Adrift (10 page)

The device made a different noise and startled her from her mantra to not cry.
She held it up.
There was one unread message:
I am coming
.

Her breath caught in her throat.
The General must have become impatient when Stompy hadn't contacted him and decided to take matters into his own hands.
She checked the timestamp and swore.
He would surely have a ship capable of faster speeds than the transport.
They had been three days out when the engines had stopped and since then they had been drifting.
He would be here as soon as tomorrow.
He would take back what she had stolen and kill any witnesses.

Jasmine looked at the bodies that surrounded her and imagined Norik's among them.
The thought made her angry.
"No," she said out loud and struggled to her feet.
He would not be a headless corpse like Stompy or crispy fried like Sulky.
"I will not let that happen."

Norik looked up from the manual to find a very determined looking Jasmine standing in front of him.
"Can I help you?"
he asked with raised eyebrow.

"Yes," she said and then appeared to change her mind.
"Maybe.
I need a miracle.
Do you have one?"

"Ah," Norik said and furrowed his brow.
"I do not think my crew remembered to pack one, sorry."

She looked angered by the news but quickly composed herself.
"I found some EV suits but they're damaged," she told him and shook them out of the blanket she had carried them in over her shoulder.
"And other stuff."

"So I see," said Norik.
He picked through some of the detritus that had landed next to him.
"Medical supplies and rations are helpful but I am not sure what you think we can use the money chips for."

"To buy another ship," she deadpanned.

"Of course," he said and wondered if he could make one working EV suit.

"What have you been doing?"
she asked him, "other than sitting around."

Norik held up the manual and said, "Learning everything I can about the ship's systems."

"Any luck?"
she asked.

"Only if you have a miracle," was his response.
He sighed and rubbed at both eyes with his left hand, "It has become obvious to me that I wasted my life shooting things instead of pursuing a more useful career in engineering."

"Don't say that," Jasmine said and kicked him in the leg.
"I don't know if you're any good at shooting things but your knife wielding skills are fantastic."

"Ow," he complained and rubbed his leg.
"You are a violent woman."

"Yes I am," she agreed.

Norik watched her chew on her lower lip.
He knew she had something else to say but waited.
A part of him worried she would confirm his fears, that he was a vile creature and she hated him.
Another part gazed at her mouth and wanted to claim it.
He scowled at his reaction to her.
She was fully clothed and yet his body would be ready in a heartbeat.
Sharks, crocodiles, verdian dogs and laser beams
, he told himself were needed for that moat.

"I have bad news," she finally said.
"The General is coming."

Norik frowned.
"How do you know that?"

She tossed the communicator to him and watched as he read the ominous message.
"Well?"
she asked.

Norik looked up at her and said, "He will be here in approximately 12 hours," he told her, "provided he left not long after sending this."

"Oh that's great," she said and started to pace.
"That's half of what I thought.
You really know how to make a bad situation worse."

Norik ignored her.
She was being irrational and it wouldn't help him look at the situation realistically, determine what he had on hand and decide a suitable course of action.
"Fight, flight or surrender," he said out loud.

"What are the three things we can't do in this situation?"
she said.
"In case you hadn't noticed this is a civilian transport, not a Space Corps vessel.
There are no weapons."

"We still have personal weapons," he pointed out.

"Two small knives, one huge knife and a plasma blaster," Jasmine recited.
"And flight?
You got the ship to move faster or in a direction of your choosing yet?
No."

"We may have one working EV suit," he reminded her.

That stopped Jasmine in her tracks.
She stared at him intently, surprised that he squirmed under her gaze.
"Yes, we do," she said slowly.
"How hard is it to find a person in space?"

Norik was left flustered by the intensity of her eyes.
One look and she could make his blood boil.
He knew she had only forgiven him to make him feel better.
She didn't want him.
She couldn't.
He was a monster.

"Extremely hard, unless you know what to look for," Norik told her.
A plan started to formulate in his head, one that involved Jasmine in the EV suit.
The only problem was that there was no guarantee that someone would find her before she would run out of air.
Someone other than the General.
He reached for the EV suits and studied them all.
"I might be able to attach a second air tank to the suit.
It could give you twenty-four hours of air, more if you can sleep and not move around much."

"Me?"
she said, surprised.

"Yes, you," he replied and continued to explain his plan.
"If we wait another eight hours, the ship will have drifted far enough away for you to avoid the aftershock and hopefully the General."

"Sounds good," Jasmine agreed readily.
Norik was too caught up in his calculations to recognize a woman plotting.

Seven hours later, Jasmine was sitting on Norik's bunk.
She rifled through his belongings as he emptied his bag.
Old habits died hard.
Norik was looking for his identicard on the off chance that his crew came looking for him.
If they scanned the area then they could home in on Jasmine, believing her to be him.

"Is archery a popular Lyrissian sport?"
Jasmine asked when she found his bow again.

"No," he said.

"Space Corps?"

He stopped what he was doing and looked at her pretending to use his bow.
"My father gave it to me," he said quietly.
"It was a family tradition."

"Was?"
she noted the past tense.

"Well with my impending death and lack of offspring," he pointed out.
"I do not see it being passed on."

"I suppose not," she said and returned his bow to him.
"Do you want children?"

"No," he said it so fast that Jasmine didn't believe him.

"You know, there are other ways to make babies," she told him and pointed to her own belly.
"I've got really great evidence of that."

He pressed his lips together and almost smiled before he said, "Are you suggesting I artificially inseminate a female with the intent of taking the child?"

"Well, that's one idea," she said.

"Or are you suggesting I have a sexless relationship with a woman who already has children?"
asked Norik.
"I was under the impression though that Human females enjoyed sexual intercourse."

"They do," Jasmine admitted and wished she'd kept her mouth shut.
She had hit a nerve and hadn't intended to.
"It wasn't your fault."

"I practically raped you," he said.

"Well you didn't intend to," she pointed out.
"It wasn't that bad, Norik."

"So you enjoyed it?"
he asked.

Jasmine hesitated.
She hadn't not liked it but he hadn't exactly seen to her needs.
The Bastard.
He had hurt her a little but it could have been so much worse.
It could have been so much better too, if only she'd been prepared.
Next time she would tie him down and take control.
She would also bite him and roar into his ear.

"I think I have my answer," he said and turned away.
"Thank you for being honest.
You should put on the suit now."

Jasmine's face fell when he reminded her that there would be no next time.
She groped in her pocket for the vial that contained the drug Norik had told her would relieve his pain
and
knock him out.
While his back was still turned, she loaded the vial in to the injector and then hid it behind her back.
"Norik?"
she asked quietly.

"What is it?"
Norik asked and turned around.
He was dumbstruck when she flung her arms around his neck and kissed him.
Her mouth pressed hard against his lips and with such force that, for a moment at least, he lost himself and let her in.
He wrapped his good arm around her and pulled her to him.
His blood sang for her and only her but he couldn't have her.
He had to save her.

Jasmine melted against him.
Never had a man kissed her with such a fierce yearning.
No one had desired her as much as what she could feel emanating from him and felt her body respond.
She would have let herself get swept away if she hadn't remembered that she had to save him.

They pulled apart.
Jasmine looked at him sadly and whispered, "Forgive me," before she dispensed the injector against his neck.

His eyes widened but the drug acted so quickly that he was out cold before he hit the deck.

Jasmine had no idea how long he would be out so she quickly assembled what she needed.
His identicard from the bunk and the EV suit that he'd spent the past few hours attaching a second oxygen tank to.
Hopefully someone would find him before he ran out of air.
She didn't want to think of him dying in the middle of space.
All alone.
It had to be better than whatever waited for her when the General caught up to the transport.

She half dragged, half lugged Norik into the airlock nearest the back of the ship.
He received a few more bruises on the journey but arrived otherwise intact.
Jasmine paused to catch her breath.
He was like a dead weight and she'd hauled several of those over the past few days.
She watched Norik's chest rise and fall rhythmically.
He had a nice chest.
The kind of chest a woman would like to use as a pillow or to touch.
Before she knew what she was doing, she had placed her hand over his heart.
His heart rate suddenly quickened.
Jasmine jerked her hand away, afraid that he might wake.
When he didn't, she tentatively put her hand back and again his heartbeat raced at her touch once more.
It was strange that while unconscious he seemed to react to her presence.
It made her own heart ache.

"OK Norik," she told him.
"Time to kick your ass out into space and hope the good guys find you."

It took her several minutes to get him into the suit but she managed to accomplish it.
She had made him show her how to put it on and seal it properly.
He thought it would help alleviate her fears, she only wanted to know so she wouldn't fuck anything up and kill him.

She had wanted to write him a note, but couldn't find the right words.
Ironic considering her career.
Instead she shoved something else into the suit with him, figuring that if he survived he might want it.

"Positive thoughts," she told herself.

Jasmine knelt down beside Norik and studied his face.
She reached out and brushed his shaggy hair back and smiled sadly.
So many
if she hadn't's
ran through her mind, none of which she could change and if she had been able to, then she would never have met him.

"Well, Norik," she told him as she gently stroked his face.
"You find a woman that has kids and doesn't want sex or maybe a Lyrissian who can love you and give you heaps of children."

Norik's eyebrow twitched, which made Jasmine jump.
She quickly grabbed the helmet and as she eased it over his head he murmured her name.
It was the first time he had used it and her heart skipped a beat.
She twisted the helmet and heard it click into place.
Norik stirred and his helmeted head tilted to one side.