“We’re about to exit slipspace,” he said, releasing me reluctantly. “Duty stations.”
“Wait, you’re not coming with us?”
He shook his head. “I’ll be running surveillance and tactical analysis from the ship. Your eye in the sky.” He cupped my cheek gently. “I won’t be beside you, but I’ll be watching over you.”
I squeezed his hand one last time. My Knights. Always there when I needed them most.
He turned toward the bridge. I headed the opposite way. Toward the shuttle bay, toward the mission, toward the plan I’d set in motion.
Time to save some lives.
Chapter 5
I strapped into the shuttle and pulled on my helmet. The seal clicked, then locked with a pressurized hiss that cut off the world. The chaos of the landing party; shouts, equipment clanging, boots on metal, vanished. Now there was only my breathing, harsh and too fast in my ears.
I looked at the cockpit and saw Torvyn running the pre-flight checklist, his movements precise and unhurried. I felt a tap on my arm and turned my head. Lyrin sat down across from me and tapped the side of his helmet.
"How are you doing, Kira?" Lyrin's voice filled my helmet, warm and close despite the barrier between us.
"Nervous, scared, freaked out. A combination of all those emotions plus a few I can't name," I said.
He nodded. "I understand. I felt the same way on my first combat mission."
"Yeah, but you have a blaster; I have nothing."
"It's better without a blaster, trust me. Remember, your job is to save the women in that camp, not hurt people."
"Okay. It's probably safer for everybody in here if I don't have one."
Another voice cut through the comms, Torvyn's, steady as bedrock. "Kira, listen to me. I've flown through ion storms, corporate blockades, and a black hole's event horizon. This? This is just another landing. You focus on your job, I'll handle mine. We'll all get home."
Something in my chest loosened slightly. "Thanks, Torvyn."
"Standby for launch," he said, all business again.
The Starbreaker's shuttle bay doors slid open. A blue-grey orb filled the shuttle's front viewport, swirled with white clouds, and was dotted with lights that blinked on as the planet rotated away from its yellow sun. For a moment, I forgot to breathe as the sheer impossible beauty of a whole world spread beneath me. Billions of lives down there, andsomewhere on that surface, women were trapped in cages, waiting for rescue.
Waiting for me.
I pressed my hand against my chest. Tightness squeezed my lungs until I gasped, not realizing I'd been holding my breath.
"Launch vectors have been loaded. Commencing RADAR and communications jamming." Vaelix's voice crackled through the static, professional and calm. Then, quieter, almost like he didn't want the others to hear: "Kira, I have complete confidence in you. You were meant for this. All the data support it."
I blinked back unexpected tears. "Thank you, Vaelix."
"Godspeed, task force. Commence launch countdown."
"Three, two, one, shuttle Alpha, away," Torvyn said.
The shuttle dropped. My stomach lurched into my throat as the harnesses crushed down against my shoulders, restraining me while the ship fell like a stone toward the planet below. Through the top viewport, I watched as four other shuttles shot out of their respective bays, like burning asteroids aimed at the center mass of the large planet.
Then the main engines fired. The force slammed me back into the crash couch, pinning me as we plummeted into the gravity well. My vision tunneled, darkness creeping in at the edges—
Suddenly, my suit constricted around my legs and arms, forcing blood back into my brain. The darkness receded.
"Two minutes to touch down," Torvyn's voice crackled to life inside my helmet, an anchor in the chaos.
"This is Starbreaker tactical," Vaelix said. "Sensors show two guard shacks at the front entrance of the compound. We assess that ten guards are lightly armed. We have not intercepted any off-planet communications from them, nor any internal communications about our shuttles."
