“Hold on,” he said grimly, and pushed the throttle to maximum.
CHAPTER TEN
The flyer banked hard to starboard, and Emma’s stomach lurched as the artificial gravity struggled to compensate. Through the viewport, she caught a glimpse of one of the Grorn ships—angular and predatory, its hull bristling with weapons that were definitely pointed in their direction.
“Hold on,” Doren said again, his voice tight with concentration.
She was holding on. Her knuckles had gone white around the armrest, and Ari was pressed so firmly against her chest that she worried she might be hurting her. But the baby seemed calm, those large dark eyes fixed on the chaos outside with something that looked almost like curiosity.
The flyer dove, and her stomach dropped with it. Warning lights flashed across the console—red and amber, a symphony of impending doom that she couldn’t read but could definitely interpret.Bad. Very bad. Extremely, catastrophically bad.
“Can they catch us?”
“Not if I have anything to say about it.” His hands flew across the controls, his movements so fast she could barely track them.“This flyer’s a luxury model. The previous owner clearly had reasons to need a quick escape. Apparently diplomacy doesn’t always work.”
The ship shuddered as something hit their shields, and she bit back a scream.
“That was just a warning shot,” he said, although his jaw had tightened. “They want us alive. They won’t risk destroying the ship with Ari?—”
Another impact, harder this time, and the lights flickered.
“They’re getting less patient,” she observed, her voice coming out remarkably steady considering she was fairly certain her heart had stopped beating entirely.
“So am I.”
He pulled the ship into a spiral that should have been impossible, threading between two cargo freighters that blazed their warning lights in outraged protest. The Grorn ships followed, but they were slower and less maneuverable. The gap between them widened by precious meters.
“I need thirty seconds,” he said. “Can you watch the rear sensors and tell me if they’re gaining?”
“I don’t know how to read?—”
“The red dots are them. The green dot is us. If the red dots get bigger, we’re in trouble.”
She stared at the display he’d indicated, forcing her eyes to focus despite the adrenaline coursing through her system. Two red dots, both smaller than she’d expected. “They’re... they’re falling behind, I think.”
“Good. Keep watching.”
The station was receding behind them now, its massive bulk shrinking in the rear viewport. The traffic around them thinned as they hit the outer shipping lanes, and Doren pushed the throttle even harder. The engines whined in protest.
“Come on,” he muttered. “Come on, come on, come on...”
The red dots flickered and grew smaller. Then?—
“They’ve stopped,” she whispered. “The dots aren’t moving anymore.”
“They’re giving up the chase.” His shoulders relaxed fractionally. “They know they can’t catch us in open space, and they don’t want to waste resources on a pursuit they can’t win.” He entered a rapid sequence of commands. “I’m plotting a jump to hyperspace. Once we’re in, they won’t be able to follow.”
“How long?”
“Sixty seconds. Maybe less.”
The longest sixty seconds of her life. She watched the rear sensors with the intensity of a hawk, barely daring to breathe, while he muttered calculations under his breath and the console beeped its confirmations. Ari cooed softly against her chest, apparently unbothered by the near-death experience they were all sharing.
“Jump in five,” he announced. “Four. Three. Two?—”
One moment they were in normal space, surrounded by stars and ships and the distant bulk of Bragar’s Rest. The next, the viewport showed nothing but swirling patterns of light, hypnoticand strange. The engines hummed at a lower pitch, and the warning lights faded to a comforting green.
“We made it,” she said, not quite believing it.
