Page 28 of Taken By the Alien Killer
We move with the economy of people who’ve been caught before and learned. I climb the ladder rungs to the cockpit and the leather breathes out something expensive when I drop into the pilot’s seat. Controls gleam, everything too polished, too ceremonial, the way clothes feel when someone else chose them. The difference is I’m the one touching the throttle. My pulse thuds in my throat like it’s trying to kick the cage.
“Power,” CynJyn says over the intercom, voice tinny and thrilled. “Doors arming. Two minutes of grace if anyone gets clever.”
“Copy,” I say, and the word tastes like sinned sugar. I slot the chip into the cradle. The console blooms cobalt, a halo of soft chimes cascading like poured glass. Systems scroll: flight, nav, life support, VIP climate control set to ‘regal.’ The ship hums awake under my hands, the vibration a cat settling.
“Say it,” CynJyn prompts, hands hovering over the big red bay toggles. “Say the thing.”
“I’m not saying the thing.” My smile tries to break free anyway.
“Say the thing, Star.”
I inhale. “Preflight complete. Chickens disgusted. Let’s go.”
“Captain’s orders,” she laughs, slamming her palm down. Hydraulics protest; the hangar doors shudder, then begin to rise, night knifing in under the lifting lip. Wind shoves a ribbon of dust across the polished floor. The cruiser’s external lights blink to life, casting us in soft gold like an apology in advance.
For a breath, I don’t move.
I just sit there, fingers curled around the yoke, watching the slice of outside grow from ribbon to horizon. The city is a necklace of small lights, and beyond that the black mouth of the sky waits with its old, patient hunger. The hesitation hits hard and fast—like vertigo, like grief, like standing at the top of a diving platform and remembering water is a choice. There’s a word in my mouth that tastes like a bruise I keep tonguing.
CynJyn hears the silence change. “Talk to me.”
I lean forward until the windshield fills my vision, until the wind’s moan threads the edges of the ship’s hum, until all I can smell is ionization and the lemon-clean ghost of fresh polish. I press my lips to the heel of my hand like I’m telling a secret to a saint.
“Rayek,” I whisper, and the sound disappears into the soft machinery like a coin into a fountain.
“Okay,” CynJyn says, and she doesn’t tease. “Okay.”
I push.
Thrusters spool. The cruiser glides, first cautious, then sure, nose cutting the last of the hangar’s shadow. Air wraps us; the floor under my boots reminds me we’re not on it anymore. The acceleration lays a warm hand on my chest and presses me back into the leather like a promise kept.
“Altitude steady,” CynJyn calls, eyes flicking between a perimeter overlay and the raw joy on my face. “Traffic clear. Say goodbye to the consequences of your birth.”
“Goodbye, consequences,” I say, and grin so hard my cheeks hurt.
We slip over the fence line like a rumor. Below, the scrub unspools in dark strips, then the vineyards combed into neat waves, then the river jittering silver under scatterlight. The estate shrinks into geometry, then into a suggestion, then into nothing and everything at once. I feel the city’s breath let go of us when we skim past the last grid tower; the sky opens its jaws.
“Punch it whenever,” CynJyn says, already buckling herself tighter. “We’ll clear atmosphere in two. I set the autoplot to the back door out of airspace. Kaspian’s attaché will have to file a poem to catch up.”
“Coordinates?” I ask, because asking is easier than thinking, easier than feeling my heart try to climb into my mouth.
She grins, feral. “Rook’s Rest. You know it?”
“Smuggler breakfast place,” I say, laughter bubbling up uninvited. “Sausage pies. Broken jukebox. The server with the gold tooth who calls everybody ‘captain’ and nobody ‘sir.’”
“That’s the one. No questions, plenty of grease. We’ll hide in their shadow while I run interference on every nosey ping Sneed’s gonna shoot our way.”
The cruiser shivers as we hit the thinner stuff, and the sound inside goes from air to light. Stars sharpen. The planet curves under us like a shoulder turning. The cockpit smells like leather and static and the faint, guilty sweetness of a ceremonial air freshener trying to convince us we’re important. My fingers flex on the yoke. The ship flexes back.
“Ready?” CynJyn asks, and she doesn’t wait for the brave lie. “Three, two?—”
“Go,” I say, and the engines stop purring and start singing.
We launch.
The pressure is a steady hand, firm and possessive, the kind that knows how hard to hold without bruising. Akura falls away in layered blues and thin clouds, the atmosphere dragging its nails across the hull as if to mark us. The sound ramps into the bones: a rising hymn of engineered thunder. My teeth hum. My ribs hum. My fear hums and then lets go.
“Gods,” I breathe. “Oh.”
