"Too bad we didn't see this sooner," Trag muttered to himself. "No time for it now." He stashed it in the breast pocket of one of the parkas and gathered up all he could
carry.
Time was one thing that Trag wished they'd had more of. The three weeks had
passed all too quickly and Trag's initial fear that he'd only get sex from Micayla once in a while had evaporated. So far, she hadn't turned him down and had even been the initiator a few times. Trag wasn't tired of it either. He thought he might be after fifty years or so, but certainly not before then.
He wanted her to be his mate. But how to ask her was the dilemma. Being fuck
buddies was close but not quite the same. He was falling for her to the point that if she left him now, he wasn't sure his mind could take it. Even now, when he'd only been apart from her for a short time, he was already feeling the loss. Trag didn't have to have his cock inside her to feel complete either. She only had to be within his reach where he could see her, hear her breathing, listen to her voice, taste her sweetness...
He had never felt this strongly toward Kyra--though he'd only been intimate with
her once, and Ty had been there too. Infatuation--or a lack of options--was more likely the cause for his continued feelings toward his brother's wife, but this thing with Micayla was different. Completely different. He cared about Kyra, but Micayla brought out protective instincts he'd never felt before. He was very reluctant to let her leave the safety of the ship, let alone go blindly forth into a snow-covered world in search of the nemesis of the entire Zetithian race. Even before that, he found himself trying to take care of her--
make sure she was comfortable, happy, and such--something he couldn't recall doing with Kyra, though he was quite certain his brother had. He'd also seen it with Cat and Jack. Sure, Jack was tough and highly self-sufficient, but Cat still looked after her, though in a very subtle way. It wasn't always something brave or heroic--unless, of course, such behavior was called for. It was the little things. Touching her, rubbing her shoulders, getting her anything he thought she might need or want. Trag knew he was doing the same thing with Mick now. She fussed at him at first, saying he was spoiling her, but after a while, she'd stopped mentioning it. Trag took it upon himself to see that she got regular meals, kept her warm, kept her company, and kept her sated. It was a pleasure for him to do these things, not a chore or a duty he felt he had to perform--more of a privilege, actually--particularly given the nature of their first encounter. Things had definitely taken a turn for the better.
Heading back up to the bridge, he found Micayla in the closest thing to a state of panic he'd ever seen her in. She was sitting at the comstation, anxiously tapping the console, muttering to herself.
Dumping the gear he was carrying in the middle of the floor, he eyed her
curiously, half expecting her to start tearing her hair out. "What's up, Mick?"
"Not much," she replied, "which is a major problem. Did anything break when we landed?"
"Not that I'm aware of. You felt it. It was very soft."
"Well, now that we're here, nothing much seems to be working--nothing
important, anyway. Oh, life support, lights, power--those sorts of things all work, but not much else. Have you talked to Roslyn since we landed?"
"I talk to Roslyn as little as possible," Trag said bluntly. "Is she pouting again?"
Micayla shook her head. "I don't think so. I can't get her to answer me, which makes me think she's either been damaged or is being jammed. The scanners don't work either, nor does the regular com system."
"I guess that means we're out of touch with Jack too, doesn't it?"
"Yeah--unless she comes close enough for the comstones to work. They only
function over a kilometer or so. Is there anything in the hold we could use?"
"Maybe," he said. "There's a ton of stuff down there. I didn't go through it all." He stopped for a moment. "So you think someone's jamming us, huh?"
"It sure seems like it, but to jam us, they'd have to know we were here, wouldn't they? We've been cloaked the whole time and we haven't exactly announced to anyone that we're on our way to nab Grekkor. Aside from that, how could anyone know that it's you and me flying this ship instead of Veluka?"
"Maybe they don't," he said. "Veluka is a crook from way back. Being scared of Grekkor might not be his only reason for not wanting to come with us."
"You think he's wanted for something here on Nerik?"
"Wouldn't surprise me a bit if he was," Trag said grimly. "Whoever's jamming us might only be after him."
"True, but it's also possible that Grekkor knows a whole lot more about all of us than we think he does. Leroy's never kept it a secret that you were his pilot, and Jack's been all over the place looking for Zetithians--and then there's Ty and all of his fans. It wouldn't be difficult for Grekkor to link all of us together--maybe even connecting Jack with Veluka."
"Yes, but I still don't see how anyone could have known Veluka blew up that
ship," Trag argued. "There's just no way--"
"But what if Grekkor did figure it out? He could have invented a story that's got the Nerik authorities out to get Veluka. He accused me of murdering that Norludian.
What's to stop him from telling tales about someone else?"
"That's possible, but from the way Tisana talks, Veluka's probably already guilty of even worse things than anything Grekkor might try to pin on him."
"Maybe, but you see what I mean, don't you?"
Trag nodded his understanding. "This could be a trap."
"And we have no way of telling Jack about it."
"Unless..." Trag paused a moment to think. "If we are being jammed, then we just have to find someone who isn't."
"Meaning?"
"They couldn't be jamming the whole damn planet," he said decisively. "And if they're jamming us specifically then that means they know we're here--or are at least expecting us."
"Which means we'd better get moving."
"No shit. Looks like the one ship we thought would keep us from getting caught is about to do just that."
***
under way. Unfortunately, during that hour, the bright, sparkling sunny day had turned into a heavy snowstorm.
"Too bad Jack didn't think to give us a speeder," Trag grumbled. "Would've come in real handy right about now." He braced himself as he stepped outside and the first blast
hit him in the face. He staggered against the wind, nearly being blown off the gangplank.
"Holy shit! And to think I ever wanted to leave Darconia!"
"Come on, Slave Boy," Micayla said, shouldering her pack. "If you keep moving, your nuts won't freeze."
"Maybe, but that doesn't mean the rest of me won't."
"You've got enough gear on for a polar expedition," Micayla pointed out. "And it's not all that cold--only a little below freezing."
"You just had to say that word, didn't you?" Trag said with a shiver. "It's that freezing thing that has me bugged."
"Wuss, wuss, wuss," Micayla chided him. "Don't worry. I'll warm you up the first chance I get."
"Promise?"
"Promise. Now let's get going. Which way to the city?"
"I have no idea whatsoever," Trag replied.
Micayla stopped short, glaring at him. "Well, isn't that just ducky? We're about to blunder forth into a snowstorm and you don't know which way we're supposed to go?"
"I'm kidding," he said. "When I landed, it was that way." He pointed out the direction which, Micayla noted, was into the wind.
Shaking her head, she said, "This is not going according to plan."
"Plan?" he echoed. "We had a plan?"
"Yes, we had a plan," she replied. "We were supposed to find out where Grekkor is and then call Jack. It doesn't look like we're going to have much luck doing either of those things." Visibility was extremely poor due to the snow, but she stared off in that direction anyway. "I think I see something up ahead. Maybe it's the city."
Trag peered into the wall of swirling flakes. "How the devil can you tell?"
"I can't," she replied. "But it's in the direction you pointed, so that's where we're going."
"Got your comstone on?" Trag asked.
"Yeah, why?"
"Oh, no reason," he replied, "other than the fact that I won't be able to see you if you're more than half a meter away from me. Good thing they still work."
"That's the advantage of having a communicator that no one understands. If they knew how they worked, they could jam them too." She trudged forward, wading through a deep snowdrift. "If Jack got that last message we sent about what city we were going to, they should be here soon. I wondered why she never answered us."
"Now we know. I just hope it wasn't intercepted."
"C'mon, Trag! Give me a little credit. I encoded that sucker like you wouldn't believe. If anyone did intercept it, it will sound like an ad for Weyolin's Wonder Fertilizer."
"Which is?"
"Sheep shit, basically," she replied. "Nothing that could be traced back to us anyway."
"I dunno," Trag said dubiously. "Sounds like something Jack would sell."
"Yes, but you know Jack pretty well. Grekkor doesn't--we hope."
They trudged on in silence for a time. What had begun as a relatively deep snow
was getting even worse. Micayla was used to slogging through snowdrifts, but she was a
little worried about Trag. Even though she'd teased him a bit, she knew just how poorly he tolerated the cold. They'd just reached a stand of tall conifers when Trag spoke up. "Is it just me, or is it snowing harder?"
"It's not just you," Micayla replied, brushing the accumulated snow from her goggles. "It's getting colder too."
"And darker. It was morning when we got here. How could it be getting dark so soon?"
"Beats me. Got that book on you?"
"The one about Nerik? Yeah, I've got it here somewhere," he said, slapping his pockets. "Here it is. Good luck reading it, though."
"Maybe it's got an audio feature," Micayla suggested. "Most of them do."
"It looks pretty old," Trag said, pushing aside a snow-covered branch so Micayla could get through. It swung back with a crack as soon as he let go of it. "I mean, it's even printed on paper. Might not have that feature."
Micayla stopped and looked about her. No doubt about it, the sun was just about
gone. "Well, we know we're not in one of the polar regions where they only have a few hours of sunlight in winter, but it really is getting dark. Maybe it was later in the day than we thought."
"Crazy planet," Trag grumbled. "Cold as hell, snow up to your ass, dark in three hours. No place I'd ever want to live, that's for sure."
Micayla shook her head, still not quite able to figure him out. "Where do you want to live, Trag?"
"Is that a rhetorical question, or do you really want to know?"
"I really want to know."
"Well, to hear Jack tell it, I think I'd like to live on Earth, or barring that, Terra Minor. But that's probably just me wishing for something else I can't have."
"Maybe when this is all over..."
"Doesn't matter," he said abruptly. "Might not live through this anyway."
Micayla's response was automatic, but the vehemence of it surprised her. "You'd better!"
"Aw, Mick," he said with a grin. "Would you miss me if I was dead?"
"I'm sure I'd die of a broken heart." She had enough of a grip on herself to try for a casual reply, but though the words were spoken lightly, the shocking truth of them hit her like a pulse blast. All of a sudden, living without him didn't seem possible.
"Then I'll try to stay alive." Trag stopped and turned toward her. Even through the thick snowfall and growing darkness, she could still see the glow of his eyes. "Promise me you'll do the same, Mick."
"I will."
"Then come on. I think I see something through the trees up ahead. Might be
someone there who could help us."
Micayla blinked a few times as though trying to reset her brain into a more
practical, working mode. All that talk about dying had her normally well-ordered mind going off on all sorts of tangents. Clearing her throat with an effort, she said briskly, "I've been trying to figure out why anyone would help us. After all, we're offworlders and no one would have any reason to trust us--or stick their necks out for us."
"Guess we'll have to rely on charm then," Trag said cheerfully.
"Good thing you've got plenty of that," Micayla said. "I haven't got a drop."
"You'd be surprised, Mick. Just don't hiss at anybody."
"I'll try not to."
The building Trag had seen turned out to be an old, abandoned shed of some
kind--abandoned by the Neriks, that is. Strange birds flitted toward the ceiling as Trag forced the door open and then switched on a flashlight. Inside, it was dome-shaped and spacious, but its support beams tilted at precarious angles and unidentifiable bits of machinery lay in a rusty stack in the center. Various plants had made a futile attempt to grow up from the dirt floor, and something rustled in the dry leaves--a sound that brought rattlesnakes and rats to Micayla's mind. Remembering Curly's report, she could only hope that the dangerous animals were either hibernating or had gone south for the winter.
"Think we ought to stay here for the night?" Trag suggested, shining the beam of light over the interior. "It's at least dry in here and we're out of the wind."
"I don't know," Micayla said doubtfully. Pulling off her goggles, she added, "If anyone's hunting us, this might be the first place they look."
"True, but if we keep wandering around in the dark we might wind up so lost that no one will ever find us--not even Jack or Leroy."
"Or we could be in someone's backyard," Micayla pointed out. "I think we should keep going." A large bird soared down from the overhead beams and landed on the ground in front of her. "That's funny," she said. "It looks sort of like Veluka."
Covered with black scales and possessing huge white eyes, it did, indeed, look