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“How about we send these clowns off on a little detour?” he said.
Tinsley managed to crack a smile.
She switched on the external cams and watched on the control board as the pirates filed back into their pod. Looking closer, she could see a small orange device attached to the outside of their ship, blinking intermittently.
“The gravity net,” she muttered under breath, and suddenly she got the feeling she knew what Dante was going to do. Gravity worked both ways.
She chuckled, just as Dante appeared on the cam. He turned and winked at the camera before raising his blaster and pointing it squarely at the gravity net.
“Bye, bye,” he said gleefully and shot a single powerful blast at the orange device.
Tinsley suddenly felt the Thunder Bolt rock, and when she looked up at the control board again, she could see the pod careening at breakneck speeds into the great beyond.
She laughed to herself and pressed a button on the panel.
“You’re an artist, you know?” she joked, feeling the tension that had gripped her before draining from her body. “That was beautiful.”
“You’re the real artist,” he told her warmly, and she saw him disappear from the cam.
A few moments later, he reentered through the airlock and removed his helmet.
“Now if you’d please get back to your canvas,” he joked, gesturing to the pilot’s seat.
But Tinsley needed to do one thing first. She stepped forward, throwing her arms around Dante and planting a deliberate and impassioned kiss on his lips.
She felt his hands fold around her, resting on her lower back. Even though she knew they needed to get going, she also needed to show him how much he meant to her, even if she still wasn’t sure he felt the same.
Chapter 14
“We’d better get going,” Dante said the words even though he hated hearing them come from his mouth.
Tinsley’s lips were still so close to his, and the thought of just kissing for eternity was way too tempting. But he knew as well as she did that they had more important things to do.
Tinsley nodded, pulling herself away from him with a soft smile. She let her gaze linger on him as she walked over to the pilot’s seat and only broke eye contact when she had to get the ship back up and running.
“Better strap yourself in,” she told him. “The artist is at work.”
Dante grinned. He loved that they already had inside jokes—as if they were building a little life, even if it existed only within the confines of this ship for now. He hoped it would spread beyond that once the mission was over. The way things were going, though, he had reasons to hope.
He made sure he was strapped in tightly as Tinsley fired up the thrusters.
“Ready?” she asked, her hand hovering over the hyperdrive button.
“Ready.”
Her fingers fell, and the ship suddenly rocketed forward, continuing along the path they’d been aiming toward before the pod had been sent to capture them.
“Do you think the pod has made contact with the Jorvlen mothership by now?” Tinsley asked.
Dante could hear the concern in her voice, but he only grinned.
“Not likely. I took the pirates’ comms before I let them back on the pod and blasted off their transmitter along with the gravity net. I don’t think they’ll be getting in touch with the mothership for quite some time.”
Tinsley chuckled at this, and the sound was like music to Dante’s ears. Her laugh was cut short when something on the control panel flashed.
“Looks like that’s them,” she said, pointing at the screen. “We should probably hang back a little further this time.”
Dante nodded. He didn’t want another incident like that gravity net. They’d gotten lucky once. They probably wouldn’t get lucky again.
