Claimed by Three (14 page)

The controls shook in her hands. The Duce shuddered, listing to the right. Fuck. She had to land this skimmer before it fell apart on her.

While she searched for somewhere to land, she tightened her grip. She had to keep the Duce away from the buildings. She couldn’t crash into them. It would be disastrous. Even though there were no high buildings in the area, the impact could demolish a structure if she hit the wrong spot.

Not to mention the fact that the buildings were all occupied. She didn’t want to think about the injuries or worse if she didn’t manage to set this thing on the ground.

The controls wrenched again, and the Duce veered to the right. The vehicle jolted before beginning to sway from side to side as if buffeted by a high wind. She used all her strength to get it back on course but knew she couldn’t make a stable landing.

She kept her gaze on the gauges while frantically searching for a landing spot. Someone’s private landing lot would do. She didn’t know if she could manage to keep the vehicle in a tight area. Desperate as she was, she’d take anything.

She spotted a landing lot, which belonged to one of the food markets. It wasn’t empty, but she saw a space near one corner. There might be enough open area where she could set the skimmer down, even if the landing ended up being more of a crash.

She steered the skimmer toward the spot. Her shoulders and arms ached from tension and the strain of keeping the Duce steady. The controls bucked in her grip. The skimmer wobbled in the air. She bit her lip while she tried to bring the skimmer in for a hover landing.

Land safely. Land safely.
The words floated through her mind while she tried to get herself onto the pad without crashing. Or at least with only damage and destruction to her property.

The Duce began to turn to the right even as she struggled to keep it in position. A loud grinding sound filled the cockpit. She cursed and winced. The noise tightened her already stretched nerves. The sound of metal rasping on metal filled the small space. She could smell an acrid burning scent.
What the fuck is wrong now?

She kept her attention on the landing. A loud clank sounded, followed by sudden, complete silence. The entire vehicle shook and then dropped. Her stomach lurched, and her heart seemed to skip a beat. She frantically punched at the thruster button, hoping to soften the landing.

The skimmer slammed into the ground nose first. Metal crunched, and the cockpit windshield cracked. Her body flew forward, but the safety harness and a burst of air stopped her from crashing into the dash display or steering column. Her breath rushed out of her. Her heart raced. She sat there stunned and gasping.

She stared blankly at the webbed cracks on the windshield. Her mind spun. A total failure wasn’t supposed to occur. All skimmers had backup systems for the landing thrusters. On top of that, the recent service on her Duce hadn’t turned up any problems. She should have been able to set it down safely even with the steering malfunctions.

Sephanie shook away some of the shock after a whiff of smoke drew a cough from her. Time to get out of this thing. She popped the cockpit as smoke began to roll from under the skimmer.

She scrambled out, turned back, and looked at the wreckage. Her sporty air skimmer lay in a crumpled heap on the hardtop. For a moment, she felt like crying. She didn’t know if it could be saved at all. Disappointment and sadness mixed with anger, horror, and confusion. She’d loved everything about the little skimmer. The red color, the speed, the sleek lines. She backed away from her vehicle when the smoke increased.

“Are you all right?” A man ran up to her.

“I think so.” She smiled at him. Something wasn’t right here.
Why did the Duce suddenly and catastrophically fail?
“Has someone called the Planetary Police? I think they need to be here.”

“They’re on their way. Is there anyone you’d like me to contact?” the man asked.

She nodded. Normally, she’d use the comm in the skimmer or her compact holo-comm, but both were in the skimmer. She didn’t dare go near it.

“Can you contact two people? Both will be unreasonable if they don’t hear from me about this. My brother and Berenger.” She gave him the contact information for both and the message to give to them.

* * * *

“Hey, Berenger, there’s a message for you. Sending it to your pad now. I think it’s an old client or something with some vehicle problems. They insisted the message was for you personally, not any other technician.” The voice of his receptionist drew Berenger’s head up.

“Got it. I’ll check it soon.” Berenger didn’t immediately straighten from his position bent over a skimmer. He continued working on the machine in front of him until he fixed the problem. There were still a few other issues to repair before he handed it back to the owner.

Berenger stood and stretched. He wiped his hands clean on a cloth at his service station and picked up the pad. As he pulled up the message, he looked around the shop to see what the other mechanics were doing. Everyone seemed busy.

He glanced down.

I’m contacting you for Sephanie. Her Duce had a big malfunction, and an attempted landing has left her stranded and waiting for authorities at the landing lot for Beckham’s Market and Shopping Center. Please contact Kassius and Teague for her.

He threw the pad, not caring where it landed, and ran for the door. Anger burned through him. He wanted to yell at his receptionist and everyone in the shop that any message from or about Sephanie was to be immediately delivered in person. She was a priority and was more than a customer.

He didn’t waste time. He dashed out to his skimmer and activated the onboard holo-comm the moment the skimmer hit entry height. His focus centered on getting to Sephanie, but he knew he had to contact Kassius and Teague as well. They’d come after him if she was hurt and he didn’t notify them.

He waited impatiently for one of them to respond. If they were both out in the orchard, one of them should have a portable holo-comm in case of emergency calls. He’d almost decided to leave them a message and let them yell all they wished, when the video monitor flickered.

“Hi, Berenger, how’s your workday?” Teague smiled.

From the brightness of the light behind him, Berenger could tell Teague was outside. Berenger took a deep breath to calm himself before he talked. His mind was already circling and inventing horrifying scenarios. He wondered what had malfunctioned and if Sephanie was all right. He didn’t need to panic them too.

“Grab Kass and get in your Duce. I don’t know much, so I want you to stay calm.” Berenger guided his vehicle over the city. He knew where the shopping center was and didn’t have to use his navigation system to find it.

Teague’s smile fell, and his body tensed. “What’s wrong?”

“It’s Sephanie. I got a message her skimmer malfunctioned and she was stranded at the landing lot for Beckham’s Market and Shopping Center. She was waiting for the authorities. The message asked me to contact you and Kass.” Berenger didn’t mention the part about an attempted landing.

That part drove him crazy. It would do the same to them. The word “attempted” worried him. Had she been hurt in the attempt? Why hadn’t she contacted him herself?

“Is she all right?” Teague began moving.

Berenger saw trees passing behind Teague, but that only registered vaguely as he steered the vehicle. Not too long and he’d see if she was all right and discover the details.

“I don’t know. I haven’t talked to her. The message was from someone else. I don’t have much more information.” Berenger could see the lot up ahead and resisted the urge to accelerate. He also spotted the array of official vehicles clustered in one corner of the lot. “I’m close.”

“All right, we’ll contact you once we’re on the way.” Teague nodded but didn’t look happy.

The transmission cut. Berenger searched for a place to land and locate his woman among all those people. Landing was easy enough, getting to Sephanie a different matter. An officer stopped him outside the perimeter of Planetary Police vehicles. The number of vehicles here seemed excessive for a simple accident. His gut churned with worry.

He wondered if this was connected to the vandalism at Seph’s house. That was if it wasn’t a simple malfunction, but the recent damage to her home added to his suspicions. The methods to sabotage a skimmer required an entirely different skill set than painting words on a wall. This tampering was on a different level. So much that he questioned if it was done by the same person.

He insisted on talking with someone in charge. It was the only way he knew to get closer to her without Teague being with him. Teague could probably get through because he was a member of the Planetary Defense. The officer left to get one of the people in charge.

Berenger paced back and forth as he waited. He couldn’t rush in there and try to get her. He’d never make it before the officers stopped him. That wouldn’t get him the answers he required or his arms around his woman.

He looked up and almost shouted when he saw who strode toward him. It was the officer who’d handled the vandalism at Sephanie’s house. Officer McCord, if he remembered right.

The man walked over to him and gave him a small smile. “She said she was waiting for someone to come. I’ll take you over to her.”

“Is she all right? Can you tell me what happened?” He peered over at the wreckage as they moved past it.

The crumpled nose of the Duce indicated a significant impact. The bottom of the vehicle had slammed into the ground with force as well. He’d expected a simple malfunction and a bad landing. The damage pointed to something much worse. His palms began to sweat while he searched for Sephanie. Had she been hurt in the landing?

“She’s shaken up and bruised. The skimmer’s safety features kept her alive, but that was a hard landing. We’ve cued up the vid from the store and lot and are reviewing it,” Officer McCord said quietly.

“What about the Duce? Do you know what went wrong with it?” He surveyed the wreckage again and saw a man he knew. Cassid’s city vehicle-maintenance manager, who also worked as the Planetary Police’s forensic mechanic for this area, bent over Sephanie’s destroyed vehicle.

“Our man has already notified a tow skimmer. He’s taking it back to be processed.” Officer McCord shrugged.

That wasn’t good. They must have some suspicion this wasn’t a mechanical failure or pilot error. He shook off those thoughts when he saw Sephanie. She had a hand to her head and sat on a gurney outside the white medical-transport skimmer.

She glanced up, and the moment she saw him, she smiled. Her muscles relaxed visibly. He felt his muscles loosen as relief flowed through him. She stood. The medic urged her to sit back down.

Chapter Thirteen

Berenger strode the last few steps to get to her and bent down to hug her. Her arms slipped around him, and she snuggled against his chest. She breathed for several moments.

“I’m glad you came.” She lifted her head. He saw the sheen of tears in her eyes.

“Are you all right? Where’s your brother?” Berenger looked around. He knew she would have called him too.

“Head and neck hurt even though I didn’t hit my head on anything hard. As for Cooper, no one answered the comm. The man who offered to help left a message.” She grimaced. “He’ll check it and get here.”

“Where’s your portable holo-comm?” He frowned. The bag she usually carried with her wasn’t at her side.

“It’s in the Duce. The skimmer started smoking after it landed, and I scrambled out. I didn’t know if it would catch on fire. The officers haven’t given my bag to me yet.” She slanted a glance toward the wreck of her vehicle.

“What happened?” Berenger asked. If he heard what she’d done and what she knew, he might be able to tell what had failed.

“Everything seemed to be fine at first, but then it all went bad fast.” She hugged him tight.

He listened as she ran through the story from the first malfunction to the sudden landing. A heavy weight settled in his stomach. He didn’t want to think about the possibility of her landing upside down. Skimmers were solidly constructed, but a hard landing could have trapped her inside the craft or crushed the canopy.

“Why don’t we try to contact your brother again?” He was glad he’d kept his portable holo-comm on him while he worked. If the repairs included climbing on and under a skimmer, he sometimes put it on the workbench. He’d have left it when he ran out of the shop if it had been there. “Why didn’t you have this man call Kassius or Teague instead of my shop?”

“I knew someone would answer at your shop. I didn’t know if Kassius or Teague would answer an unknown comm.” She shrugged.

She had a point. They’d taken a while to answer his, and they knew him. After this, none of them would be so choosy about when they answered.

“Let me call your brother to see if he’s heard the message.” He patted her shoulder and stepped back enough that he could reach for the portable holo-comm.

He activated it and chose her brother from the listing of known contacts. He waited for her brother to answer or the tone to leave a message. Suddenly a white image flashed above the holo-comm, showing her brother’s face.

“Have you listened to the message that was left on your comm?” Berenger asked.

“That was you? No, I haven’t. Is something wrong?” Cooper frowned.

“Not me. That was someone leaving a message for your sister.” Berenger didn’t yell at him, although it was a close call. He could be in the same situation. He’d only looked at the message because he’d been at a point where he’d finished with part of a repair.

“Is Sephanie all right? Why was someone calling for her?” Cooper leaned closer to the comm as if he wanted to see where Berenger was.

“She’s all right. Her skimmer crashed. There were apparently a series of malfunctions. She’s rattled by the landing but, overall, fine,” Berenger said. “I’ll turn the portable so you can see her.”

Berenger swiveled the screen so the video could pick up her. She smiled.

“Hi, Cooper,” she said softly.

“What happened, and are those medics?” Cooper asked.