Dark Matters (Class 5 Series Book 4)

by Michelle Diener

  It was as if Rua didn't see her as a danger, even though he must have seen her strike Virn.

  Shaking her head, Lucy bent down, picked up the grapple Virn had dropped, and then caught Dray's eye. She looked at Rua, and then back to the hovers, stepped forward and swung the grapple at his head as hard as she could.

  The blow dropped him over Virn's body.

  She turned back to Dray. “Let's go.” Except . . . “Who has the restraint releases?” She ran to Virn's hover, and looked in the storage unit.

  Dray didn't join her, and when she looked up sharply to check on him, she saw he was bending over the two Tecran.

  When he straightened, he had two shockguns in his hands.

  She turned back to the hold, but there was nothing in there that looked right. She ran back to where Dray was sliding the shockgun into the empty holster strapped to his thigh.

  “Does Virn have the restraint releases on him?”

  “Good thought.” Dray crouched again, patted Virn down and pulled a small device out of his front pocket.

  Virn batted at his hands, but weakly.

  As Dray rose back up, she held out her wrists, and heard one of the best sounds in the world, the snick of freedom.

  She took the device and freed Dray, and then she ran for Virn's hover. “Come on.”

  He looked like he was going to insist on piloting it, but then he slid behind her.

  She turned it on, touching buttons with shaking hands, and just as she was about to lift them up, a flash of purple through the fog winked from the corner of her eye, and then there was nothing but darkness.

  Chapter 27

  She came to in Dray's arms.

  He held her against him, one arm curved around her back, the other around the back of her thighs, and he was sitting up against one of the hovers with her draped across his lap.

  She let her eyelids flutter closed, and tried to work out what was going on before they realized she was conscious.

  “I was reacting.” She heard Bly's voice, tight and defensive. “It was set to kill because, in case you forgot, we were just shooting at kol.”

  “She's why we're here. And you hit her with a kill shot.” Virn's words were equally tight. “I'm not saying you shouldn't have taken the shot, I'm saying a quick adjustment to something lower than kill would have been good.”

  “It's done. And she doesn't look dead, anyway.” Rua didn't seem particularly concerned either way, and given the way she'd hit him over the head, she couldn't exactly blame him.

  “How is that, exactly?” Virn's voice rose, and she felt Dray shift a little, his arms tightening.

  “Don't ask me,” Dray said, the rough sound of his voice vibrating through her, but she had the feeling he was lying.

  What did he know about her that she didn't?

  “Maybe its got to do with their bone density.” Rua sounded tired. “As I discovered, she can put a lot of power behind her movements.”

  “So what now?” Bly moved a little closer.

  “We go down, find the cave, take the supplies in, you watch these two, and then when she's recovered, we take them below.”

  “She could take days to recover for all we know.” Rua said.

  “Then the two of them can sit out here as kol snacks.”

  “And their guard?” Bly's question was dry.

  “Use your imagination,” Virn snapped. “You can guard them from the cliff edge. If the kol come, you can jump down.”

  There was silence.

  She let her eyelids lift again, and found herself looking directly into Dray's blue eyes.

  She saw relief, and something else in his gaze. Something that electrified her. Warmed her all the way through.

  “How do you feel?” he murmured.

  “Like I fell from the cliffs to the rocks below.” She tried a weak smile, and then closed her eyes again, letting her cheek rest against his chest.

  “She awake?” Virn was suddenly looming over them, and she felt Dray tense beneath her again.

  “Just coming to,” he said.

  “Good. Bly, watch them both like they're kol on the hunt. I'll be back as soon as I've located the cave.” She opened her eyes in time to see him turn to Rua. “You going to be all right?”

  She saw Rua had a transparent blue gel-like dressing on his head. He was sitting up against another hover.

  He waved Virn away, and the Tecran disappeared back into the fog.

  “How did they get the jump on you?” Bly asked.

  Rua was silent.

  When it appeared he wasn't going to get an answer, Bly swore softly and went to get his handheld.

  “Keep both hands free,” Rua said.

  “They're on the ground, and while she may be awake, she's hardly about to leap up and attack.”

  Rua didn't answer, and when Lucy swung her gaze back to Dray, she saw the faint spark of humor in his eyes.

  “Can you?” he asked.

  “Leap up and attack?” She tried another smile. “Not right this second. Give me a few minutes.”

  “I thought he'd killed you.” He was dead serious now.

  “Seems like they thought it, too.”

  He nodded. “I'd read in the reports that Rose McKenzie and Fiona Russell had both survived kill shots with a shockgun, but it was only after I felt your heart beating that I remembered it. In the moment . . .” He shook his head.

  She ran a hand down his cheek, noticed he had blue gel over the cut where the grapple had gouged his skin, as well. “We're obviously hard to kill.” She was trying to comfort him, and he seemed to realize it, because he shook his head.

  “How bad is your fear of the cliffs?”

  “Pretty bad. But what choice do I have?” She accepted that with the practicality of someone who hadn't had a choice in a while.

  “I was one of the Battle Center officers who thought we were asking for trouble with this military takeover,” Dray said. “Maybe because of that, I got picked for the UC mission. They wanted people who were on guard. Cynical about the process. But the whole way over on the Urna, I learned to speak Tecran, read about Tecran history and their culture, and I started to think maybe I was wrong, that we should give the citizens a chance, as it was clearly a few of their politicians and the generals in their military who'd made this decision, not the majority of them.”

  “And now?” she asked.

  “Now, I find I'm drifting back to my original standpoint.”

  She gave him a lopsided smile. “I've wanted to burn this whole place to the ground and I've wanted to try to make friends, sometimes both at the same time.” She gave a weak laugh. “Of course, I hadn't seen the outside of the facility then, and since I've been out in the open, so to speak, I've been less inclined to burn it all, but also less inclined to make friends. I actually just want to get out of here, and leave them to it.”

  “That works for me.” He lifted a hand and brushed her hair back from her forehead, then caught a lock of it between his fingers, and tugged it to straighten it, then let it spring back into its corkscrew curl. “I've never seen hair like this. Not even on the other Earth women.”

  “Crazy curls?” She shrugged. “It's not uncommon, but it sure is hard to keep untangled on an alien planet.”

  His lips quirked. “Not something I've ever had to consider.”

  She lifted her own hand, and slid her fingers into his hair. The strands felt slightly rough.

  Her gaze met his, and she felt that quick, lightning jolt of lust and desire again.

  “I found it.”

  Virn's voice came from within the fog.

  “Pass down some of the supplies. Rua, you watch the prisoners. Bly, bring down as much as you can carry.”

  Bly looked relieved. He disappeared into the fog with a few bags, then came back to load himself up again.

  “You going to cope?” He looked over at Rua, who hadn't moved.

  “Yes.” Rua finally stirred himself, standing up and limping over to th
em, and then sat on a rock with his back to the fog.

  Bly watched him for another minute and then disappeared into the swirling white.

  “I'd really like to hit you with another kill shot,” Rua said, conversationally. “Of course, it might not kill you, but I'm guessing it'll hurt.”

  “Sure.” Lucy stayed where she was in Dray's arms, nice and warm and comfortable. “Of course, you'll delay the trip to the cave, and be forced to guard me while I'm up here, but that's your call.”

  The Tecran sent her an unmistakably dark look.

  “So, tell me, what is the Tecran military's procedure when captured by an unknown force?” Dray asked.

  Rua narrowed his eyes. “I'm sure you know.”

  “Yes.” Dray shifted his hold on her. “I'm just wondering if you do. And if so, if you're able to extrapolate that to people you've captured.”

  Rua's nostrils flared and he stood, then thought better of the sudden movement and sat again.

  “And what would you consider fit retribution for an alien force who took you from Tecra and kept you on their planet, with no explanation or way to get you home?” Lucy wondered.

  “I wasn't involved in that,” Rua hissed. “I'm just the sap that got landed with guarding you.”

  “Whatever.” Lucy leaned her cheek back on Dray's chest. “Does the 'just following orders' excuse fly in this part of the galaxy?”

  “No.” Dray rubbed his cheek on the top of her head. “I'm assuming it doesn't in your part, either?”

  “Not for wont of trying, but no, it doesn't.”

  Rua hissed again, but he said nothing more, and from the way he had his hand to his forehead, she guessed he was dealing with a very severe concussion.

  If only she didn't feel weak down to her bones, this would be the perfect opportunity to try to escape again.

  But she didn't even know if she could sit on a hover without falling off right now.

  She looked up at Dray. She could see the same thought reflected in the bright blue of his eyes.

  “We'll have another chance,” he mouthed, and it comforted her, even though she wanted to remind him that it would be a lot harder once they were in a cave in the cliff below.

  Mainly because her fear of heights would hinder them.

  She would just have to force the fear down. Because if they had a chance to escape, she would not be the reason they couldn't take it.

  Chapter 28

  Lucy was obviously terrified.

  Dray looked up at her, carefully moving her foot down to the next foothold, and could see her fear. Her movements were jerky, and she kept stopping.

  Her slow pace was causing the Tecran to rip out their feathery hair, which didn't worry him, but their impatience was rattling Lucy even more.

  “Ignore them,” he called up, his voice low. “Enjoy the fact that you're driving them crazy.”

  She stopped at his words, and he could see her draw in a deep breath, and then nod.

  She risked a quick look down at him, her eyes big, and then turned quickly back to face the cliff in front of her.

  “Good point.” Her voice sounded weak, but there was a slight laugh in there, and that settled him a bit.

  She was coping.

  She was the shortest of them all, so it was harder for her to reach the cams Virn had hammered into the cliff, and she needed more power to compensate for her weight. Fortunately it looked as if she'd been given the opportunity to exercise in the facility, and she was coping physically. It was her fear of falling that held her back.

  Not that that fear was ill-considered.

  If she fell, she'd die. All of them would.

  Her instinctive fear of it might well interest one of the exploration officers on a Grihan explorer ship. He wondered if it was a fear common to all the Earth women, or just Lucy.

  “Hey, Grih. Move.” Bly stood in the mouth of the cave below him to his left, and gestured to him impatiently.

  “Do you want her to keep freezing with fear, or do you want me to talk her down?” Dray didn't so much as pretend to move.

  “Do a better job of it, then. We're losing the light.” Bly turned away in disgust, and went deeper into the cave to do something. Dray assumed he was sorting out the supplies.

  The cave lay close to the top of the cliff, but under a deep overhang, which meant they had to come at it diagonally from the right.

  The mouth of it was wide, which made him wonder how cold it was going to be in there.

  Right now it was just below the fog line, but that could change in a moment, and he wondered if mentioning that to Lucy would help her find the impetus to move, or merely frighten her even more.

  She hadn't moved since he'd spoken to her, though, so he decided he didn't have much to lose.

  “The fog could lower,” he called up softly. “And much though I hate to admit it, Bly is right. We are losing the light. Rather get down while we can still see relatively well.”

  She sucked in a breath, nodded, and started down again.

  The clips on her harness jingled, and he could see her arms and legs shaking as she moved.

  When she was just above him, he reached up and squeezed her calf in encouragement.

  “Nearly there.”

  “Really?” Her voice was choked.

  “Really.” He started moving again, sliding left, closer to the cave, and called out handholds and footholds to her.

  She moved slowly but surely, without so many pauses, and when he swung into the cave, she was only five minutes behind him.

  He grabbed her as she lowered herself in, and unclipped her harness.

  She sagged, and he eased her down onto the cave floor, where she sat and drew up her knees and hugged them.

  “It's over.” He crouched in front of her.

  “It's over for now.” She buried her face on her knees. “I still have to get back up at some point.”

  He didn't respond to that, because she was right, but there was no sense in thinking about that now.

  Instead he rose up and looked around their new prison.

  The mouth was wide, but it widened a little more as it stretched back into the cliff, and there were nooks and folds in the rock that meant there would be some shelter from the freezing wind blowing in off the sea.

  He moved deeper into the cave, to where the light didn't reach, and realized he hadn't seen Bly since they'd arrived.

  He saw the Tecran had moved the supplies deeper inside, away from the entrance, and had stacked them as neatly as possible against the uneven walls, but there was no other sign of him.

  “What's that smell?”

  He looked back, and saw Lucy behind him.

  She was wrinkling her nose and waving a hand in front of her face.

  He didn't smell anything.

  She suddenly gagged, and turned away, walking back to the cave entrance.

  “Sorry, that is just rank. Is there something in here?” She looked back at him from closer to the entrance. “Like, an animal?”

  He shrugged and kept moving deeper in, into what was now a wide passageway that was pitch black, and eventually he smelled it, too. It wasn't as foul to his own senses as it obviously was to Lucy's, but there was a strong scent of musk.

  And there was still no sign of Bly.

  He considered calling out, but before he could decide whether that would be wise, he heard the faint sound of something hard scrape against rock.

  He had studied Tecran flora and fauna on the Urna, with a particular emphasis on things that could kill, and he ran through them now.

  There was nothing in the information that he could remember that referred to cliff cave dwellers.

  He heard the sound of a raised voice behind him, and reversed course, without turning his back on the narrowing passageway.

  When he moved into the main part of the cave, Virn spun to face him.

  “Where's Bly?”

  “I was looking for him when I heard you shouting.” Dray gestured to
the stacked supplies. “There's no sign of him. But there is the stink of something back there.”

  “Something?” Virn's tone was sarcastic. “Bly!”

  His shout echoed in the cave, but there was no reply.

  “Get down on your knees.” Virn pointed his shockgun at Dray.

  Dray slowly complied.

  “Hands out.” Virn unclipped the restraints from his waist.

  “If there is something back there, I'll need my hands to protect Lucy and myself.”

  “I don't believe you. But if you are telling the truth, tough.”

  Virn secured the restraints. Looked over at Lucy. “You, too.”

  She hesitated and Virn shoved the shockgun against Dray's head.

  “You might survive a kill shot, but your protector here won't. Come here.”

  She moved forward, knelt beside him, hands out.

  There was something deeply obscene about the gesture. It offended Dray to his core.

  She shouldn't be kneeling in front of them. They should be kneeling in front of her, begging her for forgiveness.

  Some of what he felt must have been evident on his face, because Virn hesitated a moment, and then turned his head in that impossible way the Tecran had, looking nearly 180 degrees behind him, as something darted out of the dark passageway.

  For a moment, it was hard for Dray to understand what he was seeing in the dark shadow at the back of the cave.

  It looked like--

  “Nynt!” Virn staggered back, and then lifted his shockgun and shot.

  The large predatory bird shrieked in outrage at the hit, rearing back and then lunging forward, snapping its beak.

  Virn cried out as he shot it again, and this time he must have increased the power of the charge, because it flinched back and then disappeared into the passageway again.

  Dray had scrambled back when the nynt had darted forward, putting himself between the enraged bird and Lucy, and he felt her hand on his shoulder.

  When he looked up at her, though, he saw her attention was on Virn, her eyes wide.

  As he shifted his gaze, the Tecran staggered to the side and went down on one knee.

  There was a bleeding gash deep in his shoulder, and his left arm was limp.