Polaris Rising (Consortium Rebellion, #1)(86)

I flopped down on the deck of the cargo bay with a jolt of pain, but the door opened from the bottom. I didn’t want to open it all the way in case the explosion was bigger than I anticipated. “Polaris, open the cargo bay door ten centimeters,” I said.

A chime indicated that the ship still saw me as its captain. Richard hadn’t had time to crack my personal codes with brute force or he hadn’t bothered, thinking me safely in his grasp. He likely would’ve demanded the codes once we were married.

Ha.

“Veronica, can you get ready to close the door?” I asked. She nodded and moved to the controls. “It might get a little explody in here,” I warned.

The door raised just enough for me to see the alcubium. A line of soldiers frantically tried to move cargo in as a barrier, but they were too late. I checked the charge on the gun then fired two warning shots. The soldiers fled. I waited until I couldn’t see them, then fired on the alcubium.

It took three shots.

On the third, the pallet exploded in a bright orange fireball that kept growing as more and more cylinders ruptured. The flames licked against the ship’s shield as warning messages blared. Even with the shield, heat seared my face before the cargo door slid closed.

I blinked the black spots from my vision. Okay, that was a little more energetic than I had expected.

At least the inferno was in a landing bay. If all else failed, they could put out the fire by lowering the atmospheric field and letting the vacuum of space work its magic.

It also meant they’d be less likely to close the blast doors and trap us inside.

“Let’s get you to the medbay,” Veronica said. She helped me to my feet when I wobbled on the way up.

“I should make sure Loch isn’t having trouble with the ship,” I said.

“He’s fine, but you’re not going to be in a few more minutes. You’re going to get patched up now,” she said in her best mom voice.

“Triage now, fix it later,” I said. “There’s a first aid kit on the wall.”

Her mouth compressed into a hard line, but when I didn’t budge she sighed and grabbed supplies out of the kit.

I risked a glance at my left arm and wished I hadn’t.

Blood soaked the sleeve of my shirt and dripped in a sluggish stream from my fingertips. The bolt had caught me on the outside of my arm, halfway between my shoulder and elbow. A large chunk of flesh was missing, leaving a bloody mess.

The hole in my sleeve was singed around the edges, as was my flesh. This was beyond the capability of my nanobots. They’d have their work cut out for them just to stop the bleeding.

I swayed, light-headed, as renewed pain stabbed me with vicious barbs. Veronica returned with a trauma bandage. “You’re just lucky that it was an outside hit,” she said. “Looks like it missed the bone, which will help with recovery.”

I looked away and willed my stomach not to crawl out of my mouth while she applied the compress.

“This bandage buys you fifteen minutes. After that, I expect you in the medbay, even if I have to drag you there myself.”

“Thanks,” I said.

The stairs up to the flight deck were daunting, but Veronica had given me a shot with the bandage and I felt awesome. Which meant it was probably a shot of foxy, and I’d crash hard about the time my bandage was due to be changed. Sneaky woman.

Both Loch and Rhys looked up when I entered the flight deck, but Loch was too busy trying to get us out of the landing bay to yell.

Rhys had no such qualms. “Why aren’t you in the medbay?”

“I will be, just as soon as we’re clear. Veronica stabilized me.” At least I assumed she had because blood no longer dripped from my fingers.

The vid screens were up. We were nearly out of the landing bay, but fire still raged behind us. Gas visibly leaked through the atmospheric field. They were lowering the field slowly, which was smart, as long as they didn’t let the landing bay burn down in the process.

In front of us, a handful of fighters offered heavy resistance. Richard must’ve launched the ships from the other landing bay. The fighters were doing their best to keep us pinned in place. Richard probably wanted them to keep us here until the retrieval ship launched.

Our shields were taking the brunt of the damage, but so were theirs. We couldn’t punch an opening in their line, and Loch needed to get us free of the landing bay so we could jump without risking damage to both Polaris and Santa Celestia.

“Strap in,” Loch barked. I sank into a seat and clipped in. Veronica did the same.

The fighters were playing chicken with our ship. They hovered close enough that if Loch kept creeping out of the landing bay, he ran the risk of overlapping our shields and theirs. If he did, the results could range from nothing to explosive failure of both shields.

Loch eased farther out of the bay, centimeters at a time. He was not going to flinch first, but the fighters must have been under orders to stand their ground. His hands flew over the manual control console.

“What are—” I started.

Loch dropped the forward shield, rammed Polaris out of the bay before the fighters could take advantage, then engaged the FTL drive practically on top of them.

After the jump, the windows and vid screens showed vast quantities of empty space. I breathed a sigh of relief. No doubt we’d have to do some repairs after Loch’s little stunt, but we’d made it.