Forged (Star Breed #10) - Elin Wyn Page 0,45

be safe enough to go inside.”

Here, I could definitely smell the scent Hakon had been tracking.

“It’s like,” I shook my head. “I don’t even know what? What’s the worst thing you’ve ever smelled?”

Hakon’s nose was wrinkled in distaste. “No idea. Wouldn’t want to remember. Let’s see if we can find any proof the crew was here, and try to forget we ever smelled this.”

Through the strong beam of the portable light we’d taken from the ship, I knew we’d found the right place.

A pile of bones of all sizes was pushed to the side of the cave.

And all of them were well chewed.

But a glint of metal caught my eye under the grisly tangle.

“What’s that?”

Hakon kicked the pile out of the way until we found fragments of a flight suit. Maybe two. Torn and faded, the Desyk logo was still recognizable on one of the pieces.

Carefully, I gathered up every scrap of material I could find and folded them together. “Their corp and ours might be enemies, but their families deserve to know what happened to them.”

Hakon rubbed my back and I leaned into his solid strength.

“Let’s get out of here before we find out if the thing had a mate,” he said. “I’d be plenty pissed if something happened to you. I’d expect the same from anything else.”

That was sweet, but odd.

Very odd.

Thoughts tangled up in the horrible fate the resource discovery team had met, I followed Hakon back to the ship.

Once I’d stowed the scraps of fabric away, we turned back to the task at hand.

Getting off this place.

Getting home.

Well, at least back to Station 112.

Anything after that, we’d have to sort out when we got there.

“I’ve got the toolkit,” Hakon said. “I’m going to reinforce that section, just in case. I’ll let you know when I’m done, and we can start the full engines test.”

Panel reinforced, engines tested, fired, and tested again.

We were ready to go.

Together, we sat in the cockpit and I began the preflight check.

“Think we’re really getting out of here?” I asked.

“I’d expect so,” Hakon said. “If nothing else, we’ll break through enough atmosphere to try to send another signal.”

“Or blow up,” I said. “Seems about fifty-fifty, the way our luck runs.”

I took a deep breath. All the tests had been fine.

Time to go live.

“Igniting the first bank of engines.” I flipped the switch and they rumbled to life. “Second bank igniting.”

The ship shook, the vibrations of the engines alone enough to tear the landing struts loose from the years of packed earth.

At least, I hoped so.

“Seal is holding, atmosphere locked in,” Hakon reported.

I stared through the canopy at the row of trees before us.

Not exactly ideal if we didn’t make it.

“Thrusters set to low,” I said, and slowly cranked them up.

A rumble, the shaking grew worse.

Then we were free, the ship hovering above the ground, in flight for the first time in a decade.

Hakon looked over. “Still holding fine. Take her up, Captain.”

Carefully I increased the thrust on the engines arranged along the undercarriage of the ship until we were over the tree line, over the mountains.

And still we rose.

“How’s the hull holding in section twelve?” I asked Hakon, my eyes busy with my own readouts.

“Holding,” he said. “Wouldn’t want to go on a months-long voyage in this thing without a better round of refits, but we should be fine for a short system jaunt.”

The sky around us changed from pale blue to violet, then to the deepest black as we continued up, breaking through the stratosphere, to the exosphere and beyond into true space.

“We made it,” I said, heart throbbing in my chest. “Try the comms again, we shouldn’t be getting any interference now.”

Hakon opened the comms unit and once again we sent the same message out. “Emergency assistance requested. We have crashed on Sat 9 and require immediate assistance. Please respond if you receive this message.”

Immediately, the comms flared to life.

“It’s about time.” The thin voice of an older man filled the cockpit. “I told them you were far too stubborn to die.”

“Thalcorr?” Hakon responded, the stunned tone of his voice enough for me to glance over at him. His eyes were wide as he stared at the unit in front of him.

“You didn’t think I was going to return to the Empire having lost you? I’ve heard about the rest of your family. Rogues and renegades, all.”

Hakon’s face broke into a wide grin. “I’ll be happy to introduce you. But for now, come and get us.”

Hakon

As the tractor beam guided