As if summoned by his words, two more Moggaddesh thundered around the corner. Zapharos met them head-on, golden blades blazing. Thyros stepped to my side, and the moment his shoulder brushed mine, I felt more exciting heat spread through me.
This time, when he looked at me, there was no trace of overprotective frustration. Only fierce pride.
“Stay with me,” he said.
I flashed him a grin. “Try to keep up.”
Then we charged into the fight together.
The Moggaddesh kept coming. No sooner had the first wave hit the deck than more thundered through the smoke-filled corridors, their obsidian hides glowing like fresh lava. They poured from the breached sections of the ship in a relentless flood of muscle, armor, and rage. For every one that fell, another seemed to take its place.
The ship lurched violently. The deck tilted beneath my feet, sending me skidding into Thyros. He caught my waist with effortless strength, steadying me with one hand even as he decapitated a charging Moggaddesh with the other.
“More vessels incoming,” Dravok called, while shooting a blaster at another Moggaddesh, his voice eerily calm amid the chaos.
He stood at the rear of our makeshift defensive line, one hand braced against the wall while the other held the blaster, as if he were listening to a comm. Dark energy swirled around him, and after a quick mental probe, I realized that Ella and Nadine were at the controls, trying to get our ship away.
On the comm, Ella’s voice crackled through the noise. “Nadine says three more ships just dropped out of jump!”
“Four,” Nadine corrected in the background. “One was masked by the debris field. And if they continue their current vector, they will cut us off in approximately ninety seconds.”
The ship rolled hard to the left. Gravity shifted. One of the Moggaddesh lost its footing. I drove my knife into the glowing seam beneath its arm. Thyros split its chest open before it could recover. A savage thrill rushed through me.
We were learning each other’s rhythm.
I struck low and fast, exploiting the weak points in their armor. Thyros followed with devastating precision, his blades turning every opening I created into a killing blow. It felt less like fighting beside him and more like dancing with him.
A deadly, exhilarating dance.
“Ella is taking us into the debris field,” Dravok continued as though discussing weather patterns instead of imminent death. “Nadine is rerouting power from life support to aft shields.”
“Tell them I love this plan,” I said, ducking under a claw the size of my head.
The ship spun abruptly. The corridor rotated ninety degrees. For one dizzying second the wall became the floor. A Moggaddesh roared in surprise as it lost its footing and slammed into the opposite wall. Thyros and I reacted in perfect unison. I pushed off the wall, planted a boot on the creature’s chest, and stabbed downward into its eye. At the same moment, Thyros drove his sword through the exposed fissures at its throat.
The giant collapsed. We landed together, shoulder to shoulder. The golden thread between us blazed with exhilaration. Ahead, Zapharos fought like a celestial storm. His golden energy arced around him with every strike. Two Moggaddesh charged him at once. He ducked beneath one weapon, pivoted, and sent both attackers crashing to the deck in a whirl of steel and light, making me understand whyentire armies followed him. The ship shuddered as weapons fire slammed into the shields. Warning lights still strobed crimson.
Nadine’s voice came over the comm, breathless but controlled. “We have entered the asteroid field.”
A sharp impact rattled the hull.
“Correction,” she added. “We have collided with an asteroid.”
Ella cursed somewhere in the background. “That means they’ll have trouble targeting us!”
Another wave of Moggaddesh surged around the corner. At least six this time. My pulse leapt. Thyros stepped closer, his blade humming with lethal energy.
“Stay with me.”
I flashed him a grin. “Always.”
The word slipped out before I could think. His eyes flared with a fierce, almost startled intensity. Then the first Moggaddesh reached us. There was no time to dwell on what I had said.
We moved as one.
The ship rolled again, sending all of us sliding across the deck. Thyros caught my hand and used the momentum to swing me around his body. I drove my knife into an exposed eye as I passed. He severed the creature’s arm before it hit the floor.
Another lunged. Zapharos intercepted it. A third swung at Dravok. Dark energy burst from his hands, hurling the brute backward into two of its companions. The corridor filled with roars, sparks, and the thunder of colliding bodies. And still they came. A seemingly endless tide of obsidian giants poured into our ship.
