But fuck it. It’s finally time to move.
My gut tightens, and a zing of excitement sizzles along my nerves. It’s happening at last.
I turn to check where Kali is—something I haven’t been able to stop doing ever since she nearly got herself shot again, ever since Rain did get herself shot—and she’s fine, harnessed in and alert and gorgeous, if a little pale.
“I’m firing the distraction,” Gage says, pressing one of the weaponry buttons. Seconds later, the bomb deploys.
There goes nothing.
“I’m taking her in,” he continues, and I turn my attention back to the HUD on my captain’s chair.
We slip out from behind cover. I stare at Delta V47 as it grows bigger on the screen, holding my breath, waiting for the flash of light that would indicate they’d spotted us and are retaliating. Our intel says they don’t have any defensive weapons on this side of the asteroid because they don’t believe anyone would be reckless enough to venture that far into the Wilds. But then, they haven’t met us yet, and intel purchased from shady mercs I worked with years ago has been known to be wrong.
Luckily, there are no shots in our direction.
“Going dark,” I say, and the ship’s lights go out on approach. Because seeing where we’re going when we land on this rock is amateur hour. Obviously.
Would be cool if we could get the Starlight to go invisible again, but it’s her best-kept secret. Just another perk of captaining a ship with a very stubborn mind of her own.
We descend and hug the surface as we head toward our destination. We’re planning on making landfall as close to the building entrances as we can. Hopefully, the guards will all be too busy trying to figure out where the bomb came from to notice the fact that the landscape on this side of the compound has changed.
We’re cloaked, obviously, but I can’t do anything about the giant orb following us around, so there’s only so much hiding we can do.
Our plan is to slip in as quietly as we can and find Milla and Jarved—if he’s even here, which I have my doubts about. Part of me thinks we should leave him after that clusterfuck an hour ago, but I can’t do that. I can’t just leave someone behind. If I could, I’d take everyone in this place—which is a far cry from the old Ian.
But that’s not feasible right now, so I’m going to do my best to find Jarved. Even though logic says if he was brought here, he’ll be long dead. No one lasts years in the Wilds. No one.
Once we find them, we’ll slip out just as quietly as we came in—hopefully before anyone realizes we’re here.
But we’re ready for a fight. We’re all weaponed up, thanks to the two boxes we managed to grab on our way up the ramp. We each have two pistols, and I have the explosives and grenades I asked for in a bag over my shoulder. Just in case we need to blow any doors down.
I can make out the buildings now—the offices, which are squat and hug the gray landscape, and another, darker building that looks a lot like a lab and a prison. My gut tells me that’s where Milla will be.
I shudder as it hits me that she’s been in this hellhole for three months. Three months.
Gage sets the Starlight down gently right beside the lab entrance. I can’t see any movement around us, so I’m hoping no one noticed.
He swivels around in the pilot’s chair to stare at me with wary eyes. “You ready to go?”
“I will be.”
I’ve been dragging my feet because I’m terrified Milla won’t be here—that they’ve moved her again, and this time we’ll never find her—but I can’t put it off any longer.
Wiping my clammy palms on the legs of my pants, I take a deep breath and try.
“Milla?”
Nothing. I glance across at Max, who’s trying as well. He shakes his head.
“Milla, are you there?”
Long seconds pass, and my stomach churns.
“About fucking time.”
I hear her loud and clear. Max is grinning, so I know he heard it, too.
“Just don’t go anywhere,” I say. “We’re coming to get you.”
Chapter 95
Kali
“Go!” I hiss, because Ian has stopped halfway down the ramp and he’s peering back at me like I’m a recalcitrant child and he’s the parent checking to make sure I’m where I should be.
And by should be, I mean where he’s ordered me to be.
It’s like he’s expecting me to do something stupid, like maybe stand at the top of a ramp in plain view of the most wanted woman in the whole system, who’s made it her life’s mission to annihilate my entire family, and who obviously wasn’t opposed to just shooting at anyone on board the Starlight on the off chance she turned out to be me.
Rain, who thankfully awoke for a short time, and I have both admitted it wasn’t the smartest of moves. But Ian isn’t ready to accept our apology.
Still, I’m planning on sticking with him, which is a good thing, considering he’s not planning on letting me out of his sight. Max and Merrick will split off to disable the cameras, then head back outside and stop anyone who tries to enter the buildings while we’re here. They’re both behind us—though Merrick looks like shit. He just got off a last-minute comms call with Serati that I’m sure involved him getting his butt chewed out over Rain’s unfortunate near-death experience…
Being Rain’s bodyguard isn’t nearly as easy as it should be.
And Gage is staying with Rain and the Starlight. They’ll be ready for a quick getaway if we need it—and I have no doubt we’ll need it.
I take a deep breath, then step off the ramp and onto the asteroid. It’s like being on a planet, though the air is cold and thin, like I’m at a high elevation.
Ian is beside me in a second. What a surprise. “No handcuffs?” I ask.
“Don’t tempt me,” he growls.
And I decide to stop messing with him—he’s nervous enough without me adding to it.
The ramp lifts behind us, and I turn for a last look at the ship. The heptosphere has settled close by, hovering a few feet off the asteroid’s surface. This is the closest I’ve been to it since the Caelestis, and already I can feel its pull.
I ignore it as best I can, but it’s not as easy as I’d like.
“Let’s go,” Ian tells me.
I follow him across the open space to the building entrance. There’s a big metal gate, but Max is already there with a laser cutter. At the same time, Merrick uses the handheld device Gage gave him to disable the alarm. It only takes seconds, and the doors swing open.
Once we’re inside, we have to move quickly. There are hundreds of cameras, and while we’re hoping the guards are distracted by the explosions we can still hear coming from the other side of the compound, that won’t last for much longer. Hopefully Merrick and Max will make it to the guard’s station, where intel says all the buildings cameras are wired to, and disable them before the entire compound can see our images in high-def.
We get to the end of a hallway, and Ian turns right. He memorized the schematics days ago. But I’m overwhelmed by the sheer number of rooms. We’ll never find Jarved in here, if he even is in here.
He pauses for a moment, and I know he’s talking to Milla. “To the left, then down four levels,” he says quietly. “She’s in the single cells reserved for troublemakers.”