Scrambling around, I righted myself and reached for my harness. As I strapped in, Shade took off.
“We’re out!” he called, flying straight toward the hovercrafts. Neither of us flinched. They should be afraid of us, not the other way around. The one-man cruisers were a different story.
“Look out!” I cried.
Shade banked hard, narrowly avoiding a bright-blue energy blast from one of the fighter pilots. It hit the dock, and an explosion rolled upward, licking at the bottom of our cruiser.
I glanced over my shoulder, my heart banging against my ribs. The Endeavor’s cargo door finished closing just as a great ball of fire slammed against it. The flames died out. A hole gaped in the platform.
I turned back around, blowing out a quick breath. Okay then.
Shade flew with the skill of a military pilot, but that didn’t keep me from gripping the edges of my seat until my fingers cramped. He went vertical, straight up the tower, drawing fire and getting the Dark Watch cruisers to follow, and then dove hard, speeding back down and forcing the hovercrafts to scatter.
Our front console flashed out damage warnings—minor for the moment. So far, we’d avoided any direct hits, but we couldn’t keep this up forever. Maybe I should have let Merrick help us. Fiona was good at math. She could have set the freaking coordinates and handled the bridge with Jax.
A warning blared. Shade barreled into a roll to keep a fighter cruiser from targeting us. Buildings. Sky. Ground! A scream rose in my throat. I choked it down when Shade straightened and pulled up hard. He zoomed back toward our platform and challenged the two hovercrafts blocking the Endeavor’s exit to a game of do-or-die chicken that had me curling into my seat, my eyes half closed.
I braced for impact just as both hovercrafts suddenly dropped, avoiding our charge only to ram into each other. One’s engine exploded and blew a hole through the side of the other. They spiraled toward the ground, a mess of smoke and fire. Soldiers abandoned ship, leaping over the sides and activating the gliders on their backs to take them down to street level.
“Holy shit.” I glanced at Shade. His mouth was set in a grim line of concentration.
More hovercrafts moved in to block the Endeavor.
“Fuckers won’t get…the way,” Jax muttered, interference chopping at his voice midsentence. “Should I ram them?”
He could bully the remaining hovercrafts out of the way, but those one-man cruisers had firepower that could ground the Endeavor. We had to get the ship out now. The crew needed to get to safety, and this was my one chance to get to Reaginine with the blood bags before my uncle dragged either Mareeka or Surral off to prison.
“How many incendio charges can we still blow?” I asked Shade.
Wordlessly, he put the multidetonator box in my hand. Three out of five buttons still jutted out, waiting to be activated.
“Brace yourselves,” I warned. “You’re about to lose half that platform.”
“We’re ready to fly, Tess. Do it.” Jax knew the Endeavor could take a roasting. It was high-intensity electromagnetic radiation we had to worry about. Phasers burned holes through metal, messed with systems, left ships dead or limping.
Steeling myself, I pressed all three buttons. One hell of a conflagration erupted, throwing a thundering arm of fire out from the platform. I winced away from the burning wave, and even though the cruiser’s outer armor protected us from the heat, we bumped and rattled like particles in a reactor. I grabbed the handle above my window panel, my teeth clacking. On my right, goons dove for cover behind the chest-high walls of the open hovercrafts. Their pilots kicked it into reverse and then banked away from the inferno, emptying the area of the hulking obstructions.
“We’re up and clear,” Jax announced. “Leaving.”
I craned my neck to watch the Endeavor emerge from utter chaos, her gray metal wavering in a heat mirage of engine fever and explosion fire. She lifted away from the jagged edge of the dock, sending loose bits of platform flying. Debris pinged against our front panel, and both Shade and I jerked. The flames died down, but black smoke billowed, climbing up and out and everywhere. As soon as the Endeavor cleared the tower, Jax tilted her nose toward the spheres and punched up the power.
In front of us, a ragged blister glared at me from where Platform 252 used to be. I could almost smell the ignition fuel, feel the sting of smoke in my eyes, and taste the melting tar on my tongue. I swallowed, fear of the whole tower crumbling to the ground spreading through me like battery acid and biting into me hard.
“I put the incendios where they’d chew the hell out of one side of the platform but not cause major structural damage.”
I looked at Shade. Was I that obvious?
Clearing my throat, I murmured, “Thank you.” If I could trust anyone to know how sturdy a docking tower was, it was Shade. And I was relieved to know he chose not to go any further than necessary with potential damage.
Our radar beeped. Once. Twice. Faster. We turned our eyes to the sky. Several one-man fighters came at us. Shade evaded, but we took a glancing blow and lost altitude. I gasped, gripping my harness. Shade’s hands flew over the controls, steadying his cruiser and quieting the warnings. He launched a counterattack that sent some of the Dark Watch fighters scattering. The rest stayed on us.
Shade accelerated and rolled in a dizzying spiral down a huge avenue, towers hemming us in on both sides and shots chasing us until we swung hard around another building. Heavy g-forces dragged at my body, and I held on tight, holding my breath, too.
We came back around to…nothing?
“What the hell?” I leaned forward, then swiveled my head around. My eyes flicked up. “They’re after the Endeavor!”
With a well-placed tap, Shade coaxed our sputtering visual-aid system back into working order and zoomed off in pursuit. “Time to show them what we’ve got, starshine.”
“They could ground her.” Or worse. I wouldn’t voice worse out loud, though.
“They won’t.” Shade pushed a button, and a panel opened in front of me. Automatically, I reached for the joystick that emerged from inside the front console, my thumb already hovering over the little red button. A target monitor lit up behind it.
“Shoot ’em out of the sky if you have to,” Shade told me.
I nodded, doing my best to ignore my cramping stomach. I hadn’t shot anything but bullets before. And I’d never shot to kill.
As we came up on the Dark Watch cruisers, a few of the fighters swung around to engage us while others stayed hot on the tail of the Endeavor. I picked one and tracked its movements, my fingers tensing around my control column. It was getting closer to us. Too close. It shot off an energy blast that sizzled down our left side and caused a damage warning. Shit. I couldn’t just sit here. I clenched my jaw and fired.