Collision Course 8w-1 Page 14

  “Where did it come from?” asked Mara.

  “Ask the gods.” Celene couldn’t keep the bitterness from her voice. “Whoever built it, 8th Wing needs to hear about it. Maybe track down its origin. I know I’ll fly easier once that thing is out of the equation.”

  “Agreed.” Kell held the controls tighter. The Black Wraiths were one of the few assets 8th Wing had in the ongoing war with PRAXIS, and they needed to hang on to every advantage.

  Spotting the telltale red glow of Ilden’s Lash, he added, “The plasma storm was the undercard.

  Ready for the title fight?”

  Mara chuckled as Celene’s cursing filtered over the comm. “I didn’t have to navigate that on my way in.”

  “Want me to take over for you?” Mara clearly wanted her ship back.

  “Not a chance,” Celene answered. “I might enjoy this.” She cut the comm line.

  “Damn Black Wraith hotshots,” Mara grumbled. “A bunch of danger-loving lunatics.”

  “You’d fit right in.” It made a strange kind of sense. She had the flying skill, the courage, and, yes, some of the recklessness that made for an ace pilot.

  Mara, fighting beside him. Flying beside him. Visualizing it, he felt a sharp, brilliant contraction in his chest.

  Did she even have a choice? The life she knew was over—every smuggler and scavenger would soon know that she had fought on the side of the 8th Wing. She would be hunted through the galaxy, an outcast. Again. Because of him.

  He cursed the fact that he couldn’t see Mara’s face, wondering what her reaction might be.

  Anger? Derision? Flat-out rejection?

  Finally, she laughed. The sound was hard, forced. “8th Wing standards would have to be lowered to let in a scavenger like me.”

  Gods, she really had no idea of her worth.

  “Raised, not lowered. They’d be damn lucky to have you.” I would be lucky to have you. “And, Mara, it was over between Celene and me a long time ago.”

  He was actually grateful to enter the hazards of Ilden’s Lash, demanding his full attention. In this round, he finally had the controls, and it was a hell of a lot more interesting than being a passive passenger. Light and nimble, the Black Wraith slipped through the gaps between the protoplanets. It felt as natural as breathing, as quick as life, and Kell couldn’t keep the smile off his face.

  “Black Wraith Squad should use Ilden’s Lash for training.” He slid the ship through a narrow passage. Molten rock ribboned around the wings like streamers of fire.

  “Wish I could take the controls.” Yearning filled Mara’s voice.

  “Join the squad and you can.”

  “Stop tempting me.”

  He tried a little diversionary tactic. “Celene’s handling the Lash well.”

  The tactic worked, for he heard Mara shifting in her seat. She let out a series of impressed curses as she watched another pilot fly her ship through the deadly band. The Arcadia was larger and much less maneuverable than a Black Wraith, yet even Mara couldn’t deny that Celene took the Lash expertly, flying the scavenger ship with almost as much skill as herself.

  “I don’t know if I hate her or admire her for being so good,” Mara said. “As long as she keeps my ship in one piece, I think I’ll like her. Maybe.”

  He knew that professional envy well—it kept him and the other squad pilots sharp, trying to outdo each other, trying to be the best. Right now he was the best, but he’d never let himself grow complacent. Complacency killed on Sayén, and it rendered a pilot obsolete in the Black Wraith Squad.

  When they broke free from Ilden’s Lash, Kell felt a stab of disappointment. It was over too quickly. Yet his disappointment lasted less than a heartbeat, replaced by cold anger and readiness.

  Just on the other side of the Lash, a PRAXIS battlecruiser waited for them.

  The battlecruiser immediately opened fire. Kell took evasive maneuvers as he shot back. Fighting PRAXIS was his job, yet he always felt the same hard gleam of rage whenever he engaged the enemy, thinking of his ruined homeworld and all the other homes destroyed by PRAXIS’s greed. He burned for the time when the corporate monster lay in smoldering ruins. He would be the sonic hammer that smashed them apart.

  A host of drones shot from the side of the battlecruiser, and these, too, fired on the Black Wraith.

  “This is turning into a very long day.” Mara turned the turret to return fire.

  Celene came through on the comm line. “Suggestions, Commander?”

  “We can’t outrun them,” Kell answered, dodging a volley of plasma fire. “Can’t outshoot them.

  Unless…What kind of weapons does the Arcadia have?”

  “One plasma gun,” said Mara. “And the shields can’t take many hits. I’m a scavenger, not a soldier. The magnetic tow is her best feature.”

  That caught Kell’s attention. “Towing capacity?”

  Mara seemed to understand immediately. “Definitely something as large as, say, a battlecruiser.”

  Over the secured comm, Celene chuckled. “I like the direction this conversation is heading.”

  He sniped at the battlecruiser, darting close and then peeling back. As he hoped, the PRAXIS ship kept its attention on the Black Wraith, directing all its firepower at him. He swerved, dodged and shot, with Mara providing backup with her rotating gun. She took out half a dozen drones, their small, metal bodies exploding around the Black Wraith’s hull.

  He gritted his teeth as one shot from the battlecruiser nearly clipped his wing. Gunfire streamed around them.

  As he hoped, the PRAXIS ship ignored the Arcadia. It was just a scavenger trawler. Nothing to attract their attention. The Black Wraith was the prize.

  “Celene, fly to the aft of the cruiser,” Kell directed.

  “Copy that.” A moment later, she announced, “In position.”

  Mara understood his plan, then got on the comm line and quickly explained to Celene how to deploy the magnetic tow. “Make sense?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Do it,” Kell commanded.

  “Aye, sir.”

  The battlecruiser suddenly listed as Arcadia’s magnetic tow net fastened onto part of its aft fuselage. It tried to fight the net, but Mara’s words proved true. Arcadia had its hooks into the PRAXIS ship, hauling the much larger vessel around like a child pulling a toy.

  “That’s it, baby,” Mara whispered, viciously gleeful. “Show those bastards what a scavenger can do.”

  The battlecruiser attempted to fire back, but Celene had positioned the Arcadia in the enemy ship’s small area of lowered defense, where fewer guns were located. She towed the battlecruiser up, exposing its vulnerable underside. As drones rushed toward the scavenger ship, Mara unleashed a barrage of gunfire, picking them off like digiskeet.

  Kell kept his guns occupied. He raced toward the PRAXIS ship, searching its hull. The battlecruiser tried to shift in space to line its guns up on him, but the Arcadia held it in place. Yes, there. He bared his teeth in a brutal smile. And unleashed the Black Wraith’s plasma guns, hammering into the battlecruiser’s side.

  A bulwark collapsed beneath the onslaught. After a moment, the PRAXIS guns stopped. He’d damaged the main power to the weapons systems, and the enemy had no choice but to shut their weapons down.

  But he wasn’t finished. He was the sonic hammer. As drones swarmed around the Black Wraith,

  he targeted the battlecruiser’s propulsion system. Mara held the drones back long enough for Kell to decimate the engines. The moment he destroyed them, he turned his weapons on the remaining drones, and soon, there was nothing left of the bots but debris.

  Celene disengaged the tow net. The battlecruiser now drifted like a blind, declawed macskacat, unable to move. Defenseless.

  Part of Kell demanded he blast the battlecruiser into atoms, but a single Black Wraith didn’t have enough firepower to destroy the PRAXIS ship with one hit—only prolonged bombardment would do the job. Much as he wanted to wipe the damn battle
cruiser off the star charts, he needed to get Mara, Celene and the Black Wraith to safety. And the fighter in him rebelled at the notion of attacking a powerless opponent. No honor in it.

  The Arcadia came alongside the Black Wraith as he forced his blood to cool.

  “You’ve earned yourself a few medals today, ladies.”

  “Medals for everyone,” agreed Celene.

  “And drinks.” Mara had her own strong opinions. “More valuable than medals.”

  “Let’s go home,” said Kell.

  “Home.” Mara spoke the word as if it was in another language. One she didn’t understand.

  He wondered if he could teach her its meaning. Would his home be hers? He could fly and win a hundred combat missions, yet he understood that there were some battles he could never win by force.

  Chapter Eleven

  An 8th Wing carrier ship met them a few solar hours after they left the Smoke Quadrant and collected them like stray birds. Smiling 8th Wing troops and officers waited for them in the docking bay.

  Applause echoed as she, Kell and Lieutenant Jur emerged from their ships—a far different experience from Mara’s last encounter with 8th Wing. She felt uncharacteristically shy at being the object of so much celebratory attention.

  As she stood beside the Black Wraith with Kell and Jur, people thronged around them in a sea of gray uniforms. The silence of space made their clapping jarring and loud, their eager faces too bright, too demanding. She felt herself shrink away, seeking peace. Kell’s arm curved around her shoulders.

  Immediately, she felt the chaos within her calm, a sense of anchoring when she would have floated away.

  He knew this, instinctively, knew what she needed. She looked at him as applause and shouts of congratulations thundered. He did not revel in the attention, but he didn’t shun it, either. He looked like a man who expected to get the job done, and did exactly that. Tough, assured, and, to her eyes, achingly handsome. Familiar, yet wondrous.

  How had he become so necessary to her in such a short amount of time? Planets formed over millions of years, yet her own system had changed tremendously within a few days. No wonder her gravity was out of alignment.

  Kell saw her looking at him, and bent close. “Welcome home,” he murmured for her ears alone.

  A confused flush spread through her. Home. Hers, if she wanted it to be.

  Gods, she needed time alone to think.

  8th Wing officers came forward, trying to look stern but largely failing.

  “You look shocked to see me, sirs.” Kell drew himself up so he seemed, if possible, even taller.

  “Only surprised to have you back so quickly, Commander,” a captain answered.

  “We placed bets,” said another commander.

  Kell raised a brow. “Who won?”

  “Ensign Neta.”

  A young woman with an ensign’s single stripe hooted. “That’s five hundred creds and Lieutenant Orji has to clean my bunk for a solar month.”

  Someone, presumably Lieutenant Orji, groaned. “She’s messier than that sipkaswine Ensign Garek smuggled aboard.”

  “Status, Lieutenant Jur,” said a captain.

  Jur, looking tired but relieved, answered, “A little weary and bruised, ma’am, but I’m in fighting form.” She eyed the medical personnel working their way toward her. “I don’t think the doctors are necessary.”

  “Standard procedure following a rescue mission. Go, Lieutenant.”

  Jur saluted and made to follow the medical personnel. Before she departed, she turned to Mara and stuck out her hand.

  “They strong-armed me into the mission,” Mara said. “Thanks aren’t necessary.”

  But the lieutenant smiled. “What I saw weren’t the actions of someone being coerced. You had your own stake in the mission.” Her gaze slid toward Kell, talking with an officer.

  “And you?” Mara struggled to keep the tension from her voice.

  Jur’s smile turned melancholy at the edges. “That ship has flown. It flew away years ago.” Then she left with the medical team, with a volley of new applause following her as she departed the docking bay.

  The captain noticed Kell’s arm still wrapped around Mara’s shoulders, but said only, “You two must be exhausted and,” she added, eyeing their wounds, “you need treating, as well. Commander Rigg, escort the commander and our honored guest to the medical bay.”

  “Honored guest?” Mara repeated.

  “That you are.” Kell’s gaze was a warm caress. “The 8th Wing is honored by your presence. As they should be.”

  Shouts of agreement rose up from the assembled crowd.

  She had no answer to that, to them. She felt herself dropped into someone else’s life—someone who did not run with criminals, who was not an exile. Someone who belonged. A similar feeling to whenever she had set foot in that tawdry bar on Ryge. But here, the currency was honor, not cunning.

  That life was lost to her now.

  Her chest tightened with panic. She belonged to no one, and no one would have her.

  She told herself that again, when Commander Rigg escorted her and Kell from the docking bay and more cheers sounded from the throng. Disturbing, to walk through the 8th Wing ship and see not suspicion or curiosity in the faces that passed her, but welcoming smiles.

  It did not take long for her wounds to be cleaned and mended. The medical team worked quickly,

  with a minimum of fussing, which she appreciated. She remembered the hovering nurses and nannies from her childhood, the oppressive atmosphere that barred her from playing outside like other children, lest she hurt herself. Of course, that had made her desire to sneak off and roughhouse with the groundskeeper’s children all the stronger.

  She sat on an exam table, watched from across the room as medics treated Kell’s leg. His pants had been cut open, exposing the hard muscles of his calf and thigh and the burned flesh surrounding the plasma pistol wound. Even though the treatment required a bit of probing and some heat sutures, he bore it all with stoicism, talking the entire time with Commander Rigg and giving no notice to the painful work being done on his leg. Yet in the middle of all this, he caught her staring at him and sent her a look of searing, carnal intent. It was a wonder the medical team crossing between them didn’t burst into flames.

  Her pulse hammered, and her body responded immediately, growing sensitive and aware. She wriggled on the examining table as she glanced away. It had been too long since she touched Kell, felt his body against and within hers. Her need for him frightened her. Somehow, she would have to acclimate herself to this new paradigm: life without Kell.

  But what new life awaited her?

  “Ms. Skiren.” A fresh-faced lieutenant stood beside the exam table. “Do you think you have the energy for a debriefing?”

  “I’m not 8th Wing. I can’t be debriefed.” She raised an eyebrow. “Unless it’s mandatory, and I’m being taken into custody.”

  “What’s the problem, Lieutenant?” Kell, against the protests of the medical tech, stood and crossed the bay, scowling.

  “No problem, sir,” said the lieutenant at once. “Command just wants to get Ms. Skiren’s statement about the mission, and then she’s free to go.”

  “Am I not free now?”

  The lieutenant, clearly not expecting this kind of hostility, stammered. “Of…of course you’re free. But it would be…very helpful for future missions if we could get your statement about what happened on this one.” He shot a nervous glance toward Kell. “If that’s acceptable, sir.”

  Kell held Mara’s gaze, and the concern and protectiveness in his eyes threatened to shatter her heart. “You don’t have to.”

  “Where will you be?”

  “Doing the exact same thing. Talking myself hoarse to a debriefing panel.”

  She turned to the lieutenant. “Let’s get this over with.” She hopped down from the examining table and, even though all she wanted to do was wrap her arms around Kell’s long, solid body, she made hers
elf walk toward the medical bay doors.

  “Mara.”

  She turned at Kell’s voice. He stood next to the exam table, with medical staff busily milling around, and yet all he saw was her, and all she saw was him.

  “Think about what I said.” His voice was graveled, low. “It’s here if you want it.”

  If I want it. What was it? Life with him? Joining 8th Wing? As she left the medical bay, his words resonated over and over within her, like the tolling of an ancient bell announcing either celebration or disaster.

  She didn’t see Kell again. The next few hours were spent in a small room with two 8th Wing officers, recounting every detail of the past few days. Mara left out some details, namely the times she and Kell made love. Those memories belonged to her and Kell. No one else. She hoarded them like gems, to be guarded jealously, possessively.

  The 8th Wing officers listened and recorded her statements, asking her questions or requesting clarification of certain details. She had initially braced herself for antagonism, or sneering condescension. She was a scavenger. They were 8th Wing. Her clothes were grimy from battle. Their uniforms and insignias gleamed.

  Yet no one made snide remarks. No one treated her poorly. If anything, she felt embarrassed to be the recipient of the officers’ unadorned praise. They marveled at her piloting ability, and how she fought side-by-side with Kell and Lieutenant Jur.

  “You distinguished yourself, Ms. Skiren,” said a commander. “And your actions went far beyond what any of us had anticipated.”

  “Commander Frayne has also had nothing but praise for your contribution to the mission,” a captain added.

  At the mention of Kell, her cheeks heated. “What did Kell…I mean, what did Commander Frayne say?”

  “He’s still being debriefed. We can’t discuss that.” The captain studied a digitablet. “But I can tell you that he’s pushing hard for a special commendation for you.”