed hold of his seat. He’d seen some nutty pilots in his time, but even the most suicidal Sector pilot wouldn’t be accelerating into a shuttle bay. “You’re beautiful, but you’re fucking nuts.”
“Yeah well, looks got me into this in the first place so forgive me if I don’t take that as a compliment. Oh no you don’t, sunshine.” She scowled as she hauled on the controls and made the shuttle do a bizarre hop, skip and jump to avoid a tractor beam.
Seth couldn’t help watching the force field with fascinated horror. They were so close, she couldn’t see the bay doors anymore, just the shimmer of the field and beyond, the emergency teams assembled behind their blast shields, emergency teams who were waiting to pick them up off the deck plating.
The shield snapped off.
“Woohoo!”
Jaida whooped as the shuttle roared into the confined space. As soon as they cleared the doors she slammed the brakes on. The straps of his harness cut deeply as momentum threw him forward. He didn’t have time to wince or even think. Seth was reduced to mere reaction as the shuttle’s landing gear hit the deck in a tortured squeal, rear port first, and they went into a spin.
Instead of panicking, she merely grunted and hauled the controls around to ride the spin out. They slowed, the view from the screen resolving from a chaotic kaleidoscope of colors into the interior of the bay. Finally, with a small bump they stopped, nose against the back safety net.
Relief shuddered down his sweat-slickened spine in waves as Seth leaned his head back against the seat. “You are totally crazy. Where’d you learn to do that?”
Jaida didn’t look at him as they both unbuckled, wrapping the blanket around herself more securely. “Outrunning Imperial troops on pirate trade routes. Death sentence if you get caught.”
Surprise hit him again. “Knowing that, you’re telling me?”
She shrugged as they reached the opening door, stepping through it with all the regal pride of a queen despite the fact she was naked under the blanket. “You won’t kill me. You’d rather make me suffer.”
Seth winced, the comment cutting him to the bone. After last night, did she really think that little of him? He knew she felt something for him; she wouldn’t have slept with him otherwise. Although she’d done her best to escape him, and had transformed from the soft-hearted, bright young woman he remembered into something altogether harder, in that aspect he knew he was right on. Jaida would never be able to separate sex from emotion.
He uncurled himself from his seat and followed her. She’d given him her body, now he had to convince her to trust him with her heart.
Jaida walked away from the shuttle with her back ramrod straight and her nose in the air. The improvised toga swished against the floor, and the metal of the deck plating was cold against her bare feet. She stopped as black clad soldiers surrounded her and looked beyond her to Seth as he emerged from the shuttle. She risked a glance over her shoulder, and he caught her looking as he straightened up.
Her gaze wandered over his tall, broad-shouldered form. Even in unrelieved black with his hair braided into a single tail down his back his noble blood was obvious. Seth didn’t need outward signs of rank or power. He never had.
“Okay, someone give me a sit-rep. What are we looking at?”
Instantly he was all business as he led the group out of the shuttle bay.