Bonds of Brass (The Bloodright Trilogy #1) - Emily Skrutskie Page 0,116

neck.

Gal pulls up the intercom line, and the distant speaker in the hold crackles with his voice as he reminds the soldiers to strap in good and tight. No matter what happens next, things are about to get shaky. I double-check my own harness, and behind me there’s a slight jingle as Wen does the same.

“Another hail,” Gal says, dismissing it in the same breath. “Dreadnought’s closing the gap. Time to about-face.” He gives me a nod.

I burn the rotary thrusters. The stars swerve outside our cockpit, and briefly my eyes lock on the distant glimmer of the star Tosa. Somewhere in its orbit, Rana waits. Sometime today, we’ll be back on my homeworld’s soil.

But not yet.

I bring us all the way around, lining up our nose along our former vector’s inverse, and find a distant shard of light bearing down on us. According to our instruments, they’ve started their deceleration, easing out of the burn that ensured they’d catch up to us. And with our rear pointed squarely away from them, they know we’re not running.

The question is how quickly they’ll figure out why we’re letting them come to us.

The next hail flickers across the dash, but Gal doesn’t dismiss it immediately. Instead he pulls up the ship’s information embedded in the signal, peering intently at the data. “Not Umber imperial. This fellow is the Torrent, under the command of Governor Berr sys-Tosa.” He gives me a savage smile. “Not by presence. By proxy.”

So Tosa’s not on board. We’ve hooked a member of his fleet, eager to prove their worth by reeling in the governor’s secret prize. Part of me is a little disappointed. It would have been so clean to humiliate Berr sys-Tosa in the course of engineering Gal’s return to the interior. But no governor means the ship isn’t traveling under delusions of power. It might make it easier to capture.

Or it might make it more openly desperate to bring us in.

The Torrent noses closer, its form becoming distinct. The ship is bulbous, sickening in shape. It has no need for aerodynamics when it’s far too large to survive an encounter with an atmosphere. Most of it is built for brute acceleration. The parts left over are crafted for war. My eyes are drawn unwillingly to the main batteries, the cannons that could vaporize us at a whim. They lie inert, but a single order could change that in an instant.

An order that could easily be encouraged by our reluctance to answer their calls. Not for the first time, I wish Wen weren’t hovering behind us. If she weren’t here, we could open that line, let them know for sure that the prince they’re after is aboard, and guarantee that those guns stay inert. My fingers itch for the weapons panel, but we can’t risk their interpretation if we start to look aggressive. If the Torrent’s guns go hot, our only defense is my flying, and no modification in the galaxy can keep the Ruttin’ Hell out of a dreadnought’s sights forever.

Another hail. Another dismissal. Another minute passes as the distance closes.

I pray that Gal’s right about what’s coming next.

“Wait for it,” he mutters under his breath, spinning up the Beamer’s scanners to watch the Torrent’s hull. With his other hand, he’s got lines open to the rest of the assault fleet, feeding them information from the extra sensors Esperza’s techs packed into our ship. No doubt the Torrent is performing a similar examination, trying to make sense of all the unconventional aspects of this seemingly unworthy little transport. Within the cityship, orders are snapping along the synapses of command, knee-jerk reactions transformed into strategies in a matter of seconds. Our instructors at the academy used to say that with a seasoned captain in charge, a dreadnought can react like a single, massive organism.

Now we find out if Gal successfully anticipated that response. I lean toward him, my eyes drawn to the readouts underneath his hands. I know my focus should be on the Ruttin’ Hell’s flight controls. I should wait for orders. Gal’s in command. But ever since we left the academy, it’s been my duty to keep both of us alive, and