Adrift (5 page)

"Well I didn't," Jasmine told him with a smirk of triumph.
It morphed into a wince.
"I got him killed instead," she said and laughed at her morbid joke.
It quickly turned in to hysterical laughter with tears.
Soon she was screaming at him to get the headless body off her.

Norik lugged the corpse aside and knelt down beside her to offer whatever comfort he could to calm her down.
Jasmine grabbed hold of him and sobbed into his chest.
People weren't supposed to die because of what she did, they were supposed to live and the bad guys would get arrested and taken away for a very long time.
Yes, she had seen dead bodies in her career, but never had they been killed in front of her very eyes or landed on her.
So Jasmine allowed herself this moment to lose control.
She felt she deserved it.
Several bodies were now on this ship, all because they had the rotten luck of being on the same transport as her.

Norik had to let go of the knife so he could wrap his good arm around her.
She seemed inconsolable but focusing on her allowed him to push aside the knowledge that he had just killed two people.
Something he had taken great pains to never ever do.
Not after what had happened with Lilah.
He clung to Jasmine almost as hard as she did to him.
Each drew support and strength from the other as yet another adrenaline rush faded.

"Where's the other one?"
Jasmine sniffed and pushed her bloody and snot covered face from him.

Norik cleared his throat before he answered, "Tied up.
He did not try to kill me so I thought I should be lenient."

"That was nice of you," said Jasmine.
"What about me?
Do I get to live?"

"Well, that depends," he said to her and slowly licked his lips.

Jasmine stared at his mouth.
He's going to kiss me
, she thought.
Her heart quickened in anticipation as she coyly asked, "On?"

"On if you ever do something as stupid as that again," said Norik angrily.
"What were you thinking?
Do you even think?"

"I um," she said very disoriented at being told off instead of kissed.

"You do not, do you?"
he said and pulled away from her.
Norik couldn't believe her and let her know it.
"Is this how you operate?
Bumble your way through assignments and hope that someone else will be there to help you if something goes wrong?"

Jasmine dropped her hands from him and watched as he got to his feet and staggered away.
Her eyes were wide with shock that someone would say that to her, especially after she'd almost died.
Twice!

"Selfish woman," Norik ranted and stumbled on his way to the door.
"Nosy, annoying, stupid woman."

"I am not stupid!"
she yelled after him but he had already left.
Incensed, Jasmine got up and ran for the door.
She almost flew ass over end when she tripped over Stompy's head, but managed to right herself before she spilled out of engineering.

Finding Norik's body on the deck stopped the angry words from spilling forth, instead she dropped to her knees and assured herself that he was still breathing.
He was, but he was also still bleeding.
She shoved him over and rolled him onto his back.

"C'mon Norik.
You're not allowed to die," Jasmine told him as she pulled what remained of her shirt off and balled it up.
She ripped his sleeve and tugged it from his good arm to use as a new bandage.
"You can't leave me here alone."

* * *

The first sign that Norik had that proved to him he wasn't dead, was the dull ache he could feel throughout his whole body.
The second sign was when he moaned.
Opening his eyes would help but he didn't want to do that.
Not yet.
He wasn't sure he wanted to know where he was.
Something warm pressed up against him and he thought it wise to investigate what that was.
He ordered himself to open his eyes and when he did, he was greeted by the sleeping form of Jasmine.
She was curled up on his left side.
Her arm flung across his naked chest and her head snuggled into his armpit.
He gently lifted his own head to look at her more closely while she slept.
The left side of her face was mottled with vicious bruises.

Norik wanted to touch her, to smooth away the injury but his arm wouldn't respond to his brain's nonverbal commands.
He tilted his head to the right and found his shoulder tightly wrapped with actual bandages.
He dropped his head back on the pillow and looked up.
The now familiar view of Jasmine's bunk above, greeted him.
She had somehow managed to get him up a flight of stairs and back to his bunk, find another medkit and treat him.
It made him wonder if she were as bad as he had said she was, just before he drifted back to sleep.

The next time Norik woke, he was completely alone.
Jasmine was nowhere to be found in the bunk room.
It made him worry.
He had no idea how long he had been out for.
What he did know was that he was slightly feverish and his shoulder hurt like hell.

Norik pushed himself from the bunk and settled onto unsteady legs.
He found the wretched knife on the next bunk over and took that with him.
Someone had taken the time to clean it.
Norik just hoped that it had been Jasmine and not an as-yet unknown fourth man wanting to kill her.
He gripped the knife loosely in his left hand and went in search of the annoying woman.

Jasmine had been busy while Norik was out cold.
She had moved the prisoner to a smaller room and did the best she could to lock him in.
All of the bodies from the lounge and engineering had been moved to the other bunkroom that was similar to the one she shared with Norik.
She had spent the best part of a day staring at the controls in engineering to try to get life support up and running.
No such luck though and the prisoner had become sulky and non responsive when she'd attempted to enlist his help.
She hoped her Corps Officer was an engineer, but she seriously doubted it.

Norik found Jasmine poking around the cargo bay.
He watched as she pulled objects and passenger belongings from crates and sort them into piles.
She had brains, he had to give her that.
They needed to know what they had to work with and she was doing just that while he had been unconscious.

Jasmine leaned in to see what treasures the next crate held.
She pulled out a doll and could only stare at it.
It was the first time she had to consider the consequences of her actions, those other than the dead people and being trapped on a drifting ghost ship.
What seemed like a stroke of genius at the time now seemed really stupid.
Norik was right.
She hadn't thought.
She'd just done.
Now that she had time to think, it hit her.
She was pregnant.
A life was growing inside her.

Her thoughts were interrupted when someone coughed behind her.
Jasmine dropped the doll and whirled around to confront whoever it was.
She suspected the worst and had the plasma blaster pointed at her attacker.

Norik stood in the doorway and studied her.
He decided she had good reflexes and probably the skills to use the weapon.
"I would raise my hands but we both know I cannot accomplish that," he said.
When she didn't lower the weapon immediately he suggested, "Or you could kill me."

Jasmine lowered the plasma blaster but then brought it back up as a thought struck her.
She didn't know this man at all, so she posed the question, "How do I know that you weren't sent to get me too?"

"You do not."

"That's it?"
she demanded.
"You don't even plead your innocence?"

"What can I say that would justify my innocence in your mind?"
he asked her.

"Damn logical Lyrissians," Jasmine muttered and tensed her finger on the trigger.
She could always kill him, just to be on the safe side.
It was entirely possible that the whole ship had been bought by the General.
There was no way she could know for certain if Norik really was a good guy.
Yes, he had rescued her and killed the people who were obviously out to get her, but that could all be part of his plan.

"Well," he asked, "will you be killing me anytime soon?"

Jasmine blinked at him.
"You in a hurry to die?"
she asked.

"No," he said, "I just will not be able to stand up for much longer.
You could always let me lay on the deck and then kill me.
But you are the one with the weapon, so please, take your time."

Jasmine looked him over carefully.
The man was shaking all over.
He was obviously in pain but he held himself together and upright through what looked like sheer force of will.
"You can lay down," she told him but kept her plasma blaster trained on him all the while.

"Your kindness knows no bounds," he said dryly and sighed as if he were deflating.

She winced as he dropped the rest of the way to the deck.
Still, she couldn't take any chances.
"Tell me about yourself," she told him as she drifted closer, her weapon pointed at his chest.

Norik tossed the knife aside without her telling him to do so.
A move he hoped would calm her down.
"What do you want to know?"
he asked, unsure what he could say to convince her that he wasn't a threat.

"This is an interrogation, so start with name, rank and posting," she suggested.

"I am Colonel Norik Jacobs, commanding Officer of the Space Corps starship, Callisto.
Currently on enforced shoreleave," he told her.

"Enforced?"
Jasmine asked, curiosity piqued.
She lowered herself down to a sitting position nearby.

The corner of his mouth turned up as he explained, "I refused to take leave after the war, so my crew took matters into their own hands.
They drugged me and left me on the planet to
relax
."

"They sound lovely," she said.

"They mean well," he said and waited for the next question.

"What was your training in?"
she asked.
That one had irked her for a while now.

"Security and tactical," he replied.

"So you're not in covert ops," she said.

"No."

Jasmine cast about for another question.
More background information was needed.
"Parents and family life," she said.

"Mother: S'rea, scientist, retired.
Father: Viktor Jacobs, Human diplomat, deceased," he recited.

Jasmine interrupted him, she had heard about his father that was if he were indeed who he said he was.
"
The
Viktor Jacobs?
The one who committed suicide by spacing himself while on attachment?"

Norik swallowed and nodded without saying a word.

"I'd give anything to know what possessed him to do that," said Jasmine.

"That makes two of us," he said.

"I'm sorry for your loss," she told him.

"Thank you."

"This isn't working," she suddenly decided.

"Well, you are the interrogator," he reminded her.

Jasmine poked her tongue out at him and almost growled when she saw the faintest of smiles again on his lips.
He wasn't taking the situation, or her, seriously.
"If I used this on your foot, would you survive?"

"Probably," Norik told her, all signs of amusement left his expression.
"Although I would not have a foot."

"Good," she said and pointed the plasma blaster at the lower half of his body.

"I consider myself warned," he assured her.
"Anymore questions?"

"Yes," she said and pondered what else to ask him.
He had so far provided information that could be easily found or made up.
She needed something much more personal.
"When was the last time you made love to a woman?"
she asked.

"What?"
he asked and rolled his head to look directly at her.
"How can that possibly prove I will not kill you?"

"You said I was the interrogator.
I get to ask the questions," she said and arched an eyebrow in perfect imitation of him.