Chapter 5:
The battle was heated. Jessica dispatched a Fed officer and then another. She ran down a hallway, looking for something but she didn’t know what; laser fire crumpled the wall she had been standing near a moment before. She ducked and then hit the deck, rolling to one side. She bounced back to her feet, her weapon drawn. Beams of killing light shot from the tip, and she heard a long groan.
But beyond that came the sound of many feet running. Her head went back and up, and she moved, ducking low and trying to get something between her and the half dozen armed officers firing at her. The walls splintered and the floor buckled. The idiots were destroying the ship!
Well of course they are, her fevered mind whispered to her.They know they are going to die if they do not get to the pods, which are just past me. So let them get by, and they will stop firing.She dove behind a low wall and then rolled again, sliding into an open doorway to find herself in a small tech room with lit up panels and controls.
What the hell?
She frowned, trying to understand what she was seeing.
Ships were new to her. She had never been on one until she had been captured and sent off on the slaver ship, and she had spent much of that trip in a cryo chamber. Talon had taught her much in the time since he and his siblings had rescued her and the others from that ship, but still, tech for ships was not her thing at all.
The officers had given up trying to kill her and had pinned all their hopes on the pods and escaping to the larger ships ahead. She waited, her back against a wall and her ears straining to hear any sound. When none came, she slid out of the door and back down the hallway toward the sounds of a pitched battle.
She burst into a room to see several wreckers firing at officers who had taken cover and had the advantage. She had managed to come in behind the Fed officers, however, and her laser swept their ranks, thinning them enough that the others could lay down cover while she went back out the door to prevent herself from being mowed down by return fire.
Talon slid down the hallway on his back, laser firing. Her head turned to the right, and she watched as a Fed officer who had been about to fire at her exposed back went down in a heap.
Talon grinned at her. His eyes were wild, and his teeth shone. “You’re welcome.”
“I came from in there. I went in and ambushed a few but they started firing, and I was unprotected.”
Talon said, “I don’t hear anything now.”
He darted his head around the corner and shouted, “Harlon!”
Harlon shouted back, “We’re all good boss! Found a massive credit cache! Must be at least a million credits in here! Grabbing it and heading for the hold!”
Jessica said, “Come on.”
She got to her feet. The deck was slick with blood, and she jogged along it, being careful to stay away from the walls. One crack could suddenly turn into a massive rift, and that rift could suck her out into space with no trouble at all, and she knew it.
They went slowly as they found the bridge. The crew was either dead or gone. The lights of the bridge blinked and flickered, casting it in stripes and splashes of alternating dark and light. The place felt creepy and strange, and Jessica blinked hard as she tried to focus her vision.
Her other senses took over. She could smell blood and weapon fire discharge on the air. There was the acrid reek of the control panels burning. The sound of the ship groaning as the wrecker crew broke it apart so that it would be unrecognizable as it drifted off into space.
She heard a muffled groan. Then the sound of a weapon leveling and preparing to fire. She moved, her arm coming out and pushing Talon along with her.
They landed in a heap on the floor, their limbs tangling and winding together. Her heart, already sped up by the excitement and the danger, increased yet again. Her mouth went dry. It was so very sexual, whether she wanted it to be or not.
She did want it to be sexual. She wanted him more than she could say and the insistent thrust and push of his muscular and very masculine body against hers just made her even more aware of that fact with each passing nanosecond.
They untangled and wound up on their bellies, side by side. Their weapons went to work, and their enemy fell. The sound of lasers whining and things shattering created a deafening din.
Talon’s hand yanked her up off the floor. His touch electrified her even as her body moved. She pelted along behind him, racing toward the end of the bridge.
Talon found the control panel and set it so that the ship would keel off course and fly directly into the star system, where grav-pull would help to dismantle what was left of it, a thing guaranteed to make sure that they left very little evidence behind as to who they were and how they had taken the ship.
Crewmembers under attack always had conflicting stories, Talon had told her early on, and sometimes those conflicting stories were really all the cover that they needed, but it was always better to be safe than sorry. They found an officer, wounded but alive, hiding below a table. Talon hauled him out.
Talon put his weapon to the officer’s forehead. “Why were you supplying the Gorlites?”
The man shook his head. His eyes were wide with fear. Talon said, “Listen, there are still escape pods. You are not seriously wounded. There is still time for you to escape but you are not going anywhere until you tell me what I want to know.”
The man sagged. His eyes went from her face to Talon’s. Jessica watched the officer’s body language. He was huddled and bent, one hand cupping his stomach and bright blood showed on the shoulder of his tunic.
Her senses kicked into high gear. Her body moved, speeding through the distance between her and Talon. Her foot lashed out and met the officer’s hand just as he tried to draw the weapon he had been holding below his tunic. The weapon hit the deck with a clatter and chink, and a short burst of fire came from its muzzle, spiking into a control panel and creating fire.
