Solar Storm (3 page)

Oh gods, the temptation.
Nerys cleared her throat and nodded toward the navigation readouts on the main console. “There. Keep an eye on the pre-plotted course. Thanks to the delay, I’m gonna have to take a few shortcuts to shave time off the journey. I hope you’re okay being dropped at Staten group HQ. That’s where I’m heading.”

She didn’t expect an argument. It was part of the code. If you were picked up, you didn’t argue with the destination, just thanked your lucky stars someone had been there to help you out.
 

He grinned, a flash of white teeth in his tanned face. “Sit down, don’t touch anything and stay out of your way? Got it.”

She was beautiful and hauntingly familiar. Kel lounged on the foldout Put-U-Up stool at the main console and blatantly studied his rescuer. A petite redhead, she had the sort of figure that made a man want get down on his knees and thank the gods he’d been born with a cock and balls. Lush hair tumbled around her shoulders in a cloud of curls he just ached to run his hands through to see if they were as silky and soft as they looked. And that was all before he got to her face. Heart-shaped with feline-cast grey eyes that lent her an aura of the exotic and full lips that led his thoughts down all sorts of carnal paths.
 

He’d seen her before—he was sure he had. But where? Frowning, he searched his memories for a female with her characteristics but came up blank. Odd—his implants must be on the fritz.

“It’s rude to stare.”
 

He arched an eyebrow. If she’d looked at him twice since he’d come aboard, he’d be surprised. Perhaps she hadn’t been joking and she really
was
into women. Everything male in him rebelled at the thought. He hoped she wasn’t—not looking like that. A soldier’s wet dream, she was made for bedding.
 

Unbidden, his mind filled with the image of her spread over his bed with all that fiery hair like a halo around her head. His cock hardened, a savage ache. How long had it been since he’d had sex? Shifting on the stool, he tried to ease and conceal his erection at the same time. It wouldn’t be polite to show such a reaction to his rescuer. He didn’t feel anywhere near polite at the moment, but his mother had tried to instill manners in him. Some had actually stuck. The rest…well, they’d disappeared the day they wheeled him into surgery and installed all the fancy-schmancy hardware that made him a killing machine.

“I wasn’t staring. I was merely…worshipping your beauty.”

She favored him with a look over her shoulder, skepticism clearly written on her features. “Yeah, right. Stop taking the piss and keep your eye on that nav. If we’re late, I’m counter-charging you for rescue and recovery.”

Kel gave her a mock salute and studied the readouts again. There was no point—as soon as he mentioned she was off course, she’d already changed it. How she was anticipating the twists and turns of the currents, he didn’t know, but somehow she was.
 

He settled back and stole a few more looks. She seemed oblivious to his interest. How could she not realize what she looked like or the power of her own allure?

“What’s your name?” he asked suddenly.

Was it his imagination or did she pause before answering? A split-second pause but still there, which left him to wonder why. Didn’t she want him to know her name?

“Rhys Devin.”

Rhys Devin.
He rolled the name about in his head a couple of times. An unusual name for an unusual woman. She’d have to be—not many women took to the solar roads, but from the faint golden sheen over her skin, he could see she’d been on them for a few years.
 

“Pleased to meet you, I’m Kelwin—”

“Sayeed,” she finished for him as she swung the ship into another swell. “Yeah, I know. You were a big war hero at one time.”

Kel’s eyes narrowed. She knew who he was. Either she came from a military family or she’d followed the progress of the war and its major players, or… Okay, maybe those were good enough reasons. During the war, the Soldiers had become mini-celebrities, the public fascinated by the process to take a normal man and turn him into an enhanced combat operative, the risks they took and their higher sex drive. Back then he couldn’t walk past a vid-screen without seeing one of his brothers-in-arms on it.

Still, he couldn’t shake a feeling of familiarity.

“Er, yeah. I was. Long time ago now, though.” He stopped and looked around as another question occurred to him. The bridge was empty apart from the two of them, the hatch to the crew quarters open and battened back. “Hey. If you run solo, when do you sleep?”

She gave him her back to look at. It was a nice back. The traditional sleeveless vest of a sailor laced up the sides and across the shoulders, giving him a tantalizing glimpse of tanned skin. Leather was the only fabric that had a chance of standing up to the discharge particles that reached through any shield, no matter how good. Even so, it toughened, baked in the rays, and had to be replaced often. It was easy to spot an older sailor—they wore leather rather than a normal fabric shipsuit and their skin was usually a dark golden color. Rhys was young—in her twenties somewhere—but already her skin had changed. He found the sheen as erotic as hell.

Icaria was at least four days’ travel. No one could stay awake that long, unless…

His voice was iron-hard. “Tell me you’re not using Euphoria.”
 

A product born out of the war, the drug was as addictive as it was stimulating. He’d used it in the last months of combat when the fighting got so bad he’d begun to think he’d been born with scarlet skin. It kept a soldier awake for days on end, but the cost was high—way too high. Years of broken sleep, fractured dreams, nightmares inhabited by the people he’d killed.

And she was using it to stay awake. Anger filled him. No one needed to use Euphoria. Not just to save time or money. The damn stuff was a weapon, designed to keep
human
weapons like him running faster and longer.

His fists clenched at his side and he breathed deeply. One day, sometime soon, he and others like him would bring down the Euphoria dealers and take the vile stuff out of circulation. Until then, he’d work out if
she
was using, and get her off it…

Chapter Three

“Huh? What? Where did that come from? No, I am
not
using ’Phoria.”
 

Nerys’s voice echoed her disgust at the thought of using the drug, and she didn’t look at him as she lined up for the Onaris turn. One of the trickier parts of the road, it was an S-bend with an inverted camber that caught a lot of ships—and their captains—off guard.
 

There were reams of advice out there on how to deal with Onaris. Every old sailor had a story and a recommendation, and she’d heard them all before she’d even set sail on Icaria. After ten years of running the road, she’d developed her own method of dealing with it.
 

Straight down the middle, hammer down, hell for leather.

Gritting her teeth, she lined the
Lady
up. As she did, she reached under the helm for the restraint rope and clipped the carabiner onto one of the loops on her wide belt. Spinning the retainer, she punched the button to retract the maneuvering engines into their cradles. They were sturdy, but even so…they wouldn’t stand up to the fury of Onaris.

“Clip in,” she yelled over the roar of the surf. “This one’s going to be a little rough.”

“Who…what?” Kelwin’s blue eyes widened in surprise as he glanced over the bow at the view ahead of them. “You’re not…lady, you are fucking
crazy!”

“And this is news
how
? Woo-hoo!” she yelled in sheer exhilaration as the current snatched them and the ship lurched forward.
 

The sails above snapped taut and the
Grey Lady
did what she was best at—she flew. Straight and true, she took the treacherous bend head on. The current roared around them, surging to port until the waves rose high above the canopy. Concentration in every line of her body, Nerys pushed the heavy ship hard into the starboard, hugging the lip of the inner curve.
 

Behind her, Kelwin started to pray aloud to the gods of war between cursing her for being an insane bitch out to kill him and wondering what evil he’d perpetrated in a previous life to deserve to die so young. She hid her grin as the first curve spat them out. A wall of golden spray reared ahead of them, and death stared them in the face. If they hit it at the speed they were going, then they wouldn’t be sailing the solar road anymore—they’d be on their last voyage into the lap of the gods.
 

The wind whistled over the canopy, penetrating enough to whip her hair around her face. Whooping again, she swung the ship hard, canting the rudder to skew them through the current. The
Lady
slid sideways, her stern riding the rise a little. But the current had them and Nerys’s hands were iron-hard on the helm as she caught and piloted the inner curve on the opposite side of the bend. Gold rose again, almost surrounding them as the star-scape opened up ahead of them.
 

“By the gods, I’ve never seen anyone do
anything
like that before.” Kelwin’s voice was filled with admiration. Unable to help herself, she shot him a grin over her shoulder.
 

During the second her attention was distracted, disaster struck. With mere meters to go before they were clear of the bend, the ship lurched to starboard. The
Lady
creaked in protest, the high metallic scream chilling Nerys to the bone.
 

“Fuck, what’s that?” Kelwin’s voice was wary.

With a swift spin and flick of her wrist, she disengaged from the safety rope. Another movement locked the helm off. Not that it mattered. Something had the ship. The stern was yanked around as then hull screamed. If they couldn’t pull loose, then the road would tear the
Lady
in half. Her heart thundering in her chest, she raced across the deck away from him and looked over the side.
 

“Hey, is that safe?” Kel demanded, grabbing her arm as she pushed off again, passing him on her way to the other side. His face was grim, worry lurking in the depths of his blue eyes.

“Is war safe?” she shot back and shook herself loose to carry on. “No, and you wouldn’t be asking a soldier than question. Would you?”

Reaching the side, she looked over and bit back a gasp. A black mass reached out of the gold, long tentacles wrapped around the slight protrusion of the starboard engine.
 

“Fuck it!
Spacial architeuthis
.”

She pushed off from the side as Kel reached it to look over, leaving him there to race across the deck. There was nothing for it—they were going to have to ditch the engine. The tentacles she could see were only the tip of the iceberg. Most of the creature was hidden under the current, but judging from the size of the arms, she knew it could easily overwhelm the
Lady
. Destroy the ship just for the treat of her tiny maneuvering engines.

“Huh? A what?” He appeared at her side as she started to flip switches, opening the fuel cells so the thing wouldn’t start chomping on the
Lady
herself.
 

“Release the clamps that side while I seal and vent the lower decks.” Her order was brisk as her slender hands moved confidently on the engineering console. Around them, the ship screamed in agony. Between the current and the creature on the hull, it was being torn apart.

“We need to ditch the engine or it’ll tear a hole in the hull just to get it out.”

“What will? What is that thing?”

“It’s an architeuthis…a giant squid?” She arched an eyebrow. Surely he knew what a squid was? “Move faster. We don’t have much time.”

He flipped switches like a madman as she activated the bulkheads and vented the lower decks. There was a
whoosh
over the side and a splatter of golden particles as the escaping air kicked up the surf.
 

The engine came free with a loud pop at the same moment the console went blank. No longer held, the ship skittered back to its original alignment and swung smoothly out of the turn. They both ran to the back of the bridge and looked over. The creature slid under the golden current, its prize wrapped in its tentacles like a mother with her baby.
 

Kel looked at her. “So, you’re telling me a space squid just ate our engine?”

“That’s a bloody big hole.”

Nerys snorted as they looked at the space where the starboard maneuvering engine had been. Moored as they were, gold sped past them on the other side of the shield.
 

“Yeah, thanks for that, Captain Obvious. Any more pearls of wisdom to impart?”
 

Folding her arms, she contemplated the damage. At least it was a neat hole, and the restraint clamps were still in place. If they hadn’t released the engine, the squid would have ripped it loose, leaving her with an astronomical repair bill. As it was, replacing the engine would eat this job’s profit and she’d be on nutri-rations. Again. Yay.

“It’s
Commander,
not Captain. And no. Cast not your pearls before swi…” He paused and slid her a sidelong glance. Nerys turned back to look at the hole and waited. He’d better not have been about to call her a pig.