Tal grinned. “I’m trying. So who’s Lundric?”
“My mate. Except he’s still angry with me for stealing a ship and trying to leave to find you.”
“Who flew the ship?”
Her lips curved into a self-satisfied smile. “I did. They’ll train you, too, if you want.”
She didn’t really have to ask. Her brother was a born warrior, like her. “Veck, yes. When can I start?”
An alarm went off, screeching through the pod and echoing off the metal walls. “Ocretion police ships have entered the atmosphere. All pilots report to the loading dock. Repeat, Ocretion police ships have entered the atmosphere. Every pilot report to the loading dock. This is not a drill.”
She scrambled to her feet. “Come on, let’s go.”
Tal raced behind her as they ran to the loading dock.
She didn’t wait for instructions like the rest of the humans gathered, but grabbed two helmets and followed the Zandian warriors out of the pod, running over the rocky ground for a battleship, her brother right behind her.
“Cambry!” Lundric’s anguished roar came over the comms unit. She stopped in her tracks, looking around for him. He’d halted in the hatch of a battleship when he’d caught sight of her.
He thought she was running again. She’d just have to prove to him she planned to stay.
Battleships lifted off the ground around them and, above, the first shots were fired.
“Fire at will, repeat, fire at will!”
“Get back in the pod,” Lundric roared, jumping into his ship.
Veck that. She was a trained pilot, and they needed her. She resumed running toward the next available battleship and jumped on, waiting until Tal joined her before closing the hatch. “Buckle up,” she shouted as she jumped into the pilot’s seat. “You’re on weapons because I don’t know how to work them.”
Tal whooped and slid behind the controls. “Whoa,” he breathed with appreciation, lighting up as he took in the state-of-the-art craft. “Where did they get all these ships?”
“They’re rich. But almost extinct.”
“Hence their interest in human females?”
“I suppose,” she mumbled, slightly offended at having her relationship with Lundric reduced to the economics of available females. That must have been how Lundric felt thinking she’d only been interested in him for the ways he could help her.
But she knew Lundric’s interest in her wasn’t just because she was female. He’d seen her. Been attracted to her. She had to show him she felt the same.
She lifted off and entered the fray. She saw at least four Ocretion police ships, all firing on them. “Hang on,” she yelled and made a tight turn, swinging the craft around to get behind one of the police ships. “Fire, Tal!”
Tal shot the laser. It went wide, and the police ship dropped down, out of range. “Give me another chance—I’m still figuring out how these work,” he yelled.
Below them, the pod lifted from the ground, the battleships circling around, protecting it as it made an escape. Where was it going? She hoped the Zandians had a plan. And she sure as hell wished she’d been privy to it, because she had no idea where to rendezvous if they survived this battle.
“On the right, on the right!” she shouted as one of the police ships appeared in their range.
Both ships fired on each other. She held tight when the ship sustained damage to the wing, but Tal nailed them with laser fire, and the police ship exploded.
“I did it!” he yelled. “Give me another one.”
“We might not have a chance!” She gripped the controls with all her might, trying to direct the craft as it fell into a spin.
Her mind raced, trying to remember what Rok had said about recovering from a spin. Cut the power, turn away from the spin and push down.
The ground came hurtling toward them, and her fingers flew over the controls, cutting power and pushing down and left, away from the spin. Nothing happened. Ten more seconds and they’d hit ground and they wouldn’t survive a fall from the height they’d been hit.
The craft wobbled. She pushed harder on the controls, encouraged she’d made any kind of change in the spin.