Page 25 of Stealing Mercury
She nodded, but there was still worry in her eyes. “I don’t know where the others were going to take you, but we’re not far from Gollerra territory.”
“Gollera?”
“Oh. Of course. I wasn’t thinking.” A slight pink tinged her cheeks. “Roma is in the Earth Alliance territory—human controlled. Gollera territory is under the rule of a race called the Golley.”
“Not humans?” The idea of a place where humans did not rule settled into his mind and started to weave into his reality.
“Right. I don’t know what your status would be there, but I think you’d have a chance to be free.”
Her words hung in the air. Small motes of hope that could surely choke him if he allowed himself to breathe them in.
“Roma won’t know you got off the ship. I’ll tell them you died in the collision—that the cargo-hold was breached.” She backed away, stepping out of reach. She wrapped her arms around herself, as if warding off a chill she couldn’t blame on her environmental controls. “When help comes, I’ll go with them, but I promise I’ll come back for you. There’s just one thing.”
He wanted to pull her to him, to wrap his arms around her, to ease her worries, but she was out of his reach.
“You can’t...” She cleared her throat and when she spoke again her voice was steadier, her posture stiff with resolve. “You can’t come after them on the planet’s surface. I know you probably want to hurt them and they deserve it, but it would ruin everything.”
He hid the panic her words churned up in his gut. “Your plan is flawed,courra, my courageous one.”
“How?” The tiny lines appeared on her forehead as she studied him.
“They’ll try to punish you. I won’t allow that.”
“They won’t know.” She shrugged. “At least they won’t be certain.” She strode over to a stack of dull gray containers with the red Roma logo and started checking the labels as she spoke. “I’ll have to rig the ship to blow out the cargo-hold, to support my story and explain why your bodies aren’t onboard. I know it isn’t a perfect plan, but it’s the best I can do.”
He wanted to shake her. The moment the whip-master no longer needed her as pilot, she’d no longer be safe from his twisted games. “You’ll come with us. We’ll keep you safe.” He’d rather be stuck with her on a primitive world for the rest of their lives than allow anyone to hurt her.
“No.” She started rearranging the containers, huffing with effort. “I can’t. I need to be with them when help comes. And I could never survive the drop in the cargo pod.”
“I’ll protect you. You’ll come with us.” The growl was slipping back into his voice.
She shook her head. “There’s no enviro in the cargo-drop. The three of you will survive the low oxygen environment to the surface. I’d never make it.”
He wanted to howl. “Send them down to the planet and stay aboard with us. You can repair what you’ve done to the ship after they’re gone.”
She activated a switch on the hover-pallet beneath a stack of containers and pushed it toward the drop-pod. “The damage to the ship from the collision is too extensive to get her skip-ready and they’ll never believe me about the rest if I don’t go down with them.”
“She’s right,” growled Lo. “They won’t believe her.”
Mercury snapped at Lo to silence him.
“Please,” she said. “Trust me and be ready.”
She stopped at the hatch to the cargo-drop and unlocked it. “I’ve programmed it so all you have to do is step inside. After it’s launched I’ll set the cargo doors to blow.”
“And you?”
“I’ll be long gone in the crew’s pod before the explosion.”
She pushed the pallet in, disappearing from sight for a moment before returning to stand in front of his cage, but still out of reach. “The supplies will make things easier for you on the surface. Now promise me, you won’t come after Drake and Resler. Thatnoneof you will harm them.” His brothers growled softly, but Sam kept her gaze locked to his, body tense as her voice dropped to a whisper. “Please. Prove you aren’t the animals they claim you are.”
Helpless to bend her to his will, Mercury keened low with worry and pain. She had no reason to think them more than the animals Drake had labeled them. Yet, she had protected them at every turn. That spoke more of her heart than her fear. This plan of hers was set, and they had to see this through, but it would kill him if anything happened to her.
“I promise,courra. For me and my brothers. We won’t harm them.” Once spilled, the words left a burning hole in his gut. He didn’t blame her for the shrieking ache. She couldn’t know how many times the whip-master’s lash had torn through skin to strike at his pride. How many times watching it dig into the flesh of his brothers had left his heart in tatters.
She nodded, pulling out the code-key. “And you won’t try to go after them now, either? You’ll stick to the plan?”
Her jaw tightened and her eyes searched his face, as if she wasn’t sure he would keep his promise. He didn’t want to, but he had little choice but to rely on her knowledge of how to survive beyond the world of the arena. He nodded. “I’ve promised. Will you trust me,courra?”
