“We’re going back.”
I can feel their eyes turn to me.
“Are you crazy? That bloodthirsty captain wanted to pick a fight with the Toads! Let him get what he wished for! If we go back, we won’t be able to do anything except be held captive and die alongside him!”
Suddenly, I remember the words Theme screamed back when this adventure started – when we were first being pursued by those Toad assault vessels.
“Are you crazy? We’ll be shredded by the next barrage.”
I’d just commanded him to divert all power from our shields to the engines, as the Toads chased us towards the moon of Tarrion. He’s protested, but followed my orders – and it had saved our lives.
That’s why I’m the captain, and he’s the technician.
I suddenly realize that it’s all a circle – life, I mean. Everything is the same, and everything is different, and it all revolves back to where it started.
I turn to Theme and meet his eyes. They’re wild – not quite human anymore, in his desperate panic.
“Theme,” I snap. “I trusted you to get us out of The Instigator. Now, you have to trust me. I can convince Aelon to turn away – I know I can. I’m his Bonded mate. He will change for me – but I need you to trust me right now. Can you do that?”
The lie in my voice stings. I’m killing Theme if my gamble fails. If Aelon is the man I think he is, I’ve just signed Theme’s death warrant as surely as if I put him on the Aurelian Kill List myself.
He gulps. I can see the tears forming in his eyes, but then he shakes his head and sets his jaw.
“Okay – I trust you, Captain.”
Fuck.
Be careful what you wish for, right?
Theme has his trust in me, and now I feel a new kind of guilt as I turn the Reaver around and power back towards The Instigator. I just chose my triad over my own crew. I’ll have to live with that guilt if it leads to Theme or Sawoot getting hurt – or worse.
I’m risking the two people most important to me for the chance to save my Bonded triad – and the worst part is that I don’t even know if Aelon can change. In fact, I’m almost convinced he can’t…
But I have to try.
My eyes flick down to my HUD and comms-link readings. They’re both dead – and no matter how fast I pilot away from the Toad Mothership, I can’t seem to get enough distance to get those systems working again.
The Toad mothership behind us might be an ungainly beast, but it’s one of the few Orb-powered ships in the Toad fleet. The hulking, green vessel might fade from our vision but every time I think I’m making a hundred meters of distance between us and them, I’m still not rewarded by the communications array firing back up, or the HUD relighting.
The Toads must be diverting an unbelievable amount of power to their signal jammers and Bond disrupter as they approach The Instigator, knowing that the element of surprise will become ever more crucial with every second they remain undetected.
Gods – I totally judged the Toad strategy wrong. So, too, did Captain Aelon.
I’d thought they’d attack the mining camps to distract Aelon and force him to commit resources to defending the humans.
Instead, they’re just going to use brute force. They’re going to descend on The Instigator in unbelievable numbers – using overwhelming firepower to rip open The Instigator like she’s a tin can of beans. The Toads might not even bother with landing parties – since Aurelians are fearsome in hand-to-hand combat. Instead, they’ll just raze that ancient warship to dust and collect the near-indestructible Orbs as they float among the wreckage and frozen, mangled bodies.
Aelon won’t stand a chance, but even in the face of such overwhelming odds, he still won’t turn tail and run. I know the brutal man. I know he’s aching for his blaze of glory, and he’ll die before running; and take every member of his crew with him.
Not that they’d object. Vinicus will follow Aelon into hell itself. Iunia will swallow his pride and draw his Orb-Blade even if he knows such actions are akin to suicide.
The thrusters are at maximum velocity, and yet I can’t shake the Toads pursuing us. They might have faded from our vision in the distance, but their disrupters are still preventing me from warning the Aurelians, or giving us a third option of simply alerting them and fleeing.
Now, I might have just moments to warn Aelon of the attack before it hits. The irony is that I’d spent the last few hours doing everything I could to block the Bond from my mind – and now I’m focused desperately on reconnecting with the three men, trying frantically to bring them back into my mind.
But there’s nothing...
It’s suddenly as if I was never Bonded in the first place. You never think about how lonely it is to have only yourself in your mind. All humans are alone compared to Aurelians. That noble species can feel each other, with their battle-brothers inside their brain at all times; offering them reassurance and support even if they don’t say anything out loud.
I glance behind me. Theme’s got his hands white-knuckled on the triggers of his Orb-Beam. If I shared a Bond with him, I feel like his aura would be that of a nervous rabbit being chased down by dogs. I just hope the feeling of the triggers in his hands is reassuring him a little, because otherwise he’ll be useless in a fight.
Sawoot suddenly speaks up.
“Dammit, I was scared you wouldn’t do this, Tasha. I wasn’t going to be able to let you just leave them. I couldn’t let Garrick die for nothing. When we warn him, he’ll take his triad and escape.”
“You know he won’t. That man is loyal,
