Girl Gone Nova

by Pauline Baird Jones

  He’d tapped more resources to track the Doolittle. If it moved, his Ojemba would let him know. His men knew what to do, though they didn’t know why. Hel trusted one man and he was dead.

  What would Gaedon think of this move, he wondered? He still missed his old friend and commander of the Gadi forces. His death at the end of the battle with the Dusan had been a blow Hel had yet to recover from. Gaedon had liked the Earth people from the beginning. He’d been hopeful, despite the many years of war with the Dusan. If Hel had followed his advice back then, would things be different now?

  He gave serious thought to the question. He had time for it. Considering General Halliwell’s personality, Hel could see slight differences between what would have been and what was. It was certain that the Key would still have left the galaxy. He’d had to try to keep that from happening and he still hoped for a return. Even beyond the technology on the outpost, there was the issue of his peoples’ history. The outpost and its contents were their heritage, a lost part of their history. They deserved access to it. If the General followed through on his promise, then they had made a beginning, but would it last if Delilah figured out how to use the portal to secure the return of their lost people?

  Was this a real outreach or a bid for time?

  And would gratitude over a rescue make Delilah helpful or hostile? The way she had kissed him indicated she was open to persuasion. Still, he had underestimated the will of a woman once before. He would not make that mistake again.

  * * * * *

  Memo to self: don’t ask horny guys what they do for fun.

  Even Eamon had managed to rise to the occasion, though the area must still be tender from its interaction with her knee. Doc didn’t let it go to her head. It was easy to be a ten when there was no competition. And she had other things to think about, like round two of yank Conan’s chain.

  She wasn’t sure if the two days was a hard deadline or not, though it felt like it was. Bana had mentioned a lack of time when she thought Doc was unconscious, and her gut sensed a ticking clock, even if time seemed to have stopped in this place. No, stopped was too optimistic—something she wasn’t usually guilty of. Time had rewound, had rolled all the way back to primitive. Time had never been her friend, but it wasn’t always the enemy. It just was, just as they were. It was the place she lived and coped and did and until recently she’d lived without an overabundance of angst about it. No wonder she was cranky. She sighed. Whether the deadline was real or not, she’d have to act as if it was. Just like they were pretending he wanted her to choose one of the boys.

  Following their earlier “interaction” he’d settled into an uneasy orbit around her. He kept his distance, but it was always the same distance. She moved and so did he. It made the day long and exhausting. Doc had fended off an effort from Bana to give her cooking duty, pointing out that the boys could stir their own sludge. She didn’t want to eat it or see it. She’d also ignored another attempt to get her out of her clothes and into a Moonie robe. Bana didn’t try the “you stink” argument. She’d probably already figured out that Doc wasn’t interested in smelling sweet for the boys.

  Bana interested Doc almost as much as Conan did. She was more complex than the guys. Doc could almost feel her thinking, and she watched Doc as closely as Conan.

  Some of it Doc could understand. She had a brain, eyes in her head. She’d figured out Doc had the power and the will to upset the dynamic of their group. So why did Doc get the feeling she wanted her dead, not just gone? She went through the motions of helping Doc assimilate, but her heart wasn’t in it. Which made it odd that Doc sensed liking in the old woman’s manner, sometimes to the point of fascination—a fascination quickly hid when her gaze met Doc’s.

  Why would she like Doc and want her dead?

  Doc had managed some conversation with the brides, used it to drop a very small pebble in the pool of the men’s control over them. It didn’t take big rocks to make big ripples.

  She smelled pretty rank from her periodic outbreaks of exercising in the heat multiplied by the hours since her last shower, but that didn’t stop her from doing some stretches while she waited for night. No one had suggested a stroll to the lake, so she didn’t stink enough yet. Movement released mental and physical tension. She felt Conan watching as she slid into the splits, then bent forward until her face was on her knee.

  The retreat of light brought some relief from the oppressive heat, but not enough. She missed air conditioning and showers—even short ones. Her seventy-two hours worth of supplies was running low and the energy bars didn’t make much of an impact in the hollow that was her stomach. The camp was too quiet, too peaceful. She needed loud music and loud thoughts, something impossible, something mentally challenging and very physical to do. Inside her body screamed with the effort of maintaining her outward calm. She wanted to claw at her head and release the pressure swelling inside her skull. It was too big, too much. She couldn’t even work on the problem of escape when she had nothing to work with.

  Time had paused, or so it felt. It was a kind of reverse tornado, with the eye out there and her playing the part of the storm. As the fury roared inside, she wanted to take it outside, take someone down. But then what? She needed a ship, not to kick ass. They weren’t outsmarting her. That wasn’t possible. They were…out-stupiding her. They didn’t have to plot and plan. All they had to do was sit on their asses to win.

  Two damn days.

  Now was a bad time to remember her unease, her sense of fate laughing when she’d told the General that each time the impossible gets more impossible. That she would fail some day.

  Was this that day?

  The sun hung on the horizon, as if mocking her desperation for it to sink from sight. It also wasn’t like her to long for nightfall. The last rays slanted across the encampment, unable to soften the harsh edges. The brides moved silently through their night preparations. Was it her need for change that made them seem more thoughtful than downcast tonight? A small breeze ruffled through the camp, easing the damp heat on Doc’s face. She sat up, sliding her legs into the lotus position. She rested her hands on her knees, searching from beneath lowered lashes for signs of the slight power shift she thought she sensed.

  Light began to pull in, giving way to night, but just before the curtain fell, Doc saw one of the brides say something to her man. That wasn’t the surprising part. It was the look on his face.

  The worms had started to turn.

  She knew Conan still stared at her, so she didn’t smile, just came fluidly to her feet and headed for the table. He shifted, too, moving with her. This time he didn’t stop when she did. He moved into closer orbit as she climbed up on the table and lay down on her back. She tucked her arms under her head for cushioning and stared at the sky as the stars came into view one by one.

  “Now what are you doing?” His tone was more tired than annoyed.

  Doc couldn’t stop the tiny, pleased twitch of her lips. “I’m studying the sky.”

  She intended to be very clear about what she was doing, but he needed to work for it. He’d distrust a gift. With her peripheral vision, she saw him look up, saw and felt his gaze return to her.

  “Why now?”

  “You can’t see the stars during the day.”

  “Why do you wish to see the stars?”

  He was suspicious, but she didn’t mind, since that was the plan.

  “To get a fix on my position.” She wasn’t totally yanking his chain. She was curious to see if she could figure out where she was. She’d studied the Garradian star charts on the trip out, because they were there. And because she thought she might need to know. She never knew what she’d need to know, even with a good briefing, and she hadn’t gotten a bad briefing for this trip.

  The three moons were hanging on the horizon opposite the fading sun. They wouldn’t start their climb until later, and they’d linger into the morning. There was a magnetic pole here, too. Her compass had moved when she’d tried it ou
t. The moons appeared to orbit a tad south of that pole. It wasn’t that helpful to know that, but her brain didn’t always care about helpful. It just liked data.

  She lifted the binoculars. They couldn’t replace a telescope, but Conan wouldn’t know that. And they were better than nothing, but that wasn’t saying much. She could mentally search every damn chart, but it would be more efficient to narrow the search parameters. She was pretty sure they were somewhere in the old Dusan frontier. She knew where she’d been and ought to be able to come up with where she was.

  Star charts rotated through her head. She discarded some as too far away from her flight path. Homed in on one that looked promising. Was it possible she was on Feldstar? There were some other possibilities but her gut liked Feldstar.

  “Why do you need to know your position?” Conan sounded almost indifferent.

  Had Bana been counseling him? They’d been joined at the hip for a while today. Doc would bet she’d tried to get him to deactivate the buttons Doc had been pushing. Time to see if it worked.

  “So I can let my people know my location.” She looked at him, her brows arched in mock surprise. Should she name drop?

  He propped a hip against the side of the table. “And how do you plan to contact them?”

  She fluttered her lashes. “If I tell you that, you’ll try to stop me.”

  “Or you don’t have a way to contact your people. You just want to mess with my head.”

  Okay, that was very Earth sounding. She needed to think about that, but later. Her “sort that out later” list was getting long.

  “That is a possibility. Or you missed my transmitter when you searched my stuff.” She sat up and studied him. “Your transmitter is hiding fairly well.”

  He frowned, stopping just shy of outright scowling. Nope, hadn’t disconnected that button yet.

  “What transmitter? I have no need of a transmitter.”

  “Does your ship read your mind or just come when you call it?”

  “There is no ship.”

  Doc ignored this stupidity and jumped off the table. She walked around him. “If I were your transmitter, where would I hide?”

  He threw his arms wide, his enjoyment of her attention a little too obvious.

  “There is nothing to find, but please, look your fill. Touch if you desire.”

  Doc didn’t blush, but it was a near thing. The dark helped. He had a transmitter on him somewhere. He wore a lot of leather. What if it was built in? She touched one of the decorative metal rivets. He didn’t stop her. He shifted so her finger brushed his bare arm. She shifted so it didn’t. It might be as simple as an ear bud. She moved to the side and then the other, but his hair straggled over both of them. And if she shifted that hair, he’d enjoy it way too much. His wrist bands were pretty thick and had no obvious function. She didn’t want to touch him, but it was necessary.

  She slid her hand along the back of his and heard his breathing ramp up at her touch. Just how long had these guys been without girl time? In the deep dark, his eyes gleamed, but he didn’t move. She kept her touch light as her fingers curved along the edge and then turned his hand so the palm was up. The underside of the wrist band appeared to be irregular, though in the dark it was hard to be sure.

  “Clever.” Doc stepped back, pretty sure she’d figured it out. And because she had a feeling she’d pushed him as far as was safe.

  He kept his cool. Didn’t reach for it, like she’d hoped he might. He frowned, though, because his eyes got closer together.

  “There is no transmitter. There is no ship.”

  “So how did I get from my nylon let-down to here?” The barbarians hadn’t tapped the heels of their boots together and said, “there’s no place like hell,” three times.

  “You crashed here.” Sounded like he was gritting his teeth again.

  “No, I didn’t.” Doc stepped back. “You should look up more. You’d learn when to bluff and when to fold a losing hand.”

  He looked up. He had to. It was human nature. “You seek to confuse me.”

  “I seek to enlighten you.” She hesitated. “You can count, can’t you? See one, two, three blue moons.” They still hovered on the horizon like they were shy. “I crashed on a planet with one moon. Right after you messed with my ship.” She leaned close, but not too close. “I’m sure you’re relatively clever for a guy. But even if you aren’t, you have to know it’s easier to build a ship than add moons to a planet.” She stepped back, but added an extra layer of evil to her voice. “And you’re going to learn what happens to people who mess with my ship. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a call to make. My people will be very interested in Feldstar soon.”

  If that didn’t get him to initiate a scan for her transmitter, he was too stupid to live.

  She could almost hear his jaw working in the dark.

  “Go to your tent.”

  Doc could sense how close he was to losing it. She turned without a word and walked away, but she felt the familiar shift in the air flow that indicated transport. She spun around.

  He was gone.

  “Gotcha,” she murmured under her breath. Chalk one up for the girl. Now she had to hope someone was looking this way with feelers out.

  It gave her a reason to hope while she plotted her next move.

  * * * * *

  Hel found the Garradian transport system a definite benefit. In the past, he’d had to try to find a secure place to land on a planet teaming with thieves and pirates. Many times he’d had to fight his way back to his ship. A low orbit worked well for space parking. Drop cloak just long enough for transport. The phase cloak eliminated space collisions, too. He did have to check and make sure his ship wasn’t inside another ship prior to lowering the cloak, but his remote device allowed him impressive control of his ship. If he’d had the Garradian ships in his arsenal, the Dusan would have been defeated much earlier.

  He contacted Hilber and got approval for transport. Life sign readings showed Hilber was alone in his quarters, but there were ways to block the infrared scans. Hel readied a stun bomb and transported it. He checked the life sign readings once more, pulled his weapon and initiated transport.

  As soon as transport was complete, Hel did a perimeter scan, with his weapon and his personal scanner. The room appeared clean, but his Ojemba instincts were twitching. He edged up to the prone figure. As he’d expected, it wasn’t Hilber, but another former Ojemba named Corstin.

  He’d heard that some of the ships’ cloaks, pilfered from ships damaged in the battle, had been converted to personal cloaks. It would have provided some protection from the stun bomb. Hilber’s problem was, he couldn’t shoot while cloaked. Hel backed into a corner and scanned the room. He even knew what to look for.

  He aimed his gun at the spot where the faint energy signature registered.

  “If you are not going to come out and talk, Hilber, I will depart.”

  A long pause, a ripple in the area and Hilber appeared. He’d holstered his weapon and looked resigned.

  “I keep forgetting what a crafty bastard you are.” He grinned, the action friendly enough if you didn’t look at his eyes.

  Hel always checked the eyes.

  As if he knew it, Hilber turned toward a cabinet. “A drink?”

  “How much?”

  Hilber hesitated, then turned back with a shrug. “You heard?”

  “Don’t I hear everything?” And what he didn’t hear, his instincts filled in. It wasn’t a stretch to guess someone had put out an agreement to kill the man they thought Hel was. The Leader disappeared and problem solved. That Carig and Glarmere had made the connection between Hel and the former leader of the Ojemba confirmed their alliance with someone on the Earth Expedition. That they’d chosen to kill rather than expose him indicated that the power of his other identity had not waned in the past two years. The Ojemba may have been hated by the rulers of planets whose convoys they pilfered for supplies, but the people honored them for the way they’d fough
t the Dusan. No, Glarmere would not want to add “hero of the Ojemba” to Hel’s Leader credentials. “Corstin your source?”

  “His timing was good.” Hilber kept his hands well clear of his weapon. “It’s not personal.”

  “You need the money.”

  “I always need the money.” He named a sum that made Hel’s eyebrows rise.

  “I had no idea my dead body was so valuable.” He nudged the unconscious Corstin with his foot. “You going to share it with him?”

  Hilber arched his brows, did not bother to reply.

  Hel was unsurprised Corstin wanted to kill him. His relationship with his men had always been more hate than love.

  “They wouldn’t have paid you.”

  Hilber’s eyes widened, lost their calculation.

  “Bastards.”

  “The enemies of my allies usually are.” Hel considered the man. “If you’ve got anything interesting on the other matter, I’ll pay you half of what they weren’t going to pay you.”

  Hilber’s eyes gleamed with sudden avarice. “You got it on you?”

  Hel gave him a look. “If it’s interesting you’ll get paid. I may be a bastard, but I honor my word. You know this about me.”

  Hilber rubbed his face. “Fair enough.” He kept his hands in sight as he moved to his desk. He pulled out an information tube and tossed it to Hel. “You aren’t the only one who’s curious about these people. One of the girl’s father’s is paying big money for information.”

  “Bigger than I am?”

  “He’s spreading it around more than you.” Hilber grinned, one that reached his eyes this time. “Any problem if I resell it to him?”

  He’d do it, whether Hel had problems or not, but he shook his head. No way was some land tiller going to beat him to the prize.