They needed to get to the bridge with Keiko before it was too late, but he couldn’t let this opportunity to express his feelings—through his lips—pass without taking advantage. He lowered his head but found, as his keen ears had told him, that Skylar's lips were already engaged.
Deciding Jerick had already had his fair turn—there wasn’t time for a prolonged make-out session after all—Cortez lifted a hand to grip him by the back of the head. He gently but firmly pulled Jerick back.
Skylar must have sensed the move, because her face turned toward his, and her lips were waiting when he found them with his own. Her kiss spoke of warmth, desire, and a gratitude for being reunited.
Jerick’s hand came up to the back of Cortez’s head, and he expected a duplication of his own move. He’d already braced himself to—reluctantly—draw back. But Jerick patted the back of his head, then reached down and squeezed his ass. Cortez grinned against Skylar's lips, imagining what more the three of them could do together later if they could get the ship out of here in time.
Thinking of the ship and the trouble it was in drove him to break the kiss and step back.
The door opened. He turned, afraid another enemy would present himself.
Lieutenant Varma peered in, squinting into the dark. “Captain… Falconer?”
“He’s indisposed,” Skylar said.
“Yes, he is.” Jerick chuckled.
“Lieutenant Varma?” Keiko asked. “Is that you?”
Cortez stepped toward the pilot, but paused, surprised. Did they know each other?
“Yes. Who’s that?”
“Former lieutenant Sasaki. I run freight now. Occasionally shuttles full of cyborg terrorists.”
“Oh, hello. Terrorists? You don’t mean Cortez, surely. He was a great captain.”
“He’s a horrible captor.”
“Is he? Hm. Maybe he’ll work on improving that now that you’ve made him aware of this personal failing. Assuming he’s in there. Sir?”
“Yes, Varma. Thank you for the help. Ms. Sasaki, the Black Star’s pilot is unconscious. We need you to fly the ship away from the asteroid.”
Cortez braced himself, expecting a battle. She’d been fighting them every step of the way. He was prepared to force her to do it, or bribe her, though he didn’t have much to offer except a ride into Hostile Space, which appealed to some rare individuals, but not many others.
“I’ll show you the way to the helm,” Varma offered. “Have you flown an AS-4 Comet Rider recently?”
“I was trained on one.” Keiko stepped toward the door. “Almost ten years ago.”
“I’ve made a lot of modifications to the Black Star’s helm. I love navigational computers. Will you let me know what you think? Our pilot, Stodgers, is just as stodgy as his name makes him sound, and he doesn’t give me any feedback. Mostly, he gets grumpy if I touch his console.”
The two women walked into the corridor together, heading toward the bridge.
“What just happened?” Cortez asked.
“Varma proved she’s much better at coercing pilots to help than you are,” Jerick said.
Shaking his head, Cortez walked toward the door. He wanted to make sure they made it to the bridge and got the ship out of here before the other warships arrived.
“It’s a good thing you’re good at coercing doctors,” Jerick said, ambling after him with his arm around Skylar's waist. “Or maybe I am. Skylar, which one of us first charmed you into joining our cause? Was it me when I searched you for weapons?”
“Why would being embarrassed and groped have charmed me?” Skylar said.
“Your nipples seemed a little charmed.”
“I was just cold. They pucker up when they get cold.”
“My hands didn’t keep you sufficiently warmed? Maybe I should have pressed more of myself against you.”
“To answer your question,” Skylar said, thankfully ignoring his other comment, “you were definitely not the first one to charm me. Cortez gazed into my eyes and quoted me poetry in the cell.”
“Are you sure that was charming? I didn’t see your nipples get excited.”
“How would you know? I had my lab jacket back on by then.”
“I have X-ray vision. Like the Winged Ranger.”
“Is the Winged Ranger a pervert who spends an inordinate amount of time looking at women’s nipples?”
“If he’s got X-ray vision and doesn’t, I would be flummoxed. And just so you know, I’m only interested in one woman’s nipples.”
“Lucky her,” Cortez murmured, waving for them to put the conversation on hold as they approached the bridge. He glanced back and caught Skylar's eyes twinkling. Apparently, she didn’t mind Jerick being a pervert. Or Cortez being… whatever he was. A criminal now, he supposed, feeling more sad than triumphant at what they had accomplished.
Skylar smiled at him and patted him on the ass before they walked onto the bridge. He decided that no matter what the future held, and what the history books put down about him, this had been worth it.
Epilogue
Skylar stepped into the captain’s cabin on the Black Star with Jerick and Cortez behind her.
The cabin wasn’t any more appealing on her second visit, but the company had definitely improved. Falconer wasn’t lying unconscious on the deck, Keiko wasn’t glaring at her for stunning him, and an admiral wasn’t looking out from a holo comm link. And to Skylar’s amazement, the other three warships weren’t pursuing the Black Star as it sped toward the wormhole leading out of the system.
After securing the warship, Cortez had commed the fleet commanders, showing them Captain Falconer, bound and gagged, and images of the rest of the crew in the brig. He’d informed them that he was willing to go into battle with them if they wished, because he was taking the warship, but that he would rather trade the Black Star’s crew for the cyborgs left inside the asteroid prison. He’d emphasized that if he took all the cyborgs with him, he would also be removing a problem for the fleet and the colonies as a whole.
The commanders had looked like they were sucking lemons as they listened, and they’d each claimed that they didn’t have the right to negotiate on the fleet’s behalf and that Cortez could go to hell. But all three of their ships had abruptly developed mechanical difficulties and had stopped to fix them, leaving Cortez time to send a shuttle back to the asteroid to retrieve the rest of the cyborg prisoners. He’d also had time to move the Black Star’s crew from the brig to two other shuttles, which he’d launched into space near the prison, trusting the warships would be able to retrieve them, as well as some soldiers in combat armor that he’d forced out an airlock early on.
Baxtor and Varma had opted to stay with the Black Star and head into Hostile Space with Cortez. To Skylar’s surprise, Keiko was coming along too. She’d been friends with Varma during her days in the fleet, so that had helped sway her, and she’d apparently decided that she would get into trouble—probably be fired altogether—if she went back to her boss and attempted to explain what had happened.
Skylar was glad that a few more women would be coming along on this adventure. As much as she enjoyed the company of her two new gentlemen, she knew she would appreciate having someone of her own sex to talk to from time to time.
Jerick touched her shoulder. “Are you stunned anew at the decor?”
Realizing she had stopped walking, Skylar shook her head and continued into the cabin.
The various clashing camouflage patterns all over the place could stun a person. She hadn’t seen that hideous blanket hanging on the wall over there the last time. Or noticed how dusty and moth-eaten the stuffed horned bear head mounted above the bed was. She supposed it would be up to Cortez—or all of them?—to redecorate.
“Give us the tour, Captain.” Jerick ambled in and plopped down on a lounge chair upholstered in winter-inspired camouflage fabric. He flung his leg over the armrest. “You never invited me up here much before. I don’t know why. I’m charming.”
“Even more so now that you’re fully clothed,” Cortez murmured.
He lingered near the door as he looked around, his lip curled. Because he was horrified by the decor? Skylar hoped so. It would be worrisome to find out that he’d been the one to decorate the cabin in these dubious colors and objets d'art and that Falconer had left it as it was when he moved in. But she couldn’t imagine her tweed-jacket-wearing professor opting to be surrounded by camo and dead animals while he slept.
“You only like me in a shirt,” Jerick said, plucking at the fatigue jacket and T-shirt he’d claimed from some ship’s supply closet, “so you can fantasize about ripping it off later. With your teeth.”
“Are you talking to me or Cortez?” Skylar asked.
“As if you don’t both fantasize about my chest.” Jerick patted his pectorals.
“Right now, I’m fantasizing about reupholstering that chair,” Skylar said.
“It is rather hideous. As is that white tiger head leering at me from over the comm station. It looks like it’s also fantasizing about my chest. Eating it more than kissing it or licking it.”
Cortez rubbed his hand through his hair and finally came in. He looked stunned, either by the awful decor or from realizing that he had his ship back. And this time, it was truly his ship, however illicitly won. Skylar couldn’t believe she was heading off with him—with them—with even less than she’d packed for her supposed six-month research trip to the prison.
But maybe she could find some alien brains to analyze out there. With so many of the other races having insular tendencies, she could actually do some groundbreaking work, at least from the human perspective. If she could find a way to get communications back to the colonies, she could publish papers on the network. Granted, she would be shunned and her work mocked, but she could pursue the projects she wished to pursue and wouldn’t have to worry about politics.
“Kissing and licking?” Cortez crossed the cabin and sat on the bed. He plucked dubiously at the comforter. “Jerick, this is your fantasy, not ours.”
“Are you sure? Maybe you forgot how appealing my chest is.” Jerick unbuttoned his fatigue jacket, revealing the tightly fitting black T-shirt underneath. “I did a lot of pushups in my cell to keep my muscle mass. Sit-ups, crunches, one-legged squats, handstand push-ups, isometric pulling exercises… I wanted you to enjoy me when you got me.”
“Because you knew we’d come?” Skylar arched her eyebrows at him, wanting to mock him, but her gaze did snag on the contours of his chest. Thus far, they’d only had sex once, and technically, she hadn’t even had sex with Jerick yet. Her body warmed as she imagined exploring further possibilities on this long voyage to wherever they ended up going.
“I was hoping somebody would come.” Jerick smiled at her, but his blue eyes grew serious as he looked over to Cortez. “Sir… I didn’t really get a chance to say it earlier during the, uh, utter chaos, but it means a lot to me that you gave up everything for this. To help us. Me. You saved my life.”
Cortez stopped picking at the comforter and gazed back at him. “As you saved my life three times when we served together.”
“But that was my duty. I wasn’t breaking the law and giving up my career to shove you out of the way of enemy fire.”
“I know society won’t agree with me—perhaps history will—but it’s a greater crime to sit at your comfortable desk in your comfortable office in your comfortable life and do nothing while indignities and suffering go on around you. If there hadn’t been a catalyst, perhaps I could have continued to fight with words alone, but how many others would have died who might have lived if I had done so little?”
Jerick smiled over at Skylar. “I love it when he gets philosophical and poetical.”
Cortez echoed the smile and tipped an imaginary hat.
“I actually haven’t heard him get poetical yet.” Skylar tilted her head. “He’s been too busy shooting enemies.”
“I rarely recite my own poetry.” Cortez met her eyes and patted the bed beside him in invitation. “I put it in books and let the university publish it—or I did—but it seems hubris to proclaim your own words worthy of people’s attention. If they want to seek them out and read them, so be it, but I’ve never been comfortable boring strangers with my rambling.”
“What about boring your sexy lovers?” Jerick asked.
“Few of them have asked.”
“If that’s true, that seems a crime.” Skylar settled on the edge of the bed beside him, her thigh touching his, the warmth of his leg seeping through the material of their clothing. “I can recite some of my research paper abstracts if that would make you feel comfortable about sharing.”
“I’m still waiting for my mass limerick,” Jerick pointed out.
Cortez smirked. “There once was a cyborg named Jerick, who proclaimed he had a great big prick. He showed a girl, said give it a twirl, but she laughed and called it a toothpick.”
Jerick stared at him and shook his head. “I hope you haven’t been composing that for days. That was awful.”
“Because of the lack of rhythm or the content?”
“Both.”
Cortez propped back on his elbows, not looking particularly chagrined by the condemnation. “Show us that you can do better.”
“With Diego Cortez? Does that rhyme with more things in Spanish? Because there are about three words that work with it in English.”
“It’s a lovely name in Spanish,” Cortez assured him.
“Cortez, says, fez… English poets probably wanted to write sonnets about you after the war but were flummoxed.”
“Do people write sonnets today?” Skylar asked, bemused at the idea.
“Nah. Stuff like this is what plays on the network.” Jerick hopped to his feet and started tapping out a beat on his thigh.
“I didn’t wanna be a hero, just wanted to be someone
Spent my childhood hiding and fighting and on the run
Signed up for the fleet, got sent into space
Boy, go save Earth, defeat the alien race
War is a bitch, and we didn’t all survive
But the enemy got smashed, ain’t none left alive
They called us heroes and threw the captains a banquet
Said Earth is free, all our people gonna make it
But mem’ries fade away, gratitude gets undone
I’m back at the beginning, just wanna be someone.”
Jerick smirked and took a bow.
“That sounds a lot like one of the Unknown Soldier’s songs,” Cortez observed.
“Imagine that.” His smirk deepened. “I hope the whole damn galaxy is distraught when he doesn’t come out with another album.”
“Are you implying…” Cortez’s eyebrows drew together in a thoughtful frown.
“Never noticed it’s all a synth voice, and that he doesn’t do live shows?” Jerick asked. “It’s because his ass has been in prison for more than two years. Unknown.”
“You’re the Unknown Soldier?” Skylar asked, catching on more slowly. “The songs are played everywhere. Even I know them, and I hardly listen to music.”
Jerick bowed again, more deeply this time. “I put together the lyrics and the beats and synth the voice, so yeah, I more or less do everything. I signed a contract with a manager before I ended up indicted and jailed. Thought he’d back out, but he didn’t even care. Makes you wonder who else he represents, eh? He gets the stuff out there and makes money from it, however he can. No idea how much he makes. I had no way to check up on him from Antioch. I figure I was getting screwed pretty hard. It’s not like he had to worry about me getting out and finding him.”
“But you got paid some?” Cortez asked. “So, you have money sitting in a bank account somewhere?”
“A couple million, yeah. I wonder if there’s any way to get it out and get it shifted into something valuable that we could use out there.” Jerick waved vaguely, indicating Hostile Space, Skylar supposed.
“A coup
le million?” So, that was what stunned looked like on Cortez. “Jerick, would you be interested in sending that money to the government as payment for the Black Star? She’s an older ship. It could be enough. And then we—you—would legitimately own it.”
“Legitimately own it? Cortez, what are you sniffing? We broke out of jail and took it. Like pirates. Rightful and righteous pirates.”
“Yes, but perhaps if we paid for it, we might one day be let back into Earth space.”
Jerick curled a lip. “There’s nothing left for me in Earth space. Everything I want is right here.” He waved toward the porthole, then extended an arm toward both of them.
Skylar felt tears gathering in her eyes, both at the idea of him wanting them—her—and at the realization that her goofy Jerick had a lot more under the surface than he let on.
“Maybe not this camo though,” Jerick added, prodding the armrest of the chair.
Skylar snorted and patted the bed, as Cortez had done for her. “Why don’t you come over, and you can be someone here with us.”
“In that bed? It doesn’t look large enough.”
“You prefer an armory?” She was surprised he would be picky. She’d seen the hard benches in those cells. They hardly passed as beds.
“Well, no, but this cabin needs extreme redecorating if we’re all going to spend time here together.”
“Jerick,” Skylar said, “that’s the first thing you’ve said where I’ve been in complete agreement with you.”
“Oh? I’ll take note so I can say it again.” He sat next to her, opposite Cortez, and wrapped an arm around her waist.
Skylar duplicated the gesture and slid her other arm around Cortez’s waist. But he was looking toward the porthole, wearing a puzzled expression.
“Are you all right?” Skylar asked him.
“I—I’m just stunned that Jerick is the Unknown Soldier. Some of those songs are good.”
“Some?” Jerick protested.
Unchained_ A science fiction romance adventure Page 23