Page 5 of Alien Devil's Prey
"The lockout protocols are military-grade," she said, her fingers already flying across the interface, pulling up schematics. "It'll take time to reroute power."
"Then work fast." I looked from her to the gas giant filling the viewscreen, its swirling storms beautiful and deadly. "I'll keep us from becoming a meteor."
The air around her was a mix of her fear and the sharp, clean scent of sheared plasteel from the damaged console. I could feel the ship shuddering as we hit the outer edge of the atmosphere, the frame groaning under the strain. My muscles burned as I fought the controls.
"The primary conduits are fused," she said, her voice tight with concentration. "I'm trying to bypass them and pull power directly from the engine core, but the system is fighting me."
"I can't hold her much longer," I grunted, sweat beading on my forehead. The ship bucked, threatening to tear itself apart. "Talk to me, Tamsin."
"The encryption is nested, but it's sloppy. I'm creating a recursive loop to bypass the final layer... I'm in!"
"Now?"
"Not yet! The systems are coming online, but they're unstable. Give me ten more seconds to stabilize the power flow."
The ship screamed as it plunged deeper, the hull glowing red from atmospheric friction. "Ten seconds is a lifetime we don't have!"
"Five. Four. Three. Two... Now! Full throttle!"
I slammed the throttle forward. The ship's systems roared back to life, and the engines screamed, pressing us both back into our seats. TheStardust Driftershuddered violently, but slowly, agonizingly, our nose began to lift. We hung suspended between salvation and destruction, fighting against the gas giant's pull.
The critical moment came when we hit an unstable pocket of the gas giant's electromagnetic field, sending us into a violent spin. The artificial gravity failed, and I found myself fighting to regain control.
"Left rudder," I said, my voice rough. "Compensate for the spin."
She moved as I directed, our bodies working in perfect synchronization. For those few seconds, we weren't captor and captive, weren't enemies forced into alliance. We were simply two people fighting for survival, moving as one.
The ship stabilized. The spin stopped. We broke free of the gas giant's atmosphere with a final, shuddering lurch that left us both breathing hard.
In the sudden quiet that followed, I became acutely aware of her. She was still at her console, her hair tickling my chin from the proximity. Her heart was racing—I could feel the energy of it across the small cockpit.
The last time I'd fought for survival alongside someone like this, it had been with my team. We'd won, but the cost had been high. This woman was alive. Breathing. Safe. The knowledge unnerved me more than I cared to admit.
I pulled back, putting distance between us. "We're clear."
She slumped in her chair. "Are we safe?"
"For now." I turned back to my console, checking our position and fuel reserves. We were alive, but we weren't out of danger yet. "We need to find somewhere to make repairs, if we can even get that far."
The immediate threat of death had receded, but it was replaced by something else. Something that made the air in the cramped cockpit feel charged, electric.
My hand drifted toward the restraint cuffs on my belt—standard procedure for securing hostile assets. The motion was automatic, ingrained by years of training. But I stopped myself. She wasn't going anywhere. The ship was barely holding together, and she was the only one who could fix it.
That wasn't why I hesitated, though. The truth was simpler and more dangerous.
I didn't want to see those defiant hazel eyes go cold with the knowledge that she was truly my prisoner.
Even if she was the most dangerous thing that had ever happened to me.
The victory felt hollow. The console displays flickered, throwing unstable light across Tamsin's pale face. Dark circles shadowed her eyes, and her hands trembled slightly where they rested on the inactive controls.
"What's our status?" I asked. "Give me the damage."
She stirred, straightening in her chair. "Primary engines at sixty percent efficiency. Navigation sensors are unreliable—too much interference from the gas giant's magnetic field. Life support is stable, but the recycling systems took a hit."
I ran my own diagnostics. The communications array was dead. The EMP hadn't discriminated.
"The debris field," I said, studying the sensor sweep. The dead hulks of the interceptors drifted in lazy spirals, dark andsilent. "In a field of wreckage this size, with sensor interference still playing havoc with our instruments, we can't be certain we've accounted for every hostile."
