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“We have around three minutes until the ship explodes,” he explained matter-of-factly while his long legs were eating the distance to the row of escape pods at the back.
“What? How?”
“Your suitor placed a bomb in here before taking an escape pod.” Judging by the beeping sounds Miya could hear behind her, the prisoner was activating an escape pod himself while speaking.
“What?!” And she had thought the baddies on the other side of the doors were the biggest problem.
“The Cordalian planned on taking me and my pursuers out in one go. Now his weapon will work to our advantage.”
“Advantage? We don’t have enough time to leave the blast zone!”
A whoosh sound indicated the opening of an escape pod. A second later, Miya found herself placed inside a capsule-shaped space. Another second, and the assassin was in there with her.
Inside the one-person pod.
“Are you insane?” she wheezed. It was hard to breathe when his large body was plastered against hers, her face in his chest. “This thing can’t support two passengers!”
“Like I said, you’re tiny.” The door whooshed closed behind him, cocooning them inside the windowless pod. “The oxygen should be enough for both of us, given we’re close to a habitable planet.”
“Ha!” Hysterical laughter bubbled inside her. “As if we’ll get there. One way or another, we’ll be blown up like apiñata!”
A beep was all the warning they got before the escape pod was ejected from the ship at breakneck speed, making Miya lightheaded.
Looked like she was going to die in an escape pod afterall.
10
Clothes Off
There was no way Miya could survive this. It had been nice to fantasize about escaping what trained soldiers hadn’t, but that had been nothing but denying the inevitable. Wishful thinking.
“Earthling.”
If only Miya had flipped the bird at her boss when he had come to get her for this task. ‘The easiest space credits you can make in a week of piloting,’ he’d said. ‘You’ll be back before you know it, jumpsuit pockets full of credit chips to spend on your holiday,’ he’d claimed. The ass-licking six-tentacled asshat. She–
“Earthling.”
“What?”
“I thought you’d passed out.”
She tentatively opened one eye.
Nope, nothing had changed. The prisoner’s broad chest was still a breath away from the tip of her nose. The emergency lights were still flashing in a nauseating sequence. The padded white walls were still visibly vibrating as if the pod would disintegrate by itself, no help from a ship’s blaster cannon or a bomb needed.
Miya closed her eyes again. That way it was much easier to pretend she wasn’t about to die. She could even imagine she was on some amusement park ride. Or better: lying on an exotic beach on some resort moon, a hot guy pressed against her, ready to give her otherworldly pleasure that would leave her shaking with aftershocks–
Everything shook around Miya. Then the pod began spinning out of control, knocked off its course.
“Oh, galaxies!” She was going to die!... No, scratch that, she was going to barf then die! “Galaxies!”
“Earthling!”
Two pleasantly warm hands cupped her face, abruptly putting an end to her chant. The spinning in her head stopped as well. Or had the pod actually stopped spinning?
“Calm down. I’ve stabilized us.”
Miya cracked an eye open. Her nose was now poking her unlikely companion in the rock-hard pec. There were no emergency lights flashinga la‘prepare for disintegration’. There were no vibrating walls and floor getting her brain scrambled.
