Turned out that near light speed was fast. Wickedly, shockingly, brutally fast.
We skipped a few grids on the navigation panel and caught up to the missile in about three minutes. The air had been pressed from my lungs at the pressure of the space jump.
“Fuck, I smashed my nose with my knee,” Trax said when I pulled us out.
“There it is,” Alex said, ignoring his friend. He pointed.
It was on our grid array, but I could also see the weapon out the window. The guys had been right. It was huge, the size of a massive cargo plane heading for home.
“Target engaged. Locked,” Alex told me.
“What if we miss?” I asked, worried.
He glanced at me. “We only have one chance, so Earth blows up.”
This was it. The trust we needed between each other. He said we had a lock on a missile that would blow Earth to pieces. I had to believe in his skill, just as he’d always believed in mine. There had been a short time when I’d thought he was something else, that I’d been wrong in all my actions. That choosing to go to Velerion because of a man meant I was just like my mother.
I wasn’t. Sure, I had her DNA, but nothing more. I’d never had her love. Her devotion. Her trust. I had all that and more from Alex. I’d accepted it after only a few minutes when he’d arrived at my apartment, because I’d felt in my gut that it was good. That he was good.
It wasn’t just Alex I trusted.
I trusted myself. I’d made the decision because I was smart. I wasn’t alone. I was part of a team with Alex. We were a unit. A bonded pair. I might have been a loner, but I’d been waiting. For this. For now.
I trusted me. And I trusted Alex.
“Like Nave said, ‘Get that fucking IPBM,’” I told him.
Alex nodded once, realizing the gravity of my words. “I need you to hold distance and speed. Once I fire, we’ll only have a few seconds to get the fuck out of here.”
“Copy that,” I replied, focusing on what I needed to do. Hit and run. Run really, really fast.
“Missile lock engaged. Waiting. Waiting.”
Waiting? Shit… it was like a movie where the tension made me hold my breath. The survival of an entire world was hinged on this one moment. And everyone on Earth had no idea they were about to die.
Something big came up on the grid array. We were still light-years away, but it would not take long for the IPBM to go through the jump gate and destroy Earth. Not at the rate it was traveling.
“Keep up. I need to hit it in interstellar space. There,” Alex prompted. “Firing in three, two—”
The ion cannon’s release shot the Valor back, halving our speed. The force of it caused my head to snap forward, then sent us into a spin. Remember that we had to get the hell out of the blast radius, I pulled on the controls and righted us, then sped away from the missile as fast as the ship would go. We were still alive, but the activity had taken us well out of view of our target.
“What happened to one?” I asked as I slowed the Valor to a reasonable speed. We needed to conserve fuel. We were down to ten percent.
“The IBPM was about to go through the jump gate. We would have lost the shot.”
“Did it work?” I asked, turning the Valor around to watch. I glanced out the window and down at the grid array. Nothing. A big fat nothing. I didn’t have any idea where we were, either. “Well?”
He didn’t need to answer. A blast so bright filled the window that I had to shut my eyes and look away. I could even feel the heat of it. Once again, the ship was tossed, as if caught in a tornado. I gripped the controls and leveled out the ship, riding through the worst of the impact waves.
“Velerion, this is the Valor. IPBM headed for Earth destroyed. Status update on second missile.”
“This is Velerion. Missile destroyed. Return to Arturri.”
Nave and Trax whooped and hollered from the back. I grinned at Alex. He grinned back. If we weren’t in the tight confines of the cockpit or had two Velerions behind us, I’d have kissed him. Jumped him. Dragged his ass into the nearest control room to celebrate.
“We did it,” I said.
“We did. We make a good team,” he replied.
“I bet Queen Raya’s pissed.” Oh, how I would love to be a fly on the wall back on that asteroid base. I could just see that bitch’s face going mottled red with fury. Maybe she’d break something. Have a stroke. Die. Yes, dying would be good.
Alex grinned. “Yeah, I think she might be.”
“I love playing this game with you, Alexius of Velerion.” I was in love with the man. Head-over-heels, big-time trouble in love. And I didn’t care, which made my affliction even worse.
He grinned and rolled his eyes. “I can think of a few more games I’d like to play.”
“We’re still back here,” Trax reminded. “Take us to Arturri and find a room. With a door and good soundproofing.”
Our room would work, I thought, then checked the navigation panel and turned the Valor for home.