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A chastisement for early celebration appeared on Leon’s lips, but then he laughed it away, Sebastian’s enthusiasm infecting him. “Impossible.”
“If you’d thought it was impossible, you wouldn’t have come after me.” Sebastian had piloted the ship out fully from behind the moon, and it shone over Southern Tava like a line of particularly bright stars.
“It was because I thought it was impossible that I came after you.” Leon slowed his ship so he could watch the line of Sebastian’s freighter slowly cross the sky. “Have you sent word to the Qesh?”
“Yeah, I just flipped on a looping broadcast and beamed it out to them. I don’t want them shooting me out of the sky or thinking I’m stealing this stuff.”
“You are stealing it.” Leon snorted, leaning back and staring up at the line of lights. He had nowhere to be but Ralscoln and nothing he could do but hope for and will Sebastian’s success. And listen to the self-satisfied patter of his voice.
“Yeah, but I’m not stealing it for me, and I’m not using it, so I’m not stealing stealing it.”
“What would you call it then?”
“I would call it… Hold on.” The wit dropped out of Sebastian’s voice.
Leon sat back up. “What is it?”
No reply.
“Sebastian, what is it?”
“Hold on. I thought… Oh no. Oh no-no-no—”
The line of lights Leon had been following with his eyes bloomed into red and orange moments before the sounds of an explosion and the screech of an alarm slammed into his ears.
“Sebastian!”
“Shit, Leon, we—”
Static and interference garbled Sebastian’s words
“—fired upon! The—”
More static.
“—orbital guns! The Klah’Eel are firing their orbital guns!”
Leon slammed the throttle and started rocketing back to Ralscoln. He turned the cruiser’s communications to the first Resistance channel. “Martha! Mar—”
“We see it!” Martha responded near instantly. “We see it. What’s happening?”
“The Klah’Eel are firing! Tell them to stop firing!” Leon looked back up at the sky, where the lights of the Barzen had turned into a fireball that grew larger and larger. “Sebastian, get out of there!”
“I didn’t think they would!” Sebastian gasped at him. “I didn’t think they would actually try to bring down the ship. I thought they’d have too much to lose. I thought they’d never risk it. I didn’t think they—”
“I don’t care!” Leon roared at him. “Get. Out. Now!”
“I’m going!”
Leon watched the burning ship careening into the atmosphere with such a feeling of impotent rage and desperation he thought he might explode along with it. From this close, he could see the new blooms of explosions as more rockets slammed into its side.
How could he have let this happen? How could he have let Sebastian slip through his fingers again?
How, how, how?
His stomach rolled, and his heart ached, and his chest tightened too much to breathe. He hit the cruiser’s communications panel. “Martha!”
“They’re not responding to hails!” Martha shouted back at him, and he could hear the din of more shouting voices in the background.
