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And he was right. The ship wasn’t far ahead, and with their cloaking tech they shouldn’t have had the same problem they had last time. They could just trail the pirates and see where they ended up.
He tried to think over their plan again: the agreements they’d made with the rest of the crew before they’d left, the plan for repairing Tinsley’s transporter, the schedule for checking in and sending back intel.
But somehow, he couldn’t concentrate. That all felt like a lifetime ago. Since they’d made love for the first time, everything else felt kind of far away. It was like they were floating in a cloud, drifting softly, wrapped in the warm glow of…
“Ow!” Tinsley suddenly cried as Dante groaned loudly.
They’d both suddenly been thrown forward, and Dante felt his head hit the control panel in front of him while the straps of his seat dug deeply into his shoulders and chest.
Beside him, Tinsley was rubbing her head, too, a bruise already appearing at her temple. He reached over to check on her, but she seemed okay. Luckily, they’d been strapped in. Dante didn’t want to think about what might have happened if they hadn’t been.
“What the hell was that?” he asked, but he knew the answer as soon as he said it.
The ship had come thudding to a halt, the engine screaming for a second before Tinsley had killed the thrusters, and things had suddenly turned eerily quiet. There wasn’t a sound, not a movement, and outside the cockpit window, Dante saw nothing but still, open space. Stars and planets burning brightly in the distance as static balls of light rather than the blurred streaks they’d been watching just a moment before.
Only one thing could make a ship stop dead like that in the middle of open space, as if it had suddenly flown straight into a vat of molasses.
“Gravity net,” Tinsley said slowly, her eyes growing wide. “Fuck.”
“Can you try the hyperdrive?” Dante asked desperately, hoping by some miracle it would get them out of it.
Tinsley looked skeptical, but she tried it anyway. The ship trembled for a second, as if trying with all its might to escape the artificial gravitational pull, but it was no good. Even a massive starship would struggle against a trap like this. The Thunder Bolt, as a two-seater passenger ship, didn’t stand a chance.
Dante gripped the armrests of his seat for a second, trying to figure out what to do next. He knew as well as Tinsley did what was coming.
“Does this thing have any firepower?” he asked Tinsley through gritted teeth.
Her face paled. “Not much. You think we’ll need it?”
“You and I both know we’re going to be boarded any minute now unless we can fight them off,” Dante said, his voice low and serious. “But these aren’t just run-of-the-mill pirates we’re talking about. They know we’re following them. They’re not after our cargo. They’re after us.”
Tinsley nodded, gathering herself. “The ship itself doesn’t have any weapons, but we have a couple of blasters on board for emergencies.”
She’d just finished speaking when a heavy clank came from the rear of the ship.
Dante and Tinsley exchanged a look—one that spoke volumes—before Dante unstrapped himself and ran toward the sound. He knew if the pirates were going to come aboard, he was going to get to them before they could get to Tinsley. The thought of anything happening to her was more than he could bear. Especially knowing they were in the business of making people disappear.
Images of his sister flashed in his mind, and suddenly, Dante was overcome with a primal rage that coursed through his veins. These pirates had taken one loved one from his life, and he wasn’t going to let them take another.
As he reached the rear doors of the ship, where he knew the pirates would try to enter, he mentally readied himself for hand-to-hand combat. They had no time to find the blasters now. He could already hear the Jorvlens scaling the side of the ship and hacking into the door on the other side of the airlock. It would only be a few more seconds before they got inside.
He wished he could turn around and make sure Tinsley was okay, but he knew any lapse in concentration might give the pirates the upper hand, and he couldn’t stomach that possibility.
Sure enough, the airlock opened a split second later, and four figures entered the now-cramped Thunder Bolt. Their faces were mostly obscured by their helmets, but Dante would recognize a Jorvlen anywhere—heavyset and broad, they were almost as tall as Lorr, only less noble, at least in Dante’s opinion.
They didn’t carry themselves with pride the way a Lorr did. Instead, they slumped. And where a Lorr’s skin glowed violet, Jorvlen skin was almost gray. He could see glimpses of it through their masks, but when the leader pulled his helmet off, there was no doubt.
A familiar snarl greeted him there, complete with the protruding lower teeth that gave Jorvlens their particularly horrible smile.
No wonder Kozien didn’t want to marry their princess, Dante thought smugly—a moment of mirth in an otherwise heavy situation.
“All right, scum!” spat the pirate, giving Dante a particularly mean scowl. “You may as well surrender now!”
This time Dante really did laugh. “You and I both know that isn’t happening.”
The pirate scowled again and curled his lip in a snarl. “Wrong answer.”
Chapter 13
