Doran took the bag and shook its contents into his palm—two chunks of ore. “Two chances,” he murmured. “That’s all we get.”
“You throw and I’ll shoot,” she told him. Doran didn’t point out her questionable aim, but she must’ve known he was thinking it, because she added, “I won’t miss.”
Nodding, Doran rose to his feet and gauged the distance between himself and the departing shuttle. Then he drew back his good arm and launched the first rock into the air. The ore sailed into range behind the craft, and Solara fired three blasts in quick succession.
She missed.
“Again!” she shouted.
With the shuttle gaining speed, Doran took his last bit of ore and gimped forward in a jog. When he knew he couldn’t create any more momentum, he used every muscle in his core to hurl the rock at the shuttle, grunting as he released it.
Don’t miss, he prayed while he watched the ore fly into the distance.
This was their last chance.
Please don’t miss.
Gripping the pistol in both hands, Solara fast-tapped the trigger and filled the dim evening sky with pulses of brilliance. Doran lost count of how many shots missed the mark and bounced off the hull. But then a ball of light appeared, growing brighter until he had to shield his eyes. A thunderclap rent the air, and he peeked between his fingers as the tail end of the shuttle blew apart. The blast must have breached the fuel tank because another explosion took hold, and the next thing Doran knew, engine parts were raining from the sky.
Twisted ankle be damned, he grabbed Solara’s hand and ran toward safer ground. Metal fragments pounded the landscape, each one spurring his adrenaline until he couldn’t feel anything except the drag of half-empty air into his lungs. They’d just dodged a sheet from the hull when Doran’s body collapsed beneath his weight.
He couldn’t go any farther, not without air.
Solara dropped to her knees beside him and yanked free his oxygen tube, replacing it with hers. He started to object, but she shushed him.
“We’ll share it,” she said. “Cover your face to slow the leak.” From within his hissing helmet, Doran heard the com-link fizzle to life, followed by Solara’s message to the crew. “Renny, I need an immediate track-and-intercept,” she said. “We’ve got five minutes of oxygen to split between us. Do you copy?”
At first, there was only silence. Then Renny’s voice came through the link with four of the finest words in the English language: “We’re on our way.”
“Your chief is dead,” Doran shouted to the fifty or so pirates kneeling before him in the great hall later that night. This was the largest room on board with an oxygen supply, so the survivors who’d surrendered their weapons had gathered here. Rows of men bent their heads toward the floor, fingers laced behind their necks as they awaited judgment. He had no plans to kill them, but they didn’t need to know that.
“You’re alive by the mercy of Daro the Red,” Solara continued, resting a hand on the pulse rifle slung over her shoulder. “If you choose to bear his mark, you’ll leave here on shuttles that I’ve repaired for you. But on two conditions. First, that you never return to this wreckage site, or to the planet below it. And second, that you’ll repay Daro’s kindness if he ever calls on you for a favor.”
“If anyone objects to those terms,” Doran said, “I’m happy to escort you to the nearest air-lock.”
Not surprisingly, there were no objections.
The pirates remained on their knees until Doran summoned them, one by one, to the stage at the front of the room. There they swore allegiance to him and rolled up their sleeves to expose both wrists. Each previous chief had made a coin-size mark in the flesh, visible now as thin scars or faded tattoos. The younger Brethren wore only a single image, having served no one else but Demarkus Hahn, while seasoned veterans had brands halfway up the lengths of their forearms. Doran added his mark above the rest, an interlocking DR monogram stamped in thermal ink that would cool if he activated it.
“When this grows cold,” he explained, “you’ll know I’m calling for you.” Then he provided a radio frequency where he would leave instructions if that day ever came.
Once the pirates accepted Doran’s mark, Solara ushered them to the last functioning transport air-lock, where Renny and Gage filled the shuttles to capacity and sent them on their way. The crew kept the process moving, and in the span of a few hours, they’d fully evacuated the ship.
With that task completed, they returned to the Banshee to tend to broken bones, lacerations, and laser burns. Doran meant to ask his brother if they could spend the night in the comfort of the underground bunker, but his brain shut out coherent thought as soon as Solara fastened a splint around his wrist. He kissed her on the cheek and collapsed onto the bed, fully clothed and neglecting to eat dinner.
Cheating death was exhausting.