Dragonfly (21 page)

“Does he look like my type to you?” Spider padded closer, catlike, and once again I was struck by the fluidity of his motion.

I shrugged. “Hey, I don’t make assumptions.”

“Neither do I.” His eyes gleamed dark, dangerous, too close. “And that’s why I don’t buy you, lady. What you doing with him?” His melodious accent poured over my nerves like chili chocolate, hot and sweet but threatening. “Do you like him, hmm? Want to fuck him? ’Cause I know you aren’t, not yet. Or are you just a new believer, come to poach off his reputation?”

Suddenly the corridor seemed very narrow. I had nowhere to back off to, the door hard against my shoulderblades. I licked dry lips. “It ain’t that. We just kinda fell in together.”

“Thieving his secrets, hmm? Trying to crawl under his skin? I’ll tell you now, he’s too clever for you, pretty. He’s too clever for everyone.”

He smelled of citrus bodywash, zingy and distracting. “Look, it’s really none of your business.”

“But it is. See, I’ve known Sasha a long time. I hate the wise-ass little weasel’s entrails, but he’s a diamond in this fucking cesspit of a galaxy and I swear to you, lady,” Spider twisted my ponytail in his fingers, yanking tight, “if you screw him over, I’ll come after you with everything I’ve got. And I mean
everything
.”

My pulse thrummed, desperate to flee. But you didn’t run from a tiger. You stared it down.

I tried what I hoped was a careless smile, though my throat ached under the pressure. “Well, hell, Lukas, I’d tell you that threats aren’t your thing, but I gotta say you pull ’em off with style.”

Amusement flickered in his eyes. “I practice.”

“It’s paying off.”

“You think so? I’m making my point?” He loosened his grip on my hair, but his fingers lingered by my shoulder, a reminder.

“Admirably.” I cracked my neck.

“You don’t think I need to work on believability? Smack you around a bit, or something?”

“I’d say not necessary.” I sucked in my bottom lip and gazed up at him through my lashes. Provocative, or merely considering? His choice. “Of course, you could always …”

“I could always …?”

“Show a little goodwill.”

“Uh-huh.” He stroked my shoulder, slight but definite.

I leaned closer. “You know. Give me a chance to prove myself?” If he told me where Dragonfly was, I’d save precious minutes. “Let me talk to Sasha. I could persuade him to stay. So long as I can stay too.” I dared another smile. “You never know … I could get to like it here.”

His hand whispered across my thigh, caressing the corners of my pistol. “Think so?”

“Uh-huh.” My throat dried. I’d surrendered. Rolled over and bared my belly. Only question was, did Spider give quarter?

His gaze drifted to my throat, and back up to my eyes … And then he pushed the door open and shoved me backward into the cabin. My calves cracked against the bed’s edge, and I landed hard on my butt on the mattress. And he still had my pistol in his hand.

For a moment, my muscles stung rigid. Another threat, or Spider’s idea of foreplay?

But he didn’t follow. He just watched me, that crazy golden swirl in his eyes. “For a rebel, you’re a shocking liar.”

I scrambled up, my pulse skipping. “Look, I only meant—”

“If you cared anything for Sasha, you wouldn’t want him to stay with me.” Spider jammed my pistol into his vest and cracked his big knuckles, one by one. “I was right, Lazuli, or whatever your name really is: I don’t know you. And I definitely don’t like you.”

He slammed the door, plastic grating on metal, the unmistakable clunk of the four-armed lock twisting home, and his footsteps receded down the metal corridor.

23

I cursed and kicked the door. It didn’t budge. Shit.

I forced myself to inhale slowly, calming my racing pulse. Any minute now, Spider could change his mind and come back to kill me. I had to get out of here. What happened after that was irrelevant. All that mattered now was escape.

Quickly I rifled again through the drawers and compartments, in case I’d missed a firearm, a knife, anything. No dice. The cabin was empty, uninhabited.

I wiped dripping hair from my face and punched the diode for the virtual valet. “Open the door.”

Lockdown is activated by authorized p
—

“Yeah, whatever. Shut up. Give me console command.”

The control array sprang to life on the glowing glass touchscreen: channels and file systems and computer commands at my fingertips. I sat, thinking hard. I had no plasma pistol, and even if I did, the walls were alloy, not plastic, designed to withstand a torpedo barrage. I couldn’t melt my way out. The aircon vents were only as wide as my hand. It was the doorway or no way.

I thumbed my ESE. “Nikita, you there?”

Just noise.

Shit. No hope of that fake ident.

I jammed the ESE away and poked at the comms channel on the control array. “Valet, let me talk to the bridge.”

Communications available to authoriz
—

“Lousy friend you are. Deactivate.”

Deactivating
.

Guess I’d have to hack my way out. But the clock flashed in the screen’s corner, another minute ticking over. Nearly 3 a.m. ship time. Ten in the morning on the station. Only two hours left. And cracking codes took time.

I frowned at the fancy touchscreen display, each command in a nice neat colored box. Aircon. Lights. Comms. Duty schedules. Personnel records. Surveillance. Everything a competent young junior officer could want. And nothing that would help me. I poked one at random anyway. The security ident box came up. I tried another. Security ident. I wasn’t logged in, so nothing would work.

I jacked my ESE and ran the password generator. Should only take a second.

The screen flashed, and the diode on my ESE blinked out.

I tried again. Same thing. Rejected. Someone in Spider’s crew had overwritten the security system with their own voice protocols. I couldn’t get in.

Unless …

A memory flashed, from years ago in the marine corps. Fifteen months in the bowels of a battleship, a protracted war with some gutsy rebel alliance, and our only shore time spent fighting our way along midnight streets in a storm of hot glass and lasers. Me and my friends copped three weeks’ extra duty for breaking into the officers’ gym for a splash in the swimming pool. The guy in the bunk next to me had wagered a red jellybar that I couldn’t break in, but I’d learned the trick stealing from the soldiers’ food store on my home world, and we got a good hour in the hot tub before some early-rising lieutenant found us and kicked our dripping butts. After fifteen months of sweaty war, it had been totally worth it.

This was a third-gen battleship. The trick might not work. But it might.

I squeezed into the bathroom, searching the walls. What I needed was wire. I spied the soap dispenser, and levered the white box off the wall with a blunt plastic knife from the ration bucket. Citrus soap splashed my wrist, the scent an unsettling reminder of Spider. I wiped it away. A fastener popped on the lever and a silvery spring jumped into my hand. Perfect.

I sat at the console and untwisted the coils until the wire was as straight as I could make it. As long as my finger. That’d be enough.

With the knife, I pried off the white plastic casing on the side of the screen and felt along the bare metal edge with my fingertips. There it was, almost hidden by the rim. A keyhole, shaped round like the contact on a chip. The maintainer’s reset switch.

I folded the wire in two and jammed it into the keyhole. The screen flashed blank, and relit, with only a letterboard and a blinking cursor in the top corner. Reboot to system prompt.

About twenty seconds. That’s all I had until the core system realized there wasn’t a real key in the slot and reloaded the touchscreen system. The commands I could access were the same, nothing special. But with luck, voice ident would be offline.

Swiftly I jacked my ESE and called up the security system.

Fifteen seconds.

The diode on my ESE blinked and a password spat up on the screen. Yes.

Ten seconds.

A list of security options flashed, and I sorted through them, my pulse thudding. Jeez. What was it with superconductor geeks and making up words?

Five seconds. Out of time. I sorted faster, my finger slipping.

There it was. Cabin security positive. Alter the attributes. Minus, zero, empty.

I hit enter, and the console screen blanked out.

Shit. Too late.

And then the doorlock clunked open.

I let out a breath, sweating. Just in time.

I retrieved my ESE, and pulled out the wire and dropped it in the toilet. It couldn’t help me open Natasha’s door; this console didn’t have those commands. But at least I was free.

So what now?

I scraped wet hair off my neck. My top stuck to me, uncomfortable. I peeled it off, leaving only my tight cropped undershirt. I wriggled my hips to get some fresh air on my skin. Damn, it was hot in here, and I didn’t smell good. I could really use a shower.

But it’d get hotter if Spider caught me, and Natasha was on borrowed time. She had to be my priority. Get her free. Hide her someplace so Spider couldn’t find her, and worry about escaping afterwards. Raven-class battleships had a squadron of little Thorn fighter-skirmishers. Maybe we could scramble one and get away. They had a tiny slipspace burst and limited long-range nav, but it was better than nothing. And if I came across a weapon along the way … Well, it still wasn’t too late to settle that unfinished Dragonfly business.

I straightened. “Valet, show me the corridor outside.”

The image flashed up: the narrow hallway dappled in red shadow, the row of doors silent and still. Three shifts of four junior officers on a Raven, with a cabin for each. No movement. I squinted. Something about the image looked odd. But I didn’t have time to study it.

My heart thudding, I twisted the handle as silently as I could and eased the door open.

No reaction.

I peered left and right. Dim reddish light, same as before. No one.

I slipped out and closed the door. Nothing I could do about locking it. I’d just have to hope no one came to check on me for a while.

I stole up the corridor, my boots whispering on the energy-absorbent floor. My palms prickled, and sweat stung my eyes. The walls gleamed faintly in the red glow, the smooth plastic broken every now and then by tube-covered power conduits or safety strips in luminous blue indicating the exit route. Around the corner, where an emergency ladder led down to the next level. Another empty corridor. I’d counted the doors to Natasha’s room when Lux and I put her there: third on the left. I tiptoed up to the door and listened. Nothing. Maybe she was sleeping.

Scrape
.

Behind me.

I whirled, sweat dripping in my eyes, hands darting to defend. And something hard crashed into my ankles, sweeping my feet from under me.

24

My skull cracked onto the floor and bounced. Fingers plastered over my mouth and a hard body landed on top of me, pinning me down. A warm metal weapon jabbed under my chin.

I sucked in air through my nose, blinking. I couldn’t move. Hair brushed my face, the smell of dust and spice, and inwardly I groaned. Only one long-haired asshole on this ship. And I was weaponless.

Dragonfly jammed a sharp knee into mine, holding me down. His body pressed against me, too familiar, and I wriggled but he wouldn’t let me go and it only made my skin rub against his. By the smooth slide of the metal under my chin, I knew his gun was an atomflash, and it was only warm. He hadn’t armed it. More fool him.

He gazed down at me, inches away. “You gonna keep quiet?”

My pulse thudded. It hadn’t escaped my notice that I was practically naked underneath him, and that the slide of his sweat on my skin made me think dirty thoughts, and it maddened me. Without blinking, I grabbed his hair, hurled my hips upwards and threw him over onto his back.

My shoulder slapped into the wall, but I held on. I landed on top of him with a thump and squeezed my thighs tight around his hips. I slammed his head into the floor with a fistful of his hair and forced one of his wrists down beside it. He’d changed his clothes, I saw. Flashy, for him; more like Spider in a black combat vest that left his arms bare, his hair loose and brushing his shoulders. Made him look bigger, edgy, more warlike. I didn’t like it.

But my body insisted I did like it. My pulse wouldn’t quit, and although it had a lot to do with the danger we were in, that wasn’t all of it. My flesh ached inside, and my skin shivered, all soft and touchable. Like I wanted
him
to touch me. Like I wanted his hands on my body, his lips on mine, his kiss on my throat. I swallowed, dry. No reason involved here. No facts I could weigh up, no pros and cons to be considered. Something about him just made me all hot and girly, and I hated it.

I felt like screaming. There were a bunch of men on this ship. Lux had great hair and a supernova smile. Spider was bigger, stronger, more dangerous. Why did it have to be
him
?

Well, it wouldn’t matter for much longer.

I leaned in harder. My breasts pressed against his chest, and it felt good for more reasons than one. “Yeah,” I whispered, triumphant. “I’ll be real quiet. It’s you who’ll scream.”

He shifted slightly, and something warm and metallic jabbed into my bare midriff. His other hand, caught between us. With the atomflash still in it.

Shit.

He must have seen my expression, because he shrugged, as best he could with me on top of him. “I didn’t know what you were doing here. Had to be sure. You gonna get off me?”

His finger moved against my belly, and I jumped as the flash armed, sizzling against my wet skin. Damn it. I let go and jumped up.

He hopped up with me, covering me with his weapon, and grabbed my wrist, tugging me into an empty cabin across the corridor. I struggled, but not hard enough to make him shoot me. Just enough to let him know I wasn’t happy. But my skin burned as he clicked the door shut. I’d let him get the jump on me again, and again he hadn’t killed me. One of these days, my luck would run out.