6. Mia

6

MIA

It was amazing what the right motivation would do toward achieving a goal.

I was convinced Prince Rivvac was never going to take me up on my Wyre idea. Convinced one hundred percent. And he still wouldn’t have if the sharply-dressed Ulsen that came with Flara hadn’t worn that grin. No doubt Crer had thought it was winning. Instead, it came across as superior, as if he knew better than everyone else and could get away with anything he wanted.

It would have rubbed me up the wrong way too.

I knew Flara was the girl Rivvac was betrothed to the moment I laid eyes on her. There was something somehow… classy about her—on the surface as least.

Underneath the superficial layer, I thought she was a nasty piece of work with her constantly looking down her nose at everything and everyone all the time.

But she was a true beauty, a pearl of femininity in a culture that could often come across as hostile and aggressive—mostly due to their large size. Even with Chef, who was honest, kind, and caring, you couldn’t help but feel conflicted with him as you knew he could tear you apart at any time of his choosing.

Flara didn’t come across as physically dangerous but emotionally aggressive. Her viciousness was contained within her sudden flashes of anger, her spiteful and pointed—and frankly, ugly—facial expressions. But I could see why Rivvac had lost his heart to her, especially since they had been betrothed from a young age.

I could only imagine what it must feel like to be consumed with jealousy when your fated mate was linked arm-in-arm with another handsome male.

Rivvac’s jealousy must have been through the roof as he had hardly said a word to me as we walked to the palace garage.

The Royal palace had, unsurprisingly, a huge selection of vehicles to choose from. Rivvac’s instinct was to go for the best, most plush one closest to the entrance. It had a Royal “R” etched onto its side and bonnet.

When he climbed into the pilot’s seat and began to go through the launching sequence, he looked back at me distractedly and said, “Well? Are you coming or aren’t you? I doubt I’ll find this guy’s house if you don’t come with me.”

“I don’t think we should take this shuttle,” I told him.

“Why not? It’s the best in the fleet.”

“That’s the problem. What are the chances someone won’t notice us?”

Prince Rivvac paused and turned the engines off. “Good point.”

He hopped down and pressed his fists on his hips and turned to look at the numerous other ships in the Royal garage. “Then which one do you suggest?”

I walked amongst the endless selection until I came to one that I walked past without even noticing it. I had to back up to look back at it before realizing it was perfect. “This one.”

“This one?” Rivvac said, looking it over. “It’s an old piece of crap.”

“Just like most other ships. It has to be this one.”

Prince Rivvac sighed. “As you wish. There goes traveling in comfort.”

We climbed on board and the difference between the cutting edge ship and this one was immediately apparent.

“I’m not even sure it will fly…” the alien prince said, flicking the various switches.

The engine coughed and chugged before rattling noisily. The prince increased the revs (they weren’t really revs but having grown up surrounded by old combustion engine vehicles, I couldn’t think of what the most accurate term was) until the engines rumbled less and became smoother, almost humming.

“Huh,” Prince Rivvac said. “It works. Strap in. We could fall from the sky at any moment. Here we go.”

He hit a large red button on the dash. Lights flashed as a back hatch opened up in the garage ceiling.

We took off into the morning light. We scaled higher into the sky, the palace shrinking, revealing itself to be a pearl at the center of a medium-sized city nestled on either side by sharp cliffs and sprawling open seas.

It looked like something from a fairytale—picture postcard perfect to what I had seen on various holo-TV shows.

Rivvac took us higher and higher, grinding his teeth as the shuttle shuddered hard, making me clench my eyes shut tight. He turned dials and flicked yet more switches, reducing the shuddering.

I still felt like I was going to be sick.

Then, all of a sudden, as the sky in the wide front window faded from light to dark blue, then to pitch black, I felt the pull of the planet leave us. I floated for a moment in my chair, my restraints holding me in place.

“Turning on the grav generator now,” he said, turning a dial.

The gravity returned to normal.

“That’s a relief,” I said. “Any longer, and you’d have vomit floating around in your lovely cockpit.”

“It’s not lovely.”

“Would it be lovelier with orange chunks floating around it?”

“I suppose not.”

“If your family is so poor now, how is it that you have so many shuttles to choose from?” I asked.

“They don’t belong to us,” he informed me. “They belong to the state. We just use them for formal visits and the like. In fact, if it wasn’t for the state subsidizing us, we would have been removed from the palace months ago.”

“That’s… that’s terrible,” I said.

Prince Rivvac shrugged his massive shoulders. “It is what it is. Right. So we’re heading for Wyre’s planet. When we get closer, you’ll have to tell me the old guy’s address. I’ll take us there manually in case someone looks to check the onboard computer system.”

I blinked in surprise. “They can do that?”

“Of course.”

“Then how will we make sure they don’t know we took one of the ships to go to break into Wyre’s house?”

“I’ll erase the console’s history but experts will be able to find evidence of where the ship went anyway. There’s no way to prevent them from discovering where this ship went. The good news is that all royal shuttles aren’t hooked up to the same mainframe tracking system as every other shuttle in the empire.”

“Why’s that?”

“It would make assassinating the emperor too easy. Track the shuttle he’s on and then throw everything you have at it. The hulls are reinforced but fire enough ion cannons or lasers and eventually, you’ll get through. Nothing is impregnable.”

“Then what if someone thinks to check this shuttle manually?”

He looked over at me, a glimmer in his eyes. “We have to make sure not to get anyone’s interest, so they won’t think we’re responsible.”

I couldn’t say that made me feel very confident. But what else could we do?

“How long will it take to get there?” I asked.

“Thirty minutes.”

“What’ll we do until then?”

He shrugged and looked away, his thoughts no doubt drifting to the earlier scene with his fated mate and Crer.

I released my restraints and extended my hand toward him. He looked at it, then at me, and for a flicker of a moment, I thought he wasn’t going to take it. Then his primal Steyatt urges thought better of it and took my hand.

He got up out of the pilot chair. I pulled him into the same empty space behind us. I placed his hands on my hips.

“Back on Earth, this is called dancing,” I said.

He smiled. “We have dancing.”

“Our dancing is nothing like yours. It’s not about learning the Death Dance or how to defend yourself.”

“Then what’s the purpose of it?”

I shrugged. “For fun. Exercise.”

“I don’t see how such dancing could be fun—”

I told the computer system to play a sultry song from back on Earth and began to cock my hips from one side to the other.

His mouth flopped open and his eyes grew wide, his hands remaining on my hips as I looked up at him. I turned and ground against him, pressing my ass onto his cock.

He grunted under his breath. I timed the music so his hands rubbed over my breasts and down my body. Then I held his hand on the crotch of my pants and encouraged him to rub me.

“Is this how all Earth girls dance?” he said under his breath, already growing heavy with desire.

“Some,” I said. “How does it compare to your Death Dance?”

He licked his lips. “If our females danced this way, I don’t think we would have so many soldiers on the battlefield. Or wars for that matter. Did you learn this from the Sirens?”

I missed a beat of the music but covered it as well as I could. My intention had been to distract him from the concerns he had pressing on him.

“No,” I said. “This is part of Earth culture.”

“Hm. Maybe I should learn more about it…”

I turned to face him. “Then let me be your teacher.”

I pressed my lips to his and he responded with heat. That’s when I knew I had been successful in my attempt to distract him.

And this time, I intended on being the one in the driving seat… at least partially.

Each time we’d made love up to this point, he had always been in control while I was relegated as follower. As it was his Steyatt, so I figured he ought to take what he needed from me—what we had agreed I would provide for him—but this time, I was determined to be the driving force.

Who knows, maybe he had never experienced that either.

I let him undress me and I removed his clothes too.

Thirty minutes wasn’t a lot of time, but it was enough for my purposes.

I liked watching him undress, revealing himself to me one layer at a time, his muscular lean frame and obvious strength.

I bent down and licked his nipples. The first touch made him stiffen and back away—physically take a step back—but he relaxed with each subsequent flick of my tongue.

Then he did the same for me, taking my nipples in his hands and sucking on them gently. I didn’t expect him to be so gentle with them, but more like the uncontrollable animal I had always known him to be. I was pleased when he caressed them with his tongue, savoring them and drawing shallow breaths from my throat.

“Mm,” I said. The noise was out of my mouth before I knew what I was saying.

Then he scooped me up into his arms, his lips still sucking on my nipples that had grown larger and swollen and hard.

He unzipped his pants and his cock searched for my entrance. I helped him in, then leaned forward, knocking him off balance. He fell back against his pilot chair. He began to get up but I writhed on top of him, riding him before he could gather himself.

His eyes were wide and hungry with lust at seeing me on top, grinding and drawing him deep inside me. I rubbed myself back and forth, pinching my nipples between my hands as I brought him deeper and deeper into me. He didn’t press his hands to my hips or attempt to control me in any way and just let me ride him how I wanted.

I bounced hard on his cock, building up a sweat. I loved how he looked up at me as I arched back so he could see me in my full majesty.

I felt his cock grow harder, thicker, stronger, and I bounced higher, harder on him, feeling the soft slap of his balls on my ass. I wrapped my arms around my head as I screamed, my legs burning as I came hard, and felt the immediate hard thrust of his hips driving his own seed deeper inside me.

I flopped forward and lay on top of him for a moment, panting and out of breath as I recovered from the immense thrill of riding him into oblivion.

“That… That was amazing,” he said between harsh breaths.

“I… I don’t know why… you’re… panting… I did all… all the work,” I gasped.

“It’s pure excitement,” he said. “How can I not be thrilled when you’re riding on top of me like that?”

I grinned. What girl didn’t like hearing those words?

A beep sounded before the computer system said, “We have arrived at Nocturus 7.”

We didn’t move a muscle and just laid there a moment, luxuriating in each other’s company.

Then Rivvac groaned. “I suppose we ought to get on with it.”

I sat up, sad at losing the feel of him between my legs, and scooped up my clothes to put them back on again. The majority of my time with him seemed to be spent getting undressed!

Would I want it any other way?

Not when the sex was this good!

“All right then,” Prince Rivvac said. “What’s Wyre’s address?”

I fell into the co-pilot seat and told him.

“Are we in for a bumpy ride?” I asked, strapping myself in.

“Are you kidding?” Rivvac said. “Every minute with you is a bumpy ride!”

I burst into laughter as we descended into the planet’s atmosphere.

And yes, it was a very bumpy ride indeed.

* * *

The descent smoothedafter the initial twenty minutes or so, but let me tell you, those twenty minutes were some of the worst of my life.

I could ride Rivvac until he cried out for mercy—not that he ever had or would—and he could pummel me into oblivion with so much energy that I figured I must have angered him in a past life somehow and now he finally got the chance to get some payback, and yet after all that, I didn’t feel even remotely sick.

But that hideous descent in the tiny little shuttle—the shuttle with the lack of stabilizers, Rivvac helpfully pointed out was missing—had been my idea. Right then, I thought careening down to the surface in an easily-recognizable Royal shuttle might have been worth the risk after all.

The moment we leveled off, Rivvac looked over at me and asked if I was okay.

I nodded but kept my eyes and mouth firmly shut. I had dry-hurled five times on the way down and could smell the acrid stink whispering up against my tonsils. But I hadn’t thrown up and for that, at least, I could be proud.

It was another ten minutes before we came across the large open fields of the surrounding farmlands. They reminded me of home and the farm I had grown up on with my parents, but I didn’t have any desire to go down and help the alien farmers cultivate their lands.

It was backbreaking labor and I wasn’t so homesick that I would want to undergo the trial.

“Wyre’s house is up on the left, so we want to stay on this line,” I said. “There’s a thick copse of trees behind his house. We can land there before we cross over onto his property on foot. That’s if he’s not in, of course. Otherwise, we might be in for a long wait.”

“A long wait, I can handle,” Rivvac said, “especially if the entertainment is anything like that I saw earlier…”

He grinned over at me but I daren’t reflect it back at him in case I breathed acrid stink breath all over him.

We sat down in the woods, the powerful thrusters of the shuttle’s underside blasting the local wildlife from its hiding places in the hedges and bushes.

Prince Rivvac powered down the shuttle’s engine. It seemed eerily quiet after our journey there.

“Well, let’s get to it,” I said, releasing my restraints.

“Wait,” he said, catching my arm. “Are you sure you want to do this? It’s not too late to turn around and forget about the whole thing.”

“And give up the chance to make it up to his victims? I don’t think so. Assholes like Wyre shouldn’t get away with the things they do.”

“Should we get away with what we’re about to do?”

“Yes. Because we want to help people, not steal from them.”

“We’re not helping Wyre, that’s for sure.”

I hardened my jaw. “Look, I’m going in whether you’re coming or not. I’ll need to make more trips than if you’d help me but I can do it on my own.”

His grin broadened as if that was exactly what he was hoping to hear. “And give up my share of the booty? I don’t think so.”

I didn’t like his response as I didn’t want him doing this just for me. I wanted him to do it for himself, for his own reasons.

“Why do you like her so much?” I asked baldly.

“Who?”

I rolled my eyes. “Flara.”

“She’s beautiful. She’s the most gorgeous Ulsen in the Empire.”

I waited for more but when none was forthcoming, I asked, “Is that all? Isn’t there something else that holds you together?”

“Like what?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. Conversation. Humor. Shared interests. Something.”

“I like… her laugh. I like how she never gives up on the things she wants. I like how she never accepts no as an answer.”

That’s because she’s selfish and greedy,I thought, but I didn’t say it.

I had only met Flara once, so what did I know about her? Maybe she had depths I hadn’t seen yet…

But I didn’t think so.

I’d learned through long experience what “elites” could be like. I’d worked for them, observed them. It seemed to me that the drive and ambition of the parents, the first generation to make their wealth, was almost always lost on the generation that followed.

It seemed that giving them better schools, education, friends, gifts etc than they had growing up didn’t result in a better upbringing. They were often rotten to the core and Flara was a prime example of that.

I tried to ignore the aching in my neck and back when I thought of her. She made my whole body hurt, right down to the individual hair follicles.

Why I should care so much about her, I wasn’t sure. Maybe it was just the moony-eyed expression the Prince Rivvac adopted whenever he talked about her, as if she were some kind of unapproachable idol upon a plinth.

Well, she shat the same way as everyone else, and it wouldn’t smell like roses.

“Why do you want to do this?” Rivvac asked. “Really. Why?”

“I owe him.”

“Sure. But it’s not just the revenge, right? What will you do with your half of the take?”

I fixed him with a look. “It’s one thing to own a farm. It’s another to live free.”

Rivvac nodded as if he understood.

“Before we go, I have one condition,” I added.

He rolled his eyes. “If you want to renegotiate, you should have done that before we came here.”

“I don’t want to renegotiate.” I narrowed my eyes. “Do you want to hear it or not?”

He waved his hands as if to say, Go ahead.

“The people Wyre stole from, they have to be paid back first. Everybody.”

“How will we know who he stole from?”

“He has a little black book he writes everything in. He doesn’t have it on him all the time. He keeps it with the money.”

“How much are we talking?”

I shrugged. “I have no idea of the depths of his depravity.”

“What if it’s all the money?”

“It won’t be all of it. He’s been collecting payments and interest for decades.”

“All right. We return what he stole first. Anything else?”

“We split what remains sixty-forty.”

He blinked in surprise. “I didn’t think you’d let me have more than half.”

“I’m not.”

The meaning hit him full force. “You want the sixty percent?”

“Without me, you wouldn’t get anything.”

“Without me, neither would you! Fifty-fifty is fair.”

I scowled at him. “Fifty-five, forty-five. Final offer.”

“Fifty-fifty. Final offer.”

I glowered at him. His eyes became misty and distant. The fool couldn’t help himself but be turned on by this!

“Hey, wake up and focus!” I said, snapping my fingers in front of his eyes to get his attention.

“I am focused!”

“Sure. And I know what on too. Eyes up here, if you please.”

He growled. “So maybe you shouldn’t have such a hot body. It’s not my fault.”

I grinned despite herself. “Behind every fortune is a great crime. And beneath Wyre’s floors are a lot of crimes. Are you ready?”

He nodded and followed me out of the shuttle.

* * *

The walkthrough the woods would have been pleasant if it wasn’t for what we would do when we emerged on the other side.

I motioned for Rivvac to slow down and crouch a dozen yards before we even saw the house. It was concealed behind a small hill that you had to climb first.

I dropped down onto my hands and knees and crawled up the shallow hillside. As I drew closer to the top, I lowered further onto my front and pulled myself up to the hill’s crest.

I was surprised at just how little the house had changed in the past two years since I’d been away. It was a small single-storey structure with enough space for three rooms not much bigger than the shuttle we had ridden to get there.

A pile of chopped wood lay stacked on one side of the wall and a thin rivulet of smoke seeped from the chimney.

It was a warning signal. The cranky old man never used resources unless he absolutely needed to. It meant he was at home. But as I peered down at the property, I could see his shuttle wasn’t there.

But with the smoke coming from the chimney… Did it mean he had only just left and would be back soon? Or did it mean something else?

I wasn’t sure.

I ran an eye around the fence that surrounded the property’s perimeter. The D’in ought to have been there too but I couldn’t make them out either.

Rivvac pulled up beside me and peered down at the small property. “So? How do things look?”

“I’m pretty sure he’s not in.”

He must have picked up on my trepidation. “But…?”

“But there’s smoke coming from his chimney.”

“And is that significant?”

“I’m not sure,” I admitted. “He never came across as the kind of person to waste money.”

“So if he started the fire, you’re saying he must be here somewhere, or will be back soon.”

“Yes.”

“And you’re wondering if it’s worth heading down there now or waiting until a better time?”

I couldn’t help but smile. “Am I that easy to read?”

“It’s a good line of reasoning. For what it’s worth, I think we should go now. He doesn’t need to be away long. It won’t take long for us to empty his fortune.”

“No,” I said. “It’s just… I was hoping we would see him leave and then we would be in the best position to have as much time as we needed.”

“That’s the problem with making plans,” Rivvac said. “So often, things come up that we never thought of.”

“So what do you do in those situations?”

Rivvac pushed himself up onto his feet. “You adapt.”

He descended the hillside on the other side, heading toward the shack.

I scrambled to keep up with him. By the time I got to the bottom of the hill, the D’in were out—all three of them.

They looked much bigger than when I had known them and realized that perhaps when I had given them food and they acted like puppies, the reason was because they really were puppies.

They growled, a high pitched shriek at the back of their throats that sent a shiver through me from the tip of my head to the tips of my toes. Thankfully, we were separated by the fence.

Rivvac seemed unaffected but kept his eyes fixed firmly on them and reached back to me with a hand. “Do you have the treats?”

I took them from a bag and drew up beside Rivvac, ignoring his proffered hand. “It’s better if an alien scent isn’t on the food. They’re famously picky about who they let come near them.”

Rivvac turned his nose up at the mushy purple meat in my hands. “You could have used the replicator to produce anything. Why not give them something tastier than this? It smells rancid.”

“It’s their favorite. Trust me, they love it.”

I pulled my arm back and hurled the meat over the fence. It arched and hit the deck with a solid smack. One D’in looked back at it but then turned his head to look back at us. Four pairs of ears and six eyes on each D’in focused firmly on us.

My insides felt like water. I threw more of the meat over the fence and each time, the D’in didn’t respond.

“Is that what is supposed to happen?” Rivvac said.

“No,” I said. “They usually demolish the food like it was the elixir of life.”

“Then what are they doing?”

“I don’t know. Maybe they got new training? Maybe Wyre realized that someone had come into his house and he wanted to make sure they never came again? I don’t know.”

Well, this is a pretty pickle all right.

The D’in had no restraints that prevented them from going anywhere in the yard. They could tear us apart as easily as their favorite mushy purple goo…

Then I had an idea.

I drifted forward, toward the fence and held out a hand.

“Mia?” Rivvac said, his voice forceful and full of concern. “Be careful.”

“The wind,” I said. “It’s blowing away from us. Maybe they can’t smell me.”

I drifted a little closer and, with my fingertips less than an inch from the lead D’in’s nostrils, I lowered my mouth to them and blew on my fingers, dusting the D’in’s nose with my scent.

The lead D’in snorted. It cocked its head to one side and its long tongue lolled from its broad mouth. It shrieked happily, calling the others over and leaping at the fence.

I peered back at Rivvac. “I knew they would recognize me!”

But they sure did have me concerned for a while there…

I began to climb the fence. Rivvac joined me but I told him to hang back until I let the D’in warm up to me. They will smell him on me and he should be able to move freely among them too.

Rivvac, his face doing nothing to conceal the concern that I might be putting my life on the line, watched as I scaled the fence and dropped down on the other side.

I was swamped with huge D’in bodies in less than the time it takes to blink, pressing and rubbing against me like cats. They sniffed every inch of my clothing, looking for any morsel of food that might still be located in the bag I carried. I took it out and handed it to them. They slurped it happily off my palm, dousing my skin with their sticky saliva.

They sniffed and snorted at my body scent and must have picked up on Rivvac—after all, he had not only been close to me, but inside me. The big D’in male couldn’t help himself but to sniff at my crotch and growl in Rivvac’s direction. No doubt he now considered him a rival.

I gripped hold of his studded collar and held on tight just in case he decided to launch an attack on Rivvac.

“All right!” I said to Rivvac. “You can come over now.”

He scaled with two powerful thrusts of his feet, once on the ground outside and the other halfway up the fence, and sailed high, landing powerfully on the plain concrete of the compound yard.

As he stood, I couldn’t help but shiver at his sheer strength and magnificence.

“I’ll go inside,” he said.

“And unlock the door so you can let me in,” I said.

He walked once around the shack before noticing the hatch on the roof. He launched himself at the building, scaling it the same way he had the fence, and crouched down, creeping carefully toward the skylight. He easily leveraged it open and slipped inside.

Within ten seconds, the front door opened and Rivvac beamed over at me.

I shushed the D’in and left them with the remainder of the purple mush that they loved (for the life of me I couldn’t figure out why) and entered the house. I shut the door behind myself.

I breathed a sigh of relief. “Well,” I said. “That’s the hard part over.”

“Lead the way,” Rivvac said, motioning to the sparse and unkempt shack’s interior.

I walked directly to the loose slat I’d found all those years ago—as if I’d been there only yesterday. It was funny how the mind could remember such things so easily.

I pulled the loose floorboard up. It was the keystone for the entire floor. It allowed me to pull up the other slats too. Seeing the pattern, Rivvac leaned down and helped me pull them up.

By the time we were done, half the floor had been removed. Beneath it were burley sacks of indiscriminate value.

I bent down and grabbed one at random. I pulled the drawstring open and peered inside and marveled at how old man Wyre was trapped in a time and place lacking any technology at all. I showed Rivvac the piles of tightly-bound cash, jewels, and rare artifacts.

He snorted. “With this kind of wealth, you’d have thought he could afford better security systems.”

“Systems like that cost money, and he’s not in the habit of spending it. And think about all the attention it would bring. The better the security system, the more valuable the treasure… and that only creates more headaches.”

Rivvac nodded. “Well, his system has worked this long.”

“But no longer,” I said firmly. “Every credit and item here is covered with blood of the innocent. I dread to think how many people he’s ripped off over the years and the terrible stories attached to them.”

I noticed the little black book. It was the only item not hidden inside a sack and was fastened shut with a piece of red elastic. Inside were names and addresses with numbers written beside them.

Pages and pages of them…

I felt sick to my stomach.

I tucked it in my pocket. It might have weighed a literal ton.

Rivvac put his hand on my shoulder and said, “They’ll get what they lost. We’ll make sure of it.”

“They’ll never get back what they lost,” I said sadly. “The money, yes, but not the promises and dark memories.”

We got to work carting the sacks out of the shack. Rivvac tossed the bags over the fence, forming a huge pile on the other side.

It was hard work but it was quick, and within thirty minutes, we had all of it out.

“Do you want to leave him any?” Rivvac asked. “Enough for him to survive on?”

“Did he leave his victims anything?” I asked coldly. “No. Leave him nothing.”

I turned to head back to the shack.

“Where are you going?” Rivvac asked.

“I need to replace the floor tiles. It might buy us some time.”

Rivvac shook his head. “Judging by what you’ve told me about Wyre, I imagine he counts it every day. And we don’t know how much longer he will be gone.”

I scratched the D’in and realized that if we didn’t do something with them too, they were going to suffer at the hand of Wyre’s cruelty for failing to defend his stash.

I explained my concerns to Rivvac. He just smiled at me and carried each of the monsters over the fence.

“We’ll drop them off somewhere on the way back to the palace,” I said.

“We’ll drop them off,” Rivvac said with a nod, “but not on the way back. It might lead back to us. We’ll drop them off on a colonized moon in the opposite direction.”

The D’in weren’t useless though, as we lashed sacks of stash to their backs with rough ropes and led them back to the shuttle.

We moved fast. I kept my eyes peeled on the sky, looking, listening for any sign Wyre was returning.

By the time we picked up the final few sacks, I was exhausted. As we turned to head back to the forest, I heard it, the sound I had been dreading ever since we started the heist.

A low-pitched wailing of a shuttle’s engine.

“He’s coming back!” I screeched.

“Get beneath the tree cover,” Rivvac said.

We ran into it. I slowed to peer up at the sky. Rivvac didn’t stop and took off like a shot.

“Come on!” he yelled, sprinting through the undergrowth.

We scaled our shuttle’s open hatch door. The D’in stood to attention, ears perked up. They emitted low whines of fear at the sound of their master returning home. They lowered their ears and searched for any small hiding places they could find to conceal themselves… hiding places they could never find in the concrete yard.

“Don’t worry,” I told them. “He’ll never hurt you again.” I turned to Rivvac. “Get us out of here.”

“Yes, sir,” Rivvac said with affection.

I strapped myself in. Rivvac surprised me by not taking off into the sky right away and instead elected to wind through the trees. I supposed he was afraid Wyre would see us making our escape and give chase.

But we couldn’t continue horizontally forever, and after ten minutes, Rivvac pulled on the controls and took us up, higher into the atmosphere.

This time, the turbulence didn’t make me feel sick. It was the fear that we might be discovered that made my stomach gurgle with trepidation.

I was relieved only once we were free from the planet’s gravitational pull and took off into the endless expanse of space.

I smiled over at Rivvac and took his hand. He massaged my fingers with his own.

“We did it,” I said. “We really did it.”

I sent a silent prayer to Wyre’s victims. This might not be the release Wyre had promised them, but no one could do that save the Creator. But at least their families would no longer have to struggle with destitution.

I looked over at Rivvac and squeezed his hand. We did it. And it was all thanks to him.