Page 16 of Saving the Space Pirate

He was right. Our only hope of rescuing Rekowski and Zak was by stealth. We had to slip in there and out without raising an alarm if we wanted a chance.

“This might be your only opportunity to get off this shithole,” I said to Joe.

“We all have family here. I won’t leave them behind.”

“Like I did, you mean?”

He grinned. “Yeah. You always were a selfish little bastard. But we all get out or none of us do.”

I handed him the laser pistols I’d taken from the guards. “For the cause.”

“Thanks.”

“We’ll come back,” Ruby said, her tone fierce. “After we’ve done what we have to—we’ll come back, and we’ll put a stop to this, somehow. I promise.” She crossed to where he stood and hugged him tight. He wrapped his arms around her and groped her ass, grinning at me over her shoulder. I let it go—this time.

Finally, she stepped back. He held out his hand to me and I shook it. We’d never be friends, but I respected him for what he was doing. As he left, I crossed to the pilot’s seat and switched on the screens that showed the landing bay. The bodies were gone. Blood stained the ground where the guy Ruby stabbed had fallen. Joe appeared and kicked sand over the mark. With luck, the bodies wouldn’t be discovered until we were back on the planet and had found Zak and Rekowski. And Yolanda Pendleton. And Ruby’s friend Sarah, who, I was pretty sure, she wouldn’t leave behind.

Christ, the list was growing. It was going to be a cozy trip back to Earth on theHelldiver.

For a second, I wondered where theHelldiverwas. Hopefully Creb had followed the protocols we’d set up and stayed out of trouble. We’d arranged for situations like this that whoever had the ship would return to the pre-set rendezvous point every twenty-four hours.

I flicked the switch to close the doors and then turned on the engines. The ship shuddered into life. “Strap yourself in, sweetheart.” I nodded at the seat beside me and Ruby half sat, half collapsed into it. She fumbled with the harness, her fingers shaking, and I reached across and brushed her hands aside, fastening the buckles myself. I gave her thigh a squeeze. “You okay?”

She nodded. “I just wish we could have at least taken the children with us.”

“There are too many of them and too many guards, sweetheart. We’d have been killed, and then there would have been no one to rescue Zak and your friends. And then Pendleton would vote to open up the Earth and lots of people would die.”

“I know. But we’ll come back and save them, won’t we, Killian?”

“One day.”

And I knew I was speaking the truth. She made me a better person. I’d been selfish in the past. I’d considered, after my shitty upbringing, that I deserved some fun. But now it was time to get serious. I took the controls and we lifted into the air. I raised the ship’s nose, and a second later, we were heading into space and back to Groth.

Ruby was quiet and I gave her a sideways glance. She looked sort of sad and I hated that.

“How’d you like to learn to fly?” I asked.

A smile flashed across her face and her eyes shone. “Really? You’ll let me fly?”

I patted my lap. “Come sit over here, and I’ll teach you everything I know.”

She was out of that harness fast and on her feet a second later. I pulled her down onto my knee. She wriggled her ass against me, and I grew instantly hard. “Stop that,” I muttered, “this is serious stuff.”

She wriggled again and I nuzzled the side of her neck.

“So flying,” I said, “it’s really quite simple.”

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