Her muscles clenched around my cock and I gave up fighting to figure any of this out. I thrust inside her, building a rhythm, and with it, wicked pleasure. I let myself remember. In my head, she wasn’t Fran. She was the girl who’d been taken from me, the girl with the secret smile and the innocent eyes. I touched her as though she weren’t gone. Loved her as if she were right here with me. And kissed like we’d never been apart.
“I’m sorry.” I said it over and over, and for a little while, I pretended that it might mean something.
Fran shuddered and cried out, sinking her nails into my back enough for it to hurt. Beyond caring about pain, the pleasure rode me until it smothered everything and all I knew was her burning touch and the blinding climax. It wasn’t enough. Nothing in this fucked up world would ever be enough.
Spent, I propped myself up on an arm, face half buried in her hair, her lavender smell filling my head, and listened to our rapid breathing. I couldn’t even begin to explain what the fuck I’d just done, so I kept my mouth shut. When Fran swirled her finger against my lower back, a skitter of pleasure threatened to start this all over again, and I wasn’t sure my mind could take it. I eased off her without meeting her eyes and snatched up my clothes.
“I need to check us in on Mimir.” I didn’t look at her. I couldn’t.
“You said her name, you know.” Fran kept her tone flat, completely unreadable. “You weren’t even with me, were you?”
I tugged my pants on, got up off the couch, and shrugged my shirt over my head, all the while avoiding her glare.
“Don’t mention her to me, ever again.” I had to get away and made it as far as the doorway before pausing. “And don’t go looking for information. Just keep your fuckin’ nose out of my business.”
“She’s dead, Cale. Stop living in the past.”
I curled my hand into a fist. It took every measure of strength I had left not to turn. “We need to ditch these weapons and collect our cut. Meet me on the bridge.”
Chapter Twenty One: #1001
“It seems, my dear, you have somewhat deviated from your orders.”
Doctor Leanne Grossman stood behind a tattered chair, long fingers clenched over the chair’s back. Her painted crimson nails and red lipstick were the brightest things in the room. We were alone in what appeared to be a disused office, but the soldiers were close, just outside the door.
I maintained a neutral expression, no hint of a smile, and stood motionless. I smelled blood—Commander Brendan Shepperd’s. They’d taken him from my arms. He’d been alive, but whether he was still alive, I might never know. His blood had soaked through my borrowed clothes, plastering them to my skin. This derelict office with its broken floor and peeling wallpaper, as well as my blood-soaked attire, seemed at odds with Doctor Grossman’s Chitec perfection. This wasn’t right. It didn’t feel right. It didn’t even feel real, as though the moments were borrowed and not mine.
“You understood my orders? Yes?”
You will kill this man, #1001. Do you understand? “Yes.”
“And yet you took it upon yourself to board his ship?”
“I had intended to kill him before he left Calisto. The ship departed earlier than I had anticipated.”
She drummed her nails against the chair. “Perhaps it was a mistake.”
“No, I—”
A hard smile cut across her lips before vanishing. “Our mistake. Not yours, dear. Synthetics cannot make mistakes.” Reaching up a hand, she tucked her dull-blond hair behind her ear. “Had I known Mister Hung’s motives, I would have had you destroyed.” Her tight lips twitched. “With matters pertaining to the heart, he can be emotional.”
Chen Hung, Chitec’s CEO. I searched my data files but found no evidence of emotional instability. He presented the perfect image to the world, the image of a man in control of his empire.
“Now we have ourselves something of a problem, and I would like your help, One Thousand And One.”
“Yes.”
She sighed, leaned an elbow on the back of the chair, and rubbed her fingers together. “Such a mess. I have a rogue synthetic and a dangerous man on the loose who knows too much. Both problems require a certain finesse.”
She had to be referring to Shepperd’s missing year. He’d witnessed something that year, something that had ruined his fleet career, something dangerous enough to have had him sent to Asgard. But he’d either escaped or been released. Had he stayed under Chitec’s radar all this time? He certainly had gone to great lengths to avoid them. And yet he smuggled their weapons. Perhaps that was part of it? The weapons. Chitec.
“Secrets cost lives,” he’d told me.
Doctor Grossman had ordered me to kill him. Why hadn’t I? Synthetics cannot make mistakes.
She breathed in a deep, steady breath. “We have someone watching Captain Shepperd very closely. The fool should have stayed in Asgard. At least then he’d be alive. Now— Well, a messy business, all of it. But you, my dear, if you cannot follow orders, then you are little more than a very public and expensive liability. I cannot have rogue synthetics on the loose and certainly not one that shouldn’t exist at all. Mister Hung will understand his mistake, and mine. You are bad for business. I want you to fully cooperate with your transport back to Janus.”
“What will happen to me on Janus?”
“Your existence is prohibited. You are one too many. You will be destroyed.”
Don’t let me go. A fluttering shortened my breath. System faults danced like fireflies in my vision. Destroyed. Don’t let me go …
Doctor Grossman stepped from behind her chair and stood in front of me. “There is one thing, my dear, that Mister Hung must know. Do you remember?”
I looked up into her pale, gray-blue eyes as the fragmented voice said again and again: don’t let me go. It wasn’t my voice. I didn’t understand what it meant, or where it was coming from, but it felt real, more real than this room, than Leanne Grossman; it was more real to me than Chitec. “Remember what?”
She leaned in so close I could smell the oily scent of her lipstick and felt her peppermint breath on my face. “Is there any part of you in there that might be her? Does Captain Shepperd mean anything to you? Do you feel anything for that man, anything outside of your orders?”
Yes … yes, yes, yes. I didn’t know how, or why, or what, but he meant something. Deep inside, where synthetic blood flowed, where my power core warmed me through, where electronic pulses sparked, he belonged to me. When I thought of him, my thoughts bubbled with images and emotion: Hate. Love. Regret. Yes, I felt for him.
Doctor Grossman waited, eyes peering deep, searching for the truth.
“No.” System fault. Failsafe disabled. Protocols breached. “I do not feel.”
She straightened and stepped back. “Good.” She turned and made for the door. “Engage your rest protocols. We will depart once I have settled matters with the port authority.”
The door clicked closed behind her. I curled my fingers into fists and clenched them so tightly my arms trembled. If I let this happen, let them take me back, what would become of the me inside? The me who cared? The me who felt?
“I am #1001, and I am not ready to die.”
My gaze settled on a broken floorboard. I curled my hand around its edges and ripped it free. I could not go back to Janus. I would not go back to Chitec. Doctor Grossman had disabled my failsafe. She’d created me. That mistake was hers, but I wouldn’t pay for it.
I opened the door. The first soldier didn’t have time to draw breath to shout. He reached for his weapon, eyes wide, and I cracked the board across his skull and he dropped in a heap. I spilled this new feeling—hatred—into my purpose and cut through the incoming guards with accurate efficiency. Faster, stronger, colder, I brought them down, one after another, after another, until they stopped coming.
Alarms wailed. I stepped over and around the fallen until I found one still alive. He begged and pleaded, his words tumbling from his bloodied l
ips. I didn’t care.
“Where is the medical bay?”
“Don’t h-hurt me. Don’t hurt me. I have a wife and kids.”
I scanned his data file. Dependents: none. “The med bay.”
“Behind the authority building. Please … please…. Oh god, don’t.”
I cracked my knuckles hard enough across his face to fracture bone and knock him out. He might die. He might live. I didn’t care. I scooped up his rifle and moved on, heading for the medical bay, carving my way through anyone who threatened to stop me.
Commander Brendan Shepperd lay unconscious on a gurney. I dripped blood on the clean med bay floor and watched his closed eyes flicker. Medics, who had fled at the sound of the alarms, had wrapped his chest wound and stabilized him. Diagnostics informed me he was through the worst. I’d saved him. Fran had been right. Caleb may not have wanted his brother to live, but he would have lived to regret that decision. Revenge consumed.
“By the nine systems, what are you?” The woman who’d serviced Shepperd in the alley stumbled into the cubicle. Purple, black, and blue bruises masked one side of her face, and she favored her left arm.
“If you’re here for the medics, they’ve fled,” I said.
“I-I …” She swallowed and reached for the door to steady herself. “I heard the alarms. I thought … I thought he’d come back.”
Caleb knew her and liked her. These people were important to him. “No, he hasn’t returned.”
Don’t let me go.
I blinked at her. “He won’t return.”
She took a few seconds to absorb my bloodied state and dropped her gaze to the commander. “How is he?”
“He’ll live.”
“Why are you here?” She eyed the gun slung over my shoulder and the blood-soaked board in my hand. She thought I meant to kill him.
I’d needed to know if he was alive, if my actions had made a difference. They had. But I wasn’t sure what that meant. “I don’t think I’m supposed to be here. I think there’s something wrong with me.”
“You’re covered in blood. You’ve killed I don’t know how many fleet soldiers.” She nodded. “There’s definitely something wrong with you.”
Shepperd had said I’d looked normal—nice. He didn’t know me. I didn’t know myself. I glanced at the door and listened to the squealing alarms. More thugs would be coming soon. I’d cut them down too, but to what end? Faults and errors buzzed in my vision. This wasn’t right, but I couldn’t let them take me back. Not until it was over, until I was finished. “I have to find Caleb and finish this.”
“I can help you,” Jesse said. “I know his routes, or I can find someone who does. On your own, you’ll never find him. You could spend years chasing his tail through the nine systems, but with me, we’ll have a chance.”
“We?”
“If I stay here, he’ll kill me.” She touched her face, whether deliberately or unconsciously I couldn’t tell, and winced. “I know where there’s a stinger shuttle. It’s guarded, but you won’t have any problems.”
I dipped my gaze to the unconscious commander. “He’s not safe here.”
“Bring him. He’ll be useful. He’ll know where to find Caleb too.”
“Everyone is an asset,” I said.
“Yes, I suppose.”
I slipped the gun off my shoulder and handed it to Jesse. “I’ll carry the commander. Can you shoot?”
She took the weapon. “Yes, I think so. But if we get free, if we get off Ganymede, fleet won’t stop. Not after you’ve cut them down like this. They’ll hunt you.”
Let them.
“They would have killed me and I’m not ready to die.” I lifted the commander’s warm body into my cool arms.
She blinked, gun clutched in her grip. “Can you fly a shuttle?”
We were about to find out.
Chapter Twenty Two: Caleb
“Hey, Cale, you slippery devil.” Graham Creet slapped me on the back so hard I almost swallowed my tongue. “I heard you gave fleet the runaround on Ganymede.”
“Gossip travels faster in the nine systems than starships.” I captured Creet’s hand and shook it with gusto. “You’ve no idea how good it is to be back in the Mimir neighborhood.”
“All the crates we ordered? No problems?” he asked, casting his shrewd gaze over his crew as they unloaded the Chitec guns from Starscream’s hold. He’d be counting every crate and would cut the hands off any thief.
“Every one.” After countless screw-ups and mine and Fran’s angry-sexcapade from a couple of hours ago, I was more than ready to fill my lungs with Mimir’s fresh ocean air. “We ran into a few issues. Nothing we couldn’t handle.”
“Chitec?” he asked then bellowed, “Hey, careful with those. Live ammunition!”
He rolled his eyes and circled an arm around my shoulders to lead me out of the hangar and into the startling Mimir daylight. Needles of sun glare glanced off the endless ocean.
“Yeah, Chitec,” I replied. “But they weren’t after the guns.”
“No?” Creet snorted and scratched at his chin through his silvery beard. “What else do you smuggle, Shepperd?”
I laughed softly. “Anything that’ll fit in the hold and pays well.”
We stepped onto one of the network of decks that stretched along the shoreline and branched out across the ocean’s surface. People didn’t dock boats here; they built houses on stilts. It looked like paradise, and would be if it weren’t for the higher than average population of pirates and smugglers.
Creet stopped me outside one of the water homes. “This is yours for the night. Take a break. Relax.” He handed me a paperback book. “And when you’re ready, we have another run for you.”
I thumbed through the yellowed pages. “I’m always ready, Creet.”
He chortled. “Course you are.”
“You’re staring,” I finally said after five minutes of watching Fran out of the corner of my eye.
She was leaning in the doorway, arms crossed. The sound of the trickling water features covered the rapid beat of my heart. She was beginning to creep me out. If I’d had a pet, she’d be boiling it. The fact that I’d called her by another name while we’d been screwing probably hadn’t won me any favors. I’d need to move my vintage liquor before she purged it from the airlock.
“Figured you’d be out getting reacquainted with your brothers-in-arms.” When I didn’t reply, she asked, “What are you doing?”
I looked up from the paperback book and discreetly tucked a folded piece of paper into my pocket. “What does it look like?”
“Like if you concentrated any harder you’d hurt yourself.” She strode over and plucked the book from my grip. “Maybe I should read it to you?” She cleared her throat and began, “‘Mariah quivered expectantly at the sight of his—’ Really?” One of her fine, dark eyebrows arched and mischief brightened her eyes. “Why are you reading this?”
“Tips.” I grinned. “I seem to remember you quivering expectantly.”
“I’m surprised you remember anything.” She tossed the book on my lap, narrowly missing my balls, and gestured at the room around us. “Are you just going to hide in this hut all night?”
“I’m not hiding.” And the hut was luxurious compared to Starscream. Cushions were everywhere, scattered in a way I’m sure had some zen meaning. Mood lighting pooled around the kind of interior decor you just didn’t get to enjoy on the fringes of civilization.
“I have a fine drink,” which I gestured to on the desk, “and wordy porn.” I waggled the book. “I’m livin’ the dream.”
She clicked her tongue and turned away. “Well, you can stay in and jerk off to your romance novel, but I’m sampling Mimir while we’re stopping over.”
“You go do that.” She was going to score herself some phencyl and would spend much of the night either passed out back on Starscream or in our “hut.” I waited until she was out of earshot before removing the note from my pocket.
“About fuckin’ time.”
Flicking open the paperback, I thumbed through to the correct page and glanced up at the calendar pinned to the wall above the desk. Five crosses marked five dates, dates that meant nothing on their own. But dates are just numbers, and when combined with a book, for example, the numbers pointed to a certain page, paragraph, line, and finally, to the keyword. And those keywords were what I’d been working on before Fran had interrupted and I’d had to make as if I was actually reading the novel.
Ship Meant Pick Up Twelve Hundred Five Bank
I checked my wrist-comm. I had just under an hour to get to my next meet and receive pick-up instructions for our next cargo. I tasted my drink, rolled it over my tongue, and swallowed. Fran had quit asking me where I scored each shipment, and after five months, she’d quit tailing me too. But that didn’t mean I’d let my guard down. Some secrets were worth too much to give up for free.
I glanced at my pistol on the desk, lay the book down on my lap, and flexed the bruised fingers of my right hand. My shoulder still burned like a bitch, but my head was clear for the first time in days. I was so ready to stick it to Chitec. The bastards deserved what was coming to them. They’d pay until Chitec CEO, Chen Hung himself, was ripped from his glass towers on Janus and dragged through the gutters, just like I’d been.
Wherever I went on Mimir, the air smelled like water. While I waited at the end of the Five Bank pier for my contact, cool mist dampened my clothes and hair. It’s never truly dark here; the night sky glowed a soft turquoise. I loved real nights—not the endless, hourless nights of starship travel, but the limited, fleeting planetary nights. And nothing could beat nights by the ocean. As a kid, I’d often slip out at night and walk the dozen miles to the beach near our home. There was freedom in the black ocean, in the black night, and the black skies. Freedom in the black. I’d watched the starship freighters docking in the high atmosphere, great behemoths that I could cover with my thumb, and I’d known I’d be among them one day. I’d be a captain. Reality had never quite lived up to those dreams.
Rogue Stars Page 47