Now he was the one who was baffled. Did they do math differently on her planet too? “Three of us?”
“You, me and your extremely overdeveloped ego.”
He opened his mouth to speak, but she put her hand over his lips.
“Enough,” she said in an imperious tone that verified her breeding. “My mother is on that ship and they’re going to kill her. Can you understand the written console language enough to help me find some way to let her know what happened? Or at the very least to alert security to guard her?”
Ignoring the fact that her hand was incredibly soft and felt good on his skin, he snatched it away from his lips and returned it to the arm of her chair. “We’re in an escape pod, babe. It’s not designed for communication of any kind.”
“Well that’s stupid. How are we to alert them that we’re—s
“An emergency pulse is emitted every six seconds. It goes out on the EBF to let the authorities know there are living occupants in the pod who need rescue.”
She let out a relieved breath. “Then they’ll come back for us.”
“No. They won’t.”
“Why?”
He gestured toward the darkness where the Arimanda had vanished. “It’s a ship filled with politicians and royalty. They’ll notify a League patrol to check on us. But there’s no way in hell they’d come near us for fear we’re setting a trap for them. For all they know, someone packed this bad boy with enough explosives to disintegrate a subclass planet with a life form just big enough to register, and the minute they near it…” He ended with the sound of a nasty explosion. “Trust me. They won’t chance it.”
She raked her hands through her hair as if frustration filled her too. “I can’t believe this is happening.”
“You? I was planning to leave our little soiree, but not like this.” And definitely not with her. This was what he got for changing his mind about leaving and heading back to his rooms to apologize to his father.
Caillen growled as he sat back on the chair and started running over their settings to see where the pod was taking them.
“What are we going to do?”
Like he would tell her that? It wasn’t any of her business. Not to mention the small fact that he still wasn’t one hundred percent convinced this wasn’t a setup on her part. For all he knew, she was still playing him. They might very well be accusing him of kidnapping her right now. Something that also carried a death sentence.
Even for a prince.
Her people were ruthless and he’d insulted their queen. Publicly. There was no telling what they’d do to retaliate. His father had said as much.
“Don’t worry about it.” He moved his hand over the monitor and brought up the star chart on their main display. He would use his link to call for backup, but without a booster signal it was useless. They wouldn’t be able to call anyone until they landed. Damn.
She scowled at the brightly colored chart that showed him every corner of their current sector. “What’s that?”
He pointed to a planet on the right and touched it, then dragged his finger diagonally to enlarge it for her to see. “We’re heading there and should reach the surface in a little over an hour.”
“An hour?”
He gave her an arch look over her despondent tone. “We’re in the middle of space, far away from the gravitational pull of large masses of rock and self-luminous spheres of gas. It makes landing a bitch, but it keeps us from crashing into something uncomfortable. Sorry if that offends you.”
“You’re what offends me.”
He had to stop himself from responding to that imperious tone with something even more juvenile. There was just something about her that got right up under his hack and made him want hurt her. Gods, if he had to be trapped with a woman couldn’t it have been one who would make passing time with her enjoyable?
“Oh well… next time I see someone choking you, I’ll leave them to it.” Or help them. “Especially now that I understand what it was that motivated them. Too bad I didn’t bring the garrote with me.”
“You’re not funny.”
“Really not trying to be.” He fell silent as he pulled up information on the planet they were headed toward.
Desideria didn’t want to be impressed, but the ease with which he navigated the intricate computer and read the foreign language was something to be envied. It made her wish she’d paid more attention to the classroom portion of her education. “What language is that?”
“Universal. Same as we’re speaking. Can’t you read it?”
She felt her face heat at a truth that embarrassed her. “If I could, I wouldn’t have hit the wrong button.”
His eyes widened in surprise. “No one ever taught you to read Universal?”