A Plain Jane Book One (17 page)

The next five minutes were
agonizing, and Lucas could do nothing but wait there, one hand on
her shoulder as his armor picked up the live feed of her life
signs. He couldn't do anything to make her better, he could only
wait for the computer to synthesize the drug.

So he waited. He kept one
hand on her back as he used his free hand to massage his brow. And
he waited.

Lucas hated waiting. His
whole life was built on action. Never-ending action. One move after
another, one disaster after another, one mission after another.
There was never any time to stop and there was never any time to
rest. It was just one thing after the next.

Yet here he was,
waiting.

Two minutes
left.

She was weak, terribly
weak.

He started to get angry
about it. Furious even. Why had she done this to herself? Had she
done this to herself? Or was it that Artifact that had done it? He
knew one thing though, while her body had moved confidently and
competently, her expression and voice had been laden with genuine
fear. So it seemed fairly sane to conclude that whatever had been
happening to her, Jane hadn't had much to do with it. She had been
the victim.

One minute.

How did she fall into the
rest of this? Did she have something to do with the Artifact, with
Specimen 14? While Lucas had never believed that Jane was plain,
and would certainly not use that word to describe her, she was,
until a few hours ago, normal. She led a very peaceful and ordinary
life. She wasn't the kind of girl to be right at the center of this
Galactic mess, whatever this Galactic mess was.

Yet he just could no
longer deny what he’d seen.

30 seconds.

S
he was at the center of it all. There was
no doubt that the Paran Artifact had acted in order to keep her
safe. It had also told him in no uncertain terms that she was the
target of Specimen 14. A fact he could believe; he’d seen the way
the Darq had looked at her. He’d felt the aggression and hatred lap
off it.

10 seconds.

Lucas now stood up, hand
hovering over the service panel where the drug would be formed and
delivered to an endo syringe.

His fingers were tensed as
they hovered over the panel, waiting, waiting until he could snap
the drug right up.

Two seconds.

He clamped his jaw down,
his teeth so solidly stuck together that the pressure translated
all the way through his skull.

Done.

Lucas snapped up the
syringe, got down to the floor, and injected it right into Jane's
neck.

T
hen he stood back, and he waited
again.

‘
What is the effect?’ he asked
the computer.

The computer waited for a
moment, beeping softly, and eventually told him that it was
analyzing and not ready to answer his question.

‘
Effective,’ it answered after an
agonizing wait. ‘Patient will regain consciousness shortly. Unusual
biology, the computer has adjusted.’

Lucas almost doubled over
in exhausted relief.

‘
Are we cleared for exit from
Earth?’ he asked as he suddenly remembered the most important
thing. If those two engineers had not managed to secure his ship
priority, there was a high chance that Lucas would be ordered back
to the hangar bay until they could fit him into the flight
pattern.

‘
Processing. Yes,’ the computer
finally replied.

Lucas shook his head and
even indulged in a smile. That had to be the first thing that was
going right today.

T
hen Jane groaned.

Chapter 10

Jane

She felt . . .
she felt horrible. She’d never felt like this before, it
was . . . .

She saw Lucas kneel down
beside her, his face coming into view, his expression displaying
genuine and obvious concern.

‘
Jane? Jane? Are you okay?’ he
asked quickly, his voice snapping, but his tone hardly angry, only
anxious.

She didn't answer as a wave of
nausea rolled over her. She had never felt like this, in fact,
she’d hardly ever felt sick in her entire life. She’d been
incredibly lucky in that respect; she’d never been injured, she’d
never come down with some kind of space virus, and she’d hardly
ever had a runny nose. But now . . .
now . . . .

‘
I . . . ’
she managed.

‘
Oh god, you're okay, prack,
you're okay,’ Lucas looked intensely relieved, and he closed his
eyes and shook his head, his mouth pressing up into a confused
smile. Then he opened his eyes again, and he looked down at Jane
warily.

‘
I'm going to throw up,’ she
finally realized.

Lucas blinked. Before he
could do anything, Jane twisted to the side and threw up, all over
the command chair. Then she clapped a hand to her mouth, one over
her stomach, and bent forward.

‘
Right,’ Lucas said as he slowly
stood. ‘Computer . . . ’ he began.

‘
Decontamination equipment in
storage cell one,’ the computer replied.

Lucas just nodded, thrust his
bottom lip forward, and blew a blast of air up against the very
short edges of his fringe. ‘Right. Didn't think I would be cleaning
up puke tonight,’ he mumbled as he started to walk back towards the
other end of the cruiser. Before he did, he turned and faced her.
‘Will you be okay?’

She was aware that her eyebrows
were shifting up and down, her cheeks puffing in and out, her chin
wobbling. She kept on swallowing. ‘I’ve never thrown up before,’
she managed.

Lucas' eyebrows descended, and
he looked confused. ‘Okay,’ he replied simply.

‘
There is a funny taste in my
mouth,’ she added.

‘
I'll bet there is. I'll get you
some water. Are you okay? Do you need some help sitting up?’ the
look of concern on his face . . . it honestly did
seem to be real.

Jane was aware that she
was now looking up at him, confusion pressing down on her eyebrows,
her lips pulling out into a line. Could it be that the media had
been wrong? Or maybe that she’d been wrong? Despite what she liked
to believe, Lucas Stone was turning out to be almost kind. Or was
it some kind of act? Would he go out back and suddenly bring out a
registration form for his Fan Club? Or demand that she give an
exclusive interview to some news crew telling them how fabulous he
was?

Lucas was obviously watching
her, and he suddenly started to pale. ‘You need to throw up
again?’

She patted her lips then
shook her head.

‘
Just wait here,’ he said as he
walked back out from the bridge.

Which left her alone. Alone
with her thoughts. Jane had a lot of thoughts right now, because
she had a lot to think about. Never before in her entire life had
so much happened to her in such a short time. In fact, even in her
various fantasies she’d never faced so much danger, so much action,
and so much . . . awkwardness. After a moment, she
swallowed again, trying to ignore the horribly acidic taste in her
mouth, and she pulled herself up off the floor and onto the
remaining chair – the chair that was not covered in puke. Then she
just sat there, feeling sick and sorry for herself until Lucas came
back into the room. He handed her a glass of water and then set
about cleaning up the mess.

Was this what happened to
ordinary people? Was this how they felt? Did everybody traipse
around the Galaxy, running from incredible danger and intrigue,
throwing up on command chairs, and finding that some external force
had control of their bodies?

When Lucas was finished,
he sat down on the command chair and swiveled to face
her.

Jane had never seen an
expression like the one he now wore, and she had no idea what it
meant. His eyes were narrowed as if they were pressed with concern,
yet one corner of his lip was curled in a half smile.

‘
Well, that
was . . . different,’ he brushed his hand over his
chin.

This confused Jane, and she
frowned back at him. ‘I don't understand.’

Lucas gave a short and
apparently uncontrollable laugh. ‘Okay. Well, what I meant was,
well,’ he now stuttered and automatically put a hand up to touch
the back of his head. This time it did not bounce off his armor,
and he patted his hair down with no trouble. ‘That was different,’
he ended up repeating.

‘
What usually happens?’ Jane
asked plainly.

Lucas laughed again, but it was
somewhere between mirth and awkwardness.
‘Usually . . . ’ he opened his mouth and closed
it again. ‘I don't know what I'm saying,’ he finally answered,
laughing again.

Jane gave him a quizzical look.
‘I've never been into space before,’ she pointed out
again.

‘
And y
ou’ve never thrown up before,’ Lucas said
as he turned back to the computer console and typed something into
one of the panels, ‘but you seem to have a natural talent for
it.’

Jane's eyebrows danced
around, her expression shifting between irritation and confusion.
She wasn’t sure what to make of that comment.

Lucas eventually turned back to
her, and the strange awkwardness and mirth was gone from his
expression; it was filled with concern again, but in a strangely
determined way. ‘Do you have any idea what just
happened?’

Jane's gaze suddenly
darted down to her hands, and she moved her fingers around, lacing
them through each other. She shook her head.

‘
I didn't think you would,’ Lucas
sighed. ‘Now I'm on a ship with you, leaving the Earth's
atmosphere, running from a creature that wiped out the Parans,’ he
appeared to be speaking to himself, ‘and neither of us have any
idea what's going on. Well, at least this beats the Dean's
party.’

‘
But you like parties,’ Jane
noted weakly, ‘I read it in one of the fan supplements that Mandy
gets. She is a card-carrying member of your Fan Club. She is always
talking about you.’ A little part of her was aware how innocent and
quite possibly stupid she was sounding right now. But that little
part was weak considering she’d just had her body controlled, had
run around like a super soldier on stimulants, and had thrown up
all over a reconnaissance spaceship.

Once again one side of Lucas'
mouth started to curl up, and his lips darted around until he
couldn't stop it anymore, and the other side of his mouth snapped
up into a grin. ‘Sorry?’

‘
I read it,’ Jane said plainly,
aware of the fact she was tired and that she should seriously be
putting more thought into what she was saying, ‘Lucas Stone likes
to go to parties. It said you also like to go walking,’ she started
counting on her fingers, ‘cooking in the traditional old-style
human manner, and going . . . ’ she trailed off
for a moment as she tried to remember the exact phrase, ‘for long
walks on the beach with a special person,’ she finished, nodding to
herself in satisfaction that she had managed to remember all the
details.

If Lucas had been trying not to
laugh before, it was nothing compared to the titanic struggle that
now twisted across his face. His lips actually wobbled, and he
closed his eyes for a second. ‘Going for long walks on the beach
with a special person?’ he repeated, shaking through a
laugh.

Jane suddenly realized how
idiotic she was sounding and she crossed her arms. Her body still
burnt with fatigue, but she was happy to waste energy on the move.
‘Well I don't know, it was written in your fan
supplement.’

Lucas actually laughed out loud
now. ‘I think you'll find there is a lot of junk written in those
things. If I did half the things they said I do, I would be
superhuman.’ He shook his head and turned back to the panel for a
moment, fingers darting across it as he no doubt checked that their
flight plan was still operational.

Jane kept her arms crossed in
front of her. She wanted to repeat to him that the fan supplement
clearly, plainly said that he liked going to parties. If that was
wrong, then . . . well, everything she knew about
Lucas Stone was probably wrong too. The only information she had on
the man, other than the very brief interactions she’d had with him,
was what she’d learned off Mandy and the news. And what she’d
learnt from those sources was the primary reason Jane had grown to
hate the man so much. After all, the impression she had was that
Lucas Stone was larger than life, and not larger than life in a
good way: in a way that made everybody else feel small, normal,
ordinary, and plain.

‘
You are pretty strange,’ Lucas
said, still chuckling as he turned back to face her. ‘No, I really
don't like parties. They bore the hell out of me,’ he was still
smiling, and his nose had crumpled, his eyes narrowing as his
cheeks puffed up against them. He apparently thought this was
hilarious. ‘Now what else was there? Something to do with walking?
Well, to be honest, I actually do like walking. But I just don't
get the time. The last time I went on a
hike . . . ’ he trailed off and looked up to
his left, ‘I was transported away when I was only probably a
hundred meters from the top of the mountain.’ He shrugged his
shoulders. ‘There was an incident I had to deal with. But I will
tell you one thing, I do prefer old-style cooking. It's got a
certain charm to it. As for long walks on the beach with someone
special,’ he now chuckled through his words again.