Drake’s smirk faded, no doubt disappointed that Mercury didn’t respond to his taunt. “Oh, I plan to enjoy it and maybe, when Sam stumbles into my men, I’ll enjoy her too.”
Mercury let his rage power the blow he struck against Drake’s body. Watched the man fall, curling his arms around his vulnerable belly.
Drake sputtered and held out one hand as if to stop Mercury from attacking. “Wait.” He spit out blood. “You don’t have time for this. Unless you don’t care about Sam after all.”
Mercury crouched down and snarled. “Don’t even speak her name.”
“Wait. Let me.” Drake moaned as he tried to move. “There’s a receiver on my belt, take a look. We’ve been tracking you.”
Mercury hesitated. If they’d been tracking them all day, they’d know exactly where the others were. He took the small device with a colorful screen and blinking lights.
In the center a red and a green dot flashed close together. That had to be him and Drake. One more green dot flashed with two more red. That had to be Lo and Carn with whatever man had been left to guard the ship. Half a dozen more green dots moved toward Carn and Lo…and Samantha.
His rage spiked and his vision clouded. He was on Drake before the rage cleared. Holding back his strength he tapped the man on the head and watched his eyes roll back and his body go limp.
It was little salve to his thirst for vengeance, but for now it would have to be enough.
He leapt to his feet and headed back toward the others.
The Kestrel, Planet G-45987
Earth Alliance Beta Sector - Gollerra Border
2210.168
“Let me in, you overblown excuse for a security protocol.” Samantha adjusted the algorithm on her hastily compiled hack program then leaned back in the pilot’s chair to watch it run.
When they’d reached the area where Drake and Resler had made camp, Lo and Carn had quickly located the sleek Raptor class transport vessel and the man left on guard. He’d been sitting on the ship’s entry ramp, not exactly subtle. Carn had taken the man out with a single throw of a fist sized stone. The big bear of a guy had quite an arm on him.
A flash of movement on one of the view screens caught Samantha’s eye. She swiveled, putting her full attention on the exterior views. There. A shadow at the edge of one of the screens. It could be nothing. Or one of the men who knew this ship. Knew the vid coverage.
Carn had taken the unconscious guard to the Roma campsite and Lo had gone to patrol the woods. Neither would have a reason to skirt the visual sensor arrays even if they knew where they were. If the hunters were back, what did that mean for Mercury? Lo? She couldn’t think about that now. They were safe. They had to be.
She jumped to her feet and spun in a circle. She needed a weapon. Until she could complete the security hack she couldn’t get the ship on her side. It would let them in without a fuss.
“Where would they keep weapons?” In the cargo-hold? In their sleep cabins? On their hips, definitely. There’d be no need to stow any in a pilot’s station, but she quickly searched every bin and locker. Her gaze jerked back to the hack.
Still running. “Damn it.”
Samantha sprinted down the corridor, eyes searching every square meter as she flew past. Smooth walls everywhere. Then a turnoff opened up and she slung herself around the corner. She spotted the four steps down to a slightly lower compartment and jumped, landing at the bottom. Hope spiked her energy levels as she saw the neatly labeled doors along both sides of the hallway. They had to be the crew cabins. She slammed her palm against the sensor next to the first door. It stubbornly remained closed.
Samantha doubled over, hands on her knees and panted to catch her breath. “Emergency response!”
“State emergency.” The computer had a slick, almost human voice. Nothing but the best for murdering scumbags.
“Open all hatches.”
“All public spaces are accessible,” the calm voice responded. “Sealed hatches indicate areas not available to passengers.”
“I can’t find the crew,” she improvised. “I need the hatches open so I can conduct a search.”
“Sensors indicate crew not on board.”
“You’ve got a sensor malfunction,” she said, hoping the hack would help along that lie. When there was no response, she pounded on the door in frustration. “This is an emergency. Comply!”
“Acknowledged. Running a diagnostic and releasing all hatches.”
She didn’t know if it was the hack or bad emergency response programming but she wouldn’t complain over her good fortune.
“Hallelujah.” She slipped through the door as it slipped open. The floor was hidden beneath piles of clothes and empty bev tubes. The room smelled like a stale reminder of a days-old hangover. She checked the storage drawers then shoved aside a blanket hanging half of the bunk and bent to look underneath for any supplementary storage. Nothing.
“Sensor diagnostic complete, no malfunction found. No crew currently aboard. One unregistered and two registered passengers identified.”
Two. Where had they come from? If anything had happened to Mercury—the sound of the doors engaging sent Samantha dashing for the next doorway, but all the doors slid shut. Stars, she needed the hack to kick in. If the security protocols were still functioning, whoever had come back to the ship could use them to locate her.
She headed up the steps to the main corridor. Left would take her back to the pilot’s station, probably the first place they’d look. Right would take her to the commons, but anyone coming in the main hatch would also have to pass through there to get to the pilot’s station. Between her and the commons were a lot of dead ends and several turns. If she was lucky she might make it to the one cross corridor she’d seen before they found her.
She dropped to the floor and removed her boots, then went to the right, moving quickly but cautiously. The metal decking felt cool and smooth beneath her feet as she followed the corridors into the body of the ship. The telltale thud of booted feet warned her they’d already made it past the commons and were headed right for her. She spun around and sprinted back along the corridor, sliding at the turns like a drunk on an ice plane.
She rounded the last corner between her and the pilot’s station and ran smack into a solid male chest. Damn, where had he come from? His arms closed around her like a vise squeezing the breath from her heaving lungs.
“Well, look what I cornered.” The hunter spoke to someone over her shoulder. The other one must have caught up.
“No points.” The voice behind her was jovial and relaxed. “That was luck.”
“Being in the right spot is a skill,” the hunter protested.
Samantha struggled against his hold. She tried to get a knee to his groin but he held her too tight.
“Hey, mister lucky?” Getting his attention was the only tactic she could think of to get him to ease his grip. The moment he looked down to her, she wrenched her head back and then forward, clipping his chin with her forehead.
“Shit,” the man shouted. He was pissed. It hadn’t exactly felt good to her, but it worked. His hold loosened.
Samantha grabbed for the stunner at his waist and dropped to her haunches, letting her body fall like dead weight. It broke his grip and she scrambled.
She came away with the stunner and got in a shot as she did a one handed crab walk away from him. He dodged. She tried to adjust her aim, something slammed into her, flipping her over and flattening her against the deck.
A sharp, jarring pain shot through her shoulder. She couldn’t get air and before she recovered both men were on her. One lay with his torso across her, the other wrenched her arms over her head and tried to twist the stunner out of her hand. She fired. He yelped and released her. The high, shuddering whimper told her she’d gotten him good. Not enough to take him out, but enough to throw him off his game.
The guy still crushing her to the decking wasn’t distracted by the blast—he was too busy shoving her face into the floor.
She was trying to get her arm back around to get a shot off at him when she saw Lo coming down the corridor like the devil they called him. There was no sound, except her labored breathing and the grunts of the man pressed against her. Lo’s eyes flickered with red flames and he sprung into the air and flew at her attacker, claws extended. She saw it as if time slowed. She braced for the blow of Lo’s weight coming down on them, but it never came. His momentum carried him over them and he plucked the man off her as he tumbled past. The quiet, swift movements gave Samantha an eerie chill. She tried to push up to a sitting position, but her hands slipped in wet crimson. She hadn’t realized Lo had drawn blood but the evidence was soaking into her top.
The second man was trying to get a stunner in his left hand. The right hung limply at his side. The awkward movements slowed him down. She scrambled to get to him before he could aim. They both froze as a loud growl rolled down the corridor.
Mercury.
A blur of motion whooshed past in a quicksilver flash of heat and energy. She shivered as cool, ship-controlled air sucked back in to fill his wake.
Everything stopped.
The hunters, both injured and unconscious, lay barely breathing on the floor. Lo and Mercury crouched over them, hands bloody, chests heaving. They watched her and waited. Waited for her reaction. Waited for her to accept or reject them. Waited, unrepentant, for her to pass judgment. They needed her to go to them, to reassure them. She tried, but something between her brain and her body had broken.
The aftermath of suppressing her fear washed over her, leaving her trembling. Another flash of movement and Mercury pulled her into his arms. She buried her face in his chest and breathed him in. The subtle spice of him cleared the tang of blood from her nose and settled her nerves. She pushed back and slid her hands up to frame his face. “When they came, I thought something had gone wrong. That maybe you were hurt, or worse.”
“I’m fine and Drake lives.
“Carn is with the others,” said Lo. “They all live.”
“We’re all safe.” Mercury pulled her back into his arms.
She stretched out her hand to Lo. “Come here.”
He didn’t hesitate. He settled his big body against her side and wrapped his arms around them both as he pressed his nose against her neck.
They sat that way, quietly reassuring each other, for a full minute before Mercury shifted. “We must get these men out of here and help Samantha ready the ship.”
“I’ll take them,” said Lo. “You stay here and help her. Carn and I will return shortly.”
“Be careful,” said Mercury. There are at least four more in the area.”
“Just two. I ran into two in the forest. That’s why I headed back here.”
Samantha cleared her throat of emotion. “We’ll be ready when you get back.”
Everything moved quickly then. By the time she got back to the pilot’s station the hack had completed and she had full access to the ship’s controls. The moment Lo and Carn stepped back onto the ship she sealed the hatch and started the launch sequence.
The familiar rhythm of the work and the force of the ship shooting toward space fit like the comfort of old work boots. As they cleared the atmosphere, Samantha saw the
Dove
. “Bastards.” The damage was far worse than it should have been for the small directed charge she’d triggered in the cargo-hold.
“Samantha?” Mercury appeared over her shoulder.
She wanted to turn, to see his face, reach out to touch him, but until they cleared the planet’s influence she had to stay focused on the controls. “You should be resting.”
He dropped a hand on her shoulder. “Tell me what’s wrong.”
She pointed at the view screen. “When the hunters boarded looking for that tracker they made a mess of her boarding hatches and scattered the remnants of the cargo-bay blowout.” Maybe setting off an explosion hadn’t been such a good idea. “The debris field surrounding her will make it impossible to dock. We won’t be able to salvage a thing.”
His hand squeezed gently. “You hoped to salvage your personal possessions? Your mother’s cloth?”
“No,” she said. No, it had been nothing as sentimental as that. “I was hoping we could siphon some fuel from the
Dove’s
auxiliary tanks.”
“Fuel?”
“Yeah, this beauty was designed for speed, not efficiency.” She tapped the readouts on the control panel. “We only have enough fuel for one Skip and that won’t get us back to Roma.”
“Why would they travel without enough fuel?”
“They must’ve spent extra fuel getting here so quickly.”
As the ship moved out of range of
G-45987
, Samantha quieted. She checked navigation and set a course to take them out of the solar system.
“There are two refueling ports in range,” she explained. “We’re on the border between Gollerra and Earth Alliance territories, but the closest fuel depot is on the Alliance side.” She swiveled far enough to look at Mercury. “If Roma sent out a bulletin on you guys it could be dangerous to go to the depot on the Alliance side.”
“Drake wouldn’t have admitted his loss to anyone outside the company. He wouldn’t have believed we could evade recapture.”
She considered his words and her own feelings. She couldn’t let her own concerns and needs delay their return to Roma. “Okay, but, in an abundance of caution, let’s say he did. Or he tagged my credit accounts. I might not be able to pay for the fuel.”
Mercury nodded. “Our other option?”
She sighed, but held his gaze. “Haverlee.”
He reached out and ran a finger along her jaw, stoking under her chin. “We go to Haverlee, then.”
“I’m sorry, Mercury. I know Carn won’t be happy about the delay.”
He pulled away his hand and she immediately wanted his touch back. Had she become addicted?
“He’ll see the logic of it,” he said, for once unaware of the reason for the tumult inside her.
Logic had little to do with the jumble of her emotions. “I hope so.”