Page 12 of Escape Velocity

You are strong. You can make this work a voice said inside her mind. It wasn’t her voice. Although Amber was saying it to herself, in her head she heard the low tones of her friend Esme, whispering to her as they had done at night in the slave quarters. They’d arrived at the facility about the same time. And they’d quickly become friends, both worried about their future.

She clenched her hands at her sides, fighting off guilt. She was on this ship, heading for a destination unknown. And Esme was still back in their living nightmare on Naxion. Would the masters know Esme had helped with the escape? “Gods, no,” she whispered, praying that it had all come across as an innocent accident.

Esme had dropped one of the slop bowls as she was cleaning up from breakfast. Then she’s been slow to get the rags to wipe it up.

The guards had yelled at her, and one of the chiefs, a brutish bastard named Zobar, cuffed her on the side of the head and stayed to supervise the cleanup. Which meant Zobar wasn’t one of the men who marched Amber off to the cart that took her to rendezvous spot. And the remaining swine were not as competent.

She lay with her heart pounding, trying to process everything that had happened since Max had scattered the jewels on the ground, giving himself a head start in getting them away. If he hadn’t used that trick, perhaps one of them would have gotten killed. Or both. That realization made her shudder. What if they had killed him and taken her back? She would have been responsible for the death of an innocent man.

Steady her friend said, her familiar voice reassuring. Everything’s going to be fine.

She almost laughed out loud at that analysis. Esme did not know what would happen now. Neither did Amber—and imagining reassurances didn’t change anything.

She’d already taken terrible risks. But she had been desperate enough to try and change her fate. Now here she was, on a ship speeding away from everything familiar—with no idea how much she did not know about the worlds outside her home planet. If she let herself think too much about her ignorance, she might have given up in fear. Instead, she had plowed ahead with her crazy plan. And now that she was off her cursed home world, she was trying to learn as much as she could about her new situation—and about Max Cassidy. In truth, she had boldly pulled off her shirt to gauge his reaction to her body. In retrospect, that had been a dangerous idea. He was the only other person on this ship. He could do anything he wanted to her. He could have grabbed her right then. Or he could invade her privacy now.

She stopped trying to let the shade of her friend reassure her and tuned her ears to her new environment, listening for sounds in the corridor. There were none, only the steady throbbing of the ship’s engines as they propelled the craft through the blackness.

When Max did not slip into her room, she let herself relax a little, although feeling comfortable was beyond her. Too restless to sleep, she got quietly off the bed and tiptoed to the door. Quietly she pressed her fingers into the grip and pulled to the side. When it moved a few inches, she let out the breath she’d been holding. Despite what he had said, she had thought he might have locked her in, but she could get out. And go where?

The illumination in the hallway was dim, but she saw a light shining somewhere to her left. She quietly followed it and found the man in his driver’s seat, or whatever he called it.

He was fiddling with equipment that she did not recognize.

In front of him a . . . picture . . . flickered to life. Like the scene of the two men fighting. But this was the image of one man, and it stood still like in a painting. The face hung in front of him for only a moment before the picture disappeared and was replaced by a black and white pattern. A disembodied voice said.

“Who is calling this unit?”

Max leaned forward and said, “Cut.” The next word out of his mouth was a curse. “Slat.”

When the picture snapped off, he sat drumming his fingers on the arm of his seat, his shoulders rigid.

It seemed the voice hadn’t been what he was expecting, and he obviously wasn’t pleased. Too bad she did not know more about communications on Danalon. For that matter, too bad she had jumped into this situation virtually blind.

Before he could turn around and catch her spying on him, she backed away and slipped quietly down the hall

Now what?

She was feeling a very strange heat seeping through her. She had worried that she might be getting sick. Now she did not know what to think. Maybe if she lay down, it would pass.

Her legs were shaky, and she pressed her palm against the cool metal of the hallway as she headed back to the small sleeping space, closed the door behind her and slid onto the bunk. The bed had a blanket, but the idea of pulling it over herself made her feel slightly sick, and she kicked it to the side.

He’d told her to sleep in her clothes. But they had turned scratchy against her skin, and she pulled at the front of the shirt. Her breasts felt hot and swollen. He had said that most people on Naxion had a disease. Was this a disease you got when you left the planet? Overlaying the heat surging through her body came a stab of panic. Had she made a horrible mistake?

No, she assured herself. Any way you considered her new circumstances, she was better off.

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Max clenched the arm of his chair. The transmission could have been caught by a normal answering bot, but he didn’t think so. He clicked off immediately, hoping he hadn’t been on long enough to be traced. “Fek.”

After sitting for a few moments with his eyes closed, he called up some of the government databases that he’d paid a hacker to access for him.

His worst fear was confirmed. Rafe Cortez had deactivated his communications account.

Why, exactly? Like, maybe he’d been arrested?

But if so, why? For agreeing to bring in illegal cargo from Naxion? And would he have implicated Max?

At the moment, there was no way to find out what was going on. And the uncertainty meant that returning to Danalon could be dangerous—for both himself and Amber.

But he couldn’t exactly fly her around in space forever. He’d need fuel. And he’d need to know where he stood with the law.

He was still contemplating his next move when he heard a low moan over the comms unit he’d left open. It was coming from the guest cabin.

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