by Bex McLynn
"No. No one else," Kichen said as he rubbed his manacles with bony fingers.
Dyr accessed his technopathy, just a quick survey to make certain he could account for all the new WristCunes pinging the local AthNet. The security feeds provided by Kie showed her efficiency. Twelve bodies, plus the two armorless men who exited the airlock, accounted for all the new comm devices.
No relief flooded through him. Not yet. He needed to be certain, so he snagged Kichern by the scruff and dragged him toward the far port-side corridor juncture.
"Dyr?" Vedma called after him, sweeping a hand toward the airlock as if he'd lost his sense of direction.
He hadn't. He knew exactly where he wanted to take Kichern. Stepping over the fallen armored guard, he shoved Kichern right before the turret—the turret he had lured the armored guard before so that Kie could shred him with an armor piercing round.
He stared down at Kichern as he pointed to the turret. The medic looked up, sighted it, and then paled.
"Kie," Dyr called out. "If he moves, shoot him."
He strode away, each step jolting his blast burned side. Rounding the corner brought him face-to-face with Vedma. She cradled her right arm, and he saw a bruise darkening on her cheek. Locks of her hair had slipped from her braid. She had taken a beating, something he should have prevented. His foolhardy tactic to charge the guard banked on the assumption that the kidnappers wanted Vedma and him alive. His only recourse, to attack, dangled on the likelihood of him harrying the guard into a corridor where Kie dropped a turret. By the gods, it had worked, yet it had left Vedma vulnerable.
He reached out and lightly touched the arm that she cradled. "How bad is it?"
"Ech, it'll keep." She gestured toward Kichern. "What about him?"
Dyr scowled. "He'll also keep. Need to clear the cruiser, Vedma, then we're leaving."
"And Fuc—the medic?"
"He's not complicit now but doesn't mean he wasn't at some point. They trusted him enough to leave him alone, to leave him with access to a console or a device to make that recording. Change of conscience doesn't change culpability."
She frowned. "Then he's important. Could know who's givin' the orders."
He brushed his fingers along her cheek, skimming the blossoming bruise. "I need you to remind me of that often, Sarda."
"Why?"
"At some point, when you were unconscious and helpless, he had his hands on you." He pulled his hand back as he made a fist. "I want to kill him. I'll be but a moment."
Limping past her, he went directly through the airlock. He paused to nudge the body sprawled on the ramp, grunting when the man didn't rouse. Good. One less thing. He boarded the ship.
The fast cruiser wasn't a ship-of-the-line, thus a much smaller scale vessel than Kigen. Running through five decks took little time because the crew left imprints of themselves throughout. Security, berthing, and mess—his technopathy confirmed that fifteen individual users accessed those systems. The brig currently held no prisoners. The medical bay lacked patients. He limped through all the decks, though, compelled to verify that each compartment and corridor remained empty.
He returned to Vedma, alarmed to see her back pressed to the bulkhead with her head and shoulders bowed. Her adrenaline must have faded. She kept her injured arm close to her chest while her other hand cradled her belly. Anger roiled through him. She hurt because he hadn't protected her. She had fended for herself, and he saw the aftermath. One man bled out on Kie's deck. Inside the airlock, another man had his head bashed open. He should be proud that she handled herself with grit, but she shouldn't have had to do so.
As he neared, he heard her muttering softly under her breath, probably conversing with Kie. She stopped and turned to him. Her body might have wilted, but her expression remained determined. No trepidation. No panic. Just seeing her so composed grounded him again.
"The cruiser is ready to go." He paused before her, not wanting to leave her again.
"Aye," she sighed, then tipped her head toward the far juncture. "Be gentle with him, now. Need him alive, Dyr."
As she brushed past him on her way to the airlock, she knocked him on the shoulder with her fist. They both winced at the jarring contact. She grumbled as she shuffled away.
Dyr watched her go. Once at the opening of the airlock, she paused and ran her hand along the bulkhead—a caress—and Vedma never coddled.
Gods, if he didn't know it before, he knew it now. He loved this sard hard woman. Would place his body between hers and danger again and again. Would shred his honor to ribbons to keep her from harm. Never in his life had he truly felt compelled to be better, not until she had come along. Not until she became his reason for damn near everything.
With his heart full, he limped over to Kichern. Again he snagged the man by the scruff and dragged him to the airlock.
Kichern didn't resist, but he did grovel. "I'll tell you everything I know."
"Of course you will." Then he glanced over his shoulder, spearing the man with a cold look. Funny thing, how his love for Vedma made him a vicious bastard. "Just hope you know enough to keep your arse alive thereafter."
Chapter Nine
Vedma stood before the cruiser's propulsion regulator. The engines thrummed, vibrating the deck and her limbs. Instead of lulling into the soothing sensation, she grumbled as she used her left hand to dig out her torque spanner from her jumper pocket.
They'd left Kie behind hours ago. With Dyr poring over the navigation console, trying to get his bearings, and Kichern locked up in the brig, she had shit all to do. So she came down to the engine room, thinking she'd be useful.
She bumbled a bit but managed to one-handedly pry open the prop reg panel. No dust or rust or finagled nest of wires greeted her. Bilateral nodes, perfectly maintained, pulsed with the cycling of the thrusters.
Disappointed, she sighed. "Hummin' soft as caro, ain't you?"
The silence that ensued sent a spike through her chest. She clamped her mouth shut, swallowing back the sob that closed her throat.
Idiot. She knew the cruiser wasn't Athelasan. That its systems, although based on Athelasan logic gates, lacked moya. Since coming aboard, she had only encountered lifeless systems reporting their status. Her technopathy rang hollow in her mind, seeking feedback and connection to Kie.
She shouldn't feel so gutted, but she missed Kie something fierce. As fiercely as she missed Dyr those first days when he'd been back in stasis.
She didn't know if she could do this again, so soon. To be severed from someone that she held dear.
"Vedma?" She heard Dyr call out to her, concern resonating through his voice. "You're here?"
"Aye!" To her mortification, her voice cracked. She pushed back against her sorrow and called out again, steadying her response. "I'm comin'."
With a shaking left hand, she fumbled the panel back in place, banging about like a hack. Discouraged, she shimmied out of the cluster.
She glanced up at Dyr. He stood there with his hands on his hips. She couldn't quite read his expression. Rather, she didn't like the mixed reaction that she saw there—concern and confusion and compassion. Based on the laws of attraction, she should have been drawn like a magnet toward those softer emotions, but her contrary nature governed everything about her, even souring sweet moments despite her own desperate longing.
She huffed as she jammed a thumb over her shoulder, pointing to the engine cluster. "Ain't nothin' to do. She runs steady. No rattles. Nothin' wheezin'."
Dyr regarded her a moment, then said, "Glad you checked it out."
She swiped her hand along the pristine power cell. "Could eat off her casin'. There ain't nothin' to do."
Damn all, her voice cracked again. She rolled that broken sound into the gruff clearing of her throat and continued to glare at the spotless deck.
She heard him approach—slow, measured steps across the grates. His boots came to rest in the center of her gaze. After being alone for so long, her body flared with awaren
ess all because someone loomed close to her. Her entire being listed toward him, straining like a flower toward the sunlight.
"There's one thing we need to do." Dyr gently circled his fingers around the wrist of her hand that gripped her torque spanner. She longed to run her fingertips over the back of his hand, to caress his clade tattoos. "Come with me, Sarda?"
He tugged, and she followed. How could she not follow him? He had her caught in a gravity well. If he bodily wasn't before her, then her mind inevitably conjured images of him. Thoughts of Dyr had her chest aching with the same yearning she had for her da. Only where her love for her da bloomed in her chest, her love for Dyr had her belly tumbling as well. Had her palms sweaty and her clutchers clasping just because he looked at her, or called her Sarda, or enveloped her in one of his clingy embraces.
Gods, she'd follow him anywhere.
He took her up three decks and into the medical suite. Then he tried to hoist her up onto a medicot, but winced and curled toward his injured side.
"Damn fool." She reached for him. Fresh blood seeped through the medipatch that they had hastily slapped on hours ago.
He skirted away from her. "You first. Then me."
"I ain't bleedin'."
"Sarda, please." He gently guided her back to the medicot, shielding his wound from her. "Be quick about it, then you can see to me."
She growled her displeasure as she backed toward the cot. "You know this contraption lowers. Don't got to lift me."
He smiled at her, an enticing curl of his lips flashing his teeth. "Quite right, as always."
"Don't gimme pretty words." She rolled her eyes. "Doin' what you want, ain't I?"
"And I appreciate it." Her skin pebbled at the rumbled words, her ears still starved for the sound of his voice. "Thank you, Sarda."
Then he shifted close to her, brushing against her breasts with his chest as he leaned in and pressed the button to lower the medicot. Damn if her heart and tummy didn't flutter.
When the cot lowered just beneath her ass and stopped moving, she sat down. Dyr hummed approvingly and planted a kiss onto her crown before turning toward the MediCune console. The medicot started to rise, and with a smirk, Vedma realized he hadn't pressed the button again. That he used his technopathy to operate the lift. Cheeky man.
She shifted, trying to look around his massive shoulders to the screen. "You don't wanna get Kichern?"
He shook his head. "This should be straightforward. It's an advanced medicot. Just pushing buttons."
She huffed. He wasn't pushing buttons. He stood there using his technopathy to initiate the exam program. The medical tech embedded into the exam bay and cot whirled and thrummed as it all powered up.
He glanced over his shoulder. "Lie down, please."
She did as he bade, but found herself unable to relax against the firm support of the medicot's mattress.
Connecting to the medical tech using her technopathy, she skimmed her real-time exam results. Sprained wrist and shoulder. Contusions along her left side, including her elbow and hip. Disliking the sterile sensation of the connection, she pulled back.
"Nothing's broken." Dyr stood by her side, offering her his hand from his uninjured side. "The baby's well."
As she sat up, he again used his technopathy to lower the table. She moved to hop off, but he sank to his knees before her. Still holding her left hand, he squeezed her fingers.
"A girl," he said thickly, his gaze riveted to her belly.
Vedma gasped, just a small hitch to her breathing. "What?"
Dyr looked up at her, his eyes glistening. "We're going to have a girl."
"A girl?" All those weeks spent fixing Kie and checking Dyr's cryo-bin twice, sometimes three times each day, she never thought to run the MediCune scanner on herself to find out the gender of her baby.
Her astonishment stole her breath, and then Dyr unbalanced her further as he lowered his head to her belly, pressing his brow against her. Against their daughter.
"Gods," he choked out hoarsely, "thank you, Vedma. Thank you for taking such good care of her when I couldn't—"
"Shush, Dyr!" she snapped at him, but she also curled herself around him, as far as her belly would allow.
He released her hand, wrapping his left arm about her. "Just thank you so damn much."
A pained sound pulled from his gut. Not a sob or a growl. His body melted against her as he shuddered through a purging exhale. She stroked his back and carded her fingers through his hair, pressing kisses on the inked skin of his nape.
She marveled at his gratitude. Even more, she marveled at her bone-deep desire to offer him comfort. To pull him into her so that her barbs and cynicism could shield them both. To shred anyone who would ever again place him under such unbearable stress and circumstances.
He shifted back, resting his backside on his heels as he looked up at her. His hand curled around her hip. She saw his flushed face and that he strove to temper his breathing.
He cleared his throat, then said in a steady voice, "I've sent a secured comm to my house. Vayant is racing toward us right now."
Vayant. House Borac's spirenought. The house's fastest and fiercest battleship.
She saw no fault in that, so she said, "All right."
His shifted his gaze to the deck. "Well, Kie was running us back toward the Tendex, so the comms are open. We have AthNet access if you want to..."
She snatched up his hand by her hip and squeezed. "Want to what?"
Again he cleared his throat. "Comm the Athela Academe. Arrange for transport."
Vedma scoffed. "Why on Ero would I do somethin' like that?"
She was done with the Academe. Never wanted to go back there.
"Just giving you the option, Vedma." He still wouldn't look at her. "The Athela always chooses."
Unholde save her from good men and their good intentions. Even now, Dyr missed the point.
She reached out, and the poor man flinched. Aye, she did throttle him a bit too often, didn't she?
"You know why I was the perfect Athela?" She cupped his cheek, steering his gaze back to her.
He looked almost fearful as he shook his head.
She sighed. "I'm bettin' no one looked for me, and if they did, it weren’t for very long. I'm the perfect Athela 'cause I'm unwanted."
He reacted fiercely. "Bullshit. I want you."
Gods, how she sorely itched to whack him. "Then why're you wantin' me to comm the Academe?"
But she knew why.
She hopped off the table and joined him on the deck. Got down on her knees before him, grimacing and groaning as she lowered herself. Course, he was a big bastard, and now she found herself gazing up into his eyes.
"I'm wantin' you, too, Dyr." She cupped his cheek again, taking in the astonished look on his face. "You need to hear it, don't you? Often too, I'm bettin'." She sighed and smiled contritely at him. "Ech, you poor bastard, bein' stuck with me. I'm a prickly arse."
His entire face lit up as he slid his hand under her braid, anchoring his palm to the base of her neck.
Pulling her close, he kissed her so tenderly that he sapped all her tension and her body sagged against him. Of all the confounded things, he had her clinging to him.
"You're perfect," he whispered into her ear. "Absolutely perfect."
Dyr docked the cruiser alongside Vayant. As the airlock between the ships cycled, he placed himself slightly in front of Vedma. She wore a compression sleeve that cradled her healing arm, and it covered her from shoulder to wrist. He wore the sword he found on Kie diagonally across his back in its sheath. Otherwise, he left his hands empty. Even though he found bullpulse rifles in the cruiser's weapons cache, arming himself further would be pointless. Vayant carried a full complement of armored fleetmen plus a squadron of spire fighter pilots. Once the cruiser came within Vayant's sphere, he lost all other contingencies. He risked everything—Vedma, his daughter, his life—on the steadfast honor of his house.
Vedma remained still
at his side, and he suspected that she was accessing her technopathy.
Curious, he reached out technopathically to the ship. Vayant was an ancient Athelasan ship, like Kigen. The second he connected, he released a breathy sigh. He had grown unaccustomed to being on a ship as robust and hale as Vayant. Kigen had practically rattled with death throes, and Prykimis flagged, certainly in decline. Vayant, her systems a steady stream in his technopathy, reported smooth operations and routine maintenance alerts.
He stretched his technopathy a little further and dug a little deeper.
"Vayant?" he pushed out mentally.
Silence.
He glanced back at Vedma. "Are you reaching out to Vayant? Is she like Kie?"
Vedma's lips flattened to a thin line, and she shook her head. He couldn't read her expression. She almost looked reluctant. Knowing Vedma as he did, how hot her loyalty burned, he imagined that connecting with another ship's moya, so soon after parting with Kigen, would be distasteful to her. His desire for her comfort outweighed his curiosity about Vayant being sentient. It could keep, for now.
Air hissed through the airlock as Vayant's outer hatch opened.
"Here they come." His impulse twitched his hand toward hers, but then he saw her tight fists and pulled back. "It'll be fine, Vedma."
"Aye," she said with a huff.
As expected, a strike team of armored fleetmen flooded through the hatch first, rifles raised as they sighted targets. He couldn't fault his house for their caution. After all, they responded to House Borac emergency scrum codes, easily a decade old, sent from an unmarked cruiser. Anyone and anything could be sprung on them.
As the strike team broke off smoothly into pairs to swarm the cruiser, two men took up sentry positions close to the airlock.
"There's a prisoner in the brig," Dyr told the fleetman closest to him. "He's an important asset."
The fleetman spoke into the comm inside his helmet. "One in the brig."
Using his technopathy, Dyr eavesdropped on the incoming replies that confirmed Kichern still sat in a cell, unharmed. He also intercepted the incoming comm that an officer approached the airlock, probably in response to the real-time images sent from the surveillance lenses on the strike team's armor.