Girl Gone Nova (17 page)

Hel’s communication system alerted him that his reports had arrived. He opened the reports and read each one. At first glance, the only thing Delilah had in common with the thirteen missing women was that they were all female. All earlier abductees had been well under twenty Earth years in age. Delilah was at least thirty. That was a significant age difference. This seemed to imply she’d been intercepted by someone from the expedition, except for the other connection with some of the intercepts: the energy field.

Only five of the ships’ captains had reported interference from an outside source, only three had named an energy field. The rest had reported malfunctions with their hyperdrive. The ones who identified an energy source claimed it had interfered with hyperdrive transport. All had reported a period of unconsciousness following the attack. None had managed to send out a request for help until the attack was completed.

He finished the input of data collected from the reports and waited for a map to appear. He leaned back, his elbows on the chair rests, his fingers steepled as he mulled what he knew and what he sensed he knew.

Halliwell hadn’t wanted to tell him that Delilah was the missing crew—no, the missing
pilot.
Could it be her skill diversity that gave them hope she could unlock the technology?

Hel had been sure they would fail to figure out the technologies on the outpost and have to bring the Key back. If they believed Delilah would do the job, why had they waited so long? It could be simple, scientific arrogance. The people who’d been working on the problem might have been convinced they could do it. It took time to get people to admit defeat. It took more time to devise a new plan. Was Delilah the new plan?

But Delilah couldn’t do it if war broke out. She needed time, she needed access. And the General had arrived at Hel’s door full of helpful information to get her that time. Primed by Delilah? That last part, the so-called teasing, was off script, he was sure of it. If she were pulling the General’s strings, she wouldn’t want Hel to know she was the source of the General’s information. She’d been moving among the Gadi wounded for several days. To his knowledge no one on the expedition knew the Gadi language. It hadn’t been necessary when both sides spoke Standard. But what if she were a linguist, too? And the words she couldn’t figure out? That time with his sons hadn’t all been spent having a party. His mother was still complaining about the words they’d learned during the visit. It would have been an easy matter to “trade” words with two small boys.

She’d liked him, wanted him, even as she plotted against him. He chuckled. He’d thought he could live without her. Now he was not so sure. He might just have to have her. And the General had almost handed her to him on a platter.

He just had to find her first.

* * * * *

The woman lay on the bed where he’d dropped her. Vidor Shan stared at her pale, mud-smudged face, noting that even unconscious there was a willful curve to her mouth. He wanted to know why she’d done that, smeared mud on her face. How she’d managed to elude them. He wanted to see her eyes again, to see if the intense blue color was real, but her lashes lay stubbornly against her pale cheeks. His body remembered her scent and the silk of her hair brushing against his face as he carried her. She was both smaller and lighter than he’d expected, based on the ferocity and precision of her attack on his men.

She was, Vidor Shan acknowledged, unlike any of the other women they’d taken. Is that what made her interesting? Both Eamon and Cadir were dumbstruck by her—and a little fearful, though not as much as they should be. Knowing this, why had he brought her into the camp? She dressed like a soldier, and worse, fought like one and they had little time to process her into compliance with their needs.

“Why doesn’t she wake?” Vidor asked, letting his frustration break free.

Bana shifted at his side, as if fighting impatience. Vidor scowled at the old, lined face.

“Each person reacts to the stun in their own way.” Bana’s tone was respectful, but with a hint of irritation. There was a pause. “She is too old and there is no time for one such as this.

 
You should have thrown her back.” Another longer pause. “Or killed her.”

He hadn’t done either and that troubled him. His mission was proving challenging without introducing someone destined to be difficult into their group. The other women had adapted quickly to their new reality, but targets had dried up in the last few months. They’d used care in harvesting women, but word had spread. Convoys had formed or ships had ceased using women or providing transport for them. This was the first ship carrying a female in some weeks.

That she traveled alone surprised him and made him suspicious. He’d almost let her pass, but time was short, as Bana had pointed out. They’d brought her gear back with them, but it had yielded few clues to her identity. He had not planned to take a woman for himself, but this woman might change his mind.

His gaze tracked from the top of her head, down to her feet and then back up again until he reached her mouth. It was soft and pink. His hands fisted at his sides. He should eliminate the problem, but he couldn’t do it. Not yet.

“She interests me,” he said, as if his insides weren’t clenching. Her features were clean and classic, her mouth a frustrating temptation. He tried to imagine what her name might be, but he couldn’t. He wanted to trace the shape of her mouth and then take a long taste. Would she taste as exotic as she looked?

“You’re thinking with the wrong body part, Vidor, though it gives me hope that you can.” Bana sounded more amused than annoyed now. “Come, leave her to wake when she’s ready. If you are to change our history, you must learn how to wait.”

Not for the first time, he wondered why he’d been cursed to live now, why it had become his burden to change not just the course of his life, but that of his people. His gaze traced the length of the woman one last time. There was strength in her body, in the line of her jaw, but was strength enough? Could her will be turned for their purpose in time? He needed to know quickly.

* * * * *

There was pain, but not a kind she recognized. It hurt to breathe in. It hurt to breathe out. Doc tried to slide back into the dark, pain-free void, but it faded like mist in the sun, leaving her aware and hurting in places she didn’t know it was possible
to
hurt.

She’d heard them talking, speaking what they called “standard” in the galaxy, realized she was the topic and translated it into playing possum, even when she wanted to moan. It was a relief when she’d heard them move away, but hearing hurt, too. How could hearing hurt? It was an odd kind of pain. It didn’t throb or pulse. It was more like an electric charge brushing across her nerve endings, a muted thrum, except when she moved. Then it wasn’t muted.

You should have thrown her back or killed her.
The phrasing was interesting. Wasn’t “thrown back” a fishing term? And if it was, what had they been fishing for? And what about her that “interested” him?

She lifted her lids. That hurt. So did blinking—looking not so much. She considered what she could see, which wasn’t a lot. She appeared to be in a tent, lying on a bed. She wasn’t a fan of tents, even ones with beds. The blanket against her cheek was coarse. Not a fan of that either.

Not Kansas or Oz. Hell was on the short list of possibilities.

She studied the bedposts. They looked rustic. It wasn’t fun, but she managed to sit up and dangle her legs off the edge of the bed. Her vest and her pack were on the table across from her, a table that was more rustic than the bed. Someone had rummaged through the contents. If the painkillers were gone, someone was going to die.

She looked down. The floor was dirt.

Doc was not a fan of that either. She could accept it had its place in the cycle of nature, but not as flooring.

Hell was fast moving up the list of possible locations.

She stood and her legs held. That was encouraging. She headed for her pack, a bit of a totter to her gait. That wasn’t so encouraging. If she couldn’t walk, how was she going to kick ass? Her ribs hurt, too, recalling the moment when she’d slammed against the ship’s harness.

Pain meds first. She found a packet of water and the tablets she needed. She also snagged a power bar from the mess. It eased the gnawing in her stomach and helped clear her head.

She did a weapons check. They’d taken her sidearm and spare magazines, but missed the stuff strapped to her body. Interesting they hadn’t searched her. She didn’t remember them looking sensitive, so that left clueless. She liked clueless opponents.

There was a way out of the tent, but she wasn’t sure who to
be
out there. It was no longer a secret that she could kick ass, so that took being underestimated off the table. She didn’t mind that much. She didn’t like pretending to be scared, not when fear was as close as
them
all the time.

She heard the softer tones of women, the deeper tones of the men. She padded to the flap and eased it back, trying not to wince as her careful footsteps set little shockwaves across her nerve endings. It was like pain sparklers going off inside her. Through the small gap she could see more tents and a few people, but not much else. She took a shallow breath and stepped out into light that was either fading or building. Not enough data to know which. It took a moment for anyone to notice her. Doc used that moment to expand her SA—her situational awareness.

It was an encampment, with too much emphasis on
camp
. The series of tents were arranged in a rough semicircle in a forest-like clearing. Doc wouldn’t have called them a loud bunch of people, even before silence spread through the group. She waited a half beat, angled her chin and stalked into the center of the encampment. She felt them study her, but Doc ignored them. Her gaze swept the surrounding flora and fauna. It was green, brown and rocky with bug sounds just like where she crashed. She looked up. It had sky, but this sky had
three
moons, none of them purple. Three blue moons. Didn’t seem like a good omen and didn’t take much to conclude this wasn’t where she’d crashed, even if their ship was playing least in sight. So why the primitive pretense?

The campfires in front of the tents were part of the whole bad sign motif. The men were still doing the
Conan the Barbarian
theme she’d noticed when they attacked her. She easily picked out the ones she’d “interacted” with during her capture. It helped somewhat to know they were hurting, too. The women, young girls actually, looked like Moonies in coarse robes and one-size-fits-all braids. A couple of the girls were pregnant. One guy stood next to each woman in front of almost all the tents. The ones not in pain looked smug. The girls looked varying degrees of shell-shocked. No sign of commerce or crops, no tools, no children out of wombs.

Boy, girl, boy, girl, boy, girl…

She turned from the thirteen boy/girl combos and found three guys near a table so archaic it could have belonged to the Seven Dwarves huge cousins. One of them was the guy who shot her. She avoided direct eye contact with him, so she wouldn’t be tempted to kick his ass. Boy, boy, boy, and one old woman with shrewd eyes. She studied Doc as intently as Doc studied her. She took a step toward her with a smile that was probably meant to be reassuring creasing her lined face.

Doc didn’t feel reassured.

“Hello.”

Doc frowned. That was weird. Hello was an Earth word, wasn’t it? For no reason she could quantify, Doc shifted from her usual ‘say little’ policy to ‘say nothing.’ People were uncomfortable with silence and often rushed to fill it. Filling this silence might provide her with useful information. She’d slid into scientist, she realized. Oh well, she
was
a scientist. She looked past the old woman, giving in to the temptation to assess the shooter. It was easier from behind the scientist screen. He’d packed a wallop before he shot her. That hadn’t changed.

The boys were big, but this guy was bigger. His lean, hard body was poured into black leather and then accessorized with a hefty serving of arrogance and an array of weapons that were a bit sexy. He had a thin, cruel mouth. His dark hair hung around his face as if he’d shoved it out of the way when he woke up and then forgot about it. His face was all sharp angles and he needed a shave.

Looking at him, her hope for plumbing dimmed even further.

He had the wild and untamed look down cold. Despite the grubbiness, he was good-looking if one liked barbarians.

She didn’t.

His icy green gaze burned over her, but Doc couldn’t get a read on his thoughts. His expression was a minor rock formation. Good thing she didn’t need to know what he was thinking to kick his ass. It would be a challenge to wait, but she needed a challenge, she reminded herself. Her gaze flicked around the technology
nil
environment. She also needed plumbing, but that didn’t seem to be on offer. Did everyone dig their own hole or just find a bush?

“See to her, Bana,” Conan ordered, his voice as cold as his eyes. His voice had a hint of an accent that reminded her of a Slavic language. He and Bana exchanged looks that would have made Doc wary if she weren’t already throbbing with wary.

Doc followed Bana to a tent set apart from the others. It wasn’t a shock to find it contained a pit toilet.

It was a disappointment.

When the Key activated the outpost two Earth years ago, all the Garradian outposts with scanning capabilities had become active, boosting tracking and scanning ability throughout the galaxy. It wasn’t perfect coverage. There were still data holes in the scans, caused by planets, moons and other orbiting rock masses, as well as areas the Garradians had either not got around to watching or didn’t consider interesting.

Since his fleet had been upgraded with the “new” technology, Hel had tried to position them to cover scanning holes, but his ships were also required for escort and protection duty. If they hadn’t had ships already being built before the war, he couldn’t have replaced the lost ships so quickly. Their numbers had doubled from pre-War, because no one had been shooting at them since the defeat of the Dusan, but it wasn’t possible to cover all vulnerable areas all the time. If someone knew the scan capability of the outposts and ship movements—and many of the pirates and raiders in the no-go frontier did—a rogue force could hide in plain sight. But they might also grow careless as time passed without detection. And if mistakes were made, they could be found, analyzed and maybe they could be tracked.