HeartFast

by Linda Mooney

  “Screw you,” Provoker finally managed to choke out, although it nearly cost him.

  Hunter glanced up. “Fire. Go find Seeker.” He turned back to face the man now lying curled up. “Last chance, Provoker. Are you going to confess? Or will I have to punish you further while Seeker draws the truth out of you?”

  The look that passed between the two men was searing. Several seconds passed, until Provoker suddenly threw up a hand in surrender.

  “All right! All right! The truth! I never touched StarLight. I never bedded her. She never … she wouldn’t even let me lay a hand on her. Everything I’ve been telling you has been a lie. There! Happy now?” he shot at Hunter.

  Slowly, Hunter straightened. The nightmarish image that had covered him started to fade away like morning fog. The black eyes lightened until they were once again sky-blue. He started to turn and walk away from the man on the ground when Provoker scathingly called out, “Great heavens, Hunter, you’re acting as if Star was a virgin when you took her at HandFast.”

  Hunter paused for a split-second, but it was enough for everyone to grasp the truth.

  The courtyard suddenly came to jarring life, blaring out the claxon’s warning. To a man, they began running toward Command. Cursing himself, Hunter realized what he’d just done, but it was too late to do anything about what had occurred. After making sure Star had heard the alarm, he went ahead to see what the emergency was.

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  Subterfuge 4

  “Well, here’s a little tidbit that might amuse you.”

  Three sat back in his seat and waited for the man to continue.

  “Our little bitch wasn’t a bitch after all.”

  One bushy eyebrow ascended. “Get to the point,” he grumbled.

  “Our so-called reliable source at Guardian Command just confessed to the rest of them that he’s never slept with StarLight. In fact, the woman was a virgin until HandFast.”

  “Are you sure about that?”

  “I can check with the doctors,” two suggested.

  “You should have checked with the doctors in the first place, you idiot!” three grated between clenched teeth.

  “It doesn’t matter anyway. I just got today’s readout. She and Master Hunter are still doing the horizontal dance.”

  “But no pregnancy.”

  Two sighed noisily. “No. No pregnancy.”

  Four chewed on an already ragged thumbnail. “Then how can you be so sure they’re both Prime?”

  “Because neither one of them came from here. As far as we know, StarLight is from a solar system several hundred light years from here. It took her four years alone to wander over into our corner of space. On the other hand, Master Hunter comes from the galactic base over past Tri-Secular.”

  “Abernath?”

  “That one. Yeah.”

  “All right.” Four slammed a hand on the edge of his desk. “Have you relayed this bit of news to the others?”

  “Not yet. I came to you first,” two smoothly lied.

  “Then go ahead and let them know. And when you find out anything more, get back with me.”

  “Oh, you can rest assured I will,” two promised, closing communications.

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  Chapter 15

  Ombitra

  “We have a breach in the defenses on Greater Biris!” Deceiver called out. “We have reports of incoming air attacks, and ground troops are subjugating the populace. Every man on board Three this instant!”

  As they piled into Transport Three, StarLight landed a few feet away from the ship and hesitated. Seeing her there, Deceiver gestured for her to enter. “Let’s go, Star. This is an emergency run.”

  “I’ll follow,” she told him, and started to rise.

  “No deal. Get your butt in here now!”

  “I can’t, Deceiver! I’ve been sun dancing!” she snapped in return. Instantly, all eyes were watching from the viewports.

  Her uniform was no longer jet black with white pinpoints. It was totally white, covering her like a skin of pure light. As she moved back into the shadows, that area of the bay lit up with an incandescence that flooded every inch of the floor, up to the ceiling.

  “We don’t have time to argue about this. For the last damn time, get in here!”

  Her answer was to lift off and spurt away into the sky.

  Letting go with a scathing expletive, Deceiver closed the door and ordered takeoff. Within seconds the largest carrier of the Guardian fleet rose from its bed and nosed upward into the sky, with a blinding white light tagging beside it.

  As they lifted, everyone remained glued to the viewing ports to keep StarLight in sight. She didn’t even seem to be exerting herself as she flew parallel to them. Hunter kept one eye on her as he piloted the transport into a smooth arc, then set a course for the Fonn Biris system.

  “Hunter.”

  At Deceiver’s call, he glanced up at the main viewport in front of them and saw Star eyeing him from beside the craft. She was signaling, moving her hands in a fast rotation.

  “Light speed. When are we going into hyper light drive?” Hunter interpreted as he reached for the manual controls on the panel. “Deceiver, does she actually think she’s going to follow us when we hit hyper speed?”

  “Star can haul ass, but she’s not that fast,” Bruiser said from the co-pilot seat.

  Drawing a finger across his throat, Hunter gestured toward the door with his thumb. “Get in the airlock, Star,” he muttered, knowing she couldn’t hear him.

  She rotated her arms again. They were clocking near light speed, but she didn’t appear to be losing ground. Then, to everyone’s surprise, she grabbed one of the ship’s outer foils, lowered her head, and closed her eyes.

  “Heaven’s crap! She’s planning on hanging on?” Disaster yelled.

  “Not if I can help it.” Hunter was already out of his harness straps and heading for the rear of the ship.

  “Hunter! What are you doing?” Deceiver shouted at him.

  “Going out and fetching her. When you see her gone, ram the throttle, Bruiser.”

  “How in the world…”

  “I can move at hyper light speed,” he announced calmly, and then he was gone. Without a protective suit.

  They raced for the front viewport to see what would happen. For several seconds StarLight remained clutching the outer foil. In the blink of an eye, she was gone. At that same instant, Hunter was back in the rear of the transport, holding the astonished woman in his arms.

  Quickly he released her and stepped back as Star slowly got to her feet and glared angrily at him. “What in all creation do you think you’re doing?” she cried out at him. “I’m practically toxic!”

  “Then get into the airlock and ride out the rest of the way in there,” he ordered her. He tried to brush the patterns of white light clinging to him, but they only dimmed. And burned. Worse, holding her had been like having a huge fist pounding into his gut, leaving a hard, undeniable ache of desire surging through him. He had gone hard almost instantly. For the first time, Hunter was glad the upper portion of his uniform came down to mid-thigh.

  She turned and slammed her hand on the airlock switch to open it, but something in her body language set off warning bells in his head. “Forget it, Star, you can’t go back out there. We just went into hyper light.”

  “I’m getting off this transport,” she snapped.

  “No. You’re not.”

  Whirling around, she opened her arms, as if she was about to flare. To her dismay, Hunter merely kept his ground, his arms crossed over his chest, his head tilted to one side as he let her play out her temper tantrum.

  “Who do you think you are? You can’t order me about,” she demanded angrily, although some of her wind had been let out of her sails. If he didn’t flinch then, he wouldn’t back down now. Dammit, but there was no way she could explain to him why she was being so recalcitrant. At least, not in front of everyone.

/>   “I have every right to tell you what to do if I think you’re about to do something very stupid. And you know as well as I do that you wouldn’t have made it through hyper light by holding onto the ship like that.”

  “You don’t know that for certain. I thought it was worth a try!”

  “Not this time,” Hunter argued. “Later on, if you want to be stubborn and unruly, go right ahead and jump into a black hole if you care to. But right now, take your glowing little carcass out into the airlock and stay there.”

  “Why can’t I be stubborn now, instead of later?” she huffed, her chin lifted in defiance. She was breathing heavily, light pouring off of her like a white flood. She was definitely losing this verbal battle, but for some reason she was glad.

  His answer was not what she expected to hear. “Because right now you are my woman, and I’m going to take care of you, even if it kills the both of us. Now, are you going out there peacefully? Or will I have to pick you up again and dump you there after I put a seal on the outer hull door?”

  She stared at him as the air about her head and shoulders fairly crackled. A stomp of her foot showed she was relenting, and they all watched her go into the airlock and close the door behind her.

  “Bruiser, go ahead and seal the outer hull door,” Hunter ordered as he resumed his seat.

  Silently, Bruiser did as he was told.

  “Are you all right?” Animator leaned over and asked Hunter from her seat directly behind him. Her eyes raked over the still-glowing splotches on his dark brown uniform.

  “Yeah. She burned me, but it couldn’t be helped. Is everyone strapped in? It’s going to get bumpy.”

  “Hunter.” Deceiver pulled up next to him. “How did you do what you just did? I thought you weren’t impervious to space.”

  “I’m not. But if I transport quickly enough, I seem to remain inside a little pocket of air.” As he adjusted their course, Hunter waited for the next question he knew was inevitable. Surprisingly, Deceiver didn’t ask it, but instead returned to his seat, making Hunter wonder if the man was even aware of what everyone had seen. Mentally shrugging his shoulders, he steered the ship around the Gammandi system, expertly avoiding a meteor storm, and kept an eye on a growing wormhole off their port bow.

  He slipped a headset on, even though there was no one back at Command to hear him. But there was a speaker inside the airlock. “How are you doing in there?” he murmured softly to her.

  There was no answer for a long while. Then he heard a click when she hit the transmit button. “I’m getting cold.”

  “Your body is cooling down from your sun bath. Do you need a blanket?” Beside him, Hunter could see Bruiser eyeing his one-way communication.

  “No. I’ll adjust. Soon. I hope.”

  “Thirsty?”

  “Yeah. Very.”

  “Corona?” Hunter called out to the only other Guardian who could handle extreme heat.

  “Yeah, Hunter.”

  “Can you take some water out to Star? I’ll lift the airlock door just enough so you can roll a couple of bottles inside to her.”

  “You got it.”

  “Thanks, Hunter.”

  “You’re welcome. Bruiser, I need twelve percent horizontal on those spoilers.”

  “Twelve percent. Check.”

  “I got the water,” Corona called back up the aisle.

  “Right. Star, move back a bit and she’ll roll you the bottles.”

  Eight seconds later, the water was delivered, and Corona had resumed her seat.

  “Hey, Hunter. What makes you so sure you’re going to survive this next year?” the man beside him asked then chuckled.

  Casting his eyes at his co-pilot, Hunter replied cryptically, “Let’s just say we’ve gotten adjusted to each other.”

  “Hunter?”

  “Yeah, Star.”

  “Can they hear me talking?”

  He glanced down at the console. The intraship speakers were dead. “No.”

  “Good. Back there, when you said I was your woman … you said now, but not later…”

  “We’ll talk about it later,” he told her, knowing everyone could at least his side of the conversation.

  “Am I your woman?”

  “I have a blue ribbon to prove it.” That last remark raised a few eyebrows.

  “But not later,” Star persisted. Literally trapped inside the tiny airlock, she had nothing to do during the trip but think. “You mean, after I get pregnant.” Her voice sounded flat.

  “When was the last time you did that sun dance thing?” Hunter tried to steer the conversation onto a safer path.

  “Oh, gosh. I think I was seven or eight. I remembered how it made me feel good. And avoiding answering me isn’t going to work, Hunter.”

  “Copy that, Star.”

  Time Merchant moved forward a bit. “If you go through the outer edge of the Miers system, it’ll cut a good half-hour off our trip.”

  “The Miers system borders the Polis nebula,” Deceiver pointed out. “It’s too dangerous.”

  “I can skirt the nebula, Deceiver,” Hunter assured him. “Merchant, give me a countdown. Star, hang on.”

  Hunching over the pilot seat, Time Merchant closed his eyes and began chanting. Less than a minute later, he tapped Hunter’s shoulder. “Giving you five, starting … now! Four. Three. Two. One. Go.”

  The transport ship bucked, almost spinning on its nose as it slipped past the poisonous nebula and zipped like a streak of light around the rim of the Miers system. The instant the viewport cleared, they could see their destination looming ahead and rapidly growing closer.

  “Damn fine flying!” Disaster crowed. “Makes me wonder why I haven’t put you in the pilot seat more often. Where did you learn to maneuver like that?”

  “My father is a squadron leader for the Third Fleet over on Abernath. Guess it’s in the genes. All right, everyone. Pulling out of hyper light in three … two … one.”

  The lights inside the ship flickered, but every Guardian seated remained surprised by the confession they had just heard from the man at the main console. No one knew where Hunter had come from, or that he had family. In fact, the man never talked about himself at all. Suddenly, in the space of a couple of short days, all that had changed.

  As they entered the atmosphere surrounding Greater Biris, the diamond-bright ships hovering over the agricultural planet sparkled like dewdrops after a spring rain. Yet, for all their beauty, their threat was ten times more dangerous.

  Challenger groaned from where he sat. “Ombitra. Holy crap, a whole fleet of them!”

  “Fill me in, guys,” Hunter asked as he struggled to bring the big ship in.

  Time Merchant backed him up. “Yeah. Ditto for me. Who are the Ombitra?”

  From where he stood, leaning over the pilot’s seat, Deceiver clenched his hands into white fists. “We last fought them four years ago. They’re ruthless. Scavengers. Killers. They rape whole planets of whatever they can get from them, then suck them dry of energy before moving on. They invaded the Daanara system and we went in to repel them. Bloody. Merciless. We lost two Guardians before it was over. I lost two close friends.”

  “Conquest and Redeemer,” Bruiser named with a hitch in his normally gruff voice.

  Over his headset, Hunter heard Star swear in shock. “Where do they come from?” A thought of the worst possible scenario flashed in his mind, pinning Hunter to his seat in agony. He fought the mental image of Star lying lifeless at his feet, and suddenly it started to become more difficult to breathe. Closing his eyes, he battled his inner demons and won … barely.

  “We don’t know,” Disaster shrugged, having joined them up front. “They never hit the same part of our region twice in a row. They’ve always been random attacks. Random targets, random times. There’s never been any rhyme or reason as to when or where they hit. There’s no way to predict where they’ll show up next, or when. But we haven’t had a call about them in almost four years, and that was
a fight I still have nightmares over.”

  Deceiver left them suddenly to go over to the one of the communication boards fitted against the side of the ship, near Bruiser’s elbow. Hunched over with a hand pressed to the headset, the Guardian leader spoke with the leaders and officials of the planet below to let them know they had arrived.

  “What’s their weaponry?” Time Merchant inquired as Deceiver’s voice droned softly behind them. Along with Master Hunter and StarLight, he had become a member of the Guardians two years before, and they were considered the rookies, being the most “recent” inductees.

  “Some kind of high-energy photon burst,” Provoker said. He was getting ready to join Deceiver at the console, to begin outlining strategies for the rest of them.

  From his seat beside Animator, Condemner started to ask a question, but waited as Hunter ducked the ship into a darkening cloud bank. It was a good call. The ship’s hull coating would make it almost invisible to the Ombitran vessels while they were inside. A light blinking on the console below caught his eye, and he noted Hunter flipping the switch to unlock the outer hull door.

  “The Birisian council says the Ombitra ceased firing at least three cycles ago. Casualties are light, but there’s a tremendous amount of damage to property. They also said that when we pulled out of hyper space, the craft began moving for the first time.” Deceiver fed them the details as he interpreted.

  Provoker tossed his head toward him. “We’re going to need some reconnaissance. We need to know where those ships are going. Star should be able to handle it.”

  “Star, did you get all that?” Hunter paused, listening. “We need to do some recon. Hold on. We’ll get you a headset.”

  Deceiver was already moving to take her one. “I got it.” He was stunned to see Hunter instantly right behind him. “What are you doing?”

  Giving his leader a slow grin, Hunter reminded him, “Wherever one of us goes, so goes the other. Or did I remember you reading that particular edict wrong? Besides, you know the two of us can do a bit more damage working as a pair. And I seriously doubt you want to unleash Star on those guys single-handedly.”

  Deceiver frowned. “All right. But I want your headsets on at all times. We need to hear what you hear, when you hear it, and what you’re doing. Copy?”