Snarling and cursing, John fiddled with his utility belt and pulled out a stunner. He shot once at the strap nearest to the bulkhead as possible. If the charge came too close to the e-suit, it’d melt a hole in it.
Just as he was ready to fire another shot, he caught a look of Frankie’s face. His heart stopped. His world was reduced to one thin sliver. Frankie’s face. Contorted with pain.
In his helmet, her voice made his heart sing just as it stopped it. “John…I can’t…breathe.”
Something buzzed in her ears. Rhythmic, soothing. Whoosh-whoosh-whoosh. She’d heard this tempo all her life. Her heart. She realized her eyes were closed. She tried opening them. Still blinded. In fact, her entire body felt numb and as if controlled by someone else. Nothing responded to her brain’s messages. She couldn’t feel her extremities. Not because of cold. She didn’t feel cold. In fact, her core was warm. And tight. Something had her by the waist and was squeezing her. Hard.
“Too hard,” she mumbled.
From only the sound of her heart beating, other noises soon joined in. A voice. Cursing, panting. A lot of that. A name. Always the same.
Frankie.
She felt detached, loose, disjointed.
Yet the voice more than the name tickled her memory. She knew that voice. She loved that voice.
John.
As if reality came screaming back in, Frankie opened her eyes. She couldn’t breathe. Something around her waist was cutting into her. It hurt. So bad.
“John,” she murmured. Then louder. “John.”
His face hovered not a foot in front of hers. Two visors separated them, both whitened with condensation. He likewise wore an e-suit. A stunner glistened in his hand. Everything was a shade of green.
“Hold on.” He brought the stunner along her leg and fired. The monkey tail. Something had caught in the monkey tail.
“Wait!”
With deadened hands she grabbed the blowtorch, amazingly still attached to her belt, and brought it up for him to take. He let the stunner float where it may and grabbed the blowtorch. One stitch and her monkey tail melted free of the hatch. John put a few more stitches to the hatch seal. What was he doing? Sealing them in?
“John! Stop!”
“They’re here.” He put another couple of stitches. “They’re in the hold cradle.”
Her heart skipped a couple of beats. At least that.
“What?” She looked around. The reefer sat diagonally, no light other than the ghostly green radiance filtering in from the portholes, no gravity, no propulsion. “What happened?”
He put his visor right up against hers. His crooked grin warmed her heart. “I’ve never been so happy to hear your voice. Even if you sang I wouldn’t mind.”
A shadow fell across his chest, a result from the porthole behind her. Something had just passed in front of it.
“What’s going on?”
“The Imbers, they’re circling us like sharks.”
“And the pipeline?”
“Look for yourself.” John pointed forward at the darkened bridge.
She pushed against the bulkhead to have a better angle. A gasp left her. The thing wasn’t only destroyed in the spot where she’d put the charge. It was emptying of its green acid. Fast. And around them, indeed circling like sharks, Imber ships that somehow looked different flew in crazy patterns.
“What’s going on with them?”
“Let me take a wild guess and say they’re pissed.”
“No, it’s more than that. Look, they hardly glow and—”
A hit to the ship rattled them like beans in a can.
“They’re coming in for the kill!” John yelled. He grabbed her arm, reeled her in. “I’ve already spilled my guts quite effusively, but I do love you. Always have.”
As if a woman could ever tire of hearing that. She wrapped her numb arms around his waist and held on tightly. “You’re such an ass, John O’Shaughnessy. Always have.”
They shared a tight grin. Both visors were covered in white spots. Another hit sent the crippled reefer into a tight roll. Frankie screamed the whole time. Or she thought she did. She was still shaky and confused. They hit knobs and seats and chart table, conduits and pipes and guardrails. Through it all, they never let go. More hits followed. Someone was trying to get in bad.
As abruptly as it’d begun, the strikes stopped.
For a good ten seconds, John and she only held on to each other, helmets together, visors touching.
“They’re gone?” John ventured.
“I doubt it. Sneaky scumbags.”
Another five or six seconds. Frankie had never been known for her patience. “I’ll go have a look.”
“Like hell you are. You’re staying right—”
Darkness chased the green glow away and blocked everything else. Whatever it was that created the shadow, it was big.
John craned his neck. “The mothership?”
“That bitch.”
Together, they pushed and pulled to the fore tacscreens.
“Holy shit,” Frankie murmured. She pumped her fist. “Holy shit.”
Beyond the porthole were human ships. Many, many human ships. Some of them had already circled the portion of broken pipeline while others were still appearing from below the Earth’s curvature. And all of them fired at will. Pulse cannons blazed blue-white. Rockets zoomed out like giant darts. Turrets turned and spun like mad tops to track their targets.
“Look at that. God, look at that.”
Imber ships were taking hit after hit. Without replying.
And still the shadow covered them. She twisted her neck to see what had caused it.
“Bentley, you crazy sonuvabitch.” She would’ve recognized the Magellan’s fine, fine ass among a thousand ships.
“The Magellan?” John likewise peered up at the leviathan floating not one hundred meters above their heads. “Qiu has the best ears.”
“Qiu?”
“I triggered a distress signal just before you blew the Imber pipeline. I figured, if we don’t survive, at least they’ll find our carcasses.”
“Good thinking,” she breathed, her eyes scanning the expanse of space she could see. “Oh my God.”
Imber ships, usually fast and maneuverable, flew in loose formations around the human ships, which still fired volleys in quick successions. Some alien ships went belly-up, their veins darkening by the second. Even the fearsome mothership seemed to be unable to maintain speed and heading. She rolled, collided with a cluster of smaller ships and sent them careening out in all directions. A couple crashed and exploded. And still the green stuff gushed out of the broken pipeline. To Frankie’s shock, the thing had begun to darken as well, from Earth’s surface and up, until the black wave had reached the lunar power plant. Like a chain reaction, the plant also blackened.
“What the hell is going on?” John murmured. “The fuel is turning black.”
“It’s not fuel, it’s their blood. They’re dying.”
Under the Magellan’s protective shadow, John and Frankie watched as every Imber ship stopped and began to float aimlessly, not a glowing vein on any of them. The last remaining active vessel was the mothership. Her cannons and rocket launchers deployed and aimed in many directions at once. But she didn’t fire. The black wave also took her, turning her green veins into dark conduits. Every mobile part froze. Every glint of life died.
“She’s dead,” Frankie breathed.
“But look at this, though.” John held Frankie closer. Their helmets touched.
As they looked through the reefer’s portholes, the thick, glowing lines that had covered Earth for the past centuries began to fade. Like veins of phosphorus slowly draining out of a host, each particle dispersed in the atmosphere, free and unbound, rising, evaporating until nothing remained. Once a sickening shade of incandescent acid-green, Earth was now blue. A globe of shadow and blue ocean.
“It’s so…” Frankie began.
“Blue.”
“Yeah, so blue. Beautiful, vibrant blue. And some white too. Look at that. Gorgeous.”
“It is a nice-looking planet, as planets go.”
A hand landed on her shoulder, squeezed through the e-suit. Frankie reached up and gripped John’s gloved fingers. “They’re gone,” she murmured, awed. “I can’t believe they’re all gone.”
The human fleet ceased fire when it became evident the enemy wouldn’t fire back. When it was clear the war was won.
“…captain. Report.” Bentley’s booming voice made her grin. The man had the finesse of a freighter.
“Beaumont, here.”
“Good God. Am I…happy to hear…Imber…dead ducks…ride?”
John quirked an eyebrow. “Bentley has a dead-duck fetish?”
“I think he’s offering us a ride.”
They chuckled as they made their way out toward the back of the reefer. Because John had welded it shut, they had to use the stunners to break the stitches and float free. Above them like a giant hen, the Magellan opened one of its many cargo hatches. A bright square of light appeared right above their heads then a long boom was lowered right down to the reefer for the magnetic lock to clip. A clang echoed along the hull when the Magellan activated the magnet. Both ships were now attached.
“I know what you did back there,” Frankie began.
“Did what?” The mocking grin was back on. She’d missed it so much.
“It was unbelievably heroic and foolish. Thank you.”
“I’m neither a hero nor a fool,” John replied through his trademark corner grin. “Remember that long conversation I said we’d have?”
Frankie felt heat puff all the way up to her face. She cleared her throat. “Yes.”
“Where do you want it to happen? Your cabin or mine?”
She laughed. “You’re so traditional.”
“Oh?” He gripped her by the arm and pulled her closer to him. Despite the e-suits and both foggy visors, she clearly saw the desire etched on his handsome face. “You’re looking for something a little extra, are you? I’m not opposed to sex in the engines bay.” He winked.
“Womack would have a cow if he found out.”
John’s smile turned mean. “Yeah, Womack. I’d forgotten about that. I have a surprise for him. We’re having soup tomorrow, by the way. Oyster soup.”
Clearly, this was another one of John’s too-witty-for-her jokes. She just laughed along and grabbed his butt when he floated a bit in front of her.
“That’s sexual harassment, Captain.”
“Get used to it.”
John cut a glance back and grinned. “You just wait ’til I’m out of this thing.”
Frankie, in fact, could not wait. She’d already wasted precious years not realizing her affection for John ran much deeper than friendship. She’d be damned if she’d waste a single hour.
“Bring it on. Say, got a toffee stashed somewhere? I’m having one hell of a sugar low.”
“I have one hidden on my person. But you’ll have to find it yourself.”
“You’re tall. It could take me all night to find it. A hint?”
John chuckled. “Nope.”
“Ass.”
About the Author
Nat Gray used to spend inordinate periods of time camping out with five hundred men, walking when she would have preferred driving, and jumping off high places with half her weight in gear attached to various parts of her body. After twelve years in the Canadian military, Nat decided to recycle all her skills and became a writer. Seriously. After many awards, including the 2007 Romantic Times award for best futuristic, Nat is well on her way to her ultimate goal—world domination.
To learn more about Nathalie Gray, please visit www.nathaliegray.com. Or, send an email to Nathalie at [email protected].
Look for these titles by Nathalie Gray
Now Available:
Killing Silk
The last will and testament of a forgotten Earth…
The Mythmakers
© 2010 Robert Appleton
An Impulse Power Story
For Captain Steffi Savannah and her crew of deep space smugglers, life has become little more than a dogged exercise in mere survival. Their latest disastrous heist ended with another dead crew member—and no place left to hide. She’s even finding it hard to dredge up any excitement over the giant, crippled ship that appears on their radar, even though it’s the salvage opportunity of a lifetime.
They find that it’s no ordinary alien vessel. It’s a ship of dreams, populated with the last remnants of Earth’s mythical creatures. Including the blond, built, mysterious Arne, one of a race blessed with extraordinary beauty—and few inhibitions. Though he won’t tell her exactly what he is, in his arms Steffi rediscovers something she thought she’d never feel again. Wonder, love…and hope.
It isn’t long, though, before the Royal guard tracks them down, and Steffi and her crew are faced with a terrible decision. Cut and run. Or risk everything to tow the ship and her precious cargo to safety.
Warning: This book contains moderate sexual activity, strong language and high-cholesterol breakfasts. Also features hot nudists, naive men and other equally rare fantasy creatures.
Enjoy the following excerpt for The Mythmakers:
Steffi lumbered on down the endless corridor, four pounding heartbeats to every thumping step. Moments ago, her spacesuit had felt no heavier than her dad’s winter cardigan; now it pulled on her thighs and anchored her lungs like an antique deep-sea diving suit. Clank, scrape, clank, scrape went her boots. The oily Rorschach walls scrambled and swirled while the light from her helmet lamp roved over them. The surface seemed alive, but it was an optical illusion. No sign of an opening. Neither a narrowing nor a widening of the corridor at any height. She wondered how far her curiosity would last.
Fifteen minutes in and no structural change in the changeling surface. Her palms and neck and the small of her back clung to her thermal undersuit. Moisture streamed down the walls and trickled away through small grids at either side of the convex floor. She checked her readouts again. Gravity and oxygen were the same. The temperature, though, had almost doubled. Thirty-eight degrees Celsius.
The ceiling of mist lowered to around fifty feet above her. Her helmet fogged. She made a higgledy clear streak with the knuckles of her glove.
“Moder, jeg er træt, nu vil jeg sove, Lad mig ved dit Hjerte slumre ind; Græd dog ei det maa Du først mig love, Thi Din Taare brænder paa min Kind.”
“McKendrick, keep it down,” she snapped. “Unless it’s important.”
“Wasn’t me, Cap.”
Steffi smacked her helmet. Had her comm receiver gone screwy? She realised the first voice hadn’t sounded like a woman’s anyway. “Rex, you there?”
“Here, Cap. Everything okay?”
“Was that you singing?”
“Nope. Not me. You don’t wanna hear my singing.”
She paused to untie the knot in her brain. She must have imagined the voice. Was her oxygen mix okay? Hmm, perfectly fine.
The foreign man’s voice grew louder, like a radio in a slow-approaching sky-cab. Steffi heard every crooned word:
“Her er koldt og ude Stormen truer, Men i Drømme, der er Alt saa smukt, Og de søde Englebørn jeg skuer Naar jeg har det trætte Øie lukt.
“Moder, seer Du Englen ved min Side? Hører Du den deilige Musik? See, han har to Vinger smukke hvide, Dem han sikkert af vor Herre fik—”
Clink. The toe of her left boot scuffed the floor. The song ceased. Her lamplight shone across an incongruous form resting against the right-hand wall ahead. It made her knuckles clench. She stopped and stared until her visor steamed again. What was it—that crouched figure—in front of her?
She crept, shifting her weight from one boot to the other, careful not to clang them again and scare the creature away.
“Hello?” she called.
Water trickled under the floor into some kind of drainage system.
“What are you?” came the reply. “Have you come to kill us?”
Steffi had never heard the accent before. It sounded a little like German, though.
“The light dazzles me. I cannot see your face,” the voice continued. “Are you a man or a woman?”
“A woman.”
She closed in and saw that he was a trim, pale but handsome man with shoulder-length blond hair. Naked as Adam, he glistened with sweat. No hair anywhere else on his body. His narrow blue eyes squinted further in the beam of her lamp.
“What do you want here?” he asked, still crouching—solemnly, it seemed to Steffi.
“We’re just investigating your crippled ship. We saw it spinning aimlessly, and we wanted to find out what had happened. No one builds ships like this. Who are you?”
“First tell me your name.”
“Steffi Savannah, captain of the Albatross. And you are?”
“You have a beautiful voice, Steffi Savannah.” He rose and stood facing her, arms akimbo. “I am Arne.”
Her turn to be dazzled. His extraordinarily athletic physique would have been enough to make her shiver with delight, but he was also well endowed. No cuts or abrasions anywhere on his skin that she could see—unheard of among deep-space crews, due to the multitasking nature of maintaining a ship—and he stood without slouch, without pose, and without inhibition. Steffi highlighted every part of his anatomy with her torchlight. He was one hell of a fine specimen. Maybe too perfect.
“You are human, right?”
Arne offered her his hand without hesitation. “Yes and no.”
The gentle tugs of her conscience would at one time have been powerful yanks to rip the carpet out from under her, make her step back and exercise caution. But she was not that girl anymore. Diving into risk from a platform of indifference had kept her in the smuggling trade for a decade. It should not have, but it had. It was her peculiar knack. She accepted his hand and let him lead her twenty feet along the corridor. Neither of them spoke. Suddenly he faced the wall and, with the spidery grip of his free hand, pressed against the phosphorous. The wall spiralled open from the point of contact to reveal a navy blue passageway shimmering with turquoise light. She gasped and gripped him tighter. Where was he leading her? His living quarters? To see his captain? Hmm…what if he wasn’t as benign as he seemed?
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