Kicking Ashe (3 page)

“You are hungry?”

“Famished, thank you.” She added a smile, a real one, not the fake one. Shan also relayed the bar. Was he protecting his team from possible alien contamination? Surely they knew about airborne contaminants. And they were hunting space rocks. The vacuum of space didn’t decontaminate everything. With no answers—and a hollow stomach desperate to quit gnawing on itself—Ashe unwrapped the bar and studied it. Perhaps it was chocolate—no, not chocolate. She managed to hide her grimace as she chewed with a resolution lacking in an enthusiasm she did not have the energy to summon.

“It does not taste well, but it will strengthen you,” Cadir said, his grin natural, his gaze both bright and interested—though it still tended to stray south of her face far too often.

She didn’t remember the dwarfs studying Snow White’s cleavage, but they had been shorter. Ashe managed a half smile. Hard to be perky chewing crap with her wares on display. “Believe it or not, I’ve had worse.” One would think, when one had all of time to improve one’s cooking skills, that the Time Service cooks would be better at it, but no, not better.

Shan lifted the tracking device again—Ashe felt Lurch’s itch to examine it but couldn’t see how to manage it—and scanned their surroundings, then indicated a course that avoided the thick undergrowth and hopefully would take them around the boulders. Even a small amount of up or through felt beyond her. He gestured for her to move, adjusting his pace so that he flanked her. The two boys fell in on their six.

Questions bubbled to the surface, lots of them, but questions were a giveaway. A brief hope that the boys would babble out some information died in the face of their continued—but silent—fascination with her chest whenever they drew level. She had a feeling that the rest of the time their gazes were fixed on her silver covered ass. She couldn’t whine or be offended since her gaze kept straying to Shan’s assets each time the opportunity presented itself.

With her suit systems down, and the planet’s sun showing no sign of relenting, sweat and friction made her wish it had completely retracted. Not that she wanted to scramble through underbrush in her knickers, but dang the thing was clingy.

You can’t cool me off, maybe raise the neckline a bit?
Usually Lurch was a genius with her tech.

I need drones.

Ashe felt a chill that didn’t help her overheating problem as much as it should have.
But
you can produce more.

At your current level of depletion, it would be unwise.

She felt the truth of his assertion. Even after the energy bar they were both almost tapped out. She should be depressed, even discouraged, instead she felt oddly cheerful. She didn’t die today, she reminded herself. That’s always a good thing. Shan moved ahead of her, then paused, holding several branches out of her way, his body angled as if inviting her to enjoy the view.

So your insouciance has nothing to do with the male posterior you are admiring?

Ashe took her gaze off the backside in question, redirecting it to Shan’s face.
I don’t know what you are thinking about
. His annoyed harrumph felt a bit like a vomit burp—possibly with intent. She drew level with Shan, noting the gleam of sweat on his skin—the only sign he felt the heat. He sure wasn’t breathing heavy—a pulse in his neck surged as she brushed against him, forced close by foliage and terrain. And maybe a little intent on her part. No harm letting her feminine wiles out for a little stroll, just to see if they worked.

You are playing with fire.

Rather play with ice, but nope, none around.

The air soup was redolent with flora and fauna smells and something she rather thought was Shan. Her last encounter with him had been mega-brief and not close enough to be sure it was him she’d sniffed. This smelled like he looked—musky and male—boosted into the stratosphere by the power he gave off like a sun. Playing with him was more like toying with a conflagration. He wasn’t just a man, but a leader of men. She’d been around enough Leaders of her people to recognize one when she saw one. Was this who he was meant to be? At their last meeting he’d been arrogant as hell, sexy, too, and an intergalactic explorer, but not this—

Ashe froze in her tracks.
We might not be in his galaxy if they are intergalactic.

The thought had occurred.

In the time line before the tsunami, first contact with Shan had occurred not long after the defeat of the Dusan in the battle for Kikk. Gravity from the Garradian Galaxy had pulled the Keltinarian cluster closer, deforming its shape and eventually cutting the Grenardian planet off from its sun. It had also lessened the void between the two galaxies. Shan had penetrated to what was then the Kikk Outpost, with the Grenardians following a couple of hundred Earth years later. That Keltinarian push into space had been driven by the need to save their society from extinction with the injection of more females. She had no information on why Keltinar and Grenardias hadn’t come to some agreement on the female issue, though the purple skin might have been the deal killer.

In the lieu of the time wave, the only clue to what had changed was Shan, but he wasn’t talking. Without more data on what had changed, there was no way to know what factors drove this push into space. All she knew for sure was that he and his people had made contact with the Grenardians. Was her arrival an unfortunate accident or a sign his proper time line hadn’t been restored yet?

It could mean the bad guy won.

Trust Lurch to think what she didn’t want to.
Do you think the bad guy won?

There is no clear evidence either direction, but…no, I don’t.

It helped, though she’d have been hard pressed to explain how.

“Is something wrong?”

Was his tone a bit rougher? She realized she’d been staring, so she shook her head, and moved past him onto a slight, clear rise overlooking a small ravine. She needed to get her—

Mojo.

Okay. She needed to get her mojo back, sooner rather than later. While it was fun to play the girl, she was a time tracker. Unless the Time Service was gone, in which case she didn’t know what she was. And if it still existed? Would they know she’d maybe saved all time and the whole universe?

It depends on how deep the time reset went.

If they didn’t know what had happened, could she go back to being a rookie time tracker despised by one and all? And what if they did know? It’s not like any of them would be thrilled with her no matter what she did. She didn’t have to go back into the Service.
What do you do after saving, well, everything?

Go to Disneyworld?

She was not familiar with a Disney world.
What star system is it in?

It was a joke.

Not a good one. Why did it feel as if the unsanctioned contact with his original human host had made him nostalgic? Not that she felt threatened or anything but he had changed since they bumped heads with her not-so-great-but-too-many-to-count-the-greats grandma.

A rather tortured description.

He had a point.
Fine, not-so-great grandma. How is that?

Lurch answered with a huge sigh, which brought her back to: he’d changed.

Shan passed her, pausing his I-own-the-universe stride to sweep the sensor across the terrain ahead of them. When he kept putting his assets into her sightline, it was hard not to look. Made it difficult to remember that this was not her time or her place, though she was happy that this time he wasn’t pinging on another woman. He glared at the horizon, then at his sensor. Not that being upstaged by a space rock was that much better.

“There.” Shan pointed toward a small clearing—no, it was another impact crater a few clicks past the ravine, almost hidden by a cluster of trees.

Ashe followed Shan and the boys down, then up again, feeling equal parts curiosity and trepidation. If it were an actual space rock, it might contain data that could aid them in determining their location. If it were another Ashe, well, she couldn’t think of any way that would end well. Shan reached the edge first. He didn’t look shocked or anything so Ashe stepped next to him, took a deep breath, and looked down.

It wasn’t another Ashe, but the sight still hit with the force of the time tsunami. Without speaking, without asking, she eased down the side of the crater toward the object, sure that she couldn’t see what her eyes and mind said she saw. She sort of knew that Shan followed her down, that he watched her as she crouched next to it and slowly, very slowly touched the metal surface. It was cool, though this crater showed signs of the same heat hers had. Smelled like sulfur, too. She traced the burn pattern from her energy weapon’s fire, and then moved to trace the series of bullet holes in the headless, legless torso. It was, she thought a bit distantly, possible to be relieved and flummoxed at the same time.

“What is it?” Shan’s voice was hard, as if he expected her to dissemble.

She looked at him, felt how wide, how dry her eyes were, not able to enjoy feeling cold as ice, because she also felt hot and bothered and shocked to her toenails. She licked her lips. “It’s an automaton.”

TWO

Vidor Shan did not scowl as they headed toward the camp.

He wanted to.

But he didn’t.

Even though he wanted to.

Though he tried to avoid it, his gaze collided with hers, a gaze that was apologetic, as if she knew she frustrated him, as if she knew him. Or knew of him? How could she know him in any way? Unless…could she be involved with the Zelk? Did she know something about the disappearance of the
Zalistria
? His hands curled into fists against his thighs as he thought about the
Zalistria
. Was this creature the bait in the same trap? Would the Zelk work with an alien? They knew so little, but one thing he knew for sure—

“The Zelk will betray you.”

“The what?”

A slight frown creased her forehead and her gaze turned inward as if she consulted some inner guide. She’d done that several times now.

“What’s a…Zelk?”

He closed on her, inhaled her scent once and then again, taking it deeper into his lungs for parsing. Failed to find deception in it. Did that mean he couldn’t? That she spoke truth? Or had the Zelk found a species that his people couldn’t scent-parse? That would perhaps be useful enough for a limited alliance. Her scent had puzzled him from first inhale with its hint of something familiar. When she’d said she was on leave, he’d not smelled outright deceit, but had not found truth in it either. Humor yes, in abundance. Odd for someone so precariously situated. Now her scent steamed into his lungs clean and pure, fresh and enticing…once again familiar—which was not possible. She was not a creature one could forget.

“They are a reptilian species,” Cadir said, his eyes wide with the relish of one who had yet to meet one face to face, though he’d bested some in space.

“Really?”

Surprise filtered in now, tangy, a bit tart, mixing with her personal musk.

As much as he wished her to be a clue to the missing ship, the missing crew, it was difficult to see how. The last communication from the
Zalistria
did not mention a Zelk attack, which tracked with their data on this sector. And logic said the Zelk would not risk an incursion here when there were safer, more strategic sectors, better places for Constilinium collection. The emergency broadcast from the
Zalistria
had mentioned an incoming falling, which made little sense—until he’d seen the odd behavior of the fallings since their arrival in this sector. Random flashing in and out of view. Some made landfall, while others never did. Some passed through solid objects. Others didn’t. How was it possible? But what was must be possible. He’d seen it, not just with his equipment, but also with his eyes. Fortunately the fallings were uni-directional, limited to a single sector, at least for now, though this knowledge came too late for the
Zalistria
. For its crew.

He didn’t let himself think about the lost crew. It interfered with his focus, his concentration. He must consider only what he knew, not how he felt. It was the only way to help them, to help his brother.

Keltinarian scientists believed a strong gravitational shift was impacting the sector, creating the instability that had cut the Grenardian planet off from their sun. Calendria’s team had been placed here to study the effect. Upon completion of the study, the
Zalistria
had been deployed to retrieve them. Instead, it had disappeared. Since the research camp was intact, it was difficult to make the case for Zelk involvement, though he never assumed, particularly where the Zelk were concerned.

The discovery of this alien, this Ashe, could be an indication of another force at work, but again, why here? With what goal? This region would soon become as uninhabitable as the Grenardians’ home world. It was useful only for research. And if she had some interest in this region, how and why arrive in such a mysterious way? If it was a ploy to divert suspicion, it had failed. His suspicions were not diverted. They had, in fact, been boosted—as had his need for answers. As she’d noted, the crater showed signs of both heat and impact force, which should have not only ended her life, but made the crater unapproachable for a longer period of time—yet another oddity about the fallings. What could she gain by pretending she’d arrived by falling? And how had she arrived? She was not the only oddity since their arrival in system though she did top the list. In addition to the strange fallings, there were non-impact tremors that their seismic equipment did not seem able to record, even as they rumbled the ground underfoot. Calendria postulated that it was an anomaly caused by the gravitational field impacting the region—a sign the gravitational forces were increasing in intensity, though she had no explanation for why their equipment could not record them.

He’d been sent to find the missing ship and crew, or to get answers and retrieve any survivors. The Authority did not like mysteries, but in the time since they arrived, the mysteries had multiplied. He was a soldier, not a scientist. Neither he, nor his team, had the skill for this. Nor, it seemed, did Calendria. When they’d told him the
Zalistria
was missing, he’d opened his mouth to volunteer, but his Commander had forestalled the request with orders to deploy. At the time, he’d been relieved. Now he wondered.