Chapter Twelve

Outer Reaches. Geonate New Time, Year 2402
Mission: Day 11
Venture Stranded: 3 days

Tension needled up Anna’s back, and for the first time since she’d taken command of her ship, she reached for one of her crew. She patted Hailey’s shoulder before resting her hand there. Hailey captured Anna’s hand in a brief squeeze.

“Two minutes.” Hailey sat up straight.

“Position?” Anna let her hand fall back to her side.

“Kissing the tail of the Firewalker. Channel still open to their commander.”

Ivan nodded to Anna. “We’ll take position outside to deflect some of the waves from the explosion.”

“Right,” Anna replied.

She glanced at Len, impassive as ever, though her stare never strayed from Ivan.

“Commander Torrin,” Anna spoke over the comm to the Firewalker.

“It’s Leader Torrin,” he corrected. “We have you within our shields, but it’s still going to be rocky.”

“One minute and counting,” Hailey interrupted.

“Anyone not buckled down,” —Anna announced to her crew— “get secure. Now.”

Heart pounding, she took the last seat and buckled in. Some of the newer ships had auto-harnesses and better shields, but she’d always liked this class of jumper. What she wouldn’t give to go back in time and pick a vessel with state-of-the-art deflectors and shock bubbles that deployed on impact around each station. The bubbles even maintained enviro in case of breech.

The Venture rocked.

No sound. No whine of stress from the substructure. That was a good sign. The crew remained silent, waiting.

Most, like Len, watched their viewscreens. Hailey squeezed her eyes shut. Treena—why was she here? Treena, buckled in a seat on the other side of Hailey, pulled her knees up and hugged her body in a tight ball, face tucked down.

Anna studied the display at her station.

Rings widened from BSG33, stretching out, reaching toward them. Blue as the star, particles of violet light banded out, radiating into the surrounding space and creating deadly waves of power that rolled toward them in the blink of an eye.

Seconds passed, slowly, played out like a vid on slow-mo.

The Venture shook. A crash sounded, muffled, probably cargo. Another shudder and the ship tilted. Anna jerked forward against her straps, and the air punched from her lungs.

The lights winked out.

Black.

Crackling sparks flew from a live wire torn loose, breaking the darkness before it stuttered out in the deathly quiet.

Shudders ripped through Anna, and she wasn’t sure if the shock waves still rolled over her ship, or if her body overloaded on adrenaline.

She needed the lights back on.

In the unrelenting dark, the ship shook violently with an explosion. She gripped her straps so tightly the edges cut her skin.

Dark. The mesh floor bites into her palms as she crawls across it to her pallet. Maybe he wouldn’t come today.

She never had that kind of luck. The door slid open, but light didn’t pour in.

The slap, slap, slap of the pipe against his leg pounds in her ear. Before the shadowy man reaches her, a bright angel envelops her, comforting her with his warmth.

“Anna.”

The light from the angel extinguished, and the menace of the pipe receded.

Belusi didn’t call her Anna. He called her “Sweet.”

Sweet. Anna gagged, and the constriction of her harness hurt her bruised ribs.

“Anna.”

That’s not Belusi. That's Len.

Anna popped open her lids to the emergency lights glowing on each side of the main pathway through engineering. The Venture’s systems hummed quietly in the hush.

A quaver lacing her question, Len prompted Anna, “We need to run a diagnostic, but my controls are down.”

Anna cleared her throat. “Emergency lights are on. We’re not completely dead in space.”

“I need to get to the bridge to see if we have enviro. I’ll hotwire the...”

The lights blared, and the whine of strained systems roared to life in the previously muffled silence.

The knot, fisted between Anna’s shoulder blades, eased.

“Good to see I’m wrong, for once.” Len slapped at the side of her viewscreen. “If this bucket of bolts can hold together a little longer, I’ll run a ‘nostic.”

“Hailey, get a headcount and a list of damages,” Anna ordered. “I’m on a walk-through.”

“Already on it.” Hailey paused to answer as she spoke into her comm.

Hands shaking so much she fumbled her buckles, Anna finally managed to release her safety belts and stand on wobbly legs.

“The explosion was from two of the sails crashing together,” Len reported. “We have two left.”

Anna ran a hand over her face. She should’ve followed protocol and retracted the damn things.

“Tow lines?” Anna asked as her legs accustomed to the stable floor beneath her.

“Visual confirmation. They’re still attached.”

“Everyone accounted for. Only a few bruises, nothing serious,” Hailey spoke up.

“Thank the heavens,” Anna breathed. No matter what had happened, the crew was still fine. Still sound. Still healthy. “Contact the Firewalker and relay our condition. That’s some shield they have. I’m to the bridge to check on the systems there.”

She started her rounds. She’d be sure the ship was intact, check it with her own eyes, and see all her crew for herself.

She’d keep them safe.

*

On the other side of the star, the energy funneled toward the greedy Stealth. The silver, streamlined ship, reminiscent of a phoenix in flight, floated in the black, appearing cold yet harmless. Piotr’s outstretched wings fluttered in the silence. The vacuum pulled at him with equal measure as the burgeoning power points of the star and the Stealth.

Closing out the phoenix chatter in his mind, he sailed away from the Firewalker and the Venture. Every increment took him further from Anna, and the connection to her stretched taut. Alive and crackling with a pull to return, the compulsion to be with her surprised him with its force.

Pinpoints dotted around the Stealth at a distance. Troops amassed, soaking in the power of the star, preparing for attack in small formations arching around the backside of the star.

The Firewalker is towing the Venture behind her shields, Ivan informed him over the link.

She listened to reason? From who? A niggle of jealousy and doubt crept over him, and his flight stuttered. He jerked to a stop and tucked his wings.

Her own orders.

The mimics are forming for attack. Piotr returned to business, putting aside thoughts of Anna. The Stealth is pulling energy at incredible levels. This star won’t be stable much longer.

We’re doing what we can, here, replied Ivan.

He was on a mission, and he’d been distracted by a woman.

A human.

That had never happened before, and it never would again.

Determined to make a clean break, Piotr decided to leave Gregory on the Venture and take himself away from temptation, away from Anna, even if the thought made his chest hollow. How could he be so connected to her after such a short amount of time? They weren't bonded.

His sense of her was strong. Impossibly, he could map her exact location on the Venture. It didn’t matter that she’d somehow developed their marking—they weren’t alive. It didn’t matter that her smell, so reminiscent of Sirin’s warm beaches, was imprinted on his heart.

He couldn’t have her. He couldn’t make love with her again. He’d never have children with her, nor an eternity of lifetimes with her. She could not be reborn, and if he stayed with her, he would die a permanent death, unable to defend his people. He couldn’t give up the ability to rise from the ashes—not while they were at war.

Moving closer to the Stealth, toward his enemy, he wasn’t sure what it would be like to die, really die. He knew from the tales from the reborn that rebirth was momentary nothingness, disconcerting, then a gradual return to awareness, an awakening. What would it be like to never return from the nothingness? What must Anna think of her own afterlife?

Piotr envisioned the destruction of his family, and reminded himself of the young at home in the Aerie. The Raven plemja was almost barren. At last count, there were only twelve children, not enough left to maintain a strong gene pool—if they’d even mate with one another when grown. The other Houses were in the same shape. That’s why he’d been raised by Ivan’s family, in the hopes he would mate with Ivan’s sister.

They’d made a mistake raising them together. Vivie was more like a sister, and although she was beautiful, she’d not stirred his passions. So many years had passed. He had to return to the Talons, to Vivie. Her image, long black hair blowing in the breeze atop the purple foliage covered mountains, evoked fondness, but no yearning to mate. Unlike Anna, who evoked urges so strong he was hard pressed to control them.

No matter what Anna did to his sanity, to his body, he would leave her behind and go back to the Firewalker. It was time to say goodbye. Right after he ensured her safety.

He flew closer to the Stealth, determined to board and stop this madness. Somehow.

A pulse rumbled beneath the gaseous exterior of the star.

A blast of neutrinos slid through him.

“Here we go.” He spread his wings wide, the call and lure of the star too much to resist.

Joy and power riddled his every cell, and the guilt of reveling in the death of a star couldn’t stand up to the song welling within him.

The corner of his vision caught on an incongruous slither of light among the blues, purples, and rose-colored waves of stardust pushed into space from the collapsed star. In this great expanse, amid this wondrous remnant of the supernova, the bastard mimic had almost slipped by.

Anger rippled over him, overpowering all urges to dive into the energy outlay before him.

He should’ve been able to outpace the mimic, but he couldn’t catch up to that streak of light, no matter how he pushed himself. Both he and his target blazed through the outer bands of the explosion. Bumping over particles and bits of waste, he slammed through the chaff.

Surrounding the Venture, his phoenix unit arrayed in a circle to soak in as many of the energy bands as possible. Wings spread wide, they protected the human crew from the worst of the shockwaves.

“To me,” Piotr ordered, but he didn’t take the time to ensure they responded.

The streak of light phased into the Venture, and rage exploded inside Piotr, crackling along his wings and sparking static over his body.

Piotr burst through the shield of the Firewalker, honing in on Anna’s location, and pushed with all he had to follow the mimic. The filth had better not touch his mate or he’d be torn limb from limb.

Piotr’s talons curled in anticipation.