So she had to pull herself together. When she saw Kirek again, she wanted no feelings attached. She didn’t want anger or hurt or aggression to cloud her judgment, but she didn’t know if denying her emotions was possible.
She’d rolled on the mat, but her opponent came in, using superior strength to pin her. Rotating one hip, she tried to topple him, but he countered with a shift to the side.
Out of breath, lungs burning, she yielded. “Ranth, I’ve had enough.”
The holosim vanished, and she slowly shoved to her feet to find Kirek watching her, his eyes calm and blue, his face full of lively interest. Ah, she’d missed looking at the way light reflected off his cheekbones, missed talking to him, missed making love. With just his appearance, he’d managed to demolish every barrier she’d spent the last three days building, and it annoyed the hell out of her.
She used the excuse of shoving a lock of hair from her eyes to break her eager stare. “Ranth, I should fry your circuits.”
“Don’t blame him,” Kirek said.
“I’ll blame whoever I want,” she practically growled, and forced herself to take a deep breath.
“I overrode his program that allowed you to avoid me,” he admitted without even a hint of regret.
“Why?” She placed one hand on her hip, straightened her spine, raised her chin, and held her anger in check that he could so easily outmaneuver her. No doubt he had a good reason and that aggravated her all over again. But she refused to throw a temper tantrum only to feel stupid after he told her some galaxy-shattering reason.
“We’re about to jump out of hyperspace to meet the Numan ship.” He paused, and she said nothing. “I’m planning to visit the other ship to retrieve the reader.”
“I’m not letting you out of my sight.”
“Why?”
“I’ve already told you, I don’t trust you. For all I know, you plan to leave in the other ship and I’ll never recover the salvage you promised me.”
“You won’t get rid of me that easily.” His tone was mild, but his eyes stirred with shadows. “Besides, why would I overhaul the Raven if I intended to leave it behind?”
“Maybe you need two ships. Perhaps the Raven is a decoy so you can slip past the Zin by yourself in another ship.”
“I wouldn’t do that.”
“Not even if it meant saving the entire Federation?” When she threw the accusation at him, he flinched, and she shook her head. “Someone’s got to look out for the Raven and my crew, so if you go to the other ship to pick up the reader, I’m going with you.”
Kirek turned to leave but spoke as he did so. “Fine. Let’s go.”
KIREK DIDN’T LIKE thinking he may have lost all hope with this woman and hoped he could repair the damage he’d done. But he had no idea how to fix things. Words wouldn’t work when she didn’t believe them. After she’d asked Ranth to ensure they avoided one another, he’d tried to accept she needed some time to think. But the days apart didn’t appear to have done him any good—she was clearly still furious.
He was so far gone, he wanted her anyway. Even if she didn’t trust him—he loved her still. Even if she didn’t want to be around him—he loved her.
To make things worse, he’d carefully unpacked the neural net computer chip—the one he’d had manufactured to his specifications to hold his psi. Once he entered the Andromeda Galaxy and left the Raven’s heavy-duty protective shielding, the Zin would recognize his psi. In order to stay alive, Kirek planned to place his psi into the chip—a chip that would mask his true essence.
But it didn’t work. Although he’d spent the last few days trying to fix it with Ranth’s help, the device wouldn’t shield his psi. They couldn’t find a way to increase the shielding without increasing power—and then the device became way too large to be portable.
Stymied, he spent almost as much time thinking about her—like a lovesick teenager—as he did the chip. Even as they left in the shuttle and she piloted the tiny vessel for the Numan ship, his focus was on her. How good she smelled. How he wanted to thread his fingers through her long hair, massage the anxiety from her tense shoulders, and kiss away her distrust.
During his time on Endeki as a sexual hostage, Kirek had been with many beautiful women, but none of them had had Angel’s independent spirit or her generous heart that she tried to hide in practicality or her enthusiasm to try new things. He understood that even though she hadn’t wanted to enjoy the Raven’s upgrades, she couldn’t stop herself from appreciating them.
“Space to Kirek.” Angel snapped her fingers in his face as she turned off the shuttle’s engines after docking inside the Numan ship’s bay. He’d been so deep in thought, he’d barely noticed how easily she flew the new shuttle or set it down softly with the ease of an experienced pilot. “Open the hatch.”
The Numan crew waited in their shuttle bay with a reader that Kirek hoped would reveal the coordinates to the portal. The bay was about the same size as the Raven’s, but the low ceiling made the space feel cramped, especially with a party of three there to greet them.
He popped the hatch and followed Angel out, noting she was fully armed. Kirek rarely went unarmed either, but he’d hidden his weapons in the loose flow of his suit’s fabric. The group waiting for them appeared harmless and eager to meet, their stances relaxed, their faces set in amiable expressions.
“Welcome to the Teardrop of Numan.” A petite woman stepped forward from between two of her accompanying crew. She had no hair on her head and wore a multi-colored bandanna. Huge gold loops hung from her ears and smaller ones pierced her nose and brow. “I would offer refreshments but my orders are to deliver the reader immediately.” She held out the reader, which fit in her palm.
“Something’s wrong.” Angel spoke in an urgent voice but had used privacy mode, so only he could hear. Her hand dropped to her blaster.
“What is it?” Kirek asked.
Since Kirek had hired this ship, he’d been concerned about Angel and the chip to transfer his psi. Although he’d automatically done background checks of the entire crew before sending them on such an important mission, he knew that even the best background checks could fail. He’d been so busy thinking about the chip and Angel he hadn’t given security much thought.
“Trouble’s coming.” Angel’s tone was clipped.
Kirek accepted the reader. “Thank you. Time is short. We must leave immediately for—” The moment he took possession of the reader, a dozen Kraj dropped from the ceiling.
Angel’s hand was already on the blaster. She drew her weapon and started shooting. Expert shots took out two Kraj before they hit the deck.
The Numan captain looked shocked, but she pulled her weapon and fired at the Kraj alongside Angel. So they hadn’t been betrayed. The Kraj had sneaked aboard.
Even as he analyzed, Kirek stuffed the reader inside his suit and drew his own weapon. Before he could shoot, three Kraj locked their sights on him. Fired. Beams of radiant red light caught Kirek in their direct path and knocked him to his knees. Worse, the light slammed his psi, and pain erupted in every nerve ending.
He couldn’t move. Or draw breath. Or gasp out one word. It felt as if the red light had gathered up his psi and seared it with fire. Kirek hadn’t known a being could withstand such agonizing pain and remain conscious.
Agony wracked him as the fight around him continued. The Numan captain was down, along with both officers. While the three Kraj held him tight in the deadly red beams, another had Angel pinned behind the shuttle where she’d dived to take cover.
With Angel unable to change position, the three Kraj holding him in the scorching red lights advanced. The light became more focused and burned so hot he was certain his skin would char.
Angel peered at him from behind the shuttle but kept firing at the Kraj. “Kirek, I’ll cover you. Get over here.”
Kirek couldn’t so much as turn his head. His flesh felt as if the sun itself consumed him from the inside out. His brain pulsated with cra
mps and wave after wave of nausea left him too incapacitated to move.
Kirek wanted to tell her to flee before the Kraj turned the red weapon on her. But the scream stuck in his lungs. Stars. Agony twisted his limbs, and he tumbled, slammed into the ground, too weak to even put out a hand out to prevent his head from slamming into the deck.
With relentless precision, the Kraj advanced. One of them lifted a blaster to finish Kirek. Angel fired, and the Kraj crashed to the deck.
Twisted in pain, Kirek saw Angel lunge toward him at the speed of thought. He shouted, “Don’t.”
But the red light caught her. Agonizing pain clawed at him. The excruciating red light hit Angel, too. Yet she landed on her feet and didn’t so much as whimper. Sparking, crackling silver light bounced and popped off her, light so bright it hurt his eyes. Fear gnawed at him that she was about to be consumed in the paralyzing, punishing pain and he couldn’t move to help her.
Then his suit’s filters adjusted, and a silver spherical ball of light popped into place around Angel. Around him. Was this the Kraj’s diabolical plan to kill them both?
Wrong. Wrong. He was missing something critical.
The silver sphere wasn’t another Kraj weapon. It was a shield—a shield that Angel had somehow constructed with her psi. The intensity of his pain lessened, but his nerves still twitched with the aftereffects.
Angel shot the last two Kraj. The red beams of their weapons disappeared, and Angel kneeled beside him. “Kirek?”
Pain still held him in its clutches. “Hurt.”
“I’ll take you back to our new medical bay. Just hold on.”
ANGEL HAD USED null grav to carry Kirek and one of the the red-beaming weapons back to the shuttle. She figured they needed to know how it worked so they could counter it next time. With Kirek unconscious in the new medical bay, all beeping machines and ticking sounds that she didn’t understand, she paced, stopped, then started.
“Ranth, what’s his prognosis?”
“The damage to his nervous system is extensive.”
“Can you fix it?”
“I’m attempting to do so, but I can give no guarantees how the nerve grafts will take.”
She swallowed hard and forced words past her despair. “Will he live?”
“I’m uncertain. The same as the last time you asked.” Ranth paused. “I will inform you the moment there’s any change.”
Angel went back to pacing. Frie had used the reader on the disk, and they now had the coordinates of the world on the rim that possessed the portal. Even as Kirek remained unconscious, she’d jumped the Raven into hyperspace, hoping that by the time they arrived at the portal, Kirek would have recovered.
Now she had nothing to do but worry. Nothing left to do except wonder why she wanted to cry—every time she looked at Kirek. Somehow, she’d managed to ignore her feelings for him when he’d been healthy. But now that he might die, she was so upset that she’d only spent a few minutes on the bridge in the last six days.
She couldn’t sleep. She wasn’t hungry. She had to force herself to take in liquids. The consuming worry wasn’t because without Kirek, the mission couldn’t succeed. Her concern was personal. If he died on her … Stars.
When had he become more than the fling she’d wanted? When had he become more to her than someone she could easily walk away from? Was it the first time he’d smiled at her or teased her or made love to her? She didn’t know.
Just seeing him lying in that chamber, with nanoprobes going into and out his nose and throat, made her nauseated. The thought of him never again waking up, of him never again teasing her, of him never again making her angry or making love to her was forcing her to realize how much she cared about him.
She should have engaged the psi shield earlier. The Kraj had had him in the red beams for almost a minute. A few seconds longer and not even the medical equipment would have had a chance to save him. But, since Angel had never before activated a psi shield and didn’t know exactly how she’d engaged it, she was lucky to have done so at all. She’d been so upset. Kirek’s face had been twisted into a horrific mask of agony. She’d just wanted to help him, and then the shield had been there.
She didn’t understand what had happened. The one person who might be able to explain it to her was beside her in the medical bay—unconscious.
“Ranth?” she called the computer.
“Yes?”
Kirek looked pale and much too large for the medical bed. She’d give anything for him to be back on his feet. “Surely there is something else you can try?”
“There isn’t.”
“Perhaps a doctor, a specialist we can consult?”
“My medical library is the most extensive in the Federation. If there is a better way, it’s not known by—”
“Ranth.” Angel stopped pacing. “Kirek just moved his hand.”
“It’s a reflex.”
Angel placed her hand in his. Kirek squeezed. “That was no reflex.” She peered over at him. “Kirek. You are in the medical bay. Ranth says you’re going to be fine.”
“I did not,” Ranth argued.
“All those medical books and you don’t have a shred of bedside manner,” she chided the computer.
Ranth almost sounded insulted. “What is bedside manner?”
“It means that thinking positive thoughts might help him heal.”
“That is not logical, but it is sometimes true. The mind can help healing—even though we don’t understand how or why. In the future I’ll try to maintain a more upbeat attitude.”
Angel ignored the computer and leaned over Kirek. “Can you hear me? It’s time to wake up.”
His eyes fluttered open. At first they rolled and didn’t focus. Angel kept talking softly. “We were attacked by the Kraj. You were caught in the beam of a weapon, and I brought you back to the Raven to heal. The new medical facility is making you well, repairing damaged nerves. I’m grateful to have it, because it gives you a chance to live, gives us a chance for …” She trailed off and bit her lip, uncomfortable with saying more.
“What?” Kirek asked.
Angel’s heart lightened. He was conscious. “How do you feel?”
“Gives us a chance for what?” Kirek asked, and she realized he’d been listening to her, understanding her.
A reconciliation? A chance to be together? She didn’t say what she was thinking. “Gives us a chance to fight the Zin.”
“Is that all?” His gaze probed hers, and she didn’t need a prognosis from Ranth to see that mentally, Kirek was as sharp as ever.
“I’m so glad you didn’t die.” Happiness suffused her, and if she’d had the energy, she would have danced around the room. She settled for squeezing his hand.
“Were you only worried about how you would find the salvage without me?” he pressed, his gaze searching her eyes as if he could force her to say what he wanted.
Stars. Leave it to the man to awaken from a coma, know exactly what was going on, and use the knowledge against her when she was exhausted, sick with worry, and at her weakest emotional point ever. Despite his query, she still was so happy to see him that she grinned and smoothed his hair away from his forehead.
“You need to concentrate on getting well.”
“I’d feel much better if you’d give me a hug.” He edged over to make room for her beside him.
“Now I know you’re going to be fine. No doubt while I’ve been worried about you, you’ve been resting and thinking up ways to irritate me.”
“Sweetheart,”—Sweetheart, he’d called her sweetheart—“if I’d been awake, I would have been thinking about much better things to do than irritate you.”
She snorted.
“Better things, like talking,” he continued.
“And going behind my back?”
“Like holding hands.”
“And reprogramming my ship?”
“Like kissing.”
Lion leapt onto the bed, right onto Kirek’s chest. He
curiously sniffed the nanotubes, arched his back. Kirek reached up to pet him, and Lion peeled off and sprinted away.
“The cat has good instincts,” Angel teased.
“Yeah, he couldn’t resist coming to see if I was all right either.” Gently Kirek tugged her next to him in the bed, and she couldn’t resist, not when she wanted to hold him so badly. “But he might have gotten a bit more sleep than you have. You look like hell.”
She sighed. “You sure know how to compliment a woman and make her fall in love with you.”
Kirek chuckled. “It’s so good to hear you tell me that you love me.”
“I did not—”
“Hush.” He kissed the top of her head, drew her against his side, and the stubborn man went back to sleep as suddenly as he’d awakened. Only this time she could relax, too because his sleep was natural and healing. Somehow, she’d come to care for him, and she would have to accept it. The idea should have worried her. But in no time at all, Angel was sleeping deeply—without nightmares—for the first time in almost a week.
Chapter Eighteen
“HOW DID YOU make that shield to protect us?” Kirek asked Angel from his medical bed, one day after he’d awakened from his coma. To his dismay, he had needed to continue to hold still so the nanoprobes could finish repairing the nerve damage. But as he healed, his impatience to be up and around was checked by Angel’s almost continuous presence. She’d only left him once, to retrieve the chip, so he could work on the faulty shielding for his psi while he recovered.
“I’m not sure.” Angel’s brow furrowed. “One moment the red beams were on you, the next, I’d moved to your side, and the shield popped up.” She frowned. “When I brought you back, I also recovered the Kraj weapon that caused your nerve damage. Frie took it apart to see how it worked. She’s attempting to make a shield for you.”
“Give her my thanks.” Kirek placed the chip aside for a moment. “Do you think you could form your shield again?”
Rystani Warrior 04 - The Quest Page 22