Page 54 of Last of Her Name

I drag Riyan out and we limp after the soldiers. The weakened tensor hobbles with an arm over my shoulder, and I strain under his weight.

“We have to get out of this system before the vityazes arrive,” I say.

“Really? I thought we might hang around, see if we couldn’t settle all this over a nice cup of coffee.”

Was thathumor? I didn’t know he was capable of it. Figures that it would only appear under life-threatening circumstances.

Grinning, even as my pulse pounds with adrenaline-spiked fear, I haul him around another corner and see the hangar door at the far end, what seems a light-year away.

“Anya!” a voice screams. “Anya, what have youdone?”

I look back to see Zhar at the far end of the corridor. She looks unraveled, hair spiking up, clothes disheveled.

“Sorry!” I yell, desperately throwing all my strength into getting us to that door before Zhar can catch up. “You should really label things better around here!”

Riyan pulls his arm from my shoulder and limps ahead. “I think I can hold them off once we’re in.”

“You’d better!”

We burst into the hangar and the tensor pulls away from me. Riyan’s staff is a blur, his robes swirling as he spins to bring down the rock above the doors. The sound is like thunder, echoing through the hangar. Massive slabs of asteroid break away and crash to the ground, sealing off the corridor and sending a cloud of dust into the air.

“Enough!” I shout. “We don’t want to scuttle the place! There are kids in there!”

“There were kids on Emerault’s moon when the Empire destroyed it,” he snarls, but he relents. We run across the smooth stone floor toward theValentina.

The rocks Riyan brought down buy us time, but not much. Already the soldiers are firing through the gaps.

I spot Dr. Luka standing in the hatch of the clipper, waving at us. We run toward him, Riyan using his staff like a crutch. Pilots are running between the ships, shouting and prepping for launch, but when they see Riyan they shout and take a few shots at us.

We reach the clipper in a hail of Prismic energy pulses, and rush up the ramp to tumble inside, landing at the doctor’s feet. He grabs my hand and helps me up.

“I’m not even going to ask what went wrong,” he sighs. “We have to get out of here before Zhar breaks through your tensor’s barricade. If she reaches the net activator, a laser shield will seal off the exit and we’ll be fried. I disabled it, but she can override my command.”

The clipper hums to life, lights tracing the exterior, the engine snarling. TheValentinaseems as eager to get off this rock as I am. I scurry up the ladder to the main deck, and see Mara on the balcony above, operating the controls.

I call to her, and she glances down.

“To be honest, Princess, this isnothow I expected to spend my morning.” Despite her light tone, she looks stressed, sweat glistening on her brow. I wonder what her father must have said to get her on board. When I talked to her, she made her loyalty to Zhar pretty clear.

“Glad you could join us.”

“I wasn’t about to let my dad fly out of here alone. He can barely operate a forklift. Besides, thisisa J-Class clipper. It’s not every day you get a chance to handle a beauty of this caliber.”

I could kiss her for that. Finally, someone whogetsit.

“Princess, if you could handle the air lock doors, I’ll get the engine—”

But I don’t hear what she says next, because my eyes settle on a stretcher hovering over the floor, its occupant strapped down.

My knees go weak.

“H-how?” I whisper.

The doctor climbs up from the air lock, helping Riyan up with him. “When they brought him to me, I thought he was dead. Had the crematorium all fired up when I noticed his fingers twitch. Lucky thing, or he’d be space dust right now.” With a grunt, the doctor pulls Riyan inside, the tensor stumbling. “His aeyla bones are denser than ours and stopped the pulse from killing him. But several ribs are broken and there’s been internal damage.”

I approach the stretcher slowly, every hair on end. Pol’s face is pale, his breathing shallow. He doesn’t look good, but he’salive.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I ask.