Page 56 of Journey to the Forbidden Zone
The straining whine of the jump-drive rose to a deafening shriek, vibrating the entire ship. A rift opened outside.
The last thing Nick saw before the swirling chaos of hyperspace enveloped them was that other vessel, already turning back, its weapons glowing ominously as it prepared for another salvo that would find only empty space. They’d escaped. Barely.
The transition smoothed out. The horrific sounds of battle, the groans of the wounded ship, the blaring alarms – all cut off, replaced by the eerie, pink silence of hyperspace.
The bridge was a tableau of destruction – smoke hazing the air, consoles dark or flickering, crew members bleeding, slumped at their stations. The coppery tang of blood mixed with the acrid stench of burned wiring.
Nick slowly released the death grip he had on his armrests. He took a deep, shuddering breath, the adrenaline crash leaving him feeling hollowed out and shaking. He looked around at thedamage, at his wounded ship, at the stunned faces of his crew. Rage, cold and utterly consuming, began to fill the void.
This humiliation, this near-destruction, wasn’t random. It wasn’t bad luck. It washerfault. That interfering, stubbornbitch, Carmen Díaz.
He pushed himself out of the command chair, his boots crunching on broken glass. He walked to the cracked viewscreen, staring out at the swirling, meaningless colors. His reflection stared back – pale, smeared with soot, eyes burning with pure, undiluted hatred.
The cold fury in his gut solidified into a diamond-hard core of vengeance. The hunt for the XenX had just become infinitely more personal.
CHAPTER 21
Carmen satat the head of the table in theAntillesmess hall, her fingers drumming a restless rhythm on the cold surface. Her gaze kept drifting to the blank comm screen mounted on the bulkhead. Empty. Just like her heart.
She cleared her throat, the sound unnaturally loud in the tense quiet. Sark fidgeted on her left, his webbed fingers picking at the edge of the table. Norvik sat perfectly still opposite her, his blue face impassive, black eyes fixed on the data pad in his hands. Letitia leaned against the wall near the hatch, arms crossed, her dark eyes boring into Carmen with an intensity that felt like accusation. Or maybe just shared exhaustion. The red emergency lights had been replaced days ago, but the harsh overhead fluorescents still felt too bright, bleaching the color from everyone’s faces.
“Right,” Carmen said, her voice rough. She hadn’t slept much. The phantom scent of warm fur and something sweet kept invading her quarters, making her toss and turn. “Let’s get this over with. Zed, Mila, you’re on comm.”
The screen flickered to life. Zed’s rectangular head filled most of the display, multiple camera lenses glinting under the engineering bay lights. Mila stood slightly behind and to his left,visible from the shoulders up. Her green eyes focused on the screen, meeting Carmen’s gaze directly.
Calm. Always so damned calm.
Carmen’s stomach did a slow, unwelcome flip. She clenched her jaw.
“Report,” Carmen ordered, forcing her eyes away from Mila to scan the faces of her organic crew. Sark stopped fidgeting. Norvik looked up. Letitia’s scowl deepened.
“Primary thruster efficiency remains stable at thirty-nine percent,” Mila said.
Her voice came through the speaker, clear and soft. It vibrated along Carmen’s nerves, a familiar, treacherous warmth blooming low in her belly. She shoved it down.
Pheromones. Just pheromones in the recycled air.
“The capacitor buffers are holding,” Mila continued. “Starboard thruster reroute is complete and functional at twenty-three percent efficiency. Combined maneuvering capability is now at forty-six percent of nominal.” She paused. “It’s not ideal, Captain, but it provides significantly greater evasion potential than before.”
Relief warred with the simmering anger in Carmen’s chest. It was Mila’s work. Competent. Vital. Undeniable. And it made the knot in Carmen’s stomach tighten further.
“Good,” Carmen managed, the word clipped. She couldn’t bring herself to say more. Not to the source of the contamination currently fogging her brain. “Zed, status on the jump-drive?”
“Drive core remains stable, Captain,” Zed responded. “The instability in Sector Theta-7 shows no signs of propagation. Probability of catastrophic failure remains at 4.1%, contingent on maintaining current power-flow parameters.”
“Understood,” she said, dropping her hand. “Keep monitoring it. Sark, ETA to the nebula exit point?”
Sark straightened, his orange skin flushing slightly under the lights. “Uh, sixteen hours, Captain. Maybe seventeen if the jump-drive gets worse.”
Sixteen hours. Then they’d drop out of hyperspace at the very edge of UPA-controlled space, staring into the maw of the Forbidden Zone. Into the unknown. Into certain death if they were caught.
Carmen’s fingers tightened on the edge of the table. Control. She needed control. But every variable felt slippery, unpredictable. Especially the one looking out from the comm screen with those unsettling green eyes.
“Norvik, you’ve been digging. What’s our play once we exit? How do we get past the perimeter?”
Norvik placed his data pad on the table with deliberate precision. His black eyes met Carmen’s, unblinking.
“The situation is complex, Captain.” His voice was as level as ever, but there was a new weight to it. “Standard smuggler routes into the Forbidden Zone rely on exploiting sensor blind spots and corrupting patrol schedules. Those options are unavailable to us.”