Compete (33 page)

There is a pause. And then Kassiopei’s voice resumes. “All crew and personnel on this ship, with the exception of special security and other designated sections—your orders are to return to your personal quarters, dormitories and barracks, and stay there until morning when we resume our regular ship schedule at 8:00 AM. At present I am establishing a ship-wide curfew. Stay in your quarters. I repeat, stay in your quarters. If you require emergency medical attention, enter code 117 from the nearest console. Medical personnel will be sent to you. This is all.”

And there is silence.

I breathe in deeply, in a kind of quiet joyful relief that comes from hearing the living voice of a person that you thought dead. So, the CP is
alive
, and the situation is under control! But what about Logan? My heart races with a weird cocktail of new worry.

I stand up, and feel an immediate head rush—my head is definitely not doing well.

I consider going outside, but remember Logan mentioning that someone will come for me.

But Command Pilot Kassiopei did say,
return to your quarters
.

Just as I open the cabin door, step outside and take my chances, I see Logan walking along the corridor toward me.

And the corridor itself . . . oh wow, what a horrible ugly scene, just as bad as the other corridor we were in with the barricades. . . . Several fallen bodies, Cadets and Atlanteans . . . floor streaked with red, actual puddles of blood, scorch marks on the wall panels. It occurs to me in a bizarre aside, that apparently these Atlantean laser weapons don’t damage the walls enough to pierce the hull. Because the door of my cabin looks terribly scorched on the outside, but none of it got through to the inside.

“Logan!” I exclaim weakly, and move toward him, meeting him halfway, and realizing that I am unsteady on my feet. “Thank God, you’re okay!”

Logan looks exhausted and his uniform is more scorched, and splattered with even more red, but none of it’s his own—at least I don’t think. He’s got a minor bruise on his jaw, streaks of grime around his hands, arms and elbows, even his uniform knees, where he must’ve been down on the floor again. Belatedly I recall that my own uniform is likely stained also after that horrifying meal hall hostage incident, and then the firefight in the corridor.

His face is grim, hair tousled, but he manages a smile for me.

“Gwen . . .” he mutters, taking me in a strong embrace. “It’s okay, everything is okay. We got ’em.
All of them.
”

I hold on to him, my fingers grasping the back of his neck, and just breathe. He meanwhile nuzzles my forehead and gently touches the swelling on the side.

“Okay,” he mutters after a few seconds of breathing into my hair. “Now let’s take you to medical—CP’s orders. He sent me to make sure. Not that I wouldn’t have come for you on my own. . . .”

“He—he’s unhurt? Everyone else okay too? Right?” I say in a daze, as we start walking, stepping carefully over slippery blood-stained floor panels, past bodies, on our way to the Yellow Quadrant. Such empty vacuous questions—I’m not even sure who I’m asking about, who’s unhurt.
So many people died needlessly
.

“Oh God!” I come to a halt, my brain waking up. “I need to call Gracie and Gordie!”

But Logan shakes his head and gives me a reassuring squeeze. “Call them later. I’m sure they’re just fine. Their ships were unaffected, remember? Only the four Imperial Command Ships were targeted.”

I nod, and we continue moving.

Now and then, various Atlantean personnel and Earth Cadets and Civilians hurry past us in the ship corridors.

Logan supports me around the waist and tells me in snatches what happened in the last few hours—how they’ve re-taken the CCO and the rest of the ship.

I listen and nod, lightheaded, nausea rising in my stomach.

It has to be the concussion, I think. A few moments more of this walking motion, and I am going to be violently sick.

Chapter Nineteen

T
he medical deck area is located in Residential Deck Four. There’s supposed to be one in each Quadrant, but this one’s closest to my residence, so Logan gets me there.

There’s a line in the front waiting section when we arrive. Teens with minor injuries wait while those who are seriously hurt get seen first—typical triage. I see a few with bloody scratches, and several scorch wounds from the laser guns, but most are simply badly traumatized. There are quite a few Atlantean crew members among the more seriously injured.

A young boy hyperventilates. A girl Cadet is wheezing with an asthma attack. Two young kids babble incoherently about being betrayed by Earth, and how there’s more secret terrorists coming for us, and how we’re all doomed to die before we even make it to Atlantis. . . . The doctors and med techs move rapidly, taking us through to the back where the examination rooms are, but it’s still at least half an hour until I get seen.

“A concussion,” the no-nonsense young Atlantean medic says, shining a light in my eye and making me follow his fingers. He’s another older teen, and I stare at his neatly trimmed short metallic hair and his angular chin, while he passes some kind of scan gadget over my forehead and then there’s a tingling heat sensation along my skin.

“I’ve taken care of the worst of it. Now, get some rest, and have someone wake you every two hours,” he tells me at last, turning off the machine.

“Oh?” I mutter. “I thought if you have a concussion you’re not allowed to sleep at all, or you fall into a coma or die, or something?”

The medic shakes his head. “A myth, for the most part. Your symptoms must be watched, but otherwise rest is good. Set a timer and have someone wake you to make sure your symptoms do not get worse. You are free to go.”

I figure, this med tech has a huge line of other more seriously injured people to deal with. So I vacate the room, and Logan’s waiting for me outside.

“I’ll watch you tonight,” he tells me, as we head back to my cabin on Command Deck Four.

I glance up at him, despite the heavy dull ache in my head that’s aggravated by every movement. “No, Logan, that’s crazy, you need your own rest,” I say. “You’ve been in
battle!
”

But his hazel eyes are warm and he smiles lightly. “You make it sound so awesome. But, no, I’ll stay with you tonight. That is, if you are comfortable with me being there, you know, alone with you in your cabin. Just you and me—” And he wiggles his eyebrows meaningfully, following it up with another slightly tired, slightly flirty smile.

“Oh, you—you,
silly
.” I blink weakly, attempting to smile also, and both of us stop at the doors of my cabin.

Inside, Logan turns his back while I threaten to hit him if he peeks, and hurriedly undress, wash up, then pull on my sleeping shirt and pajama bottoms. I lie down and he makes me comfortable on my bunk bed cot, covering me with the sheet and blanket, arranging it around me gently. Then he turns to the wall clock, which shows a little after midnight, and sets the alarm for two-hour intervals. I look at him as he sits there, watching me, soon almost nodding off in the narrow hard chair near the wall, just two feet away. Did I mention the cabin is a tiny closet?

“Logan,” I mutter softly, as the cabin lights fade due to our motionless inactivity.

“Huh?” In the twilight I see him barely open his eyes, as his head is lolling to the side.

“Logan, get your butt here. . . . There’s plenty of room for you to lie down.”

He blinks, the glitter of his eyes more alert than it was a second ago. “Are you sure?”

“Oh, yeah.” I scoot back against the wall, making room for him. “If you lie next to me, then you’ll be able to tell if I die in my sleep from this concussion thing. Okay? I’m relying on you to
not
let me die, mister.”

And I giggle drunkenly, both from tiredness, and from the stupid effects of the concussion, and just possibly from something the medic did to my head.

The cabin lights come on stronger, because Logan is up and moving. Without taking his eyes off me he removes his stained uniform shirt, then his boots and pants, so he’s naked to the waist, only wearing his boxers.

Oh. My. God.

Yes, I’m injured and dead-tired. But still, I gulp and forget to breathe. . . .

In the next moment, I feel his solid muscular body next to mine. The bunk mattress makes a small creaking noise. There’s only a thin blanket between us.

Logan moves slowly, gently to lie beside me, and puts one hand around me, the other behind his head. He arranges the pillow so that my head does not bump the wall. I rest my cheek in the crook of his arm. If I weren’t so stupid-tired, I’d be melting now, melting at the wild, sensual, musky scent of him, all around me. . . . And if he weren’t so stupid-tired he might be trying to nuzzle my neck and feel under my shirt.

Instead, he sighs, and closes his eyes. And then he falls asleep before I can count to five.

Apparently I fall asleep very soon after, because the next thing I remember is the voice of the ship’s computer, pulling me out of a dreamless void.

“
Now entering Uranus orbital perihelion. . . .”

“Oh, no! Uranus! I need to see Uranus! I mean, no, wait—” I mumble thickly, attempting to rise—causing the room motion sensors to increase light levels—and discovering that Logan’s face is hidden in my neck, and he is breathing into my hair deeply, like a baby. Immediately he stirs, takes in a deep shuddering breath, grunts lightly, rearranges his warm arms around me, and then his one eye comes open. “What about my anus?” he mumbles with a sleepy mischievous little boy smile.

I groan and poke him in the ribs with my elbow. (Such perfectly-defined, muscular abdomen and ribs!) But he only grabs my hand around the wrist and strokes my palm with his thumb, sending an immediate sensual pang up my arm. He’s smiling widely now, still partially muddled with sleep, and his jaw is slack in relaxation. I put my hand on it, and feel prickly new stubble. My, what a beautiful jaw line. . . . And yet again I think:
What in heaven’s name is this perfect male specimen doing in my bed?

“
Now leaving Uranus orbital aphelion,”
the computer says.

“A-a-and, so much for that sphincter. . . . I must say, that was rather fast.” Logan raises one brow, watching me softly. “Did you notice how the intervals between those orbital passes are getting closer and closer together, despite the increasing unimaginable distances between planets?”

“Uh-huh. Hey, what happened to the alarm?” I say. “And yes, Sangre, I’m
not
dead, if you care to ask.”

He points to the wall. “Look, still six minutes to go. The ship computer woke us early. And yes, Ms. Gwenevere Lark, you appear to be fully alive and fully functional.”

But then he becomes serious, and gently turns my head to examine my bruised area. Each point where his strong fingers touch me rings with sensual awareness. “How does your head feel? Any different?”

I wrinkle my nose. “Still a dull ache. Not too bad, though. Better, I guess.”

“No nausea?”

“Nope. But I need to pee. . . .”

He smiles, and starts getting up to let me out of the bunk. “Great. I’m going to turn to the wall, while you use the luxury facilities.”

He does, and I do. It’s a little awkward, but oh well. Then I get back in bed, and he climbs after me. We cuddle, for all of three minutes.

“Now, go back to sleep.” And Logan leans in to brush his lips gently over mine.

I close my eyes, feeling the languid honey starting its flow, inundating me with pleasant warmth. I’m completely surrounded by Logan.

And I sleep.

I
n the morning, I wake up with the 7:00 AM “alarm” lights. I feel much better, no headache, but Logan is gone.

And then I remember. . . .

It goes like this:

At some point about two hours ago, he stirs lightly, barely rousing me with his movement, but not enough to fully regain consciousness—at least not at first. But in those first moments, as he moves restlessly in his sleep, I can feel something against the side of my leg. With only a thin blanket between us, I realize that his lower body is pressing against me, and oh wow, something is
down there.
Just as I come to the realization, he shudders and wakes up fully, saying, “Oh, God . . . sorry! Sorry!” And then he hastily pulls back from me and gets out of bed, turning around so that I cannot see the front of his boxers.

“Damn! My apologies, Gwen!”

I remember Logan’s face in those moments, vulnerable and flushed at the same time, as he mutters with sleepy embarrassment, beginning to put his uniform back on. “Okay, it’s almost time for your second alarm wake-up. And on that note—time for me to get out of here. . . .”

I remember staring at him, my own face starting to burn with a crazy red flush. And then I recall saying, “I think that
was
the wake-up alarm.”
I can’t believe that came out of my mouth!

He laughs suddenly, and I put a hand over my face and laugh too, and the situation is diffused.