Page 27 of Tempting Jupiter
She took a breath, in and out, struggling for a calm that wasn’t going to come. Her brain hadn’t decided if the situation was disaster or miracle, but her body just reacted to the certainty that she needed to be ready. “The power consumption shows a substantial loss. The link to theSalley Hois… gone. I… I think we’re floating free.”
Seneca spoke from outside her peripheral vision. “The captain told Owens this craft is damaged beyond repair.”
“People lie,” she warned. “It may be damaged, but there can’t be a hull breach or we’d already be dead. The power is low, but it obviously isn’t out completely. And since we’re all still breathing and not floating around weightless, the grav-generators and environmental controls are working well enough.” She took a deep breath and released it. “But Bug’s power reserve is nearly drained so I can’t know anything for sure until I can get up to the flight deck.”
“Wrap your arm around my neck,” Jupiter encouraged.
As she did, he slid his arm under her butt and stood, lifting her with him.
Seneca appeared at their side. He tucked the dislodged warming-blanket back around her. “Why would they disconnect?”
Feeona gritted her teeth against a fresh wave of pain. “I hate to speculate, but my plan to trick them into thinking you were in the escape pods might actually have worked.”
Jupiter carried her through the hatch and down an unfamiliar corridor. “You didn’t think it would?”
She let her head rest against his shoulder as she answered. “TheSalley Hois a salvage ship. It has all sorts of exterior equipment. Things they’ll be able to use to recapture the escape pods. I thought they’d catch at least one, probably two, of them before they got completely away from the ship. I figured they’d shoot down the other.”
Jupiter made an odd, but not unpleasant, noise in the back of his throat. “Owens wants us alive.”
She smiled, remembering their earlier conversation. “He does. Even if Fitz didn’t blast the pods out of existence, he still had to deal with Stone and Barney.”
“Stone and Barney?”
“The, uh, Alliance patrol. They were actually a team I paid to act like a patrol and get me off theSalley Ho.”
“You knew you would be caught and need assistance,” Jupiter summed it up correctly.
“All part of the plan. The key to survival in my business isn’t never getting caught, it’s making sure the mark never knows you stole from him.”
“But you were caught before you could steal from the captain.” Jupiter reached the ramp back to the upper levels and started up.
“That’s what he thought, until my damn team decided stealing you from Fitz would earn them a better payday than I could provide. They double-crossed me. And damn it, if they didn’t let Fitz know they were working for me. Now he’ll question everything and probably figure out I was there to copy his navigation charts.”
“So, you weren’t trying to steal from him, just copy these charts?” He sounded like he wanted to mitigate her actions.
She hated to disappoint him, but she had an inexplicable need to set him straight. “Fitz might see things differently. Those charts give him an advantage over his competitors. An advantage they’re eager to negate.”
They’d made it to the top level and headed toward the pilot’s station.
Seneca followed close behind, ears alert. His gaze met hers over Jupiter’s shoulder. “So, what does all this mean for us?”
“That,” she admitted, “remains to be seen.”
“Where?” Jupiter stood in the middle of the scorch-marked space, waiting for her guidance.
“The pilot’s console.” Fee saw that the top half of the chair was missing. Some of the charred material melted into the seat had probably once been a part of the pilot. The thought did nothing to relieve the nausea brewing in her stomach. Too many damn meds.
Jupiter set her on her feet and steadied her until she found her balance.
Back straight, teeth gritted, she brushed the debris off the surface of the wide stretch of the pilot’s interface. The rubble fell to the floor in a discordant percussion that sent a new round of stench into the air. She found the sensor station intact, but the display was dark. Resting one hand on the edge of the console for stability, she leaned over and put her palm against the inactive display. It came to glowing life. “I think I forgot how slow it can be to interface this way.” She would have gone for Bug if she thought she could actually make it across the deck and back, but that wasn’t happening. The arm she was using to prop herself up was her injured one and the muscles were already starting to shake.
She scrolled through the readings with the tips of her fingers. “Some of the external sensors are down, but there are enough of them active to confirm theSalley Hoisn’t out there anymore.”
Her arm collapsed on her suddenly. The inevitable impact with the console never came. A strong arm wrapped around her hips. “I’ve got you.”
Jupiter. Strength and warmth radiated from his body to hers. She put her injured arm over his. “Can you get to that?” She pointed to the square pressure pad she could no longer reach.
He bent over, stretching and that shift pressed him more firmly against her back like a blanket of solid muscle wrapped around her.
