Page 42 of Taken By the Alien Killer
We run with the ship trying to buck us. Doors slam and unlatch and slam again as his sabotage ripples through systems like mischief in a devout town. I grip the bag of tools we stole from the shop so hard the straps burn my palms. Alarms change pitch, a chorus going feral. Somewhere behind us someone howls, and the sound crawls down my spine and hides.
“The hangar’s ahead,” CynJyn says, breath ragged, horns tipping red in the wash. “We take Bay Two. Bay One is lava.”
“Copy,” Rayek barks. He shoulders a door and it thinks about arguing and then decides to live. Heat pours through; smoke claws at our eyes. The hangar is a cathedral to violence—gantries like ribs, scaffolds draped in scorched canvas, skiffs crouched like predatory insects, and our peacock—our stolen ceremonial cruiser—trussed and sulking on a mag cradle in the far bay, her chrome smudged with someone else’s fingerprints.
“There,” I say, and the word is a fist.
“Move,” Rayek orders, and we do, legs burning, lungs on fire. A Reaper crew swings into view on the upper catwalk, mouths wide, guns up. Rayek steps right, interposing, and the first volley tattoos his torso shield in angry light. The air smells like frying circuitry and charred resin. He grunts once—just once—and keeps going, broad back between us and a universe that wants my blood.
“Rayek,” I say, because his name jumps out of me when I’m scared like a prayer does. “You’re?—”
“Alive,” he answers, and he is, and he is terrifyingly beautiful in the way a storm front is beautiful when it is coming for your roof.
We hit the base of the cruiser’s ladder at a dead sprint. “Go,” he commands. “Up.”
CynJyn and I climb, boots shrieking on rungs, hands slipping, hearts trying to learn bird. The hull hums under my fingers, half-awake, like it recognizes me and is trying to rise to meet me. I throw my arm over the edge of the hatch and haul; CynJyn dives headfirst, rolls, hits the cockpit in one feral slide. The panel screams for codes—it screams in our house voice—and she slaps a bypass on the port with a laugh that sounds unholy and alive.
“Hello, beautiful,” she croons. “Wake up and sin.”
“I’m not leaving you,” I tell Rayek as he takes the last rungs three at a time.
He glances up, gold locking on green. “I am coming.”
“Don’t you?—”
“Inside,” he says, and the word is a door I walk through. I drop into the corridor, my shoulders catching, my thighs thudding the deck. He slams the hatch and a bolt hisses past where my head just was, sparking against steel. The smell of hot ion is sharp enough to cough.
“Strap,” CynJyn shouts from the cockpit. “They’re mad. They’re so mad.”
“Provoke them later,” I snap, bouncing toward the copilot’s chair and strapping in with hands that fumble. “Take us now.”
“You got it,” she says, and she is already flying, already throwing the ship’s controls around like a dance partner she intends to corrupt.
Rayek is a flash of black and silver and then he’s gone, jumping off the ladder back into hell because he’s him. I choke on air and hate the world. The cruiser shivers as systems cascade from sleep to ready, the console blooming cobalt and gold, the engines rumbling awake like a large animal deciding not to kill us yet.
“Launch cycle’s locked!” CynJyn curses. “They’ve got us on a mag leash. I can’t?—”
“Move,” I say, and slide into the too-familiar seat, fingers tracking the ceremonial interface like it’s a body I know. “You flirt. I threaten.” I dig into the panel’s service mode, punch in the swimmer’s override code a Baron’s daughter isn’t supposed to know, and feed the system a star of false alarms. The ship blinks, crosschecks, decides she’s on fire, and drops safeties with a scandalized sigh. “We’re free.”
“Marry me,” CynJyn says, and jerks the yoke.
“Get me a ring,” I fire back, heartbeat in my throat.
Rayek hits the floor just as the cruiser yanks against her tether. He lands in a crouch, spins, and slams his palm against the internal seal. The hatch kisses shut and the ship hisses pressure. “Buckles,” he growls, and the restraint is already biting across his chest as he shoulder-slams into the bulkhead to wedge himself between us and the door.
The hangar goes white.
An explosion punches the bay; the shock wave rattles my teeth and makes my vision strobe. For a breath everything slows, like the universe decides to let me look at it for once. I see sparks arcing off the gantry; I see a Reaper on the catwalk lift into the air as if a child snatched his string; I see the mag cradle under our ship belch smoke and then go limp. The smell is baked plastic and copper and the clean signature of something expensive dying.
“Now!” CynJyn shouts, and the cruiser leaps.
We skim the edge of the bay mouth so close I feel the cold lick of vacuum across my lips. The hull scrapes a beam and screams about it; CynJyn laughs like she was born to be court-martialed. Behind us the hangar roars and coughs and tries not to come apart. Ahead, the starfield opens like forgiveness.
“Gimme juice,” she demands. “All of it.”
“Take it,” I say, hands a blur, feeding power from everything that isn’t life support. “Take mine.”
She does. The cruiser surges. The Bloodseeker’s guns wake and come hunting; tracers spit across our stern, ugly and eager. The ship shudders as something kisses her backside hard enough to bruise; panels flash warnings; a relay screams and dies. Rayek leans into the bulkhead to keep his body between us and the deck and snarls like an animal at a world he intends to outrun.
