Page 3 of Needed in the Night (The Fortusian Mates, #2)
ISLA
Side by side, Novee and I stepped through the hologram into the bustling kitchen.
Only two other crew members were still unloading the last of their cargo.
We would all be heading to the carrier together, the last of the crew to board before its departure.
It didn’t escape my notice that in bulky coveralls and respirators that hid every square inch of our bodies, all five of us were almost identical in height and size, making us all but indistinguishable from one another.
If Ergin had planned this phase of Novee’s extraction, she had done well. I owed her a drink, at least. Assuming we ended up docking somewhere with a decent bar and she’d accept my offer.
A familiar warm tingle caressed the back of my neck just as I settled my gloved hands on my sled’s control handle. Brae. Finally .
I expected him to land on my upper back and ride my shoulders out of the palace as a shadow. Instead, I sensed him above us, traveling along the ceiling as our little group made our way toward the wide exterior doorway. He must feel uneasy enough to want a higher vantage point.
For the first time in weeks, through the open doorway, I saw the sun-drenched morning outside the palace walls without thick blast-proof glass separating me from its beauty.
I inhaled deeply to fill my lungs with fresh air that wasn’t purified or perfumed.
Heavenly. Nothing in recent memory had smelled better, even Vila’s fresh-baked, fruit-filled cakes, the only thing about the palace I would miss.
Ngara was a lovely planet ruled by aristocrats like the Erotovo who hoarded their wealth and cared less about the common people than the art and treasures that filled their palaces. I doubted I’d return, even if it were safe to do so.
Thirty meters beyond the kitchen door’s threshold were the landing pad and cargo carrier, its massive hold doors open and ramps extended like waiting arms.
A familiar and comforting weight settled onto my upper back as Brae sank his claws into the padded shoulders of my coverall for a better hold. In shadow form he was nothing but a wisp of darkness, and on the coverall he was all but invisible, even up close or in bright sunlight.
Four bored palace guards stood outside the doorway. I smothered a spike of dread and anxiety with sheer will. To her credit, Novee didn’t react as they scrutinized us and our sleds.
“What happened to this crate?” a guard asked, indicating Ergin’s sled.
“Isssss damage,” Ergin replied, her voice suddenly thick with a feigned accent to disguise her own natural way of speaking. She waved her hands as if in warning. “Rot. Isssss smell very bad.”
With a grimace and sound of disgust, the guard motioned us to continue. I didn’t feel any relief, though. We still had a long walk ahead of us .
With the other two crew members in front, Novee and me in the middle, and Ergin behind us, we made our way across thirty meters of sun-warmed walkway. The only sounds were the hissing of our respirators and the hums of the antigrav sleds.
My ears strained, listening for any alarms or noises behind us. I’d never been so acutely aware of my back—to the point I itched between my shoulder blades, and not because of the rough material of my coverall or the plate of body armor.
No weapons fire and no shouting, but the silence did nothing to ease my nerves. Why hadn’t the guards started closing the kitchen doors?
Even with Brae keeping watch behind and around us and the ship now only fifteen meters away, that fluttery, gut-churning feeling came back with a vengeance.
No, something was wrong. Something was very, very wrong. Every cell in my body activated, flooding me with adrenaline. My chest heaved, and my breaths rattled in the respirator.
Brae, go! I thought.
The gentle weight on my shoulders vanished as he took to the air with a flap of shadowy wings.
Twin blasts of plasma shot from the shadows under the carrier’s enormous landing struts, striking the two crew members in front of us.
As they went down, holes smoking in their chests, something punched me in the back and sent me sprawling face down on the rough surface of the palace’s cargo port.
At first I didn’t feel pain—just numbness. Through my respirator, I caught the acrid smell of burned fabric, hair, and flesh, and the odor of superheated body armor. Had I been shot in the back?
Then the agony arrived and took my breath away. My cry of pain had no air to give it sound. I choked on it instead. The filthy sons of bogworms had shot me with a plasma rifle. If I hadn’t been wearing the body armor, I would be dead .
Darkness threatened to sweep me away. As much as I wanted to escape the agony of my wound, I feared falling into an abyss I might never escape.
Desperately, I clawed at the ground, my fingers in their thick gloves scrabbling as though I could stay awake and alive and not be dragged into unconsciousness or death if I were able to hold onto something.
Fragments of memory tumbled through my mind, each blurring into the next in a cascade of painful moments. My own captivity. The tearful faces of those I’d rescued. The haunting visions of all those still living in torment we hadn’t yet freed.
I shut my eyes, but that didn’t stop the torrent of nightmares. I let out a broken kind of sound. All the gods above and below, don’t let those memories be the last things I see…
More bolts of plasma fire seared the air over my head. Through a fog of pain, I struggled to drag myself out of the past and make sense of anything going on around me.
A battle had broken out between the crew of the carrier and the palace guards. How did they know? Where had we erred in our planning? What had given us away?
Get up! Brae shouted in my mind. Get up and get Novee to the ship!
Oh, gods…I hurt so badly. There was no way I could stand up. But there was also no way I was going to just lie here and wait to die either.
So I got my hands under me, and then pushed myself up to my knees. I shook my head to clear it.
The air was thick with billowing smoke that hid both the palace and the carrier. I hadn’t heard an explosion. Ergin must have detonated something to conceal us from weapons fire.
Novee lay next to me, groaning and wheezing. The back of her coverall was burned away, exposing the scorched and broken layers of body armor hidden inside it and her bloody skin. The armor had mostly absorbed that first shot, but offered no protection now. I was certainly in no better shape.
Ergin had taken a hit to her right shoulder, but she was on her feet, firing a plasma gun back through the smoke toward the palace and keeping the guards at bay.
“Go,” she rasped at me. “Take her and go. I will follow.”
The smoke cleared just enough to reveal the shape of the carrier and two bodies crumpled on the landing pad below the open cargo bay door: a pair of palace guards, their chests smoking.
They must have fired on us from behind the landing struts before Ergin or one of the other crew members took them out.
Three crew members stood in the cargo bay door, firing over our heads back in the direction of the palace.
The agony radiating through my back and chest made it difficult to think, so I grabbed one thought and held onto it: Get Novee on her feet and get on that ship .
My arms and legs shaking with pain and shock, I crawled to Novee.
“Get up.” I made it a command, though my voice was little more than a croak. “Come on. We’ve got to go.”
“Leave me,” she whispered. “I am not strong or brave like you, Halena.”
“Bullshit.” I gripped her thin arm and hauled her up with me as I rose. She could barely stand. “You’re plenty strong and brave,” I snapped. “You dance thirty meters in the air without fear. If you can do that, you can walk thirty steps and get on a gods-damned ship. I’ll drag you if I have to.”
She let out a ragged sob.
Plasma fire sizzled above our heads. Ducking, Novee and I half-ran, half-stumbled toward the ship’s one remaining ramp. The other had already been retracted in preparation for takeoff.
“Ergin,” I shouted, my voice muffled by my respirator. Damn thing was pointless now, so I pulled it off and tossed it over the side of the landing pad. “Come on! ”
A volley of shots cut through the smoke from the direction of the palace. A searing bolt of plasma sliced through the upper right arm of my coverall, leaving a streak of fire across my bicep.
My cry of pain startled Novee. She tripped and almost fell. Cursing, I dragged her forward. Only a handful of steps to go.
A winged shadow with a pair of shining eyes swooped down in front of us.
“The Erotovo and his guards are behind you,” Brae said, his voice raspy, maybe from inhaling the smoke. “Run.”
Novee tried to backpedal from my shadowbat, but I tightened my grip on her arm and kept her moving toward the ship.
“ DANCER! ” The Erotovo’s enraged bellow rolled across the palace cargo port. Novee cringed as if he were beside us with a hand raised to strike her.
Another volley of plasma fire cut across the landing pad. These shots hit the surface in front of us, obviously intended to get us to stop rather than cut us down.
“Your name is not Dancer ,” I hissed when Novee seemed frozen. “Come on. Forget him.”
I pushed her ahead of me and glanced over my shoulder. The smoke had cleared enough for me to see the centaurian Erotovo and a dozen of his personal guards pursuing us, running on all four stocky legs. The guards held rifles.
“Stop, thief!” the Erotovo commanded, his face flushed. His eyes blazed with fury as they locked on my face. “Halena Onsulus, I will hunt you down across the galaxy for this crime!”
Realization dawned: he actually thought I was stealing Novee rather than rescuing her. Truly, the Erotovo couldn’t think in any way other than as an abuser.