Page 39

"I told you I'd get you out, sweetheart,” Deklyn said with a wink.

Sasha rolled her eyes, but there was no real annoyance behind the gesture. “I’m so happy to be leaving, I’m not even going to kick you in the nuts for calling me sweetheart.”

“She loves when I call her sweetheart,” Dek said to me under his breath.

I fought the urge to roll my eyes. “Clearly.”

I would normally dismiss my brother’s banter as typical cocky Deklyn, but I’d never seen him look at a woman the way he was looking at Sasha. She might be gaunt and dirty, but he stared at her like she was the most enchanting creature he’d ever seen. More surprising still was that he seemed to enjoy her threats and barbs. I’d never known anyone who dared talk to Deklyn likethat without facing his temper. But with her, he seemed amused by her insults.

We all proceeded into the ship, breathing in air that was stale and cool. It was obvious that the vessel had been sealed for weeks or months.

Ariana, Sasha, and Deklyn immediately headed for the cockpit, with my brother and Sasha bickering about who would pilot the vessel, even as the female pilot walked stiffly and Deklyn winced every few steps.

"I was flying fighters while you were playing with dolls,” Deklyn said.

Sasha bristled. “Shows how much you know. I never played with dolls. Besides, who’s the pilot here?”

While they continued their verbal sparring, Ariana simply slipped between them and dropped into the pilot's seat. "You two can keep arguing while I fly us out of here," she announced, her fingers already dancing across the control panel.

They both turned to her with identical expressions of outrage, but neither challenged her. Deklyn swiftly dropped into the co-pilot’s seat while Sasha huffed and took the seat beside Morgan.

I took the seat on the other side of Morgan, as the rest of our group busied themselves with safety straps and the engines rumbled to life. The vibration traveled up through the floor panels, a familiar sensation that somehow felt like safety after so long on hostile ground.

Morgan didn’t look my way as she reached over and squeezed my hand. "We did it.”

I squeezed back but couldn't fully share her optimism. We were a long way from being safe. The Kronock trap was still out there, waiting to be sprung, and somewhere beyond these hills was another Drexian ship which was flying into danger without any warning.

As the engines reached full power and the ship began to rise, I found myself staring out the viewport at the alien landscape below. Somewhere out there, the enemy was waiting and watching.

And I couldn't shake the feeling that we were playing right into their hands.

Chapter

Twenty-Seven

Volten

Ikept my hands steady on the controls as we cut through the planet's upper atmosphere, feeling the familiar vibration through my fingertips as I guided us lower.

"Checking invisibility shielding,” I announced, eyes flicking between the readouts and the viewport.

Beside me, Zoran nodded, his face illuminated by the soft blue glow of the tactical display. "Atmosphere composition is within tolerable parameters," he said. "Visibility improving as we descend."

Dawn was breaking on this side of the planet, stretching tendrils of warm light across the horizon. The landscape below emerged as we passed through the last swirling clouds. The small planet was mostly vast marshlands punctuated by low hills and sparse vegetation. Not exactly the vacation spot of the year.

"There," Zoran pointed to a plume of dark smoke rising from a compound in the distance. "That must be the facility from the distress signal."

I banked the ship toward it, keeping our altitude low.

"Running thermal scan,” Zoran said, as the readout flickered to life, showing heat signatures moving around the building complex.

I counted at least twenty figures scurrying like insects around a disturbed nest. "Can we get a species identification?"

Zoran studied the data, his brow furrowing. "They're not Drexian or human," he said finally, his voice hardening. "Kronock. All of them."

The word alone was enough to make me taste bile. The reptilian conquerors had laid waste to a dozen worlds before the Drexians had finally pushed them back. My grandfather had lost an arm fighting them in the Battle of Tharsis Prime.

"Should we set down nearby?" I asked, already calculating approach vectors. "They might have prisoners inside we can’t detect.”