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Chapter 7

Eden shifted the scannerto manual and ran a wide range scan, her pulse pounding in her head as she looked for their attacker. “I’m not seeing anything.”

“The bastards are cloaked. I’ve taken a hit to an engine, but we’ll deal with them. You head to Tiavac.” Ranger cursed. “There’s another one. We’ve got three ships on our tails. They want you.”

Eden’s fingers flexed, and her heart thumped. She wanted to help them fight, but their ship was no use. They were on a transport vessel, and their cargo was valuable. They couldn’t risk losing it.

“We’re on our way.” She looked over at Blaze. “We need to get out of here fast.”

He caught her gaze and nodded. “Let’s speed this thing up.” His fingers danced over the controls. “We can function with basic life support and divert extra power to the engine to give us a boost.”

“Who the hell is after us?” Eden kept scanning their surroundings.

“It’s the Pecket,” Ranger said over the comms.

Eden scowled. “They’re after the animals. If they get them, they’ll sell them to the highest bidder.”

“We’re not letting that happen,” Blaze said. “How about we try the new cloaking mechanism Dallin’s been working on?”

“Good idea. Activating it now.” Eden accessed the controls and punched in the information to activate the cloak.

“Hey, where the fuck did you go?” Ranger said.

“It’s working.” Eden grinned at Blaze. “We’re trying something new, Ranger. We’re still here, just cloaked.”

“Damn! These bastards are good. Get moving. We’ll see you down there,” Ranger said.

“We’ll be waiting for you. Thanks for watching our backs.”

“Anytime, beautiful.”

They sped toward Tiavac just as a wide scatter of laser fire skimmed past them.

“They can’t see us! How do they know we’re here?” Eden said.

“They might be detecting our heat signature,” Blaze said, “or they saw us just before we vanished. This cloak isn’t foolproof. It’s still in the testing phase.”

“Let’s not wait around to figure out how they know where we are. Punch the engine.”

Blaze adjusted course as more laser fire ripped past them, avoiding the ship by inches.

“Is everything good with you?” Ranger said.

“Yes, we weren’t hit,” Eden said.

“You will be soon if you don’t get a wiggle on. Move!”

“We’re gone.”

They closed in on Tiavac. Eden kept looking around, expecting to see some sign of their attackers, but they were playing an excellent game of hide the spaceship.

“You still good?” Eden said over the comm link to Ranger.

There was no reply.

She scanned for signatures of the ships defending them and let out a breath. “They’re still out there.”

“Don’t worry about them. They’re busy getting up close and personal with our enemy,” Blaze said. “It’s what they live for.”