by Nina Croft
Rico picked himself up off the floor again. “If that’s the goddamn Church again, this time I’m blowing them out of the sky.”
He flung himself down in the pilot’s seat, smashed his fist on the console in front of him, and the monitor flickered into life. A huge star cruiser filled the screen.
“That’s no Church vessel.”
Alex scrambled to her feet and brushed herself off. She was bruised but nothing worse. She edged around Skylar and peered over Rico’s shoulder at the ship on the monitor. It was huge; she’d never seen anything like it.
“No, it’s not,” Skylar said. “That’s a Collective Star Cruiser, and I’m betting it’s chock full of Corps.”
“How sweet,” Tannis muttered. “Your friends came to say hello.”
Rico frowned. “That shot sounded more like good-bye to me.”
“They must want him bad,” Skylar said, nodding at Jon.
“Yeah, he’s a real popular guy,” Rico replied. “How the hell did they find us so fast?”
“Maybe he’s bugged,” Skylar said.
“Jesus. Why the hell didn’t we think of that?” Tannis leaned across and pressed the comm link. “Janey, you okay? Well, get down here and bring a scanner with you.” She turned back to Rico. “What’s the damage?”
“She’s holding for the moment, but another hit like that, and we’ll have problems.”
“Well, let’s see if we can persuade them not to. Skylar, can you talk to them?” Tannis asked.
Skylar nodded and closed her eyes, her face clearing of expression. A minute later, she blinked. “They’re not interested in talking.”
“That’s not good news,” Tannis muttered.
“Well, the next bit’s even better. They’ve given me five minutes to get off the ship, then they plan on blowing you into little pieces.”
“Will they go ahead even if you stay on board?” Tannis asked.
“Oh, yeah. They made that very clear. But they did promise to resurrect me.”
“They can do that?”
“As long as there’s DNA left.”
“Maybe you’d better go,” Rico said quietly.
Alex’s eyes flashed from Rico to Skylar. Would she go?
“No way,” Skylar snapped. “So you’d better be thinking of a way to get us out of here. And in the next five minutes.”
“How am I supposed to think when you just shot me?”
“So your brain’s in your ass now is it? Figures.”
“Ha-ha. What if we hand him over?” Rico asked, nodding to where Jon lounged against the wall, arms folded. Jon had wiped the blood from his face but it was still smeared across his broad chest. Rico’s question didn’t appear to bother him in the least.
Alex held her breath as she waited for Skylar to answer and only released it when she shook her head.
“No deal. They’re not interested. They want you all dead.”
“Any clue why?”
“They’re not saying. Maybe they don’t even know. I’m guessing the order is coming from up high. Aiden Ross was a founding member—if not a popular one. It might just be in reparation for Jonny over there killing him.”
“But why kill us? We didn’t assassinate Ross.”
“I said it might be. But I don’t think so. My guess is Jonny knows something they don’t want out. And they probably suspect he’s already told us.”
They swung around to stare at the werewolf.
“The name’s Jon, not Jonny. And it was a job. I was paid to kill some guy. I know fuck-all else.”
Janey appeared in the doorway, with Daisy close behind her. “What’s happening?”
“We’re being attacked by the Collective and are going to be blown into pieces in five minutes.”
“Four now.”
“Wow,” Janey said. She didn’t appear particularly disturbed. Alex had never seen Janey less than totally poised, hair and makeup perfect. Janey had red hair like Alex—but that was their only similarity.
Janey lifted the scanner in her hand and waved it. “What do you want scanned?”
“Him.” Tannis pointed at Jon, and Janey turned to stare.
“Double wow,” she murmured. Alex watched with narrowed eyes as Janey sauntered over in her high heels, hips swaying. No one would ever mistake Janey for a boy.
“What am I looking for?” she asked, running the scanner over his bare chest.
“Anything that could be used to track us. And take your time. We have four minutes, after all.”
“Three.”
Beep. Beep. Beep.
“Got it,” Janey said. “Turn around and drop your pants.”
He looked at her for a moment. “Just don’t ask me to bend over, because I’m not going to do it.”
Alex told herself she should look away, but somehow her eyes stayed glued as he undid the button and turned around. He dropped his pants and leaned his arms against the wall in front of him. His skin was smooth and golden, his ass firm above long, muscular legs.
“Nice butt,” someone said.
“Nice legs.”
“Knife.” Janey held out a hand. Crouching down behind him, she ran her slender, scarlet-tipped fingers over his skin. Skylar drew a slim dagger from the weapons belt at her waist and handed it over.
“This might sting a little,” Janey murmured.
His muscles tensed visibly, but he didn’t say a word as she sliced open the skin of his left buttock and probed. After only a second, the tracker popped out, small, about the size of Alex’s little fingertip. Janey picked it up and straightened.
“Get rid of it,” Tannis said.
Janey dropped it to the floor and crushed it with her shoe as Jon pulled up his pants and turned around.
“So what’s the plan?” Tannis asked Rico. “You do have a plan, don’t you?”
“Actually, I do.”
“Well, sooner might be better than later. Are you going to share?”
“I saw this maneuver in a movie once. A long time ago.”
“A movie?”
“An old Earth thing. Anyway, this was one of my favorites, and I’ve always wanted to try it. Strap yourselves in everybody.”
Alex hurried to the nearest seat and fastened the safety harness, while everyone else did the same.
“So, the plan?” Tannis asked.
“Wait and see.”
“Well, don’t make me wait too long.”
“I just need to check…Okay, hold on tight everyone.” He hit the boosters and El Cazador shot forward, straight toward the star cruiser, her blasters blazing shots at the giant ship.
“What the fuck?” Tannis yelled.
The speed pushed Alex back into her seat, and she closed her eyes, waiting for the crash. Instead, they slowed dramatically, the ship spun on her tail, and they stopped.
She opened one eye and peered through her lashes. Everyone still sat still in their seats as though waiting for something to happen.
“Where are we?” Tannis asked.
“We’ve landed on the back of the Star Cruiser,” Skylar said, and Alex heard the wonder in her voice.
Rico grinned. “We’re out of their visual monitors, and their systems won’t pick us up amidst their own internal feedback. Or at least that’s the theory. It should look like we vanished.”
They all sat in silence.
“That’s the five minutes up,” Tannis murmured. “And we’re still here. So what do we do now? They’ll pick us up as soon as we make a move.”
“Well, in the movie, they waited until the rubbish was released into space and then just floated away.”
“What rubbish?” Tannis asked.
“Yeah, well. This movie was made a long time ago, and there was a lot of rubbish back then.”
“So we sit here for the rest of our lives.” Tannis raised one brow.
“Hey, you’re alive, aren’t you? Quit moaning. I’ll think of something. We need to give them time to run some checks first anyway.”
They all fell silent. Tannis paced the bridge. Skylar took the seat next to Rico, who was gazing at the monitor, deep in thought. Alex pulled her feet onto her chair, rested her head on her knees, and watched them all. She’d come to care for them so much over the past three months. Tannis who had taken her in when she was starving, Skylar who had befriended her, and even Janey when Alex managed to get over the massive inferiority complex the other woman induced. The thought of going back to the Church, never seeing them again, made her chest ache. She still had to tell them who she was, and she only hoped they wouldn’t hate her for lying to them.
After a few minutes, Tannis paused her pacing, and her glance darted between Jon and Rico. “So, while we’re waiting, tell us, where do werewolves come from? For that matter, where do vampires come from?”
Rico grinned. “Straight from Hell, darling.”
“Really?”
“No, not really. I’m not even sure Hell exists. The truth is no one really knows where we come from, or at least no one I know of, and if they ever did, the information was probably lost when the Earth died.”
Tannis frowned. “That’s another thing. How did you get out here? How did you escape the Earth? I read that there wasn’t room on the ships for everyone and most people were left behind to die. So how did you lot”—she waved a hand to encompass Rico and Jon—“manage to get a place?”
Alex knew Rico was old. Skylar had told her he’d lived over fifteen hundred years—she couldn’t imagine being around that long. He’d actually lived on Earth. He must have been there when the Chosen Ones made their exodus nearly a thousand years ago.
Rico settled back in his chair. “Do you know how the planets in the Trakis system got their names?”
“Weren’t they called after the spaceships that took the people from Earth?” Janey offered.
“That’s right. Twenty-four ships, each carrying ten thousand humans—The Chosen Ones. They were picked by lottery, though the whole thing was pretty much rigged. Anyway, me and a few acquaintances decided we weren’t willing to rely on a one in fifty thousand chance, besides which, I think they forgot to enter us in the lottery. So we took things into our own hands.”
“Acquaintances?” Skylar asked. “You mean more vampires?”
“Some, but other things as well—you might say we came together for a common cause. Vampires”—he nodded at Jon—“werewolves, and a few others you probably wouldn’t want to meet on a dark night.”
“So what did you do?”
“Most of the people were to be kept in cryo, except for a small crew to run the ship. So we made one of the captains an offer he didn’t want to refuse.”
“What? What could you offer someone when the world was about to end?”
“We offered him life. In exchange for dumping half his load of ‘Chosen Ones’ and replacing them with our people, I gave him immortality.”
Tannis frowned as she thought about it, then her expression cleared. “Shit—you turned the guy into a vampire—wow.”
“I did, and here we are.”
“Yeah, but for how much longer?” she asked, waving a hand at the monitor. “You got any idea how to get us out of this yet?”
“Actually, I might have,” Skylar said and switched on the monitor so it filled with the huge silver hull of the star cruiser. She clicked between views, studying the layout. “There.” She pointed at the screen. “Can you shift us so we’re up against that blaster shield?”
“Sure,” Rico replied.
El Cazador inched forward until the screen showed them snug up against a huge projection.
“Hey, clever. You’re going to create some rubbish. Why didn’t I think of that?”
Skylar slanted him a quick grin. “Just be ready to go.”
She fiddled with the console settings, then punched on the blasters. This close they couldn’t miss, striking where the hull joined the shield. Alex tightened her fingers on the seat as a shudder ran through the ship.
“Hopefully, they’ll think it’s damage from the earlier shooting. One more should do it.” Skylar hit the guns a second time, and the great sheet of metal broke free.
“Go!” she shouted to Rico.
He punched the controls, and El Cazador peeled away. They drifted slowly, keeping pace with the debris. Alex clenched her teeth, waiting for some reaction to the blast, for the space cruiser to come after them, but gradually it grew smaller and smaller in the monitors.
When the vessel was no more than a speck on the screen, Skylar moved to stand behind Rico. “Are they following?”
“No, I think we’re clear.” He gripped her around the waist and pulled her onto his lap. “You’re a genius.”
“So are you.”
“Jesus, this is gross.” Jon’s disgusted tones sounded from nearby, and she turned toward him. He was staring at Skylar and the vampire, his lip curled in an expression of revulsion.
“Too freaking right it’s gross,” Tannis snapped. “Skip it, you two. We have work to do.” Tannis ran her gaze over Jon. “And can someone find him some clothes that fit—he’s a little distracting like that.”
Alex leaped up. The thought of Jon distracting Tannis made her feel distinctly edgy. “I’ll go.”
“No. You stay,” Skylar said. She scrambled to her feet and brushed herself off. “You’ve got something to tell everyone, remember? Janey can go.”
Alex scowled. “I was going to come back.”
“Yes, but when? Just get it over with, kid.”
“I’m not a kid.”
“No? Then act like a grownup.”
Alex squeezed her lips together, bit back a surly response, and then forced herself to relax. Skylar was right, she was acting like a child—the problem was she’d spent too much time immersed in Al’s character—it had become second nature. She drew herself up to her inconsiderable height. She could do this.
“So what is it?” Tannis asked.
Alex shuffled from foot to foot. Why was this so hard? Maybe because she admired Tannis so much. Tannis had taken her in when she was alone and hungry, and on the verge of running back to the Church. Except, at the time, she hadn’t known which way to run. In the three weeks she’d been alone, it had rapidly dawned on her how ignorant she was of the world. Always before, everything had been done for her, and left on her own she’d had no clue how to look after herself.
Would Tannis be angry she’d lied? Even though she hadn’t done it deliberately. Alex hadn’t even realized Tannis thought her a boy until they’d boarded El Cazador, and she had introduced Al to the rest of the crew.
After taking a deep gulp of air, she looked up, straight into Tannis’s eyes. “I’m not a boy.”
Tannis frowned. “You’re not?” Her gaze ran over Alex, took in the baggy pants and shirt hanging off her skinny frame. “Are you sure?”
Rico lounged in his chair, an amused expression on his lean, handsome features. “I believe you, but I’ve got to say”—his gaze roamed her slim figure, lingering on the flatness of her chest—“you sure look like a boy. How about you show us some evidence?”
Alex ignored him and glanced across to where Jon still sat in his seat, his legs stretched in front of him, his expression bored.
Skylar leaned across and switched on the main monitor so a floor-to-ceiling screen lit up in front of her. She tapped a few keys and sat back as an instantly recognizable image appeared. Recognizable to Alex at least, but a quick glance around the room revealed no noticeable reactions.
The image showed a woman in full-length black robes, her hair covered by a dark veil, a serene, otherworldly expression on her small, pointed face. A wave of suffocation washed over Alex as she remembered the weight of those robes—how much she hated black.
Rico was the first to catch on. “No fucking way.” He turned to stare at Alex, then back at the screen. “That’s you?”
She nodded.
“The Lady Alexia, High Priestess of the Church of Everlasting Life? You’re kidding
us, right?”
Alex ground her teeth but said nothing.
“There’s a reward,” Tannis said.
Alex peered closer and read the screen. There was indeed a reward, and it was a huge sum of money. Way more than she would have ever thought they would offer. It didn’t make sense. And Alex didn’t like the speculative look in the captain’s eyes. Tannis was a good person, but if anything could sway her, it was money, and this was a lot of credits.
“The Virgin bride of the Everlasting God,” Tannis read out loud, and Alex cringed. “Virgin?”
Somebody sniggered, and two masculine gazes swiveled in her direction.
“A virgin, huh?” Rico murmured, his voice tinged with amusement and a measure of curiosity.
Skylar slammed him in the gut with her elbow. “Get that look off your face.”
“What look?” He grinned and shrugged one shoulder. “Virgins? Highly overrated I’ve always thought. Give me an experienced older woman any day.”
“It’s only a title, isn’t it?” Janey asked. “I mean, it doesn’t actually mean she’s a real honest-to-god virgin.” She shifted her gaze from the screen to Alex. “Does it?”
Alex’s toes curled within her boots. For a minute, she studied the floor. When she looked back up, everyone was staring at her. Even Jon’s bored expression was replaced with avid curiosity. He caught her gaze and raised an eyebrow. Alex scowled. What was the big deal?
“Hey, give her a break,” Skylar said, but Alex could hear the laughter in her voice. “She was married to God. It’s not Al’s fault he didn’t demand his conjugal rights.”
“Ha-ha,” she muttered.
Janey gave her a sympathetic smile. “Hey, she’s only a kid—leave her alone.”
“I am not a kid.”
“You’re not?”
“She’s twenty-four,” Skylar said.
“No freaking way.” Tannis stared at her.
Alex drew herself up as tall as she could, which still left her the shortest person in the room by a good six inches. What was the point? She slouched again, stuck her hands in her pockets, and thrust out her lower lip. And waited for them to get over it.
And for someone to jump to a few conclusions.