Laura clung to Rorax as he soared through the air, fighting to contain her excitement. She'd flown plenty of times before, of course, but never like this, carried in the arms of a man like Rorax. His strong hands held her tight and she felt safe in them despite the drop below them.

His great wings beat slowly, silently, and they swooped away from the pirate camp into the darkness of the cavern. Turning back in a slow loop that kept them out of sight of any observers, Rorax aimed them at the docked skyships. He chose one of the stolen human skyships and landed on its deck with a silent delicacy she wouldn't have believed if she hadn't seen it for herself.

Looking at him with questioning eyes, Laura forced herself not to speak her questions aloud. Rorax clearly valued stealth here, and if that was what he wanted she wasn't going to ruin his plan. I wish he'd told me what it was, though. That way I could help rather than just trail along, she thought with a touch of annoyance.

The ship he'd chosen had once been called the Bradbury, but that name had been painted over with alien runes she couldn't read. Whatever it was called, it was a pirate ship now, and she shivered at the sight of spacesuit helmets nailed to the prow. They didn't have to come from dead men, she supposed, but given that all of them had cracked and broken faceplates she didn't think their original owners had survived losing them.

At least it's not actual heads. That would have been a lot worse.

She wondered what it had been before the pirates had claimed it. A survey ship, maybe? It certainly looked like it was built for speed, with more and larger thrusters than ships twice its size.

Following Rorax inside the cramped ship, she relaxed slightly when it became clear that it was empty. That made sense — this was a small ship, even by human standards, and she couldn't imagine that any of the aliens would want to spend more time aboard than they had to. The interior had been made as spacious as possible, she saw. There were marks where the furniture had been torn up, leaving the crew spaces empty and almost bare.

It still looked uncomfortable for Rorax, who had to crouch to fit through the doorways with his wings tightly furled. Even Laura felt a little cramped inside the small space after her time spent in places intended for the dragon aliens.

Closing the hatch quietly behind them, she looked in the airlock nook that ought to hold the crew's spacesuits. No luck. She hadn't expected to find a spare, intact helmet to replace the one Korgan was hiding, but it would have been a pleasant surprise. I guess I'll be stuck inside the ship until we get to Olympus Colony, she thought. As long as nothing went wrong, that wouldn't be so bad.

Turning to Rorax, she spoke. "What's the plan then? Just... fly out of here and see how far we get?"

Can it be that simple? She'd expected something more complicated, but Rorax just shrugged.

"Simple plans can be the best," he said. "There's less to go wrong. Without your suit's helmet, a ship is the only way out of here, so we take this one and make for the horizon. This looks like the fastest ship that two of us can crew alone... assuming we can get it to fly at all."

Laura realized he was looking at her expectantly, and she grimaced. "I told you, I know the basics. But I've never had to handle one on my own, and this isn't exactly a well laid out dock. It's not going to be easy to get out of here."

"Nothing important ever is," Rorax said with a confident smile. "I have faith in your abilities. You have to figure it out, because I've got no idea how to use your human technology."

"Oh great. Nothing like a little pressure to make things easier," she groused, but despite herself she felt a tingle of hope. Up until now, she realized, she hadn't truly expected to get out of this alive. There were too many things that could go wrong before she could escape alone. Now, with Rorax's help, she actually had hope.

It felt good.

"Alright, what are we waiting for?" she said with a grin. Rorax returned it and she pushed past him into the cockpit. The feel of his skin against hers as they passed each other in the narrow corridor made her breath catch and her body tingle, but she pushed those feelings down again hard. There'll be plenty of time to explore that once we're free of this place, she told herself, pointedly ignoring her doubts. They would make it out. They had to.

Rorax let her past, only to reach around her and pull her back against him. His hands cupped her breasts, squeezing gently, and she moaned as his touch pushed her self-control to the limit. She could feel how it strained him, as well. His cock, his beautiful marvelous cock, was hard against her ass and they both shivered at the feeling.

"Laura," he whispered into her ear, voice low. "Whatever happens now, know that you're mine. I won't let any harm come to you."

The words made her shiver again, speaking to something deep inside her, and Laura raised her hands to his. The simple earnestness of his claim on her spoke to something deep in her soul. Part of her wanted to object, but another part wanted to give in to him and let herself be his.

"We don't have time for this," she said, putting off the decision and gently pulling his hands away. "There will be plenty of time to talk about that when we're away from here."

Reluctantly, he let her go. "There's nothing to discuss," he said firmly, then grinned. "But we will talk about that nothing for as long as it takes you to accept it."

She turned to glare at him, but the twinkle of humor in his alien eyes made her laugh instead. With a shake of her head, she stepped onto the bridge of the ship.

Fortunately, it was a small vessel. The only skyship Laura had flown was Adele's yacht, but this little survey ship wasn't too different. There were more controls, clearly intended for a professional pilot rather than a dilettante like Adele, but most of them seemed to be for functions she wouldn't have to worry about. She hoped.

Okay, I can skip most of the preflight checks, she thought as she slid into the pilot's chair. If there's something wrong with the ship... well, then we're fucked no matter what it is.

Ordinarily, she'd never be so cavalier with safety instructions, but this was a special case. As soon as she powered up the thrusters, they'd attract the attention of the pirates, and from that point on every second would count. Muttering under her breath, Laura got her bearings on the various controls and nodded to herself. She was as ready as she was going to be.

"If you have a god to pray to, Rorax, we can use all the help we can get," she said. Muttering a quiet prayer of her own, she pressed the ignition button and felt the ship come to life underneath her.

It wasn't a quick process. The engines needed time to warm, the thrusters needed time to power up safely, and Laura had no idea how to speed those things up. Glancing around out of the viewports, she tried to breathe slowly and deeply, to keep the tension from her fingers as she held the controls. Gently, she pulled back, sending current through the alien crystals that provided the ship with lift. With a heavy creaking sound, the Bradbury rose from the ground and began to drift forward.

She turned the wheel cautiously, getting a feel for the steering as she tried to maneuver through the mess of awkwardly parked ships. The pirates' lack of discipline made things difficult — they could have been in neat rows, but no, that would have been easy. Instead, Laura had to guide their stolen ship through narrow gaps between haphazardly abandoned vessels.

The hull groaned as she misjudged a gap and scraped her ship against its neighbor. Outside, some of the aliens were starting to react, looking up at their unexpected departure. One crew laughed, pointing at the Bradbury as Laura overcorrected for her error and bashed into another ship. Others, perhaps the crew of the ship she'd hit, jumped to their feet angrily and strode forward waving for her to stop.

That tears it, she thought. No more time for subtlety. Pushing the throttle forward, she aimed the ship's prow for the cavern's entrance and hoped for the best.

With a screech of metal-on-metal, the Bradbury pushed aside the ship she'd rammed and leaped forward. The sudden acceleration pressed her back into her seat and she glanced over her shoulder to see if Rorax had kept his balance.

He wasn't there.

Where the hell are you going? She cursed under her breath — there was no way that she could leave the controls now, not without crashing the ship and dooming their escape.

"Rorax? What are you doing?"

"Making sure you get away safely," Rorax said from the rear of the ship. His voice boomed in the small space, and the sound of it, the strength of it, made her shiver again. It was an irresistible sound, and she knew she couldn't live without it.

"Don't do anything stupid," she shouted back, wishing she could run to him. But her focus had to be ahead of them. As if to prove that, a spire of rock loomed in front of them and the Bradbury's sluggish controls only just let her steer around it. "We're nearly out."

"And they're right behind us," Rorax said, tired anger in his voice, mixed with grim determination. "You'll never get far with the dragons on your tail, even this ship isn't as fast as a dragon in flight. But I can hold them off while you make a break for it, and then you have a chance."

Laura risked another look back, twisting further to look down the corridor that ran the length of the small ship. Rorax stood at the hatch they'd entered through, hands on the controls. The dark look on his face told her all she needed to know about his chances in this plan.

"They'll kill you," she shouted, feeling tears in her eyes. "Damn it Rorax, this was meant to let us both get to safety."

He looked around, flashing her a smile. "If I have to die, I can't think of a better cause than saving you," he said. "But their leader is my brother. I might be able to talk my way out of this, once you're gone. Nothing I could say would save you when they worked out who you really are."

Laura turned back, not wanting him to see her tears. Grappling with the controls, she steered around more rocks and towards the entrance. The shimmering veil of the atmosphere shield wasn't far now.

"They'll still chase me," she shouted back as she fought to keep on track. "You can't beat them all."

"Once you've got a head start, I'll tell them the truth," he said, and she heard the hatch open. "It won't be worth their while to chase you down then, not when you're not worth any ransom."

That seemed a thin hope, but his tone brooked no argument. Rorax's mind was made up, and this was the plan. No wonder he didn't tell me the details when we set out — he knew I wouldn't be okay with him putting himself in this much danger. Laura scowled, thinking. There has to be something I can do to help him.

"Wait!" she cried, fumbling at her belt and pulling out the quantum communicator. "Take this, you can talk to Adele over it — she can confirm your story."

As much as she hated the idea of being separated from him, if he was going to pull this trick to save her, she didn't want him to fail. That would be the only thing worse than him succeeding.

He caught the thrown communicator out of the air and clipped it to his belt. If he said anything more, it was lost in the roar of air from the hatch. Then he leaped through it and was gone, his wings catching the air.

Blinking to clear her eyes of the tears, Laura turned back to piloting her way to freedom.