The Gate Jumpers Saga: Science Fiction Romance Collection

by Elin Wyn

  Well, Lyra could not find a fault in that logic.

  Nodding, she unbuckled her safety harness. Now that they had made it out of orbit, there was no reason to keep it on.

  “I’m going to take a nap in the back,” she said.

  And dig around in her medbag and see about something to take care of her growing headache.

  Lyra took a couple of aspirin and set about studying the medical notes she had taken while at the field hospital.

  The dog-like aliens had very interesting anatomy. Humanoid enough to be recognizable at first look, but some of the organs were in different locations, and a couple of those seemed to serve dual functions. The differences between themselves and human beings were utterly fascinating.

  And yet... she was having trouble concentrating.

  Again and again her mind flashed to last night: The unexpected lust that Sholan had pulled from her, the way his thick fingers had felt inside of her, and her rolling orgasm that seemed to go on and on.

  Lyra shifted in her chair and gritted her teeth, shaking her head as if to rid herself of the memory.

  It is some kind of chemical reaction, she reminded herself firmly. Nothing more than that.

  Now if only the damned pain pills would kick in... her headache was not going away.

  Also, Lyra was almost hyper aware of the slightest noise that came from the cockpit. A part of her was attuned to Sholan’s presence, even if she dearly did not want to be.

  So she was instantly aware of a scuff of a boot heel against the metal floor as Sholan rose from his seat to walk over and join her. She waited for him to move on, and when he didn’t, she finally looked up from her notes.

  He leaned against the wall, strong arms crossed over his chest, watching her.

  “What do you want?” she asked.

  “I can help you with that,” he said.

  She frowned down at her notes. “Oh? You have medic training?”

  “I’m talking about your sickness.”

  Her head snapped back up. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Yes, you do,” Sholan said with patience. “Because I feel it too.”

  Anger sparked through her anew—how dare he presume to know what she was feeling. Had he watched her take the pain pills?

  Then his dark gaze swept her up and down and she remembered again the passion she had felt last night. God help her, this man was aggravating, pushy, and was clearly trying to convince her of something impossible...

  ... But she ached to know how he would feel inside her.

  Lyra opened her mouth to reply—she wasn’t even sure what. Her mind was equally torn between anger and building arousal.

  That was when something beeped urgently from the cockpit.

  With a curse, Sholan turned to jog back to the pilot’s seat. Lyra abandoned her notes for the time being and rushed to join him.

  “That’s the proximity alarm,” Sholan said before Lyra could ask. It was as if he had read her mind.

  On the holoscreen above their heads, an ominous blinking red dot was on a slow intercept course with their green ship. Lyra’s mouth went dry. “Is it...?”

  Sholan tapped a few buttons on the control panel and then cursed under his breath before nodding. “Damn it. Yes, it’s the Snakes.”

  “How did they find us?”

  He shook his head. “As far as I can tell, it looks like a random patrol. We just got very unlucky.” He tapped a few more times. “It’s confirmed. They’re turning to intercept us.”

  She could have guessed that much for herself, judging by the closing distance between the blinking lights. Her mind scrambled for some sort of option for escape.

  “I guess that means the original plan is out. How powerful are their engines? Would we be able to win a straight race?”

  He gave her a considering look. “Our pod is light and fast enough that we might, even with the diminished engines. It takes a while for the Thagzar to get up to speed. We have several light-hours lead on them, but it’s not enough to lose them completely. Plus, we would just end up leading them to another Alliance lab or space station.”

  That wasn’t an acceptable option, either.

  Lyra took in a breath to center herself. “Then our only other option is to fight.”

  Sholan flashed her a wild, predatory grin that made her heart pound. Lyra felt herself flush from her head down to her toes. It was amazing what one look from this man could do to her libido.

  Concentrate! she told herself, sternly.

  “What do we have in terms of weapons?” she asked.

  He grimaced. “Not as much as I would like. We have a full complement of laser guns, which won’t do much but piss them off if they have their shields up. The rest of the torpedoes are enough for one surprise.”

  “Better and better,” she muttered.

  He made a noise of agreement. “Any other alliance pod won’t have as great of a complement of weapons. All the more reason to lead the Thagzars away from the others.”

  “Our chances aren’t good, are they?”

  “No,” he admitted.

  She nodded, and, despite her better judgment, reached out to lay her hand over his. “Even if we don’t make it to the lab, the other four will. You told me to have faith in them—I do. They’ll make it, and it’s our job to make sure they won’t be discovered.” She glanced at the holoscreen and the oncoming red dot, and felt her resolve harden. “We are going to make sure this is a battle the Snakes will never forget.”

  Sholan

  Sholan was briefly taken aback at the strength of love and admiration he felt for this strong woman. There was no fear in Lyra’s amber eyes, no hesitation or pleading for him to somehow make their circumstances different. Only calm acceptance and steely determination to make the Thagzars pay.

  If they were on better terms, he would have pulled her in and kissed her deeply. Bond or not, this was the woman for him.

  But she had been angry with him—perhaps she still was—and for good reason. The last thing he wanted to do was satisfy his own urges at the expense of her discomfort.

  So, he would do the next best thing and do everything in his power to ensure that Lyra came out of this alive.

  “Is there any way that we can send a message to my crew?” Lyra abruptly asked. “If what we are planning does not work... I need to know that they won’t waste time or risk themselves by searching for me.”

  Yes, that was good common sense. Sholan could very well imagine his own Captain doing the same.

  “I could send a message, but at this distance, there will be no guarantee that anyone in the Alliance will receive it, much less route it to the Laboratory. It’s supposed to be a top secret, and,” he admitted, “I will have to encrypt the transmission to the highest degree to ensure the Thagzars cannot read it or figure out its destination.”

  “Do it.”

  Despite how careful Sholan had to be, the actual transmission didn’t take that long. It was simply a message with their current coordinates, a brief snapshot of the oncoming Thagzar ship, and their own names.

  They could not reasonably risk more than that. Their crewmembers were more than capable of reading between the lines. If for some reason they did try to mount a rescue... well, a debris field would be enough to tell the rest of the story.

  That done, Sholan turned back to check the onboard weapons systems. A final look confirmed the Thagzar’s path had not deviated. It was nearly time.

  He turned to Lyra. “Are you ready?”

  She nodded and with a quirk of a smile, made a show of checking her harness straps. “Let’s get this show on the road.” A pause. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

  Sholan shook his head. “Just be here with me.”

  She looked startled and for a moment he feared he had pushed their tentative teamwork too far. Then she smiled, tentatively. “I can do that.”

  With a grin, he returned to the control panel where the course was alrea
dy laid out and waiting. He punched the code for a quick acceleration.

  He and Lyra were thrown against the back of their seats before the artificial gravity control system was able to fully compensate for their burst of speed. It leveled out shortly enough, leaving them both gasping.

  The rapid acceleration was also a strain on his patched together engines. But this was a short sprint, aimed directly at the Thagzar’s ship.

  He watched the holoscreen as the enemy ship noted their sudden rush. It began to turn to engage, but their ship was large with a lot of mass to compensate for, plus they had to deal with altering their own trajectory. Based on their movements, they must have thought Sholan was trying to ram them.

  Not a bad idea, but he wanted to come out of this alive.

  Sholan waited until the two vector points were nearly converged. Then he hit the altitude thrusters to pull them into a sideways drift.

  They streaked just past the Thagzar ship—close enough to nearly touch their outer shields—and hit them with a barrage of lasers.

  It was, roughly, the equivalent to a pin-prick to a massive herd beast back on his planet. But it certainly got the Snake’s attention. Sholan fired again and managed to score several more raking shots before his new heading took him out of range.

  He didn’t hit the acceleration again. They needed to be slow enough to provide a tasty target.

  “Now,” he said in satisfaction, “Let us see if our taunt worked.”

  It did.

  The Thagzar ship began a slow, lumbering turn. The engines glowed with growing power. At this short distance between the two ships, once it got fully up to speed, there would be no chance at escape.

  Sholan kept up his pace but did not bother with the warp engines. Let the Snakes think they were offline.

  The Thagzar ship closed the distance at a rapid clip. Sholan waited a few more moments and then quickly turned off his own engines in an ungraceful shutdown. The pod shuddered from nose to stern and the engines went totally dead. Now they were carried along by momentum alone.

  Hopefully, it would look like his engines had simply given out due to malfunction—which they had been close to doing anyway.

  The Thagzar ship advanced like a predator closing for the kill. The ugly, bulbous cockpit of the ship even made the vessel like ominous... and hungry.

  Lyra watched nervously. “I’m assuming you have a plan other than just pissing them off?”

  “I do,” he said. “Wait until they get close enough to drop their shields, fire everything at them and then jump immediately back into warp.”

  “And if they fire at us, first?”

  He shrugged. “We are well within the range of their weapons now. I was hoping I pissed off their Captain enough so that they would want to take us prisoner and kill us the old fashioned way, close and personal.”

  She closed her eyes. “Death by torture or death by space decompression.”

  “Don’t forget death by engine breach,” Sholan said, almost cheerfully. He gestured to all the red dotting his control panel. “The engines did not like the little stunt I pulled back there, and I honestly don’t know what will happen when I try to throw it into warp after a cold start. I doubt our integrity will hold.”

  She huffed out a laugh. “At least that one will be quick.”

  “Yes, it will.”

  He felt like he should say something to her just in case one of the three very likely options came to pass. Whether Lyra wanted to acknowledge it or not, they were bonding. They should... clear the air. Just in case.

  But the time for that—if there had been any at all—had passed. The Thagzar ship was slowing its approach to match their own velocity. Almost there... almost there... They were at point blank range and still had not fired yet. It meant they wanted to take him and Lyra alive.

  A warm hand pressed over his own, where it hovered over the button to engage the engines.

  Lyra.

  He glanced over and she flashed a nervous, if encouraging smile at him.

  Whatever happened next, they would be in it together.

  Sholan returned his attention back to the holoscreen, holding his breath. Any moment now...

  A flash of light illuminated the bulbous nose of the Thagzar’s ship. The tractor beam. Exactly what he had been waiting for, because if the tractor beam was engaged, their shields had to be down.

  Sholan mashed his fingers simultaneously against the firing command button and the warp start. His pre-programed instructions launched every torpedo, space mine, shot the laser gun, and even his few rounds of metal arsenal.

  At the same time, the engines screamed, going from a dead-stop to full power in the space of seconds. Sholan and Lyra were thrown against the back of their seats, and he felt a strange pulling sensation as if his very molecules were being ripped and stretched through space-time...

  Within a breath of time, he snapped back. The pod bucked and kicked as if it were an untamed beast trying to throw them out of their seats. His control panel was almost universally red.

  But they were alive, and behind them was a rapidly expanding ball of fire that had been the Thagzar’s ship.

  “Hold on!” Sholan called, eyes on what remained of his warp engines. It seemed they had not completely escaped the shrapnel field. That was a hazard of firing at point-blank range. There were no doubt holes in his engine, and they were leaking fuel...

  His gaze caught Lyra’s. She must have seen the expression on his face, because for the first time she looked scared.

  I have to protect her, he thought wildly, though he didn’t know how. If the engine’s integrity failed...

  No.

  Sholan set his jaw and focused on what he could control, rather than what he couldn’t.

  “Our pod took heavy damage,” he told her.

  She let out a breathless laugh and pointed to the rapidly receding field of debris that had been the enemy ship. Fire could not last in space after it burned through whatever oxygen had been in their internal atmosphere. All that was left was twisted metal. “Looks like they took heavier damage. Can we backtrack to the planet we just left? I think Ledric would let us land by his city again.”

  “No,” he said, grim. “There are no Alliance planets within our range.” He spent a few moments going through the directory. “But we’re in luck, there is a solar system with an uninhabited planet within our reach with a breathable atmosphere.”

  The computer that controlled pin-point navigation abilities was down. Sholan charted a path by instinct and cut the engines as the planet came into view.

  It was a dark green ball out in the middle of space with only a few shallow seas in place of oceans. Every bit of landmass seemed to be taken up by vegetation. Well, it would have to do.

  The pod rocked again as it struck the atmosphere. He employed every trick he knew to nose it down, cursing, working mostly by feel and with the knowledge of a hundred different landings on a hundred different planets.

  Lyra, the brave person she was, did not scream or shriek. She sat completely still with her eyes closed against the dizzying, rapidly approaching view of land.

  Their landing was going badly. Sholan’s control was almost completely gone—the altitude thrusters responded in sputters that screwed up their flight-line more than it helped.

  Pieces of the hull snapped off and went spinning off to impact among lush jungle forests. All Sholan could do at that point was try not to crash them into a mountain.

  There was a field of mottled green not too far ahead. He adjusted what trim he had left and held his breath.

  They crashed.

  Lyra

  Lyra’s memories of the crash were fragmented at best, and interspersed with a headache that had no business being as bad as it was.

  She had felt weirdly lightheaded and dizzy through the fire fight with the Thagzars, but had resisted saying anything to Sholan. He needed all his attention on the battle. Judging by the wake of destruction they left behind when he
restarted the engines, his plan had worked.

  Too bad their pod had been damaged in the process.

  But there had been quite a few harrowing moments. Reaching out to touch him... it had calmed her, and visibly reassured him. It had also helped with the damnable headache.

  Lyra opened her eyes, inhaling hot, humid air.

  She was surprised to be alive.

  There was a fuzzy splotch in the line of her vision. After blinking several times, it resolved itself to Sholan. He was bent over her, a deep frown on his face.

  “Lyra.” He shook her shoulder. “Are you alright? Lyra, talk to me!”

  She groaned, feeling her headache redouble. “You,” she croaked, “would make a lousy medic. You know that?”

  “But I do make an excellent weapon’s specialist,” he agreed. “Are you okay? I don’t see any bone breaks or bleeding, but...” His hand moved up to test the temperature of her cheek.

  Oh, sweet relief. Unbidden, Lyra let out a throaty groan.

  He visibly hesitated. “Did I hurt you?”

  “No. My stupid headache just got a whole lot better.” She opened her eyes and grabbed his hand, replacing it back to her cheek. “You touched me, and it went away. It was the same earlier right before the battle. How long was I out?”

  He ignored the last part. “I told you before, it’s the bond. We make each other feel better.”

  Well he had definitely made her feel something the other night...

  She started to shake her head, but the relief from her oncoming migraine was intense.

  However, Lyra didn’t expect a sudden wave of desire to replace it, intense and immediate. With a desperate sound, she reached up to snag his shirt and reel him in for a kiss.

  He went willingly. His lips against hers tasted like honey. Her lips parted and she moaned as his tongue moved against her own. He was as wildly enthusiastic as she was.

  The wave ebbed, their kiss broke, and she sat back, panting.

  “Wow,” she murmured.

  He smiled back, trailing his fingers over her heated, but cooling skin.

  “Wow, indeed,” he agreed. “So does this mean you finally believe me about the bond?”