CHAPTER TWO HUNDRED AND SIX
We’d been airborne for five days, passing by many planets without stopping.
Lily had suggested stopping somewhere to refuel but I was scared of missing Xavier.
However, that was another problem. That location hadn't moved an inch so it seemed he'd not come for me or this location device was faulty.
None of those options gave me peace of mind.
If he didn't come for me, does that mean all our love was for nothing? I thought about what he'd have to sacrifice but he had me convinced he'd throw it all away for me.
Or maybe I was delusional.
The ky'rhan had fifteen million people to care about. There's no way I come before that.
But then I was hoping for him to be on his way to me so we'd meet halfway before this fuel finished and we would have to drift to nowhere in this vast space.
“What if we don't make it?” Lily whispered next to me.
She reminded me of Roe so I didn't even get angry at her pessimism anymore. I was just happy to not be doing this alone.
“Please stop it, Lily. You valued your freedom above the security the General offered you so be ready to sacrifice for it,” Aran snapped at her.
I couldn't even fault her for being upset. Lily had been this way since we left Drokos’ orbit. I nearly wished I could go back and drop her back so she could stop making me second-guess every decision.
We rationed the food but I knew we would soon run out of that. It was mostly canned food, thankfully, so we were saved the mercy of eating spoilt food.
The small plane was fast, making me happy I chose it. We might be home earlier than I predicted and I hoped so because Lily would do more than nag me out if the food finished while we were still too far for me to teleport us.
Another situation I wasn't even going to think about was the fuel.
It was already very low, and I had to shut down the nonessential energy-consuming features of the plane. We hadn't seen each other clearly in days.
I have been going through the books in my mind at a slower rate to try and see if I'm going to see anything that'll help in that regard but it was all jargon and engineering language that I wasn't in the right frame of mind to learn while flying us to a far destination.
“I'm sorry, I'm just worried,” I heard Lily say.
“Lily, please worry a bit silently. I'm trying here, okay? And if it becomes obvious that we won't make it, I'll simply drop on some planet and hope they don't kill us, okay?” I retort, wincing at the shocking expression on her face at my words.
“You just need to toughen up. Can't you see how Tessa is?”
“Cut her some slack, Aran. This isn't my first rodeo and I understand her fears. I just don't want to keep hearing it.”
“Can you tell us about it?” Lily asked.
“About my experience?”
“Yes,” she replied, coming closer to me.
“Well, if it'll increase your confidence in me, sure,” I said, hoping to take her mind away from our impending doom.
If that ship doesn't move closer to us, we're definitely fucked, that's for sure.
***
XAVIER'S POV
After dealing with a faulty engine, a soldier who wanted to force us to go back, and food problems (some people felt they deserved more rations than others), I was at my wits end at how slow this journey was becoming.
I'd thought I'd be within eye view of the planet where my wife was by now but we were still far away.
And yet, Zyx was having a screaming match with a soldier who was whining about the rations.
“If you didn't want to come with me, you should have stayed back! No one forced you to come!” Zyx yelled in his face, driving me nuts with all the noise.
“Well, you didn't tell me you were ill-prepared! I said I wanted to save my queen, not die on the way there!”
“We had how many hours to prepare? What did you bring with you? You want us to get to enemy territory and start begging for food for our trip back or you didn't think about that while demanding for a full plate?!” Zyx screamed in his face but all the noise was driving me crazy.
“If the both of you don't shut it, you'll be drifting in space without armor in the next minute,” I warned, my voice low and menacing.
I was a turmoil inside, I didn't need an insurrection outside.
I couldn't even go as fast as I needed to to avoid the fuel finishing.
I was beyond frustrated that even though we'd been flying for almost two weeks, we were still halfway there.
I heard the soldier retreat to the back and Zyx came to sit next to me, his face showing how worried he was.
“I don't know what to do, your Majesty; this might do damage to their morale,” he said calmly.
“I think we need to improvise. Increase the rations but train some people to be able to run around the planet in search of food we can take back while the rest of us fight,” I instructed him. “But make sure they remember that speed is very important. The moment we find her, we're leaving and not waiting for anyone who's not at their station when we need to leave.”
“Thank you, your Majesty!” He declared and went to the back to relay my instructions.
I relaxed on the chair, trying hard to ignore Xy'thern's growls and angry bursts.
I didn't know how to explain this whole situation to him, but hopefully, we're successful, or he might eat me from the inside out.
Suddenly, the systems began beeping, making me pay more attention to what I was doing.
“What's going on?” A soldier asked me, panic in his tone.
“A rocket ship is coming this way,” I replied, watching the movement come straight at us, with no attempt to move out of the way.
If I don't, we'll collide.
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