Starflight (32 page)

While Doran caught his breath, he watched her beneath heavy lids, his gaze flickering like a blue flame. She saw the raw emotion on his face and felt it in the desperate press of his fingers. It was then that she finally believed him. Doran had given his heart to her. At the realization, something in her own heart shifted and grew, spreading outward until there wasn’t room for anything else inside her chest.

“My answer is yes,” she whispered.

Doran rolled her beneath him and interlaced one of their hands high above her head, gazing down at her with so much gratitude that it tightened her throat. “You’ll come home with me, when all this is over?”

She nodded against the pillow, breathing in the scents of soap and oil vapors that their joined bodies had made. It was unique to them, and sweeter than any perfume implant in creation. “I’ll go anywhere with you.”

As she locked her legs around his waist, a shiver spread out from her navel all the way down to her toes. Soon their hips grew restless, and their breathing turned choppy. He whispered one more time that he loved her and lowered his mouth for a kiss.

After that, there was no more talking.

“H
and me the two-thirds hydraulic wrench, will you?” Solara asked, facedown in the shower’s filtration system while her backside wiggled in the air, turning Doran’s thoughts far from repair work. She must’ve known he wasn’t paying attention, because she clarified, “The one with the blue handle.”

“Uh-huh,” he said, still staring.

“Doran!”

He tore his gaze away and handed her the blue wrench, then leaned forward and glanced over her shoulder to see if she was almost finished. The tangle of tubes beneath the floor looked like disemboweled innards, so the answer was probably no.

His shoulders slumped.

In the days since they’d waited for the geomagnetic storm to pass, Solara had taken it upon herself to give the
Banshee
a full tune-up—a nice gesture, but Doran was tired of sharing her with the ship. He kept daydreaming about whisking her away to someplace tropical, just the two of them. In his fantasies, life had returned to normal and he had full access to the Spaulding toys.

“Have you ever seen the ocean?” he asked.

“Once,” she called over her shoulder. “The nuns took us on a day trip to Galveston. It rained the whole time, but we had fun. Sister Agnes let me bury her to the neck and sculpt her into a mermaid.”

“I want to take you to the Caribbean,” he said. “We’ll borrow one of my dad’s smaller yachts so we can drop anchor in the island shallows.” That way they’d have total privacy—no hotels, no touristy beaches, not even a crew to disturb them. “We can snorkel and swim right off the boat.”

“A personal yacht? What’s next, a private shuttle?”

“Well, yeah,” he said. “How else would we get to the marina to fetch the boat?”

Solara righted herself and leaned on one elbow, smiling at him. “If you’re trying to spoil me, it won’t work. I can earn my own keep.”

He returned her smile while his whole heart melted. His feelings for her were nearly tangible, swelling like billows inside his rib cage, and he found himself constantly consumed by the need to express it. Each night he did his best to show how much he loved her—until they were breathless and weak—but it wasn’t enough. He wanted to give Solara closets full of glistening ball gowns, to take her to exotic places and fill her belly with the finest foods. There was no better reward than seeing her happy, so from now on he was going to pamper her like it was his job.

“I’m highly motivated,” he said. “So I suggest you don’t fight it.”

She leaned in for a quick kiss before returning to her work. “You’re getting ahead of yourself. We might not be able to go back.”

Doran frowned. He knew that better than anyone. “A guy can dream.”

The captain’s voice came over the
Banshee
’s intercom system and put an end to the reverie. “Looks like the worst of the storm has passed, so prepare for takeoff. We should arrive at Planet X by morning.”

Planet X—the site of Doran’s errand. That meant his ordeal was almost over, though whether it would end in his favor remained to be seen.

“Want to talk about that?” Solara asked.

“No,” he said.

He didn’t want to think about it, either. In the last few weeks, he’d nearly thought himself to death trying to puzzle out how to save himself and free his father. Now that he realized how many lives in the fringe depended on his return to Spaulding Fuel, he felt a weight on his shoulders so heavy that sometimes he caught himself stooping over. What if he failed? Or if someone else found out about the coordinates and beat him there?

No, he definitely didn’t want to talk about it.

“Well, scratch that,” Captain Rossi grumbled over the intercom. “The storm must’ve shorted the main transmitter. I don’t want to lift off until it’s fixed. Lara, can you come take a look?”

Solara hauled herself out of the coils of tubing beneath the floor. “Sure, just give me a minute.”

“I think the parts are fried,” the captain said. “Maybe you can salvage what we need from the other system.”

“What other system?” she asked, scrunching her forehead.

“The emergency com. It’s a decent backup, but between the two, I’d rather have the main transmitter running.”

“I didn’t know we have a backup.”

“You’re not supposed to. It’s hidden under the console.”

Solara shared a long, silent glance with Doran—one that told him they were both realizing they’d left a stone unturned during their search of the ship. As much as he didn’t want to backtrack, he couldn’t ignore the possibility that Kane had used the emergency com to alert the Enforcers.

“All right,” Solara told the captain. “We’re on our way.”

Ten minutes later, Doran was lying underneath the pilothouse control panel, squinting at a tiny com screen while Solara rebooted the hardware from beside him.

The ancient screen blinked to life, asking him to input a recipient frequency. He wasn’t accustomed to this operating system, so it took a few tries to navigate to the main menu, but once there, he tapped the
SENT
file and waited for the data to populate. Soon, pages of lines filled the screen, each one detailing a date, time, frequency, and length of transmission for every call that had left the
Banshee
. He scrolled through the previous month, looking for the signature Solar League code that ended in a series of zeroes.

As he searched the data, a sick feeling of foreboding uncurled in the pit of his stomach. It reminded him of the time he’d snooped on his first girlfriend and discovered her with another guy. Looking back, he hadn’t needed the proof. His gut had told him something was wrong, and since then he’d learned to trust his instincts. Right now, those instincts told Doran he would find a government frequency in the ship’s system.

And he did.

A brief, one-way transmission had been sent to the Enforcers weeks ago, on the morning he’d left to shuttle to Obsidian. He read the information twice and triple-checked the date until finally there was no denying it.

Kane had betrayed him.

Doran wasn’t prepared for the blow that came next. An ache opened up behind his chest—the kind of pain that only a friend could inflict. But the suffering didn’t last long. On the heels of that pain came a rage so hot it tunneled his vision and turned it red. He had barely enough forethought to duck out from beneath the console, and then all logic flew out the window. He didn’t care about strategy or timing. All that mattered was finding an outlet for his fists, and he knew exactly where it would be.

Ignoring Solara’s questions, he slammed aside the pilothouse door and flew down the stairs, not bothering to silence the clamor of his boots. A furious pulse pounded in his head, and he couldn’t have held back if he wanted to. The scent of onions led him to the galley, where he paused in the doorway just long enough to scan past Cassia and Renny to the dreadlocked boy standing at the stove.

After that, Doran charged.

When Kane glanced over one shoulder, his eyes flew wide and he dropped his ladle to brace for impact. A microsecond later, their bodies collided with a rewarding smack that sent Kane stumbling backward into the storage wall. Cabinets shook, sending loose tin cups clattering to the floor while voices bellowed from behind Doran. Kane flailed both arms in a struggle to right himself, but Doran didn’t give him the chance. Bracing one hand against the wall, he sank his opposite fist into Kane’s stomach, then drew back to deliver a right hook to the jaw.

Doran’s knuckles screamed at the impact of bone on bone, but he ignored the burn. He’d just wound up for another blow when a powerful set of arms locked around his chest and dragged him back toward the table.

“Enough,” Renny said in his ear. Doran thrashed and kicked like an animal. He landed his boot so hard in the oven door that it left a dent, but he couldn’t escape the hold. Renny was stronger than he looked. “That’s enough,” he repeated. “Don’t make me stun you.”

Doran’s eyes locked on Kane, who had the nerve to glare back at him. Kane dabbed at his bloody lip and demanded, “What the hell’s wrong with you?”

“What’s wrong with
me
?” Doran shouted, and fought to free himself again. He struggled in vain until all the hurt and anger welling up inside him crested like a wave. “I know what you did, you asshole!” he yelled. “I know it was you!”

He noticed a flicker of awareness on Kane’s face, followed by the unmistakable look of a guilty man realizing he’d been caught. Kane shook his head but didn’t try to deny what he’d done. He only opened and closed his mouth without sound, proving that for once, he couldn’t charm his way out of a problem.

The captain appeared in the doorway with Solara by his side. He surveyed the dishes scattered across the galley and pointed his crutch at the dented stove. “Sounds like Armageddon in here. Someone better start talking.”

“Go ahead,” Doran said to Kane. “Tell them.” His voice went hollow as all the fight inside him died. Since he’d quit struggling, Renny released him. “Tell them how you sold me out for the reward.”

Something in Kane’s expression hardened, almost as if he was proud of what he’d done. Folding both arms, he admitted, “Yeah, it was me. I did it for the money. And I’m not sorry, either.”

While jaws dropped and silence blanketed the galley, Cassia stepped in front of Kane, shaking her head at him. “Stop it,” she ordered, and then faced Doran. “He didn’t turn you in. I was the one who made the call.”

“Don’t listen to her,” Kane said, nudging her aside. “I did it.”

Cassia whirled on him, curling her tiny hands into fists. “Shut up, Kane! I don’t need you to protect me!”

“You don’t think so? Because my busted lip says otherwise!”

The captain put a stop to the nonsense by slamming his crutch on the floor and bellowing, “What in damnation is going on?”

“That’s what I want to know,” Doran said. “It wasn’t an accident when the Enforcers found me on Obsidian. Someone told them I’d be there.”

“That someone was me,” Cassia said. “Kane had nothing to do with it. I didn’t tell him at first, but as soon as he found out, he tried to help you by—”

“Piloting the shuttle,” Solara finished. “That’s why he volunteered. I practically had to arm-wrestle the job away from him.”

Cassia nodded, keeping her eyes fixed on Doran. “He was going to take you somewhere safe and pretend the shuttle was broken until the Enforcers left.”

“But why?” Doran asked. “What did I ever do to you?” He knew it shouldn’t matter—either way he had a knife in his back—but he needed to know. “Do you hate me that much?”

“I don’t hate you at all.”

“You have a funny way of showing it.”

“Believe it or not, I had good intentions,” Cassia said. “I thought you were soft, that you were just a pampered rich boy who didn’t understand how dangerous life is out here.” She glanced down at her feet. “Because that’s exactly how I was when I left home. I thought it would be best if the Enforcers took you back to Earth. So you’d be out of harm’s way.”

Doran scoffed. He didn’t believe for one second that her reasons were so pure. “You were doing me a favor? I can’t wait to repay you.”

Kane placed a hand on Cassia’s shoulder. “Give her a break. There was more to it than that.”

“Of course there was,” Doran said. “I’m not an idiot.”

“You don’t know what’s at stake,” Cassia told him. “If the Daeva catch you—”

“They’ll torture me to death,” Doran interrupted. “I already know that.”

“No, they won’t.” She peeked up, her eyes full of fear. “They’ll torture you until you tell them where I am.”

Doran cocked his head to make sure he’d heard her right.

“It’s my name on the contract,” Cassia went on. “Mine and Kane’s. But he didn’t do anything wrong, except stand by me. If the Daeva catch us, they’ll kill him, and then they’ll take me home for something even worse.”

“Why?” asked Solara. “What did you do?”

For a few beats, Cassia seemed to struggle for her next words. It wasn’t until Kane took her hand that she told them, “I ran away from Eturia and started a war.”