GWEN

The thought of fucking Anders had me flustered. If I actually loved him, we could go all the way. I felt a spike of desire shoot through my body. Taking a deep breath, I tried to focus on flying. Sex would cloud my brain, and I needed to be at the top of my game if we wanted to escape.

“Don’t make promises you aren’t going to keep.” I felt like I should tease him back. It came out more serious than I had intended.

“Excuse me?”

“We’re arriving at the maintenance corridor.” I had a satisfied smile on my face. “Preparing to enter.”

“Wait a second.” Anders unbuckled and came to the front of the spaceship. I slowed the vessel to give us a moment.

Maybe I should have kept my mouth shut.

He knelt down in front of me and took my hands, staring at me hopefully. I bit my lip, unable to look away from him. Should I tell him? Would it affect our ability to do our jobs?

But what if we died out there? Wouldn’t I want everything out in the open between us?

I took a deep breath before I said it. “I love you, Anders.”

He looked shocked for a moment then quickly recovered. “You love me like a friend?”

I shook my head.

“Like a brother then?”

My lips started quivering, and I shook my head again.

“Maybe like a terrific professor?” His eyes lit up with happiness.

I put my hands on his cheeks. “I love you like you’re the man I want to be with for the rest of my life.” I wondered if he was still angry with me and would reject me after my confession. I held my breath as I waited for his response.

He gave me a beautiful smile as his eyes shone. I leaned down and kissed him. The kiss contained longing, desire, and the regretful knowledge that we might not survive ten more minutes.

“I love you too.” He gave me another quick kiss on my lips. “Let’s do this and start the rest of our lives.”

I gave a sharp nod. “You got it.” I swiveled my chair to face the console. “Preparing to enter the maintenance corridor.”

* * *

The tunnel was wide and deep. In the beginning, flying inside it wasn’t an issue. The problems would start about two minutes after we entered the shaft and the communications satellites appeared. They showed up at random intervals throughout the corridor in all directions. Some even protruded from extensions that stretched into the middle of the open space. It reminded me of a simulation from flight school.

The satellites wouldn’t damage our ship, but an impact might throw us off course and into the sides of the corridor. Considering the speeds we were flying at, hitting the wall would make us explode in a fiery ball of death.

I flew in at a moderate speed and set a timer to count down as soon as we entered the chamber. I watched the monitors, holding my hands above the console and ready to adjust our course at a moment’s notice.

The satellites started appearing after one minute.

“That was unexpected.” I managed to guide the ship around the obstacle.

“You’re going to have to speed it up.”

I increased our velocity. We had done some calculations beforehand about our missile strength. They didn’t have enough force to take out the generator. Several layers of pipes and valves protected it. But if our ship moved at a certain speed, our velocity would augment the explosive power of the missiles when we launched them. If we were moving too slowly, our missiles would detonate harmlessly. We would survive, but we wouldn’t get another chance. The Markan starships were already starting to pull back and regroup. The pirates had them on the run. Once they weren’t distracted by the Markans, they would direct their attention to us.

The satellites were everywhere now. I tilted the ship on its starboard side to avoid one, then dived, banking immediately to go around four in rapid succession. For the next three nerve-wracking minutes, I couldn’t think or speak. My brain became wired directly to the fighter’s control panel. I wasn’t supposed to slow down, but I couldn’t help it. All the maneuvering was beginning to reduce our speed.

“We’re approaching the generator.” Anders’ voice sounded tense. I knew he was giving me a gentle reminder about our velocity, and I juiced the engines.

“I would like to stay alive too.” I banked to the port side and raised our speed up to the necessary level. Evading the last few satellites was going to be terrifying.

“Three minutes to target.” I flew as quickly and steadily as I could.

We were almost there. Anders would hit it, and we could go home and get on with our lives.

That’s when all hell broke loose.

* * *

ANDERS

“They’re firing torpedoes at us.” Gwen was shouting as glowing balls of energy appeared around our ship. I tried to shoot them down, but there were too many for me. Gwen managed to dodge a couple, but most of them hit us.

“Our shields are at fifty percent already. They’re specifically protecting the generator, Anders.”

Of course they were. That’s what I would do if I were in their position. Why had we thought they would be careless?

“All we can do is try to shoot them down.”

She put the ship on autopilot and took manual control of one of the automated turrets. Together, we managed to take out the next wave of torpedoes, but it seemed like they would never end. As long as the pirates had enough energy to create them, they would not run out.

Our velocity had decreased so much that I couldn’t even fire at the generator. Everything was going wrong.

“Gwen, we need to accelerate. We have to make the run no matter what they throw at us. We’re not going to get another chance to disable the tractor beam.”

The Markans had regrouped and flown off a couple of minutes ago. We were the only remaining target for the pirates.

“How am I supposed to fly straight enough for you to get a lock?” She pushed the gunner’s console away and switched to the flight controls.

“Get us up to speed and give me three good seconds, Gwen. I’ll figure it out.”

* * *

The next few seconds felt like the longest of my life. Time seemed to slow down, and we were precariously balanced between life and death. Keeping focused on the generator was hard. I felt the ship accelerate. I knew Gwen was struggling to keep us on course while the photon torpedoes hit us on all sides.

“Our shields are at thirty percent,” she muttered. “Sixty seconds to target.”

The ship continued to shake and bump from the collisions. I wasn’t even going to get three seconds.

“We’re not moving fast enough. I’ve got to accelerate to near light speed.”

“That doesn’t sound like a very good idea. Are you sure your reaction time is fast enough?”

“Going faster is the only way I can give you a three-second window.” She was already speeding up. “It will take five seconds to get us moving fast enough. I hope you’ll have time to lock on. You have two seconds to fire before I have to adjust our course.”

She didn’t finish the thought, but we both knew it ended with us exploding as our ship crashed into the maintenance corridor wall.

“But that’s impossible.”

“I know. Now there will be five things you’re good at. The new one is doing impossible things.”

She studied the screen. “Prepare for target lock.”

A small benefit of our insane speed was that the photon torpedoes didn’t affect us as much. It was easier for Gwen to keep the ship on a straight course.

Nothing else existed for me except the generator. I took a deep breath and focused on the targeting overlay. I immediately realized we were moving too quickly. The swaying target remained red, showing that we didn’t have a lock. I held my breath.

“Three. Anders!”

The screen bleeped as the color changed to green. I fired immediately and missed.

I started to focus again, trying to forget all the lives that were depending on my trigger finger.

“Two...”

I felt a bead of sweat drip down the side of my face.

“One. We’re out of time. I’m moving our ship out of the way.”

Green! I had a lock again. I aimed directly at the generator and fired. The computer predicted a direct hit.

“We’re out of here.” Gwen started moving at such a tight angle and high velocity that I felt my stomach lurch. She hailed the transport on an encrypted channel. “The beam’s down. Get those pirates off our ship.”

I hoped they had managed to take out the pirates in the control room.

“Roger that, Gwen.” Priya’s voice came over the speaker, and I felt giddy. “Transporting them now.”

“While you’re at it, can you lock down the fighters they stole? Make their ships fly back to the transport on autopilot.”

“You got it.”

Gwen sat back in her chair, looking like all the stress had finally caught up with her. She set the ship on autopilot and leaned back, closing her eyes. I felt like I was walking on air. I unbuckled and moved to the cockpit, sitting down next to Gwen.

“Anders, you sure like to cut things close.”

“It wasn’t my idea to go so fast. It’s hard to shoot at that speed.”

She smiled smugly. “Anything can be the correct decision as long as it works.”

“We’re the best, aren’t we?”

“If we weren’t, we’d be dead. I hope we never have to do anything like that again.”

“About the couch in the changing room...”

Her eyes got big. “No way. The next time I make out with you, Anders, I want it to be on our wedding night. We won’t have to stop, and we can do whatever we want for as long as we want.”

“It’s hard to argue with that.”

Allex’s voice came from the speaker. Gwen had left the channel open. “I didn’t need to hear that. Bring your ship into docking bay fourteen. It’s ready for the returning heroes.”

Gwen had turned away from me already and was preparing to dock our fighter. Our make-out session would have to wait. When we exited the ship, we were immediately greeted by Allex and Priya.

“You did it.” Allex shook his head. “We managed to move all the pirates directly to the police ship. A lot of people are scared, but we only have one injury thanks to you.”

“You and Priya helped too,” Gwen reminded him.

“We weren’t the ones on the suicide mission. You’re lucky you didn’t die out there, Anders.”

“What would have happened if I did?”

“I probably would have killed you.”

“Didn’t you have to take the Hippocratic oath when you became a doctor?” Gwen looked like she was trying not to laugh.

“Hippocrates was from Earth, not Auxem. But we have something similar. He just likes to act tough.”

Allex punched me, and I hugged him again. I was just happy to have everyone safe. Priya and I smiled at each other.

“Let’s tell everyone they can come out of the panic room. They must be having a hard time with the twins in such a small space.”

Allex looked uneasy and glanced at Priya. She had unconsciously moved behind him to hide.

“Why don’t you guys do that?” Allex started backing away. “I’ll be up to see everyone later.”

“What should I tell them?”

“Don’t tell them anything.” He put an arm around Priya. “They can’t find out about her, you guys.”

I sighed. “Okay. But now that we know, you’re making us part of your deception. Just to be clear, you don’t want me to mention that you’re hiding the stowaway again?”

“Anders, this isn’t a joke.”

“If it’s not, then you should come up with a solution to the problem instead of lurching from crisis to crisis. We’re not going to be able to hide this for much longer.”

He looked as tormented as I felt about keeping a secret from our brothers. Before Priya, the Madellan brothers didn’t keep secrets from one another.

“It won’t be for long, Anders.”

“It won’t take long for our brothers to figure out you’re hiding something.”

He nodded. “I know you’re right, but Priya has been here for a while. She can last a little longer.”

“I’m going to enter the code to let them out. You should use the time to get out of here. See you around, Priya.”

“I’m not so sure about that, but goodbye.” Priya’s large black eyes looked fearful, and it made me uncomfortable.

I liked Priya better when she had an attitude. If Allex didn’t figure things out, the woman he loved would get arrested. Our father would be the one pressing charges.

* * *

An hour later, I was back in the docking bay, making sure all the fighters had shut down properly. I didn’t trust that the pirates had maintained anything. After I finished checking the last one, I turned around and was surprised to see all four of my brothers coming toward me across the darkened room.

Arnon has always intimidated me. His dark hair and eyes give him a severe appearance. Ayrie was the exact opposite, fair and relaxed with a devil-may-care attitude, always looking so good that my eyes hurt. Avren, who somehow managed to seem studious all the time, had brown hair that was constantly mussed and contrasted with clothes that were always perfect. Allex trudged behind them all like the weight of the world was on his shoulders.

I rarely saw all four of them simultaneously unless we were at a family event. The fact that they were looking for me made me nervous. I straightened up and waited as they approached in silence.

“Hey, guys.” I wanted to appear laid-back, but I utterly failed. “What brings all of you here?”

Arnon and Ayrie glanced at each other. Then Arnon spoke for all of them.

“We came to apologize.” He looked contrite.

My eyebrows raised. “You’ve got to be kidding me.” I looked from one to the other. “What for?”

Ayrie spoke up. “It’s really only Arnon and me.” I studied my two older brothers, waiting for them to explain. Ayrie went on. “We’ve been too hard on you lately.”

“But it’s because we were worried about you,” Arnon cut in. “We didn’t like to watch you screw up your life, and we should have been supporting you, instead of teasing you. We owe you an apology. Can you forgive us?”

I wasn’t sure how to feel or what to say.

“You were amazing today, Anders.” Arnon’s eyes were full of pride. “You came through for us and thought about others before yourself. We learned about your true colors.”

“I didn’t know you were such a good pilot.” Ayrie clapped me on the back.

“Gwen was flying.”

“Are you kidding me?”

“Nope. I was shooting. She was piloting.”

“Unbelievable. You’ve got one hell of a partner.”

“I’m glad you think so. I’m hoping that Gwen will soon be my partner in other ways.” I looked at everyone’s faces to see their reactions.

“If that’s true, we should let you get back to your lady.” Ayrie grinned. “Make sure to let us know what happens.”

“You can’t keep anything away from us, brother.” Arnon nodded slowly. “If you tried to hide something from us, we would sniff it out in a second.”

I laughed awkwardly. I glanced at Allex out of the corner of my eye. He looked like a statue. “I know! There’s no way I could hide anything from you guys for a day, let alone a year.”

I hadn’t realized how much of a difference it could make to have my family proud of me instead of disappointed. I wasn’t going to let anyone down ever again.