Authors: Pauline Baird Jones
* * * * *
They stopped on the bridge. It wouldn’t have been Doc’s choice as a prisoner destination, but Conan seemed unconcerned as he did his usual stalk to a panel and activated a view screen.
“So you can observe the coming battle,” he told her.
It was very Emperor of him, even if he hadn’t seen
Return of the Jedi.
Was he trying to depress her? He’d tried that on Feldstar without much success, and it hadn’t had plumbing.
“Bet this ship has plumbing.”
“Plumbing?” His habitual frown deepened.
“When you’ve had to do without it, you don’t take it for granted.”
He looked at her, baffled now dominating his expression. He tried—and failed—twice before he managed, “The Gadi ships will soon be in attack position. They will open fire on your ships.”
Doc wanted to say something about his ships in position, but she wasn’t supposed to know about them. She sifted through what she wasn’t supposed to say or know, looking for something she could say to get the conversational ball rolling. She needed to know why he was here. That meant she had to interrogate him. Since he had that big gun, she’d have to use small talk. She was better with bright lights and water boards. Drugs were good, too, but his ship might not react well to her usual stuff.
She offered, “Nice view.”
He frowned. It brought back a lot of memories. None of them good. Doc resisted falling into the Feldstar pattern. She wished she could bust his chops for the lack of originality. This altered timeline stuff was crap. She turned from his baffled gaze to study his bridge.
It was more interesting. Large screens were angled for optimum viewing from his command chair. No crew positions, confirming her single pilot automation thesis. The chair was big, freaking throne big and designed to intimidate. She walked around it, taking her time. Conan got on her six, maybe hoping to close the gap, but Doc knew how to stay out of reach without looking like that was what she was doing. It was a gift.
It still irritated him. “Stand still, woman.”
“You stand still.”
He stopped, his frown a puzzled one, rather than the irritated one. “You fear me?”
Not bloody likely.
“You kidnapped me. You’re pointing a gun at me. I’m maintaining a comfort zone.”
He looked at the gun as if surprised he still held it. Then he looked at her, as if assessing her threat potential. Doc kept black ops buried deep, though she wasn’t stupid enough to try to look harmless. She tried for the middle ground, a place she wasn’t that familiar with.
His study of her was unabridged and very male.
“Take off your jacket.”
Doc arched her brows. “Are you going to look at my teeth, too?”
The scowl came back. “Is there something wrong with your teeth?”
“There will be if I keep gritting them.” She unhooked the front tabs on her jacket, taking her time. Her Gypsy Rose Lee lacked that certain something, but Conan didn’t look like he minded, prompting her to ask, “How long have you been on your own on this ship?”
It was need-to-know. If it were as long as she suspected it was, she wouldn’t have to work that hard to get his motor running.
“How did you resist the stun in my transport?” he countered. He held his weapon more loosely now, as if he’d lowered her threat level. It seemed he didn’t believe his own eyes.
“I’m gifted.”
At least he’d quit chasing her around the command chair. It was such a cliché.
She slung her jacket over the arm of his chair, since there was no sign of a coat rack. She met his gaze with a measure of caution—like a bucket load of it. He lowered his chin, his eyes sparking with something she didn’t examine too closely, because she didn’t want to. There were some things it was better not to know. The tee shirt wasn’t snug. That would show off the hand gun strapped low on her back but this one did give away the fact that she had a shape. She was girl, even if she sometimes forgot about it. Her pants were baggy enough to frustrate him, but so far he hadn’t tried to get her out of them. She appreciated his restraint.
“Lot of fire power here just to get girls, when all you needed was an email account.”
He looked baffled. She wasn’t surprised. Intergalactic humor was as different as their tech. Did he even have a sense of humor? Didn’t remember seeing one the last timeline, so wasn’t holding her breath this one.
“Getting girls, as you put it,” he said, trying to narrow the gap between them and failing, “is a side benefit and not the main event.”
She nodded to the view screen. “That’s the main event.”
He nodded, a bit of shrug in the move. He wasn’t as good at it as she was.
“I don’t understand.” That wasn’t wholly true, but suspecting was different from knowing.
“Weren’t you headed for the Garradian outpost when I intercepted you?”
“You’re after the outpost?” Okay, on one level it wasn’t crazy. Everyone was after the outpost, so why not Conan. But… “How do you even know about it?”
“Everyone in this galaxy is aware it exists,” he pointed out, with more than a hint of male superiority.
Doc studied him for a moment, while she considered her response. “But you’re not from this galaxy. Three hundred million light years is a long way to come for a place that barely has the lights on and no welcome mat out.”
His gaze narrowed. “How could you know how far I traveled?”
“I told you, I’m gifted. Why would you come so far? What, you couldn’t build one in your galaxy?”
It was his turn to hesitate, before he offered, “It is our right.”
Could a Garradian or two have migrated to his planet? Could he be a Key? She was going to have to let him touch her. She needed a DNA sample. Hopefully it wouldn’t go to his head. Better for her if his blood headed the other direction.
“Your right? You’re not from here.” She shifted his direction, hoping it looked accidental and not planned. This girl stuff was so not her skill set. He almost leapt the gap. His hand curled around her wrist. Maybe she didn’t need the skill set. Guys like Conan thought everything was foreplay.
“This place, this battle was foretold in our prophecies.”
The peeps went in. That was good. He wasn’t letting go. That was bad. His gaze pinged on her mouth. If he tried to kiss her, she might lose focus and kick his ass. Be good for his character, but not the plan. A flash of light over his shoulder lit up his view screen.
“It appears the battle has begun.”
He spun, maintaining his grip on her wrist, but his gaze pinging on the opening salvos of the war games. It looked pretty real from here, but what would sensors and tracking tell him?
The peeps were still burrowing in, making some headway, but they weren’t there yet. It was almost as if the computers knew about peeps and had planned to thwart them.
Conan released his hold on her and sank into his chair. It lit up like a carnival ride. Lots of lethal looking bells and whistles.
“What are you doing?”
“While it would be entertaining to watch,” his gaze flicked up and down her body, “I find I am impatient to claim all that is mine.”
“If you join this battle, my people will fight with the Gadi.”
“But they won’t know I’m in it. I’m going to take out your ships’ shields, take what I need—” Doc didn’t need to be a genius to know he meant the women he’d tagged, “—and let the Gadi eliminate them. And when they stand down to celebrate their victory, we will attack.”
As plans went, it was a pretty good one, and he wasn’t totally stupid, which meant he’d notice when the
Doolittle
and the
Apollo
didn’t blow up from the Gadi fire. And, recalling his temper, it didn’t take a genius to figure out what he’d do about it.
* * * * *
Hel’s nanites connected with Delilah’s as soon as he stepped onto the ship’s decking. His instinct was to head for the bridge. The nanites wanted him to go to engineering. Delilah was at the top of this ship. Engineering was near the bottom. Seven decks would separate them.
After a brief mental struggle, Hel turned toward engineering. He could not fault their logic, much as he wished to. If the alien realized the Gadi and the expedition were play fighting, he would leap into the battle. Her nanites had not seized control of the ship’s systems, as she’d hoped. They had identified a target in engineering. He’d secured some of their C-4 from Delilah’s supplies before leaving her ship. It was a good plan, except for one small problem.
Explosive charges at that point would cause a cascade overload of the FTL drive that would destroy the ship. He could set a timed trigger, but if their ruse was exposed, he would have to initiate detonation. This ship would be destroyed, but the others in the alien fleet would still be battle worthy, and he had no way to let the other teams know of the weakness without getting clear of the still functioning cloak. His chances of making it up to the bridge, freeing Delilah without triggering the dead man’s switch, and then making it to their ship and clearing the cloak, not to mention radioing the other teams in time for them to deploy charges, was a level of impossible even Delilah might find challenging.
He could not save her and save his fleet and her people. He could not destroy her, without destroying himself.
His nanites sent the plan to hers. Her answer came back without even a hesitation.
Do it.
He frowned. He would—with a slight variation.
* * * * *
“Any word from the Doc?” Halliwell asked, though he already knew the answer. He’d been looming over communications since his last, unsatisfying communication with her. Didn’t take him long to figure out she’d gone aboard the alien ship by herself. He just wished he thought of it before she did. Then he could have ordered her not to do it. He was going to bust her to private if he got her back on this ship. And that was before the courts-martial and to hell with the Major. He’d find a way to put her ass in jail.
“Something coming in, sir.” The COM officer tried not to sound relieved. “It’s a secure data burst to us and our teams.”
“Can you read it?”
“Running it through decrypt now.”
A map appeared on the HUD, with instructions. Halliwell stalked over to it. What it told him made a cold ball form in his gut. His teams had minutes to get onboard the alien ships, deploy charges and get the hell off. And the Doc might have less than that. At least the Leader was on his own ship this time.
“Those ships twitch, I want to know about it,” he ordered. Doc thought she’d fixed it so Vidor Shan couldn’t transport their people, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t blow them out of space in the time it took his heart to beat twice.
* * * * *
Doc took the hit internally, no sign on her face that she knew she was going to die.
You’ve got to try to save him
, she told the nanites.
He has two little boys who need him.
And then,
I’m so sorry I’m taking you with me. If you can get away, now would be the time.
The thought of doing this without them, of her mind bringing back
them,
was a harder hit than dying, so she didn’t fight it when they ignored her. They’d had a lot of years to figure out what they believed, what was right for them. And they knew what they could do and what they couldn’t. They had run out of time to take control of the ship. She felt them withdrawing, coalescing inside her again. It was amazingly comforting.
They brought knowledge with them. The ship was a mix of Keltinar and Saratarius tech, but no indication why or how in the ship’s databanks that they’d been able to access. And they had Conan’s DNA results, too. Those were as puzzling as this ship. Conan had no Garradian DNA, but he did have the DNA string that would let him unlock the outpost. It had to have been added by someone, but who? Who had given them the so-called prophecies? She needed answers and she needed to distract him. The teams needed time to get on and off the other ships in Conan’s fleet. It was the only way to save Hel’s people and hers.
“Why am I here?” She stepped between him and the view screen, trying for a sexy pose, but not sure she managed it. It was embarrassing, but did get his attention.
“You will be my
ma’rasile.”
Okay, the fact that he knew that word and what it meant set off enough alarm bells inside her head to qualify for going nova again. This was all wrong. Had someone been hinking with time? Had the time creeps messed up again? It might be the wrong move, but she needed him off balance, angry at her and not thinking about the battle outside.
“That’s going to be a problem,
Vidor
. I’m already someone else’s
ma’rasile.
” She held up her wrist, so he could see the mark on her wrist. It wasn’t itching, which meant Hel wasn’t off the ship yet. Damn it, what was keeping him? Her peeps gave her the answer. He’d sent the ship and message out of the cloak without him, planted the charges and—
“In point of fact, the woman belongs to me,” Hel said from the open hatch.
—made it to the bridge in record time. Doc let him get away with the chauvinism in his tone because she was so glad to see him—and totally pissed he hadn’t left.
Conan spun, his very big gun lifting and firing, before Doc could say or do anything. The beam hit Hel and splattered into millions of tiny lights, defused by the nanites in his system. She gave him a look, erasing it when Conan spun back to her. He grabbed her wrist and studied the now shimmering mark.
“How is this possible?” Conan looked surprised and pissed. It didn’t bother her. If she had to be pissed, then he might as well be pissed, too. They could all be pissed together until they died.
“He’s gifted, too,” she said, her mind already moving on. “What happened to the women in your world?”
But she knew. It was there in the database. The Saratarians were rabidly anti-female. The Garradians who’d observed their culture had predicted its demise from female eradication over the course of several generations unless they modified their behavior. Instead, they’d managed to infect Keltinar.
“Did you forget you need women to have male babies? That little girls grow up to be son producers?”