Fathom (Mermaids of Montana #3) - Elsa Jade Page 0,90
out to reclaim the tiny token, but her fingers closed around it, hiding the shell.
“It wasn’t just that it was small and pretty and shiny, was it?” She gave him a gentle smile. “It was your hope.”
“Even so tiny, it still sings of the sea.” He smiled back at her, and this time he thought he got it right. “Also, it is very shiny.”
She tucked the shell into one of the many pockets of her e-suit, this one just above her left breast. “Thank you,” she whispered.
“Through everything, small as it was, I never lost it,” he said. “If you have it…”
He couldn’t finish. Even though he had tracked her across galaxies, maybe she didn’t want to be found by a monster.
“I won’t lose it,” she promised.
But that hadn’t been what he was saying, not at all.
A warning beep sounded in his head. No, it was the ship. The runabout was too archaic—and second-rate, even for its time—to host a useful data gel so there was no AI interface. Just a panel of cautionary indicators in front of him as the systems booted.
“Great,” Lana muttered. “We’re gonna blow up right here. So much more efficient than launching and then crashing.”
“We won’t blow up,” he reassured her. “I don’t think we have enough power to blow up.”
Which meant they also didn’t have enough power to launch.
She blew out a hard breath. “The one time I could actually use my zaps…” Her hands splayed over controls in front of her. “Can we do what we did when we crashed, but in reverse?”
“Divert all power to launch,” he translated.
She nodded. “Like you said, we can hold our breath. Once we’re outside the pull of gravity—and the immediate threat of crashing—we can rebalance power needs to keep ourselves alive.” She grimaced slightly. “At least until we get to Tritona.”
He could sabotage the launch. He’d stopped many Cretarni ships. He could keep her safe, here on Earth. Carefully, he ventured, “What if this fight isn’t yours anymore?”
She put her hand over the pocket where she’d tucked the shell. “I’m not running away anymore,” she told him. “I’m running to.”
He took one last moment to admire her steady, clear-eyed choice, then he adjusted the controls as she’d suggested. “I’ll keep the intakes open for as long as possible. Breathe.”
“I never knew how much that mattered before.” She sucked in a lungful let it out with a hard breath. “Let’s go.”
The runabout was still blinking cautions across multiple indicators but he’d seen worse.
While crashing with her.
The runabout shivered around them as they started their slide toward the external corridor. Lana gripped the arm rests at her sides. “Uh, we’re not going to exit into solid rock or anything, are we?”
“This vent, like most from the Atlantyri, leads through waterways. We might take on some silt, but no rocks.” He hoped. The exodus ship had been submerged a long time. Whether they were running away or running to, they would always be running through.
The scans and sensors, already subpar, showed them only a rough approximation of their route through the earth and then into the aquifers—which was marked only by the switch-off of the intake to internal atmosphere. So they’d have fewer breaths as they made their escape.
Lana reached to grip his hand. And suddenly he was glad of the shuttle’s cramped space.
She looked at him. “Are you sure this is what you want? I would never take you back to a fight that was no longer yours.”
“I said I would fight for you. And I say what I mean.” If he hadn’t always told her everything of what he felt… Well, he was Titanyri.
With one last deep breath, she nodded and gestured to the ignition sequence in front of him. “I’m with you.”
And with that, they burst from some unnamed pond in Big Sky Country and aimed for the stars.
Chapter 18
When they finally crossed into the Tritonan space, the comm blared with the incoming chatter of battle.
“Last evacuees cleared the Hall of Moonless Hours. School up, Tritonyri. Close on my signal. But stay out of the charge zone.”
“Lost contact with Spindrift Squad in that ray. What the kak is that thing?”
“Hai-aku Three, watch your dorsal. Suckers coming down fast sunside.”
This time, a brisk Earther voice answered. “I see ‘em. Diving to draw them off the evacuees. Try to chase me in the deep black, sucker-fuckers.”
Lana clamped one hand over her mouth, even though it was her ears she wanted to cover. When Sting silenced the comm, she