“I know. Hold on in case this doesn’t work.”
He turned the pod again, but not enough to miss all of it. The force of the shot slammed her back. She struck her head hard against the panel. Wincing in pain, she didn’t speak or cry out for fear of distracting him.
To her utter amazement, Caillen dodged the next blast.
“C’mon, baby. Go. You know you want to. Just keep humming and don’t stop.” Their pod lurched forward again and this time, finally, it made contact with the planet’s gravitational pull.
It sped up dramatically as they fell toward the surface.
The fighter opened up more fire, spraying across space in a last-ditch effort to kill them. Luckily Caillen dodged most of it.
But not all. The lights blinked and sparked as the pod rocked to the point she feared again she might be sick. Or worse that the pod would come apart.
Caillen flipped a switch over his head. “We’re going in hot.”
“Meaning?”
“The blasts took out our brakes and homing beacon. I’m going to try and find us something soft to land on. However, I make no promises. My control of this thing isn’t the best and… well, if you’re religious in any way, now would be the time to summon some divine intervention ’cause, no offense, the gods don’t think much of me most days. However, they might listen to you.”
Desideria started praying. She held her breath as he struggled with short-circuiting electronics. The scent of burning wires was pungent and she hoped the wires were the only thing burning and not their fuel lines.
Caillen appeared completely unshaken by everything that was happening. Other than the occasional mumbled obscenity when their frying electronics shocked or burned him. “I’d kill for one ion cannon. Just one.”
She knew the feeling.
Caillen ran over their settings as he assessed their coming situation. The good news? They could breathe on the surface. The bad news? There was no information on this planet at all. No maps, nothing on culture. Nada. Not even the name of the place.
Those were things usually reserved for penal colonies and it explained why the pod hadn’t chosen this site for their landing.
Why hadn’t he left them on course? At least with the Andarion planet, he’d known what he was getting into.
This one…
An image of them crashing into a prison with giant man-eating aliens went through his mind. Yeah, that’d be his luck. Couple thousand pissed-off superhuman, psychic aliens with an ax to grind against smugglers and royalty…
Why didn’t I stay in my room?
He glanced over his shoulder at the princess. Her face was pale and drawn, and she had a death grip on the arms of her chair. But at least she wasn’t screaming or having a real girl moment. She was holding it together and he really appreciated that.
Even though she was dressed as a Guard, her posture was that of royalty. She was planning to die with dignity and that caused a wave of respect for her to swell inside him. If he admired anything in life, it was those who could stand brave while terrified.
If I’d stayed put, she’d be dead.
Yeah, okay, he felt better about being here, but not by much. Wouldn’t do any good to save her from that only to have her die on impact or from the assassin chasing them.
Or get eaten by giant flesh-craving alien prisoners…
Gods, how do I get myself into this shit? Whatever unlucky constellation he’d been born under had been working overtime lately.
The pod started shaking around them.
“What’s that?” Desideria asked with a note of panic in her voice.
Warning lights blinked, letting him know that their engine was failing, meanwhile there was a gash in the back stabilizer that was widening. But only one of them needed to be terrified, so Caillen downplayed the severity of their situation. “Turbulence. Sit tight and brace yourself for the landing.” Unless the pod disintegrated before they made it that far.
“Why are you lying to me?”
Her question surprised him. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw her staring straight at his back. “Who says I’m lying?”
“The tone of your voice. It dropped an octave.”
Damn, she was good. He returned his attention to the catastrophe at hand. “Fine. The pod is coming apart.” He flipped the computer to the external monitor just in time to show her one of their stabilizers being ripped off the right side and with it went the last thing he wanted to see go. “FYI, we needed that. It was the remains of our landing gear. I was trying not to scare you, but since you insist…”
Desideria swallowed. She wished now she hadn’t asked. “Would shifting our weight help guide it?”
“You don’t weigh enough to affect anything.”
“So what do we do?”
“Grab your ass, and hang on like you want to keep it.” He was making more mental calculations as the surface of the planet drew rapidly closer.
They were flying so fast Desideria didn’t see how they could land and not become a stain on the planet’s surface.
Well, her aunt would be happy.