Touching Ice (2 page)

the automated warning went ship-wide. “Brace for impact. I repeat, brace for impact.”

A scream tore from Megan as the other ship hit them broadside. The engines had

moved them but not fast enough to completely avoid the hit. The impact sent her flying

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Laurann Dohner

from her chair to land hard on her stomach on the floor. The entire deck shook and the

station groaned.

Stunned, Megan lay there for long seconds. The alarm blared out sharp, loud

whistles. Worse, she started to float away from the floor. Her fingers frantically clawed

the smooth surface but she had nothing to grab on to as her body rose higher.

“Clara! Restore gravity!”

The computer had gone silent. The lights flickered on, off, on, off, but then stayed

on. The alarm stopped as suddenly as it had started, followed by an eerie silence.

Everything seemed to freeze in time for Megan and then she heard a dull roar. She

turned her head to stare at the screens but they were white static. Her leg bumped

something and she twisted in the air, grabbing for the desk she’d touched. Her fingers

curled on the edge, gripped it in desperation, and she managed to keep hold with two

of her fingers and thumb.

“Clara? Respond, damn it. Report to me. How bad is the damage?”

“I am still evaluating.”

Hearing Clara’s grating voice relieved Megan. “Restore gravity.”

“I am damaged.” The computer paused. “I can’t restore it. I’m reading hull breaches

on four levels. Five. Seven.”

Horror washed through Megan. The ship consisted of seven levels so the damage

had to be extensive. “Send out an emergency distress signal.”

“Already done,” Clara’s voice changed, deepening. “There is a fire in my

mainframe, Megan.”

“Download your program to control now.”

“I’m unable to transfer my data stream. The relays are damaged. Evacuate.” The

alarm started to peal loudly again. Clara’s voice sounded the way a man with a

damaged throat would—deep and gruff—as she opened ship-wide communication.

“Evacuate. I repeat. Evacuate.
Folion
is unstable. Evacuate immediately.”

“Clara, suppress the fire and download your core programming into the control

room servers. That’s an order.”

The voice that came from the speakers had become high pitched, as if she’d sucked

in helium. “I have control of the hull doors to open them. The employee escape pod

isn’t registering and is in part of the heavily damaged section. I have concluded it was

destroyed. You must reach the client emergency pod on deck three. Leave now, Megan.

I am unable to suppress all fires and we are leaking oxygen. There are explosions on

deck seven.” The doors that separated the employee area from the client areas of the

ship slid open. “I have regained some system control but more damage is presently

occurring.”

Megan dropped as gravity returned with a vengeance, yanking her down fast and

hard. Pain shot through her body from her neck to her lower back then to her throbbing

knees as she hit the deck with a grunt.

8

Touching Ice

“Download to control now, Clara.”

“Unable to comply.” The voice rasped. “System failure. Evacuate. Life support is

offline. There is a thirty-five-percent oxygen loss from my readings.” She paused. “I

have missing parts of the grid without readings so my findings are inaccurate. It is

logical to assume that number is forty-two percent with unresponsive sensors.

Evacuate.
Folion
is unstable. There is a probability of complete destruction of all living

beings aboard. Evacuate.”

“Shit!” Megan pushed up from the deck and frantically looked around the control

room. Her private room was located behind a closed hull door and the opposite

direction of where she needed to go. Everything she owned was in that room but it

wasn’t worth her life to attempt to retrieve it.

“Evacuate. Twenty-one percent of active sensors are reading fire and smoke

damage in this area. You have a clear path to client escape pod but you must hurry. A

client is attempting to activate pod but I have overridden until you arrive. My systems

are failing. If I lose that grid I will no longer have override option.”

Megan ran. She had to jump over a fallen chair but then she entered the corridor.

Smoke filled the air, an acrid smell that had her fighting a sneeze. She avoided the lifts,

uncertain if they were working or not. Grateful to have gravity restored, she made it to

a down hatch. Bending as she panted from her mad dash, she yanked it open.

As part of her job, she’d learned every inch of
Folion
, so she knew where to go. As

the hatch opened, clean, smoke-free oxygen met her. She quickly climbed down the

metal ladder and found herself on deck three. The pod was just two long corridors

down. A bot walk at the opposite side.

Megan bolted for it and at the bend of the corridor she nearly plowed into a bot. It

turned to face her, a cold smile on its features.

“May I serve you?”

“Move,” Megan panted at it.

She barely dodged the bot and ran around it, hitting the turn literally as her body

bounced off a wall. She saw the emergency pod sign ahead, blinking red, fast flashes.

The alarms were still blasting through the ship and Clara’s automatic evacuation

statement filled her ears as she ran.

An explosion tore through the end of the corridor with a flash of fire and a loud

boom. Megan screamed, twisting around in mid run, and threw herself to the floor. A

roar whooshed behind her as she lay there and threw her arms up as hot heat blasted

above her. She turned her head, peeking up between her curved arms toward the

ceiling. Flames licked along the ten-foot-high ceiling but then died. She turned her

head, staring in shock down the hallway where the pod had been. Twisted metal and

charred scars marred the wall, the light no longer blinking.

“Client has overridden pod.” Clara’s voice had become louder than the alarm, her

annoying accent back. “He set a charge in the wall control pad and severed my

connection to the docking clamps. Pod safely jettisoned.”

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Laurann Dohner

“Oh God,” Megan lay there, horrified. There were only two emergency pods so that

had been her last chance at escape.

“Megan, proceed to section four of level three. I have locked the clamps of the ship

still docked in that section. I am attempting to stall their ship from leaving. Hurry and

attempt to board it. They are allowing bots passage. I negotiated with the captain to

save as many units that could reach his ship before I lost the ability to communicate

with them.”

Panic gripped Megan as she pushed up from the floor and ran. She turned down

another corridor, running as fast as she could. Two more turns and she saw three bots

walking calmly through an open docking door thirty feet ahead. A gray-skinned cyborg

stood there, looking grim. He had black hair and wore an all-black uniform similar to

the one the cyborg she had spent months watching always sported. It had to be his ship

and there was more than one cyborg after all. She hoped her cyborg had safely made it

back inside his ship.

“Wait,” she called out, pushing her tired body to press forward. Her side burned

from running and she panted hard.

The cyborg faced her as she ran toward him. He frowned but he didn’t follow the

bots into the docking sleeve to close the door and lock her out. He waited and moved

back against the wall as she ran past him, through the docking sleeve, and continued

the last ten feet it took her to enter their cargo hold. She stopped since at least twelve

bots were standing there motionless, blocking her way.

Doors slid closed behind her and she turned to face the large cyborg who had

sealed them. He reached up and touched a control pad. “Let’s go. I don’t see any more

of them and I don’t want to be still attached when it blows up.”

“Affirmative,” a masculine voice answered. “Releasing docking clamps now.”

Megan leaned against the wall, bent, and grabbed her knees. The shuttle detached,

letting her know that Clara was aware that she’d made it since she’d allowed them to

release the clamps. The motion was noticeable but with her butt against the wall it just

made her bump it. She slowly inhaled, trying to catch her breath. Her side still hurt.

She’d kept in good shape, exercised daily, but running wasn’t her thing.

“May I serve you?”

Megan lifted her chin to watch as one of the sex bots addressed the tall cyborg. He

crossed his arms over his chest and a grin spread on his face.

“How long do we get to keep them?”

“I don’t understand your request,” the bot stated.

“At least four days,” a deep male voice answered from the other side of the room.

“We are to drop them off at the Hixton Station. We’re getting paid good money for

saving them. I wonder how much each one is really worth if they are willing to shell out

that much to us just to transport them?”

“Probably a hell of a lot.”

10

Touching Ice

Megan stood, peering across the small cargo hold and she forgot to breathe for

seconds while she stared at
him
. The cyborg she’d become obsessed with inched his big

frame around the bots, working his way to the center of the room to reach the other

cyborg.

A laugh burst from the dark-haired male. “I love the side benefits of this job if we

get use of thirteen bots for four days.”

Her glance darted around at all the taller bots near her, counting them. There were

twelve in all. The cyborg had said there were thirteen. She frowned, counting them

again. Her attention returned to her fantasy man as he stepped near her, close enough

for her to reach out and touch. He grinned at the other man.

“I won’t be complaining, that’s for damn sure, Onyx.”

“I bet not, Ice.”

His name is Ice
, Megan thought, as she stared up at him. He was a foot taller than

her, putting him at six foot two. He looked huge in person, bigger than he appeared on

screen. If she reached her arm out straight, she could brush her hand over his molded,

black leather uniform, which displayed his immense biceps. In person his hair was even

more amazing—white with very light-gray streaks that were only noticeable from close

up but she had discovered that already since she’d had the cameras zoom in on him a

few times while she’d spied on him with the bots.

The scent of leather, masculine soap, and wonderful male teased her nose. One of

the bots, nearly his height, turned to face him as it smiled. The bots were all between

five foot seven and six foot one and sturdy bodied so they weren’t easily broken.

“May I serve you?”

Ice’s eyebrows arched but he grinned. “It’s a hard job but someone has to do it.”

Onyx laughed. “The men are going to be thrilled with this job.”

“We thought we were going to spend a lot of money using bots but now we’re

getting paid for four days of unlimited sex. I’d call that a good day for us but a bad one

for
Folion
. What the hell happened?”

“A ship came in too fast. We were monitoring their communications and it sounded

as though they were drinking a little too much to celebrate time off and slammed right

into it. Good thing we were on the starboard side. The damage was really bad when it

hit. Damn. Do you know what this means?
Folion
won’t be available to us.”

The grin on Onyx’s face died. “Shit. I guess we’d better really make the best of the

next four days. Maybe they’ll send out another ship to host these beauties.”

Ice turned his head and looked directly at Megan. She froze, her breath catching

again while she stared into his beautiful light-blue eyes with silver streaks in the irises.

He tilted his head, his full lips curving downward slightly as his gaze left hers to slowly

travel down her body.

Of all the days for this to happen
, she thought sourly. She wore a light-blue tank top

with black sweat pants. They were comfortable work clothes but she probably looked

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Laurann Dohner

like hell. Her blonde hair was in an untidy ponytail, which never completely tamed her

wild curls, and she knew she looked like a sweaty mess from running. She didn’t even

have shoes. This wasn’t how she wanted to meet the man who occupied all of her late-

night fantasies while she lay in her bunk. His gaze rose.

“What is she?” Onyx stepped closer. “A maintenance bot? Her smaller size and

chaotic appearance would indicate so.”

She fought the urge to sag with relief. She started to silently pray that they kept

mistaking her for a bot. Cyborgs had been deemed dangerous on Earth, the government

had ordered their eradication, and if their continued existence was reported, Earth

would probably send military ships to correct that fact. She’d always thought that’s

why their shuttle visited a totally computer-controlled ship. No live beings were

present to report their visits and it was well known that
Folion
kept no records—to

protect their clientele. Computers had no interest in earning rewards for snitching to the

government but humans, on the other hand, did. She worried that the cyborgs would