Adrift (4 page)

"I could see the benefits of that," Norik admitted.
"How does genetic manipulation fit into this?"

"Ah," Jasmine said and smiled coldly as she got to the most heinous part of her story.
"They're building telepathic bombs.
Much like the toxic gases used back in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries on old Earth, that killed all life while leaving buildings and infrastructure standing.
Except this time, there is no gas.
They've spliced the genes from the strongest telepaths in the known galaxy and are creating what I can only describe as super beings.
They're grown from test tubes.
Implanted into surrogates and then raised and brainwashed until the
children
are ready to go out and kill.
And they can kill a lot of people, with just one thought."

Norik considered her words for a few moments, licked his lips and said, "I do not believe you."

Jasmine's face fell.
Then she got angry, "Of course you don't believe me.
This is your precious Corps I'm talking about.
You're probably as loyal as they come.
But I have proof."

"You have proof?"
he asked and raised that damnable eyebrow of his.

"Yes.
I found them.
I went in, pulled every trick I know and then walked out again.
With proof," she said with a grin.
It fell away though when she added, "Ok, so I ran out of there.
They found out sooner than I thought and I guess they sent those three after me."

"
Three
?"
Norik said as he latched onto that relevant piece of information.
"You mean there are still two of them wandering around?"

"Well," Jasmine said, unable to look him in the eye, "he said there was another one."

Norik rolled his head back and closed his eyes as he thought.
"Considering the lengths they have gone to, to get back whatever proof it is you might have taken, it does not look as if we can hand it over and they will leave us alone.
Which means, I will need to take them out as well."

He felt her shift uncomfortably again.
She knocked her knees against his and he lifted his head and an eyelid to look at her.
"Is there anything else I need to know?"
he asked.

"No," she assured him.
"I've told you the truth."

"Good."

Jasmine made Norik eat some leftover food to help his body produce more of that bizarrely colored blood of his.
He needed his strength.
While he did that she rooted around the lounge looking for a medkit.
She found one tucked away in a locker, although when she opened the kit it became apparent that the crew of the transport vessel didn't restock as often as they should.
Norik took the kit from her and rifled through the vials of drugs.
He had her shine the light on each one as he looked for something to ease the pain without sedating him.
His unusual blood chemistry didn't make things any easier.

"Are you a Doctor?"
Jasmine asked as he studied two of the vials.
She added the new things that she had found out about him to her mental list.
He was Corps, probably a department head or higher going by the way he took easy command of the situation.
His strength and fighting ability made her think security or potentially something more intriguing like special ops.
Now he was going through a medkit as if he was intimate with it.
Whoever he was, he was a very interesting man.

"No," he said and then pushed a vial forward for her to load into the injector.

"Will that work?"
she asked, not certain how he could tell them apart from one another.

"It will work or it will kill me," he said with such a seriousness that Jasmine almost believed him.
A faint hint of a smile gave him away though.
"I think I have had that one before."

Jasmine poked her tongue out at him for messing with her and then administered the drug to him.
There wasn't much, but he made her use it all up.
He rationalized that if this situation wasn't taken care of in the next few hours then he wouldn't need any more.
If by some miracle they survived then the other drug would relieve the pain and knock him out.
She carefully tucked that vial away in her pocket.
If they got through this then he deserved a long and pain-free sleep.
The scanner turned out to be broken so she had no idea the extent of the damage to his shoulder and the much hoped for skin regenerator was missing.
She just hoped it wasn't too bad.
When the pain lines started to leave his face though she felt a little better, the drug was at least doing what they hoped it would.

Norik wanted to get this over with as quickly as possible.
The longer they left the two men to wander the ship and wreak havoc, the harder it would be to deal with the threat.
He wanted her to stay hidden in the lounge until he could come back for her.

"This is my mess, I want to be there to help clean it up," she insisted.
"I can use a plasma blaster.
It's hardly any different from my pulse blaster and I'm an excellent shot."

"No," he told her.

"But you can't even use this arm," she said and punched him there to give added emphasis to her argument, a flinch was his only response.
"You can't use a knife and a plasma blaster at the same time."

"No."

"Please?
I can cover your back."

He turned around and gave her the full force of his glare.
This was definitely a man used to having his orders followed, she decided and gulped.
Still she would not be galled.
"I'm coming with you."

Norik sighed, lightly dropped his good hand onto her shoulder and squeezed.
A small sound of surprise escaped her lips as she slowly dropped.
He managed to catch her against his body and lowered her to the floor.
From there he dragged her behind a couch.
"I said no," he muttered mostly to himself before he slipped out of the lounge and along the corridor to the stairs that would lead him down to engineering.

The only thing that Norik had going for him at the moment was that his shoulder had stopped bleeding and the pain was down to a manageable level, at least for now.
No doubt it would start again once he exerted himself.
The faster he got this over with the sooner he could worry about the state of the ship and ensuring their survival until a rescue vessel arrived.

* * *

This was a disaster.
A disaster that had just taken a turn for the worst.
Norik could have strangled the woman for her stupidity.
He had left her unconscious in the lounge for her own safety and now that was seriously compromised by the plasma blaster currently pressed under her chin.
What made it worse was that it was the plasma blaster he'd entered engineering with.
The man had taken him by surprise and to make matters worse, Jasmine had run straight into them.
He decided that if she walked away from this he would kick himself and then kick her for starting this whole damn mess.

Jasmine clutched at the arm that held the plasma blaster, in a futile attempt to push it away from her.
She mentally berated herself for getting caught but not for wanting to help Norik.

Stompy yanked back on her hair with his other hand and made her cry out.
He wiggled the muzzle of the plasma blaster so it dug into the curve of her neck.
"Stop squirming," he told her.

"I'm not squirming," she said through clenched teeth.
He had her head pulled so far back that she could see both Stompy behind her and Norik in front of her.
The man also seemed intent on making her bald as more hair was ripped from her scalp.
Her eyes watered and she wanted nothing more than to see him so dead that no one would recognize him.

"And you, you stay back," he ordered of Norik.

Norik held his position and tightened his grip on the knife.
He weighed up his options but didn't like any of the outcomes.

"Now, before I kill you," Stompy hissed into Jasmine's ear.
"You have something that belongs to my employer and he wants it back.
Said whatever means necessary.
As you can see I've the means."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Jasmine said and instantly regretted saying anything when he jerked his hand back, taking more of her hair with him.

"Just tell him where it is," Norik told her.

"You hear Romeo?"
said Stompy.
"Tell me where it is and I'll let you keep your hair.
Corpses look real funny when they don't have none."

"I can't," she said more to Norik than to Stompy.

Norik frowned as he watched her lower her hand and point to her abdomen.
He fought the urge to close his eyes in annoyance as he remembered what she had said about the genetic experiments.
That they used surrogates and that she had undeniable proof.
She had impregnated herself with that proof.
She was either the most brilliant undercover investigative reporter that ever lived or completely nuts.

"Well if you can't then I suppose I'll just have to kill you both and search the whole ship," Stompy decided.
He studied Norik and weighed up what he'd seen of the man's fighting prowess compared to the injuries that now hindered him.
"Who wants to die first?"

"Oh we get a choice?"
Jasmine snorted.
"How kind of you."

"Do not antagonize the man who has a plasma blaster pointed at your neck," Norik told her.

"I'll antagonize whoever I damn well please," she yelled at him.
"And don't get me started on you.
What kind of Corps Officer lets himself get injured by incompetent hired help?"

"You blinded me with a flashlight," Norik argued back.

"You look at Duarr porn!"
she blurted.

"Duarr - what?"
Stompy asked.
He was confused.
They should be listening to him, he had the plasma blaster, but instead they verbally assaulted each other.

"Duarr porn," Jasmine repeated.
"What kind of a sick depraved man looks at Duarrs making love?"

"Why am I risking my life to save you again?"
Norik asked, sick of the woman and her antics.
He turned away and walked to the exit.

"Hey!"
Stompy called out and moved the plasma blaster from Jasmine's vulnerable neck and pointed it at Norik's back.
"Get back here."

"No," Norik said over his shoulder.
"She is all yours.
Blow her brains out, I do not care."

"Stop!"
Stompy demanded.
"Stop right now.
I order you to stop."

"Or what?
You will kill me?
You are going to kill me anyway," Norik said but turned to face the man.

"I think you should kill him first," Jasmine told Stompy.

Stompy changed his mind and put the plasma blaster back to her neck.
"Don't tell me what to do, bitch.
I know my job and I'm very good at it."

"Well that's heartening," she muttered.
"I'm sure your mother is very proud of you."

"You leave my mother out of this," he told her and yanked on her hair again.

Jasmine was bent so far back that she felt as if she could out-limbo anybody.
"I seem to have hit a sore spot," she gasped.
"Did mummy not love you?"

Stompy had her on her knees now, the plasma blaster in her face.
"I said, leave her out of it."

"She's so proud of her little murderer," said Jasmine.

"Shut up!"
Stompy screamed and blaster-whipped her.
It had the desired effect of shutting her.
He pulled back to smack her one again, when he heard the slap of boots on deck plating.
He looked up just in time to see a long blade slice through the air before him.
His head hit the ground before his body collapsed on top of Jasmine.

Jasmine looked up at Norik from where she lay trapped under Stompy's deadweight.
Norik stood above her still holding his follow through pose after just decapitating a man.
She watched his chest rise and fall as he gasped for air.
He seemed to be having a moment so she waited for it to pass and when it didn't she ventured, "A little help?"

Norik turned his head and looked down at her.
She had a nasty gash above her left eye and another on the cheek, it almost lined up with the bruise from earlier.
He lowered the knife and said, "You could have gotten yourself killed."