By now, though, theStardrifter’sdescription would be distributed. The manticores had expected us to come after Zyair, and that meant they’d be looking for us. Even as I contemplated that, the wind died just enough for the external cameras to show activity at the entrance to the dockyard. Nirzks, organizing search parties.
Then the wind picked up again. Disguising them, as well as us. My fingers twitched on the controls.
“Steady,” purred Rhodes as he folded long fingers over my shoulders. “Patience. Not long now.”
I was quivering with the need to be gone. My eyes were glued to the navcube holograph.
“Anything yet?” Xandros appeared on the bridge, squeezed once more into coveralls. He hadn’t bothered with his upper half, though. He scooped Sookie up off the dash and danced fingers absently through her fur.
My rush of desire received an answering pulse from Zyair.Fucking hell.Distracting was an understatement.
I yanked my eyes away, and breathed, “Nothing yet.”
Then, thankfully, therewassomething. A blip rose from the city and banked abruptly, almost hitting a spire on a roof before hurtling away.
Thank you, idiot. The worst thing one could do when faced with a predator was run. If Kurt’d meandered slowly or even appeared to join in the search, he could have pulled off a gradual fade from the scene. Instead, the bastard did an all-out bolt for space.
The fighters oriented on him in an instant, abandoning their chaotic searches to race after him. The comm lit up with their demands. His ship signature was their own, but the behavior indicated otherwise.
“Perfect,” rumbled Rhodes. “Give them a few minutes to fully commit. Then we can go.”
“What if he tries to communicate or negotiate with them?” Yani asked.
“I might have messed up his communications grid after parking the ship,” Xandros admitted. Sookie was now purring.
“Good work, bro,” Zyair approved. His voice was a hoarse rendition of its usual self, and I winced at the combination of pain and lust coming off him.
A glance at the scanner revealed that the search parties near the entrance were hesitating, clearly having received the news that “we” had departed in the stolen starhopper. In another moment, a large troop transport dropped into the docking bay. The Nirzks jogged up the ramp, and the ship departed.
“Now.” Rhodes’s hands tightened on my shoulders. “Take a breath, and open a channel to dock control. We are just returning home after a trip to the market.”
I did so, and Zyair entered a dialogue with the distracted sounding Nirzk-speaking official at the other end. It took a bit of discussion—during which Zyair allowed some annoyance into his tone—before he signaled me to cut off the transmission.
“We are good to go,” he told me when I had done so. “They are under orders to hold all ships here. Now that the target has been flushed, I managed to negotiate our departure. Nice and easy. We are in no rush.”
I waited for the official to give us our flightpath off world before lifting theStardrifterfrom the sand and pointing her for the sky. Meanwhile, the navcube tracked Kurt’s flight—trailed by too many dots to count. And overhead, the battlecruiser was moving to intercept.
If he was smart, he’d land the craft and surrender. But brains had never been on his list of attributes. I wasn’t surprised when he put the ship on a course destined to take it to the slipstream port we’d arrived through.
He’d never make it. Not with the battlecruiser about to cut off his path.
My mind raced. Until the Nirzks captured him, we had a chance to escape. But once they found out we weren’t on board that vessel, things would get more complicated.
Interstellar communications relied on a series of interconnected relay points, so its effectiveness varied across the cosmos. But any way you looked at it, the Nirzks could send messages ahead to their allies and cause us trouble.
Zyair glanced to Rhodes. “As soon as we get clear of the planet, set the course for the Nipslep slipstream port.”
I shot him a look. “It’s three hours farther.”
“The one we came through is too closely affiliated with the Nirzks,” Rhodes answered. “Once they apprehend theimbecile human, they will try to catch us there. Nipslep is regulated by the Untriks, a very old and highly respected race. The Nirzks might have connections in its operation, but they do not have control.”
Three more hours. I refused to look at Zyair, but what radiated off him wasn’t good. Well, some of it was. But it was twisted by the pain component, and I wasn’t sure he had those extra three hours.
I had to know. I finally turned to him. His eyes gleamed emerald from dark circles, and his cheeks were alarmingly sunken.
“Will you make it?” I asked.
His lips twitched upward. “I am tougher than I look.”
