Among Galactic Ruins (17 page)

“I will ensure they do not. I attempted
numerous times to divert you.”

Lexa blinked. “You sent the thieves and the
wolves, and caused the sinkhole?”

“Yes. And the sandstorm.”

“All to protect the temple?”

“Yes. You persisted far beyond any others
who have attempted.”

She looked at the egg, a sad smile on her
face. “Because I believed finding this was important. That sharing
its history was the right thing to do.”

The droid was silent.

She sighed. “We’ll leave—”

Damon controlled his start of surprise.
“Lexa?”

“You can’t be serious!” This from
Dathan.

She held up a slim hand. “Quiet, Dathan.”
Her gaze found Damon. “He’s following the wishes of the
priestesses. That’s important, too.”

“You wanted this enough to fight for it,”
Damon said.

“Yes. But being on this hunt with you…I
realized that believing in myself was just as important as finding
the temple and putting the egg on display under lights.”

God, would she ever stop surprising him?
Nope. Damon suspected Lexa would always keep him guessing. “You’re
pretty special.”

She smiled. “Oh, I know.”

He grabbed her hand, entwined their fingers.
“Just so you know, I’m planning on falling in love with you.”

She gasped, her fingers flexing on his.
“What?”

“Well, I think I’ve already started,
somewhere between you kneeing me in the balls and you storming into
a pack of wild desert wolves.” He drew her closer.

She pressed a palm to his chest. “You’re
awfully easy to please, Mr. Malik.” Her voice was breathless. “Oh,
Damon, I was upset this would be over between us when the hunt was
finished. That you’d lose interest.”

He laughed. “Sweetheart, I’ve never met a
woman who’s kept me on my toes as much as you.”

“Ah…hello?” Dathan waved an arm at them.
“Temple, treasures and killer droid here, remember? Can you deal
with the mushy stuff later?”

“A true romantic,” Lexa murmured.

Over her head, Damon looked at the droid,
who was watching them with an unwavering stare.

“You wanted to place the egg in your
museum?” the caretaker asked.

Lexa swiveled in Damon’s arms. “Yes.” A
rueful smile. “I’ll be honest, I’ve already designed the exhibit a
hundred times in my head. And he—” she jabbed her thumb into
Damon’s chest “—would have driven me crazy with all the things he’d
have done to keep the egg safe from the hordes of schoolchildren
who’d come to see it.” She looked at the Terran treasure again.
“But it looks like it belongs here.”

“Children?”

“Yes. The Darend gets a large number of
school groups from around the quadrant who come to learn history
from our collections.”

The droid was silent and Damon suspected it
was running some sort of program. Damon stayed prepared for
whatever happened next.

“I am at the end of my useful life cycle.”
The droid scanned the temple. “I had planned to purchase and
program a newer-model syndroid soon to become the new caretaker.”
His gaze landed on a small group of statues of priestesses. “I
remember Priestess Tialla’s last words. That the egg was not just a
symbol of new life, but of hope and growth. That hope and growth
were the two most important things people needed in their lives.”
He straightened and looked at Lexa. “I believe now is the time for
growth and change.” He grabbed her hand.

Damon moved to intercept but Lexa stopped
him with her other hand and the look in her eyes. “It’s okay.”

“Dr. Alexa Carter, do you accept the role of
caretaker of this temple and its treasures, and promise to ensure
the Fabergé egg is protected, treated with respect, and admired by
all those children you mentioned?”

Damon blinked. Holy stars, the droid was
giving
the egg to Lexa?

“I do,” she said solemnly.

The droid nodded. “It has been hidden too
long in the dark.”

“I’ll take care of it, of everything
here.”

“Thank you.” The droid gave them one long
look before he dropped Lexa’s hand. “My function has been
achieved.” The syndroid turned and disappeared into the
shadows.

“Damn.” Dathan was shaking his head. “I
still get my three things, right?”

Lexa smacked him. “You are going to drive
some woman nuts one day.”

The treasure hunter grinned and winked.
“More than one woman, I hope.” He wandered off to study the
egg.

Damon hugged Lexa close, resting his chin on
the top of her head. “Well done, Dr. Carter.”

“I still can’t believe it. There’s so much
to organize…I need to contact Marius, and the Institute. We need to
secure the treasure.”

“We’ll sort it out, and get all this stuff
back to the Darend.”

She smiled. “I can’t wait.”

“So, do you want to drive me crazy for a
really, really long time?”

She laughed, and looked up at him, and there
it was. That look on her face, like she was looking at the most
important thing she’d ever seen. Something she wanted to keep and
hold on to.

“I think I’m up for the task.” She brought
her lips close to his. “Someone told me I’m smart, and confident,
and determined. I think I can handle one former super spy.”

He dropped his mouth to hers.

Damon didn’t doubt it. And he was going to
enjoy every minute of handling his own beautiful trouble
magnet.

~ Official Document ~

Darend Museum, Zeta Volantis

Press Release #PR-23-54-90-76

Subject: New Exhibition – Orphic Priestesses
and the Fabergé Egg

The Darend Museum is delighted to announce
the opening of their new exhibit, the Orphic Priestesses and the
Faberge Egg. Museum Curator Dr. Alexa Carter was the discoverer of
the invaluable Terran treasure after the museum funded an
expedition to the desert planet of Zerzura to find the egg.

“This is a dream come true,” Dr. Carter was
quoted saying in a recent interview. “To have the priestesses’
treasure on display for all to see. It was time for it come out of
the dark.”

When asked about her dangerous trip to
Zerzura, the astro-archeologist only had praise for the other two
members of her team: up-and-coming young treasure hunter, Dathan
Phoenix, and her head of security, Damon Malik.

Mr. Malik is also in charge of the
state-of-the-art technology used to secure the egg and the other
historical treasures that make up the exhibition.

The Darend Museum is also delighted that the
new exhibit will also be the location of Dr. Carter and Mr. Malik’s
upcoming wedding. It seems the Goddess’ powers of love worked their
magic on the treasure-hunting couple. The Museum wishes them all
the best.

To book your tickets for the exhibition, or
to arrange a private group viewing, contact the Darend today.

---

I hope you enjoyed Lexa and Damon’s
story!

The Phoenix Adventures continue with AT
STAR’S END, the story of a very grown up Dathan Phoenix and his own
opinionated astro-archeologist, Dr. Eos Rai. Read on for a preview
of the first chapter.

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Dr. Eos Rai gripped the edge of her seat and
gritted her teeth. The pilot of her hired minishuttle executed a
dizzying spiral descent toward the moon below.

The free fall was exactly what her life was
like at the moment. Her hand clenched on the seat. How much longer
until she hit the bottom?

Eos focused on the irregular, pockmarked
surface below. Her first look at Khan.

The moon was a captured asteroid that now
orbited the market planet of Souk. If she craned her neck, she
could just make out the large planet with its urban areas
interspaced with farms and forests.

Here at the edge of the known galaxy, Souk
was the stopping-off point for explorers, colonists and daredevils
heading off into unknown space to make their fortunes. And its
small moon of Khan was home to the most notorious treasure hunters
in the galaxy—the Phoenix Brothers.

Another sharp turn and she almost
head-butted the synth-glass windshield. She shot a narrow look at
the pilot, but the weathered old man peered straight ahead through
his thick glasses—who still wore glasses when you could visit a
medbooth and get your vision fixed for a few e-creds?—didn’t even
glance at her. In fact, he looked bored.

As long as she landed in one piece…

She had to make the Phoenix brothers help
her.

She pulled in a deep breath and rubbed the
fingers of her left hand together. She felt the slight bump at the
end of her index finger and thought of the precious cargo it
carried.

It challenged all her beliefs to put this
into the hands of treasure hunters, but she was out of options.

She’d worked with Niklas years ago at the
Galactic Institute for Historical Preservation. He was steady and
smart. She trusted him. His brothers, though, were the wild
cards.

Why the hell had Niklas thrown away a
promising career in astro-archeology for this? She stared at the
scratched and dinted hulls of the various starships that littered
the moon’s surface. A spaceship graveyard.

But she knew it wasn’t the brothers’ main
business. No, they went after items far more lucrative than scrap
metal.

Dathan Phoenix had a reputation for sniffing
out the choicest ancient relics.

Right or wrong, it was a skill she needed.
If
she could convince him to chase a myth.

He was legendary across the Exodus quadrant.
Not to mention cursed in the halls of the Institute. Heat seared
under her rib cage. Artifacts that should be in vaults or museums,
taken by his grubby hands and then sold to the highest bidder. Her
mother had died trying to keep artifacts out of the hands of
pirates.

Eos smoothed a finger over the floral
markings that traced up the back of her hand and twined around her
wrist. The familiar habit soothed her. No one had the right to
steal someone’s history.

“There she is,” the pilot said.

Eos’s gaze shifted downward. A large
huma-dome shimmered pink-purple on the horizon. The energy field of
the dome kept the atmosphere inside but also permitted solid
objects to pass through. Moments later, the bubble-shaped shuttle
shot straight downward—along with Eos’s stomach. The light lunch
she’d had earlier at the spacedock on Souk threatened to come back
up. The shuttle descended through the dome and touched down on a
small landing pad.

“Thank you.” Eos didn’t hide her eagerness
to exit the shuttle. She’d already transferred payment into the
pilot’s account before the trip, leaving her e-cred account
dangerously low. Her stomach clenched. She’d already forked out a
small fortune for the commercial fare to get to Souk. What she had
left was to convince the Phoenix brothers to help her.

As Eos slipped on her small backpack, the
shuttle shot upward, bathing her in steam. Spinning, she faced the
building.

No one to greet her.

Hmm, security sucked. Her boots made a quiet
tap on the smooth floor as she headed inside the monstrous
warehouse.

The inside was packed with…junk. Mostly
ships—or parts of them—of all types and sizes. She spied lights in
one corner of the building and wended her way through the
debris.

As she passed a small pile of rusted metal,
she glimpsed paintwork on the…whatever it was. She stopped and
crouched, smoothing a hand over the surface.

“It can’t be,” she breathed.

NASA was written in faded white paint, with
a small flag made up of stars and stripes. Remnants of a Terran
satellite!

She shot to her feet. So little was known
about the world that had seeded life on so many planets in the
galaxy. Most of the planet’s records had been lost after its
nuclear devastation in the Great Terran War. She imagined for a
second what it must have been like with the world’s superpowers at
war. Even over the name of the planet itself. Earth had been the
English term used by the United Countries of the Americas, but the
records showed that in the other powerful group of countries, the
Northern Federation, they’d used Terra. Both terms were now
commonly used throughout the galaxy.

Eos’s mouth firmed. This satellite should be
in a museum being studied, not rotting here on a desolate moon. She
marched toward the back of the warehouse. The light she’d spotted
was spilling from a half-open door. She pushed it open.

Living quarters. Not tidy ones. She noted
the clothes strewn across the floor. A large bed with rumpled
covers was pushed against one wall. A battered metal desk was
closest to her.