Camille's Capture (13 page)

“What are you doing?” Jaxon touched her hand.

“Counting.
It’s soothing.” She managed a shaky laugh at her foolishness.

T
he fighter’s system twinkled back to life.

Aegis’s wide shoulders
lowered from being hunched around his pointy ears. He input a series of commands. “Thank the Goddess.”

“May she keep us safe,” Cami added.

“Don’t get me wrong, I’m real grateful we’re still alive, but who is this Goddess you two are thanking? Do I need to convert?” Jaxon teased gruffly.

Aegis spoke without taking his eyes
from the console. “From first spawning, the Goddess of water protected Tethysians. After the Baldorean mage slaughtered my family, I turned my back on her. Recently I have been reminded of her power. I called upon her strength and mercy to restart the ship’s systems.”

“I prayed to Gaia
—the Goddess who rules all life on Earth. I asked her for our safety. Although I don’t know if she heard me.”

“Well, I’m damn glad one of them listened,” Jaxon whispered.

Aegis made another adjustment and then announced, “Impact in ten seconds.”

Whether Great Mother Gaia or Aegis’s water
Goddess listened, Cami sent another heartfelt prayer into the void.

The small fighter slowed and finally hovered over the occupied space station. Cami let out the breath she hadn’t consciously held. As their position stabilized, she took in the activity around the
m and wished she could cast a veil of invisibility. The sector buzzed with Baldorean fighters, some patrolling the station’s perimeter, some docking, and some launching.

A sleek shape materialized off to the right of their
craft. “Look.” She pointed toward the small elegant vessel, excited.

“Friendly
incoming on our starboard, ninety degrees and closing fast,” Jaxon called.

She asked, “Are those blinking blue lights the truce signal?”

“Yeah.” Jaxon stood rigid not taking his focus from the other ship.

Aegis growled.
His words in a language she didn’t understand.

She flinched, guessing from his grim
expression he cursed.

The other fighter zoomed
toward the station. The outer lights changed to a steady blue glow. “The truce has been honored. The Baldoreans are opening a bay,” Jaxon explained with a sigh of clear relief.

An obvious skeptic Aegis’s fierce glower didn’t change.

Fascinated by the slow-motion ballet of docking, Cami moved closer to the viewer. The vast station dwarfed the small fighter. Only the tail section was visible. The craft quit moving as if suspended by an invisible hook.

A brilliant flash of light flared
, making her blink.

The friendly fighter vanished in an eerily silent explosion.

Tears flooded her eyes at the searing brightness. Acrid bile rose in her throat. She swallowed and turned to her mates. “They had been cleared to dock. What happened?”

“Baldoreans
do not bother with vows, treaties, or truces,” Aegis growled.

Cami quivered with disbelief, but the brutal reality of the Baldoreans
’ unprovoked attack replayed in her mind’s eye. Just as with their assault on the shuttle, when they killed the entire unarmed crew, they struck without warning. The enemy had no honor.

Her stomach roiled at the
senseless violence and icy shivers ran down her spine. Their ship was every bit as fragile as the one just blown to particle dust. The menace of combat threatened her fierce warrior mates too. No matter how big or brave or battle savvy, they were vulnerable—mortal.

Anger burned away her
terror, replacing it with something wild and ferocious. She wasn’t the same naive breeder who’d landed on New Eden less than a week ago. In a few hours, she’d experienced more than she had during the rest of her short life. She belonged to these warriors and they belonged to her. She would not stand by helpless while her mates were in danger. “I want a weapon.”

Her
warriors exchanged another unreadable look.

Cami raised her chin and crossed her arms,
trying to look as determined as possible when still cuddled on Jaxon’s lap. “I understand we are outnumbered, even counting the disciples waiting to join us. If I only kill a single Baldorean that’s better than none.”

“Give her
a blaster and teach her how to operate it.”

Jaxon shot Aegis a dark look but handed
over one of his weapons.

He guided her to angle
the lethal instrument so she would see the selector and used a thumbnail to move the lever one click. “This is the lowest power setting. It’ll knock a humanoid down for twenty seconds, more if they’re small.” He pushed the switch forward another notch.

Cami startled at the second quiet click. 

Pleased by her keen attention, he continued, “At this setting the blaster vaporizes soft tissue and bone. Keep your weapon set here. Lower and the enemy gets back up way too damn fast. Higher and you risk punching a hole through the station.”

Cami leaned forward, intent.
“How close do I need to be to fire?”

New Eden Space Station

Same day, 4402 SG

Cami watched the lines around Jaxon’s mouth tighten
—an unhappy sign. She squared her shoulders and waited for him to comply with the order, learning to fight their enemy outweighed disappointing her mate.

“It’s a personal blaster, sweetheart. What you need’s a clear line of sight. When you hold down this button halfway”
—he demonstrated with a gentle touch on the underside of the metal cylinder—“the weapon paints your target with a green pinpoint of light. If you keep pushing the same button, you destroy whatever you lit up.”

She shivered. “Go on.”

“As long as you hit the enemy anywhere, he’s history. The blast starts a chain reaction, disrupting his cells and anyone else’s he touches. Kinda like the cellular repair stimulator in reverse.” He paused, drawing her attention to the top of the blaster with his index finger. “This dot is your charge indicator. Shows how much juice you’ve got. The system’s real basic. Green means good to go, yellow is two blasts left, and red is toss the damn blaster and run.”

A frightening image of her neck being squeezed in a Baldorean’s choke hold made her shiver. The picture had been so real
that she inhaled sharply desperate for air.

Could
I fire in such dire circumstances, knowing I would die too? No, sacrificing my unborn child to eliminate an enemy isn’t brave. True valor is fighting to live.
The fingers of one hand spanned her round stomach unconsciously protecting the babe growing in her womb. No longer alone in her body, she had to act with courage to protect her unborn young. No matter how frightening the Baldoreans, suicide wasn’t an option.

“What’s wrong?”
Jaxon’s gaze darted from her protective gesture to her face.

The warrior missed nothing.
She rubbed her temples, to dispel the last of the disturbing vision, praying it hadn’t been an actual future flash. “A slight headache. I’m fine, truly.”

He
still frowned as he checked the vessel’s chron and muttered to himself, “Anytime now would be good.”

“Touch down,” Aegis said.

A cascade of pink, orange, and red sparks whirled over the port side of the station.

“Thank you, disciples.” He sighed with relief.

She’d forgotten all about the sorority’s planned distraction. The colorful display had been totally effective, distracting her from the slightest bump during landing.

Jaxon freed them from the safety harness and gave her the blaster. “Do you remember how to use it?”

“Yes.” She demonstrated, lightly touching each part as she named them: charge gauge, power selector, and firing button.

He stepped into his bio support
garment and rapidly sealed the protective garment. “Good. Fasten up. The blaster goes inside the suit.”

With a quick bob to signal underst
anding, she accepted the bulky space gear. She carefully copied his example, right down to leaving her gloves off and the hood loose.

“Finish it,” Jaxon snapped.

Temper heated her cheeks. “Not until Aegis is ready.”

Jaxon didn’t take his eyes off her as he spoke to Aegis. “Tell her you can handle the ten seconds the portal is gonna be open, but she can’t.”

A feral grin was the demon’s response. “Hold our position while I suit up. I will secure the clamps faster.”

First Jaxon looped one of the cables she’d prepared around her waist, securing the connectors to the cabin.

Satisfied neither one of them was needlessly endangered, she tucked her hair into the hood, pulled on the gloves, and locked the last of suit’s seals.

Aegis suited up, grabbed a handful of cables, and headed for the exit.

Instinctively she squeezed her eyes shut at the whoosh of air leaving the fighter. If she hadn’t been tied down, she would’ve been sucked into the vacuum of space. A muffled
thunk
signaled the portal resealed. The pull against the cable securing her to the wall ceased. She started worrying. How would Aegis reenter?

She stared at Jaxon, willing him to look at her, but his hood was sealed and his attention remained on the console as he
made the adjustments necessary to maintain their position.

Her heart sounded like thunder inside the curious isolation of the
protective gear. Seconds clicked by with agonizing slowness until the wait seemed endless. Finally something bounced on the ship’s viewer.

Jaxon must’ve seen it too because he turned. The blur of movement repeated.

With exaggerated movements, he rotated farther toward her. Briefly the front of his suit faced her. The dark face shield blurred his features, but she sensed his gaze and bobbed her helmeted head giving him permission to do whatever needed done.

Another muffled
thunk
and the jerk of a full-body tug told her the portal had reopened. Before her eyelids unclenched, the hatchway resealed.

Aegis gave her a clumsy hug and unfastened her cable.
When she reached to unseal her gloves, he captured her wrist, preventing her. After a few seconds, he let go of her long enough to transfer her cable’s connection to his suit.

Jaxon secured a second line, linking her to him
as well. Both of them struggled into huge backpacks. Aegis looped the rest of the cable over one arm.

Her belly lurched as h
undreds of questions she wished she’d asked earlier flooded her thoughts. Too late. The portal opened once more. This time there was no frantic pull. The cabin wasn’t pressurized.

She glanced back at the darkened interior, swallowed her fear, and followed Aegis into the void.

* * * * *

Since Jaxon
anchored their little caravan, he cleared the fighter last. He pushed through the portal, and then had to slow himself with an awkward clutch for the first handhold he passed. It had been either grab like a green cadet, put on a demented windmill act, or knock Cami for a loop.

It took him a couple more clunky missteps before his legs got with the program and remembered their hard-won space-walking skills. He shifted his pack enough to shoot a glance over his shoulder. Part of bringing up the rear was making sure nothing crept up on their blind side.

Behind them the fighter clung to the station’s roof, faintly illuminated by the giant facility’s core lights. For a few seconds, he got a weird feeling he’d never fly her again. The craft’s open portal gapped like a missing tooth. They’d left the access hatch unsealed in unspoken agreement. If for some reason they needed to return, there was no one to release the entrance.

With the ship’s fuel reading pegged on empty, they couldn’t leave any systems running, not even the crew recognition module.
No warrior worth his rank ever left his ship open and unguarded. His chest pinched as if he were abandoning a faithful pet by walking away from the fighter he’d logged so many hours in.

His sappy
pangs of regret vanished in a second when he caught sight of Cami bobbing wildly. He cursed his idiocy. Damn, she was from Earth. Clearly his woman didn’t know step one about space walking. Why would she?

He carefully tugged the cable tethering them together, bringing her
closer. When she came within reach, he steadied her slight weight and waited for his heart to drop from his throat back down into his chest. The lingering fear receded, he swallowed the last of the bile  and gently guiding her padded legs until the magnetic soles of her boots made solid contact with the outer hull. He shuffled even with her, playing out a little more of her cable, demonstrating how to keep one boot stuck to the surface in an exaggerated shuffle.

Cami
imitated his slide-lift-slide gait, gave an energetic salute, and damn near tipped over with the force of the gesture in the zero g of space. She waved her arms, caught her balance, and tried again. A couple more of the glide-shuffle steps and she turned to flash him another salute.

H
e knew she couldn’t see his expression, but still grinned at her like a fool. Damned if the least little sign of her approval didn’t thrill him stupid.

By the time they closed in on dock twenty-three, her space
walk was as smooth as any space jock’s.

During their trek across the station’s sloping
hull, there’d been plenty of grab bars. Out on the edge, the surface was smooth as clean glass.

Natch, they were running low on cable and O2.

He and Aegis switched places, the big guy using his greater strength to serve as anchor. Jaxon took point, stretching full-out until he just cleared the rim. He scanned every millimeter of the dock. Save for the number twenty-three sprayed in regulation glow-in-the-dark green on the floor, the bay held a whole lot of nothing. What had happened to the sisterhood’s ship?

Absolutely fucking great.

Where in the seven hells had the women gone? They had to have set off the diversionary light show, so they’d been fine when the fighter landed. He clamped down on the helpless frustration. The missing disciples were a mystery they had no time to solve. He edged back from the drop into the infinite, calculating how much extra cable they were gonna need for a tie-down and to negotiate the distance to the empty dock.

Getting
there was only stage one. Without the sorority’s help, penetrating the station would be tougher. No biggie. Tough was a space jock’s specialty.

The small problem of explaining the sitch to Aegis remained. Damn, the lack of communication was starting to rub his chafed nerves raw.

His O2 gauge blinked yellow.

Double damn, ten more minutes of breathing time.
Great, extra pressure. Forcing himself to keep his respirations even, he battled the urge to suck back huge gulps of his dwindling air. Taking care that his boots stayed tight with the station’s metal skin, he stood slowly. The last thing he wanted to do was jerk Cami off her feet.

Then he noticed the cable tethering her to him was slack.

Thank the gods. She sat, safe and well away from the slippery edge, securely clipped to the last of the grab bars.

Aegis was gone.

Heart racing, he fought for control. Anger and panic never helped. Right now they needed a couple of squads of help.

He shuffled toward Cami
using a steady economical gait, taking care not to jostle her by tugging on the line between them. Forced to move at calm, maddeningly slow pace, he cursed his growing panic. Even breaths and a steady pulse instead of the wild pounding he had going on would keep them alive a few extra minutes. Minutes might make the difference between life and de—Ah damn it, he was such a sap. He couldn’t even think the word when it applied to Cami.

The
slow-motion trip to where she waited gave him time to finally get control of his heart rate and respiration. Old Nerves of Steel, the other space jocks had called him, or they would if they were here now.

He peered into Cami’s face shield, trying to read her expression. The dark tint dimmed her features to vague shadows. Not enough clarity to
register details except her O2 meter remained green.

Slowly so he didn’t jostle her, he parked his ass next to hers. Half of his remaining air time was gone.
A few more minutes stretched before he lost consciousness. Suffocation wasn’t a bad death for a warrior. But damn, he hated leaving Cami.

Aegis would come back for her.
He had to believe in his friend or else the scream building in his lungs was going to suck up the last of his oxygen.

In an effort to keep it together, he turned to the memory of how he’d felt when he’d been held tight between his lovers. His pleasure receptors had been smokin’
—total sensory overload. And it hadn’t been just about the sex—not for him. Aegis and Cami had given him fuel tanker loads of acceptance and tenderness along with a galaxy tour of passion.

Had he told them he loved them? Nope, he’d been too busy acting manly to gush about his feelings. He hoped they
knew how much he cared, ’cause he would never have a chance to say the words.

Cami interrupted his trip down the hot memory sector with a pat on his arm and a tap to the edge of her shield. Her oxygen indicator glowed
bright, steady yellow.

Damn, time was running out for both of them.
He reached to give her a clumsy hug, offering comfort.

S
he exploded out of his awkward embrace. In a flat second, she ducked, unclipped from the cable, and scooted away. He struggled to his feet, stared in horror, and followed in a reckless shuffle.

There was no way he’d catch her.
She was far out of reach, careening toward the space station’s outer rim in dangerous lopes.

Next stop infinity.

He scrambled faster, stumbling wildly with no chance of saving her. His heart hammered out of his ribcage and lodged in his throat.

At the edge
neared she slowed, turned, and waved.