Not the Man She Thought

by Paige Tyler

  As she carefully made her way through the maze of ducts again, she paused at each vent opening to make sure that no one was below before she crawled across the vent. When she came to the ship’s engine room and saw that it was unoccupied, she stopped, an idea abruptly coming to her.

  Checking the door, she opened the vent cover and lowered herself into the room below.

  Laken had never been in a ship’s engine room before, but since it was run by computers, she could easily find her way around the equipment. Engines might be complicated, but computers were simple. Going over to them, she shut off the ship’s engine by making it think it was in danger of overheating. Then she set a series of administrator passcodes so Enak and his crew wouldn’t be able to override the computer’s automatic shut-down sequence. She smiled as the engine slowed to a stop. Rade should have no problem finding her now.

  Knowing someone would come to check the computers now that the ship’s engine was off, Laken wasted no time climbing back up into the ventilation shaft. She was covered in dirt and grime from head to toe thanks to all the crawling around she’d done, but she didn’t even notice it. Leaning back against the wall of the shaft, she settled in to wait.

  It wasn’t long before one of Enak’s men came into the engine room to check on the ship’s power. Laken quietly crept forward and looked through the opening in the vent. The man fiddled with the computer, only to let out an expletive a moment later when it wouldn’t grant him access.

  He took the handheld com from his belt. “Sir, I can’t get the engines to restart. The damn computer won’t let me in.”

  Laken could hear mumbling on the other end of the com. Then a man’s voice said, “I’ll be right there.”

  Below her, the man in the engine room clipped the com back on his belt and tried to access the computer again. A moment later, a tall, gray-haired man walked in, followed by Enak. Laken instinctively moved back from the vent a little.

  As she watched, the gray-haired man stationed himself in front of the computer and began typing. “What the hell...?”

  “What is it?” Enak demanded.

  The gray-haired man shook his head. “I don’t know. The computer has put us in emergency shut-down mode. It thinks the engines have overheated.”

  “Well, just tell the damn thing that they haven’t,” Enak said.

  “It’s not that simple,” the other man said. “The computer won’t accept my override command. It keeps saying my passcode is incorrect.”

  Enak frowned. “How the hell can that be? Are you putting in the right one?”

  The man’s mouth tightened. “Of course I am. The computer just won’t recognize them.”

  “Well, then take the damn computer offline and do it manually,” Enak told him.

  The man gave Enak an impatient look. “This isn’t some cheap hovercraft. There isn’t any manual method for restarting a Tachyon-drive engine.”

  “So, what do we do?” Enak demanded.

  The captain frowned. “I don’t know yet. But if we can’t get the engines started soon, then we’re in for a whole mess of trouble because we’re drifting into Nijon’s planetary atmosphere. Without power, we’ll never survive reentry. We’ll be forced to abandon ship.”

  Crap. When she’d shut off the ship’s engine, she had naturally thought they were in the middle of deep space. She hadn’t even considered they might be close to a planet. If Rade didn’t get to her in time, she was as good as dead.

  * * * * *

  Standing on the bridge beside his first officer, Rade wondered if it really was possible for a person to go out of their mind with worry. It would take days to get to Yerel and there was no telling what that bastard Enak would do to Laken in that time. For all Rade knew, Enak could have killed her already. His gut clenched at that. He couldn’t let himself think that way. She was alive, he knew it. He would feel it if she weren’t.

  “Captain, I’ve got something strange on the com frequency,” Kam said from the controls.

  Rade walked over to stand behind the other man’s chair. “What is it?”

  “I’m picking up a distress signal from a ship, but it’s not the usual SOS,” Kam said. “It’s repeating the word ‘trap’ over and over.”

  Rade’s heart began to pound. “It’s Laken. Fix on the signal.”

  Kellen came up behind him. “How do you know it’s Laken? It’s a common frequency. It could be anyone. It could be someone playing a joke.”

  “It’s Laken. I know it.”

  If Laken had gotten to the com room to send out that distress signal, that meant she was still alive. They just had to catch up to Enak’s ship.

  “Once you get a fix on that signal, I want you to go to max power and keep it there until we catch up with that ship,” Rade told Kam. “I don’t care if we blow out the engine, I want you to keep—”

  “Captain,” Kam said, interrupting him. “Catching up with the ship that distress signal is coming from isn’t going to be a problem. I don’t understand it, but for some reason, it’s sitting dead in the water. The engines seem to be offline.”

  Rade waited tensely while Kam took them out of hyperdrive and maneuvered them toward the other ship. It was a little tricky since the other ship was already dangerously close to the planet beneath them.

  Rade frowned. Had Laken done something to Enak’s ship? If so, why do it when they were so close to a planet’s gravity well? Didn’t she realize the ship would just tumble into the atmosphere uncontrollably?

  “Captain, the sensors just picked up a shuttle heading toward the planet. They must have abandoned ship,” Kam said, glancing over his shoulder at Rade. “Do I follow the shuttle?”

  “Are the sensors picking up any life signs on the ship?” Rade asked.

  Kam was silent for a moment as he checked the computer in front of him. “I can’t say for sure. It’s difficult to tell with the atmospheric interference. Maybe.”

  Rade’s frown deepened. He had no idea if Laken were on the shuttle or the ship. He didn’t think Enak would leave her behind so easily, but the nagging feeling in his gut told him differently. Either way, he couldn’t let that ship fall into the atmosphere without checking to make sure if Laken were on it or not.

  “Follow the shuttle,” he told Kam. “I’ll take ours and go check out the ship.”

  Turning on his heel, Rade ran down the passageway, pausing just long enough to duck his head in the com room and tell Dev she was going with him. Dev didn’t ask questions, but simply hurried after him.

  Even though Enak’s ship was already bucking as it started to enter the planet’s atmosphere, Rade was able to dock easily. Mainly because there was no one on the ship trying to stop him. Maybe Enak really had abandoned ship. But then Rade remembered Laken’s distress signal. She had been warning him that this was a trap. Maybe this was what she’d meant.

  “Stay with the shuttle,” he told Dev. “If I’m not back and the ship starts to tumble into the atmosphere, I want you to get the hell out of here. Understood?”

  Dev opened her mouth to argue, but Rade didn’t give her the chance. Pulling his weapon from its holster, Rade left the safety of the shuttle and boarded Enak’s ship.

  * * * * *

  “I’m not letting you take her from me, Karsten!”

  Rade leaned back against the wall, breathing hard. The interior of the ship was lit only with emergency lighting and the warning alarm that was going off made it hard to think. The electronic voice that kept declaring “imminent uncontrolled reentry” wasn’t helping matters any. He stuck his head around the doorway he was hiding in, only to jerk back as a bullet pinged off the wall near him.

  He had cautiously been making his way from room to room looking for Laken when he had come upon Enak standing in the middle of the passageway looking like a complete madman. Rade had immediately shot at the other man, but the rocking of the ship threw off his aim and the shot went wide. Enak had returned fire and now they were at a standoff, with him at one end of
the passageway and Enak at the other.

  Rade considered closing the door between him and Enak and go back the way he’d come, but quickly scrapped the idea. That would leave a lot of ship left unsearched, and from the way Enak was talking, Laken must still be on board. He had no choice. He was going to have to charge Enak and just hope for the best.

  Rade was just getting ready to launch himself out the door when someone suddenly dropped out of the overhead vent to land on the floor in the passageway in front of him. He was half a second away from shooting whoever it was when he abruptly realized it was Laken. She jumped up and darted through the door, hitting the button to close it as she did so.

  “Shoot the door panel,” she ordered. “Quick!”

  Rade had already lifted his gun and was squeezing the trigger even as she spoke. Outside in the passageway, Enak roared in frustration. Satisfied the man wouldn’t be able to get through the door any time soon, Rade turned to Laken. She rushed into his arms, hugging him tightly.

  “You came for me,” she breathed. “I knew you would.”

  Rade wrapped his arms around her. “Of course I did, sweetheart.”

  He held her close, never wanting to let her go. But the ship was already starting to lean so far over that it was getting harder and harder to keep their feet under them. They needed to get out of there. Holding onto Laken’s shoulders, he took a step back and gazed down at her. Other than being covered in dirt, he was relieved to see she looked unharmed. Even so, he had to know for sure.

  “Did that bastard hurt you?”

  She shook her head. “No, I’m fine.”

  Thanks God. “The ship is going into the planet’s atmosphere. We need to get out of here before it starts to break up.”

  Laken nodded. “Which way do we go?”

  He took her hand and led her down the passageway. “This way.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Laken reached out to brace herself with a hand against the wall to keep from falling as the floor pitched from one side to the other underneath her feet.

  “We need to get to the airlock, but I came from that direction.” Rade gestured behind him at the door that now separated them from Enak. “Do you know another way to get there?”

  She nodded. Thanks to all the time she’d spent in the air ducts, she’d gotten familiar with the ship’s layout. “Yes, but it’s going to take us longer. We have to hurry.”

  Laken quickened her step even as she said the words, but it was difficult to run and keep her balance at the same time. Around them, the ship’s steel plating groaned as it started to succumb to the force of the planet’s gravity. The hull was going to split open and depressurize at any second. Her heart raced as they hurried down one passageway, then another. They weren’t going to make it.

  “How much farther?” Rade asked from behind her.

  “Not far,” she told him.

  At least she hoped it wasn’t. The ship looked a lot different than it had when she’d been crawling around in the ducts. From what she remembered, the airlock for the shuttle bay should be at the far end of the passageway, just past the next junction.

  Laken picked up her pace as she passed the junction, sure she was right, when she heard Rade let out a grunt. Skidding to a stop, she whirled around just in time to see him hit the floor with Enak on top of him. Her eyes went wide. The bastard must have been waiting for them.

  Rade’s gun slid across the floor and out of his reach. Enak, however, managed to hold onto his own weapon, and Rade had to grab the other man’s wrist to keep from being shot. That didn’t stop Enak from pulling the trigger, though, and Laken ducked as laser fire pinged off the wall dangerously close to her head.

  “Laken, run!” Rade shouted, the words strained as he struggled with Enak. “Get to the airlock!”

  Like hell. There was no way she was going anywhere without Rade.

  She pressed herself against the wall as the ship pitched at a sharp angle. Rade’s gun slid across the floor a few feet in front of her, and her gaze locked on it. Keeping one eye on the two men as they fought, Laken dropped to the floor and crawled on her hands and knees toward the gun just as the ship tilted again, this time in the opposite direction. Bracing herself against the floor to keep from tumbling across it, she reached out and grabbed the gun as it went sliding past her.

  Gripping it tightly in her hands, she pointed at Enak’s back and squeezed the trigger. The moving ship threw off her aim way off, though, and laser fire pinged off the floor right beside Rade’s head, leaving a deep gouge in the metal.

  “Dammit, Laken! What the hell are you doing?” Rade demanded as he fought to control Enak’s weapon. “I told you to get out of here!”

  “I’m not leaving without you!”

  Bracing herself against the wall, Laken lifted the gun to take another shot, but then hesitated. The two men were moving around so much that she had just as much chance of hitting Rade as she did Enak. She couldn’t risk that.

  Not knowing what else to do, she sat there and watched helplessly as Rade struggled to get Enak’s weapon away from him. Suddenly, the ship leaned sharply, causing the two men to roll across the floor. As they did so, Rade managed to slam Enak’s hand against the floor, knocking the gun out of it. Rade made a grab for the weapon, but it slid out of his reach before he could get to it.

  Laken held her breath, wondering if she could somehow get her gun to Rade. But he didn’t need it. Drawing back his fist, he punched Enak squarely in the face. Though the force of the blow would have been enough to knock the man down on its own, the ship chose that moment to tip on its side, which sent Enak tumbling and rolling halfway down the corridor away from them.

  Rade didn’t waste any time. Scrambling to his feet, he ran over to her, then grabbed her hand and raced down the passageway toward the airlock. Opening the hatch, he shoved her through, then slammed the door closed behind them. Glancing over her shoulder, Laken looked out the small window and saw Enak getting to his feet. Her already pounding heart started to hammer in her chest.

  “He’s coming after us!”

  “Like hell he is,” Rade muttered.

  Taking the gun from her hand, he aimed it at the control panel for the hatch and fired. Sparks and metal went flying everywhere, but Rade accomplished his goal. Enak hammered at the controls on the other side of the door to no avail. The hatch wouldn’t budge.

  Inside the shuttle, Dev was sitting at the controls, her hand hovering over the airlock disengage button. Relief crossed her face at the sight of them.

  “I thought you weren’t going to make it,” the woman said as she punched the button.

  “We almost didn’t,” Rade said. “Get us out of here.”

  Dev didn’t wait for either of them to sit down and belt themselves in before she jerked the shuttle away from the airlock. Grabbing the back of the nearest seat, Laken half fell into it. Across the aisle from her, Rade did the same. They both watched as Dev fought the controls, doing everything she could to get the small shuttle back up into orbit.

  Through the shuttle’s front vis-screen, Laken watched as the evil bastard’s ship tumbled through the planet’s atmosphere. First, it began to glow red, then large pieces of it started to tear away from the hull. A moment later, there was a huge explosion. She let out a shudder. If she and Rade hadn’t gotten off there when they had...

  Across from her, Rade reached out and took her hand, giving it a reassuring squeeze. “It’s over, sweetheart. We’re safe. That bastard can’t hurt us anymore.”

  She could only nod.

  He leaned close, lowering his voice so Dev couldn’t hear. “But when we get back to the ship, you and I are going to have a serious talk about this habit you have of not doing as you’re told.”

  Laken had the feeling they would be having that talk with her draped over his knee while he reddened her bottom. But right then, she was so relieved they were both safe she wasn’t about to protest.

  * * * * *

  “I do
n’t know why I have to get another spanking,” Laken said, giving Rade a pout over her shoulder as he sat down on the couch in their cabin and guided her over his knee. “You already spanked me for not listening to you on Enak’s ship. And for going off the main street when I went shopping with Pammay after you told me not to.” She wiggled into a more comfortable position as Rade placed his hand on her back. “You even spanked me on our wedding night for being late to the ceremony.”