“Hold on,” Kane said, and pulled the shuttle up hard enough to send Doran swinging forward like a monkey on a vine. The frigid wind sliced through his gloves as a jolt of raw pain ricocheted from his wrists to his fingertips.
When the backward swing came, he held firm while his muscles trembled. A quick glance below showed the landscape whizzing past in a blur of ice about four feet from his boots, probably near enough for him to survive the fall. But as predicted, the burden of his weight caused the craft to wobble. Kane overcompensated for the imbalance, which resulted in Doran’s arms jerking halfway out of their sockets. His hands ached, and he knew he couldn’t hold on much longer.
“I have to let go,” Doran yelled.
“Give me a second,” Kane told him. “I’ll slow down as much as I can.”
As the shuttle teetered closer to the surface, Doran mentally calculated the best way to meet the frozen ground without fracturing every bone in his body.
Kane had just announced, “This is the best I can do,” when Doran lost his grip on the cable. With inertia propelling him forward, he crossed both arms over his chest and tucked into a roll. The impact took his breath away. His helmet absorbed a blow hard enough to make his ears ring. Rocks jabbed at his shoulders and forearms. He tumbled fast and hard until an upward hill decreased his momentum. Then, as abruptly as the fall had begun, Doran found himself lying on his back, staring at the stars.
And blessedly alive.
His lips spread in a manic grin, and he filled his helmet with so much laughter that his stomach cramped. He moved his limbs one by one to test them. He’d broken his left wrist for sure, maybe a few ribs as well, but despite that, the smile never left his face. Pain could be treated and bones healed, but all the medicine in the galaxy couldn’t fix dead. And he wasn’t dead. He couldn’t wait to tell the crew.
“I’m okay,” he reported. “A little banged up, but nothing major. Kane, when this is over, I’m going to have your baby!”
Still grinning, he waited to hear Solara chime in with a laugh or for Kane to quip that he’d settle for a month of galley detail instead. No one answered.
He tapped his link again, wondering if the impact had shattered it. “Can anyone hear me?” He pushed onto one elbow and scanned the moonlit horizon for the shuttle. “Kane? You all right?”
The link crackled to life, and he detected Renny’s voice. “Copy that, and glad to hear it,” he said. “From the suit trackers, it looks like Kane went down about half a mile north of you. Sit tight while we check it out.”
“Is he okay?” Doran asked.
When he didn’t receive a response, he sat up to peer at the sky for the North Star, then remembered that he wasn’t on Earth. His only hope of finding Kane was to reach a vantage point high enough to spot him at a distance. The act of standing up told Doran he’d twisted an ankle. He limped his way uphill and scanned the terrain in every direction.
No luck. He would have to wait.
Figuring he’d be easier to spot here, he took a seat on the ground and let the adrenaline work its way out of his system. With nothing but the whistling wind to fill his ears, the thoughts he’d banished an hour ago began creeping back in—questions about his parents, his newfound brother, and, most of all, his future. But Doran wasn’t ready to face any of that yet, so he turned his attention to the sky and studied what was left of the orbiting pirate ship.
A great crack divided the rear of the hull from the rest of the ship, but if the emergency systems were operational, there should be survivors within the sealed-off areas. He was thinking about the best way to reach them when a shuttle engine roared nearby. He glanced over his shoulder to flag it down. Solara must have stolen one of the pirate crafts.
The shuttle landed, and he limped down the hill to meet it. As the side hatch opened, an unfamiliar pair of boots swung into view, definitely not Solara’s. They were attached to a man of average height and built like a bull. His chest was so broad that it stretched the silvery fabric of his thermal suit to its limits. Doran stopped in his tracks. The man seemed to be alone, though judging by the array of gadgets hanging from his belt—two curved blades, three pairs of cuffs, and a coil of electrified rope—he didn’t need backup.
Multiple restraints, Doran thought, taking a backward step and feeling along his hip for the pistol that wasn’t there. A bounty hunter, or maybe a slave trader.
But then the man turned his head, and the light from his shuttle glinted off something inside his helmet. Metal studs dotting the skin at his temple—prefrontal cortex blockers.