ToxicHaven (5 page)

If we stick to schedule, we should arrive at the departure bay at the same time,
Haven told them
, relishing the hands gently and lovingly stroking her.
Her enhancements were doing their healing, but it was almost as if their touch helped, too.
We need to go to sleep and get a good night’s rest. I won’t have any trouble there. I still have drugs in my system.

Two bodies snuggled close to her. A hand stroked her hair, lips nuzzled her earlobe and whispered into her thoughts,
I love you, Haven.
On her other side, a head rested against hers, his hand clasping hers tightly. Everything would be all right after tomorrow. It had to be. They
had
to succeed.

Chapter Four

Time had never crept so slowly as it did that day. Haven kept glancing at the clock, and seemed to stand still. She tried to concentrate on her work, hoping and praying she wouldn’t have to shoot another ship to smithereens before three.

That morning she’d practiced activating her invisibility implant again. She had two, one to make her invisible, the other to return her to normal. The micro-devices were implanted deep inside her brain. She knew how to activate them, but it had been so many years since she’d learned that at first, she had trouble using the special technique. She’d always heeded the warning to only use the enhancement if absolutely necessary and to never tell anyone about the ability. They never told her why. But, she’d listened and never experimented and had never needed to use it.

The minutes crawled. When the clock finally showed fourteen-hundred hours, her adrenaline really started to flow. Her heart rate sped up. Not long to go. So far, everything was going according to plan. There were no incidents, no unexpected craft to destroy, and all arrivals and departures were on schedule. It was as if fate was on their side. It was almost too good to be true.

Ten to three. Nine, eight, finally six. She ripped off her headset, threw the controls on the desk and rushed to the door jabbing the buzzer desperately.

“Where’s the fire?” the guard asked when he pushed the control to open the door for her.

“I need to use the lav. Badly! I need to run!”

“You sick? I’d better call—”

“No. I’m fine. I just need to go.” Ignoring him, she took off down the corridor to the restroom, his boots clicking on the floor close behind her.

“Don’t hold it so long in future,” the guard warned her as she slipped into the bathroom.

The door almost clicked shut. Frantically concentrating, she activated her invisibility chip. She just managed to get her foot in between the door and the jamb. All she needed right then was to get locked in and have to wait for the guard to open the door. All was good. She’d caught it in time. Opening the door just enough to slip through, she passed the guard.

He glanced around when the door clicked shut and locked, but apart from that, he didn’t move.

Haven rushed to the station. Just as she suspected, they were busy with their reports. No one was attending the monitors. Before she headed for them, she pushed the elevator button, then rushed to the monitors. Crawling beneath them, she yanked out one cord after another.

The elevator pinged. She jumped up and raced to it, slipping inside just before the doors slid closed. Letting out a breath she hadn’t even realized she’d been holding, she heaved a big sigh. So far, so good.

She stopped the elevator on the eighteenth floor where Isan would be working and went through the same procedure. It had all taken a minute and a half. There was no sign of her mate. She couldn’t afford to wait for him. She ran back to the elevator and rode it to the sixteenth floor. She headed for the departure bay entrance. Two minutes ahead of schedule, she was concerned when neither of her men were there waiting for her.

Haven couldn’t help it. A suspicious thought entered her mind. They’d lied to her and at any moment, a swarm of guards would pounce on her. She hovered near the entrance to the departure bay, pacing restlessly. The elevator pinged seconds before fifteen-hundred hours. Josias and Isan ran to join her.

Haven, you here?

Yes. I am. I’ll stay this way until we’re on the ship. We have to hurry. Lockdown in fifteen seconds.

They hurried through the doors, another set of doors, then down a flight of metal stairs to where several ships were waiting to depart. There were a lot of workers scurrying around, loading last minute cargo, food, beverages and other supplies. None of them paid any attention to the two men. Most of them knew Josias.

“Hey, Jos, is there an electrical problem somewhere? You’ve got the electrical engineer with you. One of the ships?” a tall, skinny worker stopped to ask.

“Yes. The Humbaba has some strange sounds and sparks coming from the dumping terminal.”

“Good luck fixing it on time. That baby is due to depart in seven minutes for Anat.”

“We’ll fix it.”

Just then, a loud announcement echoed through the departure bays. “Lockdown. Lockdown. Return to your stations, at once. Repeat, all floors are on lockdown until further notice.”

“Fucking great,” the worker murmured, “just when I was going for a break.” He walked away, completely disgruntled.

My God, is the lady Goddess on our side, or what?
Haven asked.

We need the oxygen tanks. See that red metal door? That’s the storeroom. There’s no guard. I just hope it isn’t locked
, Josias said.

And if it is?

I don’t know. The trip is too long for us to go without oxygen. It’s going to stink to high heavens in that cargo hold. The fumes are poisonous as hell, the toxicity would kill us.

We have to hurry before they close the doors of the cargo hold
, Isan said.
I might be able to get the lock open. From here, it doesn’t look like it’s electronic. I’ve picked a lock or two in my time.

Okay. Let’s hurry. The Humbaba is loaded and ready to go. There are no workers around and I just saw the captain, his first officer and a couple of crewmembers board.

The workers are all busy at the far end of the bay
, Haven said.

She watched Josias work on the door. To her surprise, it opened readily, almost as if it was waiting for them. She didn’t trust the situation so while the men entered, she stayed wedged between the door and the jamb. If everything was on lockdown, why not this door?
Maybe they don’t expect anyone to get to the departure bays. The entrances are all locked
, she told herself.

Josias soon came back carrying three oxygen tanks. Isan carried two large containers.

What’s in those?
she asked.

Weapons. I can’t believe they keep guns in that room. I also found beverages and a box of nutrition bars. That should keep us going until we arrive at Anat.

They would need guns if one of the attacking ships managed to evade the guns. It’s never happened on my shifts, but I’ve heard it happened to other workers who aimed and missed and a ship got into the cargo bays,
Haven said
.

That makes sense,
Josias said with a nod
.

They ran for the cargo hold doors. Just as they were about to step up on the large metal slab, a voice sounded behind them.

“What the hell? What are you doing? Jos, where are you going with those tanks?”

“We can’t get the panel fixed in time so we have to fix it during flight. I’m going along to help Isan,” Josias told the worker.

Haven knew the man didn’t believe a word of it. She needed to take action before the man raised the alarm. Coming up behind him, she summoned her enhanced strength and knocked him out.
Bring him to the supplies room
, she told Josias.
Is there anything in there you can tie him up with?

I saw a bunch of electrical wire.

Hurry. You’ve got two minutes.

Josias slung the man over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes and raced for the supplies room. They waited for him to return. When the cargo door beneath their feet moved, Haven felt panic set in.

He’s not going to make it
, Isan.

“He has to. We can talk normally now. No one will hear us with the racket of the thrusters.”

The gate was closing slowly, the ship edged out of the bay. The door was half closed and already at a sharp angle when Josias ran toward it. Haven and Isan lay flat on their stomachs at the very bottom of the door.

“Hurry. Run! Jump!” Haven yelled.

Josias jumped and just missed their hands.

“Jump again. Use your enhancements, for Christ sake,” Isan yelled.

“What the hell do you think I’m using? You know how high that thing is already?”

Running at full speed, he took one more leap, just in time before the exit panels opened up to vastness of space and the ship left the departure bay. If he’d missed their hands that time, he’d have been sucked into space and died in seconds. Isan and Haven pulled with all their strength until the three fell into a heap amidst the stinking slag. The cargo door closed and darkness surrounded them.

“Lord, it’s noisy in here,” Haven shouted. “Did you tie him up?”

“Yes, and found some tape for his mouth. I knocked him around some more. He’s not going to wake up in a hurry. I also jammed that door. They may not find him until tomorrow.”

“We’ll have a good head start then,” Isan shouted. “But I bet you, we’ll have the whole fleet after us by then.”

Haven blinked at the light suddenly shining on her face. “Flashlights?”

“We found them in the supplies room. Thought they’d come in handy,” Isan said, holding the light on his face and grinning hugely. “Guess what? We’re free!”

“We are, but our journey as hunted criminals has finally begun,” Haven told him. “We’ll meet with tons of obstacles—one of them, the fleet chasing us. How in hell are we ever going to sleep in here with this stench?”

“We won’t smell it when we have the oxygen masks on. How many hours to Anat?”

“Thirty-six, and that’s at full engine propulsion, about as fast as this old crate can go.”

“You know the fleet’s flyer fighters are faster than anything else. They’ll catch up to us in no time,” Isan said.

“But, they won’t enter deep space. They’re not built for that. They’d have to contact headquarters for assistance, and all that takes time. I doubt headquarters will send their war ships after us. We’ll reach deep space long before that.”

“I don’t know. They seem to think you hold important information. But, by the time they go through all the different protocols, we’ll be on Anat and hopefully, well hidden somewhere,” Josias said. “And we’ve made it worse. Three of us escaped. They never suspected us as much as they did you,” he told Haven.

“To this day, I still have no idea why. I just did my job, hadn’t joined any resistance groups, so how this all started, is beyond me.”

“It’s their guilt speaking. They know what they’re doing is criminal, to say the least. Slaughtering innocent people, slowly poisoning them and their children, surely not all of them have hearts of stone? Try and remember if you’ve ever spoken to any of your friends of your suspicions, your parents. I know for a fact, Isan and I have mentioned our suspicions to several of our friends. I guess they weren’t our friends, after all.”

Haven thought for a moment. “I might have talked to Zeniah, a close friend. But surely she wouldn’t—”

“How long did you know her?” Isan asked.

“I met her at work and we struck up a friendship.”

“Did she know of your enhancements?”

“Yes. After a few drinks, we were often confidential with each other.”

“She told you her secrets?”

“Hers were mainly about the various men she’d dated and broken up with.”

“There you go.”

Josias handed her an oxygen tank. “Put your mask on, we need to start using this soon or the fumes will kill us.”

“What about when we’re asleep?” she asked, sad at the thought of a friend’s betrayal.

“We don’t use as much oxygen when we’re sleeping, so we can turn the tanks to low. They should last, I hope.”

“If I can even sleep. Man, those engines sound like they’re in this hold instead of attached to the outside of the ship.”

“I wonder where that door goes,” Haven pointed at a door close to them.

“Probably a walkway to the front of the ship. There’ll be stairs leading to the flight deck.”

“Why would anyone want to come back here?”

“They have to have access to all areas of the ship, in case  some mechanism fails,” Isan explained.

She shone her flashlight along the wall and noticed a panel. “Ah, I see. Hey, maybe we can sneak up to the flight deck and get a warm meal.”

“Eh, no.”

“I was joking.” She crawled to the side and leaned against the bulkhead. “Not very comfortable, but the only soft thing I see in this cargo hold is a huge pile of stinking slag. I guess a hard wall will have to do.”

“No, not for you. We’re a bit more hardened. You can lean on us,” Isan offered. Sitting beside her, he pulled her over and sat her between his legs so she could lie back against his chest. Even through the loud noise she could hear his heartbeat. It was steady, soothing, and the male nearness of him so comforting. “Switch me over to Josias if I get too heavy against you, okay?”

“Shut up and put your mask on. We’ve all inhaled too much of this stuff already,” Josias said. “It’s not a competition of who gets to hold you. As long as you’re at least a little comfortable.”

Isan’s erection was hard against her back. Regardless of their circumstances, she couldn’t help getting horny. She pushed back against him, sending him a message. He caught on and his fingers were on the waistband of her tights. He peeled them to her thighs, along with her panties. She felt his hands wriggling down his own tights.

Lifting her, he lowered her onto his erection. Josias shone the flashlight at them for a moment, probably wondering why she pulled her hand out of his. In a flash, he knelt in front of them and pushed her tunic up.