“Jace!” Eden screamed, reaching for him. Another wave of energy whipped the ship around. Her head connected with the metal cylinder under the pilot’s chair. Pain crested just as Eden heard the sound of bodies thudding against the forward viewport, accompanied by Tasha’s very familiar “Bloody damn!”
Then her world went black.
So she didn’t see the other bodies that tumbled just as the Galaxus began a violent ass-over-teakettle spin.
Friend!
Friend!
It was a familiar dream and one that always left him with an empty ache upon awakening. He fought the rise in consciousness and held more tightly on to his fantasy, taking in the sandalwood scent of her hair, so soft against his face. And the warmth of her body, so neatly fitted against his. In his dream she sighed, arching her back, and her round bottom pressing against him caused an immediate reaction of heat and hardness. He groaned her name, drawing her closer, his hand finding the swell of her breasts as he did so. His thumb found a gap in the fabric of her uniform and his fingers slipped inside….
She stirred, let out a ragged breath as one finger traced that taut peak, and he didn’t know if it was the sound of her pleasure or the ever-present yellow data readout across his mind that alerted him to the chance that this might not be a dream:
Tactile Data Input—Subject female humanoid—approximate age: mid 30s—body. temperature 98.6—respiration fast—metabolic rate normal—
Sweet holy gods. Kel-Paten’s eyes flew open. In his field of vision was a tangle of short, pale hair and an immense black starfield. And not another ship in sight. Their mysterious attackers hadn’t followed them through the gate, though he’d double-check that once he got ship’s systems back online.
“Tasha.” He said her name softly, remembering the bastard pirate’s comment about Tasha’s “mean right hook.” A telepath. A Nasyry telepath—something that should have been in Serafino’s file and wasn’t, he realized with a start. An error or a deliberate omission? He’d ponder that later. Right now he was more bothered by the fact that Serafino had easily pulled the fantasy of making love to Tasha from his mind, along with his fear that—with death imminent—he’d never get the chance.
Yet he didn’t feel dead. But he knew if Tasha woke up now and found his hands placed where they were, there’d definitely be that mean right hook to worry about. Still, the intimacy of their position was an opportunity to assure himself of her well-being—since he doubted any of the med-panels functioned right now. He opened his hand slowly, let it rest against her chest, and dropped quickly into full ’cybe function, running a cursory med-diagnostic on her with the sensors linked through his gloves. No internal injuries and only a slight bruising on her shoulders and back, probably from impacting the viewport. She’d be sore for a while, but nothing more.
He simultaneously ran his own diagnostics, expecting no damage and finding none. His brief lapse into unconsciousness, and hers, was due no doubt to a sudden drop in air pressure as life support shut off and recycled back on.
He withdrew his hand, letting it come lightly to rest on her hip as she let out a small, “Oh!” and rolled over to face him.
Her eyes fluttered opened. Her face wore a slightly lost expression. “Hey.”
“You okay?”
She seemed to study him. “Yeah. Must have been a helluva bar fight. Who won?”
“I think we did.” He had the distinct feeling she had no idea who “we” were.
“Hmpf!” She gave a short, low laugh. “Then the other guys must feel like shit.” She sighed, snuggling against his chest.
She definitely had no idea who he was.
The feel of her pressing so intimately against him destroyed what little restraint he had left. He clasped her to him and was drawing her face up to meet his own when he felt her tensing, her arms stiffening. He knew that she’d just realized who—and what—he was.
“Bloody damn!” she said.
“Are you all right?” He tried to make his voice sound as normal as possible, hiding the hard edge of passion in it much better than he was able to hide the hard physical response of his body to hers. He shifted position away from her, let his hand fall from her face to the slick surface of the viewport on which they lay.
She followed the movement. It looked as if they were lying suspended in deep space.
“Gods!” Tasha sat up abruptly.
He pushed himself up, reaching for her as she wavered slightly.
“Those ships—”
“I think we lost them. But I won’t know more until I get things working.” He motioned to the darkened console. The cockpit was bathed in a green glow, casting eerie shadows on the total disarray of cables and floor tiles—floor tiles?—and seat cushions and panel covers and Doctor Fynn’s boots—
“Eden!” Tasha clambered around him onto the instrument panel before sliding to the floor. The CMO was curled peacefully around the base of the pilot’s chair.
Kel-Paten pushed himself off the viewport and saw a suspiciously damp section of Fynn’s shoulder-length hair. He grabbed a med-kit from a nearby panel.
“Let me take a look,” he told Tasha as she searched for the medicorder. He laid his hand flat against Fynn’s face and chest, then relayed to Tasha what his diagnostics found.
“Concussion. No major internal injuries. No broken bones.”
Tasha flicked the scanner on, confirming his words with the unit’s data.
“We briefly lost life support,” he told her, seeing the worry and concern on her face even in the dim lighting. “She’ll come to shortly.”
Tasha’s eyes were a little wild. “Okay.” She drew a deep breath and nodded in what he understood were her thanks. “Let’s get this ship stabilized, make sure we’re not in danger. I’ll secure her.”
The Galaxus was only slightly skewed. A minor adjustment to her internal gravs—thank the gods that still worked!—fixed the problem, though there were a few strange clanks and thuds.
Together they moved Fynn from under the chair and arranged the loose chair cushions around her. She stirred slightly. Kel-Paten left her in Sass’s care and checked the pilot’s console, still worried about their unknown attackers. But scanners were off-line. And the viewport showed no other approaching ships.
“Serafino? Where’s—oh, shit!” Tasha grabbed Kel-Paten’s arm and dragged him to the back of the cockpit, where Serafino lay under a pile of rubble. “Wait ’til I scan before you move anything.”
He crouched next to her, glanced at the data on the medicorder and then back at the man called Jace Serafino. A Nasyry telepath. A mindsucker with who-knew-what capabilities. He would like to believe Serafino was dead, but his brief glance at the scanner plus his years in combat told him he wasn’t going to be that lucky. Serafino was alive. Injured but alive. The man had the proverbial furzel thirteen lives.
“Only a broken arm, so I think we can move this stuff,” Tasha was telling him. She turned unexpectedly, caught the expression on his face before he could mask it.
“Don’t look so damned disappointed that he’s alive, Kel-Paten. He just saved your unworthy ass back there.”
She was defending Serafino—not only defending him, he thought as he carefully moved the debris, but she’d obviously been on Serafino’s side even before they boarded the Galaxus. The laser pistol Serafino had pulled was Alliance command issue, and Kel-Paten doubted the doctor owned such a weapon. Tasha had ordered Serafino to telepathically scan him, and he had, without hesitation. Tasha knew Serafino was Nasyry.
He had a thousand questions, including whether Tasha and the U-Cees had known what Serafino was before the mission. But he was equally if not more concerned that Serafino or Fynn had told Tasha about his feelings for her.
He couldn’t forget her comment about selling him as scrap. That, in many ways, told him what he really wanted to know.
They supported Serafino’s body in much the same way they’d secured Eden’s. Tasha collapsed awkwardly into th
e pilot’s chair. It squeaked in complaint. She looked up at him, pain and weariness evident on her face.
Even though he doubted she believed him, even though he knew she trusted Serafino more than she trusted him, he had to try. “I had nothing to do with those fighters.”
She was quiet for a long moment. “Any idea of their origin?”
“If our databanks are intact, I’ll replay all images we have of them. But right now, no.”
“Were they after us or Serafino?”
“I don’t know.” He saw skepticism in the slight narrowing of her eyes. “I’m not lying, Tasha.”
“We need to have a serious, honest talk, Kel-Paten,” she said after a moment’s silence—during which, try as he might, he could read neither her face nor her eyes. “But we have more-pressing issues, starting with ship’s status.” She ran one hand through her hair, then turned to the damaged instrument panel at her station.
She was right, they did. He leaned against the back of her chair, studied the data as she did. It told him virtually nothing that he couldn’t discern with his own eyes. They were alive and in deep space. Somewhere. Life support functioned but minimally so, and only in the cockpit. The ship’s structural damage was unknown, as was fuel reserve, engine status, their supplies.
The only good news, as one scanner suddenly flickered to life, was that the mysterious attack squadron had disappeared.
Tasha turned her face toward him. “Can you spike in, or are the systems too far gone for that?”
He eased himself down in the copilot’s chair, faced her, and rested his elbows on his knees. “I can try. No promises.”
“Could it damage your systems?”
“No.” He turned abruptly away. Not could it damage you. Your systems. He heard the words and hated them. “There are safeguards. But I need to sit there,” he added, nodding to the pilot’s chair she occupied.
She changed seats with him. He tried to forget that she watched as he tugged down his right glove, sliding the small plasteel flap that covered his dataports to one side of his wrist. The arm of the pilot’s chair housed an extendable pronged input that fit neatly into his wrist, and he pushed it in place with his thumb, his eyes momentarily closed as he put his ’cybe functions fully online.
When he opened them again, he was in the pilot’s chair, but he was also in the ship—in the cabin, the engine compartment, the small storage bays. And outside where the vidmonitors that still worked continuously scanned the ship’s exterior. He let the data flow into him, scanning and sorting as need be and, at the same time, watching Tasha from all different angles, imprinting her into his cyber memory, into subdirectories of subdirectories he created that no one—not even PsyServ—could find and erase.
The image this time was a Tasha he’d never seen before. Disheveled, tired, and in pain. Worried. About Fynn, he surmised, as she kept glancing toward her friend on the floor. Once or twice she looked at him, but he was in profile to her, seeing her not through his physical eyes but through the various monitor lenses in the cockpit.
Finally she unfolded herself from the chair and sat on the floor next to Eden, taking her friend’s hand in her own and patting it absently.
He went back to work, very aware that the damaged, malfunctioning shuttlecraft he was linked to was the only thing keeping them all alive.
NOVALIS
The gray mists seemed thicker this time. Eden telepathically felt him before she saw him. And when she did, her relief was so great that she ran across the short expanse and threw herself into his arms.
Jace! What’s happened?
He held her tightly. We got through, though I’ll be damned if I know how.
Eden looked up at him, brushed a stray tear from her cheek. Are you okay?
Broken arm, that’s all.
She stepped back. You look fine… She touched both his arms and he laughed.
This isn’t my physical self, sweetling, though we can still have fun.
She blushed. Of course. She still had a difficult time adjusting to two worlds. And two existences. Can I start the healing process from here? She laid one hand on his chest. Which arm?
He held his left arm out to her. We can join our energies in a healing.
She ran her hand up his arm, wincing when she sensed the location of the break. I can feel the break. How odd. Then she closed her eyes and sent healing energy to that area.
Jace lay his hand over hers, adding his energy to her own. A warmth flooded her. She’d never shared a healing before.
Then his hand traveled up to the back of her neck. You have a bit of a lump there. He applied a light pressure. She was aware of the pain and then not. It was as if he drew it out of her.
The Tin Soldier’s working on the ship, he continued. He’s spiked in, making himself useful, though he’s most uncomfortable doing it around her.
Around Tasha? Eden questioned. I’ve noticed that too.
Jace drew Eden back against him, lightly kissing the top of her head.
I thought I’d lost you, he said suddenly, his voice rough. She felt an ache in him, a frisson of fear, an anger at being caught so helpless.
She held him tightly, then sighed as his mouth left a hot, wet trail down her neck. He was breathing heavily—odd how even an incorporeal body could exhibit those sensations!
He pulled her against him with such force that she let out a small, startled cry. He held her that way for a long time, his face in her hair, and it was only when she finally began to pull away that she realized he, too, was trembling.
Jace—she started, but he hushed her and kissed her fully, in control again, the pressure of his mouth on hers insistent, demanding.
She nibbled on his lower lip and he groaned. Oh, Eden. There’s work to be done, and all I want to do is play with you. He looked in the distance again. Your friend’s worried. The Tin Soldier…well, he’s wished me dead a hundred times already. But Sass is upset. So go wake up and tell her we’ll make it. He touched her face three times, temple, cheek, and chin.
And ended by brushing his mouth lightly across hers.
It was getting to be a rather nice ritual.
GALAXUS COCKPIT
Sass saw Eden’s eyes flutter open.
“Hey,” Eden said weakly.
“Hey, yourself, Doc.” Sass grinned, trying to hide her relief. Eden was a Healer. Sass shouldn’t have been overly worried about her, but she was. “How’s the head? You had some tomato juice leaking out there.”
“Throbbing, but it’s getting better. I…we worked on that.”
Sass glanced back at Serafino’s quiet form. The Nasyry had healing powers too. “Wondered what took you so long. He has—”
“A broken left arm.” Eden struggled to sit up. “We’re working on that too. And you?” She accepted Sass’s hand in assistance. Sass knew it was for more than just support. Her CMO often did quick med-scans with a touch. Her next words confirmed that was part of her reason. “Last time you felt like that was in that bar fight in Port Braddock. The one where the Cryloc hit you with the bar stool.”
“While my back was to him, the coward!” Sass said, and then sighed. “Wondered why this felt so familiar. Odd how the mile markers in my life are a collection of bar fights.”
She pulled Eden up with her. “He’s checking on the damage,” she said with a nod to where Kel-Paten sat behind them. “Should we wake up Serafino? Maybe he can give us a hand, even if he only has one usable one.”
Eden accepted the med-kit from Sass and turned her attention to Serafino. Sass returned to the copilot’s chair and sat, her legs crossed underneath her. Kel-Paten watched her, his eyes luminous.
“Doctor Fynn is fine.” His voice when he was spiked in was always a bit softer than normal and oddly monotone. And he was more prone to make statements than questions, even when those statements were questions.
Sass nodded. “Bit of a headache from the concussion, but she can deal with that, as well as with Serafino’s arm.” She
ran her hand over the lifeless instrument panel. “What’s the situation? Do we need to send out a distress signal?”
It took a moment before he answered. “We’ve sustained major damage to engine section four. I’d estimate at least four to six hours to repair it. Life support is functional, the main power grid is stabilized, and the scanner array is functioning at seventy-eight percent capacity. In essence, we have enough food, water, and power to last us approximately two weeks, should we require it.
“That’s the good news,” he added.
She turned back to him. She didn’t like the way he said that last sentence at all.
“The good news? Meaning?”
“Meaning there is bad news, Sebastian.”
“Which is?”
“I have no idea of where we are or how to get back to Triad space. Or even U-Cee space, for that matter. Nothing in our nav files matches what I find out there.” He thrust his chin toward the viewport.
Sass leaned back in the chair and regarded him in disbelief. “You’re kidding.”
“I do not kid.”
No shit, she thought. “There’s nothing familiar out there?” She pointed to the starfield. “Not a star? Not a constellation? No guidance beacon to get a fix on?”
He was kidding. He had to be kidding. But the finality in his voice when he answered made her stomach clench.
“Nothing.”
Lubashit on a lemon. They were lost.
GALAXUS
Lost. In a damaged shuttle.
Not a sturdy, functional Raider-class transport but a bloody, godsdamned luxury command shuttle! If it wasn’t such a frightening realization, Sass would’ve laughed.
“That can’t be!”
“Why not?” Kel-Paten’s demeanor was annoyingly calm. “We’ve not charted our entire galaxy.”
“Yeah, but, we’ve charted—and by ‘we’ I mean, you, me, the Irks, the Rebashee, the Tsarii, and a handful of others,” she ticked off the names on her fingers as she spoke. “We’ve charted a really big chunk of it. You’d have to go damned far to get to a point where nothing correlated with even the edge of one of the charts.”
Games of Command Page 19