As unbelievable as it was to think anything could survive in vacuum, Fitz had no doubt these were living entities. Their actions displayed a certain amount of rudimentary intelligence. “What are these things?”
“Frainies.” The cat and Youngblood watched her through the long narrow armorglass window in the pressure door.
The word meant nothing to her.
“Zaafraines,” Youngblood elaborated. “Void parasites, vampire lights, mind fuckers… There are as many different names for them as there are cultures. Zaafraine is what the Acinonix called them before we reached this part of space.”
“We call them The Enemy,” The cat’s ears flattened against his skull and his lips drew back, exposing white incisors.
She’d heard some of those names in the bars where the freight haulers hung out. When a ship was late or the salvagers towed in a derelict, spacers would whisper, “the vamps got ’um” or “the void parasites done it”.
“But those are myths bandied about by superstitious drunks.”
“Unfortunately, they’re not stories, but there hasn’t been a verified report of a frainy infestation on the major space routes in a century, not since the Kaphier cats were developed. Out in the Back of Beyond, anything’s possible. That’s why I wanted Jumper with us…” He stopped mid-sentence and looked down at the cat. “And why didn’t you warn us about this nest?”
“I ain’t never been around a frainy in my life, and I’d run away from home by the time Mom got around to hunter-killer training.”
“It’s supposed to be a genetically-engineered instinct.”
“All right guys, can we quit arguing and figure out something pretty quick? I’ve got a red light on my air supply. That only gives me about ten minutes until I’m sucking an empty bottle.”
“There is something.” Youngblood entered data on the control panel next to the airlock door.
The lights flickered out as the pressure cycle began. The zaafraines crept from their hiding places, flocking around her. Several fluttered to her faceplate and began bumping against it, trying to find a way inside. Fitz fought to keep the panic out of her voice. “What are you doing?”
“Find something to hang on to. I’m going to activate an emergency depressurization—if the bloody ship will let me.” He fiddled with the controls for a few more seconds. “That should do it. Brace yourself.”
She wrapped an arm around the grab bar, wedged her shoulders against the outer bulkhead, her feet on the inner and held herself there with all the strength of her augmented muscles.
Alarms wailed as atmosphere boiled out of the open lock, flashing into ice crystals. The zaafraines streamed out in a torrent of bioluminescence. As the door resealed and the airlock repressurized, Fitz straightened, scanning around the darkened space. No specks of light moved. “I think we got them all.” She reached to open the inner lock.
“Wait, wait.” Urgency colored Jumper’s mind voice. “I think I hear something.”
“How can you hear a noise from the other side of a sealed pressure door?” she asked.
“I don’t hear it with my ears, but with my mind. They’re tiny little squeaking noises. I thought I heard something before, but it was a steady buzzing. Now there’s a twittering. It’s like when I feel a nest of gerbats hiding behind the walls.”
Fitz spun around at the flicker of light in the corner of her vision. A single orb emerged from behind a seal around the door. She smashed it between her gloved hands and the glow winked out, the fuzzy husk drifting to the floor. She ground it beneath her boot. “I guess you can kill the suckers.”
More frainies appeared, oozing out of seals between bulkheads, flowing from beneath the straps on her safety harness and creeping from under the soles of her boots. She smashed them against the walls, between her hands and stomped on them, but more and more appeared.
“Fitz, quit that.” Youngblood’s barked command broke through her frenzy. “You’re only using up your oxygen faster. We’ll just flush the airlock again.”
This time only a few of the creatures whirled out, the rest hid in whatever cracks offered protection.
“I think they’re learning what we’re doing.” She crushed another one beneath her boot.
“We’ll just keep purging the airlock until we get them all.” Youngblood started the repressurization cycle again.
Lizzy interrupted. “Colonel, with life support running on the emergency back-up, I don’t think we can continue to void atmosphere this way.”
“I don’t give a damn what you think. Do it anyway.”
Fitz eyed the flashing red light of her air supply warning. “Wolf, stop it. It doesn’t make any difference now anyway. I’ve got only a few minutes of oxygen left.”
“I’m letting you inside.”
“No. If those things get inside the ship, they’ll kill you, too.”
“Possibly.”
“No possibly about it. They will, and you know it. If I open my helmet, all of them will come after me, won’t they?”
He didn’t answer.
“Won’t they?” Her voice rose in a ragged shout. The inside of her skull throbbed with the hammering of her heart.
He nodded.
“Then you flush us all out into space. The explosive decompression will kill me before the frainies can.”
“Give me a minute, I’ll think of something.” His jaw clinched.
“I don’t have a minute.” She licked sweat off her upper lip. “It’s imperative you go on with the mission…”
“No. You’re more important.”
Regret twisted inside her chest at his words. Why hadn’t there been time to screw this man…just once?
She stepped to the door, slapping her gloved hand against the window. “Damn it, Wolf. Complete the mission for me and bring Ransahov back. Promise me you’ll do it.”
He put his palm up, separated from hers by the armorglass panel. “Fitz, there has to be a way…”
“Promise me.”
“All right.” His teeth gnawed at his lower lip. “Let me think about it a second. I can come up with…”
“No time.” Alarms erupted inside her helmet, warning that her oxygen levels were critical. She reached for the release on her faceplate.
“No? Time?” His eyes widened. “Wait right there. Don’t do anything.” He raced down the passageway.
What was he up to? The carbon dioxide levels began to climb; she only had seconds.
He returned with a dirty dish in one hand, her reading tablet in the other.
“Get out of your suit as quickly as you can and get to medical.” He punched commands into the lock’s control panel.
“No. Wait.”
The pressure door slid open. He grabbed her harness, dragging her out and throwing her toward sickbay with superhuman strength. The lock slammed shut as she cleared it.
She climbed to her feet, stripping off her helmet. A cloud of the creatures had gotten through before the hatch closed. They swarmed around Youngblood in a shining swirl. He dodged and pirouetted, batting the frainies out of the air with his makeshift clubs. Jumper snapped up the stunned creatures, shaking them until their luminosity faded. He spit out the husk, snatched another.
A speck of light oozed out from under the glove she threw down. Fitz crushed it, but others appeared from every joint and recess on the outside of her suit. She stomped and kicked at them. A black blur flashed by her. She spun in time to see the cat snatch two frainies out of the air—two she hadn’t seen behind her.
As she slipped into hyperkinetic mode, her perception accelerated and reality slowed. Her fingers unsealed the suit, stripping it off her shoulders and down her hips. The boot fasteners were too slow so she ripped them off and kicked the broken boots away.
She spun at a touch on her arm, but it was Youngblood. Her fist stopped ju
st short of smashing into his jaw. He skinned the suit off her legs, hurling it at the cloud of frainies, and they raced into sickbay, sealing the door.
The tiny room appeared empty, but he scanned all the corners and under the exam table. “I think we made it without letting any of them inside.”
“Will we be safe in here?” she asked.
“Not for long. They’ll come through the ventilation shafts.”
She shook her head. “How are they tracking us?”
He tapped a finger against his forehead. “Our thoughts. They’re attracted to the electro-chemical impulses of our brains.”
“They’ve found their way into my environmental systems,” Lizzy warned.
Wolf glanced up at the grill mounted high on the bulkhead. “We’ve only got a few seconds before they pick their way through the maze of ducting and find us. Get on the table.”
She frowned at him. “What?”
He picked her up, dumped her on the exam table and forced her down on her back. She popped up on her elbows. “What about Jumper?”
“Jumper can take care of himself.” He climbed on top of her.
She suddenly realized what he intended. “Wait, the stasis box is only big enough for one. We can’t both fit inside.”
“We’d better, or one of us is in trouble.” He knelt between her knees, forcing her legs apart. “Ship, reduce light levels and gravity to make it easier for Jumper to work. Close us up.”
On the bulkhead behind him, a swarm of luminous blobs poured out of the air duct’s grill. He eased his weight down onto her and the table slid into the tube.
Interlude
He-Who-Jumps-The-Highest bounded through the darkened corridors of the ship. As gravity decreased, his leaps lengthened until he flew toward his prey. He snatched the frainy in mid-air and crushed it between his teeth, feeling the life bleed away as its glow faded. It tasted of contaminated earth, fear and the icy void of interstellar space. He spit out the foulness.
Jumper twisted his body in that effortless way of cats, landing on his paws and pushing off toward the ceiling. His claws found a grip among the exposed cables and wiring. He hung there, black fur blending into the shadows.
By some odd quirk of nature, the feline mind was undetectable to zaafraines, a trait that persisted even after the cats were genetically engineered to intelligence. That, along with their predatory nature and easy adaptability to zero gravity, made them the perfect frainy killers.
Born with no tail and only partially developed telepathic senses, Jumper had been declared unworthy. The Queen of his clowder deemed no kitten with his disabilities could hunt The Enemy. It didn’t matter that no cat of the clan had seen a zaafraine in a dozen generations. The Kaphier cats were so successful in eradicating the threat in the major space routes that few reports surfaced and those that did were from the periphery and the Back of Beyond. The cats were still called the maneki nico—a bringer of good fortune in some ancient first world culture—and were welcomed aboard any vessel. Now it was more for their companionship and ability to control the cockroaches, gerbats and the other vermin that followed man into space.
The Queen decreed Jumper would never be allowed to go to space, to have his adventure, to find a mate and raise a litter of kittens. Before he came of age, he would go to the human veterinarian in Sandor City to be neutered. His defects could not be tolerated in the gene pool.
He ran away, but the jungles of Rainbow were no place for a kitten on his own. A hungry harpylion or bondroux might make a meal of him. And it was always raining. He found his way to the edge of the escarpment and the settlement men called Ishtok Base.
He learned about a cook who fed the base cats behind the mess hall every night. There was juicy neubeast stew or thick slices of roast turkzard, sometimes even bowls of thick cream, but the cats always got there first. They were regular cats—felis domesticus—and had a natural mistrust and hatred of Kaphiers. When he tried to shoulder his way to the food, they hissed and slapped at him, forcing him to wait until they all had their fill. Then he hurried to gobble up what remained before the nightly rains washed it away.
He was always wet, dirty and so very hungry. And then one night the tall, blond-haired man found him and scooped him up. When Jumper touched the mind behind those bright blue eyes, he claimed the man as his own.
Now The Enemy had come aboard this ship and wanted to kill his person. That would not be tolerated.
Five fuzzy globs of light drifted out of the common room. Jumper saw them as dirty gray spheroids of wiggling tentacles tipped with organs to locate the thoughts of their prey. His green eyes narrowed, a hunter’s growl rumbling in his throat.
The powerful muscles of his hind legs hurled him among them, claws slashing, jaws crushing. He hit the deck and rebounded, tumbling and slaughtering until only one remained. It flashed away and down the stairs to engineering. Jumper spit out the foulness of his last kill and soared after it.
He grabbed the handrail on the stairs, slowing his forward momentum and peered down into the room. A glowing ball of frainies a meter across churned in mid-air. Was it a trap? He’d heard stories of cats swarmed by The Enemy and killed, but were they true? Or only cautionary tales to keep high-spirited kittens in check?
The puff of fur on his behind twitched as he tried to lash his non-existent tail. Jumper leapt, screaming his battle cry. He was a Gold Dragon and this was, as the mercenaries liked to say, a target rich environment.
Chapter Fifteen
Fitz tangled her fingers in his shirt and pulled him closer, burying her face in the hollow of his shoulder. His weight against her felt reassuring as he rested his head beside hers, pressing his body tighter. She squeezed her eyes shut, her heart hammering against the underside of her ribs.
“Easy.” Youngblood’s breath warmed her skin. As he lifted his head, their lips brushed, then clung together. His tongue caressed her mouth, seeking permission. He shifted his weight and the movement of his body against hers sent a jolt of need radiating through her. Her tongue answered, inviting him in. The touch of his mouth felt hot enough to weld them together.
A low noise rumbled deep in his throat, midway between a growl and a chuckle. She arched against him, slipping her arms around him. Damn, she needed him closer. She needed him against her, flesh to flesh, man to woman. Inside her, body and soul. His hand slipped beneath her shirt and cupped her breast, thumb drawing slow, hot circles around her nipple. She gasped and his tongue plunged deeper into her mouth, caressing her, tasting her.
“Commander?”
She wrapped her leg around his, stroking it, feeling the tickle of the crisp hair on his calf against the sensitive sole of her foot. His kisses continued to feed her passion. She clutched his back, feeling the play of hard muscle. Her fingers traced the valley of his spine down until they brushed the swell of that magnificent butt.
“Colonel!”
His lips painted a hot line along her jaw and down her neck, nipping, kissing as he moved to the hollow of her throat. He eased his hand along her ribs and across her stomach, finding the top of her panties. His fingers slide inside.
“Commander FitzWarren!” Lizzy’s voice was sharp and strident.
Fitz’s passion shattered, like a guilty child caught at sex games with a playmate. Wolf’s head slumped against her shoulder. He mumbled a low curse. Her body felt cool and detached except for where his palm rested on her bare skin at the point of her hip. Heat still simmered there.
Fitz focused on their surroundings. The ship had already brought them out of the stasis tube. She remembered the sight of frainies pouring from the air vent.
“Lizzy?”
“It’s all right, Commander. I’ve deemed the ship is free of the parasitic life forms. It’s safe for you to emerge.”
Wolf raised his head to scan her face, his eyes still dark with desire. She wanted to protest
when he moved his hand, but he used it to brush a stray lock of hair from her face.
“Perhaps we could continue this at a more opportune time, Kimber?”
“I’d like that very much.”
She sat up as he hopped to the floor. “Lizzy, are we still in the Oxylus system?”
“No, Commander. We’re approaching the outer beacon at Hideyoshi Shipyards.”
“You took us to Lister? We’d only discussed that as a possibility. We hadn’t reached any agreement on how to proceed. That trip takes us two days out of our way.”
“Two days and seventeen hours actually. I encountered a great deal of difficulty maneuvering out of the Oxylus system and concluded seeking repairs was the only viable option.”
“I’m senior commander on this op. I decide how we carry out the mission.” Fitz glared at Wolf’s smug expression.
“Actually, Commander, my programming allows me to make those types of command decisions when the human mission control officer is unavailable.”
“I wasn’t available because you had me locked in the stasis box.”
“I didn’t feel it was advisable to remain at Oxylus, and when I reached the hyperlimit, those parasitic creatures were still aboard. I couldn’t very well bring you out and risk your life to ask which way we should go. The ship’s avatar program was devised to assume control in an emergency.”
“You could have jumped to an adjacent system and waited until it was safe for us to come out of stasis.”
“And waste how much more time? I had no idea how long it would take that cat to eradicate all of those creatures—if in fact he could. I made the decision I felt was the best at the time and if you don’t like it, next time you can deploy with a dumb ship. If the colonel’s influence with Lister can get us in and out of their repair facility with a minimum of complications…”
“It can.” Wolf folded his arms across his chest and smirked at Fitz.
A Hero for the Empire: The Dragon's Bidding, Book 1 Page 12