New Elysium: Breakout

That Kiss Needs Work (24)

"Ember!"

Red's voice was far away. She purposefully tuned him out. She shouldn't have been able to hear him at all but knowing Red, he'd found a way to patch through. Anger coursed through her as her as she thought of the pilot they'd just run into. The one who'd just sacrificed himself to let them know there was another Vesper pilot so they wouldn't be caught unaware.

Too many sacrifices, it wasn't right...

He was dead because he broke cover to let them know. Ember replayed the last words sent to her. Another Vesper pilot is with them. Run!

The Ember shuddered as she shifted it onto a course that would cause her to intercept. She didn't think about the fact that she had no weapons, or what she was going to do with someone who could maneuver just as well as she could...

And then she felt something that she did not expect. Hands on her face.

"Ember!" Try as she might she could not tune him out, it was as if he was... Her awareness shifted, Red's face filled her vision. He was lying on the floor right beneath her, two hands on her face, he'd been shouting at her to get her attention.

"Red, what are you doing?" She snapped, one hand coming out of the controls to clamp down on his shoulder. He winced at the force of her grip, both of them forgetting that she had a reinforced skeleton and she was much stronger than she looked...

"You shut me out," he snapped back, "How else was I supposed to get your attention? You weren't listening."

"I know what I'm doing." She looked forward again, letting go of seeing with her eyes and back to the course.

"Ember," His voice was amazingly calm given that he was holding onto her to maintain his position now. "We have no weapons, we're only a commercial ship that never got used before the Purge, remember? You going to kill an armed Vesper by flying circles around them?"

She didn't answer but her eyes narrowed. Red reached up and touched her face again. "Ember, I know you're mad, but hell, if you go back now you are going to get us all killed, and that's exactly what that pilot was trying to prevent."

She felt both hands cup her face again. "Ember, don't do this." His voice still had a pleading note to it, that she steeled herself against. And then he muttered, "To hell with this." Before she could decipher what he meant she felt his lips against hers. It wasn't a gentle kiss, but rough, desperate, both hands half cupping, half holding onto her. She gasped and it was enough of a shock to break her concentration as she tried to jerk away from him. The ship following her lead spun out of control for a few moments. Red wrenched away from her and her arms locked around him in a vice grip before he could ricochet around her small cabin. Holding him to her chest, his arms wrapped around her but she tried to ignore that as she put all of her energy into pulling them out of the spin he'd put her in. She managed to lock it down but the will in her to engage whatever Vesper was hunting them down was gone.

In its wake was a flurry of emotions she couldn't even begin to decipher. A knot formed in her stomach and she maintained a grip on Red just so she could prolong facing him.

She set them on course again as fast as they could go, let the ship slip into automatic and dropped down on top of Red, like a hammer. He hit the floor underneath her with a grunt, his eyes rolling back for a moment before refocusing on her.

"You son of a bitch."

Red sighed, probably aware that she could open the doors he was lying on at any moment and drop him out of her room to the floor 15 feet below. It would hurt like hell. And if she continued to fly like this he would bounce around like a pinball at an old style arcade game. He pulled his hands up by his face in a gesture of surrender.