Chapter Ten
Shaking my head, at the disappearance of Ross and the others, I turned back in my seat as Zayri pulled free of the city and headed towards the empty part of space where a sun should be. There was a noise behind me and looking back I witnessed the cargo hold suddenly fully loaded with explosives.
I glanced to Zayri and she shrugged, “Sometimes you need to blow the candle up in order to get some light.”
She grinned cheekily at me and I stared at her mesmerized.
“What?” She asked self-consciously after a moment.
“You’re beautiful.”
“Only you would say that right now. I look atrocious!” She said laughing.
“What’s not to love about you.” I said entirely serious and she glanced back to me quickly with a look that said I’d touched her deeply.
“Zayri I don’t know what you’re up to, but on the off chance we don’t survive I want you to know that I like you and that every moment I’m with you I find something new to love about you.”
She smiled at the screens before her, but I didn’t miss the tears tracking down her face. Looking over at me she passionately said, “We’re not going to die! This ship is going to crash into your hidden sun and you’re going to get your world back and I come along with it. It’s a package deal. Take it or leave it!”
“I’m all in.” I said smiling.
She did some last minute programming with her fast-moving fingers, as I continued to admire her. The manacles about her wrists made her task somewhat cumbersome and I was just about to offer to remove them when she pushed back from the consul before her and said, “All set!”
She rose and I followed. The rags she wore concealed little and yet tormented all the same. It was a war not to rip what little remained off. What was really hard at the moment was to remember that we were about to crash into a hidden sun.
She glanced over her shoulder and gave me a knowing smirk as my eyes lifted from her rear to meet her gaze. She pressed a button and a panel door slid open. She stepped inside and reaching the open panel I saw her standing in a very confined space.
She crooked a finger beckoningly at me and said, “This way Marshal.”
I stepped inside and the panel door shut behind me. We were pressed firmly up against each other to the point it was hard to even take a full breath.
“You know these escape pods are designed to transport just one. We’re going to need to conserve oxygen with our breathing.” She said teasingly.
I kissed her deeply and she chuckled richly. Drawing back I whispered, “You mean like this?”
“Exactly so.” She said reclaiming my lips passionately with hers.
We were suddenly launched into a freefall motion that normally would have pulled at my stomach strings, but passion held me in a grip that wouldn’t let go. Coming up for air as we shot through space I felt led to apologize, “I’m sorry. I really stink.”
Laughing she pressed closer in order to reclaim my lips, “Like I care!”
The pod shook violently and neither of us witnessed the airship loaded with explosives crash into the hidden sun. Neither did we see the immediate corresponding cronal mass ejection of plasma that lit up the galaxy as an epic solar flare burst out of the darkness of a seemingly void area of space.
The galaxy crackled in the wake of the solar eruption of plasma and then a light pierced through the darkness that hadn’t been seen in almost two hundred years. All this occurred, but the couple in the escape pod remained oblivious as they conserved oxygen by breathing as one, sharing the breath of life with each other unselfishly.
*****
The landing was beyond rough. The pod literally fell apart and I felt myself flung free of it to land with a hard smack into a body of water.
Sputtering for air I rose to my feet and gasped in fresh air. It should have been night on the planet, but harmony had been restored.
I glanced upward and then quickly away from the bright light in the sky that had brought its warmth back to a formally frozen land. The water was cold, but the air on my face was warm.
The re-emergent sun was the least of my priorities at the moment though.
“Zayri!” I called out in panic.
“Over here.”
I turned to see her about twenty feet away in the shallow water. Slogging over to her I grabbed at her and her chain was what I caught a hold of first. I pulled her shivering body towards what appeared to be the shoreline that the flash thawed water lapped up against.
Pulling free of the water I tore my wet shirt off grateful for the warmth of the sun on my skin. Turning to Zayri, who still looked chilled I said, “Now it’s your turn.”
She arched an eyebrow and held her arms out and shook her chain demandingly, “Remove these first Marshal.”
Reaching out I grasped her chain and pulled her closer until our faces nearly touched, “No. By the way Mrs. Collins the name’s Taran.”
“Mr. Collins I do believe you are a man who likes to have things your own way.”
“Only when it comes to you Mrs. Collins.”