Gabe flew across the room, slammed into the now empty couch and tumbled over it. Maze had two guns out pointed at Samantha, and I felt my hand drifting down towards my own weapon. Samantha turned back towards me, some sanity creeping back into her eyes. My heart broke for her a little bit then. She looked kind of sad and shocked at how she had reacted. I felt my mouth open as she reached behind her and yanked the blade free, letting it fall to the floor. The torn flesh I could see through the hole in her shirt mended back together almost instantly.
“Damn, and I really liked that coat.” She seemed to be calming down. “I’m sorry, Captain. It’s just that when you’ve dreamed of being free your whole life, to have that moment of opportunity almost taken from you.” She looked down and shook her head. “It was almost too much for me to bear.”
I motioned for Maze to put her guns down. She let her arms fall to the side but didn’t holster the weapons. “Doc, check on Gabe for me, will you?” He looked shocked by Samantha’s display but complied with my orders right away.
“Ice, why don’t you and Kyra head back to the bridge? I think I have a pretty good idea of where you stand on the issue. I’ll let you know our destination when we have a better idea of how this is going to play out.”
Richard helped Gabe back to his feet. After a quick examination, he let him go. Gabe wobbled for a moment and then steadied himself against the back of the couch. “Maze, help Gabe back to his quarters.” She looked ready to fight me on it, but at the last moment she tucked her weapons away and pulled one of Gabe’s arms over her shoulder before walking him out of the room.
That just left me and Doc to deal with Samantha. “Doc, get something to clean up this blood will you, and take the knife with you. I’m sure Gabe will want it back after it’s cleaned up.”
“Of course, Captain.” He hurried out of the room.
Samantha turned towards me and pointed at my chest. I looked down at the wound there and saw my shirt was covered in blood. “Shit.” She caught me as I swayed on my feet, and took me over to one of the couches.
“I’m so sorry, Captain. I didn’t mean for any of this to happen.”
The wound was deep, but it hadn’t started to hurt yet. That was never really a good sign. Wounds were supposed to hurt, unless you were getting near death. Then everything tended to feel ok. I just looked at it and wondered how much force did it take to stab a knife through someone into someone else. I was going to have to ask Gabe just what in the hell he was eating. Almost involuntarily, like it was a habit ingrained from practice, Samantha reached into the hole of her own bloody shirt and covered her fingers in blood and then reached out to put her hand against my chest.
I stopped her before she could touch me. Our eyes locked and I didn’t see anything there that scared me so I let her hand go. She rubbed her blood into the wound, and I felt it start to close. If you’ve ever had stitches before, you know the weird feeling of your skin being pulled back together. This felt the same except it was happening faster, much faster.
A noise startled us from what was happening, and I looked towards the door to see the doc standing there with a spray bottle of cleaner. He looked like he wanted to say something, but he kept his mouth shut. I turned back to Samantha, realizing just how close we were and how intimate that moment must have looked. She must have come to the same conclusion because she backed away from me.
I tried to find the right words, to say thank you, but instead I said. “What was that?”
She just looked down at her bloody fingers and whispered, “I don’t know.”
CHAPTER 6
CAPTAIN DRAKE
Running my fingers over the nonexistent wound on my chest was almost surreal. I couldn’t even make out where the knife had gone in anymore. A wound the Doc would have been hard pressed to fix was now merely an unpleasant memory. Richard was busy pumping a large spray bottle of disinfectant onto the bloody floor and then using another tool to suck up what was left behind. All of it went into a neat little bag that he could just dump in the incinerator.
I kept running my fingers over where the scar would have been, wondering how this could even be real. What happened now? Would I become like her, was my life now bound to hers in some way? Maze wasn’t going to forgive me if I let that happen. The oddest part was Samantha didn’t even seem to know what she had done. It just kind of happened, but she had saved my life. As far as future plans went, well, they were pretty much totally fucked until I figured out if she had changed me.
Standing up from the couch, I wobbled for a moment. A vice-like hand clamped down on my arm steadying me. I nodded to her in thanks before turning back towards Doc. “How much time would you need to prep her for surgery?”
Richard looked up from his work. “There are a lot of factors I’d need to consider before doing the surgery, Captain.”
“Given what you know now, how long?”
Richard stopped spraying the ground and looked up, realizing I was serious about getting the surgery done sooner rather than later. “A few hours at least.”
“Then you better get started.” I moved forward and took the spray can of disinfectant and the vacuum from the doctor before facing a stunned Samantha. “You should go with Doc and get cleaned up. He’ll have some scrubs you can wear while I try to track down some new clothes for you.”
She stood from the couch her eyes were almost unfocused as if she were stuck in deep thought. When she pulled herself away from whatever she was feeling and turned her gaze on me my heart almost stopped. Her eyes pierced into me with a depth I didn’t know was possible. I felt like in that moment she knew me, all of me. That she had seen every single one of my dirty secrets and accepted me regardless. That kind of acceptance wasn’t something you found every day, it was more of the once in a lifetime kind of things. Her eyes softened, and she smiled and started moving towards me.
“Thank you,” she whispered as she passed me on her way to the medbay.
Deadly and sexy, the combination that always led to my downfall. That and she saved my ass already, which seemed to be a prerequisite for earning my affection. Jesus, I was all kinds of screwed up. I already had a woman on this ship I was crazy about. I was pretty sure she loved me, and here I was thinking about getting down and dirty with a vampire. I didn’t know what it was going to take to get my head screwed on straight, but whatever it was I had better find it fast. If I continued down this path I was likely to have two women on this ship that wanted to kill me.
I shook myself from my stupor just in time to focus my eyes on a rather finely shaped ass before it disappeared around the corner. It was almost like I couldn’t help myself. What in the hell was I even thinking? The last thing I needed right now were more problems and following that ass would burn me up faster than a cheap ship going through atmo. Shaking myself out of it I continued to spray the floor and the wall. Once I had everything cleaned up I took the sealed bag from the vacuum and dumped it in the incinerator chute.
Now it was my turn to get cleaned up and if I was lucky, maybe a little bit of rest before I had to see whatever plan the doc had cooked up. Choosing to do the surgery and keep her out of the box didn’t leave us with a whole lot of options. If she died during the surgery, we were totally fucked. If she lived and we didn’t deliver her to the location, we wouldn’t fare much better. In fact, all it would really do is give us a head start in our efforts to disappear. There had to be a third option. Maybe a hot shower would help me sort things out. I did some of my best thinking in the shower, but Kyra had destroyed our hot water system again, so that wouldn’t be happening today.
There was still more I needed to find out about our newest passenger. She had already confirmed that she had woken up twenty years in the future, but just how old was she really? What had she done before she went in the box? Her eyes had confirmed her as an assassin, but maybe that was only part of it. Whoever had taken her had put that chip in her head to control her. Would she have still been a killer if she hadn
’t been forced to act? Samantha was just as big of a variable in this as anything else. Could we trust her? I had no idea, but I wanted to.
Tired and in need of some clean clothes. I headed towards my quarters. When I entered the room, I was surprised to see Maze standing there. She looked worried, and her hands were trembling.
“I thought I lost you,” she said running towards me.
How did she know about my wound? I thought I’d sent everyone away before I even discovered it myself. I pulled her into a hug. “You almost did, but only because Gabe acted without thinking.” I moved her hand over where his knife had pierced my chest.
She looked at me confusion showing on her face. “What do you mean?”
Oh, she was talking about when Samantha slammed me against the wall. So she didn’t know about the wound in my chest at all. Gabe was going to have hell to pay when she heard about it. “I mean, the asshole stabbed me in the chest, and if it wasn’t for Samantha, I’d be dead right now.”
Maze turned away from me and I could see her anger building. It wasn’t much of a surprise that I had said the wrong thing, again. The last thing she wanted to hear about was Samantha, especially if I owed her a debt now. Despite my years of moving from one relationship to the next, I’d still never learned when to shut up and what not to say. It took a special kind of woman to love me and to see through all my bullshit.
“If Samantha hadn’t grabbed you in the first place, you would have been fine.”
Moving forward, I pulled her back tight against my chest and nuzzled against her neck. “She overreacted and so did Gabe. Trust me, I’m not going to forget about how quickly she could have killed me anytime soon.”
Maze turned around in my arms. “Good.” She kissed me and then started to pull my torn and bloody shirt over my head. “Let’s get you cleaned up.”
Her hands were warm as they moved over my body and her lips tasted like the sweetest fruit on a summer’s day. Our kisses turned from exploratory to passionate in moments, and it didn’t take me long to start removing her clothes along with the rest of my own. Once we were naked, she led me to the shower, and the cold water slowed us down, but I couldn’t keep my eyes off of her. When all of the blood had been washed away, Maze took me by the hand and led me towards my bed and slipped under the covers.
“Time to warm up, Captain.”
“I’m already in hyperdrive,” I said sliding under the covers next to her. We kissed again, and I moved above her as she spread her legs. Her expression told me everything I needed to know. She wanted this as badly as I did. My hips moved forward, and a moment later I was lost inside of her. The world around us ceased to exist. All that mattered was Maze and this moment. Our bodies moved together as one, and I let everything that was bothering me fade away.
It was nearly six hours later when the doc finally called me down to the medbay. He told me about all of the complications that could arise from doing the surgery. Most of them came from the fact her physiology was so different than ours, it was hard to predict how her body would react to what he planned to do. Her heart beat slower, her blood was thicker, she needed oxygen, but not in massive doses. The worst part of it for her would be that pain medications seemed to have no effect on her at all. Nothing said welcome to the crew like having a bomb removed from the base of your brain stem without anesthesia.
I knew all of the risks Doc had outlined and the risk to the crew if he failed, but the only person that could make the decision to go through with the surgery was Samantha. I owed her that after she saved my life, but I was betting the lives of my crew on the fact Doc could do it without killing her. If she wanted to attempt it, then I would let it happen despite the risk to my crew. The way we stood now, the smart decision was still to shove her back into the box and pretend like we had never opened the damn thing in the first place. Delivering her on time was the only way to keep things square with the N.E.A. Without that happening, all of our lives were forfeit.
I felt the beginnings of a plan forming in my mind, but I would need help from Maze and Gabe to see it through to fruition. Who knows, Samantha might even be able to contribute. She brought assets to the table that we didn’t have before. Whatever happened, I knew it was going to be interesting just like the old days, us against the world.
Maze and I left my quarters and headed towards medical. Before we could reach our destination, Gabe stepped in front of us. I could tell he was nervous, but that wasn’t going to stop him from saying whatever was on his mind. I motioned for Maze to continue without me before turning towards Gabe.
The man was bruised from the tumble he took after being tossed across the room. Outside of a few scratches, he didn’t look too worse for wear. “Doc needs me in the medbay, make it quick.” I snapped it at him, maybe a little bit harsher than I had intended.
His eyes grew even more intense as he met my gaze. “Captain, you can’t seriously be thinking of going through with this.”
“You’re right I’m not thinking about it at all, I’m going to let her make the decisions.” I felt my voice rise and knew that I was screaming now. “And you know why? Because a member of my crew stabbed me in the fucking chest and she save my goddamned life. So unless you have something else to contribute, get the fuck out of my sight!”
He looked confused, and then his own anger started to rise. “I didn’t fucking stab you. I saved your life when that bitch tried to kill you, and this is the thanks I get?” He started to walk away.
“You almost killed me back there, Gabe.” Some of the anger bled out of my voice. “I know what you were trying to do but stabbing her like that was risky as fuck. I need you with me on this, especially now. I’ve got a plan, but I can’t do it without you.”
“This is your mad plan, I don’t want any part of it.” He slammed his fist into the wall of the ship. “If you’re seriously considering this, you can just drop me off at the next station. I’m not dying for her.”
I knew it was wrong, but I couldn’t stop the laughter from coming. “You seriously think you can walk away from this? That the N.E.A. will just let you go? Come on Gabe, I thought you knew better than that.”
“Fuck,” he screamed at the top of his lungs. “You’re going to get us all killed.”
“It was your blade that almost killed me, and her blood that saved my life.”
Gabe looked down, and when he met my eyes, I could see tears in them. “I never meant for that to happen.” Something changed in his eyes and when he spoke the words rang true with purpose. “I will stand by you, Captain. You’ve never let me down, not since you saved my life all those years ago. But you have to understand just how dangerous this path you picked for us is. Not all of us are going to come out of this alive. You’re taking on the biggest army in the verse with a hand full of castaways.”
His words hit me like a blaster bolt to the chest. He was right. I was being reckless. It started when I opened the damn box in the first place. What did they say, once you opened Pandora’s box, you couldn’t recapture what escaped and put it back inside. Samantha had escaped the box I had a feeling no matter what we decided, she would never get back in. That meant we were in for one hell of a ride. If we came out of this unscathed, it would be a miracle. There was nothing I could do about it now but find a way to push forward. I was going to need time to think, time that we didn’t have.
Gabe was watching me waiting for my response. I turned his head so he was forced to look me in the eyes. “I’d take this group of degenerates over their army any day of the week.” He smiled, and I felt one crack on my own lips. “I’ll find a way to steer us through this, but we have to do it together.”
He shook his head and started to walk away. His words trailed softly over his shoulder. “I trust you, Captain, but this time I don’t think it will be enough.”
I watched him walk down the corridor until he disappeared around the corner. His words haunted me. Not because they rang false, but because this time he might actually be r
ight. We were in it now, and clawing our way out wasn’t going to be easy. Turning back towards the medbay, I started turning over my plan. None of it meant a thing if she didn’t survive. Taking a deep breath I shoved the uncertainty I was feeling to the side and focused on what I could do now.
Richard and Maze were waiting in the room with Samantha. I could tell that Richard had warmed up to her quite a bit. He was normally pretty reserved and liked to keep to himself. So the fact that she had brought him out of his shell a bit was saying something. Maze was leaning against the wall with her thumbs tucked into her pockets, looking as cold as a marine on Epsilon-Five. Despite her air of detachment, I could tell she was on edge. After seeing how fast Samantha moved, I couldn’t really blame her. I think we all knew if it came down to it Maze might be the only one that stood a real shot of defeating her.
Everyone was watching me so I decided to get the ball rolling. For better or worse, we would know about our fate in the next few hours. “Doc, tell me again about our chances for success.”
Richard shrugged his shoulders and looked towards Samantha as he spoke. “There are just too many variables to know for sure. Her healing is going to be a problem, that and I have no idea what to really expect from her unique cardiovascular system.”
“Then tell me the odds if everything goes well.”
“Almost no risk to the patient,” he said with a frown.
Doc was a practical man. It was probably hard for him to think of a scenario during surgery where everything went according to plan. “And if the shit hits the fan?”
“She dies.”
“Well, at least that leaves us with a lot of wiggle room.” I turned to Samantha, thinking about the trouble I was about to land us all in. Still, it didn't feel as I had any choice. “So, what do you want to do?”
Genetic Purge (The Galactic Outlaws Book 2) Page 5