“You’re taking a great risk,” Janek said. “If—”
“If Ronan has betrayed us, you have my permission to shoot him. Taye, is Kord close enough?”
‘Ten seconds, Captain.”
“Montague, turn about and stand by to activate the drive.”
“Captain,” Toussaint cried, “the enemy is firing!”
The Pegasus shuddered as the disruptor beam struck the hull.
“Montague!”
“Turning, Captain.” The Pegasus began to wheel about, away from the shaauri vessel.
“Five,” Adumbe said. “Four… three…”
“Fire.”
An intense shaft of white light illuminated the striker’s image on the aft screen. A warm, strong hand gripped Cynara’s shoulder.
“Shuttle in range, Captain,” Adumbe said.
“Montague, go!”
The young woman’s fingers flew over her console, and at once the Pegasus vibrated with the almost inaudible whine of the slingshot drive as it sprang to life. The striker disappeared from the ship’s sensors, and the screens revealed a distorted view of stars, dancing like the mysterious lights Dharman sailors professed lay deep in the waters of the Indigo Sea.
“Kord?” she asked Adumbe.
“He’s safe.” The relief in his voice spoke for everyone on the bridge. Cynara allowed herself a moment to breathe and glanced at the hand still resting on her shoulder.
Ronan’s hand, scarred from a hundred unequal battles far more personal than the one the Pegasus had so narrowly avoided.
“Thank you,” she said, shifting from beneath his touch. He took the hint and moved back, deftly sidestepping Janek and his gun. A cold draft blew down Cynara’s collar.
“Adumbe, damage report.”
“The shuttle bay suffered a hit which has disabled the door mechanism. A repair crew is on its way.”
“Charis, are the engines holding?”
“Just barely. She’s running at half capacity and showing the strain. I advise deactivation at the earliest possible moment.”
“Acknowledged. Montague, ETA to VAL03?”
‘Ten minutes, Captain.”
Now was the most critical moment of their escape. They had outrun the striker, but once the slingshot drive was deactivated, the Pegasus would revert to its prior velocity. The secondaries weren’t powerful enough to keep it ahead of the shaauri vessel. If the Pegasus could hold out for another ten minutes, until they’d reached the wormhole…
“Captain!” Adumbe said. “We’ve lost Kord.”
“Lost him? Poseidon’s balls—”
‘The drive field fluctuated and dumped him,” Adumbe said, frowning over his console. “The Pontos is intact, but she won’t be able to reach us unless we deactivate the drive.”
Cynara punched her fist on the arm of her chair. If she turned off the drive and waited for Kord to catch up, the striker’s engines might be powerful enough to close the distance before the Pegasus could enter the wormhole.
Once in the wormhole, the drive could not be used at all without dire consequences.
“Montague, shut it down.”
She felt the subtle change in the ship as it switched to the secondary drive. At this speed, the Pegasus wouldn’t reach the wormhole for nearly an hour.
“Kord? Copy that?”
“Yes, Captain.”
“We’ve obviously got a problem. Once you get to us, you won’t be able to dock.”
“I’ll find a way, Little Mother.”
“You have one hour, and pray that the shaauri don’t catch up.”
He acknowledged, and Cynara visited each of the bridge stations, sharing a joke with one crew member and a bit of encouragement or praise with another. It was impossible to forget Ronan’s presence, though his only movement was the turn of his head to follow her progress. How could anyone stand so blasted still?
The hour passed slowly, but it passed. Repairs on the shuttle bay doors continued. Lizbet Montague reported their imminent approach to VAL03, one of the three wormholes in the human Valhalla system. It wasn’t until the last few minutes that the striker entered sensor range, and Cynara knew they were out of options.
Kord was out of time. “I have the Pontos on visual,” Adumbe said.
“And it can’t dock. Kord?”
“Captain?”
“You’ll have to piggyback again and hope you don’t fall off this time.”
“You plan to use the drive in the wormhole?”
His question held as much alarm as she’d ever heard from him. “The striker’s right on our tail. It’ll catch us if we don’t.”
Capture was the one fate they couldn’t risk. She didn’t have to ask Adumbe their odds of survival. If the slingshot drive were activated within a wormhole, the interference between the two would cause the wormhole’s collapse. It was only a question of how quickly, and if the Pegasus, and the shuttle, could make it out before the wormhole imploded.