And he wished he believed the lies he was spewing for her benefit. The truth, however, was that he had no idea what was going on or how to help her or her people out of this disaster.How could I have brought this down on them?He should have remembered that damn shield.…
“How many fighters can we scramble?” he asked her.
“You said not to.”
“Circumstances have changed my mind.”
She bit her lip as she considered it. “I don’t know. Not my base.” She looked around for her sisters, but they seemed to have vanished during the attack.
Until Kindel popped up from the rubble on her left. “Ember? Do you know the call sign Merksaker?”
She shook her head.
Kindel tapped her link. “Blast him out.”
“Wait!” Bastien stopped her. “Give me the digits.”
“Hold on that order,” Kindel said quickly, then handed him her earpiece so that he could hear the pilot.
“Drake? That you?”
“Yeah… can you tell these lunatics to back it down a notch?”
“You alone?”
“Here with Jari. On Kimmerian business. We were sent as your backup.”
By that, Bastien knew Drake didn’t want him to let the others know he was the Caronese prince or that Safir was a former League assassin. “Gotcha,drey.” He glanced over to Kindel. “They’re friendly. Can we not blast them out of the sky?”
She relayed the orders on Cin’s link while Bastien returned to the call. “Who sent you?”
“Was the least we could do after everything you’ve done for our families. Since they were all tied up with official business, Saf and I decided we couldn’t let you do this alone. We picked up your tail after you left the Gort base and were planning to hang back until your League friends showed. Nice fireworks, by the way. Learned from Darling?”
“Hauk, actually.”
“Nice.” Drake laughed.
And their presence here touched him a lot more than he would have thought. “By the way, I appreciate you coming.”
“Think nothing of it. It’s what families do.”
“Hey, I don’t mean to interrupt,” Safir Jari said, cutting in. “But as the resident League expert here, I can tell all of you that our friends will be sending reinforcements. A lot of them with a ton of warheads. We need to evac that base immediately. If you don’t have a safe place, we need to locate one that can jam them from identifying lifeforms.”
Bastien turned toward Ember.
She looked to Kindel.
“I’ll get it started.”
“We’ll need a ship,” Bastien reminded her. “You know, mine kind of exploded.”
Ember groaned at the reminder.
Drake laughed in his ear. “I have a small ship that can seat five. You want me to take passengers?”
Bastien didn’t hesitate to accept. “Yeah. Thanks.”
“Let me get clearance and I’ll be down in a few.”
