Zero's Heart - Mina Carter Page 0,24
over the head of the unit. All operators practiced and practiced the movement in case their suits got snarled in something and they needed to make a quick exit. It gave them cover if they needed to operate the shoulder weapons from behind.
She landed hard, a hiss escaping her as she fought to keep her feet. Her right leg was utterly useless, the left not far behind it. Holding herself up with a hand on the edge of the open suit, she looked around for something to use as a crutch.
“Wherever you are, beautiful, hold onto something,” Zero’s voice came over the ships comm. “Going engines hot.”
“Warning: Inner airlock doors open.” The ship’s computer informed her. “Warning: Inner airlock doors open.”
Abandoning her search, she held onto the suit for dear life. Not a moment too soon. Less than a second later, the deck lurched, the roar of the engines assaulting her ears as they burned fuel to get away from the station. Down here she was blind to what was going on, so she closed her eyes and hoped the outer airlock doors held.
The next half-minute of her life was lost to deafening noise and fervent prayer. She didn’t know anything about the Aegis, hadn’t seen the logs… how was she to know if the engineering team kept up their maintenance schedules?
Grimly, she focused on something else—anything else—to take her mind off the precarious situation she was in. Like the way Zero had held her… The hardness of his body against hers, the satin-over-steel of his skin, and the way he kissed her, like she was the only woman in the universe. She closed her eyes and concentrated on the memory as hard as she could. Just a little longer. If she survived this, she was taking him up on his offer of making her pass out from pleasure.
He was so intense. Over everything. What would it be like to be the focus of that intensity? Just the thought made her shiver, heat washing through her. If she wasn’t holding onto her suit for grim death, she’d have gone all weak at the knees.
Then, as soon as it had started, the noise and rattling surfaces around her cut out to leave blessed silence.
“Thank fuck,” she murmured, making her way around the suit and using it to keep herself upright. She couldn’t feel her right leg, but for now, it seemed to be working. As long as she concentrated. It wouldn’t last long, though. She knew that. It was a last gasp, the implants firing sporadically to power the movement. The only way she knew that was because the muscles in the back of her calf, bared by her cutaway pants, were jumping like a box of frogs.
She needed to be sitting down when they finally gave out. That or she’d sit her ass down on the deck without warning, and she’d rather not suffer that indignity in front of her new crewmates. She’d rather explain the situation to them than give them a front-row demonstration as to how useless she’d just become.
Pushing off from the suit, she made it to the door of the airlock, clinging to it as she shuffled through to the right side. Breathing heavily, she triggered the inner doors.
“Sorry, old girl. I’ll come to fetch you soon,” she promised as the doors rolled shut and sealed. Only then did she allow herself a sigh of relief. At least she was no longer at risk of sucking cold hard space because someone cut corners with the repair routine.
“Head for the Pheidian Belt,” Sparky, in the copilot’s seat, advised as he brought the guns and tactical systems online. Zero concentrated on the propulsion systems, spoofing traffic control clearance to get the clamps to disengage and then dropping the Aegis out of the docking cradle.
As soon as they were clear, he gunned the engines, the punch of g-forces pushing them both back in their seats. Part of his mind worried about where Eris was. If she was in the corridors, he hoped she’d found something to hold onto.
“Think we got them on the hop, big guy,” Sparky kept up a constant stream of chatter while Zero kept his focus on getting them clear of the station. The Aegis systems were a little different than what he was used to but nothing he couldn’t handle. Bringing the star charts online, he located the Pheidian Belt.
“Course set. Burn in three, two, one… Burn initiated,” he announced, his voice a combination of