Sacred Planet: Book One of the Dominion Series Read Online Free Page B

the capture lines!” Davin exclaimed. A heavy bump wrenched the entire ship, making Sierra’s head jolt like a mop being flicked around. Something popped in her neck and caused an immediate pain.
    “Dammit, they got us!” the pilot hissed through the speakers.
    “Cut the line!” Davin commanded.
    “Can’t. It’s nanofiber.”
    God have mercy on me, please . . .
    “It just caught a water storage bin,” Davin said. “Release it.”
    God save us . . .
    A quick wheeze sped through the ship’s metal walls, followed by a momentary burst of speed. Sweet, fleeting relief washed through her.
    “Oh, they’re pissed now!” the pilot’s voice crackled. “They’re just throwin’ shit at the wall, hoping somethin’ sticks!”
    More thunks and bangs against the hull, one so loud it made Sierra scream and press her hands over her ears until the gee force pulled her arms back down. Everything vibrated and rattled. Trinkets whipped back and forth through the open air following the rapid shift of acceleration. She felt lightheaded, sick to her stomach, fading out of consciousness. Her insides flattened against her rib cage.
    “Deploy decoy drones!” Davin shouted. “Strange, deploy the drones! Now! ”
    The thumps kept on, coming in waves. Noises blurred together. Sierra’s thoughts scattered like sinking rubble in a dark ocean. Everything grew hazy and distant and numb.
    One last jerk of gee force smashed her brain into her skull and blocked out all vision, all feeling, all sound.

Chapter Seven
    Davin took long, deep breaths in his lazyboy as he stared at the screen. Sweat gathered across his forehead, just beady enough to stay in place. He wiped his brow and leaned his head back into the cushions.
    The screen showed two frigates in pursuit and one remaining at the yacht wreckage. But they had stopped firing a few minutes ago. The massive white star in the middle of Owl Nebula’s colorful umbrella had eclipsed the Fossa , making a nice shield to block their escape—as well as a convenient gravity assist. The gee force would pick up for the next couple of hours as Strange slingshotted them in a wonky arc toward the spacebend gate. Might require a bit more maneuvering to evade any other projectiles, but with the speed from the grav boost, they’d be going fast enough to handle it.
    “Sorry about the turbulence back there, Princess.”
    Davin waited for a reply, but none came. Not even a stir. He turned around and saw Sierra hunched over her safety straps, head hanging, arms limp on the C-shaped couch where he’d planted her. But she was breathing.
    Davin raised his nexband. “Well done, Strange. You’ve earned yourself a bonus.”
    She laughed through comm. “You gonna get drunk and grab my ass again?”
    “No, I mean a real bonus this time. Something big. Something nice.”
    “Gotta sell our merch first,” came Jabron’s low voice. He still sounded pissed they hadn’t gone with his idea. “See what this girl’s worth.”
    “That’s true, Bron,” Davin replied into his nexband. “But we gotta do this the smart way, not the easy way.”
    “What you mean, boss?”
    Davin allowed himself to slouch into his lazyboy. “Easy way would be: contact the Carinian government once we get to the spacebend gate, take her back to her family, see what they give us out of the kindness of their hearts.”
    “And the smart way?” Strange asked through the speakers.
    “First,” Davin said, eyeing the digitally rendered map on his big screen, “make sure we’re not followed. Second, lay low for a while. Let some time pass. Third, when the Abramists are all hot and bothered that they don’t know where Sierra is and Old Man Falco is pissing his pantaloons over his missing daughter, then we start a bidding war between the two, drive up the price, and eventually, accept Old Man Falco’s offer.”
    “What if the Abramists offer more?” Jabron asked.
    “Don’t care,” Davin replied. “I don’t trust ‘em.