by Hayes, Susan
“With our luck it’ll turn out to be worthless, poisonous, or volatile,” Deke muttered darkly, but he was already keying in commands to bring up the containment field. Once activated, the field would hold everything in place no matter how bumpy the ride got.
“Two out of three of those will still make us a profit, and profit’s the name of the game. Or have you forgotten our plans to leave the Alliance and start hauling freight for ourselves?”
Deke managed to stop himself from rolling his eyes at Trevar’s last question, but it was a near thing. How could he forget their plans when Trevar was bringing it up every ten minutes? The Alliance had been the only real family Deke had ever known, but he had never fit in properly. Neglected and ignored by his mother, his childhood memories were mostly of hunger, cold and loneliness. When he’d been accepted for elite training at the age of ten, his life had improved, but one thing had stayed the same. He’d still been alone. Trevar was the only real friend he had, and that’s why the two of them were going to go into business together. They had each other’s backs. “I haven’t forgotten. I’d simply prefer to start life as a private citizen soon, and not after serving out a prison sentence at the Mars Penitentiary. Last time I checked, stealing was still illegal, and the Alliance doesn’t share your fast and loose application of the finders-keepers rule.”
“You know, after eight years I sort of expected that my life philosophy would have rubbed off on you a bit more than this. You still need to lighten up.”
Deke snorted with derision at that assessment. “If I did, who’d be around to point out the flaws in your plans? One of us has to be practical, and the shuttle launched on your chances of that happening a long fucking time ago.” Deke dragged the straps of his safety harness over his shoulders and secured himself for liftoff. “Now, can we please get off this hunk of rock and go home? I’ve had enough dirt-filled air and full gravity to last me a lifetime.”
“Amen, to that.” Trevar fired up the shuttle’s engines in preparation for launch and initiated the countdown with the flick of a switch. When he drew on his own harness and snapped himself in, Deke knew it was going to be a rough launch. Trevar hated being strapped to his chair. Deke assumed it had to do with the marauder raid that had killed Trevar’s partner and left Trevar to pilot his crippled ship back to base while critically injured, but he’d never asked. It was a topic best avoided by anyone who wanted to keep their head attached to their body.
“Containment field is in place. Let’s hope that whatever’s back there, it’s not vulnerable to g-forces.”
Trevar’s eyes were gleaming with anticipation as he watched the launch counter tick down to zero. “Quit worrying. I left the dampening field at the minimum setting. There could be a crate of kittens back there and they’d be fine.”
“If you define ‘fine’ as being subjected to g-forces strong enough to make them black out, then yeah, I guess you’re right.”
Trevar responded by brushing his jet-black—too long to be regulation— hair out of his face while flipping off Deke. “Good thing there’s no kittens then, huh?”
The engines ramped up, sending a deep rumble throughout the shuttle. Deke settled into his chair and closed his eyes. After all his years in service to the Alliance, he’d never gotten used to the stomach-lurching sensation of a planetary liftoff. Even a top of the line inertial dampening system couldn’t completely mask the feeling, and stars knew they weren’t being assigned top of the line equipment.
Misfits like he and Trevar got old shuttles, an even older freighter, and assignments that took them to the ass end of nowhere and back again. They were unpaired, unbonded elites, with career paths that held no chance for advancement. Trevar’s freewheeling interpretation of Alliance regulations had ensured he would never be promoted past lieutenant, while Deke’s implants made him something of a social pariah.
In a world where genetic modifications were the norm, cybernetics were still taboo. Deke had been one of a select handful of young elites chosen for a controversial program that saw each candidate implanted with bio-compatible hardware. As a result, Deke could interface with computers directly, manifesting part of his awareness on the datum plane where information and calculations flowed like rivers. He was something more than human, and the differences made him even more of an outcast than he had been before. His ability to sync with any computer system with an access port put him and every other elite to undergo the experimental program on all the wrong lists. He was viewed as a walking security risk, or a freak with a head full of hardware, but it was rare for him to be seen as a person. The only one who didn’t give a shit about his implant was Trevar.
The universe was full of whimsical fuckery, as was proven by the fact that his best friend was a forty-three year old lunatic with a limited respect for the law, and a marked lack of self-preservation. When they’d met, Deke couldn’t imagine how he was going to manage to live with Trevar in the close confines of a freighter with only each other for company. Now, he couldn’t imagine his life without the other man, which was why they were planning on going into business together as soon as they had scraped up enough money to make a down payment on an interstellar freighter of their own.
They already had the contacts and connections they’d need. Hell, they were already using every inch of available space to transport their own goods, selling hard to obtain luxury items to those assigned off-world. Those gray-market sales would get them to their goal, but it wouldn’t happen overnight. Once it did, though, maybe he’d be able to find a woman who wasn’t put off by his implants. Someone he could love, and be loved in return. Yeah, like that was going to happen. Deke laughed out loud at his own foolishness.
“What’s so funny?” Trevar asked, his eyes never leaving the instrument displays.
“I was just wondering what kind of woman would consider giving up a nice, normal existence to kick around the stars with me once we join the private sector, and realized the answer to that is…none.”
Trevar felt like he’d swallowed a shot of Tarin fire brew. Deke had never mentioned wanting anything long term with a woman before. The two of them usually dealt with the isolation of the job with frequent visits to the holo-room aboard their ship, the Arca. They were both loners. It was one of the reasons they got along as well as they did, since they stayed out of each other’s space. “You thinking of getting bonded?”
“Bonded? Fuck, no. I’m never going to get permission to claim a scroll. But you know, after we’re out I thought maybe…you know what? Forget I said anything. Even if I did find someone crazy enough to consider me, she’d run like hell when she figured out she’d have to basically live with your ugly ass twenty-four hours a day.”
“Now you’re just being insulting,” Trevar said, but in the back of his mind old memories were stirring. He ruthlessly slammed a mental door on the past and focused on getting them back to the Arca in record time. They needed to get clear of Earth, that was all. That miserable chunk of rock always affected both of them in strange ways. When they were out of the Alliance, he planned on visiting his home world as little as possible. There was nothing down there for either of them, but the ghosts of the past and the echoes of what could never be.
***
CHAPTER TWO
The moment the shuttle touched down inside the hold of their freighter, the Arca, Deke was out of his seat and moving. Both he and Trevar had a checklist as long as a comet’s tail to go through before they could leave the orbital launch platform, and he was feeling the itch to get back into the quiet solace of space. The first thing he had to do was to get all the cargo off the shuttle and into the main bay of the Arca, where it could be prepped for transport. While the droids were doing the heavy lifting, he needed to figure out what the hell had put them overweight.
Deke opened the door, not bothering to wait for the shuttle to finish extruding the staircase for its passengers. Instead, he jumped outward, relishing the sensation of being back in the half gravity environme
nt they maintained on the cargo deck. He landed lightly and bounded to the back of the shuttle, punching in the sequence to open the cargo doors. The droids were already moving out of their alcoves, their sturdy treads magnetically charged to keep them firmly attached to the floor as they headed toward the shuttle, multiple arms extending in preparation for the work ahead.
Within seconds, he had the manifest transferred to the droids’ databases. They’d scan the crates for codes and store them in the proper sections, cross-checking everything as they went. With that done, he bounced up the ramp and into the shuttle cargo area. At first glance, everything looked good. Takeoff had been rough, but the containment field had done its job and nothing seemed out of place.
He was halfway down the narrow aisle that divided the crates and containers when he spotted traces of blood. It was nothing more than a smear on the deck plating, but it didn’t belong there. Deke spun around in a slow circle, looking for more signs someone was back there. Now that he knew what he was looking for, it didn’t take long for him to find the trail, a smudge of red here and there, each one leading further back toward the shuttle wall.
Climbing was easy in the lighter gravity, and soon he was sitting on top of the containers, trying to spot anything that seemed out of place. The change in vantage points did nothing to help him, however. It was possible that the blood belonged to one of the ground crew back at Fort Saken, but somehow, he didn’t think so.
A muffled groan came from somewhere beneath him, confirming it wasn’t the ground crew. None of them would be careless enough to end up inside a shuttle heading for orbit. “Hey, is someone there?”
Silence.
“Hello? If you can hear me, make some noise.”
Another groan, this one a little louder, reached his ears. Well, whoever it was, they weren’t dead. Though after experiencing blackout levels of g-forces while being imprisoned in a containment field, they were probably suffering from a headache that would make them wish they were dead.
He carefully shifted several crates, tunneling down toward the sound. When he lifted the last box, his heart seized in his chest and he had to take a second look to confirm he wasn’t hallucinating. Nope. That was definitely a woman. Her dress was dirty and torn, and her dark brown hair was lying in a tangle across her face, but there was no way she was a hallucination. Neither was the delicate scroll tattoo he could see peeking out through the strands of her chestnut hair.
Fuck.
He toggled his wrist unit and sent a verbal-only message to Trevar. “Get down to the cargo bay, right fucking now. We have a problem.”
“Shit. I don’t want problems, Deke, I want to get going. Can’t it wait?”
“No.” He heard Trevar sigh heavily, the other man’s frustration a near tangible thing even through the comms.
“What the fuck is it that can’t wait until we’re out of orbit? Did you find our mystery cargo? Please tell me it’s something valuable.”
“More like priceless,” Deke muttered as their stowaway moaned softly and opened her eyes for the first time. Dark lashes framed a pair of blue eyes the color of glacial ice, and for a moment they stared at each other in silence.
“Deke? What the fuck are you talking about?” Trevar’s voice broke the spell.
“You’re going to need to see this for yourself. Move your ugly ass, and bring your med-kit.”
“What the hell? Are you hurt?”
“Not for me, for the kitten in the cargo bay.”
Deke ignored the next outburst from Trevar and focused his attention on the woman staring up at him. “Who the hell are you, and what are you doing hiding in my cargo bay?”
Sonja felt like she’d been run over by a transpo, twice. Her chest ached and her head throbbed like it might explode at any second. She remembered the engines roaring to life, but after that things went fuzzy. When her eyes finally focused, she found herself looking up at a handsome man with a stern expression on his face. He had a short, well-trimmed beard that was a shade darker than the cropped red hair on his head, and even from this odd angle she could see enough of his steel-gray uniform to know he was a member of the Alliance.
“Had to…get away. Hiding. Didn’t want them to find me,” she said, her voice coming out as a gritty whisper. She hated how weak she sounded, and cleared her throat to try again. “I’m Sonja.”
“Who was chasing you? No one said anything to us about trouble back at the base.”
She shook her head, and then groaned as the small movement sent pain stabbing into her skull. “Long story. Where am I?”
“You’re on board our freighter, the Arca, and you are a long way from home, Sonja.”
“Good.” The further away she was from the base, the better. With any luck they’d gone deeper into the badlands.
Someone came running, their footsteps loud enough to make her ears ring. There was something wrong with their stride though. It seems as though there was too much time between footfalls. Sonja stirred, ignoring her aches and pains to focus all her attention on her surroundings. She pressed down on the floor and found herself rising off the ground. The gravity wasn’t right. “We’re not on Earth?”
“We’re in orbit around it,” the officer stated. “I’m Deacon, by the way. Are you hurt? I found blood on the bay floor.”
Sonja ignored his question and asked one of her own, instead. “Are you going to turn me in?”
“That depends on why you’re hiding in our cargo bay,” a new voice spoke, and Sonja realized this must be the source of the footsteps she’d heard.
Deacon turned his head to speak to someone behind him. “I didn’t want to move her until you got here. I think she’s fine, but—”
“I’m okay. I just wasn’t expecting my first trip into space to be so, uh, violent.”
Deacon moved back and another man appeared in her field of vision. He was older than Deacon, with dark hair that was several inches longer than it should have been considering he was clearly another Alliance officer. His steel-gray eyes matched his uniform, and his expression was one of bemusement as he looked down at her. “Hello, kitten. I’m Lieutenant Trevar Storm, and you are not supposed to be back here.”
As he helped their sexy stowaway out of her bolt hole, Trevar couldn’t help but enjoy the view. She had the potent curves and long limbs of an enhanced female, but there was something extra about her. Even shaken and hurting, she held herself with grace, and the fear he could feel rolling off of her wasn’t because of them, or what she’d been through on the trip up. The taint of whatever had driven her to hide in their shuttle bay still lingered in her mind, strong enough he could still sense it.
He and Deke got her perched on the edge of one of the larger containers, and she gave them both a grateful smile before smoothing back the tangle of long, dark hair from her face. Both of them fell silent as they stared at the unmarked skin beside her left eye.
Fucking hell. She was an unclaimed scroll.
Deke had been right. Their unexpected cargo was priceless. Not to mention a shitload of trouble. If they were smart, they’d clean her up and kick her sweet ass off the Arca in record time. He glanced over at Deke and noted the way the engineer was looking at the girl. To anyone else, his engineer would look as impassive as always, but Trevar knew better. Deacon was interested. Hell, Deke was on the verge of actually smiling and Trevar could feel the other man’s emotions flare up.
Well now, isn’t that interesting.
One of the reasons he’d originally been paired with Deacon was because the other man’s emotions were so locked down, they wouldn’t be a problem for Trevar, who was a Class-B Empath, able to sense strong emotions. Five minutes in this pretty girl’s company and the ice man was starting to melt. Trevar contemplated their options for a brief three seconds, and then remembered that doing the smart thing had never been his style anyway. He wanted to know more about their sexy little stowaway before making the decision to toss her off his ship. “Here’s what’s going to hap
pen, kitten. I’m going to give you something for that headache, and you’re going to tell me why an unclaimed scroll in a gown worth more credits than I make in a month is doing hiding in our cargo bay. Deal?”
“Deal. My name is Sonja, by the way. Not kitten.”
“Senior officer’s prerogative. Everyone on my ship has a nickname. Yours is now kitten. If you’re staying on board, then you’re going to have to deal with it.”
She gave him a look of such hope that it actually made his stomach tighten and his heart beat a little faster. “You’d let me stay here?”
Deke glanced over at him, and then back to the girl. For a split second, Trevar could have sworn the bastard actually cracked a smile. They were both fucking crazy. “You tell us who you’re running from, and yeah, maybe you can stay. Maybe.” He stressed the last word firmly. He was reckless, but not suicidal. If she was a criminal, there was no way she was staying onboard.
Trevar grabbed what he needed from his med-kit and started working on their potential new passenger. He could tell the second the pain-blockers started working, because her color improved and she let out a soft sigh that had his mind going all sorts of places it shouldn’t be. Women like her were a complication he tried to avoid. So why the fuck was he suddenly thinking about what it would be like to have her sigh like that as he kissed her, or what her hair would feel like against his fingers?
Get a fucking grip already, or get her off this ship.
“I was running from my bodyguards.”
Bodyguards. Only the rich could afford that sort of security. And she was unclaimed, despite clearly being past the age of eighteen. She was protected by her family, and that meant money, or power, or both.