“Running out of
blue sky,” she noted. “Bringing interstellar drives online. Watch the harmonic
on the starboard atmospheric. We had trouble with it when we set down.”
Seaghdh let out
a breath that whistled between his teeth. “I’ve never seen an engine config
like this. You do the custom work yourself?”
Ari shook her
head as she brought the star drive online to warm up. “The atmospheric engines
are unique to the Sen Ekir. Dad demanded close-in maneuverability, slow speed,
even hovering capability and station keeping, but wasn’t willing to sacrifice
interstellar speed to get his samples back to his labs for it. He made enough
noise, and consistently turns up such impressive results, that Tagreth
Federated Command had IntCom design and build this ship for him.”
“TFC handed you
a science ship built by Intelligence Command?” Seaghdh echoed, stunned. How had
his team missed that detail? Who knew how many taps and wires IntCom had on
board?
“Not me,
Captain. They handed it to my father.”
“You think the
distinction matters?” he prodded.
She glanced at
him, pushing a strand of hair out of those silver eyes, seemed to note his
perusal, and looked away, flustered.
He watched her
clasp her long, elegant fingers together. The precision and skill with which
she’d handled the energy blade had him imagining her touch on his skin.
Cursing under
his breath, he shifted, discomfited by the suddenly too tight fit of his
trousers.
“What I think is
immaterial,” she said, dragging his attention back to the ship and the question
of who actually controlled it. Calculation shifted behind her eyes, and she
scanned the cockpit as if seeing it for the first time. “The question is
whether the distinction matters to IntCom.”
Seaghdh nodded.
“And you’re
manipulating me,” she said, her tone mild, “trying to make me question the
integrity of my ship.”
He froze at her
summation. Where had she learned the espionage techniques she’d so accurately
identified? Nothing in her files indicated she’d received training from IntCom,
and his spies inside the Armada hadn’t been able to identify the manipulation
when it had been turned upon them.
“Your attempt to
undermine and switch my loyalties does not negate the validity of your
observation. If IntCom has the Sen Ekir in its clutches, I can’t trust the Sen
Ekir,” she finished and then slanted him a sly smile. “Point to you. One to
zero.”
She’d heard and
accepted the invitation to play he’d issued with his last use of power on her.
The two of them seemed uniquely susceptible to one another, though he prayed
she didn’t know about his weakness yet. Savoring the want dancing through his
blood, he answered with a lazy grin. “What does my point get me?”
Every inch of
her exposed, pale skin flushed in reaction to his innuendo.
The visible rush
of her reaction drew him. He shifted, wanting closer to test the heat of her
skin with his lips.
She opened her
mouth, but a single, urgent beep from her panel snapped her attention away from
him.
He mirrored her
move, scanning his panel. Time to switch from atmospheric engines to
interstellar drive.
“We’re on,” she
said, her voice all business. Ari opened intraship and nudged the star drive
output higher. “Secure for transition. Change over in five, four, three, two,
one. Mark.”
He focused on
procedure and drew down power on the atmospherics.
“Atmospherics at
eighty,” Seaghdh said.
“Acknowledged.
Cut by fives every ten seconds, mark.”
“Seventy-five.”
“Seventy.”
The ship
trembled.
“Damn it,” she
muttered. “Cut to fifty percent. That starboard atmospheric is coughing. I knew
it wasn’t tuning.”
Alarm drove
through him and he grimaced. She’d corrected their angle of ascent and balanced
engine output without so much as blinking. He admired her gifted piloting, but
cutting power like that was flat risky. Against his better judgment, he shook
his head and did as she asked. “Atmospherics at fifty percent. Altitude gain
decreasing.”
“Aye. We’ve got
a little arc. That’ll give us enough momentum to make escape velocity,” she
said as she worked on starting the interstellar drive. “Come on, you
radioactive hunk of tin. Wake up.”
“You spoke so
nicely to the atmospherics,” he said.
She flushed.
“You weren’t supposed to hear that.”
The rumble of
the interstellar drive gave him a much-needed distraction from watching her
every reaction to him. “There it goes.”
The starboard
engine gave up the ghost. They lurched sideways. The two of them swore in
unison as she fought the controls.
“Restart?” he
demanded.
“Negative. Cut
the port engine. We’ve got enough thrust in the star drive to clear atmosphere.”
She hadn’t even
glanced at the nav or engine equations.
“No margin for
error,” Seaghdh warned, scanning both panels and running a rapid set of mental
calculations. She was flying by feel. He shook his head and bit back a grin.
Damn, she was good. Why the hell had her career been stalled piloting this
piece of scientific space debris?
