Too Close to the Sun (The Sun 1)

by Popp, Robin T.

  Behind them came the sound of the hatch locks deactivating.

  “On my mark,” Nicoli said. “Now.”

  Angel pulled three chips from their spots and re-inserted one sideways, tossing the other two over her shoulder. As she did, she caught Nicoli's worried gaze.

  "I know what I'm doing," she assured him, hoping she was right. "Try the engines now."

  Nicoli pressed the starter button. The engine sputtered and then roared to life. As the shuttle rose, the hatch doors fell shut.

  Soon, the Rebirth Colony was left far behind.

  Angel knew she should take advantage of the two-hour flight to tell Nicoli that she was Michels, but couldn't bring herself to do it. Plus, it didn't hurt that Nicoli never asked her about how she came to be a donor. Instead, he focused all his attention on breaking into the ship's computer and Angel rationalized her silence as giving him the quiet he needed to work.

  All too soon, the Harvesters' main processing building came into view and the shuttle landed into a state of general confusion. There were robed figures rushing into and out of the building with plenty of shouting, though Angel couldn't make out their words.

  "We need to be careful," Nicoli said, studying the scene at the building. "First thing we need to do is find a couple of robes. Dressed like this - especially you - we're bound to be noticed."

  Angel nodded but refused to let him draw her away from the landing area once they'd stepped out of the shuttle. Now that she had her memory back, she knew the fastest way back to the airfield was to take a transport back to the market square where she'd bid on Nicoli's body.

  “There,” she said, spotting one.

  She broke away from Nicoli and ran to the hatch. Not giving Nicoli time to stop her, she'd climbed aboard and pushed the starter. The transport roared to life.

  "Trust me, please," she implored, when he still made no move to follow her.

  Nicoli considered their options. The last thing he wanted to do was step into another Harvester vehicle and end up back at the Rebirth Colony, but without robes and exposed as they were, standing out in the open was even less appealing.

  Making up his mind, he followed Kiera - after last night, he would always think of her as his kiera - through the hatch and found her sitting behind the controls. He would much prefer to be the one piloting the transport but she obviously had some knowledge of flying, so he didn't argue.

  "Let's go," he said, taking the co-pilot's seat. "From what I remember, the airfield is about ten kilometers south southwest of our current location."

  Kiera nodded as she fed power to the thrusters and the transport eased forward. Soon, they had pulled away from the main processing building. As they flew, he had time to think about his companion.

  He’d told her before “kiera” meant “heart of a warrior,” but the actual meaning of the word was less about having the spirit of a warrior and more about that which a warrior held closest to his own heart. Given the short amount of time they’d known each other, it was unsettling how appropriate the name had become.

  When they were safely away from the planet, he’d try to convince her to stay with him long enough to see where this relationship could go.

  Ten minutes later, the airfield was in sight. Nicoli gave silent thanks that something had finally gone their way. If only their luck would hold.

  Since they couldn't fly the transport onto the field, they parked it.

  "We'll have to walk," Nicoli said, wishing they'd found a Harvestor robe or even trader's clothing for Kiera to wear. There weren't that many female traders who wore gowns. In fact, there weren't any.

  Looking around the inside of the shuttle, Nicoli's gaze fell on the long flat metal flap covering the seam of the transport's back window. It took a bit of doing, but Nicoli was able to pry it off.

  "What are you doing?" Kiera asked.

  "Making you a collar."

  "Excuse me?"

  "The only way for you to walk into that building without drawing attention is if everyone thinks you’re a donor, so I'm making you a collar."

  Torqueing the metal, he bent it into a circular shape and then wrapped it around Kiera's neck. Then he stood back to study his work.

  "It's not going to fool anyone up close, but from a distance, it'll do. Shall we go?"

  Together they exited the transport and walked toward the building. They had almost reached the entrance, when two robed figures stepped forward, each holding an auto-mag Trader’s Special.

  Standing just outside the entrance, they scanned the crowd. There was no way to know whether the armed figures were searching specifically for them, but Nicoli wasn’t about to take any chances. With a hand at Kiera's elbow, he guided her to a slower walk, timing their final approach so they arrived at the entrance as a large group of traders reached it.

  Hidden in the crowd, they walked past the guards through the entrance without drawing attention. That's when their luck ran out; when the traders veered off in different direction, the guards spotted them.

  Grabbing Kiera's hand, Nicoli pulled her after him as he pushed his way through the line of traders waiting to be scanned. Several men objected, but the dark scowl on Nicoli's face must have been enough to quiet them. Just before stepping through the scanner, Nicoli pulled the collar off Kiera's throat and tossed it aside, not knowing what would happen should the scanner detect the metal.

  They passed through the beams without incident and were halfway to the far exit when a scream brought them to a sudden stop. Looking back, Nicoli saw a crowd gathered around one of the scanners, wisps of white vapor that had once been a person still clinging to the air. Among the crowd stood a single armed figure.

  Tough break for the guard who forgot he was carrying a weapon, but lucky for him and Kiera. It wouldn't be long before the other guard found a way around the scanners, though. Nicoli wanted to make the best of their opportunity.

  He reached for Kiera's hand again, having lost it when they stopped running, only to find himself clutching at air. Where had she gone?

  He looked around, worried. She couldn't survive this place alone. Just then, he felt a touch at his elbow. Spinning around, he found Kiera standing there as if she'd been there all along.

  "Where'd you go?” Relief at finding her safe tempered his anger.

  "Over there, by the plants," she replied, far too calmly. "I thought the idea was to stay hidden and I thought they'd provide better cover than standing out in the open."

  He frowned at the logic, knowing she was right. "We stay together, understand?"

  "Of course, but shouldn't we get going?"

  "In a second.” Nicoli studied the airfield beyond, noticing that none of the ships were taking off. "I was afraid of this," he finally said. "They're holding the ships until they find us.” He looked around the inside of the building. "If I can locate the main tower controls...” He turned slowly, making sure not to overlook anything.

  "What? You'll break in? Fight all the Harvesters there single-handedly and then turn off the stasis fields?"

  "You have a better idea?"

  "Maybe you don't have to take out all the towers.” She'd been pressing a hand to her stomach, but moved it away now just enough for him to make out the small hand laser she had hidden. "You can take out just the one holding your ship."

  "Where the hell did you get that?” He took the weapon from her and checked the gauge before tucking it into his waistband and pulling his shirt to cover it. It was fully charged.

  “I found it in one of the planters. Now, can we go?”

  He didn’t wait to hear more. Together they ran out the back of the building. The yard was filled with ships and the Icarus hovered fifth in line on the left. For Nicoli, the ship had never looked so good. He raced toward it, making sure Kiera didn't lag behind. Just as they reached it, the hatch door opened.

  "Alex? Can it really be you?" Yanur shouted, leaning out the door, looking slightly worse for wear since the last time Nicoli had seen him.
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  "I'll tell you all about it later," Nicoli promised, shoving Kiera in front of him. "We need to leave - now!"

  "Yes, of course.” Yanur backed out of the way to give Kiera space to scramble aboard. "What are you doing?"

  Nicoli headed for the stasis tower holding the ship. "Making sure there's nothing holding us here when Michels takes off. Michels' aboard, right?” Nicoli wouldn't leave the boy behind but it would sure be inconvenient to have to go find him. Nicoli glanced back at Yanur, needing an answer. "Is he aboard or not?"

  Yanur glanced back into the ship as if he could see Michels sitting in the pilot's seat, which Nicoli knew he couldn't. “Yes, yes.” Yanur shouted back. "Michels is here."

  “Tell him to start the engines and get ready to fly - and make sure the woman is strapped in. We're not going to have much time.”

  The sound of shouting drew his attention to the control tower as traders burst through the doors and ran for the ships. Mixed in with the crowd were several robed Harvesters - and they were armed.

  Nicoli flipped the power setting on the hand laser to high and heard the hum as the charge built. Placing it as high up into the structure of the tower as he could reach, he left it and returned to the ship, securing the hatch after him.

  Hurrying to the bridge, he found Yanur sitting in the co-pilot’s seat. When the old man made to rise, Nicoli waved him back down and took the seat behind the pilot. The tall back of the pilot's chair obstructed Nicoli's view of Michels, all except for the boy's hands, which were busy flipping switches and entering commands into the console.

  "Where's Kiera?" Nicoli asked, wondering why she wasn't sitting in the fourth chair. He saw Yanur exchange a confused look with Michels. “The woman I was with,” Nicoli explained with some irritation. Who else could he have meant?

  Something pinged the front view screen.

  "They're firing at us," Nicoli shouted. “Damn it, Yanur. Is the woman safely aboard or not?”

  “Yes, of course, she’s right—“

  The sound of a small explosion drowned out the rest of his words, but Nicoli had heard what he needed to. Now it was time to find out if the laser's charge had disabled the stasis field. “Michels, get us out of here.”

  The silence that followed his command was momentary - and then everything happened at once.

  As the engines roared to life, two robed Harvesters appeared through the front view screen, their weapons trained on the Icarus. Before they could fire, a series of small explosions started inside the stasis tower; the explosion from the hand laser making the entire tower unstable. Suddenly, the Icarus and three other vessels were released.

  Michels hit the thrusters and the ship shot straight up. Without clearance or guidance from the tower, Michels had to navigate around several other vessels trying to make their escape. It was even trickier to avoid a crash while also dodging the missiles the control tower shot at them.

  Against the odds, they soon reached open space.

  “Michels, you are one hell of a pilot,” Nicoli exclaimed, unstrapping his safety belt to lean forward.

  “Thank you.”

  This time, without other distractions, Nicoli had no trouble recognizing that voice, but it didn't make sense. Placing his hands on the pilot’s chair, he turned it around and found Kiera sitting there.

  “What are you doing? Where’s Michels?” He looked around the bridge as if expecting the boy to suddenly appear. When he didn’t, he grew suspicious.

  “Yanur – where’s Michels? He made it back to ship, didn’t he?” He was growing alarmed at the thought of having to return to the planet in order to rescue the boy.

  Yanur, for some reason Nicoli couldn’t fathom, wouldn’t meet his gaze. “Yes, Michels is okay.”

  Enough of this. “Yanur, where the hell is Michels?”

  “I’m Michels,” Kiera said. She nodded when he stared at her, his brain unable to make sense of her words. “It’s been me all along.”

  “Kiera? You lied to me?” He growled.

  She had the decency to look abashed. “It’s Angel – or Michels if you prefer - and yes, I did, at first. But not later. The memory loss was real.”

  “How comforting,” he said with as much disdain as he could muster.

  Chapter 12

  Nicoli bent over the pilot’s chair, grabbing the sides and effectively boxing Angel in. He lowered his face to hers so she wouldn’t miss any part of the glare he gave her. “You could have gotten yourself killed.”

  “She went there to save you.” Yanur’s voice held parental censure, but it only fueled Nicoli’s anger.

  “Yeah and she did one hell of a job of it, too. I found her lying unconscious on a donor table with a collar around her neck.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  Yanur’s concern and confusion were obvious, but it fell on deaf ears. When Nicoli thought about what might have become of Angel if he hadn't found her...all his anger, and frustration from the night before, spilled out and he turned on Yanur. “You knew she was a woman but you let her go anyway and she almost died. Died, damn it.”

  “Stop yelling at him.”

  “Stay out of this.” He whipped his head around to glare at her. “It doesn’t concern you.”

  “It doesn’t concern me? How do you figure that?” Now Angel was shouting.

  “You should never have been involved in this. If I had known you were a woman, I would never have allowed you to go.”

  “Allowed me? Allowed me? You ungrateful ass, you needed me.”

  “I could have found another way to achieve my goal. Without you,” Nicoli argued.

  “Get real. If I hadn’t gone down and transferred your life essence back into your body, you’d still be living in a tube and your body would be having one hell of a time as someone’s sex slave. So instead of yelling at me and Yanur, you should be thanking us.”

  “Alex, I would not have let her go if there had been another way,” Yanur said, speaking with exaggerated patience. “I think Michels...ah, I mean Angel, is it? ...is a rather remarkable young woman and if you’d perhaps allow yourself a chance to get to know her better, you would change your mind.”

  “I’d say last night that last night we had a chance to become intimately acquainted, wouldn’t you?” He gave Angel a pointed look. "And yet, somehow, your being Michels just never came up. Why is that?"

  She narrowed her eyes at him. “You know why. After you found me, I had amnesia - but before that, I did try to tell you."

  “Oh really. When was that exactly?"

  “Right before I transferred you, but you wouldn’t let me explain.”

  “Bad timing on your part, sweetheart.”

  “I know," she admitted, surprising him. "Which is why I tried again this morning, after I remembered who I was.” She spoke so softly, Nicoli could barely make out the words. He remembered the moment when she woke that morning and the conversation they’d had. She had been trying to tell him something, but he’d misunderstood.

  Nicoli pushed himself out of the chair, going to stand near the open doorway. If he were honest with himself, he might admit that he was more upset with Yanur than with Angel. It would take him a long time to get over that betrayal.

  As if sensing how Nicoli felt, Yanur rose from the co-pilot’s seat and moved toward the door. “If you’ll excuse me, I believe I’ll return to my room for a bit.”

  Nicoli stepped aside and watched him go without saying a word.

  “You know, he only did it because he cares about you.”

  Nicoli didn’t want, or need, any lectures from her, so he shot her a look that he hoped conveyed that sentiment. “You’re in my chair.” A startled look flashed across her face. Or maybe it was hurt. Either way, he didn’t care. “Get up.”

  To her credit, she didn’t hop right up. She turned back to the controls to make sure the ship was on auto-pilot before vacating his chair. Even then, she only moved as far as the co-pilot’s seat.

  He sat
down, flipped off the auto-pilot and took the steering column in his hands. It felt good to be in control. Control of his body. Control of his ship. Control of some part of his life. No one, especially a woman, was going to take that away from him.

  “What’s the matter, Colonel Romanof? Don’t you trust me?”

  “Nicoli. I think after what we’ve been through, we’re at least on a first name basis.” He fell silent, watching the stars go by, trying not to think too hard.

  “You didn’t answer my question.” She was tenacious, he’d give her that.

  “In the short span of our acquaintance, you've stolen my ship and lied to me about who you are. Not exactly a strong foundation for trust, would you say?”

  “Those were all extreme circumstances.”

  “Honey, in my line of work, those are the only kind we get.”

  “I saved your life. I think you owe me a second chance.”

  “Is that right? Well, I saved yours, so I’d say we’re square. But I’ll humor you. Tell me about yourself. Help me understand the kind of person you are. For instance, when you’re not stealing ships, what do you do for a living?”

  There was a slight pause before she answered. “I’m a pilot. I run my own courier service.”

  “I see.” He leaned forward to type on the computer’s keyboard.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Verifying your claim. I keep a record of all registered pilots. Angel Torrence. Isn’t that the name you gave me? Or do you go under another name? Michels, for instance.”

  He heard her take a deep breath and let it out. “You won’t find it in your database. I’m not registered.”

  “Naturally not. And why is that?”

  “Because I courier illegal goods.” There was a note of exasperation to her voice.

  “Aaahh. Now there’s a profession to inspire trust and confidence.”

  “Fine, believe what you want.” The gaze she turned on him could have frozen boiling water. “I’m sure you’re as anxious to be rid of me as I am to be gone, so as soon as we get back to Earth, you won’t have to deal with me anymore.”