The Key

by Pauline Baird Jones

  His gaze devoured the skin he’d exposed. It was hard to concentrate. On the upside, he’d have a harder time, too…

  He bent down and put his lips on her bare stomach. His touch didn’t warm anything. The cold went deeper…and it flowed outward from her heart, until she felt encased in ice.

  He looked up, as if he sensed…her lack of response.

  Frustration was making a beachhead against desire.

  “You will have to come to…terms…with me, Sara.”

  “If those terms are…friendship...”

  He leaned over her, his gaze roaming over her body, his hunger clear in his eyes.

  “Then get…friendly.” He spread his hand across her bare stomach, his eyes watching her avidly.

  “You don’t need another companion, Adin, but I think you could use a friend. How could you trust anyone? Everyone in your life is just waiting, aren’t they?”

  His gaze narrowed. “Waiting for what?”

  “To take what you have. To be…supreme.”

  He stared at her for what seemed like a long time.

  “It doesn’t have to be this way.”

  “What way is this?” His brows arched, but his gaze seemed conflicted.

  She moved the chains. “This way. If you…force yourself on me, you’ll destroy the part of me that you’re drawn to.”

  “Such drama.” He shook his head. “The women I’ve been with are passionate and devoted to me. They would die for me.”

  “If their passion and devotion is so wonderful, why are you here with me?”

  * * * *

  The bridge security teams set up behind shattered computer panels and trained their weapons on the entrances. The sound of small arms fire was almost deafening now and the time until the battle reached the bridge would soon be measured in seconds not minutes.

  Xever’s counter attack had been brutal…

  The Gadi and Garradian ships were barely functional and would soon be destroyed. The attack had softened suddenly though. Still no contact from Donovan, but Halliwell had some hope that while down, she might not be completely out.

  The cloaked ships were still kicking ass, but there weren’t enough of them and their time was running out too.

  Xever had deployed ships to assault the island outpost. Now it fought for its life, too. They were almost out of ammunition for the defenses that used ammo. Their power wouldn’t hold out forever either.

  The cloaked ships could retreat, but they wouldn’t. He knew his men. He’d picked all of them. He still had one hand left to play. He gripped his pistol with one hand and hunkered down behind the cover of his chair with his finger hovering over the manual self destruct, just in case. His ears were ringing from the gunfire in the corridor outside.

  He hailed all of his ships, waited for the connection. “Arm sierra delta on my mark.” Arm self destruct. It was a bitter moment.

  And to the Gadi he added, “We’ll give you time to retreat, Commander. Try to cover you.”

  “We will fight or die with you, Colonel.” Gaedon’s voice was calm and cool.

  “It’s been an honor fighting with, sir.”

  “And you, Colonel.”

  He cocked his pistol and waited.

  * * * *

  Major Loren crouched behind the defensive barricade. On either side of him, men waited with automatic grenade launchers. He hoped to be able to hold the Dusan off long enough for the geeks and non-combatants to evacuate through the portal.

  The city still had some defensive canons. It was impressive to see them set the sky on fire over their heads. The Dusan assault force was taking a beating, but some of them had gotten through. According to tracking, he had about three hundred bogeys approaching his position. And more ships were making it through and landing.

  * * * *

  Henderson and his team had captured the bridge, but it was turning into a trap, instead of a victory. Dusan soldiers were swarming their position from every direction. He hoped the Gadi assault team was having better luck.

  “Let me extract,” Perkins, who was piloting the ship said. “If you can get to—”

  “There’s nowhere we can get from here,” Henderson said calmly. “We’re completely cut off.”

  He’d run out of ammo ten minutes ago. Now he and his men were using Dusan weapons taken from the bodies around them.

  “I’ve got some weapons,” Perkins said. “Maybe I can distract them.”

  Henderson looked at the ship schematic, on the Dusan version of a HUD. “Target their propulsion. And then fall back and prepare to take out the outpost if Captain Donovan’s life signs go dark.”

  There was a pause. “Yes, sir.”

  Henderson opened fire as a squad of Dusan rushed onto the bridge. As he fired again and again, he felt the ship take the first hit. Warning lights began to flash on a console.

  Looked like Perkins hit the right spot. Good man.

  * * * *

  Adin stared at Sara, as rage boiled up from inside.

  While she distracted him, men had boarded his own ship, taken control of his bridge. They would die, but it was an impertinence. Added to that was the suddenly revealed outpost on Kikk. He had known it was there, had searched for it but she had found it and turned it on. Then turned it against him.

  He wanted to hit her. He wanted to take her.

  He wanted her to feel what he did.

  Not even a quiver of emotion broke the surface of her gray eyes. It was as if only her mind lived. Her body was slack and indifferent.

  Her voice tempted him. Her…light tempted him. He hated it, but it was the truth.

  He had killed his father to become the leader of his people. His brothers, too.

  Only strength mattered. This was the creed they lived and died by. That and purity of race. Do not let Dusan blood be tainted, his father had gasped with his last breath, as Adin stood over him.

  If she told the truth, it was not possible to taint their blood. They were all…Garradian.

  If she told the truth.

  “Why should I believe you?”

  “Trust is a…leap. You believe me or you don’t.”

  Trust was a trap. Trust was weakness. Trust was defeat.

  His father had trusted him. His father was dead.

  She was more dangerous than he had realized.

  Because he wanted to believe her. He wanted to see her smile one more time.

  Before he killed her.

  * * * *

  Fyn took a hit to the leg from a stun gun and almost went down. As he lurched to the side, he spun and took out the bogey. A bunch of them swarmed him, almost forcing him to the ground. He bunched his muscles and stood up, flinging them in all directions. Then he made them go away.

  The corridor was clear. On the other side of the door, twenty more bogeys waited for him.

  He used his M-4 for support. He had to make it through that door. He had to get to Sara. He didn’t know why or how, he just knew he was running out of time. She was running out of time.

  * * * *

  Sara felt Adin take her hand, his clasp gentle as he stroked the fingers. He set the knife aside.

  That was probably good, wasn’t it? So why was her spider sense tingling?

  His lashes lifted and he looked at her. In his eyes she saw…good-bye.

  “You are right. I prefer to remember you…like this.”

  He was going to kill her.

  “You made your case very well.” A hint of patronizing filtered into his voice. “But you do not know me. You do not know my people.”

  He stroked her hair back off her face.

  “You are more dangerous like this than when you are fully armed. You would steal my will, my strength.”

  “I’m not trying to steal anything, Adin.” Sara swallowed dryly. “I’m trying to free you from the false traditions of the past.”

  But she could tell he was slipping away from her, back into those false traditions, back into the safe comfort of the fa
miliar. He’d rather be right than happy. It was crazy, but it was the truth.

  Even as he smiled at her, his hands reached for her throat…

  Sara slammed into his head, pushing her way through the tangled network for that one, crucial channel…

  He cried out.

  He fought back.

  With his mind.

  With his hands.

  They were around her throat, squeezing off her air as his mind battled hers…

  Stars spun across her horizon. The edges were going dark…

  She wasn’t going to make it…

  * * * *

  By the time Fyn reached the door, the nanites had restored most of his function. Had to like that. An alarm went off inside his head. Sara was in trouble. He could feel it.

  He went through the doorway like the wrath of the gods, firing everything he had. As he plowed into the Dusan phalanx, he used weapons, elbows and feet, scattering them. He cleared a path, but there were still some alive. He fired back over his shoulder as he ran for the last door between him and Sara.

  He flung it open with his mind. As he came in, he saw Xever kneeling over Sara, his hands around her neck. Xever’s eyes widened in shock.

  Fyn fired once, then again. The force of it flung Xever off Sara and against the wall. He slumped to the floor.

  Fyn closed the gap. The bastard had chained her again. Her neck was livid where his hands had squeezed. For long, agonizing minutes, he couldn’t find a pulse. He bent over her, giving her the CPR he’d learned from Carey. Forcing his air into her lungs. Forcing her heart to keep pumping.

  Finally, when he didn’t know if he could keep going, her chest heaved and she took a breath on her own. Then another.

  He collapsed beside her, his hand stroking the hair off her face. He murmured her name over and over.

  * * * *

  The gunfire stopped. Silence spread throughout the ship. Two Dusan ships collided and exploded from an easily avoidable collision. The rest just…froze, hanging in space like cardboard cutouts.

  “What just happened?” Halliwell looked around the bridge for answers his people didn’t have either.

  “I don’t know, sir.” Finally someone spoke.

  “They just stopped firing.” This from someone else.

  The silence was as intense as the noise had been. People began to emerge cautiously from behind their makeshift barricades.

  “The Dusan out in the halls are dead, sir.”

  Halliwell pulled up the virtual HUD. It was almost the only thing left that still worked. According to this, the ships hadn’t powered down. He frowned. Could this be right? Could so many of the Dusan just be dead?

  He got up.

  “Cancel the self destruct.” He keyed into the radio. “Colonel Carey, let’s get some people aboard one of the Dusan ships. See if we can figure out what happened.”

  She’d done it. It was the only explanation. She’d taken out their network.

  Bravo Zulu, Tall Girl.

  * * * *

  Sara heard her name and someone touched her face. Someone? She stiffened. Was it Adin? Her eyes closed, her fingers explored a face. Fyn.

  “Am I dead, too?” She found his dreads, his checks, his mouth.

  The mouth curved against her fingers.

  “You’re not dead.”

  He kissed her forehead. Her mouth. Her eyes. Her cheeks.

  It was nice, but…

  “Then it’s just a dream.”

  “Not a dream.”

  “I shot you.”

  “I know.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “You did what you had to do.”

  “I want to be with you.” She’d earned the right. She’d done her duty. It hadn’t been neat or pretty, but she’d taken out the network.

  “Open your eyes and look at me.”

  “No.”

  If this was a dream, she’d stay in it. She’d live in it forever.

  He kissed her again, taking his time. “Does this feel like a dream?”

  “A most excellent dream.” She smiled. He did feel awfully real, but she had shot him. That was real, too. She had witnesses.

  “You healed me, Sara, with those nanites things. When you touched me.” He grabbed her hand and held it against his mouth. “Feel me. I’m real. We’re here. Together. Alive. Look at me.”

  He watched her lids lift. She stared at him for a long moment, then her face crumpled. She buried her face against his chest, her body shuddering violently.

  “I thought soldiers don’t cry?”

  Her voice was muffled against his chest. “I’m not crying, though if I were, I have good reason to. But I’m not.”

  Her fingers dug into him, as if she were afraid he’d be gone again if she didn’t hold on. He didn’t mind.

  “Did you…do it? Is the fleet all right?” He was almost afraid to ask.

  Her body stilled. She nodded. “It wasn’t…neat. I think a lot of them are dead. I didn’t have time to be…surgical.”

  Fyn tightened his grip. He’d seen why. The memory of Xever crouched over her, squeezing her neck was going to haunt him for a long time.

  “If you hadn’t killed him, I would have failed. His control was…impressive. He could have stopped me. You distracted him at just the right moment.”

  Now she eased back to look at Fyn. The tears she wasn’t crying had left tracks down her face. He rubbed them away with his thumbs.

  “We got incoming,” he told her. “We should find you something to wear.”

  Sara looked down. She frowned. Looked up. “How do you know we have incoming?”

  “Your nanites didn’t just heal me and leave. You’re right. It is weird, but in a good way.” He felt her…connect to him, mind and body. “A very good way—” His eyes widened. “A baby?”

  Sara looked a bit nervous. “I guess I’m more like my mom than I realized.”

  He covered her stomach with his hand. Their baby. Their daughter.

  “She’s going to look like you.”

  “Do you mind? That’s she’s a she?”

  He grinned at her. “I wouldn’t dare.”

  Twenty-One

  Sara returned to a Doolittle very different from the one she’d left barely twenty-four hours earlier. As her transport craft approached, she could see the damage with her eyes, even as her mind went through damage reports. Mother would have been gone if Sara hadn’t taken down the network when she did. She’d been bare seconds from self-destructing.

  Even harder to take were the lists of missing, dead and injured.

  Captain John Hawkins was on that list. Now she wished she’d taken time to have go juice with him once more. She’d miss him, miss his cheeky smile.

  Commander Gaedon was on that list, too. His ship had been the last destroyed. She wished she’d been…nicer to him. Told him good-bye.

  And Foster. He’d died in the first Dusan assault on the fighter bay. He hadn’t gone down easy and he’d taken a lot of them with him when he went. Half the band was gone. All had died valiantly defending the ship.

  Briggs was on the injured list. According to his medical file, he was in a coma. He’d been injured fighting in the bridge access corridor, exposing himself repeatedly to enemy fire in defense of the ship and his fellow officers.

  Before reporting to Halliwell, Sara and Fyn went to the infirmary to see him. She didn’t think the Old Man would mind. He was the closest thing she had to a father.

  Sara pulled up a stool, took his hand in hers and carefully, cautiously sent some nanites in to repair the damage. She didn’t dare fix him all at once, but they would turn the tide. He’d get better now.

  As she left, she made sure she brushed past the seriously wounded, giving them an edge, too. Didn’t seem right to play favorites.

  “You did something, didn’t you?” Fyn looked at her as they waited for a ladder to clear. None of the lifts were working yet.

  Sara felt her mind connect with the ship, trying
to repair the stuff it could. It wasn’t much. Mom needed more than computers repaired. But it was something.

  “Just a little repair work.” In each crisis, Sara learned more about what she could do, about what the nanites could do. Her control was better, too. The nanites she’d used to heal those in the infirmary would shut down once they’d done their job. The recipients would never know they’d been there.

  They basically followed the Dusan’s line of attack all the up to the bridge. When they were finally able to work their way up, Sara found Halliwell kicking ass with his arm in a sling. He also had a patch on one side of his head and streaks of iodine on various cuts on his face and hands. Probably more she couldn’t see.

  She came to attention and waited for him to see them. The damage to the bridge was extensive. Sara was amazed anyone had survived. Their inter-galactic hyper drive was intact, though. The Dusan had wanted that.

  Someone said something to the Old Man and he looked her way. An almost smile softened his grim expression. He strode toward them.

  “Let’s take this into my wardroom.” He didn’t speak until they were alone, then he seemed unsure what to say. “You haven’t filed a report yet, Captain.”

  “No, sir.” Sara wasn’t sure what to say in it. If she left out the FM parts, there wasn’t much left to write about.

  He shifted his injured arm, grimacing.

  “Do you want me to fix that for you, sir?”

  He stared at her for a long moment. “You can do that?”

  “Apparently.” Her gaze flicked toward Fyn. “I can program the nanites so they…don’t stay.”

  He hesitated, then held out his arm.

  “Do you want it fast or slow?”

  “I should probably go slow, but I’m not a patient man.”

  Sara smiled, stepped up and put her hand on his. Her hand glowed, then his caught the glow. It spread up his arm, then flowed into his face, erasing his injuries.

  He flexed his hand, tentatively at first, then with more vigor.

  “Damn.” He looked at her. “Thank you.” He hesitated. “Did you hear about Briggs—”

  “He’s going to be fine. Take a little longer, but he’ll be fine.” Sara met his gaze calmly. “Everyone in the infirmary will be…fine.”