Delightful. Just like me.
Very much like you, I shall agree with that.
Hakim backed away from Powell, lifting her eyebrows slightly as she looked at Thor and Jelena for the first time.
What do you want to do, Jelena? Thor asked.
She was surprised he asked, but also pleased. If we tell her what you just told me, do you truly think she could end this war by killing those three people? Or locking them away in a dark dungeon somewhere and making the Opuntian government believe they’re dead?
Not at this point. She should have had the Alliance representatives hunted down and killed a year ago. But she wasn’t in charge then.
Jelena preferred to think that Hakim wouldn’t have entertained outright murder even if she had been in charge.
The Opuntian government probably has its own deal with the mining corporation by now, Thor added. Although… hm.
Yes?
That blond man sitting against the wall behind them is from the corporation. I wonder if Hakim knows.
Probably, Jelena responded. Her intelligence network seems solid.
By now, Hakim had crossed the room, ostensibly to confer with her aide with the tablet, but she kept her back to the Alliance representatives as she did so.
“Prince Thorian?” she murmured. “Were you able to detect anything?”
“Yes,” Thor said, and looked at Jelena.
By the sun deities, he wanted her to decide? Yes, the original prisoner rescue mission had been her idea, but this had grown into something far greater. They were at a turning point. If she shared the prisoners’ secrets, she would be choosing to side with the Chollans. Even if she rescued them after doing so, they would feel betrayed if they found out. They would talk to War Minister Sorel, who might decide mercenaries who played both sides shouldn’t be paid. Was it selfish of her to even think of money and her own interests now? Yes, it was. But to have come all this way and gotten involved in all this, and then to get nothing would be frustrating. They might have found a legitimate freight job during this time and at least earned a small amount to put toward that loan.
Hakim’s eyes also shifted toward Jelena.
Jelena stifled a groan. She looked at Thor, but his face was unreadable, and he didn’t say anything, telepathically or otherwise.
Well… when was telling a truth ever truly wrong?
“They don’t have their government’s backing,” Jelena said.
Hakim sucked in a quick breath. “I knew it. I—”
An explosion roared, drowning out whatever else Hakim had to say. The floor heaved under their feet, and pieces of the stone ceiling tumbled down.
It happened so abruptly that Jelena only had time to think of throwing her hands over her head. Thor grabbed her and pulled her close to him, pressing her face into his shoulder as his power flared, creating a barrier around them.
Everyone, please, Jelena spoke into his mind, hoping he could hear the mental words over the cacophonous roar of rubble pouring down all around them. Dust clouded the air, and then light poured through from holes in the ceiling.
She sensed Thor extending his barrier to cover people who were running for doorways or simply dropping to the ground and protecting their heads with their arms. Jelena gathered her wits and narrowed her focus so she could help him.
“What was that?” a soldier yelled, pointing a rifle at prisoners who were storming the door, who wanted to escape.
“It’s too early for the bombers to be here,” the aide yelled, holding his tablet over his head, as if that would protect him if a boulder dropped onto him.
But Thor had extended his barrier over the room. Rubble continued to fall upon it as the weakened ceiling gave way, and people gaped up at the way it appeared to hang in the air over their heads.
A boom came from the other side of the plant, followed by a gush of water. Jelena sensed as well as heard one of the storage tanks rupturing.
It’s a single spaceship, Thor told Jelena. I think it came in over the ocean, but I wasn’t paying attention to the sky before. I do know it fired directly at the plant. It’s circling now, coming back for another attack. I’m… not able to divert the pilot. I can’t even sense him. Or her. Or it.
Android? Jelena asked.
No, I’d sense that even if I couldn’t manipulate one. This is something different. He lowered his arm and released her. We need to get out of here.
“They’re coming back,” Thor called aloud. “Everyone needs to evacuate the building.”
“Wait,” Hakim yelled, frowning at him as she struggled to her feet, looking dazed despite her order. Something must have struck her before Thor got his barrier up. “We can’t just—”
“He’s coming fast,” Thor said, moving toward the tunnel and making sure Jelena followed. “And targeting this structure.”
“Let us out of here,” one of the prisoners cried, shaking a fist at the soldiers resolutely guarding the only exit. The rest of the prisoners looked like they would stampede at any second. The Alliance people seemed as scared as the others.
A shadow fell across the sunlight streaming through giant holes in the ceiling—the ship returning. A civilian craft with a golden hull without any distinguishable markings.
That’s Austin’s ship, Jelena realized, horrified as the hawk-like craft flew straight toward them. The one that scanned the Snapper.
Everyone saw the ship barreling down on them.
“Organized evacuation,” Hakim said. “Go, and—”
There was nothing organized about the stampede that started. At the sight of the ship flying toward them, the soldiers broke ranks, forgetting about the prisoners. They turned and raced down the tunnel toward the front of the plant. The prisoners quickly followed. Hakim cursed, but she and her aide also ran after them.
“This way,” Thor barked, grabbing Jelena’s arm before she could follow.
He ran across the room in the opposite direction, pulling her after him, and pointed at one of the holes in the ceiling. Before she knew what was happening, she was lifted into the air and heading toward the opening. Thor leaped past her, alighting on a portion of the roof reinforced by a wall. Through no power of her own, Jelena landed beside him. He started running across the roof toward a street, but they would never reach it in time. The ship was right on top of them.
E-cannons opened up, and white light flashed as the energy blasts hurtled toward the building. Though terrified and certain they were about to die, Jelena managed to focus enough to create a barrier around herself, trying to extend it around Thor too. But he’d erected his own barrier, one that seemed to encompass half the building. The e-cannon blasts halted in the air ten feet above them and ricocheted upward, almost striking the ship as it swooped past. Too bad they didn’t.
Thor gasped, stumbling to one knee.
At first, Jelena thought a portion of the roof had crumbled underneath him, but it appeared solid in that spot. He pressed his fists against the red tiles and drew in a long, shaky breath. Jelena rested a hand on his back.
“Too much power?” she guessed. She’d never attempted to block e-cannon blasts and could only imagine the effort it would take—if she could do it at all.
“I can handle it.” Thor shoved himself to his feet, and her hand fell away. “But let’s get the hells out of his line of sight.”
He glanced toward the sky where the ship was banking to come around another time. Thor paused as Jelena resumed running, squinting toward the cockpit of the ship, a one- or two-man fighter craft that reminded her of an oversized Alliance bomber. She imagined Thor willing the pilot’s brain to explode, but he only shook his head and ran after her. The ship kept coming.
“I can’t sense him at all, and if not for my eyes, I’d barely know a ship was there,” he yelled.
Jelena reached the side of the building and paused at the twenty-foot drop. Thor jumped down without hesitating, landing lightly on his feet.
Jump, he told her.
&nb
sp; Though intimidated by the drop, Jelena was even more intimidated by the ship streaking back toward the building. No, back toward them. By now, the soldiers and prisoners were streaming out of the far side of the structure, but the ship didn’t veer off to target them. It was coming straight for Jelena. Or perhaps straight for Thor.
She jumped down, planning to roll at the bottom of the drop, so she wouldn’t break her ankles. But Thor lifted a hand, and she slowed before landing. She touched down lightly. There was no time to thank him. He was sprinting off toward a cross street that led away from the plant.
As Jelena raced after him, the ship fired again. E-cannon blasts slammed into the facility. Thor wasn’t protecting it this time, and they crushed into the roof, blowing out walls and machinery. Debris flew through the air, passing over and around Jelena as she ran. She kept her barrier up and grunted as a piece of wall the size of a ground truck slammed into it. She swallowed, well aware that she’d be dead now if not for her mental abilities.
Thor led the way down the street, around a corner, through an alley, and down another street. She didn’t ask if he knew where he was going—or if he thought their foe in the ship knew where he was going. It was all she could do to keep up.
Finally, he found a manhole cover in a dim dead-end alley. It appeared to be locked down, but he snarled and flung it open with cyborg-like strength. Or mentally augmented strength, more likely.
Thor waited for Jelena, watching the sky between the buildings and gesturing for her to go first. Hearing the roar of that ship’s engines nearby, she didn’t hesitate to leap down. Thor landed beside her and used his powers to return the manhole cover to its spot with a soft scrape-thud.
Absolute darkness fell upon them, but Jelena could still hear the roar of the ship’s engines. She sensed rather than saw or heard Thor lean against the wall for support. It scared her that he needed that support.
“Are we safe now?” she whispered.
“I don’t know.” He sounded shaken for the first time that she could remember.
Chapter 14
Jelena?
It was Erick’s voice echoing in her mind.
I’m here, she replied from her spot in the dark, leaning against a cool wall next to Thor.
Are you all right?
I very nearly wasn’t, but yes.
Where are you?
Huddling in a dark tunnel with Thor. Somewhere. She’d lost all sense of direction when they’d been running and wasn’t sure if they’d gone toward the water or away from it.
Huddling or cuddling?
I don’t think Thor knows what cuddling is.
That’s a relief. I thought it might be the reason you didn’t answer when Austin commed you.
If he commed just a few minutes ago, we were busy fleeing.
Well, he’s on his way in with the Snapper. Have those missiles been deactivated? And has everything fragile, living, or otherwise important been removed from the landing spot you gave him?
“Shit,” she said. Had the missiles been deactivated? She didn’t know. “Do you know where Hakim is now, Thor? Austin’s coming. We need to—”
“I know.” He brushed her sleeve with his hand and pushed away from the wall.
Jelena didn’t chastise him for eavesdropping—for all she knew, Erick had been including him in the conversation, though perhaps not the part about cuddling.
“I’m telling the prisoners to meet us at a temple on the way out of the city to the north, so we can take them to the landing coordinates you gave Austin,” Thor said. “And I’m hoping that ship doesn’t target the Snapper.”
“I’m hoping Hakim deactivated the missiles so they also don’t target it. Can you get in contact with her?”
“She’s unconscious.” Thor took her arm. “This way.”
“Unconscious?” Jelena walked after him without objecting, trusting him to lead her through the tunnels.
“Yes, I checked on her people when I was contacting the prisoners. They all made it out of the plant before it collapsed, even though some of them had to swim out on the flow from a ruptured tank. As soon as they made it outside, the soldiers tried to round up the prisoners. The prisoners objected. The soldiers lost their cohesiveness on the way out, and the prisoners were able to overpower them. Also, one attacked Hakim—one of the Alliance people, I think. He knocked her out. Her men prioritized pulling her to safety over reacquiring the prisoners.”
Jelena digested that. “So if we can get the prisoners to the Snapper, and the Snapper isn’t blown up by unfriendly fire…”
“We can complete our mission and get paid.”
Get paid. Jelena felt nauseated. It was so shallow to think of that after all this. What would happen when they dropped the prisoners off back in Opuntian territory? The Opuntians could finish their bombing and wipe everyone in the city—maybe on the entire continent—off the face of the planet and out of the history books altogether.
“If you want this to play out a different way, you’ll need to decide soon,” Thor said quietly, guiding her around a corner in the dark.
She kept stumbling over bumps and cracks in the ground. She couldn’t imagine how he could tell where he was going.
“Just use your senses and trust in them like a third eye,” he said.
“I have a hard time using my powers while I’m talking and thinking.”
He paused, and she expected a derisive comment. Instead, he said, “Then stay close, and I’ll guide you.”
“Thank you.” She should be thanking him for ten or twenty other things he’d done over the course of what was starting to feel like a never-ending day, but she could feel emotion welling in the back of her throat and was afraid that if she tried to articulate more, it would all spill over and she would end up crying. What was she supposed to do here? How had a simple attempt to earn some extra money turned into such an insane situation? And how had she come to feel responsible for so damned much? Who was she? No one. An eighteen-year-old no one at that. She wasn’t old enough to decide the fates of nations.
Thor stopped, and she took a deep breath, trying to steady herself, certain he could hear her every jumbled thought. The notion of falling apart in front of a witness shamed her.
“I’m fine,” Jelena said before he could say something, but a slight sniffle escaped, betraying her as certainly as her emotions could.
He surprised her by stepping closer and wrapping his arms around her. Even though she didn’t want to need a hug, her body betrayed her, and she clutched him back. There wasn’t time for falling apart—decisions needed to be made—but she buried her face in his shoulder and squeezed her eyes shut. She refrained from more sniffles—he wouldn’t want snot all over his deadly ninja attire—but she did let tears leak between her lashes. It would have been impossible to stop them.
He rested one hand on the back of her head, and she let herself have this one moment of weakness. In another minute, she would be strong. She would decide what they would do. She would come up with a way to fix everything. Or at least to salvage something.
“All the prisoners are coming to meet us,” Thor said quietly, his mouth not far from her ear.
She felt the whisper of his breath against her skin and grew aware of the warmth of his body through their clothes. She decided she shouldn’t be noticing such things. Otherwise, she would have to answer differently if Erick asked again about cuddling.
“I know,” she said, thinking Thor was hinting that they needed to get going. “I’m ready.”
“Including the Alliance prisoners.”
“Yes…”
“Assuming Austin’s able to land, and we get them boarded, and take off without being shot down, you’ll have time during the trip back across the ocean to talk to them. To convince them. They’re the linchpins in all this.”
Jelena stepped back and wiped her eyes. “That’s a good point.”
“Come on.” He touched her arm, probably pointing off down the tunnel. “We don’t w
ant to risk them being recaptured if we’re not there to meet them.”
“Or being pulverized by someone in a gold ship.”
“I suspect I’m that person’s target.”
“Do you know who it is?”
“No idea.”
“It must be another Alliance assassin.” Jelena wondered if Erick would be willing to talk to Admiral Tomich again and try to ferret out information on who was hunting Thor. Though by now, Tomich could know Thor was traveling with her and Erick, and if that was the case, he wouldn’t be able to offer that information. As it was, she shouldn’t try to finagle it out of him. That could put his career at risk.
“Perhaps,” was all Thor said.
They walked in silence for a few more minutes, the tunnel and the city above now eerily quiet. Then he spoke again.
“I do know what cuddling is.”
Jelena snorted. “Oh, really.”
“Yes. My tutors instructed me on the ways women might use their wiles to try to get close to me for nefarious purposes.” He sniffed. “As if I wouldn’t see in their minds that they had ulterior motives.”
“As if some woman would want to get close to you.” She grinned and swatted his arm.
“It’s happened,” he said, a trifle stiffly.
“Are you sure?” She’d seen the remote, hidden forest base where he’d been receiving his training, and there hadn’t been any female tutors in sight. She doubted he had much more relationship experience than she did. Dr. Dominguez didn’t seem like someone who would let Thor invite random women down to visit.
“It wasn’t there, and it wasn’t a relationship. And she did have nefarious intent.”
“Nefarious? Like wanting to be paid for the hour of time she offered to spend with you?”
“It was for the whole night, and her rates were outrageous.”
“The whole night? Was that her suggestion or yours? You must think highly of your Starseer stamina.”
She imagined she could see him slanting an oblique look at her, even in the darkness.
“You’re awfully worldly on such matters for a girl who still wears unicorn underwear,” Thor said.