Starflight (Starflight, #1)(37)
He nodded.
“Why? Where’d she go?”
“I’m not sure,” he said. “But I think my parents hate each other too much to share the same planet. They used to work together—that’s how they met. She was the scientist who invented Spaulding Fuel chips. It was a huge moneymaker, but after the split, they couldn’t stand to look at each other, and my dad ousted her from the company. Then there was the whole thing with…” He trailed off. “Well, I guess she couldn’t handle the reminders, so she left.”
“Do you ever hear from her?”
“Sometimes.” Doran moved his thumbs to the inside of her wrist, delicately stroking between the tiny bones there. His voice turned soft in a way that plucked at her heart. “On birthdays and holidays. But there’s not much to talk about anymore.”
“I’m sorry,” Solara told him, and meant it. She knew how it felt to be abandoned. But unlike her mother, Doran’s mom had no excuse for leaving—she had the resources to be a parent, just not the desire. Solara could only imagine how much that hurt. She looked at him with new eyes, and something warm stirred behind her ribs. “I guess we’re members of two secret clubs now. My mom left me when I was little, too. And my dad.”
Doran stopped massaging her hand and pointed at the flask. When she passed it over, he took a long pull, then winced and coughed. “We need to join better clubs.”
“Agreed,” she said. “Chess, maybe.”
He swore quietly to himself and took another swig of Crystalline. Then his voice went hollow while his eyes fixed on a point in the distance. “Don’t freak out or anything, but they’re here.”
She snapped her gaze in the direction of his, and all the air leaked slowly out of her lungs. Approaching them was the ugliest tank of a ship she’d ever seen, like evil in motion. At least the length of a football field and twice as wide, it probably housed the population of a small town, maybe a hangar of shuttles as well. The battered metal patchwork covering the ship’s hull was proof of combat, and the pulse cannons mounted all around the exterior promised they could dish it out as well as take it.
She’d expected a shuttle to meet her, not the whole operation. She wasn’t ready for this.
A computerized voice crackled over the intercom. “Set your controls to neutral and prepare to come aboard.” Doran did as commanded, and their shuttle jerked forward into the ship’s tow beam. Slowly, they closed the distance until a massive rear hatch opened—a dragon’s maw sucking them into the belly of the beast.
A tiny squeak escaped Solara’s lips.
Doran took her hand and squeezed it hard. “Look at me.” When she didn’t listen, he physically turned her face. “Before we land, I need to know why you’re doing this. We’re not friends. We’re not even cohorts. So why are you helping me?”
Even facing him, she could see the hangar in her periphery, a dim, cavernous space filled with mismatched shuttlecraft. Her heart hammered. There was no turning back now. “You know why,” she told him. “If we can’t find a propellant cell, we’re as good as dead.”
“But you leveraged it in my favor.”
“So what?”
“There has to be a reason.”
She shook her head at his low opinion of her, though after what she’d just learned about him, it wasn’t surprising. If he couldn’t trust his own mother, why would he trust a felon? “That’s where you’re wrong,” Solara told him. “Most people don’t need a reason to be decent. I’m one of those people. You could be, too, if you made an effort.”
That seemed to get through to him.
He released her face as the next command sounded from the intercom. “Passenger Lara. Leave all weapons inside your craft and exit with your hands visible. Any aggression will be met with lethal force.”
With trembling fingers she tossed her pistols and knife to the floor, then took a moment to draw a deep breath as the shuttle floated inside the massive metal holding chamber and touched down. A grinding noise signaled the hatch closing, followed by the whir of heated oxygen filling the hangar. When it was safe to exit, a buzzer sounded.
“Thirty minutes,” Doran said, unlocking the shuttle door. “And then I’m coming after you.”
Solara didn’t trust herself to speak, so she nodded and climbed down to the steely floor. She made her way to the front of the enclosure, where two armed men stood guard at the metal door leading to the air-lock. From where she stood, they didn’t look like pirates, just ordinary men from the streets. Except better fed.
One of the guards, a bald man with a second pair of eyes tattooed on his scalp, pointed at a circle painted on the floor and told her, “Stand there.”
She did as instructed, and an overhead beam scanned her for weapons. Once cleared, she folded both arms, making sure her conviction codes were visible. It worked. She saw the respect in the nearly imperceptible nods of the guards’ heads. For once, her ink was actually useful.
“Propellant cell, right?” the first man asked.
Solara nodded.
“Fifty thousand fuel chips.”
She pretended to consider his offer while mentally calculating sixty percent. Half of fifty was twenty-five, and ten percent of fifty was five. So thirty? To be safe, she guessed high. “Thirty-five.”