Page 46 of Marked
A minute was averylong time when you were hurtling toward death with nothing but an infinite, uncaring void waiting to swallow you whole.
“Update on the drone’s progress, Tanika?” Alaric pressed.
“Thirty more seconds,” she said.
“Do we have thirty more seconds?” I blurted, unable to keep my own panic from my voice.
Tanika turned her icy pale eyes to me and sighed. “You’re not going to fall out of the sky,” she snapped, rolling her eyes at the same time. “Maybe next time you’ll let me run diagnostics before you demand I get my ship off the ground.”
Alaric glared at her and in that moment, I was very glad he wasn’t looking at me that way.
The ship dropped again, and I cried out with fear, feeling my stomach pitch down straight to the tips of my toes. The entire vessel vibrated hard, forcing me to grit my teeth as I struggled to handle the sensation of the floor being ripped out from under my feet. I gripped the armrests so hard that my fingers hurt as the ship rattled once more, jolting me from side to side.
Tanika smiled as the ship leveled out and began to pick up speed.
“Air leak repaired,” she said, her tone rather flippant. “We should probably deal with the Ghengra shields now.”
“The what?” Alaric muttered as he did that thing where he dragged his palm over his face again. He was clearly unused to anyone talking back to him and especially new to the fact that he couldn’t even lay a single hand on this bratty woman because she wasn’t even real.
I snorted at the entertainment and Alaric turned his dark eyes on me. Quickly, I turned my eyes to the viewing window and acted like I was far more interested in the view down below instead. I could feel him watching me long after that though, and I couldn’t help but squirm in my seat knowing that he was.
“Ghengra is equipped with a large shield around its atmosphere. It prevents unexpected ship entries, but it also happens to be trapping us inside right now,” Tanika replied.
“Are there entry and exit points nearby?” he asked, his brows furrowing with concern.
“The nearest one is not far, but it is heavily guarded,” she warned.
“What kind of firepower do you have at your disposal, Tanika?” he asked, and I gazed at him as he studied the screen still in front of him. It changed to show a bunch of diagrams that appeared to be the technical specifications of the ship’s artillery.
He grinned widely.
“I knew I made a good decision by picking this model,” he muttered to himself, before turning back toward Tanika. “Fire the twin phase emitters and the particle beams at full power at the same time once I give the order. Tell me when we are within the firing range of the exit point.”
“That’s a lot of energy. We risk overheating, and that will take much longer to repair than the air leak we had before,” Tanika replied, her attitude completely nonexistent. She looked nervous now actually.
“Either my plan works, or we crash into smithereens once we collide with the shield. If we make it through, we’ll deal with whatever comes with it,” he smirked.
“Fucking risk takers. They’re the worst,” Tanika muttered.
“Buckle yourself in, Kendra. It’s going to be a bumpy ride,” Alaric exclaimed.
I gazed out and far above us, I could see what appeared to be a glossy sheen between our ship and the great void of space. It flashed once, revealing what appeared to be an interconnecting grid pattern of hexagons across the entire surface.
It must be the shield Tanika was talking about. The ship hurtled towards it, and I could feel myself growing more anxious as we drew closer. With a nervous breath, I closed my eyes, not wanting to see death coming.
“Ten seconds to firing range,” the hologram said, her voice rising in panic.
“Hold,” Alaric instructed. Several more seconds passed, and I opened my eyes to see a glowing silver circle in the middle of the shield. Silver rings rotated outward from the center, swirling around and around in a dizzying pattern. The more I stared at it, the more it appeared to be made of steel instead of a glowing disc of light.
“Four seconds,” Tanika replied, increasingly more edgy than before. Her voice drew my attention away from the exit point.
“Prepare weapons. Hold until I say to fire,” he demanded.
“Two seconds,” she said, now clearly more rattled than earlier as we approached the shields.
“Fire!” Alaric roared, his voice a raw command that sent a surge of electricity through the air.
Tanika’s eyes rolled back for the briefest second, her form flickering as the ship responded. Then,everythingexploded into motion.
