“Hold on!”
A screeching like nothing I’d ever heard filled the cockpit. Two heartbeats after my helmet locked in place, the panel above my head was torn off by passing debris and the atmosphere was sucked out of the cockpit. “Kass? You okay?”
“I’m fine. But someone put a bomb on this ship. And we both know who.”
I looked up, out of where the ceiling of the cockpit should have been, and saw nothing but empty space. And stars. Spinning stars.
“We’re spinning.”
“We are.” Kass’s voice was calm but stressed. “Just like the training mission on Gamma 479 where we lost a wing.”
Right. We’d been through this before. Breathe. “You got this?”
I wasn’t on my couch in front of my TV. We were in space. This crash was actually going to hurt, if we survived at all.
“I’ll get us on the ground, but we’re going to have to hack the moon base’s system from the inside. That bomb took out our long-range comms.”
And our ability to fly. My ability to do my job.
“Great.” I braced myself in the copilot’s seat and moved it back into position next to Kass. I had to tell him now. Had to. Just in case. “I’m sorry, Kass. I’m sorry I doubted you.”
He flicked his gaze to me. “You believe me now?”
“Yes. I do.” I took a deep breath and said the words I could never take back. “I love you, Kassius Remeas. I love you.”
His eyes flared, his jaw clenched. “You tell me now?”
I couldn’t help the sly smile. “Yeah, so don’t get us killed. Okay?”
He chuckled. “Copy that, bonded one.”
Even now, tense and scared and nervous, that voice grounded me.
Kass fought the ship for control as the oddly beautiful moon grew larger and larger on his screen. I thought we were going to make it, I really did, until the cannons mounted on the moon base suddenly came to life and pointed straight at us.
“Oh shit. Kass?”
“Incoming! Brace!” he shouted.
Bright light shot from the cannons, and Kass somehow, by luck or skill or divine intervention, managed to take the Phantom low enough to the ground that the weapons’ fire blasted overhead like strobe lights above the open top of the ship.
The rattling inside my head was painful as Kass turned the Phantom onto her side for a rough landing. We hit rock. Hard.
Heavy bolts held my chair in place as equipment was ripped from beneath my fingers and hurtled away from the ship.
“Fuck! Hold on!” Kass needn’t have bothered yelling the order. I was already holding on to the thick straps that crossed my chest, the only thing I could reach. My feet dangled before me, open space all that I could see as our ship bounced on the rough surface and finally slid to a halt. The Phantom was on her side, my half of the ship open, almost completely gone.
“Mia?” Before I’d registered the stop, Kass was reaching for me with fumbling fingers. He released the harness and pulled me out of the seat and into his arms. “Are you hurt?”
I took stock. Rattled? Yes. Hurt? “No. I’m fine.” I wrapped my arms around him and squeezed for long seconds as I fought to control my frantic breathing. “What… what just happened?”
“The bomb blew our stealth actions and comms. The moon base’s defense system saw us coming and shot us down.”
I was shaking. So I wasn’t bleeding, but I was rattled. Big-time. “You really think Sponder planted a bomb on our ship?”
Kass shook his head. “It’s the only explanation.”
I rested against his chest, gave myself permission to breathe for at least a minute. “Why would he do that? You weren’t even on the ship. You were locked up in the brig.”