A Plain Jane Book One (20 page)

. . . .But what
about Marie and Alex?

Lucas suddenly slammed his hand
back on the panel and docked his glove. ‘No, you listen to me,’ he
said sharply as he activated the audio, ‘this is a priority
mission, you get me clearance. I am not waiting out here in space
for the bureaucracy to make their mind up.’

Jane blinked with obvious
surprise.

Maybe that was another
thing his fan supplements had missed – but Lucas did have a temper.
Of course he did. He was under so much pressure nearly every day of
every week. It was up to him to solve the most nuanced and hardest
of situations. When people got in the way, when damn bureaucracy
stood before him and tried to tell him that stupid infrastructure
or money was more important than people's lives, then yes, he got
angry.

Only when the flight
operator on the Central Shipyards mumbled that he would see what he
could do, did Lucas un-dock his hand and lean back in his chair,
closing his eyes and shaking his head bitterly again and
again.

‘
Why don't you send a message?’
Jane asked, voice quiet. ‘If you are worried about Marie Cooper and
your friend Alex Wong, then you should send a message. It would get
there instantly, you are still within the solar system
communication network.’

Lucas knew he was still
within the solar system communication network, and he also knew
something more. He knew that Specimen 14, the Darq, had skills and
capabilities that were far beyond anything he’d ever dealt with.
And when you were dealing with something that powerful, you had to
be very careful about how much information you put out there.
Simply put, he could not risk making contact with Earth, because it
could give away their location to the Darq. No, he had to maintain
a full communication blackout. For the time being that meant not
knowing what had happened to his friends.

‘
I'm . . . sure
they are . . . ’ she tried, but she
stopped.

He knew that she wanted to
say she was sure they were okay, but he also knew she doubted it.
The Darq was an enemy unlike any the Galactic Force had ever
seen.

. . . . So why
was it after her?

Just who was
Jane?

In another moment there
was a beep, and Lucas could see that the Central Shipyards had
disabled their dampening field.

‘
It's about time,’ he
snapped.

‘
Maybe they'll know what happened
on Earth,’ Jane tried. ‘Or maybe it will be easy for them to find
out,’ her voice was very kind and soft, and Lucas got the
impression he was hearing the real Jane, momentarily unaffected by
her implant.

There seemed to be many
shades to her, and none of them were plain.

As soon as the ship started to
approach the Central Shipyards, Lucas had to give up control of the
navigation system to the station’s computer, and he stood up from
his chair, arching his back. Then he looked down at Jane. He
hesitated. What would happen next? He was almost certain that the
Central Shipyards would have had some kind of communication with
the Galactic Force by now, even if they’d only been notified that
there was a security breach without knowing the full story. If
they’d been alerted in full, and now knew exactly who Jane was and
what she’d done, then . . . what exactly was he
going to face outside? The combined force of the Central Shipyards
security team? He wanted to tell Jane that it would all be okay,
but he had absolutely no idea whether it would be.

He gestured with his head to
the back of the ship. ‘Come on.’

She followed his gesture
but she didn't immediately stand up. She simply sat there and
latched a hand onto the end of her ponytail, twisting it through
her fingers. It was the same move that she had done in the corridor
earlier that day.

After watching her for a
moment, and waiting for her to move, he did something on impulse:
he held out his hand to her.

She looked at it, then
looked up at his eyes, and then just stood up on her
own.

Lucas let his hand drop to
his side, an awkward smile kinking his lips, then he started to
walk towards the other end of the ship. There was a slight shake as
it made contact with the large magnetic docking clamp that came up
from underneath and connected to the belly of the ship, locking it
into place and pulling it towards the station’s primary hangar
bay.

There was a view panel
just next to Jane, and he noted with interest that she craned her
head to have a look at it. He reminded himself with a smile that
this was her first time in space, and being her first time in
space, she would never have seen Central Shipyards, let alone been
in a spaceship as it had been manually moved around by a giant
magnetic clamp. She looked fascinated, still craning her head to
the side, her eyes wide.

Once the
ship docked, the hangar door
opened.

Lucas steeled himself, he
stiffened up, he straightened his back, and even though he
shouldn't, he formed his hands into fists. These were his friends,
his allies, but he still had no idea what they would do to
Jane.

And he
cared, Lucas actually cared what they did
to her. He’d promised himself to find out who she was, what was
after her, and to help her. He hadn't made the promise to her face
– he’d made it himself – but that was good enough for
him.

Chapter 11

Jane

The hangar door opened in
an instant, and she wasn't expecting it. She’d thought she would
have time. She’d assumed she would have to wait for Lucas to go
over to the docking panel by the doors and use his armor to open it
up. Yet they’d opened of their own accord.

Surprised by the
suddenness of it all, Jane jumped with fright and, embarrassingly,
actually tried to hide behind Lucas. He obviously noticed, because
he shifted his head to the side and looked at her.

Hiding behind Lucas
Stone . . . that was not something Jane had ever
thought she would be doing. Yet reality was contradicting her
expectations here.

Jane felt a rush of
exhilaration as the light from the hangar room outside filtered in
and mixed with that of their ship. It absolutely sliced through
her, blazing into her stomach and rushing down her back. She felt
her breath quicken, her chest pumping up and down as she tried to
hold herself still.

She was scared it would
happen again. Not, of course, that she would be able to stop it if
it did. If she got too frightened, wouldn't it take control again?
Whatever
it
was? The
implant that Lucas had talked about? The one that was meant to be
in her brain? Inside her actual brain?

Jane suddenly tipped her
head to the side as a sharp slice of pain shot through her
forehead, and she tried to squeeze her eyes against it until it
stopped.

The implant.

The second she thought
about it again, was the second the pain returned, and she clutched
at her face with her hand.

‘
Come on,’ she heard Lucas
say.

Jane didn't move
immediately.

She couldn't see what was
outside, because the light was too bright. For all she knew there
was a platoon of security forces, maybe even some security robots,
perhaps some flying drones. God they probably had an entire army
out there considering what she’d done to the Galactic Force. She
could hardly blame them; what she’d done was horrible, incredible,
and not the kind of thing you encouraged in your administrative
staff.

‘
Jane,’ Lucas said softly, and
yet again he held his hand out to her. She looked at it, and though
she really wanted to grab it, she didn't. Because he was Lucas
Stone, right?

‘
Come on,’ he tried
again.

Finally, once again not
taking his hand, she followed him out of the ship.

The view that met her was
breathtaking, for more than one reason.

Jane had seen the hangar
bays above the Galactic Force Main Campus before. She’d seen
spaceships too of course, even though she’d never been on one as it
had left Earth's atmosphere. Yet that did not prepare her for the
sight of the Central Shipyards. They were huge, massive even. In
fact, she doubted she’d ever seen a structure so large. Though
their reconnaissance vessel wasn't that small, it was dwarfed by
some of the ships that were docked beside it. Actual battlecruisers
and long-range scientific vessels. They were the kind of ships that
Jane had only ever seen on holo images, and never up
close.

This was space,
apparently, and Jane was starting to realize how little of it she’d
seen.

There were also security
guards. Galactic Force security guards.

There were about seven of
them all lined up outside the door to their cruiser, all in
jet-black amour just like Lucas'. They all had guns too, and they
were all held fast in their grips, though currently they were
pointed at the ground and not at her.

That didn't stop Jane from
starting to shake.

Lucas Stone

Lucas put his hands up and he
walked out. ‘We are on the same team, guys,’ he said, voice
careful.

‘
On the same team?’ he heard
someone snap from further down the corridor, and in a moment he
realized that they was stalking towards him, having just arrived
through one of the many linear lifts that serviced the main docking
bay.

H
e knew that voice, he knew that walk too;
it was Chief Scientist Priya.

As always, she looked
fantastic. And, as always, she looked at him like he was one of the
dirtiest scumbags in the entire universe. After all, they had a
history, they had a history where he’d once dated Priya, and where
it had ended, for all sorts of reasons, in a very, very messy
breakup.

There was a reason Lucas
never liked to go to Central Shipyards, and that reason was Chief
Scientist Priya.

He actually grimaced. Was
there anything else that could go wrong? Was there any other thing
in this Galaxy that could try and stuff up and get in his way
today? Was this just a continuation of the curse that had been
dogging him his entire life? Or would it end here? Would Priya grab
one of the security officer's rifles and just shoot him or chase
him around the corridor, screaming at him as she tried to hit him
on the head with the butt of the gun?

Priya glared at him, but
then she let her gaze turn to Jane, and from the look on Priya's
face, Lucas could tell that she knew something about Jane. Whether
it was the entire story or not, he knew that was why there were now
seven armed security guards standing in front of them.

‘
I received a communiqué from
Earth,’ Priya snapped, returning her gaze to him. ‘Now what the
hell have you dragged in?’

Lucas twisted his jaw at
that statement. It was one thing for Priya to hate him, and he
probably deserved it on quite a few levels, but she didn't have to
be rude to Jane. Strangely, it was a quality he'd actually fancied
in her to begin with. She’d always been willing to be direct and
determined. Yet there was direct, and there was determined, and
then there was telling the frightened, incredibly confused woman
behind him that she was the kind of thing that was ‘dragged
in'.

‘
Priya, where is the Director?’
Lucas straightened up and fought the urge to cross his
arms.

‘
Are you trying to go over my
head, Lucas? It wouldn't be the first time,’ she put her hands on
her hips, staring out at him, her dark eyes flashing

Lucas sighed through a laugh,
but it wasn't a happy laugh, and it wasn't the kind of confused and
strange chuckle he’d been giving Jane all trip. No, it was an
entirely frustrated move. ‘Look, listen to me, this
situation—’

‘
Is out of your hands,’ Priya
kept her hands on her hips and glowered back at Jane.

‘
I'm sorry?’ Lucas asked slowly,
a very obvious note of warning in his voice.

‘
The Director has given orders
that she is to be taken to a secure medical facility.’

‘
What?’ Lucas asked again, that
dangerous note of warning still hardening his tone, frustration
starting to arch up his back as he realized the situation was
starting to go to hell.

‘
Don't play cute, Lucas. We know
what she did down at the Galactic Force,’ Priya snapped.

Lucas was aware that Jane
was slowly inching more and more behind him. He really couldn't
blame her. The kind of glare that Priya was giving Jane could cut
through a sun. Plus, at least while Jane was acting docile and
frightened she wasn’t running around high kicking security
officers, stealing their guns, and hacking into systems. He
couldn't guarantee how long that would last though.

‘
Look, I believe she
has . . . ’ Lucas thought of what to say for a
moment, but then realized there was no way he could convey to Priya
how stupid she was acting considering exactly what she was up
against. Lucas shook his head. ‘She has some kind of implant, it
can—’