“Battle cruisers?” he asks like he already knows.
“Three.”
“Figured. That means there’s a larger ship just out of orbit. Likely a warship.” Evo hustles across the grass to the cement pad by the door and looks at the screen, but it’s dark. “Hang on. Let me see if there’s another way in.”
Evo jumps onto the roof like it’s not a feat of nature to ascend a structure three times his height in a single bound.
“There’s an access up here.”
I climb the worn concrete and make my way to him just as he breaks free the metal latch and rips the hatch lid off.
He tosses it aside and drops into the room. I peer down at him as he shuffles through papers, tablets, and scans the space with spinning blue lasers that project from his eyes.
“That’s a cool trick,” I call down to him.
“Flash’s skill. Not Flashbomb. Different unit. Decommissioned. But he taught me how to scan a space in aflash.”
He reaches up for me.
I lower myself inside and drop.
Evo catches me and gently slides me down his front, setting my boots on the floor. He’s rock hard beneath his armor, and it stirs lust in my belly.
“Oof. Barely got a taste of that, and I already want more.”
His face brightens as stardust moves into his cheeks. “Later.”
“Promise?”
He winks at me. “Come. I’ve found a passage to another hangar. I’m not sure if there’s anything in there, but there’s another tunnel that leads into the mountains. Hopefully, we can lose them out there. Solcrue are bad Terran fighters.
“What about all this stuff?” I ask, leaning over to study the schematics on the desk. “They look like Titan designs.”
He nods as he grabs a grenade from his belt. “I’ve scanned most of what was on the desk.”
Outside, I can hear the hum of thrusters. The Solcrue cruisers have found us. And then I see something that draws my attention. I move the papers aside, exposing a Black List of Creators disowned from the program and the reasons. “Shit... We didn’t come here by accident. Toriszi must’ve sent us here. He had to. Look at this.”
Evo scans it. “Recorded. Drop it, and let’s go.”
He twists a grenade and tosses it as he lugs me out of the room. Then he guides me quickly down the hallway, around a bend that descends deep into a cool cavern.
“Did you see that?” I ask.
“Yes.” Evo glances up at the section of path we just descended, then shoves open a set of doors with his shoulder. “Toriszi is a black listed Titan Ship Creator because he tried to give us too much power.”
“Not that,” I reply as we check the ships inside the hangar for anything operational.
The first Omega Force fighter won’t even power up the dash. The next ship is under construction. The last is missing a critical fuel cell.
“Our only chance is the fighter, but it’s no better than the emissary’s cruiser we arrived in,” Evo says. He scours the workbenches for something while I look for survival gear. I think we’re going to need it.
“I meant his connection to Xiphos.”
Evo straightens. “How did you pick up on that? It does not state it on the page.”
His eyes flash like he’s reviewing it again. “I still do not see the connection.”
“Toriszi, Kelta, and Reidar are all pilots, Evo. Toriszi built a portal. He built a fucking portal on his ship. He was quiet the whole time we talked about Xiphos. He sends us here, away from the others. He can’t come here because he has to take care of his family. But we’re connected. He kept his forearm covered the whole meeting. I think he’s like Brodin, Steele, and Daken. Or he’s like me.
