“You?”
The doubt in his voice was quite obvious and she raised her chin. “Yes. They took me from Earth eight years ago to work on their terraforming project.”
“Terraforming?” The little ridges above his eyes rose. “That’s what you’ve been doing?”
“Yes. They weren’t sure how to reset the molecular structure—” she broke off. “Does it matter?”
He hesitated, a surprisingly serious look on a face that had been predominantly cheerful so far. “I don’t know. I’ll have to talk to the captain.”
“Captain?”
“Yes. He’s the one that sent me to get your friend here.”
“He’s no friend of mine,” she said quickly. “He’s one of the ones that was holding me prisoner. This isn’t your ship?”
“This? This is just a personal flyer. We keep it for shorter voyages, surface landings, things like that. The Dancing Lady is a real ship, an S class freighter. She’s got a few years on her but she’s the captain's pride and joy.”
“What’s this captain of yours like?”
“Athtar? He’s a tough old bastard. Doesn’t put up with shit but always has your back.” He shook his head, obvious affection in his voice. “Can’t wait to see what he thinks of you. Now, are you going to get up off that floor?”
“Oh. Yes, of course.” She started to climb to her feet but caught her foot in her jumpsuit and would have fallen if he hadn’t caught her.
“You remind me of Precious,” he muttered.
“Precious?”
“The captain's pet. She’s always tripping over her feet as well.”
Great. Still, she’d heard worse comparisons. “How long until you meet your captain?”
“A full shift. I told him not to get too close. Are you hungry?”
Her stomach growled at the question and he laughed. “I guess so. Come on. Let’s get you fed and we’ll talk some more.”
A short time later, the two of them were seated in the tiny galley with hot mugs of cafir and plates of some odd but delicious stew that was considerably better than anything served in the lab. Studoc had two eyes on his plate but she was conscious that he was studying her with the other two.
“So, you were taken from Earth?”
Her appetite suddenly deserted her, and she pushed the plate away. “Yes.”
“Do you know why?”
“Because my doctoral thesis in organic chemistry was about the use of molecular building blocks and they thought I could solve a problem they were having.”
“And did you?”
“Eventually.” She sighed, thinking back to that whole miserable first year. Her futile attempts at escape. Skevyk breathing down her neck the whole time, demanding results and making horrible threats. “They told me they would let me go once I discovered a solution. Of course, they lied. Next, they wanted faster, better results.”
“What did you do?”
Cried, screamed, thought about killing myself. Nothing she intended to share with this alien, however pleasant he was currently being. “In the end, I went back to work. Sometimes I could almost convince myself it was like working in a lab on Earth.”
“But you still wanted to get away?”
“Of course I did! I always kept looking for a chance. When you came before, I started making plans. Just in case you came back.” Her turn to ask questions. “Did you really come back just to get Zartan?”
“Not him specifically, but a scientist, yes.” He hesitated, twisting two of his hands together. “The project is not exactly… legal.”
“Because they kidnapped us and forced us to work for them?”
“Contact with a pre spaceflight world is illegal,” he agreed, but she had a sneaking suspicion that there was more going on than he was saying. Before she could press him, he continued, “What are your plans now?”
“To get back to Earth, of course.” Where else could she go? She couldn’t help but wonder what her parents had done when she disappeared. They had been so focused on pushing her to the next level of achievement from the moment she had shown signs of exceptional intelligence. She had been in advanced classes her whole life and they had thrust her into college at fourteen, no matter how socially unready she had been for the transition. When she’d completed double doctorates by the time she was twenty-one, they had been so proud—and already searching out the most prestigious research programs. If they could have bragged about the terraforming project, they probably wouldn’t have objected to her kidnapping, she thought bitterly.
All four of Studoc’s hands were intertwined now and he was looking at them rather than her. Her heart sank.
“I assume that isn’t going to be easy?” she asked.
“No,” he said finally, face sympathetic. “I think the best thing you can do is to talk to Captain Athtar. He has a soft spot for humans.”
“Am I going to get any direct answers from you?”
“Me? I’m an open book.” He grinned, and now that she had grown accustomed to his face, she recognized that it was a charming smile—completely untrustworthy, but charming.
“And what do you do when you’re not infiltrating secret labs?” she asked, tacitly agreeing to change subjects.
“Ship’s engineer. I keep that old bucket of bolts running.” Despite the disparaging term, his affection for his ship was obvious. With only a few encouraging questions on her part, he spent the next hour expounding on the virtues of The Lady and all of the improvements he was making.
The rest of the voyage passed pleasantly enough. By the time it ended, she was standing behind Studoc on the tiny bridge of the flyer, watching in awe as they approached the larger ship. This was the first time she’d actually been in space and able to observe. Studoc confidently maneuvered around the oversized rear end of the vessel and into an opening that looked much too small for the flyer. Once they were safely inside, doors closed behind them and a few minutes later, the lights in the landing bay came on.
“We’re home,” Studoc said cheerfully. “Ready to face the captain?”
Not really. But she had made it this far, she wasn’t giving up now. “Let’s go.”
Chapter Three
Athtar paced the bridge. Since he was very large and the bridge of his ship was quite small, it not only didn’t help with his frustration, it annoyed his second in command.
“Captain, it has been a while since you trained with Grabon. Perhaps this would be a good time,” Ultana suggested.
“He should be back by now. I knew I shouldn’t have sent that feckless bastard,” he muttered. “That fucking emperor. Using my crew to play his gods damned games.”
Since it wasn’t the first time he’d voiced the sentiment, no one bothered to answer him. They all knew he hadn’t had a choice. When a galactic ruler told you to do something, you did it. Not to mention the fact that his annoyingly troublesome conscience would probably have forced him to agree anyway. The emperor was trying to prevent the destruction of a planet and that wasn’t something Athtar could just ignore.
“Fine,” he sighed. “I’ll go throw Grabon around. Let me know as soon as you hear from him.”
Ultana tilted her head. She was Ylftek, an attractive green-skinned woman with long dark green hair and pointed ears, but despite her delicate appearance, she didn’t take shit from him or anyone else. “Thank you so much for the instruction. I would never have dreamed that I should inform you when our rogue engineer returns.”
A reluctant grin crossed his face. “That’s why I’m here. To give you necessary fucking instructions.”
“Yes, sir.” She grinned back but looked meaningfully at the door behind him.
“Fine. I’m leaving—”
“Studoc is hailing us,” Kanithe interrupted. His Asing communication officer was bent over her console, black scaled fingers flying. “He says he has the scientist. And a surprise.”
“What fucking surprise?” he roared. Precious growled, echoing his anger. The pup had b
een sleeping in his chair until he’d yelled, so he reached down and picked her up, cradling her to his chest. As always, the heavy little body tucked so trustingly against him helped to calm him down.
“He says you need to see for yourself.” She shrugged, her crest rippling. “You know what he’s like, Captain.”
“Only too well.” Charming, infuriating, reckless—and one hundred percent loyal. Whatever surprise he brought with him, it wouldn’t be intended to harm the ship or crew. Although how the hell Studoc found anything on that gods forsaken ice planet to bring back, he had no idea. “How long?”
“About an hour, sir.”
An hour. He was going to lose his mind before then without some type of distraction. He sighed. “Tell Grabon to meet me in the training room.”
Despite an intense and enjoyable bout with his head of security, Athtar couldn’t get his mind off of Studoc’s return. As soon as Ultana informed him that the flyer was docking, he headed in that direction without bothering to shower.
The landing ramp was down when he arrived, and Studoc was dragging an Elginar scholar down it. Gods, he hated those fucking bastards. A quick gasp made him look up. There was a female, a human female, standing at the top of the ramp. He had a brief impression of a tall, straight body and big dark eyes behind framed lenses before she stepped forward, tripped, and started to tumble off the side of the ramp. Without thinking, he dove forward, catching her before she hit the ground, and quickly placed her on her feet. Even that one brief moment of contact with a soft, warm, delicious smelling body had his cock stirring and he had to force himself to loosen his arms.
He stepped back and stared at the woman. The other humans he’d met were attractive enough, but small and fragile looking. This one came to just below his shoulder and looked far less likely to break when he was pounding his cock into her. Fuck. What the hell was he thinking? Pushing the thought, and resulting surge of lust, aside, he growled. “Where the fuck did you come from?”
She tossed her head, short, dark hair flipping out, pushed her glasses up her nose, and glared at him. Damn if his cock didn’t stiffen further.
“Thank you so much for that gracious welcome. Studoc assured me that you’d be willing to help a human female.” She glared at his engineer and he didn’t like it one bit. He wanted that fiery gaze only on him.
“He’s not the fucking captain,” he said, drawing her attention back to him.
“If you don’t want to help me, that’s fine. You won’t be stuck with me for long, Captain. Just drop me off at the nearest, um, space station.”
Leave a pretty, helpless little female at the mercy of the kind of scum that frequented those places? Never going to happen. “Why the fuck would I do that? Do you want to be taken by fucking slave traders?”
She paled but raised her chin. “I have valuable skills. I’m sure I can find a job.”
“Skills?” he asked skeptically.
“Yes, I’m a scientist. I have degrees in organic chemistry and applied mathematics.”
A scientist? The pieces dropped into place and he took another step back, fighting down his disappointment. No matter how enticing she looked, she was not only a scholar, she was one of the bastards who thought nothing of destroying a planet. He glared at Studoc. “Why the fuck did you bring her? We only needed one fucking scientist for the emperor.”
“She kind of escaped on her own,” Studoc admitted, then rushed on. “Faith was kidnapped from Earth eight years ago and forced to work on a… terraforming project.”
“Terraforming?” he repeated.
“Yes,” she said and gave him a deadly smile. “It may be a difficult concept for a mere captain to understand but it is the process of taking an uninhabitable planet and making it suitable for human—or non-human—life.”
“And that’s what you’ve been doing?” Fuck, fuck, fuck. She didn’t know. Why the hell hadn’t Studoc told her. He glared at Studoc again, but his engineer only shrugged.
“That’s what I just said. Now are you going to help me or not?” Her stubborn little chin was still raised and he had the oddest impulse to nibble on it, but he pushed the thought firmly aside. She was human and she was a scholar. She was most definitely not for the likes of him.
“Can we start over?” the big blue alien asked Faith. His tone was considerably softer, and she relaxed a fraction. He was the most intimidating alien she had met, and the most attractive—when he wasn’t being an asshole. He shared the same blue skin as the Elginar scientists, but the resemblance ended there. Instead of a shaved head covered with tattoos, he had a tangle of long white hair interwoven with tiny braids. More braids were woven into the beard which framed a remarkably sensual mouth. With the hair and the beard, he reminded her of a very large, blue Viking. She had always been tall, but he dwarfed her, making her feel unusually small and feminine.
His massive body only added to the effect. She had never been interested in athletes but there was something about the impressive array of muscles covering his very bare upper body that made her a little weak in the knees. The way he had stopped her headlong flight down the ramp without any apparent effort made it quite obvious that the muscles weren’t just for show. That brief moment of being held against all that warm, hard flesh, surrounded by his amazing scent, was permanently etched into her memory.
“I’m Captain Athtar. This is my ship, The Dancing Lady,” he continued, oblivious to her abstraction.
“I’m Dr. Faith Whittaker,” she said, then blushed. Why the hell had she introduced herself that way?
“Doctor?” He frowned. “You are a medic?”
“No. It’s a term used for scientists who have completed a certain amount of schooling.” Too much schooling, while she was way too young, but that was in the past now.
“You don’t look like a scientist.” He looked down at her with an obviously skeptical eye. She blushed at his surveillance and put her hand to her hair before she could prevent herself. The dark strands had been annoying her for some time and last week she’d had enough and chopped her hair to chin length. There wasn’t anyone she had to impress, including this captain, and she forced her hand back down.
“What do I look like?” she asked, before she could stop her unruly tongue. She could have sworn his eyes heated, but he didn’t respond to her question.
“We need to talk.”
Five minutes later, despite a pleading look at Studoc, she was sitting in what was pretty obviously the captain’s cabin. She had balked at the door when confronted with the sight of an extremely large bed, but he’d only sighed, pushed her gently but implacably inside, then taken a chair in the cozy seating area. She very hesitantly perched on the edge of the other chair.
“What did you want to talk about?” she asked cautiously, praying he wasn’t about to tell her she would have to earn her way on board the ship on her back. It didn’t seem likely—most men preferred dainty little blondes to women who were taller and smarter than they were—but she didn’t understand why he had insisted on a private discussion.
“Studoc said you’ve been working on a terraforming project.”
Surprised at his opening, she nodded. “That’s right. When I first arrived, they were facing an issue with the structure of their molecular building blocks. I resolved it, but when they deployed the first prototype, it took too long. That’s what I’ve been working on since then—a way to speed it up.” She couldn’t help the proud little smile that crossed her face. “They said the first one is still in the early stages of evolution. This one should be able to deploy completely before the other is even finished.”
Athtar tugged on one of his braids, then looked at her directly.
“I’m sorry, Faith, but they fucking lied to you. They are using it to destroy planets, not transform them. The first one has already killed millions of people.”
She stared at him in shock.
“They deployed it on a populated planet?” Her lips had gone numb and she had to force the
words out.
“Yes.”
Her first horrified disbelief was followed by incredulous anger, not only at the bastards who had perverted her work to such an extent, but at herself. How could she have been so blind? Even though they had kept so much secret, how could she not have put that final piece in place? Nausea overwhelmed her and she jumped to her feet, just making it to the sanitary facility before she was violently sick. When she finally stopped heaving, she realized that Athtar was supporting her, his big arm warm and comforting. But she refused to take his comfort; she didn’t deserve it. She pushed him away.
“Get out,” she muttered between clenched teeth.
“Faith, listen—”
“Get out.”
With a muffled curse, he obeyed. Still shaking, she washed out her mouth, then caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror. Her face was white, her eyes enormous behind her glasses, but all she could see was the face of a killer. Her vision blurred, and then she was crying, long heart-breaking sobs that racked her body as she collapsed to the floor. At some point she heard another curse, and then Athtar had her in his arms, carrying her back into the other room and holding her against his massive chest as she cried and cried. When she finally stopped, she tried to push him away, but he wasn’t moving and she was too tired to fight him.
“It wasn’t your fucking fault, Faith,” he said finally. “You didn’t know.”
“That’s not an excuse. A scientist should always consider how her work can be used. I was blind. Stupidly, willfully blind.” The tears were threatening again.
He growled. “Stop fucking blaming yourself. Those bastards were at fault. Not you.” He removed her tear stained glasses and pressed her head against his chest with one big hand. “Now just calm down.”
Since she had no hope of escaping his grip, and truthfully, no real desire to do so, she gave in. It had been an awfully long time since anyone had held her, and he was just so big and solid that she felt safe. And he smelled so good, like leather and spice. Turning her face into his chest a little to take a deeper sniff, his hair drifted across her face, the strands as soft as silk despite its wild appearance. She raised a hand to brush them away, the movement shifting her position in his lap, and she suddenly realized that he was hugely, massively erect.
Faith and the Fighter Page 2