Doran scrambled up the hill so fast he fell to the ground, where he frantically kicked and clawed his way over the ice to put some distance between them. His hand flew to his throat, but much like the pistol, his cyanide pendant was locked away on the Banshee.
A dozen gruesome scenarios played out inside Doran’s head, all of them ending in his death. Which wouldn’t be an easy one. His fingers trembled so hard it took three tries to press his com-link. “Renny,” he said, voice cracking. “If you can hear me, get Cassia out of here—and do it now. One of the Daeva found us.”
Solara and Gage were on their hands and knees, searching for extra weapons in a hidden storage bin beneath the floor when Renny’s voice came through the cargo hold speaker.
“We’re almost there.”
Solara glanced out the nearest porthole into the blackness, wishing Doran was safe on board. He’d said he was fine, but his com had gone silent since then. “If the shuttle’s not too banged up,” she said, “I can find Doran while you guys tend to Kane. Or maybe the captain can—” She realized her mistake and cut off while a lump rose in her throat. She kept forgetting the captain was gone, and each reminder was an icicle to the heart.
After that, she fell silent and went back to her work of searching the compartment. Gage didn’t try to strike up a conversation. He seemed to know that now wasn’t the time to talk, not with two crew members unaccounted for. And he was right. The words and grief could come later, after they’d safely reunited the family.
Family.
She hadn’t realized it until that moment, but that’s what the people on this ship were to her. At some point during this haphazard journey, she’d fallen in love with a bespectacled kleptomaniac, a star-crossed seducer and his displaced princess, and, most of all, an infuriating blue blood who used to call her Rattail. She’d learned that home was a fluid thing, and whether on a planet, on a satellite, or on a rusted bucket of a ship, this crew was her home.
She refused to lose another one of them.
When the Banshee landed, Cassia was the first person down the ramp, already suited up with the medic bag tucked beneath one arm. Solara fastened her helmet and jogged after her. In the time it took Solara to reach the crash site, Cassia had already climbed onto the shuttle and was peering through the windshield.
One look at the craft told Solara it wasn’t flight-worthy. Its nose had crumpled like an accordion and the passenger-side wing was bent at a ninety-degree angle, indicating that Kane had gone down headfirst when he’d lost control.
There seemed to be no movement inside.
Solara glanced at the moonlit stretch of landscape in the distance. Doran was out there somewhere. A sense of urgency churned in her stomach, but when she looked at the shuttle, she couldn’t make her feet move. If nothing else, she knew Doran was alive. She couldn’t say the same for Kane.
“How is he?” she asked through the link.
“He’s unconscious,” Cassia answered. Without missing a beat, she crawled across the wing to manually open the pilot’s hatch. She tugged on the lever, but it didn’t budge. “It’s jammed. Renny, bring the crowbar.”
“I’ll get the hydraulic pliers, too,” Solara said. “Just in case.”
She ran back to the ship and returned to the shuttle to find that Renny and Gage had already forced open the hatch. Tossing aside the heavy pliers, Solara moved closer and peered on tiptoe at Kane. The pilot’s harness kept his body upright, but his helmet hung low between unmoving shoulders.
Fortunately for all of them, Cassia didn’t waver. She plucked a vial of ammonia gas from her kit and filtered it into Kane’s helmet. The smelling salts made their way into his oxygen supply, and he jerked awake so quickly that his face shield struck Cassia’s, sending her tumbling into Gage, who in turn fell off the wing and landed on his backside.
Cassia scrambled to Kane’s side and blurted in a rush, “Are you okay? Does it hurt to breathe? Is anything broken?”
Groaning, he tipped back his head. “How’s Doran?”
Cassia replied by smacking his helmet. “Answer me!”
“Okay,” Kane called, shielding his head. “Yes, no, and maybe.”
Cassia released a long breath through the com. Her shoulders rounded, and then she abruptly began crying. In between sobs, she probed Kane’s shoulder and asked him if it hurt. When he told her no, she slugged him hard and shouted, “I thought you were dead!”
“Ow!” He rubbed the spot and started to make a wisecrack, but Cassia shut him up by raising both their face shields and kissing him hard on the mouth. He didn’t seem to mind the oxygen loss. The way he gripped the back of her neck and held her close said he’d rather suffocate than break the kiss.
That was when Solara knew they could manage without her.
“I’m going on foot to find Doran,” she announced. She set her com-link to track his signal, then followed the beeps until she faced the right direction. “He’s not very far. I’ll report back when I get there.”
Gage handed her a pulse pistol and mouthed, Take this.
She tucked it beneath her utility belt, nodding in thanks.