Cover Fire (Valiant Knox)

by Anastasi, Jess

  “Actually, I was busy, and I still haven’t managed to catch a shower or any shut-eye. But I guess what you’re telling me is I don’t really have a choice. Give me fifteen minutes, and I’ll be there.”

  Seb ended the call, and with his back to her, dropped his head for a long moment before rubbing the back of his neck. A welling of sympathy rose within her, because all of a sudden, he seemed tired. Of course, that probably had something to do with his night spent behind enemy lines after her mission had gone so wrong

  “Sorry, Jenna, but I’m going to have to run out on you.” He faced her, and while he sent her a half smile, there were somber shadows in his gaze.

  “Is everything okay?”

  He shrugged as he slipped the comm back into his pocket. “My debriefing has been moved to now. Apparently, your handler wants to sit in. He wants every detail I can provide about how, where, and when I found your body, and exactly what I did between then and leaving the planet.”

  Concern tightened her chest and she closed the few steps between them to take his hand. “Don’t worry. It’s the same thing he’d do with any of his agents. My guess is he’s wanting a full accounting because the information he was after wasn’t on the drive you gave him. Just stick to the facts as close to the truth as you can, without the part about me, and you’ll be fine. The more truth your accounting has, the less likely you’ll trip up.”

  He nodded, a muscle pulsing in his cheek as he clenched his jaw. “I just hope, for your sake, I can pull it off. If they work out the truth, I might get demoted, but you’ll be dead.”

  His sigh was heavy as he shoved a hand through his mussed hair, and her heart squeezed in her chest. Now that she’d gotten her hands on him, it seemed like touching him had instantly become addictive. She leaned closer to cup his cheek, where the muscles were like stone.

  “You’ve been doing great, Seb, believe me. I know how hard it can be to deceive people, especially those closest to you. What you’re doing for me is nothing short of amazing.”

  A short grin tugged his lips upward. “Yeah, I’m a pretty amazing guy.”

  She let a small laugh escape, dispelling some of the tension. “And with not one iota of humility, either.”

  His grin widened and he opened his mouth to reply, but she slapped her palm over the lower half of his face.

  “And before you say something like when I look this good, who needs humility, let me stop you. Don’t go ruining my mistaken impression that you’re a good guy who’ll put a stranger before his own well-being.”

  His hand encircled her wrist, then gently tugged her palm away from his mouth. “You got me there, honey-cakes. I’ll let you hold onto that fantasy for as long as you like, ‘cause you know this whole gig was just an elaborate ploy to get you into bed, which is totally working.”

  She sent him an exasperated glare. “You’re risking death and going up against the most powerful intelligence agency in the entire universe, just to get some chick you don’t even know to sleep with you. Wow, talk about commitment to the cause.”

  He shrugged one shoulder. “A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do.”

  “You’re incorrigible.”

  She shook her head as the light, teasing moment swiftly evaporated. If Seb said one wrong thing, even let the wrong expression cross his face, her CI handler would be all over it, and then her fake death would be blown right open. Despite the risks, despite the fact she’d known him for a little over twenty-four hours, deep down she believed Seb would go to any length to keep her secret.

  “Be careful, won’t you?” She slid her hands up his arms to grip his biceps. He might be an ace fighter pilot, but he couldn’t have anticipated that this was where he’d end up when he’d agreed to take on the mission yesterday.

  “I’ll do everything in my power to keep you safe.” His hand cupped her upper neck and lower jaw, then he leaned down and lightly touched his lips to hers.

  “Don’t think I didn’t fail to notice you said nothing about keeping yourself safe,” she murmured against his mouth.

  “I’m not the one they’re trying to kill,” he said, voice low. He sealed his lips against hers. This time the kiss was a little deeper, a little more intense, making her blood ripple with tingles. It would be so easy to lose herself in him, take whatever he offered and pretend the rest of the world didn’t exist or wasn’t out to kill her. Yet her damned sense of duty wouldn’t be silenced, so she pushed herself back from him. He groaned as she broke the kiss, his hands tightening on her as he tried to pull her close again.

  “You should go. Being late won’t win you any favors with my handler.”

  “I don’t care,” he muttered against her neck. “Let them wait.”

  She set her hands against his shoulder. “And what are you going to tell them when they ask you why you were late?”

  He sighed as he leaned back and frowned at her in obvious thwarted frustration. “I don’t know. I’ll make something up.”

  “Exactly.” She wiggled out of his grasp and took several steps across the room—well out of reach. “It’ll be yet another lie you have to come up with, when you’ve already got more than a handful to keep straight. Go, and arrive on time, and it’ll be one less way you’ll be covering for me.”

  “Okay, okay. At least let me change this shirt I’ve been living in for the past day and a half.” He pulled at the fastenings on his shirt, revealing a chest-hugging, navy sleeveless top underneath. As he tossed the shirt and then yanked the muscle-top from the waistband of his pants, revealing a ripple of stomach muscles, she headed for the door.

  “I’ll just wait out here. Maybe start unpacking.”

  Seb’s low laugh trailed her out into the main room, where she retrieved her bag and lifted it onto the coffee table to flip open the front compartment filled with all kinds of tech and gadgets.

  “Wow, that’s some serious hardware you’re rocking.”

  Seb had followed her out, shrugging into a new shirt as he stopped beside her.

  “I assume this means you’ll be off doing some super-secret-agent thing while I’m in the debriefing?”

  “Actually, I’m planning on following you.” She grabbed a couple of pieces of tech.

  “Infiltrating the command center, huh?” His fingers traveled over the fastenings of his shirt, snapping the material closed, then he did a half-hearted attempt at tucking the ends into his waistband.

  “The thought had crossed my mind, since there’s a program on the command center computers that can help me trace the origins of the call that ordered my execution.” She stepped forward. “These are for you. First, this is a recording device. I want to hear what my handler has to say in your debriefing.”

  She searched for a place to stick the small, rounded gadget, about a quarter size of her pinkie nail. A glint of chain at Seb’s neck caught her attention, and she reached into the collar of his shirt to retrieve his military tags. Once she’d stuck the recorder in place, she stepped back again.

  “And this one is how you’re going to get me in to the command center.” She held up the square patch. “This emits a short, localized EMP pulse. Slap it on the door as you pass into the command center, and it’ll fritz out any nearby cameras and jam the door open. While the guard is distracted trying to work out what’s wrong, I’m going to slip in.”

  Seb took the patch. “And how do you plan on getting out again?”

  “Unfortunately for the security in the command center, that’s easy. You ever noticed how once you’re inside, no one ever stops you to ask you what you’re doing? That’s because everyone assumes that if you’re in the command center, then you’re meant to be there. It’ll be as simple as walking back out again.”

  “Wow, I’d never thought about that before, but you’re right. How have they not realized they’ve got a big fat hole in their security procedures?”

  “When this is all over, feel free to tell them all about it. In the meantime, it’s going to come in hand
y. Now, the only hitch to my plan… You wouldn’t happen to have a spare uniform about my size sitting around anywhere?”

  Seb’s gaze ran up and down her body, but the measurement was impersonal.

  “There are plenty of spare uniforms up on squadron level, but we probably don’t have time to detour if you’re serious about getting me to the debriefing on time.”

  If her plan failed because she couldn’t get her hands on a uniform…well, it would be a bad start to the day. Falling at the first hurdle wouldn’t bode well for her overall scheme.

  “Bren.”

  The word broke through her spinning thoughts.

  “My CO, Lieutenant Brenner, she lives just down the hall, I could ask her—”

  Jenna slipped him a half smile as she headed for the door to his apartment.

  “Perfect, she was about my size, maybe a bit taller. But that will do. We’re not asking her, though. We’ll just borrow a uniform and put it back before she realizes it’s missing.”

  Seb shot her a skeptical look. “I suppose there’s no point asking how you’re going to get into the locked apartment of my CO?”

  “None whatsoever,” she replied with a cheerful lilt in her voice. “Now, which one is it?”

  Chapter Eight

  Seb glanced up and down the hallway for the billionth time, tapping his foot while he waited for Jenna to reappear. She’d used one of her gadgets to knock out the security cameras in the immediate area, but he had a creeping sensation along the back of his neck.

  No one had passed through the passageway so far and at this time of day when most people were on-shift, it was unlikely anyone would come by. Still, his heart pitter-pattered like a damn little drummer boy, and for some reason he couldn’t quite get a full breath into his lungs.

  This espionage stuff sure wasn’t for the faint of heart, and the last few hours had given him a new appreciation for the life Jenna had lived. He couldn’t imagine doing this day in, day out. Standing guard outside the apartment of his CO while a supposedly dead chick helped herself to said CO’s uniforms wasn’t even dangerous. No one was going to use him for target practice if he happened to get caught, though he’d have more than a few awkward questions to face.

  And they were questions he wouldn’t have answers for, because while he’d agreed to come along as lookout on this little jaunt, his brain had most definitely stalled. At some point between when he and Jenna had gotten their lips together—he still couldn’t work out who had kissed who exactly—to when Bren had interrupted them with her badly timed comm, his mind had hit the deck with a messy slap and hadn’t quite picked itself up yet.

  Okay, yeah, he’d been laying the flirting on a little heavier than usual, because something about Jenna intrigued him. But he hadn’t seriously considered taking things there. He’d learned his lesson about letting people get close after Lawler. Call him a schmuck, but he liked to know who he was sleeping with, and since Jenna’s entire life was dedicated to being someone else every other day of the week, he didn’t want to go to bed with a girl who didn’t really exist. One best friend who didn’t really exist had been more than enough mind-screw for one lifetime.

  Who would ever have guessed he actually had some principles buried beneath the layers of sarcasm and good-time attitude?

  He wrapped his hand around his wrist, over his multifunction device, resisting the urge to glance at it for the tenth time. The damn thing would only tell him that two entire minutes had gone by anyway. But how long did it take to swipe a few clothes from a closet?

  He grabbed a quick look up and down the passageway, then shuffled sideways and slid open the door to the apartment. “Jenna, come on, let’s get moving.”

  “I’m coming.” Her answer floated from the direction of Bren’s bedroom. “Get back outside and keep watch like you’re meant to.”

  He started sliding the door closed again. “Yes, ma’am, Ms Bossy-britches—” His muttering died in the back of his throat as a dark-clad figure loomed up on his left side.

  He ducked just in time to avoid getting his head smashed into the wall and pushed off from the bulkhead, spinning to face the attacker. Before Seb had quite gotten his footings, his assailant—covered from head to toe in black—launched at him. He tried to scuttle back but started going down, and decided to go with it. The smaller guy came after him, but Seb used the downward motion to roll, evading a fist in the face.

  As he came up into a crouch, the attacker leaped at him again, hands out, ninja-style. Seb shoved to his feet and got his arms up to block the strike and then grabbed the guy’s elbow, propelling him off balance. While the assailant tried to recover, Seb got in a hit under the ribs, gratified when his opponent let out a hard grunt.

  But his satisfaction didn’t last.

  The attacker spun with a sharp movement, arm closing around his throat as a foot in the back of his knees sent him down. Trying to loosen the pressure, Seb clamped a hand around the forearm cutting off his air. Blackness trickled around the edges of his vision as he desperately jammed his elbow backward, catching the guy square in the guts. The arm on his neck loosened a fraction but didn’t release. In another second, it was banding tighter again, bringing with it a surging tide of panic.

  The door in front of him slid open, and Jenna appeared, her face dropping into a mask of shock as her gaze landed on him. But in a blink, her expression sharpened with deadly intent as she pulled a gun and lined the sights above his head. The attacker released him by shoving him forward and then jumping up. Jenna let off a single shot as the attacker dashed down the corridor.

  Seb collapsed onto his hands, sucking oxygen into his aching throat until his eyes watered.

  “Seb!” Jenna came down next to him, hands on his shoulders. Her touch brought a sense of relief and safety. As cool air sliced into his lungs, dizziness slammed into him, and he leaned sideways until the deck came up to meet him, Jenna keeping him steady as he dropped.

  “Just need to lie down for a minute,” he mumbled, closing his eyes as sparks flashed in his vision. “Did you get him?”

  Except apparently Jenna wasn’t on board with the horizontal plan. She pulled at him, forcing him upright into a sitting position, and then leaned him against the bulkhead.

  “No, he ducked the shot and ran away.”

  “You should have gone after him,” he muttered as he grappled with lucidity.

  “No you don’t, tough guy. You need to stay conscious, at least until we get you checked out on medbay level.”

  He forced his eyes open, making himself focus on her. “And how am I going to explain that I got attacked by a ninja while I was doing a half-assed job of playing lookout as you pilfered a uniform from my CO’s apartment?”

  She rolled her eyes and got her shoulder underneath his arm, then helped him to his feet. “Obviously, you need to leave out the last bit, and probably the bit about the ninja, if you ever want anyone to take you seriously again.”

  They started at a slow walk down the passageway. “But you saw him, right? Tell me how that wasn’t a ninja.”

  He felt her tighten underneath his arm and got the feeling she was trying not to laugh. “Because for one, ninjas don’t exist. And even if they did, have you ever heard of a ninja in space? More like it was just a well-trained operative who wanted to make sure they couldn’t be identified.”

  By the time they arrived at the transit, he was feeling more stable, and slid his arm from around her shoulders. “Why the hell did some ninja wannabe try to take me down?”

  As she tabbed the control screen, Jenna avoided his gaze. “My guess? Whoever thinks they had me killed is trying to tie up loose ends. You were the pilot who flew me down to Ilari, the last person who saw me alive, and the one who supposedly recovered the information I went to retrieve. Kill you, and the situation becomes a neatly tied package.”

  He hugged his aching ribs and tried not to breathe too deeply, even though his mind still felt too slow and oxygen deprived. “Well, yeah,
that would make sense. To an evil supervillain.”

  The transit arrived and he shuffled on, shooting Jenna an exasperated glare when she tried to help him. She held her hands up in surrender, though he couldn’t miss the flash of concern in her jade gaze.

  He jabbed his destination into the control panel. “For the record, I’m not going up to medbay. I’m going to my debriefing.”

  With a short breath, he leaned back against the wall, giving his legs more of a chance to steady themselves. The past twenty-four hours slammed into him like a meteor, leaving him aching and exhausted.

  “Look, this isn’t some macho won’t-see-a-doctor-until-I’m-dead thing,” he said wearily, dragging a hand through his hair. “This is me trying to avoid lying anymore than I already am. If I tell them I almost got my number clocked, then they’re going to want to know where I was, what I was doing, how the guy got away and why there isn’t any security footage. I just want to forget the whole thing even happened.”

  A shadow of emotion flashed through her eyes. “Sure, whatever will make this easiest on you.”

  A tightness grabbed him in the guts, leaving him feeling like he’d said something wrong. But damned if he could work out what that might have been, with his midsection sore, his neck aching, and his brain still on a slow spin.

  The remainder of the ride went by in silence, while Jenna avoided looking at him, and he surreptitiously studied the gorgeous line of her profile. That kiss had been something else. The instant heat and intensity had taken him with all surprise of a rocket flare in the face. He couldn’t remember the last time a simple kiss had blown him away like that. A shudder shot down his spine, and he forced himself to stare at the inset screen beside the door. Truthfully, there hadn’t been anything simple about that kiss, both figuratively and literally.