Jordan (18 page)

A
fter three days of waiting for the weather to break, Vivianne sat behind the helm, her patience near its end.

“Any change?” Jordan asked Darren.

“None.” Darren checked the storm readings on the planet below. The hurricanes on Tempest never seemed to run out of energy.
Warm water from the seas kept feeding them, and they showed no sign of diminishing.

During the downtime, the crew had tried to keep busy. Tennison was calibrating one of the navigation sensors. Sean tweaked
the engines. Knox kept trying new recipes, and when she wasn’t in the galley, she and Darren disappeared for hours into their
cabin. Gray and Sean played endless games of chess when they were off duty. Lyle was reading and keeping to himself.

Jordan had spent his time studying the star charts. He’d finally pinpointed the
Draco’
s galactic location, and Vivianne tried not to think about how many light-years they were from Earth. Hyperspace could take
them home—if they could figure out how to navigate through it. But first they needed the storms to ease on Tempest, and then
after they found the key, they’d fly to Pentar for the Grail.

Vivianne had tried to keep busy, too. But mostly she’d felt useless, and she paced, George often at her heels.

“How long are we going to wait for the storms to clear?” she asked Jordan.

“Not much longer.”

She eyed Jordan cautiously. “So you’ve figured out a route to Pentar?”

“Actually, I’m working out a way to fly down there.” He gestured to Tempest.

She should have known he would never give up. “The
Draco
can’t maneuver in those winds.”

“I know.” Face hard, he tossed aside a calculator and leaned forward. “There’s another way to get down there.”

“How?” Her stomach knotted.

“Dragonshape and fly down.”

Sean stopped tinkering and gasped. Gray turned white and shook his head. Vivianne felt as if he’d just thrust her under a
cascade of icy water. “Those winds will rip off our wings. It’s suicide.”

“Not if I fly through the eye.”

Oh, God. It just might be doable. The eyes were huge and moving at about twenty miles an hour. “But even if we can make it
down, we can’t search the entire planet for the key—not under those conditions.”

The winds were ripping through at hundreds of miles an hour. Although the surface was dirt, the fierce sandstorms would flay
off tough dragon hide within minutes.

Jordan let out a long, low breath. “I know where the key is.”

“You do?” How could he know that? Vivianne’s gaze locked with his, and he shook his head slightly. He didn’t want to say—not
in front of the others. She pursed her lips but didn’t ask again.

“Where’s the key?” Gray asked.

“Here.” Jordan tapped a spot on the island in the southern hemisphere. “I’ll shoot the coordinates over to your screen. We
need a hurricane’s eye to pass over that spot. We fly down, grab the key, and then fly back. The
Draco
will only need to go into a low orbit in the upper atmosphere to drop me off.”

“We jump out the airlock?” Vivianne asked.

“Just me.”

She narrowed her eyes. “And after you jump, you’ll dragonshape. But how will you get back?”

“That will be trickier.”

No kidding. A dragon couldn’t fly into the airlock—it wasn’t big enough. “You’ll have to change shape in the air, time the
shift to match the
Draco’
s velocity. Have you ever done that before?”

“It’s possible.”

“Gray,” she ordered, “notify us if a suitable storm crops up.” She didn’t want to argue in front of the crew and motioned
to Jordan to follow her.

He hesitated, looking reluctant to discuss the issue, but then he escorted her from the bridge. They stopped in the empty
galley. She fixed coffee, then took a stool by the counter.

Jordan sipped, then shuddered and set the coffee aside. “Can I be honest with you about this coffee?”

“Of course not.” She sipped and grinned. “You’re my employee, and then I’d have to fire you immediately.” She shoved his cup
back at him. “It’s an acquired taste.”

He ignored the coffee. “The Staff has homed in on the key.”

“Homed in?”

“The Staff’s pulsing with light. The nearer I go, the more it pulses. I’ll have to take it with me to pinpoint—”

She almost choked on her coffee. “If you take the Staff, you’d leave the
Draco
with only limited backup generator power.”

“There’s enough to descend, for me to drop out an airlock, and then while I dragonshape and retrieve the key, the
Draco
can maintain a low orbit.”

“Not for long it can’t. The orbit wouldn’t be stable.”

“I’ve run the numbers. The ship would have an hour until power runs out.”

She sighed in frustration. “And how would you return?”

“Reverse the process.”

She did rough calculations in her head, then did them again on her handheld. “You’re cutting it too close.”

“On the upside, maybe retrieving the key won’t take an hour.”

“Damn it. This is too dangerous.”

“Some things are worth dying for. We need the key.”

“So you say. But
you
won’t die down there, will you?” she asked. “Not as long as you have the Staff.”

At her accusation, pain flickered in his eyes, and then his face turned hard, bleak. “There are some things worse than dying.”

“I’m sorry.” She felt badly for accusing him of risking their lives after she’d felt his pain, seen exactly how his entire
world had died.

“I’m going with you.”

“No. It’s too dangerous.”

This was her ship, too. She had just as much say-so as he did. “I’m not staying here and just waiting for you to return.”

“You’re not strong enough. You’ll slow me down. You’ll hurt my chance of success.”

She didn’t take offense. “Two people have a better chance than one. Besides, the shape-shifting back into the airlock is going
to be tricky. We can help each other.”

“No.” He shook his head to emphasize his words. “I’ve had centuries of flying experience. My timing will be better than yours.”

The last thing Vivianne wanted to do was go down to Tempest. Just the idea of jumping out of a perfectly good spaceship into
a hurricane was enough to make her hands tremble.

“It could take more than just one person to retrieve the key,” she insisted, her every instinct telling her she needed to
go with him.

“I’ll call on the handheld if I need—”

“By the time you know the situation, it might be too late for me to come down. And if something goes wrong down there, you
shouldn’t be alone. That’s why scuba divers have a buddy system. That’s why astronauts spacewalk in teams.”

“I’ll be fine.”

“But if you fail, we should have a backup person to retrieve the Staff. And that has to be me. I’m the only other dragonshaper
on board.”

“You’re not going. You’ll get yourself killed.”

She shrugged. “I have to die sometime.”

He reached over the counter and placed his hand on her shoulder. Warmth flowed into her, and she realized he was worried about
her. “Are you always so—”

“Stubborn?” She allowed a smile to tease her lips.

“I was going to say brave.”

Her smiled widened. “It’s not every woman who’ll get to tell her grandchildren that she flew into the eye of a hurricane.”

“Grandchildren?” He scowled at her. “Aren’t you getting a little ahead of yourself?”

She tossed her hair over her shoulder. “Having children’s on my to-do list. Right up there with—”

“Jordan,” Gray interrupted on the intercom. “We’ve got a gale-force storm brewing over Tempest’s equator that appears headed
for your island coordinates.”

“Is there a defined eye?”

“Not yet. But if the winds keep building, there will be.”

“I’ll be right there.” Jordan stood, and his fingers slid from her shoulder to her hand. He kept hold of her, even after they
stepped onto the bridge.

Vivianne peered at Tempest and her stomach churned. From here the spinning cloud rotations looked harmless as pinwheels. But
she knew better.

Even if they timed their descent with perfect precision, could they survive? While she’d flown in winds of twenty, maybe even
thirty, miles per hour, she’d never dared to fly into hurricane-force winds.

“What’s the ground temperature at our landing site?” Vivianne asked.

“You’re going?” Gray asked.

“She isn’t,” Jordan said.

She didn’t argue. “The temperature?”

“Thirty below.”

“What?” she frowned. “Hurricanes need warm water to feed them.”

“Arctic storms are shallow, short-lived pressure systems that create fierce blizzards. When this kind of storm passes over
water, it can ice over the seas,” Jordan said.

“How long until we know if an eye will form?” she asked.

Gray peered at his data. “I’d estimate anywhere from fifteen minutes to an hour.”

“I need to be ready to go.” Jordan linked his handheld into the computer’s weather data stream. “Sean, plot a course to intercept
with the eye. Keep in mind that this kind of transient arctic storm typically doesn’t last as long as a warm-water hurricane
and will produce severe weather and heavy precipitation.”

Sean didn’t look happy. “Sir, the cloud vortex at the center’s walls are where the strongest winds are located.”

“True, but like their tropical hurricane counterparts, winds farther inside the eye wall are calmer.”

“Won’t the storm system decay when it passes over land?” Vivianne asked.

“Normally you’d be correct,” Jordan said. “But on Tempest, the one island is only large enough to stall the storm, not break
it up.”

Vivianne left the bridge while the men continued to talk. She was done arguing. Jordan was not in charge of her. And if he
thought he was, he would soon learn differently.

The greatest lesson is to love and be loved in return.

—K
ING
A
RTHUR
P
ENDRAGON

J
ordan filled the emergency batteries, then removed the Staff from the housing in engineering. The
Draco,
already in low orbit, shifted to backup power with smooth efficiency. Jordan contracted the Staff, placed it into his sheath,
and headed for the airlock. The leather nanobot sheath would expand when he dragonshaped, and the Staff would remain strapped
to his body as he flew down to the island.

“What’s the progression of the storm’s eye?” Jordan asked Gray through the handheld strapped to his wrist.

“Looking good.”

While he couldn’t speak in dragon form, the handheld’s nanotech bracelet would also expand to dragon size and shrink when
he transformed back to human shape and allow him to communicate with the
Draco.
In addition, he carried a harness with winter clothing and a knife. He didn’t expect to need anything else, and more weight
could adversely affect his flying.

He’d wanted to say goodbye to Vivianne, but she had disappeared. It wasn’t like her to be off pouting. But perhaps she needed
space to cool down. Jordan pulled the slot-like handle that opened the airlock and shut the door behind him. The seals hissed.
He toggled his handheld. “How’s the eye now?”

“Stable and going to pass right over the island in four minutes,” Gray reported.

Jordan had to allow time for freefall, then time to fly with the eye as it moved over the island. He pressed a timer on his
wrist. “Starting countdown.”

“Fifty-eight seconds and looking good,” Tennison monitored.

“You can abort any time up to the last five seconds,” Gray reminded him. “Then the outside hatch will begin to cycle open.”

“Fifty seconds.”

Jordan didn’t remind the man he’d designed the system. Instead he rechecked his gear. Knife, Staff, harness, and winter clothing
all packed and ready to fly.

“Forty seconds.”

“The eye’s spinning. Wind speed at the wall is over two-fifty,” Gray said.

“Still on target?” Jordan asked.

“Yes, sir.”

“Thirty seconds.”

The
Draco
shuddered.

“Status report.” Jordan demanded.

“We caught an air pocket and slipped a little. I’ve corrected,” Gray responded.

“Twenty seconds.”

Jordan turned to the outer hatch and peered through the airlock’s tiny window. Dark skies and a few pale stars winked through
the thin upper atmosphere. Again the ship shuddered.

“What’s our exterior temperature?”

“Fifty below. You need to drop down fast.”

“Ten seconds.”

“Tell Vivianne that I’ll be back soon.”

“Roger that,” Gray said. “Five seconds.”

Jordan clasped the ball on the airlock’s handle and tugged. The outside lock began to cycle.

Jordan heard a thud. He glanced over his shoulder to see Vivianne beside him. Fuck. All this time she’d been above his head,
plastered against the ceiling, waiting until the very last moment to reveal her presence.

He swore. “What in the seven hells of Hades are you doing here?”