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When the building loomed just ahead, I pulled Vivv to me, so I held her shoulder instead of her hand. She turned off her thruster, and I pulled her into my arms, her added mass slowing us as I throttled the power to my thruster.
“Landing in gravity is a controlled fall,” Sul said. “Come in too fast, you hit hard. Come in too slow, and you fall out of the sky while still too high up. You need to find that sweet spot right in the middle.”
I’d done it before but never while carrying someone.
Let alone someone as precious as Vivv.
“I need my hands free to work the controls,” I said. “So you’ll have to hold on to me on your own.”
“Got it.” She twisted in my hold, her arms going around my neck, her legs around my waist. “You know, I’m starting to think you keep putting me in this position on purpose.”
My tail buzzed against my side at the insinuation in her voice. “I promise you’ll know when I put you in this position forthatpurpose.”
“We can all hear you,” Raxnor muttered.
Vivv laughed.
“Ready?” I asked.
Her hold tightened, her helmet bumping against mine with a small clang. “Ready.”
I swooped low, then tilted us upward until my feet pointed at the ground. The thruster on my back tried to carry us straight up away from the moon’s surface, but I killed it before we went too far, and we fell.
My boots hit with a jarring thud that vibrated through my entire body. We bounced upward for several feet until the moon’s weak gravity caught us in its grip and yanked us down again. Vivv gasped, her legs tightening. Now that I no longer needed to work the thruster controls, I wrapped my arms around her again as we came back down. Wham. I bent my knees, trying to absorb as much of the impact as I could to lessen our bounce. Over and over, we had to repeat the process until finally we hit and stuck.
“I feel like a Yo-yo.” Vivv slid down my body to stand.
Car-Raa said, “Or like I’ve been on the world’s worst Tram-po-leen.”
“My translator doesn’t know either of those words,” Gravin growled before I could say the same.
“I’ll explain later,” Car-Raa said, patting his helmet.
Their easy affection with one another tugged at me. Would Vivv and I ever have that? It was a worry I needed to leave for the future, so I could focus on the now and ensure wehada future. Larger concerns prevailed, such as surviving the next few hours. We not only had to destroy this facility, we also needed to get our ships working again.
“Over here.” Raxnor waved an arm overhead, beckoning us toward the corner of the building. It looked like a large gray box deposited on the moon by giants, perfectly square and featureless.
“No windows, no doors,” Vivv muttered. “How do you get into the thing?”
“We’ll find a way,” I said. We had to.
We took off at a bounding run, the females moving surprisingly well. Moving in low gravity was harder than it looked—most people bounced too high instead of propelling themselves forward. Both Vivv and Car-Raa struck a perfect balance, though, each footfall sending them sailing in long graceful arcs.
“You’ve done this before?” I asked.
“Yeah,” Vivv answered. “I trained on our planet’s moon, which had gravity about like this.”
Sul loped ahead, moving at the top speed of a well-trained Zaarn, while Gravin and I shortened our leaps to better match our mates. The four of us still moved much faster than we could ever run on a full-g planet like Zaar.
He and Raxnor disappeared around the corner, and by the time we rounded it, they’d made their way to the wide door of a Grug airlock. A flat area of ground stood in front of it, the surface treated with a resin to create a landing field. No ship stood on it now, though.
“Kirel’s hacking program worked,” Raxnor said as we came to a stop beside them.
“Of course it frekking did,” Gravin said.
“Yup.” Sul bounced on his toes, having picked up the mannerism from his mate. “Kirel’s one smart frekker.”
I motioned everyone out of the door’s direct line of sight and pulled my Sjisji blaster free. Once everyone else had done the same, I ordered, “Open it.”
