He instantly had the uneasy feeling that sigh was somehow significant.
“This contract is for seven years. They’re usually only for five.”
He bared his teeth at her in the best approximation of a smile he could manage. “It is the standard contract.”
She frowned.
He felt a cold sweat pop from his pores and resisted the urge to glance toward the forward vid screen only by a supreme effort. Finally, she shrugged and reached for the stylus. Gabriel and Jerico, hovering on the opposite side of the table, leaned forward to watch.
Gideon glared at them. “You are blocking the vid,” he pointed out coldly.
Bronte slid the tablet to him. Grabbing the stylus with a sense of relief, he quickly scrawled his own name in the appropriate box—Gideon CS46721. He discovered when he replaced the stylus that Bronte was frowning at his signature. He sent her a questioning look as he handed the tablet over to Gabriel and Jerico to witness. “There is something wrong?”
He couldn’t quite interpret the look in her eyes when she met his gaze but it made his chest feel uncomfortably tight. She shook her head, turning to look at Gabriel and Jerico in much the same way.
It disturbed him that he couldn’t understand what that look meant but he resolutely dismissed it as Jerico handed the tablet back. “Now it is Gabriel’s turn,” he said, flipping to the next screen before he rose and changed places with Gabriel.
Jerico looked as if he would object, but when Gideon shook his head, he settled into fuming silence, glancing behind them at the forward vid as Bronte scanned the second contract.
They had just settled to sign Jerico’s contract when the communicator squawked. Bronte jumped and Gideon, Jerico, and Gabriel stiffened, their heads swiveling sharply in the direction of the speaker.
“Approaching craft, identify!”
There was a brief pause and then the command was repeated.
Gideon and Gabriel exchanged a speaking glance. “Finish!” Gideon said sharply getting up and striding quickly toward the bridge. “Command center!” Gideon hailed the speaker. “This is Black Hawk tango two bravo six niner zero!”
“Identify!”
“Lieutenant Gideon CS46721, Cyborg Forces.”
“Mission status?”
“Target extracted. ETA forty six minutes.” He paused. “Mark.”
“Target status?”
Gideon glanced toward the group at the table, meeting Bronte’s gaze briefly.
“Take….”
Before he could finish what he’d been about to say, the proximity alarms went off. “Proximity alert! Proximity alert!” the computer announced.
Gideon cut the alarm off. “Direction? Speed?”
“Starboard, sub light,” the computer responded.
Even as Gideon dove into the command seat and grabbed the controls, however, something slammed into the craft so hard it pitched Jerico off the bench and flung Bronte over him. He caught her, wrapping his arms tightly around her as he skidded along the floor with the pitch of the ship.
Bronte felt the shudder that rippled through the ship even perched on top of Jerico. Gabriel picked himself up and staggered toward the bridge, half falling into the communications seat as he reached the control center. “Mayday! Mayday! Mayday! Home base. This is Black Hawk tango two bravo six niner zero! We have been damaged! I repeat, we have been damaged.”
He glanced at Gideon after a lengthy pause. “Communications are gone.”
Gideon gritted his teeth. “The whole fucking tail section is gone.” He glanced back at Jerico and Bronte. “Get her into the emergency seat before we hit the atmosphere. And then get back there and try to get the emergency lock down over that rear door. It is not responding.”
Gabriel bolted out of his seat. “Get the emergency lock. I will help Bronte.”
“Put her in my seat,” Jerico said as Gabriel dropped to his knees and opened a small hatch, pulling a fixed seat from beneath the floor—the one they’d strapped her in to when they’d blasted off from Earth, Bronte realized.
Gideon turned to look at Bronte. She saw the indecision in his eyes and she knew what it meant. The emergency seat wasn’t nearly as safe as the others. “I’ll be safer if Jerico is where he’s supposed to be,” she said quickly.
He didn’t argue with her and that scared her worse than she already was. She felt no better once Gabriel had strapped her into her seat. Even she could see that it wasn’t nearly as sturdy as the other chairs, and besides that she had the pit beneath her the thing had been pulled out of. It didn’t matter that Gabriel had shoved a floor plate over it and locked it down. She knew the hole was there and all she could think about was being sucked out of it.
She managed to smile at Gabriel weakly, however, when he finished strapping her in and briefly touched her cheek to reassure her before he went back to his own seat.
She hoped that was what he meant by it and not ‘good bye’.
“Atmosphere!” Gabriel barked. “In ten!”
“I have got it!” Jerico bellowed back at him to the tune of a sudden metallic bang that made Bronte’s belly clutch in terror. Whirling toward the sound, more than half expecting to see the ship disintegrating before her eyes, she felt a measure of relief when she saw that Jerico had pulled a pair of doors from the walls that looked far more substantial than the sliding door of the cabin and locked them together.
Or … where the cabin used to be. The wall and door were substantial or they would’ve crumpled already, she told herself.
Unless Gideon had been exaggerating, she thought hopefully.
She had a bad feeling that wasn’t a ‘trait’ Gideon had either. The entire ship was shaking so hard she had to clench her teeth to keep from biting her tongue and they hadn’t even hit the bad part yet.
She wondered what the chances were of actually managing to land the ship with nearly a third of it missing.
It probably didn’t matter where she was sitting.
“Three!” Gideon yelled. “Get up here!”
He didn’t have to announce when they hit atmosphere. The ship bucked so hard Bronte knew she would’ve gotten whiplash if she hadn’t been strapped in. She screamed before she could stop herself, her mind instantly equating the hard slamming motion with hitting the ground. Her stomach went weightless and lodged in her throat. The sensation of falling didn’t stop. She squeezed her eyes closed as the shaking intensified until her brain and eyeballs were rattling in her head. The pull of gravity felt as if it was going to crush her in her seat. Her heart, already laboring with terror, struggled, felt as if the weight pulling at her was going to make it explode.
She focused on trying to breathe and trying to regulate her heart, closing her mind to the screaming sound of metal around her and the men’s voices as they checked instruments, called out reading and fought the bucking bronco they were on trying to seize control.
They were dropping like a rock. The air around her grew hotter and hotter. Bronte squeezed her eyes more tightly together, focusing harder to block out the fear that they would burst into flames. Some force buffeted the ship so that it lifted and then dropped repeatedly. The air speed Gabriel had been quoting to Gideon began to drop. It was hardly reassuring. They were still moving way too fast and she knew it, but she began to feel a faint thread of hope, despite the fact that the ship began to tilt further and further forward.
“We are still dropping too fast!” Gabriel announced.
“On my mark, fire the forward thrusters!” Gideon bellowed.
Bronte opened one eye to see what was happening, too frightened to ask even if she hadn’t been worried about distracting them. In the forward vid, she saw a spiral of greens and blues that made her head swim. Glancing at Gideon, she saw his arm muscles bulging from his grip on the steering yoke, saw the hard edge of a clenched jaw. “Short burst … now!”
The ship bucked again as if it had hit something, the front end pitching upward. Bronte held her breath, trying to keep
from throwing up.
Gabriel marked the air speed again.
“Again!” Gideon said. “Short burst only. Jerico, where are we?”
“Over the Darden sea.”
“I can see that!” Gideon ground out.
“Coming up on a land mass.”
“What have we got?”
“Sand … if you put it down fast.”
“I do not think we have a choice.”
“Dunes—starboard ten degrees,” Jerico announced.
Gideon threw him a quick glance and leaned against the yoke as he struggled to alter course.
“Three,” Jerico called out.
“Gabriel, fire all thrusters and see if we can slow this son-of-a-bitch down,” Gideon ground out.
The ship went wild, bucking and jolting so hard it jarred Bronte’s clenched jaws apart and then slammed her teeth down on her tongue. Blood filled her mouth.
“Impact in ten,” Gabriel announced.
Bronte sucked in a harsh breath, tensing all over.
“Five … coming in hard.”
“Hit the braking thrusts now!” Gideon bellowed.
The ship lurched, bucked. Abruptly they slammed into something. The ship roared like a live thing as it crumpled around them. Bronte screamed as pain speared through her and then blackness swarmed over her. When she surfaced again, her ears were still ringing from the last roar of sound she’d heard. Flickering light moved over her eyelids and she opened them with an effort. Around her was a tangle of metal and vegetation. A leafy frond, stirred by air, or still shuddering from their impact, was bobbing above her, she saw, causing the flickering of light as it filtered the sunlight pouring down through the canopy above her.
She closed her eyes again, searching for the pain she knew she should be feeling. As if she’d summoned it, it flickered to life, welled inside of her until it took an effort to breathe.
“Bronte!”
Her heart clutched at the sound of Gideon’s voice. “Here!” she tried to call out, but the word only emerged as a thread of sound. She tried again, managed to lift her voice a little louder. She flinched at a sudden noise close by and more pain flooded through her.
“Bronte!”
She struggled and managed to open her eyes again as she heard him advance toward her through the rubble and then felt his nearness. His face was taut as he stared down at her. After a long moment, he reached to grasp her restraints. Vaguely surprised to realize she was still strapped in her seat, she tried to lift her hands to help him but discovered her arms were just too heavy to lift them.
“Be still!” Gideon ground out, apparently having noticed her slight movement.
She subsided, too tired to argue with him. “I’m so tired,” she said, wondering why.
“Only a moment and I will have you loose.”
More movement around her roused her enough to open her eyes again. Relief flooded her when she glimpsed Jerico and Gabriel. “We made it,” she whispered.
Gideon crouched down in front of her, placing his hands on her shoulders and easing her slowly toward him. She screamed at the pain that lanced through her.
He stopped instantly and Bronte gasped for breath as the pain slowly subsided. When she could open her eyes again, she searched for the source and discovered a piece of metal sticking into her. Mentally, she traced it. “I’m pinned to the seat,” she said in surprise.
Gideon gripped the piece of metal. “On the count of three I will pull.”
Bronte put her hand over his. “Leave it. I’m dying anyway,” she said, feeling oddly calm about it and yet as certain of it as she had ever been about anything in her life. Her suit was already soaked in blood. She was fairly certain the metal had severed major blood vessels if not an artery.
He caught her chin in a hard grip. “You will not die,” he said through clenched teeth. “On the count of three, Bronte.”
Too tired to argue with him, she sucked in her breath, trying to brace herself. He snatched it out on two, snatching her breath with it and, blessedly, consciousness. Unfortunately, she was only unconscious for a handful of seconds. She came to as he pulled her from the seat, groaning at the pain that cut through her with each step he took. Dizziness swept through her and a sense of falling. Her back settled on a hard surface.
When she opened her eyes she saw that all three men were bent over her, their expressions grim as they tore her uniform off of her. “’s alright,” she murmured. “Doesn’t hurt much … least I got contracted first,” she added, trying to infuse a little humor into the situation. “Do not talk,” Gideon said harshly. “Save your strength.”
What strength, she thought tiredly? It was an effort even to breathe. She discovered that was partly because Gabriel was leaning against her, pressing her belly so tightly it felt as if he was going to shove her stomach through her back.
“We need to get the bleeding stopped.”
Gideon glanced up at Jerico. “Find whatever you can in the wreckage.” His hand was shaking as he brushed it along her cheek. “This is going to hurt like hell, Bronte.”
She opened her eyes and discovered he had one of the laser pistols in his hand.
Gabriel caught his wrist even as he lifted it and tried to steady the sight. “This is too clumsy.”
Gideon jerked his head up to stare at Gabriel. “She will bleed to death if I do not stop the bleeding. This will cauterize the wound.”
Reluctantly, Gabriel released his grip.
Gideon rubbed an arm across his face and for the first time Bronte noticed his hair was matted with blood. He focused on her stomach. She saw the barrel of the pistol waver. Abruptly, he tossed it aside. Glancing around, he snatched up a jagged piece of metal. Bronte sucked in her breath as he slashed it across his arm. Blood spurted from the artery he’d severed. “Gideon!”
Ignoring her cry, he leaned over her, squeezing the arm he had sliced so hard the muscles in his arm stood out, shook as his blood flowed over her. “The nanos,” he said harshly, glancing at Gabriel.
Nodding, Gabriel glanced around until he found another jagged piece of metal and sliced his own open.
They were going to die, too, Bronte thought, so distressed she felt tears well in her eyes, gather at the corners and then run down into her hair.
“I have found the med case,” Jerico said, racing up to them. He stopped abruptly when he saw what they were doing. Dropping the case he’d brought, he moved around to her legs. It was the last thing Bronte remembered clearly. Darkness descended over her. It lifted and fell, not like a curtain so much as waves as if she was sleeping and surfacing near consciousness and then drifting down again.
Burning pain brought her more fully awake for a handful of minutes, just long enough to be thoroughly disoriented by the hands pulling at her, rocking her. Something soft tightened across the burning pain in her stomach and then they left her in peace for a few moments.
“Now—while she is unconscious.”
Dread filled her when she heard Gideon’s words but she didn’t have time to brace for what she knew was coming—more pain. She screamed as they pulled on her leg, trying to tear off. Why wouldn’t they just leave her alone? she thought wearily when she could think at all again.
Thankfully, either they stopped torturing her or she lost any sense of pain. She sighed tiredly and drifted off again. She woke freezing, her teeth chattering so badly she couldn’t seem to make them stop. It was dark—or she was blind—she discovered when she opened her eyes. Slowly, her eyes focused and she saw stars winking above her.
Closing her eyes again, she searched for the pain and discovered that she hurt all over, that it was impossible to localize the pain, but it was duller, not the sharp, cutting pain that had taken her breath before. A shadow had fallen over her when she opened her eyes again. She stared hard, trying to pierce the darkness.
“Drink.” It was Jerico’s voice. His hand settled beneath her head, lifted it. She opened her mouth when she felt the edge of a glass,
or something cylindrical. Icy water cascaded into her mouth. She gulped and then choked and the water overflowed, running down her chin and then her neck.
The coughing brought the pain up to a new level and she struggled to suppress the cough and the shivers that added to her misery.
“She is cold.”
Two more shadows moved close. She heard a faint rustle as they crouched beside her. “What happened?” she asked through chattering teeth.
A hand settled on her forehead and then stroked her face lightly. “The nanos stopped the bleeding, but we could not give you many. They are designed to speed to the area most damaged and close off the artery as quickly as possible to prevent death by blood loss. Since you do not have many, it will take a while for them to repair the damage from the crash.” He paused. “Jerico, keep watch. We will keep her warm for now.”
Bronte hadn’t realized she’d been covered until Gabriel and Gideon lifted the cover on either side of her, allowing a frigid breeze to blow across her bare skin. Then they settled the cover again and pressed lightly against her on either side. Their skin was nearly as chilled as hers at first, but after a few moments she began to feel them grow warm. Grateful for even a small amount of warmth, Bronte tried to roll closer and gasped as the movement sent a jolt of pain through her stomach and another through her leg.
“Be still. You will only cause yourself more pain.”
“I know,” she gasped. “I’m still cold.”
A hand moved over her shaking shoulder. “I will lift you. Just relax and do not try to help,” Gideon said quietly.
It was impossible to lay completely passive, but the moment she tensed her stomach muscles the pain intensified until she couldn’t help. Gabriel shifted closer behind her as Gideon helped her onto her side. When he’d positioned her against Gabriel, he moved closer, sandwiching her between them. A sigh of relief drifted from her lips as she felt their warmth envelop her until she ceased to tremble and finally drifted to sleep again.
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