Trey hurriedly lifts me to my feet. His fierce hug causes my ribs to ache, but I don’t care. I never want him to let go. He kisses my temple, murmuring, “They’re going to realize you aren’t in the vehicle soon and come looking for us. We need to make a decision, Kricket.” He loosens his arms around me. His hand moves to my chin, tipping it up so our eyes meet. His wary look speaks volumes. “We’re both wanted for treason. If we plan to survive, we’ll need to leave the Ship of Skye.”
“If we do that, what happens to Jax and Wayra?” I ask.
He shakes his head. “They die,” he answers in no uncertain terms. “They’ll never let them out of their cells. If this ship goes down, they go with it. If it doesn’t, they’ll be executed for treason.”
“I won’t leave without them! I won’t let them die unable to defend themselves!”
It’s in his eyes: Trey can’t leave them here, either. “I agree. It’s up to us to get them out.” He bends down and kisses me. I’m overwhelmed by the potency of his nearness. My knees weaken.
He must feel it because he lifts me up in his arms, allowing my head to rest on his shoulder. Carrying me over the shattered glass and debris that litter the floor, he moves in the direction of a bank of overups that lie open not far away. The fem-bot warning continues to sound, “All active-duty personnel . . .”
Behind us, wind stirs the glass on the floor, causing me to glance over Trey’s shoulder. In the gap in the window, the outline of the E-One throws a long shadow upon us. I stiffen in Trey’s arms, causing him to pause and look behind him as well.
The static snap of high-intensity electricity sizzles the air near the E-One. Trey turns away from the heli-vehicle and dives with me in his arms. We land behind a concrete pillar; Trey flattens us against it. The crackle of a lightning strike branches out from the E-One with bright, webbed fingers; it glows golden, raising the hair on my neck as it misses our entwined bodies by mere inches. Closing my eyes, my hair whips up around me while the fem-bot voice short-circuits.
After the shock dissipates, Trey’s mouth brushes my ear as he asks, “Can you run?” I nod. He puts me on my feet. “When I tell you to, run toward the overups.” I nod again. Trey peeks around the pillar for a moment, his strong hand gripping my forearm. “Now, Kricket! Go, go!” He urges me to move toward a grouping of elevatorlike doors ahead of us. Behind us, more windows crash in, shattering as Alameeda troops rappel in with jet packs attached to their backs.
We near an overup and Trey practically throws me into it. I hit the back of the lift, holding out my hands against the jarring force. It knocks me to my knees. I shift to fall on my hip in a heap, staring back at the overup doors, willing them to close. Through the small opening, I recognize Kyon. Attired in full black combat armor and a dark helmet, his visor hides his blue eyes. I know it’s him though by the shape of his strong jaw—the cut of his elegant cheekbones. When he turns his head toward me, fear makes my legs weak.
“Kricket!” Kyon yells, coming right at us. One of Kyon’s fellow soldiers accompanies him. They fly forward; smoky trails of white vapor expel behind their jet packs, forming waving kite tails of exhaust. Kyon has his weapon trained on me; he can kill me anytime he likes. Instead, he shifts the barrel of it at the soldier flying in front of him who also has a weapon trained upon me.
A blue laser dots my chest. My hands come up as I flinch. “Don’t!” I yell at the soldier, his finger squeezing the trigger of his weapon.
Kyon fires first. A blue laser blast hits the Alameeda soldier in the arm; it shatters his armor, taking a huge chunk out of his bicep. He spirals forward, cutting Kyon off, propelled by his jet pack. His blood paints the cage of the overup as he crashes into the compartment with us. The doors roll closed right before Kyon can enter.
The overup drops. Trey growls and grasps the Alameeda soldier’s laser weapon, turning it on him. Trey fires before his enemy can lift his other weapon from the holster on his hip. The impact of the blast to his chest sends the soldier crashing into the wall of the overup. With his breastplate and skin melted away, his heart lies open to me before he falls forward facedown onto the floor.
My arms are dead weights; I stare at his unmoving corpse. Panting and staggering to the panel on the wall, Trey swipes holographic buttons. The overup goes sideways, and then slantways before it falls again in a rapid descent.
“We need to get his Riker Pak off,” Trey says, indicating the corpse on the floor. I stoop down with him. He lifts a panel to a compartment; inside, several buttons blink and glow. He presses a button on the jet pack, and the harness unlatches and retracts off the dead Alameeda soldier. The pack weighs a ton; we both have to lift it together. Helping him position the heavy pack near his back, he reaches around, pressing a button. Automatically, a harness winds out of the jet pack and secures itself to Trey’s back. He flips a switch in the pack, and it emits a low hum, propelling itself upward so that he no longer has to hold it up.
“Check and see if he has a pinpointer.” Trey gestures over his shoulder with his thumb.
“I don’t know what that is,” I say in an apologetic tone.
“A pinpointer is a homing beacon. The Alameeda can use it to track us. Here, tell me if you see anything blinking.”
The jet pack has two fuselagelike projections that make up its oblong shape. Two separate video screens with digital readouts flank the sides of the propulsion system. Everywhere lights blink and flash with different colors and shapes.
All of my fingers spread wide as I jerk my hands. “The whole thing is blinking!” I respond.
“It’s okay; I found it.” His deep, rumbling voice answers as he turns around to face me, yanking a glowing yellow disk from one of the harness straps. He drops it on the floor, crushing it beneath his black-booted foot.
The overup shakes as something lands on the ceiling of it. Both our heads snap upward. A red-glowing outline mars the ceiling, turning it aflame. Melting metal drips down to dot the floor, causing me to press to the side of the lift. Kyon’s voice sounds through the ceiling, “Allairis, leave her in this transport now and I’ll let you live.”
“I need the navigation system,” Trey says calmly, his eyes on the ceiling as he points his weapon in the same direction. “Can you get it for me, Kitten?” He gestures to the helmet on the dead guy’s head. Grimacing, I reach down and pull the black shell off our enemy’s blond hair. Examining the helmet, I notice blue-font readouts on the interior of the visor.
Trey plucks the helmet from my hands, squashing it onto his head; it automatically takes the shape of his cranium, negating the need for a chinstrap. He moves to the wall panel once more, waving his fingers over several holographic buttons. The overup comes to an immediate stop. The doors roll open to a parking garage of sorts. Row upon row of hoverbikes, like the ones that Trey used to extract me from the palace, are stored here.