Chapter 9: Kelta
The plan is to distract the Solcrue and lead them away from the actual Titan ship. Holo's finished his thigh repair. And he and Thruster took turns on guard last night so I could sleep. I'm not sure they ever slow down.
I crouch between them in the opening of the tunnel, looking out at the abandoned Solcrue outpost. "We have to protect the ship, but you want to shoot at it?"
“It’s stuck in the mountain where it crashed during the Tetrionac era of battle,” Thruster says. He’s far less standoffish today, stays closer, and I like it. “That’s how we’re getting off this planet. But we have to free it from its rocky cage. We just want to make it look like an accident that we free it, not that we are trying to break it out. Shields are supposed to be up so no one can see it.”
“We also want them to think there are much fewer of us than there are,” Holo adds. He doesn’t seem bothered by the fact that Thruster and I had sex with him in the room last night. He’s a quiet unit, and polite.
“How many are left?” I ask.
Holo shakes his head. “Don’t know for sure.”
Thruster peers around a bush toward the complex. “Stay in the brush line.”
Holo crouches and crawls first, then motions for my pack. “I can carry it with ease. Thruster may need his engines.”
“I should carry the weight of what I want.”
Holo frowns. “I do not like females to carry a heavier load than a Titan, especially a mate of a Brother. You two are more important than us singles now.”
“I disagree,” I say.
Thruster nods. “What is with this talk, Brother?”
Holo sighs deeply through his nose, then looks between the two of us. "If I am decommissioned, the Brothers will lack my skills. If either of you goes, you take the other with you because you are bonded deeper than Brothers now. So if we lose one, we lose two. We cannot afford to have her move slowly. She must keep pace with you."
Thruster and Holo make subtle movements with their heads like they’re having a private conversation.
“Guys.”
Thruster frowns. “Let him carry your bag.”
“Why?”
“As much as I think you’re perfect the way you are,” Thruster remarks, “he is right. You are our limiting factor in speed and strength.”
My pride stings a little, but I can’t object because I know they’re right. I slide the heavy bag off and drop it to the ground.
Holo slings it over his shoulders with ease, making his point. “Stay quiet and close. I’ll hack the security system.”
Holo crawls away like a four-legged spider.
Thruster slides a hand behind my head and draws my mouth against his for a deep, sensual kiss.
He tastes of something sweet and metallic, like space, which I’m starting to miss. “Climb onto my back.”
I sling myself onto his back and hook my arms and legs around him. He crawls fast after Holo. We snake through clusters of bushes until we’ve crossed the perimeter to what looks like a back gate.
Holo’s eyes glow and shift with colors as he projects something onto a scan pad. The gate pops open, and we slip inside.
Thruster surveys the walls of the hexagon-shaped outpost and the landing pads in the middle. A handful of dusty ships sit in the yard.
Holo hides in a shadowed passageway and waits for us. When we’re regrouped inside, Thruster sets me down.
“That’s the one,” Holo points to a ship. “I can access it. Coil told me about it when he accidentally sprang in here last week after he collided with a Skysprinter. Couldn’t get inside the ship, but I can.”
A shimmer catches my eye in the corner of the facility. “What’s that?”
