Two more disorientated soldiers met the business end of the stunstick before I made it to the flight deck. The door was locked, but thanks to my newly minted captain status, I overrode the lock.
The room was empty. I entered and locked the door behind me—no reason to let someone sneak up on me. I dropped into the captain’s chair and logged in. First, I added myself to the ship’s voice authorization. “Infineon, this is Ada von Hasenberg, authorize.”
“Welcome, Captain von Hasenberg. You are authorized.”
“Thank you. Show me the outside cameras.”
The screens in the walls came on with a 360-degree view of the surroundings. Two security guards stood behind the ship, talking on handheld coms. The rest of Richard’s team had not shown up yet, which meant his communications must still be down.
“Infineon, sweep the ship and show me the locations of all life-forms on board.”
A translucent 3-D model of the ship appeared above the captain’s console. More than a dozen red dots appeared, indicating people. Holy shit. Four were in the cargo bay alone.
“Veronica, are you okay?” I asked. “I see two extra people in the cargo bay. Are you under attack?”
“I am not under attack,” she said. That was a dodge of the question, but the two extras weren’t moving, so I focused on the only moving dot. I assumed it was Loch, but one of the red dots near him blinked out.
“Loch, what are you doing?” He didn’t respond. Shit. “Infineon, transfer this map to my com and prepare for takeoff.”
“Yes, Captain,” the computer responded.
The map overlay came up on my glasses display. The moving dot was down a level near the crew quarters. I slid down the nearest access ladder. Two soldiers—dead, not sleeping—slumped in the hall. I stepped around them and closed on the moving dot.
Loch spun and crouched as I came around the corner. His pistol came up but he paused before firing. He was not wearing his mask. He should not still be awake, but I could tell by his expression that the foxy had a deep grip on him.
“Infineon,” I said under my breath, “turn on air filtration. Purge and replace all of the ship’s breathable air.” A chime confirmed my command, then the ventilation system turned on high enough to produce a draft in the hallway.
I held my arms out in a careful gesture. “Loch, it’s me,” I said. “Put down the blaster. We won.”
He stood up but didn’t put away the pistol. He frowned at me as if I was someone he distantly recognized. Foxy generally made the user more focused and able to ignore pain. There had been a few reports of odd side effects, but since the results couldn’t be reliably reproduced, it hadn’t been enough to prevent its use.
I had a feeling I was seeing a new side effect firsthand. I took a step closer but Loch brought the pistol up in a defensive move. Okay, then, no closer. I would have to talk my way out of this one, or wait out the effects.
“Loch, it’s me, Ada. You remember me, right? I need your help, but you have to put the pistol down first.”
“Ada,” he murmured, testing the word. He blinked, holstered his gun, and closed the distance between us in two long strides.
He backed me up against the wall and pressed his big body up against mine. He lifted me slightly and slid a thigh between my own. I settled with delicious friction against the hard muscles of his leg. I bit back a moan.
Foxy did have one well-known side effect: in the right dosage, it was a strong aphrodisiac. It was one of the reasons it was such a popular street drug. The military doses were designed to work around the flaw, but it appeared that Veronica had procured a street dose.
When I wouldn’t let him remove my mask, Loch trailed burning kisses across my jaw and down my throat. I arched into him with a hiss before I could stop myself. I had to focus, dammit.
“Loch, you’re high as a kite,” I said. “The foxy is fucking with your head. You’re going to crash and burn in about ten minutes and before you do, ahhh—” I moaned as his hand slid up my ribs and settled under my breast. His thumb traced a tantalizing line over my nipple and it took all of my control not to just say fuck it and go with the flow.
“Before you crash, I need help,” I said. My voice wavered.
“I’ll help you,” he murmured against my neck. He shifted and I felt him, hot and hard, against my thigh. I was going to be nominated for sainthood after this.
“Not that kind of help, though, trust me, if you weren’t high as hell, I’d consider it.” A neglected libido could only be suppressed for so long, and I’d passed the point of no return three kisses ago. I struggled to keep my thoughts on target. I pushed against his chest. “I need you to help me move all of these soldiers to the cargo bay.”
I grabbed his head when he would’ve bent back to my neck. “Loch, focus. Richard is going to be here any second and you are slowing us down. If Richard catches us, we’re done. He’ll kill us.”
“He won’t kill me,” he said. “And I’ll protect you.”
“That’s sweet, but does not help me right now. I just hope you’re high enough to forget this,” I said. Then I hit him with the stunstick.
He snarled at me and batted the stick out of my hand. I was so surprised that I let it go. I’d never seen anyone not go down when directly hit. Even the toughest von Hasenberg soldiers hit their knees. Loch just looked pissed.
“You better have a damn good reason for attacking me, sweetheart.”
I smiled in relief. “You’re back?”
He scowled at me but then paused to take in our positions. His face went completely blank, then he backed away like I was diseased. Okay, that stung a bit.
“I need you to help haul soldiers,” I said. If my voice was icier than usual, he didn’t call me on it. “We’ll put them out the cargo door before we take off. We have to hurry.”
“Or we could purge them,” Loch said.
“No. Help carry or get out of the way.” I moved to the closest soldier. He outweighed me by at least forty pounds, but he wasn’t going to move himself.
I pulled him up to a seated position, then squatted down and wrapped my arms around his waist. A heave up and he was standing enough for me to duck down and get a shoulder under his waist. I gritted my teeth and wobbled to my feet with him balanced in a fireman’s carry.
One down, a dozen to go. I would never make it through all of them like this, but I’d at least dump this guy in the cargo bay while I thought of an alternative.
Loch cursed behind me.
“Veronica, if you’re up, get a sled out,” I said. “We’ll pile these gentlemen on it then toss the beacon out the door.” Sleds were designed for hands-free operation, so they followed a paired beacon. If the beacon went out the door, the sled would follow. And as long as we were close to the ground, it would deal with the altitude adjustment without dumping the cargo.
“On it,” Veronica said.
The cargo bay stairs presented a challenge, but I still said a prayer of thanks that I didn’t have to maneuver down a ladder carrying this much dead weight. True to her word, Veronica had a sled out when I walked up, sweating and trembling.
I dumped the soldier on the sled and turned to retrieve another. Instead, I nearly ran into Loch. “You stack them,” he said. “I’ll carry them.” He dumped the two men he was carrying with less care than I would have liked, but he carried two at once and didn’t look close to death, so I kept my mouth shut.
Veronica and I sat the first two men with their backs against the vertical back of the sled. The rest we sat in front of them, between their legs, leaning back. It was the only way I thought we could fit them all and also not accidentally suffocate one of them.
Once they were all on the sled, we strapped them down as best we could. A peek at the cargo bay display showed that Richard had arrived and had spread his men out in a wide arc around the cargo bay doors.
He was in for a surprise.
“Infineon, take us up six meters and hold.” A chime answered me and
the engines roared to life. Richard’s shocked face stared out of the display. Once we were at altitude, I partially opened the cargo bay door then chucked the beacon out through the opening. The sled sailed after it and landed softly in front of Richard.
Fury darkened his expression and he shouted orders I could almost hear. I blew him a kiss on the display, closed the cargo door, and ordered the ship to take us up to fifteen kilometers.
That done, I turned to Veronica and drew my pistol, but kept it pointed at the ground. “Now,” I said, “would you care to explain why there are two extra people in here?”
Chapter 13
Veronica’s chin tilted up to a stubborn angle, but she didn’t deny the accusation. When I continued to stare at her, waiting, she sighed and went to her sled. She pulled off various bags and boxes until the top of a perforated box appeared.
“It’s okay, Imma,” she said. “Open up.”
The click of a lock, then the top of the box swung open. A young boy of four or five with straight black hair and huge, dark eyes peeped over the top of the box. He had on a mask identical to the ones Veronica had procured for us.
On seeing Veronica, he smiled and reached for her. “Momma!” he cried. “I was very quiet for Imma, just like I promised. Wasn’t I, Imma?”
An older woman in a mask stood stiffly and looked around with suspicion. She put herself between a scowling Loch and the kid in an unconscious gesture of protection. “You were very good, baba,” she said.
The little boy beamed. “See, Momma?”
Veronica blinked away tears and reached for her son. “Yes, pumpkin, you were very good. I’ll get your surprise in a little while, okay? We have to unpack first, and I have some friends for you to meet.”
Veronica helped Imma out of the box then led the little boy over to me. I holstered my gun before they reached me. Veronica said, “Lin, this is Lady Ada.”
Lin swept into a respectable bow for a youngster and the suspicion growing in my mind solidified. Veronica and I would be having a very long discussion once the kiddo was asleep.
But the kid wasn’t at fault, so I dropped into my most formal curtsy. It looked a little ridiculous in pants, but Lin smiled shyly at me. I inclined my head. “Lord Lin, it is a pleasure to meet you.”
He giggled and pressed against Veronica’s leg. She turned him toward Loch. “That is Mr. Loch.” Lin slipped from her grasp and darted over to the larger man. Veronica’s jaw clenched but she didn’t call him back. Lin held out his tiny hand. “It is a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Loch,” he said, carefully mimicking my earlier words.
Loch uncrossed his arms and shook Lin’s hand. “Nice to meet you, too, squirt.”
“Will I grow up big as you?” Lin asked in awe.
“You might. If you eat your vegetables and listen to your mother.”
Lin raced back to Veronica. “Can we have vegetables for dinner?”
She smiled and ruffled his hair. “We can have whatever you want, pumpkin. But I don’t want you to bother Mr. Loch, okay? He’s very busy.”
Lin’s face fell. He kicked a toe at the floor. “Yes, Momma.”
Now that I knew Veronica wasn’t planning a mutiny, I needed to get us off-planet stat. “I’ll leave you to unpack and settle in. I’m going to get us out of here before Richard regroups.”
Loch followed me to the flight deck. “The kid is going to be a problem.”
“I know,” I said.
“But you’re not leaving them.”
“No,” I said.
“Didn’t figure you would,” Loch said. “Wouldn’t let you, anyway,” he muttered.
A quick glance confirmed the foxy had finally run its course. Loch wavered on his feet. I pulled him over to an empty chair and he slid bonelessly into it. I needed to grab a med scanner to make sure he didn’t have any hidden injuries, but it would have to wait until I’d plotted our course.
I dropped into the captain’s chair and pulled up the navigation control. The FTL drive was fully charged and would be able to jump as soon as we cleared the atmosphere. Now for the moment of truth—how far could we go?
I pulled up a list of reachable locations. The list included the space station I’d started at, the closest gate, and a few planets up to three thousand light-years away. This ship definitely had House internals, and good ones at that. Richard would be foaming at the mouth to get it back.
The gate was the obvious choice. I had no doubt Richard had an array of tracking devices attached to this ship, and I’d never find them all. But if I could get far enough away, the tracking beacons would take so long to reach him that they would essentially become useless.
I plotted a course to Earth, just to see how long the computer thought we’d have to wait at the gate while the FTL drive reset. I frowned at the estimate and changed the destination. But no matter how many different locations I tried, the estimated wait time was the same: one hour. I plotted a course with two jumps and each jump was only going to require an hour’s wait.
An hour turnaround on an FTL drive was impossible. House von Hasenberg scientists were shaving minutes off of six hours and calling it a breakthrough. What we’d heard from the other Houses was the same. And, as far as I knew, even if you had the power stored for a second jump, there was no way to cool the FTL drive sufficiently in so little time without damaging it.
So.
Crap.
Either the estimate was wrong, which would make us sitting ducks for an indeterminate amount of time, or, more worryingly, the estimate was right, which meant Richard would blow us out of the sky at the first opportunity rather than letting me steal the secret.
“Incoming communication,” the computer chimed. The screen showed it originated from ground control, but I would bet good money that it was Richard. I weighed the pros and cons, then pressed the answer key on my console. It would keep the video on me rather than the entire room.
Richard wiped the fury from his face, but not fast enough. “Hello, Richard,” I said. My aristocratic persona was firmly in place.
“Ada, what are you doing?”
“I am leaving. What are you doing?”
He ran a hand down his face and suddenly he looked more tired than I’d ever seen him. “I’m trying to stop a war. You are not helping.”
“You have an interesting way of going about it.”
“I didn’t want it to come to this, but you’re the one who ran away. If we were already married, this wouldn’t be happening. If we marry quickly, we may still be able to prevent it. If not, well, you would make an excellent bargaining piece.”
I ignored the last part because that was just standard House policy. The first part was more intriguing. “We are both far down the House hierarchy. What does our marriage have to do with anything?”
Richard’s expression closed. Ah. Something about that was important. What did he stand to gain from our marriage? He would gain the contents of my dowry. But I didn’t know what all it entailed or how it would prevent war. I made a mental note to look into it.
“I will tell you the same thing I told Father: I will not be forced into marriage. He did not believe me. He thought I would bow to his wishes if he applied enough pressure. He was wrong. I suggest you learn from his mistake.”
“You would rather send your House to war than marry me? We were friends once.” Richard seemed genuinely hurt.
“I refuse to believe that the only two solutions are our marriage or war. I do not understand why our marriage is so important, and until I do, I will not be marrying you. If you would clarify, perhaps I could help you find another solution.”
“Then let me be clear: if you leave in that ship, it will mean war.”
“You mean this mercenary ship that I found on a Yamado planet? This ship? The one I had to borrow after my transport was attacked unprovoked by House Rockhurst? I think the Consortium will be more than happy to hear the entire story from the beginning, along with the surveillance footage from the Mayport. I can c
all them up now, if you like.”
Richard’s eyes narrowed. “You always were spoiled. If you have no concern for your people, then I don’t see why I should.”
“I am not the one threatening war, Richard. You know how to contact me if you want to discuss a mutually beneficial solution.” I closed the link before he could respond.
If the Santa Celestia was in orbit or at least nearby, then Richard could call down a new transport ship in as little as fifteen minutes. I had to clear the atmosphere and jump before he made it back to his ship or we would be in deep trouble.
“Will you marry him?” Loch growled.
I spun around. Loch still lounged in the chair where I’d left him, but he was clearly awake and more alert than he’d been. How much had he heard? Enough to know that Richard wanted to marry. Would I? That was the million-dollar question, wasn’t it?
I sighed. “I don’t know. I do care about our people. If it really would prevent a war, I would have to trade my happiness for theirs. What’s one person compared to the ’verse, huh?” The words were more bitter than I had anticipated.
“You know it won’t be that easy.”
“I know. That’s why I’m still running. I’ll run until I can’t, then I’ll either stand and fight or resign myself to my fate.” I shook off the bitterness and refocused. “For now, I have to get us moving before Richard decides to blow us up for the fun of it.”
“Do you have a destination in mind?”
“I was thinking Alpha Phoenicis Dwarf Zero.” APD Zero was a large, well-known black market in planet form. Anything that could be bought resided on APD Zero—and everything could be purchased for the right money. The Houses turned a blind eye to the less-than-legal dealings because they all got a cut. And while I normally would choose a space station to disappear, with the addition of Veronica, Lin, and Imma, my contact on APD Zero might come in handy.
“That would be my choice as well. There are plenty of smaller options, but it will be easier to get lost on APD Zero.”
Polaris Rising Page 14