“So be it.” Khevan was resigned to the night’s labors. Picking a spot on the edge of the A30 area, he threw the first two bags aside, across the wide aisle and onto a similar pile of jumbled luggage over there.
“Well, I’m going to get my own stuff,” Twilka announced cheerfully. “Where was it, soldier?”
Nick hadn’t bothered to ask the AI. Never remotely would have occurred to me to ask, in fact. “A37,” he answered at random. Much as he needed all the help he could get to unbury his gear, he couldn’t believe Twilka would be of any material assistance. Better to have her out of the way – as long as she doesn’t get herself in trouble. Nick was acutely conscious of time clicking irretrievably away from them. Rescuing the ‘Lite from under a stack of luggage wasn’t something he wanted to do. “Be careful,” he called after her. “Watch how you move the pieces in these big piles of stuff, because it’s balanced pretty precariously.”
“Thanks,” she said. With a wave, she moved off along the line of bins.
“Your bag?” Laughing, Mara picked up a small, elegant box, covered in green and yellow reptilian scales, with jeweled clasps and a handle in the shape of entwined, scarlet flowers. Admiring the workmanship, she turned it around and around.
Nick chuckled with genuine amusement. “Not that! Mine’s a standard military-issue, black and gray duffle bag, about this big.” He held his hands a yard apart. “In this gaudy treasure house of designer names and blazing colors, it should stand out like a flaring nova.”
“Mine is red, black and turquoise leather,” Khevan informed them. “With the insignia of the Lady on both sides. You’ll know it if you find it. I’d like my blaster, to say the least. I’m going to search a bit further down.”
Nick set to work with a will, Mara toiling at his side.
About an hour later, Nick looked up as he heaved aside yet another piece of expensive luggage, to find Mara staring at him pensively. He’d insisted she take a well-earned break, go to check on the children for a minute, and then rejoin him in the vicinity of A30. When he told her to rest a bit longer before recommencing the hard, exhausting work of cargo shifting, Mara seated herself on a big, upended wooden chest, fanning herself with a piece of a broken box. She stared at him, her gaze going from head to toe.
He paused, wiping his own brow. The air isn’t circulating any too efficiently here on Level Ten. “What?”
“I wish we’d had dinner,” she answered simply.
“But you had another date.”
“No, a previous engagement.” She corrected him crisply. “It was a business dinner. I was fact-finding a deal, discussing the possibility of Loxton doing some work for a major manufacturing company in Sector Fourteen. A working dinner with the vice presidents of logistics and manufacturing.”
“A business dinner wearing a strapless blue dress?” Nick said, before he could stop himself.
She sighed, tapping her toe on the deck. “Jealous, much? No, it was a business dinner, Nick. In one of the Dream’s conference rooms, not my cabin or theirs. We had the basics of the contract worked out, in fact.” Biting her lip, she rolled her eyes. “Why am I explaining this to you?”
“I’m not sure.” He stood for a moment, staring at her until she turned her head, making a show of sifting through more debris. Where is this conversation going? I know where I’d take it if we weren’t on a dying ship, trying to save our skins. Fuck, why couldn’t I have met her in another time and place?
He thought maybe she blushed. She laughed again, but somewhat ruefully. “Who knows if the other guys survived? Or my personal AI? I left the working documents and all my equipment in my cabin on Level Two. Shut the door and walked away. Not important in the grand scale of things tonight.”
“Well, I’m glad to hear someone in this group has their priorities straight,” Nick said. “Unlike Twilka and her jewelry box hunt.” He went to the pile of passenger belongings, pausing with his hand on another container. She said she wished we’d had dinner, gave you an opening, say something, idiot. Over his shoulder, he made a comment, inwardly braced for her reaction. “I was in the casino the next night, hoping to run into you.”
“You were?” He heard her set the makeshift fan aside with a click.
Encouraged by the pleased lilt in her voice, he risked a bit more honesty. “Yeah. It wasn’t the same without you.”
“Not to mention my blazing luck at the slot machines.” She laughed.
“I did lose a few credits at the slots for you.” She’s so easy to talk to, felt so good in my arms for the brief moment on the bridge. In the current crisis, could he and Mara have slid right past the normal, artificial stages of getting to know each other? He picked at the embossed logo on the crate under his hand. I feel as if I’ve known her forever. I wonder if she feels the same way. He swallowed hard, opened his mouth to say something, but bit the words back. No. She’s out of my class.
“How thoughtful of you, to play the slots for me.” Her tone was cool but teasing.
Tossing aside the next worthless suitcase, he shot her a sideways glance. Mara hopped off the crate, coming to help. “You’re hard to stop thinking about, lady.”
Tilting her head and raising one elegant eyebrow, Mara smiled. “I’m flattered.”
There was a companionable silence for another few minutes, while they both worked steadily at diminishing different segments of the overwhelming tower of luggage. Unasked, she helped him tug at one particularly bulky trunk. “Is your shoulder bothering you again?”
Judiciously, he rolled his shoulders, next trying to massage the ache away. Grunting, he let his hand drop to his side. “Yeah, but I’ll live. Thanks for helping.”
“No problem.” Mara’s next words stunned him. “You’re hard to forget yourself, you know. I couldn’t concentrate on the business deal, actually. I kept hoping you’d call.”
He demurred, honestly surprised by her observation. “Why would a guy like me be so hard to forget? I do what they tell me, go where I’m ordered.”
She shook her head. “No, there’s something about you, the way you walk, the way you carry yourself... I watched you in the Shuttle boarding area, and on the ship, too. Maybe you don’t notice, but people instinctively move out of your way. You’re so confident. Not arrogant, not conceited – comfortable in your own skin, I guess. You know what you’re capable of, not afraid to take action; you don’t wait for someone else to step in.” Mara stopped, studying him for a minute, her face set in serious lines. Laughing softly, she blushed, moving one hand to partially cover her eyes, making the nervous movement into a graceful gesture of pushing her tousled hair off her face. “I better shut myself up before I embarrass you totally. I’m sorry.” She started to walk away from him.
He was sorely tempted to ask her to have dinner, lunch, and breakfast with him for the rest of their lives. He’d never met anyone who affected him as powerfully as Mara Lyrae did, no other woman who lingered so stubbornly in his mind. He admired her courage and her calm and her sense of humor, even in the desperate situation.
And she’s so beautiful, even now, even after all she’s gone through tonight.
Reaching out, he shackled her wrist with his hand, drawing her closer. The clean, crisp scent of her no doubt expensive perfume drifted into his nostrils, and he took a deep breath. Who do I think I am, contemplating a future with this high-powered, stunning woman? His courage had never failed him in combat, but he was reluctant to risk rejection from her. “You may change your mind, once we get to Sector Hub, and the adrenaline of this crisis wears off.” Releasing her wrist, Nick stepped away, swallowing hard. “Maybe we should forget it for now, see how the idea of dinner strikes you after we’re rescued and we return to our proper orbits in society.”
Apparently Mara wasn’t having any of his self-doubt. She placed one hand on the carton he was about to toss aside, stopping him. Gently, she caressed his check with her other hand. “Nicholas Jameson, don’t be an idiot,” she commanded with a smal
l smile. “I know what I’m doing. I wanted to have dinner with you long before this misbegotten ship took its detour and plowed into an asteroid field, or whatever the disaster was.”
She fixed him with that electric stare from her turquoise eyes. Lost in her gaze, he couldn’t have been distracted if the Mawreg had come crashing into the hold in the next minute. Mara bit her lip before smiling crookedly. “I tried to have the AI call you, you know, during the day, I – I missed you. It said you weren’t listed on the passenger directory. I tried three different times; does that tell you anything?” She poked him in the chest with her finger to emphasize her point.
Taking her in his arms, slowly, so she could protest if this wasn’t what she wanted, he lowered his head and brushed her inviting lips with a fleeting kiss, which was all he dared to allow himself in this time and place. Mara pressed her soft body to his, looping her arm around his neck to hold him close, and he kissed her again, lingering, savoring for a long minute. Still holding her close, he rested his head against hers. “All right, it’s on for dinner, then.”
“Well, I’m glad one problem is settled,” she said, hugging him before moving out of his embrace. Peering intently into the remaining jumble of luggage and containers, she beckoned for him to come closer. “Nick?”
“Yeah?”
“Did you say your bag was black and gray? Like camouflage, maybe?”
“Where?” He moved quickly to stand next to her, trying to follow her line of sight.
She pointed to a corner where those colors were now visible, standing out starkly among the jeweled hues of the civilian passengers’ luggage.
Cupping his hand to his mouth, Nick yelled for Khevan.”Come give me a hand – we’ve found my gear.” He added a few orders for Mara. “Go check on Twilka, would you? Tell her we’re going to be leaving shortly, now I know where my bag is. If she hasn’t found her jewel case by now, she’s out of time. Tell her to file an exorbitant insurance claim, go for treble damages or something.”
Mara laughed with him. “The idea of filing a claim ought to do it, all right.”
“I figured.” Nick smiled. “And then get the children organized to move out, okay?”
“Move out to where?” Mara frowned, eyebrows drawing together.
Nick grimaced, rubbing his shoulder, which ached constantly now after all the physical labor, shifting boxes, bins, and bags. I think I need time in a military rejuve resonator to repair whatever happened to me.
Displeased at not having located his own bag and blaster, Khevan came stalking up. The Brother gazed from one to the other as if sensing, assessing, and then accepting the new understanding between them.
Keeping his focus on Mara, while acknowledging Khevan with a nod, Nick said, “I didn’t exactly explain the whole deal about how fastlink works.”
“What did you omit?” The D’nvannae’s tone was even, calm.
“It won’t work from here, from deep inside the ship.” Nick gestured at the bulkheads and ceiling above. “I have to have a clear, unblocked trajectory for the beam to slide interstellar.”
“But then where can you broadcast from?” Mara’s eyes widened. “You aren’t going to suit up and go outside?”
He shook his head, having briefly considered the option before rejecting it. “Won’t work. The transmitter has to be in physical contact with my skull. I wasn’t expected to be calling via fastlink for evac from inside ships, buildings. I figure the only place on the Dream the beam might be able to slide is the observatory.”
“But to get there,” Khevan said, “we have to pass through the casino, and whatever drunken mob we may encounter, yes?”
“Well, yeah,” Nick admitted. “But I have two blasters in my pack, along with the fastlink transmitter.”
“Anymore surprises you’re saving?” Mara’s tone was dangerously sweet. “Because if there are –”
Nick shook his head. “No, I’m done.”
“Fine. You two retrieve the bag, and I’ll go round up Twilka, break the bad news she gets to revisit the casino. After another trip through the grav lift.” Mara’s tone was dry, ironic.
“She won’t object.” Khevan stood a bit straighter, flashed a knowing smile.
“Not as long as she can lock herself around you again,” Mara retorted good-naturedly, and walked off, skirting the line of tumbled cargo.
Nick gazed after her for a long second. Wow, so she doesn’t find a D’nvannae more interesting than ME. Encouraging. Then he snapped back to the task at hand. “Help me yank these last few things out of the way, okay?”
The two men got a good grip on one large, oblong case blocking everything else and heaved. “Thing weighs a damn ton,” Nick complained. “Wonder what’s in it?”
“A musical instrument, by the labels,” Khevan told him. “Probably ancient and priceless, like so many other things here.”
“Yeah, well, the only items of any value right now are the fastlink and the blasters, trust me.” Nick grinned in total satisfaction as Khevan shifted the instrument case the last few inches off his military duffle bag. Swinging his kit out of the pile, Nick whistled appreciatively. “Now we’re cooking – here’s your bag, right under mine.”
Scrambling to retrieve his belongings, Khevan forgot all about the tragedy of the priceless artifacts to be lost when the Dream’s engines flared.
Nick opened his pack, literally throwing his spare uniforms and few personal possessions onto the deck, coming up with his blasters. Cradling one awkwardly in the crook of his arm, he buckled the belt and holster on.
“What will you do with the spare?” Khevan worked to buckle his own gun belt on, slamming the ominously red, ornate blaster in place in the holster with a satisfied smile.
Nick considered for a minute. “Thinking I’ll give it to Mara.”
“She has a level head,” was Khevan’s approving assessment. “I believe she’d use it effectively.”
“Use what effectively?” Mara rejoined them. “Oh, the blaster?” Reaching out, she took the weapon from Nick, expertly checking it over, noting the charge level, flicking the safety off. She hefted it, taking a bead on a particularly garish tote bag across the hold. In a blur of motion, she fired a quick, low-level shot right through the center of the bag.
Mouth hanging open, Nick gaped at her. “Fast learner?”
“Loxton agents take training on the civilian version of this.” She chuckled at his expression. “Didn’t you know? We’re licensed to carry concealed weapons all the way up to the civilian Mark Fifteen. This kicks harder, but it’s basically the same, yes?”
“More charges, single shot or full automatic capabilities,” Nick answered. “So, okay, you get the spare blaster.” He peered the length of the bonded stores aisle. “Where’s Twilka?”
“Oh, she’s not leaving without her jewelry, or so she insists. Either she’s in shock from the attempted gang rape, or she doesn’t have a clue about the seriousness of our situation here.” Mara made a face. “Hard to know. I do know I wasn’t making the slightest impression on her.”
“I’ll deal with this.” Khevan climbed out of the wreckage, striding down the cargo line.
“Be my guest, pal,” Nick said, raising his voice as Khevan got further away. “Better you than me.”
“I think Twilka is fascinated with Khevan,” Mara observed as Nick picked up his rucksack again.
“Yeah, Paolo thinks so, too.” He rummaged through his bag and dug out a small, featureless black cube, about four inches by four.
Mara came closer to peer at the cube. “Is that the fastlink?”
“The ground station, yeah,” Nick confirmed. He handed it to her. “Check it out.”
Handling it gingerly, as if it was going to explode, Mara passed the box back. “Undamaged, I hope?”
“Should be. The units are built tough. By Loxton, as I believe you told us earlier.” Nick grinned at her.
“We supply certain key parts,” Mara said. “Can’t take too much credit
.”
She walked over to the big suitcase the children had been resting on. Gianna was snoring peacefully, her large stuffed bear by her side. Frowning, Mara poked at it. “What happened to him, Paolo? Why is he all lumpy?”
“She likes to hide things inside him, treasures and stuff. Mostly junk.” Paolo left his suitcase perch and showed Mara the trick to unsealing the back seam of the bear.
“Here, you clean it out, okay?” Mara asked. “Let her keep a few of the small items in there, so she doesn’t fuss later, but I don’t want to be carrying too much extra weight.”
“Okay.” Paolo must have been called upon to perform this duty before, as he rapidly built a small stack of rejected items on the deck next to the big suitcase where his sister napped peacefully. “Are we going to leave here soon?”
“Yes, we’ll be going to the observatory, on the Casino Level,” Nick said, joining them. “Why?”
The boy stared at his feet, scuffing his shoe on the deck. “I heard noises out in the hold, a while ago. I peeked out the door, but I didn’t see anything, so I didn’t come tell you. You were busy.”
“What kind of noises?” Nick tried to modulate his voice to keep an edge of annoyance from showing through. He hadn’t expected anyone to invade the hold, so he hadn’t posted one of the adults as a guard, but to know Paolo had actually heard something and not reported it was distressing. Calm down. Dealing with a child, a civilian from the Inner Sectors, no less. Don’t expect too much.
“Crashing sounds, like things were falling,” Paolo replied defensively.
“Well, that’s probably okay then, don’t you think?” Mara glanced at Nick.
“Maybe. Go get Khevan. Tell him we may have company and I need him here now, with or without Twilka.” Nick moved past them without checking to see if Mara was following his order.
Wreck of the Nebula Dream Page 13