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She engaged the thrusters and maneuvered her ship, hovering at the specified height, down the yellow guide markers on the floor. To pull this off, she’d need to not just go off course of the regular dispatch path but lower the craft for Stag to get in undetected.
“Feels a bit heavy, gonna take it around once to confirm,” she reported, turning the craft in the direction she needed—the one that’d take her straight past the elevators.
“Aspen 9, hold,” came the instruction, as predicted.
“Don’t worry, I’ve flown this thing a hundred times. It’s common.”
She ignored the stammering of the docksman on the other end and descended a hair, teeth digging indents into her bottom lip as she concentrated on keeping it as low as she could without scraping the ground. One wrong move and she wouldn’t just ruin the whole operation—she’d crush Stag with a few tons of metal. Her heart hammered in her chest as she slowed near the elevator enclave, holding steady as she crawled past. With any luck, she’d hear Stag lifting himself up into the cockpit any second now.
“Aspen 9. Hold,” the sharp voice of the docksman commanded again just as Tez looked back and saw Stag hoisting himself up into the ship, crawling on his side out of the way of the hatch with pained, labored breaths.
“I told you, this happens to this Raptor all the time,” she assured him. “Just gotta stabilize a bit. Going back on path now.”
When he was in the Raptor, Tez quickly closed and sealed the hatch, adrenaline pumping fear, relief, and finally focus through her every cell.
“Aspen 9, this Raptor was delivered this morning. You’re commanded to return to parking position and prepare to unload.”
Well, darn.
The light at the airlock directly in front of them turned from green to orange, then red, as the dockman aborted takeoff procedures.
Guess it’ll have to be Plan B after all.
“Strap in,” she said as she armed the weapons.
“Aspen 9, stand down and return to parking position.”
The Raptor shuddered as she jerked it into a sharp pivot. Then she rotated the guided missile toward the airlock and fired.
CHAPTER14
STAG
She was fucking crazy.
The first explosion reverberated off the walls of the dock, followed by two more. Alarms blared, warning dock occupants to get to safety. If there’d been anyone on the floor, it would have been too late anyway because in the next moment the outer airlock exploded, sucking equipment and other unsecured artifacts out to space. He couldn’t see any bodies through the front view of the Raptor as Tessa maneuvered around the debris that pelted the hull with hollow, resounding clangs. She surged the craft forward, kicking in the thrusters.
“How long until we’re followed?” Stag asked.
With the airlock destroyed, it would be hours at best for any fueled ships to be reachable through that particular dock. Pilots would need to suit up and essentially traverse through a vacuum to get into the ships, and that was assuming the ships’ oxygen and fuel tanks were full. But he knew, from his scans, that Arvex Station Atlas had one more major dock and two emergency launch points.
“Five minutes, maybe ten,” she said, the black void visor of her helmet turning toward him.
“Olympusis in the direction of star system S0933,” Stag said. He limped to stand beside her as he pulled on his helmet and oxpack just in case. “But—”
“But we don’t want to risk getting followed.” She caught on. “I’ll stray to S21 and loop around once we’re at a safe distance.”
They kept their eyes glued to the radar screen for pursuit. Only when no one appeared after five minutes did Stag let himself hope that maybe,maybethey actually pulled it off. Well,shepulled it off.
Half an hour passed with no sign of trouble, yet she was still gripping the yoke with her thumb on the laser trigger, body clenched and motionless.
“Tessa,” Stag prompted, trying to get her attention. He knew better than to touch a pilot behind the yoke. When she didn’t respond, staring straight ahead, he removed his helmet and crouched next to the seat. “Tessa, it’s okay. I think we made it.”
The chin of her helmet jerked to face him. For a few seconds, they stayed like that. Finally, black-gloved fingers slowly peeled away from the yoke one by one. Stag nodded and reached up to unclasp her helmet, pulling it carefully over her head.
She looked just like she had when he first saw her in the flesh down on Arvex, eyes wild and rimmed red. She’d been crying; he realized by the way her blonde lashes were stuck together.
Tessa toggled on the autopilot, ensuring the Raptor would keep following a straight path toward their decoy star system, shifting course only to avoid any debris. Yet still she stared ahead, eyes glued to the void of space.
