Salvage Rights (Distant Worlds Book 2) (25 page)

Danika heard the
distant blast and looked up from the fussy baby Kira was attempting to rock
into submission.  She knew Luc was on the station the second he arrived, but
with her senses still struggling against the sedative, she had no way of
finding him without blundering around in his direction, and she could feel a
lot more men milling around in military formation than she had when she and
Kira found the old kitchen and the exhaust chute to hide in.  She was not
willing to try it with a crying baby, but with the distant sounds of battle she
was no longer willing to wait for him to find her.

“I need you to stay
here with the baby, Kira,” she said softly, as the baby had settled down with
the cold bottle they had pilfered from the cold case in the nursery.  Wrapped
in a blanket and held in Kira’s arms, she was a small thing.  “I will find Luc
and Tuft and bring them back for you.”

“But if someone comes
and the baby cries . . .” Kira started in a bit of a panic which had the baby
getting restless.

Danika sent them both
soothing waves and was happy they came so easily to her call.  “I will not
leave you here, I promise, but I need to get to Luc.  I am beginning to feel
more of him and what I sense I don’t like.  Do you understand?”

Kira took a deep breath
and tried to slow her panic.  “I will protect the baby with my life.”

“I know you will.  Try
to stay out of sight though, so it does not come to that.”  She hugged both the
woman and the child and turned to go.  It was quick and still she was inundated
with Kira’s fear and a smattering of memories.  She held in the shudder until
she was out of the chute.  “I’ll be back for you, and we will leave this place
behind.”  It was as much a promise for herself as for them.  As the sedative
wore off, more and more of the negative energy and emotions were sinking in. 
How anyone could stay sane in such a place was a mystery to her.  She needed to
get Luc and get home, where the sea was clean and the air did not reek of fear
and death.  But mostly she needed Luc.  A Bruha away from their bonded mate was
never an easy thing.

***

Luc knew the second
Danika started heading his way, and the relief of it was enough to distract him
from the sounds of battle in the halls outside the buffet room.  He looked from
the closed doors to his brother who was directing the cyborgs to position. 
From the way they were being situated, it looked like he was preparing for a
great many invaders, rather than the few Luc knew to be coming.  However, from
the sounds of blasters, he would have assumed a larger force himself. 
Apparently, the Jezebel reputation was well-earned.

“Sorry,” Luc said
mildly, “I was distracted.  What were you saying about Danika?”

“Danika, is it?”  Cor
said, looking only mildly annoyed by the commotion outside and the scurry of
movement around him as the cyborgs moved to defensive positions.  “I suppose
the name is as good as any other.  Grandfather’s records never did name the
Bruha girl child they stole for his experiments.”  He smiled knowingly in Luc’s
direction.  “And you and I both know how he loved his experiments, don’t we?”

“A trait I understand
you share,” Luc murmured, trying not to think of Danika as a child suffering
the experiments he had.  “From what
my
spies tell me, you are following
in the old bastard’s footsteps.”

“You flatter me,
brother; the man was a genius in his own right, look how much he gave us?”

“He was a psychotic mad
man with a god complex.  He made monsters of his children.  It was not a
compliment to compare you two.  It was an accusation.”

Cor smiled again, anger
behind the templing of his hands, he leaned back in his seat.  “You should be
at least a little grateful; it was Grandfather who made you so very hard to
kill.  You have not even aged in the years since I saw you last in person.”

“Nor have you.  Tell me
brother, when did you add superhuman strength to your genetic make-up?  That’s
a new one, even for this family.”

Cor moved his hands in
a graceful and dismissing ark.  “You have your gifts, I have mine.  But I digress;
we were discussing your little Danika.”

Luc narrowed his eyes,
aware that the simmering rage inside him was going to be impossible to hold for
long.  He needed to see Danika. Whether it was the Bruha bond or something
else, he had to know that she was really unharmed.  “You are not even worthy to
speak her name.  And if you are going to claim that Captain Tyber of the
Jezebel was under your orders, I will call you a liar.”

“Tyber?”  Cor lost his
smile briefly as he caressed the name with venom, “No, but that shall be dealt
with anon I assure you; no, the original plan was slightly different, but
eventually the girl was supposed to be brought to your attention, after she was
picked up by the Gorson and put up for sale.  I figured I would let it be known
that I was going to bid on a sweet untouched Bruha and you would, of course,
feel the need to intercede.”  Cor smiled again, winking at his brother.  “I
know how you can’t resist a lady in distress.  Wasn’t that what had you fleeing
your family legacy and wallowing in the dregs of space?  A little spilled blood,
a little fun you did not have the stomach for.”

Luc snarled inside and
felt his lip curl just the slightest bit.  “So you are telling me you wanted me
to claim a Bruha mate, why?”

“Because,” Cor said
low, his smile dropping a fraction, “such a bond would be your weakness and I
would finally bring you to your knees.”

Lucan started to laugh.

***

The silence after all
the blasting was deafening.  Sensing what she would find when she turned the
corner, Danika called out, “It’s me, Danika, don’t shoot.”

She waited until a head
popped around the corner and she smiled at Mac.  He looked her over, then
reached around and pulled her into his big arms.  “Yeah, they got no clue who
they are fucking with.”

Danika choked out a
laugh and then pulled out of his bruising hug.  She looked around and smiled at
Tyber, Lore, and a bigger surprise, Barnos, who was shaking his head and starting
to chuckle while standing in a hall full of dead cyborgs.  She did not see
Lucan, but she did sense him inside the room with Tuft, another large group of
military drone-like minds, and the insidious dark mind of Cor Warrung who was a
little too satisfied for her liking.

“We were just about to
go say hello,” Barnos said, wiping his bloody sword on the nearest clean-ish
body.

They all looked toward
the door when they heard the laughter ring out.  While Danika had never heard
the sound before, she knew it was Luc.  It was a little concerning under the
circumstances, especially as she could feel he was genuinely laughing.  She
headed for the door with purpose, only to have Barnos shoot a hand out to stop
her.  “Why don’t you hang back, sweet cheeks, while we handle this?  The trip
will all be for nothing if you get shot and killed in the final battle.”

She narrowed her eyes
at Barnos and then shot out her hand, the portal shot open with a swoosh, and
every blaster in the place jerked out of the cyborgs’ hands to levitate to the
ceiling.

“Or you can go first,”
Barnos muttered, “and disarm all the cyborgs in the room.  That’ll work, too.”

Danika paid no
attention to the pirate, her eyes going unerringly to her mate.  She breathed a
sigh of relief on seeing him relatively unharmed, and then walked directly to
him.  It was not until he reached out his hand and pulled her into a one-armed
embrace that she felt fully whole again.  She knew he felt the same way because,
while he kept his sword raised and his eyes on Cor Warrung, his other arm
crushed her to his side.

Luc shuddered his
relief at finally having Danika where he could touch her.  He did not look away
from the threats in the room, nor did he let them stop him from kissing the top
of her hair and breathing her in.  She still smelled of sunshine to him.  His
eyes moved to his brother, who had shifted his attention from the blasters
hanging from the ceiling to Danika crushed in his brother’s arms.  “Well, this
is a day full of surprises.”

Lucan smiled again,
this time full of teeth.  “Do you want to know why I laugh, big brother?”

Cor narrowed his eyes
on his brother.  “By all means, enlighten me.”  His tone turned mocking.  “Is
it
love
?”

He pulled Danika closer
when she burrowed into him and buried her nose in his neck.  She did not seem
to notice the blood on him.  She breathed deep and stayed close, which was good
because Luc would not have allowed her anything else.  “You speak of weakening
me by sending me a Bruha mate?  For all your grand schemes you have no idea
what you sent me, do you?”

“I see there should
have been more tests done before she was popped into the deep freeze.”  Cor
smiled, but it was far from a happy smile.  His eyes returned to his brother. “Do
you know he started his experiments on her genes with the idea that he could
make the perfect slave, and then breed a race of them to sell for pleasure?  I
toyed with the same idea myself, years later.  Only I wanted a toy that could
also be more than just a plaything for my bed, and rather than bond a Bruha, I
attempted to imprint on him.  It was a much better choice and would have worked
beautifully if he had not gotten away from me before I could finish.  But
Grandfather. . .”  Cor was so focused on Luc and Danika that he missed the four
other men that filed into the room, their hands holding their weapon of choice
at the ready.

“When he realized what
the Bruha bond really was, he put her in a deep sleep before he could become
the slave.”  He continued almost gleefully.  “And here you stand with your arms
around a thing Grandfather created to be nothing but a pleasure slave.  It is
everything I could have hoped for.”  He shook his head and tsk-tsked them,
unaware that the Bruha slave he attempted to make himself was listening right
inside the door, his rage building with each word from Cor Warrung’s mouth.

“I have had enough of
this shit,” Mac muttered around the rage clawing at his throat. Before anyone
could stop him, he aimed his blaster and fired while Warrung was still turning
at the sound of his voice.  The shot took him in the throat and everyone went
still as he crumpled to the ground.  The silence that followed was deafening.

“That was damn
anticlimactic,” Barnos muttered, eyeing the body with distaste.

Keeping Danika at his
side, Luc flipped his sword around in a circle, warming up his wrist while he
waited.  He ignored the cyborgs shuffling about, trying to decide where their job
lay now that their boss was dead.  Cyborgs were not known for their intelligence,
just their ability to kill.  He held Danika close and watched his brother’s
body.  Waiting.

Barnos looked to the
crew members of the Jezebel.  Neither Captain Tyber or Lore looked at all
surprised by the actions of their crew member; in fact, they looked a little
bored now that the battle seemed to be ending – though maybe it was more a
waiting.  Following the eyes of both men, he found them resting on Danika and
Luc in assessment.  Actually, they seemed to be watching Luc watching his
brother’s twitching body. 
Come to think, of it why was the body twitching?
 
Barnos drew his own sword. 

Catching the way the
body was moving, finally Mac growled.  “You have got to be fucking shitting me.”

The ex-space marine did
have a way with words.

In a relatively short
amount of time, Cor Warrung was gasping, his hand around the closing wound on
his throat, his eyes blazing fire at all of them until he healed enough to
speak.  Finally really seeing who had shot him, he growled, his voice a rough
bark into the loaded silence.  “You!”

“Yeah, me,” Mac said,
pulling a second blaster so that he was two fisting them.  “You wanted a slave,
you chose the wrong Bruha.”

Cor looked around at
the cyborgs shuffling around.  His brother bellowed his annoyance to the
walls.  “What are you waiting for, idiots!  You still have your swords. Cut
them down! All but my brother and the woman.  They are mine!”

The cyborgs started
moving as one; unfortunately for them, the men they were trying to kill were
moving as well.  And they were better at it.

While the crew of the
Jezebel and Barnos slashed and blasted their way through the cyborgs, using
whatever cover they could find, Cor came for Lucan.

Seeing him step into
the wide space that existed between them and the fighting, Luc gently kissed
Danika’s hair one more time, and then sent her behind him and away.  “I will
handle this.”

“I can stop him,” she
said, meeting his eyes calmly as the battle raged.

“I don’t want you to
interfere.  It is long past time we settled this, he and I.”

Hearing the truth in
his words, she pursed her lips, but did as he asked, stepping back and into the
corner, so that she was protected on all sides while he fought in the wide
space he had made in front of her.

“When I am finished
with you, I am going to take your woman in every way a man can take a woman,
and I will breed my sons on her.”