gaian consortium 05 - the titan trap (6 page)

In contrast, Cassidy’s face flashed into his mind, the wide hazel eyes, the full, pretty mouth. If she wore any cosmetics at all, they certainly weren’t obvious. He liked that. He liked that he knew what she really looked like, and not what she wanted him to think she looked like, which appeared to be the intent of the women on the screen before him.

He found what purported to be a news program, although it didn’t seem to him as if any of the news being reported bore much resemblance to the truth. Yes, he’d been locked away for two years, and had no idea of what sorts of events might have transpired in his absence, but he did know that the report on the regrowth of the polar ice caps was dead wrong. After years of heavy lifting, the ice caps weren’t melting anymore, but that was not quite the same thing as saying that the ice was “re-establishing itself at an encouraging rate of two percent each year.” And the report on the Asian rehabilitation project was absolute bullshit from beginning to end, but he supposed he shouldn’t have expected anything else.

He changed the channel in disgust, searching for something — anything — of substance, but there wasn’t much to be found. At last he came to a film he’d loved as a kid, about a group of misfits working as asteroid miners. Highly embellished and bearing only a passing resemblance to the truth, but the actors were good, and listening to dialogue he hadn’t heard for more than twenty years made a rush of nostalgia go over him. Since Cassidy had made it clear that he should be entertaining himself and not expecting her to do it, he settled in to watch the film. At least it would take up a few hours, and it meant they’d be that much closer to the rendezvous with the GDF squadron from Ganymede.

He couldn’t help the shiver of anticipation that went over him then. Everything so far had gone more or less according to plan, but in this he was trusting the contacts of his contacts to make sure he got through the encounter unscathed. No reason why they shouldn’t, but still….

He’d be very glad when it was over.

Even from the cockpit she could hear the comm beeping in her bedroom, as Derek hadn’t shut the door when he came out. She wanted to curse at him for not answering it, but she realized that was partially her fault. After all, she had told him to go and entertain himself with the vid, like some kid she didn’t want underfoot.

Okay, he certainly wasn’t a kid. But he made her nervous…not because of anything he’d said or done, but because of the way she seemed to react to him. She’d admit she wasn’t all that experienced with men. Even so, she could handle herself in normal situations, like in a bar or a club. That was easy. Her expectations had never been any higher than an hour or two of fun with someone she’d never see again, and even those were few and far between. Still, it was a regular sort of transaction. A few drinks, maybe dinner, and then she’d be in his hotel room, and then she’d leave and come back to the
Avalon
. Simple.

Now, though, with probably the best-looking man she’d ever met trapped in this freighter with her, she didn’t know what to do. She still wasn’t sure she believed every aspect of his story, but then again, if he’d really been a cold-blooded killer, he would have gotten rid of her once their course was set and they had nothing else to do but twiddle their thumbs until they got to the rendezvous point. And even if he wasn’t a killer, he was much bigger than she was, taller than she by almost a foot, and probably massing at least thirty kilos more than she did. If he’d had any need to scratch a biological itch after more than two years in the MaxSec, he could have taken her, and she couldn’t have done much about it.

But he’d done none of those things, had acted like a gentleman, and so of course she’d made sure to send him away so she wouldn’t have to deal with him.

Smooth, Cassidy.

She got up out of the captain’s chair and hurried back to her room. The comm kept beeping away, and she knew it wouldn’t stop until she answered it, as this one had never been set up with an automated response system.

Pushing down the button to open the line, she said, “This is Freighter
Avalon
.”

A brief hesitation. “
Avalon
, permission to speak to your passenger.”

No names. Well, that made sense if, as Derek had said, there was a good chance their transmissions might be monitored. “One moment,” she replied, and pressed the “hold” button.

The door to the second bedroom was ajar, so she wondered how he couldn’t have heard the comm going off across the hall. She had her answer when she peeked inside, ready to give him a ration of crap for not answering the call he’d been waiting for.

Although the vid was still blathering away, he’d fallen asleep on the meager little bed, long legs half hanging off the edge, head smashed into one of the flat pillows. He looked so oddly adorable like that, Cassidy hesitated to wake him up. But then she realized he’d probably be more than a little irritated if she told him later that she’d allowed him to miss the call just because she wanted to let him sleep.

So she stepped into the cabin, laid a gentle hand on his shoulder. “Derek.”

He started awake immediately, eyes wide and staring, until he seemed to realize where he was, who was shaking him. “What is it?”

“Your call.” She jerked a finger toward the captain’s cabin.

No reply except a hurried nod, and then he was on his feet, moving quickly to the other room. She waited in the corridor; it wasn’t as if he was so far away that she couldn’t hear what he was saying.

“Tagawa.” A pause, and then he said, “Understood. We’ll be ready.”

And that seemed to be it, because after that he came to the doorway and stood in it, looking down at her. “We’re set.”

“Set for what?”

“For the rendezvous. We’re to continue on our current course. Intercept should be in about two hours.”

“That fast?” She’d underestimated the speed of the squadron. Then again, it wasn’t as if she was exactly privy to all the latest upgrades and improvements in the Consortium’s defense fleet.

“That fast,” he replied, and a certain twinkle danced in those dark, dark eyes. “Are you ready for this?”

She had a stock answer for that question, and she handed it to him now. “Honey, I was born ready.”

They both sat in the cockpit, the atmosphere so tense Derek could practically feel it crackling around them. True, Cassidy had said she was ready for anything, and the way she’d handled his presence here told him she wasn’t lying. But as he himself didn’t know precisely what to expect, he had little to say to her. They stared out into the darkness, waiting, not speaking.

A harsh whining noise blared from the speakers, and he started. At once Cassidy reached forward and modulated the volume somewhat, although the sound still grated on his ears.

“Proximity alert,” she told him. “That means they’re twenty minutes out at the most. Probably a little closer, judging by how quickly they got here.” Her voice was calm, controlled, as if she’d faced this sort of situation a thousand times before.

“Got it,” he replied. Right then he wished his contacts had been able to give him more details, although he understood why they’d been hampered in doing so. At least he knew they planned to knock out the ships that posed a threat, and form some kind of escort to get the
Avalon
safely away. Away to where, he had no idea. The system was so heavily policed that he found it difficult to believe it would be anyplace close by. But although he wanted nothing more than to get back to Gaia, to confront the people who’d stolen the last two and a half years of his life, he understood his personal vengeance might have to wait.

Especially if it meant doing anything that would endanger the woman who now sat only a few feet away from him.

Her profile was to him, sent into sharp relief by the starfield behind it. Her attention remained fixed on the console, and so he guessed she didn’t realize he was looking at her now. Not for too long, just enough to remind himself that she’d been dragged into this whole mess unwillingly, and that he needed to make sure she got out in one piece, no matter what happened.

“There,” she said, pointing at the display on the console. A cluster of pale blue sparks appeared there, representing the ships now moving toward them. “I count twelve.”

Twelve ships, to bring back one prisoner? It seemed the GDF wasn’t taking any chances. But he only nodded. “They’ll probably wait until they’re closer before they make a move.”

“Let’s hope they don’t wait too long, or this could get real interesting.” Cassidy paused then, slender brows pulling together as she stared at the screen. “What the hell?”

“What is it?” he asked, something in her tone tightening the knot of worry that seemed to have balled itself up somewhere in his sternum.

“Look!” She tapped the screen, where the group of twelve blue sparks seemed to have multiplied, the new dots smaller and moving more quickly than the main group. “The bastards just fired on us!”

“What?” He launched himself out of his seat, then stared down at the display in consternation. “They were supposed to be firing on each other!”

“Well, I guess someone didn’t get the memo.” Already the fingers of her right hand were dancing across the controls, while she reached out with the left and grasped the handle of what appeared to be the ship’s thrusters. At once the
Avalon
seemed to drop straight downward, and Derek stumbled, grabbing the arm of the copilot’s seat so he wouldn’t fall over completely.

“What’re you doing?” he asked.

“Taking evasive action. Not that I think this crate can do a lot to evade a group of Heron missiles, but I’m sure as shit not going to just sit here and wait for them to hit us.”

Her jaw was set, her hand on the thruster controls white-knuckled. Derek said, “Anything I can do to help?”

“Do you know how to pilot a starship?”

“Unfortunately, no.”

“Then hang on and shut up.”

The
Avalon
jerked to the right, then dropped again. He guessed she was trying to keep their movements erratic enough that the missiles wouldn’t be able to get a lock on them, but he wasn’t sure how well that would work. His area of specialty was not weapons mechanics, but he knew that the Herons were guided by an A.I. that not only locked on heat signatures, but minute changes in the chemical composition of a certain region of space. In laymen’s terms, it meant they went sniffing for spent fuel, and could calculate in a millisecond where a ship might be headed based on where it had been.

Cassidy was muttering something that sounded like
shit, shit, shit
under her breath, but since her words obviously weren’t directed at him, he decided the best thing to do was hold on to the lumpy chair where he sat and not say anything. The ship rocked upward, jinking to the right in a movement he wouldn’t have believed the creaky old freighter was capable of. Then again, the
Avalon
had clearly been Cassidy’s home for most of her life. She probably could coax more out of it than even its designers would have believed.

Maybe it wasn’t smart to hope, but he had to believe she could get them out of this. Better to think of that, hold on to that idea, than stop to wonder why they’d been fired on at all. Something had gone horribly wrong, and that meant only one thing. The conspiracy had been discovered, and now the people he’d been counting on to help him were probably already dead.

Then it felt as if a giant’s fist had punched the stern of the freighter. Despite himself, Derek let out a startled gasp, and Cassidy dispensed with the muttered “shit”s and growled, “Fuck!”

“What?”

“What do you think? They hit us!” Her eyes were scanning the controls, and by the way she scowled, he guessed that what she saw was not good news. “Not a full hit — we’d be vaped if that had happened — but they still knocked out the rear thrusters, and we’re losing air. I can’t maneuver worth a damn, and we’re going to be breathing space in about five minutes.”

“No need to soften things — how bad is it really?”

She shot him a look that seemed half irritated, half amused. “Pretty bad. Scratch that. Really bad. And since they’re shooting at us, I’m pretty sure they’re not going to send out a rescue party.”

“I don’t know…maybe they’re trying to take me alive.”

“What, so they can execute you properly later?”

“Gaia doesn’t have capital punishment,” he reminded her.

“Yeah, well, all that’s going to be moot in about four minutes and thirty seconds.” She paused, mouth pursed, as she appeared to think rapidly. “Okay, I think we’ve got about one shot at surviving this. Come on.”

She pushed herself out of her seat and Derek did the same, even as he asked, “Where are we going?”

Without looking back at him, she hurried down the corridor, then paused at a locker he’d noticed earlier but hadn’t seen her ever use. She fumbled with the latch, then opened it. Inside were two spacesuits, one slightly larger than the other. “Here,” she said, pulling the bigger of the two out of the locker and thrusting it at him. “That was my dad’s. It’ll fit well enough. Mine was my eighteenth-birthday present. Sweet, don’t you think? I suppose, if nothing else, it was a good way of making sure I stayed at fighting weight.”

Derek undid the fasteners and began to climb into the suit. It was a little roomy, just as the borrowed clothes he wore beneath it were, but this was certainly no time for complaints. “I’m surprised you have them at all.”

“They’re necessary,” she replied, pulling her own suit on with practiced movements, seeming to squish the coveralls she wore into it with little effort. “Ships always need minor repairs, patching, that sort of thing. Most of the time it’s stuff you’ve gotta do on the outside on the hull. So it’s just part of the equipment you need, although they’re damn expensive.” She latched her suit shut while Derek was still fumbling with the closures on his. With the slightest roll of her eyes, she reached out and expertly closed him up, then tugged on his gloves. She did the same with her own, finally reaching for the helmet that went with his suit and slapping it on his head. As soon as it was latched in place, he heard a faint hiss and realized it was the oxygen mix automatically cycling into the helmet.