Chapter 16

Drowsy and sated, Dante slumped back against the bed with Tinsley draped across him. He stroked her leg with one hand and curled a lock of her hair around his fingers with the other. Several moments passed in which he simply marveled at her softness.

Dante felt the ship slow and then rattle as it entered the artificial atmosphere of a spaceport. He hadn’t expected the journey to be so short. Knowing he would have to wake Tinsley, he simultaneously dreaded it and longed to see her eyes open and focus lovingly on him.

He was still procrastinating waking her when his fingers got caught in her hair. Shit. Trying to hold his hand as still as possible, he shook her shoulder gently. “Tinsley?”

Nothing. He shook her shoulder a little harder. Still nothing. “Wow,” he said out loud, “I really did a number on her.”

Allowing himself a small chuckle, he attempted to extricate his fingers from her silken curls without waking her. Just as he was down to the last couple of strands, the ship bumped, and he yanked, accidentally pulling the hair out by the root.

“Owww!”

Dante grimaced. So much for staring into her sleepy, loving eyes. “I’m sorry. I got tangled.”

“Mmm,” she muttered with a frown, nestling further into his embrace.

“Tinsley,” Dante said, scooting away from her a little bit.

“Uh-uh,” she groused, not wanting his body to leave hers.

“Tinsley?” he tried again, this time almost falling off the bed in his efforts to disengage himself.

“No!” she yelled, pulling him back to her and squeezing her eyes shut.

Dante laughed. Her grip around his waist was vise-like. “We have to go,” he murmured gently, stroking her hair. A couple of flyaway strands wrapped around his fingers, and he retracted his hand. You’re not getting me this time.

“Why do we have to?” Tinsley demanded. The ship’s rattle shifted to a buzz and then a dull roar as the landing gear extended and the direction of drag met the ship’s wide underbelly. Tinsley’s head popped up. “Why didn’t you tell me we were landing?”

Dante looked at the ceiling and sighed. I tried, he thought.

She hopped up and bustled about the room, snatching up pieces of clothing and shimmying into them as quickly as she could. “Well, come on!” she insisted, shaking out her curls and checking her face in the mirror. She left the room hurriedly, rubbing sleep marks off her cheek.

Dante lifted himself off the bed, slipped into a pair of pants, and followed to the bridge. “Where are we?” Tinsley asked

“Pallagheten station it looks like,” Dante replied. “Middle of nowhere.” Dante paused in thought. “I wonder why they would stop here.”

The space station wasn’t very crowded, and though the Thunder Bolt was landing a safe distance from the Jorvlen ship, Dante immediately picked it out from the throng. The first mate was right. As he watched, a small pod detached from the rear of the vessel, gaining speed as it approached an opening hatch in the station’s inner shield.

“Tracker gun! Tracker gun!” Dante shouted. He caught the gun over his shoulder, rushed up to the bosun’s nest, opened the airlock, and leaned out. He aimed at the open hatch and fired without locking onto the pod’s trajectory.

“Think you hit it?” Tinsley asked.

“Shhh.” Dante held up a finger and focused intently on the signal from the tiny tracker bullet that had exploded from the gun and was now heading toward the pod at roughly Mach 3.

The treated metal, barely hard enough to hold its shape in this atmosphere, would have to hit the pod with enough force to collapse onto the hull. At that point, the signal would change from a flashing red light on the side of the gun to a steady light.

The light still blinked, indicating that the pod had made it through the hatch in the inner shield, which was in the process of closing to allow the outer shield to open. “Come on. Come on,” he whispered.

The light was still blinking as the hatch door closed. “Dammit!” he shouted. What if Maraliza was on that pod? He and Tinsley would have to find a way to track it from the Jorvlen ship. One more thing to worry about.

Dante stomped his way back to the bridge. “What happened?” Tinsley asked as he entered. He gave her a dark look and held up the gun for her inspection.

Tinsley shook her head. “What am I looking at? What’s wrong?”

“You don’t see?” Dante brandished the tracker gun in front of her. “I lost it!”

“What?” For all her intelligence and competence as the captain of the ship, Tinsley looked mystified.

Dante scoffed. “A tracker gun’s light blinks when it doesn’t have an established connection with a fired tracker bullet! I didn’t make it in time! Do I have to spell it out for you?”

Tinsley’s eyes narrowed. “The light’s steady.”

“What?” he demanded.

Tinsley raised her eyebrows and pointed at the gun.

He looked at the diode just in front of the trigger and, sure enough, the red light was steady. “Woo hoo!” he whooped, holding the gun aloft in a victorious gesture. “Tinsley, you’re amazing!”

He kissed her.

“I’ve heard of shooting the messenger, but I like kissing the messenger better,” Tinsley replied with a grin.

“Me, too,” Dante murmured.

Tinsley shook her head and held her hand out for him to give her the coordinates drive. He popped it out of the handle and gave it to her, following her to the computer as she plugged it in and downloaded the pod’s location. Dante’s grin widened as he saw the pod’s trajectory pull up on the screen.

“Looks like you hit it after it left the hatch.” Tinsley highlighted the part of the screen that showed the stats on the bullet he had used. “Nice shootin’, hoss.”

“Thanks,” he replied. One less thing to worry about.

“What now?”

Deflated, the grin fell from Dante’s face. “Good question. I was so ready to board the Jorvlen ship and gather intel on that pod that I didn’t have time to come up with a Plan B. Any ideas?”

Tinsley shrugged. “Why come up with a Plan B? Why don’t we go see what we can see? It’s not like their hackles are up.”

“You checked the shields?”

She nodded. “While you were gone. They’re way down. Might even have left the doors unlocked.”

“How accommodating,” he drawled. “Did you catch how many Jorvlen attackers are left in our midst?”

“Ninety-six including the two in the pod.”

“That’s awfully precise.”

“It’s a fully staffed transport.” She held up all her fingers except her thumb. “Minus four.”

Dante smirked. Either the Jorvlens were stupid, or they were intentionally sending the message that nothing important was on board by leaving it unguarded. Although, it could be both. “Well, no reason to pussyfoot.” Tinsley snorted. “Suit up. I’ll meet you on the dock.”