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“Roger that,” he replies. I can feel him interfacing with the ship again, the whole thing speeding up as I still hear explosions on the ship. “Keep holding on. I think Gliss had to reroute the power from the gravity well to make sure Hyperdrive had enough power to work.”
“What?” I ask.
He shakes his head, not answering me, and then the ship swoops to the right and left, tossing us around in the cockpit. Nereus and I both end up on one side of the wall, our bodies bouncing against the metal walls. Nereus extends his hand, catching the side of my head so I don’t bounce against it too hard, and I flash him a smile.
“Are you okay?” he asks.
“I will be, when we get out of here,” I say.
“I wouldn’t count on that,” Kye says. We’re speaking quietly, so I’m surprised he can hear us. I guess it’s because he’s interfacing with the Wrath. “We’re still being pursued, and I don’t know how long I can keep her in hyperdrive. Being attacked and doing something she’s not been designed to do is putting us in a very vulnerable position.”
“How long do you think they can keep pursuing us?” I ask, my mouth dry.
Kye laughs, no humor in his voice. “As long as they want,” he says.
“He’s right,” Nereus says. “They’re Boreans. They have near infinite resources, and right now, they have their sights set on us. We only have two choices. First choice is to get far enough away from Borealis that someone will notice them attacking a ship and they’ll be chased off—”
“A gamble we absolutely can’t take,” Kye says. “We don’t know who Xanthos might be allied with, and if they come help us, they might just turn us over to the bad guy following you two.”
Nereus nods. “Right again,” he says. “The other option is that we just avoid them enough to bore them.”
“Can’t do that. Even if we—fuck, okay, sorry about this,” he says, pulling back, and Nereus and I stumble toward the back of the cockpit together. I hit the wall hard enough to make me wince, but the armor I’m wearing makes the pain a little less severe.
So maybe not buckling in was a shitty idea.
Nereus, though, bounces off the wall like a puppet. His eyes widen for a second and then they shut tightly, and I reach out to shake his shoulder. “Ner,” I say. His eyes flutter open, but they close again almost immediately. “Ner!”
“Is he okay?” Kye asks, panic tinting his voice.
“He’s…I don’t know,” I say. “Kye?”
“What?”
“Where’s the nearest place where we could crash land?”
“Crash land?” he asks. “We can’t…oh, shit.”
He’s interrupted by another sound, loud enough that it makes it hard for me to understand what he’s saying.
“Can you take the Wrath offline when we land so it looks like they hurt us?” I ask.
“Yes,” Kye replies. “It won’t be easy.”
“I don’t care. I trust you.”
“Fine,” he says. “Fuck. I really should’ve insisted on seatbelts.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
TALN
Kye lands the Wrath in a rush, and by the time we’re on solid ground, I think it’s a safe bet to say that we can all feel the effects of his rushed piloting.
Not that he had a choice. He might be an expert, but he’s also only a man, and when we were faced with Xanthos and his forces…this is the best case scenario.
After making sure that Ryker is alive, I make my way into the cockpit. Prince Nereus’ head is on Fiona’s lap. She sits cross-legged on the floor, her long black hair an unkempt halo around her pretty face.
“Prince Nereus?” I ask her, my gaze falling on hers.
