Page 4 of Alien Devil's Prey
Another blast rocked us, closer this time. I could hear the whine of the interceptors' engines as they moved into boarding position. In minutes, they'd dock. They'd capture the intruder, interrogate me, and discover whatever he was really after.
Or I could end it all right now.
"Your ship is dying," the Vinduthi said, his weight shifting closer as the ship lurched again. I felt the vibration of his breath against my temple when he spoke.
"My ship was dying the moment you boarded it," I shot back, the bitterness in my own voice surprising me. "But don't mistake my desperation for your victory."
I met his gaze one last time, memorizing the cold intelligence in his red eyes, the small horns that curved back from his temples, the long, silver-streaked black hair pulled back from a face that was all sharp angles.
"If we're going down," I said, "we're going down on my terms."
Before he could react, I twisted in his grip and slammed my palm down on the diagnostic panel.
The response was immediate and catastrophic.
A massive power surge cascaded through the ship like a living thing. The lights didn't just flicker—they exploded. Consoles erupted around us, their screens going white-hot before dying completely. The steady hum of life support cut out with a finality that made my stomach drop.
Through the viewport, I saw the effect on the interceptors. Their targeting locks went dark, but it was more than that. Theirown running lights flickered and died, their engines sputtering into silence. The failsafe hadn't just blinded them; it had killed them. The three interceptors began to drift, tumbling dead through space alongside us.
The Vinduthi’s head snapped toward the viewport, and I saw something I hadn't expected—not just anger, but raw, stunned grief as he watched his own ship die, its lights going out one by one until it was just another piece of dead metal.
Primary propulsion failed with a grinding shriek of metal. The artificial gravity fluctuated wildly. We were plunged into the hellish red glow of emergency lighting, and even that was flickering like a dying heartbeat.
The ship lurched violently as it lost all automated control, throwing us both against the console. The Vinduthi’s arm came up instinctively to shield me from the worst of the impact, his body a solid wall between me and the chaos I'd unleashed.
Then he pulled back, and I saw his face.
The controlled aggression was gone, replaced by something far more dangerous. Pure, murderous fury blazed in those red eyes, and his lips pulled back to reveal the sharp points of his canine teeth.
"What did you do?" His voice was a low growl, a vibration I felt in my teeth that carried more menace than any shout.
I tried to answer, but my throat had gone dry. The magnitude of what I'd just done was sinking in. I had stopped them from taking us. But I'd also trapped us both.
The ship groaned around us, a sound like a dying animal. We were tumbling through the void now, a metal coffin with no power, no life support, and no hope of rescue.
"Congratulations," he said, his voice deadly calm as the stars spun past the viewport in a lazy, fatal spiral. "You've just killed us both."
TALON
This piece of junk was already dying when I'd cut my way aboard. The human had just finished killing it—and my ship along with it.
Through the viewport, I could see theNightfalldrifting dark and dead, its hull scarred by the power surge. My ship. Another link to the past, severed because of one desperate woman's choice.
My hand found the pendant at my throat—the Sovereign's personal seal. I'd failed him once. I would not fail my crew.
The viewscreen showed our trajectory—a graceful arc that would end with us becoming a brief, bright flare in the gas giant's atmosphere. The Conclave interceptors were dead in the water, their systems fried by the same surge that had crippled us. They tumbled helplessly, doomed. We were right behind them.
"What did you do?" The words came out low, dangerous.
The woman stood frozen by the navigation station, her face pale in the emergency lighting. "And my choices were?" she shot back, her chin lifted in that stubborn way I was beginning to recognize. "No weapons, nowhere to run. What else was I supposed to do?"
She wasn't wrong. But her solution had traded capture for death, and now the ship's emergency lockouts had frozen everything. I could fly this dying vessel by hand, or I could help her reboot the core systems. Not both. Not when every second counted.
I needed her.
The irony was a bitter pill. I wasted no time on threats. Three quick strides brought me to her side, my hand closing around her arm like a steel vise. "The manual flight controls are dead. I need you on the system bus, now. Find me a way to override the security lockouts."
I shoved her toward the secondary console as I dropped into the pilot's seat, my hands finding the dead manual yoke.
