Page 158 of Tempted by Celestial Bodies

At the last moment, he turned toward the trio closing in behind him. Another wave of light rolled away from him and collided with the raiders. I could just make out their crumpled bodies hitting the ground.

Holy oblivion!Equipped to handle groups, indeed. Another pulse, and this time I felt weight against my bones. I sucked in a breath. No wonder he didn’t need weapons—that manwasa weapon.

“Thathasto be the sign,” I muttered. Tensing, I stood and cast a final look in Thrash’s direction. Shrill screams continued, but Thrash had moved out of sight, probably herding the raiders toward their ship.

I turned my focus on the cave entrance, confirming no new raiders had joined the party. I had to hurry.

With quick, methodical movements, I rounded the corner and sprinted across the open space between the rocky outcropping and the shadowy entrance. No stragglers emerged as I approached, but that didn’t mean the cave was empty.

Sliding to a stop on the silt and gravel, I pressed my back to the stone wall next to the entrance. After a few focused breaths to slow my erratic heartbeat, I eased forward to peek inside.

Empty. My lungs deflated and ballooned on a relieved breath. The smell of ozone, freshly churned soil, and barely-there evergreen notes rushed through my nostrils. I’d always loved the smell of a newly terraformed planet on the precipice of population phase.

Releasing the breath, I double checked the area behind me was still empty. No raiders, but also, no Thrash.

Damn it! This wasn’t the time to lose focus. Thrash was a big boy—a very big boy. He could handle himself.

I pressed the heels of my palms into my tightly squeezed eyes until I saw stars behind my lids.

Refocused on the task at hand, I opened my eyes and slipped my daggers from their holsters, swiping my thumbs over the bio triggers to ignite the plasma blades. A glance inside confirmed the space was empty. I entered, daggers first.

Thrash’s assault had indeed emptied this entire level. Either the raiders were overconfident or stupid. Or they were neither and there was a group waiting below who had been warned to expect company.

A single ramp led deep underground to the machinery. Nipping my bottom lip between my teeth, I looked from the cave entrance behind me, back to the dimly lit ramp, keenly aware I could be walking into a trap.

I approached the ramp, pausing to study the multiple sets of deep grooves carved into the hardpacked earthen and stone floor. The spitting plasma from my blades cast dancing light across the floor and on the walls.

If I were instructing my team, I would tell them to wait. While Thrash had taken on a larger number, he was in the open with plenty of places to take cover. The machinery room below was a small, enclosed space.

Cognizant that my only chance against an ambush lay in a silent approach, I carefully placed one foot in front the other as I started down the ramp. My gaze swung between the gouges in the path and the dim length of tunnel in front of me. When the equipment had been installed, we’d rolled it in on platforms. Other than what was necessary to install the machinery, there had been no damage to the cave. This was all the raiders’ doing.

Judging by the number of destructive trails leading up the ramp and out of the cave, my gut told me this place was empty. But there was a lot of equipment which meant there were no certainties.

One long, sloping turn after another crept by before pale pink light spilled onto the ramp from overhead. Those were the emergency lights. The fucking raiders had severed the power completely.

The lights flickered. With the total shutdown and so much equipment on the grid, the backup generators would have a hard time keeping up.

Still, no sound rose from below, so I continued my descent.

Despite the perilous situation, my stupid brain grabbed the reins and steered back to Thrash. He hadn’t yet joined me. Was he hurt? Was he dying?Was he dead?

I was an idiot. He was fine. Or he wasn’t.

Neither changed the fact that I had a job to do.

Pausing to center myself, I stared hard down the ramp while I drew in a deep breath and held it for a count of three. Nothing moved below. There were no sounds. I blew out for three seconds, and repeated.

Thoughts of Thrash, of empyrean planets and daiquiris scattered. I was close enough to the base of the ramp that soon the light and hiss from my daggers would alert anyone below of my approach. Naked daggers would have to do. I brushed my thumbs over the triggers and paused, allowing my eyes to adjust to the deeper dark of the tunnel. Tension ratcheted up my spine.

I rolled my shoulders, and holding my weapons in front of me, crept into the machinery room. No when I entered, no noises echoed from anywhere. It was empty.

In the faint glow of the emergency lights and bioluminescent leaves of the subterranean trees similar to those on the surface, my gaze tracked from one dormant machine to the next, cataloguing the damage. Parts and tools were strewn across the room with several devices in various stages of dismantling. This setback would probably extend my time left on KR-732, but it wasn’t catastrophic.

The raiders knew what they were doing, cracking open each machine and taking the most valuable guts—circuits and wires that could be sold on the black market or melted down for their rare precious metals.

I shifted my focus to the habitat regulator, a silent goliath against the far wall set between two stunted trees. Many people, including raiders, thought the planet stabilization equipment was the most important. They were wrong.

If the colony habitat failed, the mission failed. Habitat maintenance was of the utmost importance. The station was airtight. After five hours of downtime, all emergency power would be funneled to oxygen filtration, which had already happened judging by how cold it had been inside.

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