Stowaway (25 page)

Okay, no more delay. He raised his hand, three fingers extended, signaled it, three, two, one.

Go!

Kit and Gracie burst from cover, screaming a battle cry, and blasted the fire extinguishers. A wave of foam engulfed the pirates. They yelled, grabbing for their guns and wiping foam from their eyes. The man yielding the cutting torch dropped it with a
clang.

At full blast, both extinguishers soon faltered. When they ran out, Kit and Gracie dropped them and sent them rolling at the boarders as they began to stumble forward. Two of them tripped over the extinguishers, taking another two down with them as they fell. The one still standing roared and raised a weapon, firing after Kit and Gracie.

Gracie shrieked at the blast but kept moving. As soon as they rounded the corner, Kit grabbed her arm and shoved her into a tiny alcove between two stacks of crates. Kit ran on, sticking close to the crates, avoiding the middle of the lane.

The pirates burst into the lane, roaring and firing their guns. Kit cringed and gasped as the blasts sizzled past him, close enough to feel the heat of the plasma. But the shots went suddenly wild, the men yelling, not threats but swearing and surprise. Looking back he saw them slipping and falling as they found the cooking oil Kit and Gracie had poured onto the deck.

Behind them Gracie emerged from cover carrying a big bottle of one of the most potent cleaning fluids they had with a flaming rag stuffed in the top. She tossed it to the floor behind the pirates, and it exploded. Flames roared up as she fled.

The fire wouldn’t last long, but it kept the bastards from going after her, giving her time to vanish. Forgetting Gracie, they struggled up and came after Kit. He jumped over a line of the same fluid, took a book of matches from his pocket, and covered his retreat with fire the same way Gracie had. Then he ran flat out to the far end of the crates. Gunfire blasted after him, but between the smoke, flames, and low lighting, the pirates couldn’t hit a barn door, never mind a moving target.

With a whooshing sound, the sprinklers came on.

Shit. Kit hadn’t anticipated those. Damn. He kept running as water rained down, putting out his fire. The pirates came after him, still slipping and stumbling.

He reached the end of the lane and ducked to the right, which would take him toward the door out of the container. Gracie was heading for it too from the other end, but there’d be a guard there, and Kit had told her to stay out of sight until he got there. The sprinklers stopped, thank God, but he was already soaked. His long tail of tied-back hair slapped heavily against his back as he ran.

The running men were close, and they’d stopped firing at him. They wanted to catch him alive, and he doubted whatever they had in store for him would be much fun. He reached into his pocket and grabbed a spray can of insect killer and his matches—
don’t let them be wet
. When the footsteps came close enough, he spun around, igniting the spray from the can of bug poison. The men howled and fell back, beating at the flames in their clothes and hair. If only Kit hadn’t sprayed them with the fire-suppressing foam earlier, they might have gone up in a blue flash.

The can exploded, and Kit screamed and tossed it at the men, then ran. Shit! Fuck! His
hand!

Only two sets of footsteps followed him. Two voices, both close, swearing and threatening him with slow and painful death. He reached into his pocket with his left hand, the possibly broken one. Painful to use, but his fingers worked, and he closed them around the metal cylinder of the miniature fire extinguisher. Shit, small as it was, it took two hands to use it. He didn’t know if he even dared look at his burned hand.

But when someone grabbed his hair, pulling him to a halt, dragging him back, he didn’t hesitate, didn’t even feel the pain as he turned and blasted the extinguisher into the face of his attacker. The man howled and fell back, letting go of Kit’s hair, hands over his eyes. Kit tried to run as the other man came at him, but didn’t make it. The pirate, a huge guy, face twisted with fury, knocked the extinguisher from Kit’s hands and grabbed him by the front of his shirt. With the other hand, he drew a big, evil-looking knife from a belt holster.

“I’m going to cut your throat and suck your heart out through the wound, you fucker.”

Kit suspected the “distract him with a kiss” tactic wasn’t going to cut it here.

“Kit, get down.”

The voice came from behind him. Kit pulled away and dropped, obeying the order instinctively. The movement startled the pirate into letting him go.

“Oh shit!” The pirate reached for his gun—much too slowly. A blast sizzled over Kit’s head and took the pirate in the chest, flinging him backward to slide along the deck. He stopped beside his friend, who was still holding his hands over his eyes and sobbing.

Kit turned to see the figure outlined in the light at the end of the lane of crates aiming a rifle. Raine lowered the rifle and ran toward Kit.

“Stay down,” Raine snapped, passing him and running to the man still alive. Kit rolled to lean up on his elbow and watch Raine at work, cuffing the pirate.

“Gracie?” Kit called.

“She’s fine. Safe.”

He sagged with relief. Raine dumped the cuffed pirate on the deck and came back to Kit, slinging his rifle over his shoulder in its strap.

“You can get up now,” he said.

“But I just got comfortable.”

Raine growled in the old familiar way, and Kit grinned. He got to his feet gingerly, both hands too painful to help him much. Raine took his arm, helping him rise and keeping him on his feet as dizziness washed over him.

“Were there only these two?”

“No, three others. Took them out, I guess.”

“Five…and you got away from them and incapacitated four of them?” Raine smiled. “Have you ever considered a move from the galley to security?”

Chapter Nineteen

A busy twenty-four hours later, Raine went to the captain’s office to give her his final report on the pirate raid before he went off duty. When she let him in, he found she already had visitors. Kit and Gracie sat on a couch, wearing clean ship’s fatigues and sharing coffee and cake with Dryden. Both looked better than yesterday, though Kit was pale and a little dopey, Raine thought, on painkillers for his injured hands.

“Sorry, ma’am. If you’re busy I’ll come back.”

“No, please, join us, Chief.” She stood and poured him a cup of coffee, handing it to him as they sat on the second couch. “Help yourself to cake. It’s only thanks to these two we still have any. If they hadn’t stopped the pirates detaching the container, we’d have had a hungry trip to Saira and a big bill to restock.”

“Yes, ma’am. Miss Maddison gave me a full report.”

“It was all Kit’s idea,” Gracie said. She cut some cake into small pieces for Kit. His burned right hand was covered in bandages, and only the fingers of his left were free of the brace around his hand and wrist. Gracie would probably have fed him the cake if he’d let her, but he fended her off and managed to pick up the pieces with his left hand.

“I always thought you were a resourceful fellow, Mr. Miller.”

“I figured we could at least distract them and slow them down,” he said.

“They certainly looked slow when we saw them off to the escort ships,” Dryden said with a smile but then grew more serious. “It was very brave. Well beyond the call of duty. And that’s why I’ll be recommending you, Grace, for a bonus at the end of this trip. And you, Kit, I’ll be asking the company to take you on as a permanent crew member. If you wish to stay aboard.” She glanced at Raine as she spoke. “The same bonus too, if I can make it happen.”

“Captain, I—” Kit began, but she held up a hand to stop him.

“I know, we still need to sort out your legal situation. But the company knows what they owe you for what you did yesterday, and their lawyers are working on it.”

Gracie thanked the captain effusively, but Kit only nodded his acknowledgment. Raine guessed he didn’t believe the company would have the chance to offer him a job. That “sorting out his legal situation” would be easier said than done, and he’d soon be on his way back to prison.

Raine wouldn’t let it happen. Somehow they’d fix it. The captain. The company lawyers. They’d work the system and fix it, and Kit could stay here with Raine forever. Except he wasn’t
with
Raine, was he? He was looking at Raine, though, as Gracie and Dryden went on talking about the events in the container.

When the captain dismissed Kit and Gracie, she had Raine stay behind, and he gave her a quick report on the current situation. She nodded after he finished.

“Thank you, Chief. And pass on my congratulations to your squad. Your people did excellent work. I’ll get down to talk to you all when we’re back to normal.”

“Thank you, ma’am.” He knew she’d already visited those who’d been wounded and were still in the infirmary. “Our preparations made the difference.” All those drills and exercises had paid off. The security squad had kept the boarders contained long enough to allow the reinforcements from the escort to arrive. His people had some injuries but no deaths.

“You’ll be pleased to know the ore company has agreed to us rejoining the convoy and proceeding to Saira for our original arrival time.”

“That’s a relief.” More time to spend with Kit…

“Oh, one other thing. Mr. Miller’s tracking device. I believe you have one left.”

“Yes, ma’am.” His heart sank. “Um, you want me to put it on him?”

“Chief, if you do, I will fire you. Possibly out of an airlock.”

Raine couldn’t keep a ridiculous grin off his face. “Yes, ma’am.”

“But keep it in mind. The tracker, I mean. Who knows when it might prove useful.”

He frowned, not quite understanding. “Yes, ma’am.” God, he’d started to revert to the conversational skills of Sim. But she didn’t explain further, just dismissed him.

When he left the room, Kit and Gracie were still outside the door. Kit was leaning on Gracie and looking rather tired.

“Oh hi, Chief,” Gracie said. “Kit’s supposed to go to bed and rest. Doctor’s orders. But I have to go to work. Do you think you could take him to the bunk room?” Her arch smile and forced casual tone didn’t fool Raine for a minute. He caught Kit’s eye and smiled.

“Okay. You get along. Don’t be late.”

“Hey, if you’re going to be late, saying ‘I was having coffee and cake with the captain’ is a good excuse,” Kit said. “See you later, babe.”

Gracie winked at them and hurried off.

“Sorry,” Kit said, rolling his eyes. “She thinks because you rescued me, we have to get back together. I think she reads too many love stories.” When Raine didn’t answer, Kit glanced around awkwardly. “You don’t need to see me back to the bunk room. I’ll be fine.”

“I thought you were dead,” Raine said. His voice was barely above a whisper. “When the tracker signal stopped, I thought something had happened to you. That you’d been taken off the ship. Or something worse. Something I couldn’t stand.”

When he’d arrived at the container, full of surging rage and fear, he’d gone through the two pirates guarding the door like a whirlwind. Only finding Gracie unhurt, though soaking wet and rather hysterical, and hearing her say Kit was somewhere in the container fighting pirates with only cleaning products had given him a fragment of hope.

“I’m sorry,” Kit said. “I didn’t want you to be so worried. But with the comms down, I had no other way to contact anyone. I knew you’d come for me, if you possibly could. I mean come to investigate.”

“You got it right the first time. I came for you.” He’d clawed his way out of the elevator car for Kit. Fought his way past pirates for Kit. Killed a man for Kit. And when it was all over, he’d waited twenty-four hours for the chance to talk to him. The waiting had been the worst part.

At last they could talk. But he didn’t have a thing to say. Instead he took two strides to close the distance between them and pulled Kit into his arms. He kissed him like it was the first time again, but with so much more than lust in it. Knowledge of each other. Love. So much love.

Kit touched Raine’s face, his right hand resting on the side of it. The rough fabric of the bandages tickled Raine’s skin, making goose bumps rise on his neck and face, hyperaware of the tiniest touch.

Kit pulled out of the kiss, gasping for breath, but Raine wasn’t done with him. He moved on, kissing the line of Kit’s jaw, his neck and shoulder, while Kit strained against him.

“Wait,” Kit moaned out suddenly. “Wait, wait. We’re right outside the captain’s office. She might come out any second.”

“When did you get so shy?”

“Even I don’t want to be caught with my pants down by the
captain
. Take me back to your cabin, please.”

Raine pulled himself together with an effort, stepping back, only reluctantly letting Kit slip out of his arms. When Kit wobbled, Raine caught his arm.

“You okay?”

“Damn painkillers making me dizzy.”

“Do you want to go back to the infirmary? Please say no.”

Kit chuckled. “Did you mean to say that last part out loud?”

“I’m through hiding what I want to say to you. Are you coming to my cabin?”

“Would you carry me there if you had to?”

“Yes. In a fireman’s carry.”

“That’s not romantic.”

“Sure it is. One of my fondest memories of the day we met is seeing you slung over Sim’s shoulder like a duffle bag full of dirty laundry.”

Kit laughed and slipped his arm into Raine’s as they walked away from the captain’s office and onto an elevator. As it set off, Kit let him go and leaned against the wall.

“So,” he said. “This ride will take at least two minutes. Any ideas about how to kill the time?”

Raine’s self-control had to be admired, Kit thought. He stopped kissing Kit the instant the elevator let out a
ping
to announce their arrival. And he looked normal, positively bland, while Kit felt hot and bothered and, seeing himself in a passing reflective surface, looking like he’d been thoroughly ravished.

He had. A man could pack a lot of ravishing into two minutes. He made a rather futile attempt to smooth his wild hair and grabbed at Raine’s arm to slow him down.