I guess that made sense. I’d have had to smack him upside his fool head if I’d had to sit in that cell for a second longer than I needed to.
“Hold on to your breakfast, my love. This isn’t a smooth process.”
He wasn’t kidding.
The Cutter’s rear engines roared to full power and shot us out of the hangar at what had to be eight Gs, slamming me into my chair with the weight of an elephant sitting on my chest. I’d trained to contract my core and leg muscles to keep my blood moving and how to breathe to keep oxygen flowing to my brain so I didn’t pass out, but that didn’t mean it still didn’t suck ass.
“Transisitoning!” One of the pilots yelled, their voice strained with the effort.
Jumping uses existing wormholes by opening the door so to speak. You need to travel to the jump points to pass through them.
This?
This was violently ripping a gaping hole into the universe and hurling ourselves through it.
I did not stay conscious for it.
All I remembered seeing was a blinding light, pressure like I’d never experienced before, and wind that seemed to come from inside me rather than from any outside force.
I came to with Rathal patting my cheeks, his face serious.
“Wake up, my prize. It’s time to go to work.”
My head ached a little, but overall I had all my fingers and toes.
“That was awful,” I told him, unbuckling myself from the restraints and taking his hand when he offered and stood.
“Yes. We have a rather rudimentary drive. It's impossible to build the sophisticated versions that are found on Rijiteran Mother ships without their technology readily available. In our early attempts, we lost a few ships.”
I looked at him sharply. “Come again?”
He waved away my concern. “Don’t worry. That was thousands of years ago. They are perfectly safe now.”
For some reason his reassurances didn’t make me feel better, but it wasn’t like there was anything to do about it now. It had already happened.
“Where are we?” I asked, looking around. The viewscreen showed only the black void of deep space.
“We are behind the gas giant Gnadus 6W0. The jump gate to Tuanov is on the other side of the planet. We are in the space between the giant and its rings where radar is distorted. It is similar to hiding in the fog. We were instructed to wait here for the Rijiteran Mother shipVengeance. The squadrons, as you call them, are taking this time to get into their ships and await their drop. I figured you’d want to join them.”
My heart skipped a beat, stopped, and then jackhammered in my chest as the pre-battle adrenaline surge flooded my system.
“Yeah,” I said tensely. “Let’s go.”
Som’ae stopped us as we went to pass her. “Good luck, Callisto of Earth. Remember the Rijiteran way. No Mercy.”
I nodded to her, mouth tight. “Yes, ma’am. I remember.”
Aga stopped beside me, bowing his head at Som’ae, and then waving us forward. “Come on, I’ll escort you to the flight deck. We can discuss strategy on the way down.”
thirty-five
Callie
Theplanwassimple.
We’d wait for Jack and her people to occupy the Unity Dreadnaught while the fighter squadrons dropped planetside to engage the Unity Insects in the air over the Tuanov capital city of Imyathume where they’d congregated most of their forces.
The Tuanov Queen and her Consort were mission critical, but Aga, Rathal and I were on special assignment to find Patty and Rema. We’d drop in, clear the city, and then fly directly to the palace where Patty and Rema’s last reported location was, extract them, and bring them aboard theVengeance.
