Setting Fire to the Stars (a MM Sci-Fi Romance)

Chapter 23: Anchor

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Lauren
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"Ugh, come on!" The annoyed grunt left me as my foot reconnected with the chromatic cockpit door. The pearly surface groaned beneath my boot as though I were disturbing a hibernating beast from its slumber.

Our crash landing had been less than gentle, leaving the ship without power and the hatch to the outside world subsequently sealed. Synth tried activating the control panel next to the door, but it was ultimately pointless without a working power source. It didn't help that it was still sweltering like a goddamn hotbox.

"Dammit!" I shouted, kicking the door again.

Synth stepped to my side and laid a hand on my arm. "Calm down, Lauren. Wasting energy is not going to get us out any faster."

"Then what do you suggest we do, huh? We are literally seconds away from having an entire alien armada come down on us, and we're trapped inside a giant metal sauna!" I yelled, throwing the side of my palm against the heated surface, flinching back before it scalded my skin.

"We will think of something," she assured, a bead of sweat dripping down her temple. "But we cannot afford to lose our heads right now. Just take a deep breath and try to think logically."

Clenching my fists, I forced myself to take a deep breath and held it. Counting to five, I let it out slow enough that my legs stopped shaking.

Synth was right. Since waking up aboard the Vesphirae, I hadn't felt like myself. I'd felt claimed. Marked. Hunted. Adamas's words still scraped against the inside of my skull. The way he'd said that phrase—his mate—like it was already decided. Like I was already his.

My stomach turned. We were moments from a clean escape and instead, we were stranded and exposed. Every beat of my heart felt like a pulsing flare, announcing exactly where we were. If he found us, it was game over. If he found us, the current Lauren, the person I was, would cease to exist. That thought alone sent bold panic slicing through my chest. Not chains. Not imprisonment.

I swallowed hard, fighting the spiral. We were off his ship. But we weren't safe. Not yet. Now with every second we wasted trying to escape our metal prison, our enemy was closing in. I was so close to freedom that the thought of being recaptured now sent me spiraling out of control.

My heart pounded away in my ears as I searched for another way off the ship. The alarms from the computerhad gone silent, the blank screens reflecting my scowling face back at me almost mockingly. Without any power flowing through their circuits, the ship was a lifeless chunk of metal. The cockpit was illuminated only by the clouded sunlight filtering in. Fortunately, the front of the ship hadn't been submerged in dirt, debris falling away from the cockpit window as we had rolled to a stop.

"You think we can break through?" I nodded towards the glass.

Synth tilted her head back inquisitively. "Maybe. It is made of reinforced siochrone glass. We will need something significantly powerful to break it. That or we could blast the door down with xet bolts, but that will take longer and no doubt draw more attention."

"Can't we just shoot through it?"

Synth pinned me with a look like I had claimed the sky was red. "Siochrone glass is designed to reflect xetbolts inside the ship and out. If we tried to shoot it, the bolt would ricochet off the windshield."