Solar Heat

by Susan Kearney

  It was enough.

  He and Sauren stepped through the corridor to the bridge, where Derrek got a bead on his crew. Adain squawked on the com with flight control, but that didn’t stop him from whistling when he spied Derrek’s new duds. “Damn. If that’s the style, I may not get off Beta Five.”

  “Your choice.” Derrek raised a brow. “But I thought you had a hot date?”

  Adain flushed and suddenly busied himself with his controls.

  Their shipboard computer genius, Benet, was eyeing Derrek with a jealous gleam. The youngest of the crew, he was also the largest. He’d still been a child when he’d left Rama, and the extra rations of salt during his growing years had made him taller and stronger than his elders. “Think Egan can make me a set of those—”

  “No problem. I’ll even advance you the credit.” Derrek waved Sauren to a seat at the science station. His crew had worked long and hard on this project and deserved to blow off some steam.

  Benet looked up from engineering. “Don’t waste the credit, Adain. Clothes ain’t fooling the ladies none into thinking you’re a dirt lover.”

  They’d all spent so much time in space that anyone with eyes could tell from their rolling gaits that they were accustomed to low grav. Although the doc required the crew to build muscle in anticipation of landfall, their spaceman stride was unmistakable. Unfortunately for his crew, women wanted men who stayed home with them and the kids, not ones who left for months at a time. Of course, there were a few women who didn’t mind the loneliness out in the asteroids and who didn’t miss the amenities—but not enough. The chance that these men might find a mate who wanted to live in the asteroid belt was poor, and those few females who were out there . . . tended to be independent. Eccentric.

  The crew settled. Benet pivoted back to his electrical impulse console, reducing feedback from the engines in a never-ending tune-up. Cavin, an average-sized, chestnut-haired man with excellent skills was busy monitoring nav and life support.

  The picture of smooth efficiency and sleek, black, modern design, Beta Five sported crew stations along the perimeter of a circular bridge—with command control at the center console. Above the crew’s heads, they all had a 360 degree view outside. But from command, the panorama was nothing short of spectacular.

  At the moment, Zor’s three continents and four oceans dominated the lower section, and beyond, the ebbing moon cast a soft crescent shadow as it ascended into eclipse. Derrek hit the privacy mode to prevent his conversation from distracting his people. Although he and his crew were tight, he was careful by nature. He shared high-level conversations only on a need-to-know basis.

  From the Zoran capital below, President Laurie strode toward his own monitor and greeted Derrek with a stiff bow. “Good to see you again.”

  Derrek bowed in return. “The pleasure is mine.”

  “In a hurry to land?” Laurie raised an eyebrow.

  “Why do you ask?”

  “We spotted something interesting in space. At first we feared Rama had sent a ship through the portal, but instead, we now believe we’re picking up several escape pods.”

  Interesting. Although rumors always abounded that more slaves would follow them to Zor, none ever had. When the portal had opened several years ago, Zorans prepared for attack. They monitored that section of space closely, but no one had ever come through the portal . . . until now. “How many pods?”

  “Four.”

  “Survivors?”

  President Laurie didn’t answer his question. “I heard you always travel with a doctor.”

  “Doc Falcon is aboard.”

  “Perhaps you could check out the pods for us? We don’t have a ship in the sector large enough to handle the load of four pods.”

  More likely there were political implications, and Laurie wanted to distance himself from the fallout. Derrek weighed the choice of satisfying his curiosity and possibly saving lives against the nuisance of rescheduling his meetings.

  “I’d be happy to do the honors. If we find survivors . . .”

  “Do what you wish. We never had this conversation.”

  Derrek frowned. What the hell was going on? He didn’t need to step into secret political crap. “I don’t understand.”

  Laurie eyed him, his eyes pleading. “I’m in a difficult position.” Clearly he didn’t feel free to say more.

  “Fine. You owe me.” Maybe he wouldn’t have to beg to get rid of the miner’s tax.

  Laurie nodded. “I’ll remember.” Then he ended the com with a click.

  Weird. The entire conversation had given off deadly vibes. Derrek felt as though he were feeling his way through a mine field, without having a clue to what might trigger a blast.

  Derrek punched in the coordinates to Adain. When the numbers hit his console, the pilot shot a piercing look at his captain. A good man, he didn’t ask questions, just rerouted Beta Five back into space, banking and rolling into a 160-degree turn. “Sir, you want the helm?”

  Derrek shook his head. Although his fingers itched to take the controls, he needed his mind free of piloting duties to oversee the op.

  “New coordinates laid in, Captain.” Adain swung around in his swivel chair. “Cavin, get me a nav check.”

  “Nav check is . . .” Cavin hunched over his screen and frowned.

  “I’m picking up four emergency signals.” Benet peered at his instrument panel.

  “There are four vessels out there.”

  “Escape pods. Let’s pick them up, boys.” Derrek leaned forward and upped the magnification. At the same time he peered at the pods, four tiny dots floating in the vastness of space, he switched on the com. “Doctor Falcon, please report to the cargo bay.”

  DERREK WIPED THE pod’s space shield free of condensation with a rag and stared at the sleeping woman. She was tall for a slave. But was she too tall? Since the portal had opened three years ago, no one from Rama had come through it. No Firsts. No underfirsts. No one.

  Rumors had flown like crazy. Rumors that the Firsts of Rama were waiting to use the portal to stage a full-fledged invasion. Rumors that the portal was haunted, and anyone who went through would be cursed for eternity. Rumors that the Firsts had found a way to cloak their ships, that they were already on Zor, fully tranqed to disguise their Quait, enabling them to spy on the Zorans.

  Derrek didn’t believe rumors. However, he couldn’t discount that rumors were often grounded in truth. And the woman frozen in her pod was tall for a slave.

  Salt deprivation during the formative years didn’t only stunt Quait, it stunted physical growth, strength, and stamina. On Rama the Firsts weren’t just taller and stronger, they radiated vitality and arrogance. The privileged Firsts had straighter spines. They held their heads higher; their shoulders were squared. Slaves pretty much were the opposite. Slouched, heads bowed, shoulders sagging, their lives of toil wore them down physically and emotionally.

  Since the escape to Zor, the freed slaves had had access to more salt. Although the adults could no longer regain their lost height, their muscles and bones had strengthened. Their Quait increased—although it was against the law to ingest enough to be able to dominate the will of others. Obedience was voluntary, with most freed slaves having no wish to turn into the cruel and freakish Firsts they’d left behind.

  Anyone caught breaking the law was severely punished.

  The three other males were smaller, in poor physical condition, much like Derrek had been after his escape. But for this woman in the pod to display such height spiked Derrek’s suspicions as much as his curiosity.

  She was an anomaly. As he leaned forward and smoothed away the condensation on the canopy, he read her name on her flight suit. Azsla.

  A beautiful name for an extraordinary woman. Not only did she appear exceptionally healthy, her skin flawless, her
teeth good—at least what he could see of them through her slightly parted lips, she was stunning with silky dark hair that brushed her shoulders in a ragged cut that emphasized the delicacy of her features. Looking at her didn’t just make him catch his breath. His breath left his lungs with a taste of wonder. His skin tingled. Blood surged south.

  Every primal instinct urged him to pop the canopy. Take her into his arms. Warm her with his own body heat. It was such a ridiculous notion that he had to clutch the pod’s space shield to remain standing. What was the matter with him? Waking someone from a sleep pod was a delicate process that took careful monitoring of temperature control, and if he tried to hasten the process, he could cause her serious damage, even death. Doc Falcon would handle her awakening. But, it was taking every micro unit of willpower to step back. And when he could no longer see the woman’s face, his sense of loss was nothing short of staggering. His heart beat hard. His chest grew tight, and he found himself leaning forward, eager to catch another glimpse.

  His reaction was way out of whack.

  He liked women. He did. Although, Vigo knew he probably hadn’t had his share. After his mind wipe, he’d had a dry spell in the female department. He’d spent so much time recuperating, then escaping and establishing a new life, he’d neglected his social life. Actually he didn’t have a personal life. Not if he discounted business relationships.

  So why were his hands shaking? Why did he feel as if every second it took for the pod to recycle and for Azsla to wake up was an eternity? It made no sense. Deeply disturbed by his unexplainable reaction, he was suspicious as hell.

  Had he inhaled some kind of drug on the pod? One that affected him physiologically? Was she some kind of secret weapon? Because she sure as hell didn’t look like a Raman slave—unless she was one of the women Firsts used for pleasure. But that couldn’t be right, either. Not only was she gorgeous, she was physically fit. And slaves didn’t eat enough salt to be in her kind of shape.

  So why had he reacted to her as if she’d been created especially for him? His body might be craving her, but his brain told him to back off. Fast.

  So what if she was incredibly lovely. This sure wasn’t his normal reaction. As a wealthy man, Derrek had women hit on him all the time. Many of them were attractive. Compared feature to feature, some were even more beautiful. But none of them had made his heart beat triple time. None of them had him sexed up as if they were a total package of feminine heat.

  What the hell was wrong with him? He shook off the personal interest and glanced at Sauren. He, too, was staring at Azsla, but had she affected him the same way? Was she some new kind of First? When Firsts used their Quait, they forced slaves to submit to their will. But the slaves remained fully aware of the mental manipulation. The slaves might not want to do a task, but while they had no choice, they understood their muscles obeyed a different master, and that knowledge was part of the horror. They knew exactly what they did—but had no control over themselves.

  Terror that the Firsts might have learned to manipulate emotions helped beat down his attraction to her. Derrek took a fast step backward from the pod in his cargo bay. “Sauren, is she weirding you out?”

  “Huh?” Sauren leaned closer, peering through the canopy. Then he straightened and joined Derrek. “What’s wrong?”

  Like he was going to admit that the sleeping woman had set his heart racing? Just because he’d looked at her? Such a strong physical reaction to her didn’t make sense. He needed to know if she affected other people that way . . . or just him. “Sauren. Think hard. What were your exact thoughts when you looked into her face?”

  “Pity at what she must have suffered.” Sauren shot him a puzzled look. “Frustration over the sad fact that all our people still aren’t free. Relief that she made it. Hope that more slaves will arrive soon.”

  Sauren didn’t mention lust. Or even attraction. And that made Derrek even more suspicious. “What about her looks?”

  “She’s well formed.”

  Well formed? Could he have been more insulting? She was fripping awesome. Before Derrek realized his mind had ordered his feet forward, he was back at her pod, staring into her face. As the unit warmed, color returned to her cheeks, turning them a soft golden hue. Her full lips turned pink.

  Damn, she looked good. Too good.

  Even as his palms turned damp and his pulse raced, he recognized his attraction to her as dangerous. While he had no idea what was going on, he did know his reaction wasn’t normal. As her lungs expanded, she began to breathe, her chest rising and falling in an enticing rhythm. He didn’t think he’d ever seen anything so beautiful.

  He was losing his mind.

  Or she was influencing him in a way he didn’t understand. Derrek didn’t pretend to like or understand his reaction. Since he wasn’t a man to turn his back and run, he leaned closer, annoyed that she could put him off-kilter. Angry the Firsts of Rama might be tricking him.

  He might be jacked up about her. But he wasn’t stupid. And if talking to her meant getting answers, then that was exactly what he would do. Derrek was good at plans. He was about to put this one into action.

  “Wake her up, Doc.”

  Doctor Falcon looked up from the pod’s instrument panel. “She’ll be groggy if I wake her now.”

  Groggy was good. Derrek allowed himself a small grunt that almost sounded like a snarl. “Groggy works for me. Do it.”

  3

  AZSLA BLINKED open her eyes, then blinked again, breathing in dry air with a slight scent of oil. She was lying in her pod, the shield open, inside an enormous cargo bay alongside crates and barrels and pallet racks. Weak artificial gravity told her she was still in space.

  While she’d been out, a relentless chill had sneaked through her insulated flight suit. Mind sluggish from the cold, her flesh icy, the chill from space had set up shop in her bones and numbed her thoughts. Her mouth tasted dry and bitter.

  Her lethargic thoughts accelerated into survival mode. Where was she? How long had she slept? The fuzzy quality of time was as blurry as her predicament. A glance at her pod chronometer told her she’d only slept for six days. But who had found her?

  Her heart was going off like a jackhammer. And still she couldn’t stop shivering. Thanks to years of difficult training, she had an array of emotional experiences to call on. The training had put her through hell. Mental pain. Physical agony, terrible depths of loneliness. Even helplessness. Whatever happened next, she’d had to be ready. At least the tranq had had time to wear off, or she wouldn’t be able to adapt to her new situation. That’s why she’d trained so hard to learn to suppress her Quait without the use of a drug. Tranqed Firsts could only obey orders. And their usefulness in the field was extremely limited.

  Maybe it wasn’t the mission’s high-test stakes so much as the unfamiliar surroundings that were responsible for the ice in her core. She’d expected the slave world and their spaceships to be rough and sturdy. Not elegant. Not superior to anything she’d seen on Rama. From the curve of the craft’s graceful bulkhead beside her to the indirect lighting overhead, this ship was all clean lines and spiffy black. Masculine.

  She tried to sit up, but couldn’t move, as if her body were a block of ice. She looked down and saw straps. A sleeping web held her firmly in place. A cuff on her arm sprouted wires hooked to an array of instruments that beeped and chattered.

  A dark-haired man loomed over her, his face stoic as if his feelings were locked so tight, he wouldn’t permit a stray emotion to escape. She tried to force her numbed fingers to release the straps from the sleeping web and unhook the cuff, but she couldn’t. Her hands were too cold.

  So she glanced back to the man above her. From the confident set of his broad shoulders to his narrowed gaze, he looked too purposeful to be a doctor. While Firsts rarely required doctors, slaves often did, falling prey to sickness due to their we
ak constitutions and inferior biology. Only he looked like no doctor she’d ever seen.

  For one, he was staring at her as if displeased she’d awakened. For another, he was a lot of man. Intense. Rough and tough with calloused hands and scraped knuckles as if accustomed to hard physical labor. As his intelligent eyes drilled hers, with attitude to spare, she pegged him as more curious than hostile.

  Folding his arms across his chest, he cocked his head, his eyes narrowing, a muscle in his jaw tensing. “Why did you have a tranq in your system?”

  She sucked back a sarcastic response. Who was this guy? No friendly hello? No how are you? And so it began. The interrogation. Proving she was one of them—when she wasn’t. Azsla would have preferred to meet him eye-to-eye, or at least on her feet, but she was stiff, her body not yet warmed enough to move.

  After his question . . . he’d said nothing. Simply waited. Let the silence stretch as if to derail her.

  Uh-oh. The big guy wasn’t just hunky, he had brains. And he had one hell of a bedside manner.

  All those years of training would allow her to adapt to her current circumstances, to think clearly as a First should—while keeping her Quait a secret to avoid detection.

  “Who are you?” She ducked around his power play. Still chilled from the sleep pod, her voice eked out weakly. She went with helpless and injured, buying time to get a clue to what was going on, doing nothing to stop her shaking. How dare he treat her so rudely? He hadn’t even lifted a hand to help her sit up and climb from the pod.

  Her anger at his lack of manners warmed her. But she couldn’t afford the luxury of anger.

  With her emotions jacked up, her Quait spiraled to the surface. Holy Mother of Vigo. What was she thinking? She couldn’t indulge in feelings. She couldn’t do indignant and hostile. She couldn’t let loose. Couldn’t dive into an emotional tailspin. Discipline kicked in.