Page 42 of The Interstellar Rake's Irresistible Kiss
Chapter 12
Trixie knew the look on his face, that blankness and intensifying dread. She’d felt it when her mother had announced each new divorce—and worse yet, each new marriage. And it had been worst of all when she’d fought her way out of stasis only to be shoved back in.
This was bad.
“Recall the teams,” he snapped into the pad as he spun on his heel toward the exit. “We’re heading home.”
Her throat tightened. Did he even realize he’d called Azthronos home?
He grabbed her hand and hauled her forward even as he spoke with the pilot. “Repeat everything.”
“It was a very short message, sir,” the lieutenant said helplessly. “The radiation degraded part, but they aren’t sure what happened.”
A burble of sound burst from the pad on Nor’s wrist and then stabilized. “At chronos nineninety-seven, an unregistered regiment of combatants overwhelmed dock security and ejected the maintenance and resupply staff from the dreadnaught. One dock worker was killed, and eleven were wounded, three severely. The attackers took control of theGrandiloquenceand left the dock. Damage was extensive. The dreadnaught engaged its mimic shroud, and its location is presently unknown.”
Nor cursedunder his breath. “Lot of unknowns.”
And what was known sounded terrible. Death and destruction.
Trixie swallowed hard. “It was him.” Her whisper was too broken to be heard over the hiss of static from Nor’s dat-pad.
But somehow he heard. He stopped and swung toward her. “What?”
“Blackworm.” She forced the word through numb lips. “He stole your ship.”
An icy blue glare pierced her. “Youcan’t… What makes you say that?”
“Because I might be an ignorant closed-worlder, but I know how bad luck works in this universe.”
He stiffened, as if he wanted to deny her assessment. But then he nodded once. “If he still has resources here, he may have used them.” He spoke into his pad. “Lieutenant, patch into the station’s comm system and send a coded message back to Azthronos. Tell them tocross reference with the database Dejo Jinn left for us and check in with any associates of Blackworm. See if they’ve had contact. If he has the dreadnaught, he may be heading back to Azthronos for a bit of vengeance.”
Trixie clamped her hand on his elbow. “You have to reinforce security at the estate. Lishelle is there alone. At least Rayna is with the duke.” She tightened her grip on him. “Weneed to get back to the shuttle.”
He put his hand over hers even as they hastened out into the corridor. “Trixie, I know you’re frightened, but we can’t run away—”
“We have to catch him,” she interrupted.
Nor glanced down at her, one eyebrow raised. “Youamazeme,” he murmured.
She didn’t have time to blush. “Blackworm could’ve stolen a ship anywhere if all he wanted was to escape,” she said.“But he came back here. I don’t think you need to worry about revenge against anyone on Azthronos. His interest was here, on the station.” She clamped her free hand over the satchel, as if she could take courage from those missing women.
Then she switched her grip to brush the blaster at her thigh. Because courage made for fine poetry, but a burst of plasma set to kill was more practical.
“Captain.” Linn’s tensed voice sounded smaller than before. “All the teams have responded and are returning. Except Lieutenant Otlok and Ensign Amanu. They were assigned to the engine compartment, and shielding there may be preventing comm connection, but I can’t reach them through the station’s comm system either.”
Nor glanced at Trixie, his expression grim. “I’ll detour to the engine and findthem,” he informed the pilot. “Be ready to leave on my command.”
Notas soon as we get back, she noticed. On his command, whenever that might be.
Her nerves screamed, a silent keening that seemed to deafen her from the inside.
Until Nor grabbed her shoulder. “You know the way back to the shuttle.”
She heard the permission in his voice to get away from the danger she sensed this time, whenlast time she’d known nothing of alien abductions and black holes and spaceship captains.
What a regret to discover that knowing the danger didn’t make escaping it any easier.
“I’m going with you,” she growled at him.
