Page 21 of Master
Not that I wanted to crawl back in the sack with him anytime soon, but he was funny and teasing. Plus, he laid his life on the line to rescue me from an awful fate. Dude had to get at least some brownie points for that!
"What does holding my breath have to do with sex?" Tarook frowned, teasing again.
I opened my mouth to answer but lost my response to the scream ripping from my throat as a gigantic explosion rocked the ship.
Chapter 6
Tarook
Fuck!
The controls shimmied under my grip, but the ship responded with a blast of speed, the hit we’d taken on the back corner panel absorbed by the shields. Vaktaire shields were the best in the galaxy, but nothing could withstand repeated pounding from a laser cannon.
"Strap in and hold on," I barked at Clara, jerking the ship hard left. Her hands shook as she fiddled with the harness straps and her sweet scent spiked with the acridness of fear. I ached to comfort her but focused my attention back to the controls. I couldn’t comfort her if we were dead.
"What was that?" She gave a soft grunt, pulling the harness tight across her full chest.
“Someone’s shooting at us.” The grin I gave her wasn’t all that forced. I lived for shit like this.
“Someone’s shooting at us?” Her voice hitched an octave. "Who? Did Luarian send someone after me?"
We were sitting in open space, save for a small field of asteroids. None of the rocks looked big enough to hide behind,but it might make maneuvering difficult for our pursuers. I pointed the nose of the skiff at the largest asteroid and gunned it.
“Whoever is after us has battle capabilities. The Hartouk Lenaii doesn’t have a ship like that in its fleet. They mostly run transport. Besides, Luarian keeps insurance on her slaves. She’ll probably make more from your running away than you could have earned.”
Coming up on the asteroid, I jerked right, skirting the circumference of the floating rock. As I hoped, our pursuers couldn’t make the sharp turn, yielding my first look at the other ship. Unlike the sleek long triangular shape of my skiff, the vessel was bigger and broader, flattened on top with a larger underbelly that gave it an inverted saucer appearance.
“That’s a Kerzak ship.”
"Kerzak?" Clara squinted at the gray ship as it turned to face us. "You mean like that grizzly bear dude that wanted to buy me?”
"The Kerzak ambassador?" I mused, flipping the switches that would divert all auxiliary power to the shields. "I don’t think it's ‘like him’ I think it is him. There’s a government insignia on the craft.” I raised a finger to point at the slashes of red adorning the nose of the ship.
Clara swallowed hard. “How did he find us?”
The Kerzak ship's starboard laser cannon fired two pulses I easily dodged.
“I’m sure the presence of a Vaktaire on the Hartouk Lenaii didn't go unnoticed. When you disappeared, they put two and two together.” Despite knowing how much the communication meant to Clara, I couldn’t help but frown as Iadded. "The Kerzak probably picked up on our communication with the Bardaga and used it to triangulate our location.”
Another two pulses of light went wide, shattering an asteroid. Clara gave a loud gasp, but didn’t scream. She had guts. I liked that.
I steadied the skiff, waiting for the Kerzak’s next move. The gray ship was three times the size of mine and slower for it. When it veered right, I did the same, waiting until the Kerzak increased speed, then spun left, feeling the shudder as a stream of laser cannon blasts skimmed our flank. I banked the skiff right, sliding behind another small asteroid, but too much of my tail section remained exposed, and a blast slammed into us.
“Fuck!” Clara hissed, her grip on the chair turning her knuckles white.
A burst of speed and a sharp left turn gave me the advantage of coming up behind the Kerzak ship. Its laser cannon was on a pivot, but the controlling mechanism was slow, allowing me to get off half a dozen consecutive blasts into the upper mid-fuselage.
The Kerzak ship swung right. It was just what I’d hoped they’d do. I spiraled, bringing us to a stop several hundred meters below the large ship. Swinging the nose of the skiff upward, I brought my guns to bear on a small triangular panel resting on the underbelly just below the rudder and squeezed the trigger.
There was a loud, audible groan, metal screaming in pain, and the Kerzak ship exhaled a massive plume of gray smoke. The lights blinked on and off twice before remaining permanently dark.
“What just happened?” Clara blinked at me, still squeezing the armrests of her chair.
"The electrical panel for the Kerzak ship lies just below the back rudder. It's the weakest part of the ship,” I grinned at her.
Clara raised in her seat, peering at the disabled beast as though she expected it to return to life.
"The ship is dead. They won’t even have communication capabilities,” I assured her.
