He flipped the switch joining him to Zander’s communications back on. “Waiting for your arrival, my lord. Do you need our coordinates?”
“I don’t need your vecking coordinates,” Zander growled over the lines. It sounded as if his teeth were clenched. “Estimated arrival, 1600.”
“Copy that.”
~.~
Singing.
The entire death pod was filled with singing. Beautiful, mournful songs.
The guards had attempted to stop it at first, shocking the woman in Lily’s cell who began it, but once others picked up where she left off, their leader had shrugged and said, “There’s no harm in it. Let them sing. It’s better than wailing.”
Now, voices joined together in song after song. They came in different languages, repeated until everyone learned the words. Chants, songs, spirituals. Suppressed religious songs. She’d never heard any of them before, but the effect on her was enormous. The voices carried her away. Not in the absent-from-body way she’d refined, but in a sort of euphoria. Joy. Solidarity. Communion. Peace.
Rok would come for her. She knew it in her bones. Just like she’d always known her life had more meaning than being a colorless sex slave. He was her after. The life she hadn’t yet begun. The promised land she’d described to the sweet child now sleeping in her lap.
Rok would come, and they all would be free.
~.~
Their ten cloaked battleships surrounded the death pod. Rok sent out a communications jammer to interrupt any signals they might be sending or receiving. He didn’t need them calling for help or identifying the battleships.
“Fire without incurring damage. We don’t want to cause any explosions or even disable the ship, only to force it out of territory,” Rok barked over the communications. “On my count, one...two...three, and fire.”
Laser fire blasted, and the huge death pod rocked. It lacked the ability to fly quickly or nimbly, so it simply made a slow bank to the left.
Good. Exactly the direction they wanted it to turn.
“Keep the pressure on the right., Keep it turning!”
Beside him, Lamira was strapped in, hands gripping the control panel. She’d gone pale. “I think I’m going to be sick.”
“Vecking excrement—do it that way.” He pointed to her other side.
Leora rubbed her back and offered a container of fluid.
“Now, stay right on it! Oh veck.”
Smoke issued from one of the pod’s turning vents and it wobbled and spun in a circle.
“Push it back. Push it back toward the land mass.” He prayed the pilot of the death pod was good enough to get control of the thing and land safely.
But the giant death pod began to plunge, spinning out of control through the atmosphere of the land mass below.
“Send out magnerays to stabilize it!” He sent his battleship into a dive after the pod.
Veck, he had no idea if their ships had enough power to stabilize the thing, even with them all working simultaneously.
He aimed and shot the magneray, which struck the pod and interrupted the spinning. It still wobbled horribly, but— There. Depri’s magneray caught the pod from the opposite side, providing more stability. One by one, the other battleships sent out magnerays that attached until, together, they held the pod stable and aloft.
“Lower her slowly,” he barked, easing his own craft toward land.
The ships worked together, bring
ing the pod down by degrees, tipping and tilting it as they went. Sweat dripped down Rok’s brow. It took every bit of his concentration to maintain contact with the pod and keep the thing from crashing to the land mass below.
“That’s it...keep going. Easy now... Whoa!” The far side of the pod dropped when three ships lost contact with it, but Prince Zander swooped down below and sent a beam upward to catch them and steady the fall. “Good work, my lord.”