LyonsPrice (10 page)

A thrill ran through her. Was she a threat? Could Lyon feel
the same way about her that she did about him? Did he feel that weird sense of
rightness and excitement when he looked at her? Or the inferno that spread
through her veins as soon as he touched her.

The main cabin was silent, not even the soft banter she’d
heard between Cael and Archon filling the air. Perhaps they were communicating
through other means? She knew they could talk to each other without speaking.
She wasn’t stupid, she’d caught the looks between them and the way Lyon’s
expression focused inward, as though he was concentrating on something she
couldn’t see or hear.

“Hello?”

She pushed the door open farther and stepped through it. Her
gaze swept the cabin. It was empty… She paused, catching sight of a pair of
legs sprawled between the two rows of seats at the front of the cockpit. Male,
no leg brace and not as big as Lyon.

“Archon?”

She took a couple of steps forward. What was he doing lying
on the floor? There were at least two other cabins at the back if he needed to
take a nap, or the bench seats lining the rear section of the cabin. He didn’t
need to lie in the way. He couldn’t be comfortable like that.

She padded forward until she could see down between the
seats, the sense that something was wrong increasing. A feeling confirmed when
she saw Lyon’s arm motionless on the arm of the chair, and beyond him, Cael
sitting in the copilot’s seat, also as still as a statue.

“What the hell?”

She darted forward and dropped to her knees next to the
fallen man. Her medical training rushed to the fore. Looking for signs of
breathing, she pressed two fingers into his throat to locate a pulse. Relief
flooded her at the strong beat under her fingers. Not thready or weak, just
normal.

She flicked a glance over him. No unnatural pose or set to
any of his limbs, no signs of bleeding and his skin was a normal hue. Apart
from the fact he was sprawled out over the floor, he seemed in perfect health.

“What the hell is going on?”

She turned her attention to Lyon sitting next to them. If
she hadn’t seen him walking and talking less than an hour ago, she would have
sworn he was a living, breathing statue. His chest rose and fell mechanically,
the breaths perfectly regulated. Humans didn’t breathe like that, their
respiration was more erratic. A cough here or other contraction of the
diaphragm, even thinking about breathing, was enough to alter each breath
enough from its predecessor that perfect rhythm was never attained.

His eyes were closed, no flicker of movement behind the
lids. Were they all asleep? How did cyborgs sleep anyway? She couldn’t believe
that they just shut down like little automatons, motionless when the power was
cut. No, they were all too human for that.

She dredged up everything buried in her brain about cyborgs.
If they weren’t asleep…

“Crap, crap, crap. Electromagnetic pulse.”

Adrenaline surged through her veins as she turned. If they’d
been hit with an EMP, then that meant the
Valkyrie
or another Fleet ship
wasn’t far away. She cast a nervous look at the ceiling above her. Perhaps they
were already here, ready to cut through the hull. Then there would be marines
piling in here…and with Lyon and the others out of it. She paled, heart
lurching.

They were defenseless.

Clambering over Archon, she slid into the pilot’s seat and
looked at the console spread out in front of her. Half the symbols and
squiggles didn’t make sense, but the fact they were there told her one thing.
The EMP had been targeted at the crew rather than the ship. Fleet wanted them
alive.

Which meant one thing—Lyon’s team was destined for research
and development. To be dissected and prodded over until their bodies yielded
exactly how the cyborgs had escaped the hold their human masters had over them.

She gritted her teeth at the anger which surged through her.
“Over my dead body. Computer, enable audio.”

“Audio control activated.”

She was twisting out of the seat as the computer replied.
Somehow she had to fly the shuttle and get them out of there before the Fleet
arrived. She didn’t dare think about what she was doing. If she did, she’d
panic and freeze.

“Status report.”

She stopped next to Cael and checked her harness. The
shoulder loops were already on. Good. Reaching forward, she pulled the straps
to make sure they were tight. She wasn’t a pilot, so she was going to have to
rely on the shuttle’s flight computer. Even so, this was likely to get hairy
and the last thing she wanted was for anyone to get hurt while they were
helpless.

“All systems online and functioning within normal
parameters.”

A sigh of relief escaped her lungs. They had a chance. She
clambered back over Archon to get Lyon strapped in. She hissed in frustration
as she tried to struggle him into a harness.

“Isn’t that just like a man, eh?” she griped as she lifted
arms the weight of small elephants to loop straps over them. “Just lie there
and expect a woman to do all the work.”

She managed it and pulled the webbing tight with a hard tug,
then addressed the computer again. “Maintain heading, bring secondary shields
online and give me a sensor sweep of the local area.”

The computer cheeped at her as it ran the sweep. Checking
Lyon’s harness one last time, she broke away and looked down at Archon.

“Come on, big boy; let’s get you in a seat.”

She stepped over him again and crouched to slide her hands
under his arms. She’d been a nurse for years, both civilian and in the Fleet,
so she was trained in the best techniques for lifting the human body, arguably
the most difficult thing to pick up in the known universe after an annoyed
feline. So she did everything by the book; back straight, legs bent to provide
power and…

“Gnnnnnhhh!”

She pulled until her muscles felt like they were going to
pop from their moorings, and her vision started to gray. Archon stayed right
where he was, sprawled out on the deck plate.

“Hell’s teeth, what did they put in you? Structural steel?”

Gritting her teeth and readjusting her grip, she tried
again. This time her hands slipped and she ended up on her ass between the
seats next to Cael. Wincing, she got to her feet. She couldn’t move him, but
she couldn’t leave him on the floor like that. One barrel roll and he’d be like
a pea in a shaker.

“Sorry, handsome, we’re going to have to do a little
bondage,” she muttered as she started to rifle through the overhead
compartments. Born on a backwater planet that relied on shuttles for
transportation, she knew there had to be some strapping in here someplace.
Shuttles like this did dual duty shifting personnel and cargo, which was why
the seats at the back lined the walls and there were fixed loops embedded in
the floor.

“Bingo.”

She pulled three lengths of heavy-duty webbing straps from
the last compartment and knelt down next to the unresponsive man. Within a
minute she had him trussed up like an Altarian boar ready for transport. She
sat back on her haunches and checked over her handiwork with a sense of
satisfaction. Even if the Fleet threw Armageddon itself at them, Archon wasn’t
going anywhere.

“Scan complete. Confirm three vessels on an intercept
course, bearing three seven seven four mark five eight nine,” the computer
informed her in a dull monotone.

Shit. They were being followed. Samara’s ass hit the pilot’s
seat at light speed as she tried to recall the flight lessons her father had
given her years ago. The crap was about to hit the fan, but at least she had
the three guys in here secure. A pang of worry hit her about Eoin. She didn’t
know where he was, though, and she’d run out of time to play “hunt the cyborg”.

“Display intercept courses on console. What ID codes are
they broadcasting?”

She studied the panel in front of her as she waited for the
computer’s reply. They were in trouble. Big trouble. The screen in front of her
was lit up with red lines from the Fleet vessels, creating a cage she couldn’t
see a way out of.

“Vessels are confirmed as CFS
Valkyrie
, CFS
Vengeance
and CFS
Jenias
.”

Her heart plummeted.

“We are so screwed.”

Chapter Eight

“Computer, bring us about and head for this sector here.”
The sound of a nail tapping against console glass filled the cabin. “Full
speed.”

Lyon could tell from the small catch in Samara’s voice as she
gave the computer orders that she was scared. He didn’t blame her. In her
shoes, he would be too. What was she doing? The EMP had done its job and they
were all safely contained. All she had to do was sit pretty and wait for her
people to pick her up… Why was she setting a new course at full speed? That
sounded very much like an escape attempt.

She tied me to the fucking floor!

The sound of Archon’s furious voice in his head announced
the fact his internal communications relay had rebooted.

That’s because she couldn’t move your fat ass, airhead.

Cael’s feminine tones joined Archon’s griping and eased some
of Lyon’s worry. At least those two were okay, even if he was going to have to
lock them in a confined space together for a couple of days sometime soon.
They’d either kill each other or screw each other’s brains out. Either way,
he’d get some peace.

Eoin? How you doin’, bud?

Frozen stiff as a freaking Popsicle. What’d they hit us
with?
the other Gemini grumbled.
I got eyes on company headed our way
and they’re packing serious hardware.

Great. Just what they needed. When the computer had listed
the vessels on an intercept course, Lyon had hoped it was coincidence and they
just happened to be in the area. Eoin’s words shattered that illusion. Hell was
coming for them.

We changed course. Who’d the EMP skip?
Eoin asked
suddenly, breaking into his train of thought. There was eagerness in the
question, which was understandable. Eoin was one of the team of engineers
working on the EMP shielding. The four of them had slightly different shield
configurations, so they all had different reactions to the EMP. At least Eoin’s
config allowed him to actually see.

No one
, Lyon replied.
Samara’s piloting.

Silence met his announcement.

The same human you accused of betraying us less than an
hour ago?

He winced at Eoin’s quiet comment. Despite his…physical
issues, Eoin was still his second-in-command and as sharp as a boarding laser.
Where his twin joked around and laughed, Eoin was serious and got right to the
point. And he was the only person Lyon would allow to speak to him that way.

Aye, that’s the one.

He was going to be eating humble pie. If they got out of
this alive. Even with the best will in the universe, Samara was a nurse, not a
pilot.

Crap, they’re right on our tails
, Cael announced,
which meant her uplinks to the shuttle were coming back online. He checked his
internal clock, trying to estimate the time he had left until full reboot. Cael
was a Cancer class, so her onboard was more complex and sensitive. In the event
of something like this, Cancers always came back online first.

All conversation ceased as the alarm klaxon filled the small
cockpit. “Collision warning, impact imminent. Please change course to avoid
collision,” the computer advised.

“What the
fuck
do you think I’m trying to do? Give me
manual control,” Samara snarled, which elicited a snort of amusement from Cael.

She’s got guts.

He had to agree as the shuttle lurched a fraction. It was
almost imperceptible, but to a cyborg it was like dropping off a cliff.
Immediately the shuttle rolled to the side and a heavy thud reverberated
through the space frame.

“Sorry, bud, you’re going to have to do better than that.”

What’s going on? What’s she doing?

Worry surged through him. That thud could have been any of a
number of things. His chief concern among them would be a boarding tube locking
on. Green flickered behind his eyelids, lighting the darkness as his implant
reinitiated the heads-up display across his field of vision. He sighed in
relief as it started to relay information again. He still couldn’t move, but it
was a start.

I don’t believe it… She’s bouncing us off their damn
shields!

Three more thuds followed in quick succession as the alarms
filled the air in the cabin with collision warnings. Another thud and the
scream of metal sounded as the shuttle went into a spin. He gritted his teeth
as Samara swore.
Come on, babe, you can do this.

We’re clear. She’s gunning the engines and heading for
the asteroid belt.

He didn’t need Cael’s running commentary to feel the tension
in the shuttle. The viselike grip on his body eased a fraction and allowed him
to open his eyes. Instantly he rolled his gaze toward her. She was hunched over
the pilot’s console, her face set in a determined grimace as she stabbed delicate
fingers at the display.

“Come on, come on. Can’t this freaking thing go any faster?
Cyborgs, meanest SOBs in the galaxy…but a shit ride. You guys seriously need to
get this thing tricked out,” Samara informed the cabin in general. She didn’t
know if they could hear her, but she needed to talk to someone.

The console in front of her was alight with so many warnings
it looked like a Christmas tree. Panic hovered in the back of her mind as she
tried to clear as many as she could and escape the clutches of the Fleet ships
closing in around them.

Her eyes were trained on the panel in front of her like a
hawk. There had to be a way out of this. All she needed was one little gap in
the ships circling her…