They continued to descend, meter by meter. An alarm went off, warning his engine was too hot from the exertion of the magneray. “Almost there,” he muttered, trying to turn the vecking sound off.
“Move out of the way, Your Highness, or you’ll be crushed,” he barked as they got close to the ground. He shifted his ship around to another side to help stabilize the side Zander would drop. “On three. One...two...three!”
Zander moved out, and the pod dipped sharply. The alarm screeched, lights flashed, but they got the thing to the ground. Smoke issued from every side of it.
He brought his ship to land beside it.
“Outside atmosphere is unsafe for breathing,” spoke a robotic female voice of his ship. He wasn’t surprised, otherwise the land mass would be inhabited, but it made things difficult, especially with the smoke issuing from the death pod. The passengers would need fresh air to breathe, and soon.
“My crew—board with arms drawn. Prepare to fight. Depri, destroy all tracking devices on the pod.”
Zander issued a similar order to his men.
He unbuckled his harness and pressed ray guns into each of the women’s hands. “You two stay here. Do not open the door for anyone but myself or Zander. Understand?”
Lamira nodded, but he wasn’t sure he trusted her. “I mean it. If anything happens to you, it’s on my head.”
She rested her hand on her belly. “Nothing will happen to me.”
With a curse, he fastened a helmet with controlled air delivery over his head, left the ship, and sealed the door, sprinting to the entrance of the death pod, which Depri already had burned halfway open with a laser ray.
~.~
The moment the death pod had been impacted, she’d known Rok had come for her. Now that they’d landed, smoke filled the corridors in thick plumes, making it impossible to see even a hand in front of her face.
She scooped Carmeela into her arms and cradled her against her hip, holding her tight, as if that might somehow protect her from suffocation. Far away, she heard the muffled sound of Rok shouting her name.
“Rok!” she screamed but choked on smoke, coughing and wheezing. “Rok...Rok! I’m here!”
“Rok!” one of the males in her cell shouted.
“Rok!” Another one cried. Someone thumped the heel of his shoe against the wall repetitively.. “Rok! Rok! Rok!” More voices joined, creating a chant of his name.
Tears moistened her eyes. They were doing this for her. Well, her rescue might free all of them, but they were working together. It never happened. Ocretions kept lower caste beings from organizing, developing relationships. They forced separation, but, in this moment, they all cried out as one. “Rok! Rok! Rok!”
A door burst open at the end of the corridor. Every cell door slid open.
“Lily!” Rok’s deep voice rang with urgency.
Hands jostled her and Carmeela forward, thrusting her in the direction of Rok. “She’s here!” someone yelled. “Right here.”
Through the black haze, Rok’s hulking figure appeared. His face set with ferocious intent, he appeared like a demon. No, like a god.
“Rok!” she shrieked and threw herself at him, Carmeela still in her arms.
Momentary surprise registered on his face at the sight of the child, but he promptly wrapped them both up in an embrace, his arms like steel bands around her, lifting them off the ground and swiftly carrying her back out the door.
“You came for me.”
“Of course I came for you,” he said gruffly. “You belong to me.”
The sensation those words produced was all warmth. It wasn’t the twisted knife in the chest that came with being considered an object for trade and use, but the soaring joy of belonging. What she’d longed for from the moment she met Rok—to be a part of his circle, his crew, his life. Being owned by Rok carried an entirely different meaning than slavery to her, and she knew it did to him, too.
“Every being follow me. Remain calm and orderly. Help those who are having difficulty,” Rok’s loud voice echoed off the corridor walls as he swept forward. They entered a large antechamber with less smoke.
“Every being get down on the floor, where the air is most clear,” Rok ordered. He immediately unclipped his helmet and reached to put it on her, but she deflected it and put it over Carmeela’s little head instead.
“We have to find her mother,” she said urgently.