Page 53 of Venomous Lust
“The Myrador can take a crash landing, but not another hit.”
“Not with the current state of the shields, she can’t.”
Khal tilted the Myrador in a dizzying escape maneuver, his knuckles almost white as he strained to steady the failing ship. “We have no choice.” His tone was cutting and he shot Hazel a glance over his shoulder before returning his attention to the controls. “Muhar is in range. Set the calculations.”
“The surface is uncharted. The whole damned Beyond is uncharted.” For the first time, there was an edge of fear in the Avonie’s voice, a crack in the polished surface. This chilled Hazel to the marrow of her bones. If Zaxis was panicking, then they were doomed. “We have no idea what we’ll find down there! We could land right in the middle of a sea or crash on a mountain!”
“Better die trying to survive than die waiting.”
Khal’s final answer shut down the argument and Zaxis bent over his control panel, inputting the complex set of data that would permit the calculation for their safe entry into the atmosphere.
If they even survived that long.
Weightlessness made Hazel’s stomach churn as the Myrador’s artificial gravity faltered. The next second, a darkness flooded the control room, a blackness so complete, Hazel could not see the tip of her nose. The darkness invaded her lungs, her veins, the hollows in her bones.
She screamed, her mind finally ripping apart under the terror.
More detonations shook the darkness, loud and evil sounding.
Hazel’s ears rang as Khal uttered a curse, but her universal translator couldn’t work it out. Another quake agitated the Myrador, but it was smaller. Farther away.
“All power has been redirected to clouding.” Zaxis spoke clearly, but Hazel barely understood his words. “We have only a few minutes to get out of that ship’s scanning range and down on Muhar’s surface. More than that, and we lose all power.”
Lose all power. Lose heating. Lose oxygen. Lose their lives. They wouldn’t survive more than a few minutes in space without power.
“A few minutes is all we need.” Khal’s voice was lined with steel, with a resolve that pushed death away, defied the odds and laughed in the face of danger.
Then, there was no place for words. There was no place for thoughts, there was only weightlessness and fear as the Myrador surged into the aseptic void of space, all lights down, racing for the surface of an unknown world where they might find salvation as easily as damnation.
But anything was better than dying in this cold, all-consuming black void. Hazel reached blindly for Celaith’s hand, closing her fingers around the frail, cold knuckles of the Arvak.
A golden orb appeared in the distance, growing at a fast pace in the window. There it was: a savage planet, a world of the unknown and danger.
Their only chance.
The planet grew and grew until it filled their field of vision. Hazel’s hand around Celaith’s held tight as the Myrador started to shake—but not with the great, teeth-chattering quake from before. No, this time it was a familiar tremor, one she’d felt before. They were entering the atmosphere.
Fire filled the glass window as they dropped at an uncontrolled speed toward the unforgiving ground below. At some point during the fall, she began to scream again.
And she didn’t stop.
* * *
Khal
Hazel was unconscious, and it was a blessing. Fear gripped Khal’s very soul, but not for himself. Hazel was the center of everything, and the very thought of harm coming to her filled him with the foreign, paralyzing feeling. Ice and terror slithered inside his mind as he clung desperately to the Myrador’s control wheel.
Hazel was too fragile to survive a crash. He stood the best chance of them all, but she would surely die from the impact, along with Celaith.
A world without Hazel in it was meaningless. He understood the bloodmating link now. Dying would be the easy part if she was killed in the landing, surviving her even for a short time would be torture.
The unknown planet below spread to his view as they finally flew out of the clouds and an endless expense of rocks, sand and vegetation filled their field of vision.
“See if there’s a suitable landing place nearby,” Khal ordered as he attempted to slow the descent of the Myrador. “Send any residual power to the engine.”
“We have one percent power to the landing engines in reserve.” Zaxis’s voice was edged with fear, but the Avonie still controlled himself. “That won’t be enough.”
“It’s all we have,” Khal answered as he located what appeared to be a long, flat stretch of land devoid of vegetation. “Wait for my signal.”
