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“He’s trying to get loose so he can go after Tyler on his own,” Samantha muttered,

running to the door. “Come on everyone, no point in waiting here while Jewel and Johanna deal

with Dylan on their own.”

They ran for the docking bays. Running in a long dress in unsuitable footwear was a

pain.

The doors to the docking bay slid open. The area below the platform they stood on was

surrounded in a shield, and Excalibur’s weapons fire was absorbed into the blue sphere.

“Can he hear us if we talk aloud,” Samantha shouted over the din of the weapons fire. “If

he can’t hear me speak, I’ll hack into his brain so help me!”

“I can hear you, Samantha.” Dylan sounded exhausted.

“Dylan, you stop this right now!” Johanna screamed her face a bright beet red.

“No… I have to do this! No one else wants to help Tyler. Someone has to come through

for him. You’ve been brainwashed just like Samantha, Johanna. I can’t bear to see you like this,

so I am taking off for clear skies.”

“Clear skies? Have you cracked your freaking nut, monkey boy? Tyler wants you to

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come after him so he can lure you into the handy dandy trap he has rigged up,” Samantha

shouted.

“My brother would never do that to me. He has my back just like I have his!”

“Really? So, is that why your family gave him the cold shoulder?”

“Tempers flare easily within my family. Everyone just sort of lost it one holiday and

Tyler did something he shouldn’t have done…but it’s not like he premeditated shooting my

father in the back. He didn’t think the pistol was going to go off like it did. The one he picked

up always did have a way of going off when you didn’t want it to.”

Samantha sighed. “He paralyzed your father just because your dad told him he couldn’t

run off with the family’s prized jewels. I guess you just thought he had a temper tantrum, and I

thought it was accidental but now I know what really happened. I have discovered a lot in the

past twenty-four hours, Dylan. Sometimes you don’t like seeing the what’s beneath the shiny

veneer. Tyler has one thick glossy shield around him. Mark my words, Dylan, I am going to

crack that candy coating and I am going to reveal him to be the little jerk I now know he is!”

Dylan let out a roar. “You need to shut the hell up, Samantha. I have lived with your

constant bitching for far too long. I am going to continue shooting the hell out of this docking

bay until someone let’s me leave!”

“That ship belongs to me and Johanna, Dylan,” Samantha said, her patience wearing thin.

“If you take that it’s akin to stealing you know.”

“Don’t worry, I am not exactly afraid of being labeled a spacecraft thief. Go and plaster

my handsome face throughout the galaxies, see if I care!”

“Samantha, stop him. Don’t let him throw his life down the drain. Do something!”

Johanna begged.

“I can’t do anything, Johanna. You heard him; he wants to leave with the ship. I say we

let him. Devlin will buy us another ship better than the
Excalibur
.”

“No,” Johanna looked betrayed. “I trusted you.”

In a mere second, Samantha was inside of Johanna’s head.
“Tell him you want him to

take you with him. I can track you if you let me, Johanna. Finding Charlotte will be difficult

since she’s shielding against me with all of her power. If you go with Dylan I will be able to find

you guys no matter where he takes you…as long as you let me open a telepathic channel to you

whenever I want.”

“I ...,”
Johanna’s telepathic voice stammered. She glanced over at the
Excalibur
.
“He
isn’t thinking clearly, Samantha.”

“I know,”
she intoned gently.
“This is better this way but we have to make them all think

we’ve gone completely ballistic on each other. Just watch your back out there. I won’t be

around to physically guard it.”

Johanna’s eyes smiled at her.
“See you later then....”

“You bet,”
she whispered telepathically. Clearing her throat, Samantha returned her full

attention to Dylan.

Johanna took up right where they left off. “I trusted you. I thought you were in full

control of your faculties when you married Devlin but I can see that you lost it just like Dylan

said you did. I am not staying on this ship one minute longer…you and Devlin can get yourself a

new crew…we quit!”

“Now hold on,” Veronica muttered, moving to stand between them. “I am not going

anywhere. You can go on with your husband. Don’t think you can drag Ross and me along with

the hell ride though. We stay here where it’s safe and where I don’t have to worry about

MAXIMUM VELOCITY Marly Mathews 200

anything. I like this life—there’s a lot less clenching involved. I am sick of having to grind my

teeth and clench every other muscle in my body because I am worried about getting killed. I am

done with that fly in the face of danger crap. Go and leave Johanna. We’ll see you in the

afterlife.”

Johanna nodded her head.

“Dylan, you’re going to have to stop firing willy nilly! I want to come down and join

you and I’ll be damned if I am going to get my ass shot off in the process.”

A whining noise whirred through the large room as Dylan powered down the ship’s

weapons.

“Come on aboard, Johanna,” he said softly.

The shield keeping the
Excalibur’s
weapons fire contained dropped.

“I think you’re going to have to give the order to open docking bay doors,” Devlin said to

Jewel.

“I can’t let them leave, he just tried to harm my ship I would like to see him in my brig!”

“Jewel, you have to let them go,” Samantha insisted.

“Damn straight she does,” Dylan muttered. Samantha’s heart twanged as she watched

Johanna walk up the gangplank into the
Excalibur
. She heard Johanna talking to Dylan.

“Fine,” he said over the com system. “Johanna is going to get together some of your

belongings I guess we can’t leave Veronica and Ross without any underwear to put on their

butts.”

In ten agonizingly long minutes, Johanna returned carrying a few duffel bags. She tossed

them off the ship.

“I focused on getting Ross and Veronica’s stuff together. I figured you would have a

way of getting more clothes to fit you, so there’s only one bag for you,” Johanna called.

“Yeah, she’ll have an easy time getting new stuff, she’s got a fucking rich asshole of a

husband,” Dylan shouted.

Johanna rolled her eyes at Samantha, stopped and gave her a salute before jogging back

into the
Excalibur
.

Samantha smiled. “Trust Johanna to make sure I had my ass flapping out in the breeze,”

she muttered.

“I would actually like to see that,” Devlin murmured.

She wouldn’t see Johanna for a day or so, and Samantha knew a whole lot of crap could

happen in the course of twenty-four hours.

“Fine,” Jewel relented. Once Johanna was aboard, Jewel talked into her personal

communication device. A shield surrounded them to protect them from the sucking expanse of

space. The docking bay doors opened and the
Excalibur
whizzed out into the blackness.

Samantha sighed. Johanna was gone.

MAXIMUM VELOCITY Marly Mathews 201

Chapter Thirty-Six

“So….” Veronica cleared her throat. “Not to be the pink elephant raining on everyone’s

misery but what the hell are we going to do about getting Johanna back? There is something

wrong with Dylan. I can just feel it. His actions are too erratic for the way he’s acted with us in

the past. It just doesn’t add up.”

Samantha sighed, closing her eyes briefly. “Veronica, for only being friends with our

crazy group for six months, you hit it right on the head. There is something up with Dylan and in

order for me to fix his nutty noggin I have to do things by the book.”

“What book?” Veronica demanded. Devlin remained silent, his body warmth soothed her

and gave her the right amount of support that she needed at the moment. She slipped her hand

into his.

“The psychic handbook,” she whispered. “I might try to deny what I am—I can’t do that

anymore. I have been in denial long enough. I can’t deny what I am at my core anymore than

you can deny that you love sappy space soaps.”

“I do not...,” Veronica huffed. “Fine. You caught me. I can’t miss a single transmission

of
Another Solar System
.”

“So, do we know where they’re going?” Jewel asked.

“Of course we do,” Samantha smiled. “They’re going to the same place we’re headed.

Dylan just didn’t want to be under your watchful thumb, Jewel. I have a feeling we will all meet

up in about twenty hours, right when we see Tyler and Charlotte again. I’m going to be frank

with everyone, we might not come out of this alive.”

“Gee, I just love how upbeat you are, Samantha.” Veronica groaned.

“That’s how I keep going every single day,” she said, chuckling. “I am serious, Veronica.

If you and Ross want to take a shuttle and leave the
Snow Queen
to head back to Earth you’d

better do it within the next five hours, if you wait any longer we’ll be in Triad Run Space.”

“I am not going to bail on you Samantha. Even if I weren’t insanely attracted to the

money and power Devlin wields, I would still stick to you guys like glue. You’re family now.

Ross and I won’t let you down.”

“If there’s anything I can do to help sort out Dylan’s scrambled brains just let me know,”

Ross said. “He’s my buddy and I don’t like anyone being telepathically manipulated especially

when that anyone just happens to be a someone like Dylan, he’s like a little bro to me.”

Devlin nodded his head. “Now that we’ve established that we are all one big happy

family, why don’t we go back to our rooms while everyone else tries to get some sleep. We’ll

make our plans right before we enter the inner sanctum of Triad Space.”

Jewel turned away from them to talk on her personal communicator. She talked for a few

minutes and then went silent.

“Good news, our reinforcements will be rendezvousing with us right outside of Triad

Space. They also have on board about fifty certified telepaths. These ones are not part of

Charlotte’s Sect, so we don’t need to be worried that they’ll try anything underhanded with us.”

“As long as you pay them their fees they won’t leave you short of a few important

memories,” Samantha muttered, pursing her lips.

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“Samantha, come on, you look like you need to be alone with me—” His eyes flashed

seductively.

“And for you two,” Devlin said addressing Veronica and Ross, “Jewel will have some

specialty items sent to your room.”

“Food?” Ross asked looking hungry.

“He’ll eat anything,” Veronica remarked. “I swear his stomach is a bottomless pit. Ross,

sweetie, please go and grab the bags of stuff Johanna left for us. The purple bag obviously

belongs to Samantha.”

Ross bounded down to where the bags were, scooped them all up like he was a man sized

bear and brought them back up to where they stood on the platform. “You’re such a strong man.

Let’s go back and work off some of that food you stuffed into yourself,’ Veronica murmured to

Ross relieving him of a few of the bags, they happily walked out of the docking bay.

Jewel looked at them. “I have to go and deal with issues up on the bridge. I’ll see you two

later. Try to have a good night.”

“I don’t think that’s going to be a problem,” Devlin said.

Samantha leaned on the railing and looked down at the spot where the
Excalibur
used to

be.

“She’s going to get in over her head, I just hope she can handle it.”

“Johanna possesses a stalwart personality. She will not break even when it starts to get

tough.”

She sighed. “I shouldn’t have let her go. I shouldn’t have encouraged her to go…what

was I thinking? I should have blazed my way onto that ship and I should have knocked Dylan

out long enough to enter his pea size brain and reprogram him back to the way he was before he

had his brain scrambled into a Charlotte sized Omelet.”

“Why do you think she didn’t target the rest of us?”

“She tried to take us out with the assassin telepaths but she didn’t bank on the fact that I

would save you and Jewel. She thought by eliminating you, we would be right where she

wanted us. I don’t think Charlotte would actually hurt me or Johanna and if she touched Dylan

she would have Tyler razing her back—”

“But she did touch Dylan.”

“Not physically, she didn’t,” Samantha sighed. “Everything is getting far too complicated

for my tastes. I used to think that all I had to worry about was outside forces of nature wreaking

hell on my life but now I have to worry about all of this crap blowing up in my face!”

“If it blows up in your face it will blow up in mine,” Devlin remarked.

Ships of all sizes sat in their parking spots in the huge docking bay. She had never seen a