A Plain Jane Book One (27 page)

Though she still couldn't
see Lucas’ face, she could appreciate that he receded slightly in
his chair, and she imagined that he looked surprised underneath all
of that hulking black armor.

‘
I can't—’ he began.

‘
You have to,’ she interrupted
immediately. ‘You look as if you haven't slept in ages. And even
though I am not human, I think I understand that if you don’t
sleep, you will eventually die,’ she said quite plainly, ‘and if
you intend to eventually die, then why don't you just shoot
yourself right now and get it over with?’ she ended with another
sniff.

Lucas made a strange noise, and
his shoulders tipped forward in an instant. It was halfway between
a choke and a laugh. ‘Look, I'm fine—’

‘
You will begin to lose speed and
agility,’ Jane said as she looked up to the left, trying to
remember as much as she could about human physiology, ‘and, while I
don't know a lot about your armor, I do know that it is linked to
your nervous system. I once saw something on the Galactic news
where a security officer had gone several weeks without sleep, and
then his armor had kind of overridden his brain or something, and
put him into a coma. Something to do with overriding suicidal
tendencies . . . ’ she said very slowly, having
to think hard about each word as she tried to remember exactly what
the report had said.

Finally Lucas switched his
helmet to transparent, and Jane saw just how tired he looked
underneath there. He shrugged his shoulders again. ‘It is true:
built into all bio armor is a certain set of emergency protocols
that will stop the wearer from acting in a way that is threatening
to their own life, unless needed in combat, of course. But trust
me, I'm not about to slip into a coma,’ he gave a chuckle, though
it was very throaty and croaky.

Jane just shook her head. ‘I
once read in a fan supplement that you said that any proper soldier
is always willing to keep themselves in top physical condition in
order to be able to respond in the best possible way that they can
in every situation they face.’ Whereas before she’d had to think
quite hard about her words, now they came freely and easily. After
all, she may not know that much about bio armor, but she did know a
hell of a lot about Lucas Stone. A simple fact she had not
appreciated much until she’d actually met the man.

Lucas laughed again. ‘They got
me to say that so that kids would stop eating so much Hoyan candy,’
he said bluntly.

‘
Well, I didn't realize you were
a liar then,’ she stared at him blankly.

‘
Liar?’ he asked quickly, a note
of annoyance in his voice.

‘
I think you know what I mean,’
she turned back to the console in front of her and crossed her
arms.

She was aware that Lucas
was still staring at her, and she could see just how surprised,
confused, and almost amused he was in her peripheral vision. Yet
she did not turn back to him, she just kept her arms crossed and
her gaze fixed in front of her.

Lucas chuckled awkwardly.
‘Alright, alright, maybe I can try and get a couple of minutes'
rest.’ He even stretched his shoulders at that.

Jane nodded her head
firmly.

‘
I can set the computer to wake
me up in ten minutes or so,’ he said through a heavy
sigh.

Jane nodded her head,
though she didn't completely agree with his statement ten minutes?
Try ten hours.

‘
We are at BL, and the computer
has set course . . . we should be okay,’ Lucas said
again, finally standing up. Then he just sat down again.

Jane looked at him, knowing
that her eyes were narrowed in anger. She guessed that he was
intending to sleep right in the command chair rather than going to
use one of the fully-appointed sleeping quarters. ‘Oh no you
don't,’ she said at once. ‘Go to bed,’ she pointed towards the back
of the ship.

Lucas spluttered through a
laugh at her again. ‘You can't order me around; you just work in
admin,’ he set his jaw at an angle and looked at her
pointedly.

She didn't move her finger. ‘Go
to bed. In order to maximize the efficiency of your nap, you should
lie down, so that all of your muscles can rest.’

Lucas shook his head as he
looked at her, and laughed again, finally rolling his eyes. ‘Fine,’
he said, ‘fine, you win. Ten minutes,’ he repeated, and then he
leant forward to the console, docking his hand, and no doubt
telling the computer to wake him up just when he wanted
to.

Then, finally, Lucas Stone
turned around and walked heavily out of the room, leaving Jane
alone.

Lucas Stone

He didn't wake up to the feel
of his armor jogging him out of sleep. No, he woke up naturally.
Then he blinked his eyes several times, and wondered whether he’d
reached his ten minutes yet. The strange thing was he felt
refreshed, very refreshed, far more refreshed than six or seven
minutes of a power nap could account for. So he opened his eyes and
sat up in bed, stretching easily. ‘What's the time?’ he asked out
loud. He didn't need to do it; he could easily request the time
with a single thought to his armor, but he did so anyway. It was a
habit, more than anything, a habit that stemmed from the fact he’d
not always had bio armor implanted in him. Once he’d been a very
normal, non-augmented child. The kind of child that had run around
all day in the fields and valley just outside of his grandfather's
house. His grandfather had practically shunned technology. Instead
of having an integrated communications system wired through their
place, his grandfather hadn’t even had a food synthesizer,
preferring a very old stove instead. So Lucas had grown up looking
at the clock to find out the time or asking someone, certainly not
submitting a mental thought to the bio armor grafted onto his bones
and waiting for it to respond with perfect accuracy.

Now for the first time in
what felt like years, he’d woken up naturally.

That did not fill Lucas
with a sense of nostalgia, instead he jumped up from his bed,
jammed his finger on the button that opened the door, and ran at
full pelt to the bridge. He didn't know what he was expecting to
see, and his armor shot into place immediately.

When he rounded the corner
onto the bridge, running as fast as he could considering it was a
small ship with narrow corridors, he did not see a war, a battle,
or even a small skirmish. What he saw was Jane sitting peacefully
in the navigator chair, staring out into the middle distance, with
nobody trying to attack her.

She turned around as he
pelted into the room, her eyes blinking languidly and finally
focusing on him. Then she smiled slowly.

‘
What happened?’ he asked
immediately, aware that his voice was filled with concern,
suspicion, and just a little note of blame.

He could not deny that
Jane was sitting there and smiling with quite obvious
satisfaction
. ‘You
slept,’ she pointed out plainly.

‘
For almost ten hours,’ he said
quickly, voice curt. ‘What happened? I set the computer to wake me
up in ten minutes—’

She shrugged her shoulders. ‘I
don't know, but I certainly wasn't about to wake you up. Ten
minutes' rest is certainly—’

‘
Jane
, what did
you do to the computer?’ he interrupted, voice strained with
accusation as he crossed his arms.

She blinked back at him.
‘Excuse me? I didn't do—’

‘
You hacked into the computer and
stopped it from waking me up on time, didn't you?’ he was annoyed,
very annoyed.

She narrowed her eyes at him,
her usually cute button nose crumpling with obvious anger. ‘Excuse
me? Hacked into the computer? How on Earth would I do that? I just
work in admin—’

‘
Jane,’ he repeated once more,
arms still crossed in front of him. Then he stopped. Because she
was right. She couldn't hack into the computer; she was just a
simple office worker.

She couldn’t have done it,
but the implant almost certainly could have.

He locked his jaw in place,
looked at her for another moment, and then let his arms fall loose
to his sides. ‘Sorry,’ he managed as he walked up to the command
chair and sat roughly in it.

She continued to stare at him
for a moment, her eyes narrowed and expression irritated and
suspicious, then she shrugged her shoulders. ‘Whatever.’

‘
Did anything happen?’ he asked
quickly, though he didn't need to, as he instantly docked his glove
with the main console and waited for the computer to give him any
situation reports. In another second, before she could even answer,
he had the full history of the last ten hours. He could confirm
that absolutely nothing at all had happened. They hadn’t received
any notifications, no ships had come alongside them, and certainly
no rogue Darq had somehow latched onto their ship and tried to
attack them whilst he’d been napping.

‘
Nothing,’ she answered, her
voice still sharp with irritation.

Though Lucas had confirmed that
for himself, he still wasn't pleased with the situation. If he was
right, and that implant of hers had hacked through the main
computers and into his armor in order to let him
sleep . . . . He just shook his head at the
thought. Though he was completely fuming at the idea, a little
quiet voice in the back of his head noted at least he’d gotten some
sleep. A full uninterrupted ten hours to be exact. Though he would
probably need a nice holiday to get over the months of stress and
overwork that he’d been putting himself through, that ten hours had
certainly gone a fair way into paying back his most immediate sleep
deficit. While he didn't feel on top of the world, he certainly
felt refreshed.

Finally he rested back in
his chair, undocked his glove, and took a moment before he swiveled
his head to her. She’d likely been staring off into space the
entire time – when her implant hadn’t been hacking the computer
systems, that was. While he could try his hardest to get angry at
her for it, it simply wasn’t her fault: he’d seen ample evidence
that the implant acted without her knowledge and without her
control. He had also seen ample evidence that it only ever acted to
keep her safe, even if he didn't agree with the way that it often
did so. Was it all that strange to conclude that the implant wanted
Lucas to rest because it was a good thing for Jane? Did it not want
him running around alongside her bleary eyed, totally weary, and
just about to collapse from fatigue?

Lucas shook his head and
wondered exactly what the implant was prepared to do in order to
keep Jane safe. And, importantly, considering what had just
happened to him, he wondered what it was willing to do to him to
ensure that same outcome.

‘
Stop shaking your head,’ Jane
pointed out tersely, ‘nothing happened and you got a lot of sleep.
This isn't a bad thing. Perhaps you just set the alarm wrong, or
maybe your armor overrode your ridiculous intention to only sleep
for a mere ten minutes,’ Jane suggested through a sniff.

Lucas nodded, pretending he
agreed with her. ‘I guess you are right, sorry for accusing you. I
guess I was just surprised by it,’ he used his most diplomatic and
careful tone, usually the voice he found himself employing whenever
he had to talk to despots, pirate kings, or Senators. The voice
that said he believed them and he was on their side. Lucas wasn't
using that voice for Jane though; he was using it for the
implant.

Things were getting
complicated, but as Jane shrugged her shoulders, most of the
annoyed edge to her expression fading away, he couldn't help but
smile. Sure, things were getting complicated, but on some levels
they were getting interesting too.

Almost grinning now, Lucas
turned back to the view screen. He didn't need to dock again with
the computer to know where they were in their flight path. It would
only be another hour or so until they landed on the planet. When
they reached it . . . well, Lucas Stone was going to
meet his first confirmed Paran. While that would be somewhat
monumental for him, as he’d grown up hearing so much about the
mysterious race, he knew it would not be a touch on the probable
significance that it held for Jane.

Not for the first time
Lucas found himself thinking about how curious it was that the
implant seemed to stop Jane from thinking or even hearing about the
Parans, but it was absolutely content to let him take her to see
one in the flesh. Was it all just a ruse? Were they going to get
out of the spaceship and head off to meet the contact, only for
Jane to run off in the other direction as the implant took control?
Taking her out of his life for good?

He didn't know the right
answer, but he hoped like hell that wouldn't happen.

As he sat in the command
chair, occasionally docking his glove as he thought of new
questions to ask the computer, he noticed the very sharp silence
that had spread between them. Jane was still sitting there, but she
wasn't staring off into space with that fixed look anymore. Her
current expression had a sad edge to it, her lips pressed together
with the corners of them drooped slightly.

He didn't blame her; she
had a lot going on.