“No. I’m almost there. I have an idea. It’s a long shot, but—”
“Eighty. Seventy-nine. Seventy-eight.”
“Stop talking.”
“Mia. I will drag your ass out of here.”
“Not yet.”
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.My scanners flashed bright warning lights. It was what I feared: a bioflare warhead was headed for our location. Bad news? The weapon would turn anything organic into a pile of ash, but the base would remain intact, the shielding on, the Dark Fleet protected. The good news was we had just over a minute longer than I’d estimated. “Incoming.”
“Call for that ride,” she said.
Thank fuck. I stood and activated my comms. “Group Five Leader, this is MCS Onerequesting emergency evac.”
“MCS One, this is command. We are tracking a bioflare heading in your direction. Impact in two minutes.” General Jennix’s voice sounded concerned but not surprised to discover Queen Raya was willing to sacrifice any men she had on this moon base in order to take us out.
“Yes, General. We are aware. We’re in. We’ll have the shield down in—” I glanced at Mia.
“Now.”
“Now, General. The shield should be deactivating now.”
“Excellent.”
“Requesting emergency evac at this location.” I shared my location data with the Velerion fleet as Mia rose to stand next to me.
“Copy that. Passing you to Group Two. I notified them of your situation. They should have a shuttle standing by.”
Team Two was the shuttle teams under the command of Captain Sponder. How ironic that the asshole who’d tried to kill us was going to have to save our lives. One of the shuttles had to be close enough to swoop down and pick us up. That had been part of the plan, a contingency in case anything had gone wrong. A last resort option in case Mia got into trouble. I was supposed to be in the brig right now, but Mia was a Starfighter MCS. An asset that General Jennix would find nearly impossible to replace. We’d learned the value of our Starfighter teams the hard way, when we’d lost them in Queen Raya’s sneak attack.
“This is Group Two. Go ahead.”
“This is Starfighter MCS Phantom requesting emergency evac. We have ninety seconds to impact.”
I expected a quick, efficient response. Instead I heard a monotone voice I recognized all too well, Captain Sponder. “Starfighter MCS Remeas?”
“Affirmative.”
“This is Team Two Leader. When we lost contact with the Phantom, the moon base shuttle team was reassigned to medical evac. I do not have a ship in place to reach you in time, Phantom. Estimated arrival of nearest shuttle team is seven minutes. Bioflare impact would take out any approaching shuttles. I can’t send a team in. It’s too dangerous.”
“What?” Mia’s gasp made me wince with guilt. If it weren’t for me, Captain Sponder, the leader of Group Two, would have done what he was supposed to do. A shuttle would have been standing by, close enough to get here in under a minute, as the mission parameters required, regardless of whether or not our ship had gone down. Instead he was going to make up some fuck-all excuse, no one would be able to prove he’d done anything wrong, all evidence of the bomb he’d planted on Mia’s ship would be destroyed and Mia would be dead.
Fuck.
Of course, he’d planned on her being dead already.
There was no time to argue. No other group would have a ship in place to assist. That responsibility had been assigned to Group Two. Sponder’s group.
“We have to run, Mia!”
“Shit. He knows I know. He really did want me dead all along.” She stood, abandoning her equipment. We would sprint, run as fast as we could, but it wasn’t going to be fast enough.
“Yeah, and for me to suffer knowing you are going to die. Come on.” I took Mia’s hand and pulled her out of the moon base and onto the surface.
“There’s nowhere to run, Kass.”
I scanned the horizon, desperate for a rocky outcropping, a groove in the ground, anywhere that would give us the slightest chance of survival. “Run for the ship.”