Ka'Cit's Haven (Riv’s Sanctuary #3)

“Were you on a job? A mission when you came after me?”

Confusion swam in his eyes but before he could even attempt to answer a hum so loud, it felt like it was about to deafen her, roared in the small room.

The roar seemed to grow in intensity as the entire space shook.

Wide eyes turned to the alien beside her as she flattened her hands against the walls to brace herself.

It sounded like a rocket engine had just fired and that thought made her entire nervous column wither.

The sound could only mean one thing…

“Herza is leaving.” He spoke loud enough for her to hear, and his words only confirmed her fears.

Fuck!

When he said leaving, she was sure he meant like…going into frickin’ outer space, didn’t he?

She began to stand but a hand rested against her arm.

“No use!” he shouted. “We will have to wait until the upper decks calm down. Right now, they are on the hunt and we are outnumbered. I don’t want to…”

Fuck, he didn’t need to complete that sentence. His pause spoke volumes.

He didn’t want her to get shot.

Hell, she didn’t want to get shot either.

“We will wait,” he said. “We will wait then grab a shuttle, get off the ship later.”

“But that means we’ll be in space by then!”

The idea of going into outer space would have been exciting in another circumstance, but it terrified her in a way she never thought it would.

She liked her feet on the ground. On Earth—or on Hudo III in this case.

He leaned closer to her ear so he didn’t have to shout, possibly in case his voice carried because the sound of the engines was levelling off.

“Later, Herza will dim the lights above deck once she’s on her way. To save power. She’s cheap. That will be our chance. Niftrills can’t see well; the dimness will help us.” He paused. “It is best.”

Reluctantly, Nia sat back down.

He knew more than her, she hoped he was right, and so far, he’d only helped her.

There were a lot of the brutes above deck and they had an order to kill on sight. She hadn’t forgotten that.

Her eyes fell once again to the blasters on Ka’Cit’s hips.

He had two, possibly she could use one?

She was out of practice, but she was confident she could hit more than a few of them if they had to shoot their way out. But…did she want to purposefully put herself in that situation?

No.

As she settled back against the metal wall, Ka’Cit removed his hand from her arm.

“What now?” she whispered, more to herself than to him.

There was another loud roar from what she assumed was the ship’s engine and the small room they were in shook once more.