The Virtual Man [The Virtual Reality 1] (Siren Publishing Classic) (17 page)

There were no rings, no flowers and within a short five minutes they were husband and wife, Derek was no longer a ward of the Galactic Alliance and the Captain had returned his ship into hyperspace.

He was now
her
responsibility. She sure hoped he wouldn’t do anything stupid.

As they walked back to Tiana’s suite, an awkward silence engulfed them. She knew what she wanted, but she didn’t know what his expectations would be. Would he make love to her? Would the relationship that had developed between them resume its natural course and continue to grow or would this contrived ‘wedding for freedom’ business result in them now becoming simply roommates? Two business partners watching the clock tick for the next 730 days.

As they reached her suite, wordlessly, Derek, in one swift, fluid motion picked her up and cradled her tenderly in his strong arms.

“Derek, what are you doing? I’m too heavy.”

“As if, my pocket-sized Venus. What does it look like I’m doing? I’m going to carry you over the threshold. You are my bride, aren’t you?”

Okay, right answer!

Touched by the romantic gesture, she put her arms around his neck and rested her head on his hard, muscular chest.

* * * *

“Computer, open door.”

Derek carried her in as if she was light as a feather. He didn’t care what it took; by the time the two years were up she simply had to fall in love with him and want to stay together.

“My, how sweet.” Derek’s thoughts were interrupted by a familiar female voice as the door closed behind them. “Derek, darling, you never carried me over the threshold.”

A good-looking, tall brunette stepped out of the bedroom pointing a disruptor at them.

“Melinda! What in the world are you doing here?”

“Derek,” Tiana interjected, “that’s Chrissie, my former maid.”

“Well, it appears that your slut ex-maid and my snake in the grass ex-girlfriend are the same person. What an incredible coincidence, huh. My, my, it’s a small galaxy after all. It’s a small, small galaxy.”

“Oh, Derek, I sure have missed your sarcasm. Let’s go easy on the name-calling, though, you might accidentally piss me off and I might accidentally disrupt a hole through your wife’s tits.”

Derek slowly put Tiana back down on her own two feet. As he did so, his hand accidentally slid up her thigh, under her dress and onto her curvy bottom. He felt his insides, not to mention his outsides, twitch with lust.

Shit, shit, shit, not a good time to get aroused!

“You know, Melinda, the different pieces to this complicated puzzle are starting to come together,” Derek said. “Between seducing Tiana’s husband so that he would become your pawn and seducing me so that you could derail the Portable People project, not to mention killing off several other scientists and engineers, you’ve been very busy, haven’t you?”

Hating his pseudo-superiority, she responded sarcastically, “Not bad, Derek, darling. Has the little woman, and I do mean little, been helping you with your homework? I see you’ve found someone else to lead you by the balls.”

Slowly, Melinda, alias Chrissie, walked the length of the room, placing herself between them and the door as Tiana continued Derek’s train of deductive thinking.

“Conniving bitch, traitorous whore, hmm, there’s more to you than meets the eye, isn’t there. I think you go by a couple of other names as well, don’t you?” Tiana said, letting her temper get the better of her.

“Ah, the carrot-topped twit thinks. She even speaks. Correct so far, but I fear that the knowledge of who I really am is a little beyond your pea-size human brain. You know, sweetie, there’s more at play here than just my sleeping with both of your husbands. If it’s any consolation, though, Derek was the better fuck. Weren’t you, stud?” she said, feasting her eyes upon Derek and eating him alive with her look, her intent, obviously, to taunt Tiana.

For centuries, redheads have carried the unfair reputation of having an anger problem. All her life, Tiana had lived up to this reputation, yet, for the most part, she had maintained control during the past couple of weeks, and she had really thought she had turned things around. She knew Chrissie had slept with her ex-husband, and while the knowledge had cut through her deeply, she had managed to keep her anger under control. Knowing that this woman had hurt Derek had also been unpleasant, but even throught that, she had kept herself under control. She was trying. She was really, really trying to behave herself and be the civilized woman that, as a member of one of the most advanced species in the universe, she was expected to be. She had convinced herself that she had turned the corner on her anger and that, for the rest of her days. She would handle all situations with a calm demeanor and the dignity that her lofty position in the galaxy’s engineering community demanded, regardless of what anyone ever did or could possibly say. Unfortunately, she had not counted on ever hearing another woman use the word ‘fuck’ in relation to her new husband.

Tiana grabbed a vase off an endtable and hurled it at Chrissie. No, actually, it wasn’t Chrissie she was hurling the vase at, it was Melinda whom she was going to tear apart limb from limb. She was the one who had defiled her new husband and who had, well …
She really pisses me off
. The fact that the two women were the same person was irrelevant.

“Bitch!” Tiana yelled as the vase hit its mark, injuring as well as temporarily distracting Melinda, who in turn fired the disruptor in Tiana’s general direction, barely missing her.

Before Melinda knew what was happening, Tiana had hurled herself upon her and, holding her by her hair, was repeatedly beating the other woman in the face.

Derek availed himself of the opportunity and grabbed the disruptor off the floor where Melinda had been forced to drop it before gingerly approaching the two struggling women.

It had all happened so quickly, but as she was about to vent her anger with another blow to Melinda’s face, Tiana felt a sharp pain on her side and subsequently found herself hurled across the room and right into Derek with a force she knew human beings were incapable of. As Derek and she hit the wall, they both had the wind knocked out of them. Tiana watched as Melinda swiftly got up, apparently unscathed despite being hit by a vase and getting pounded on by a very angry redhead. Just as quickly, she scowled at Tiana with a lifetime of hate blazing in her eyes and ran out the door, avoiding Derek’s disruptor shot.

“Captain, we have disruptor fire in Suite 1005”

Acting quickly as he ran off the bridge, the Captain hailed his Security Officer and ordered, “Commander Hollinger, dispatch a security team to meet me in Suite 1005. Weapons at the ready.”

He had a very good idea of who had probably fired the disruptor.

Hurrying down the corridors leading to the section of the ship where the first-class suites were located, he saw a woman running at him, stopping in her tracks as soon as she saw him. Seeing the woman took him back fifteen years to the time when he had last seen her. The day the MPs had taken Colonel Katia Reginald of the Terrilian Armada, alias Lieutenant Cecilia Hammonds, away to await execution as a spy. Colonel Reginald had never made it to her cell. She had overpowered her escort and made her escape, leaving their lifeless bodies behind as a reminder that Terrilians were physically superior in every way.

This time, he was not taking any chances. Captain Maverick quickly drew his disruptor and fired at her as she ducked to the side, making her escape down an adjacent corridor. Wasting no time, the Captain called for reinforcements and gave chase. She was heading in the direction of the ship’s central engine room. He had to hurry, for she could certainly cause some damage in there. This woman had cost him fifteen years of pain. Fifteen years of mourning. Fifteen years that he could have spent with the love of his life. Fifteen years that he could have spent with … his wife.

Captain Maverick chased the Terrilian spy into the engine room. As he walked in he was greeted by the lifeless body of one of his ship engineers. His neck had been snapped like a twig.

Stepping over the body, the Captain proceeded silently. She had to be somewhere nearby. If she still had the disruptor, he would already be dead. The room was full of pipes, energy containers and a variety of mechanical control systems behind which she could be hiding. As he rounded a corner he almost tripped on a second corpse. He recognized the face. The lifeless body belonged to one of his trainees, barely eighteen. The way his head hung limply to the side indicated the way he had been killed. The Captain heard a noise to his left and quickly turned. As he did, he saw a magnetic degausser hitting the floor after bouncing off a pipe. Oh no. He had fallen for the oldest trick in the book.

Before he could turn back, a swift kick in the gut reminded him of why he shouldn’t have looked away. Damn Terrilian! A second kick sent his disruptor flying across the room and behind a couple of reactors. He didn’t sit around waiting for the third kick. Instead, with the nimbleness of a man half his age, Captain Maverick rolled out of the way and drew himself up to his feet.

They both now stood, in fighting stances, assessing each other’s weaknesses. They were two old warriors, still fighting a war that should have been long over but knowing the enemy never rested.

“Tsk, tsk, Jonathan. You know you can’t possibly beat me. I am genetically superior. How about we both go our separate ways and leave this argument for another day?”

“Sorry, but no. Why destroy tomorrow what I can destroy today and should have destroyed on yesterday’s yesterday. I’m not much on procrastination. Besides, where will you go?”

“Why don’t you let me worry about that? I did just fine the last time our paths crossed.”

Captain Maverick’s response was a flying kick that hit its mark on the Terrilian’s beautiful chin, sending her sprawling across the slick metal floor of the engine room.

Jumping back to her feet, refusing to give the Captain an opportunity for a second strike, she rubbed what was sure to become a nasty bruise on her chin.

“My, my, you’ve been working out. Okay, suit yourself, Johnny boy. I have, shall we say, a little time to kill.”

With that, she delivered a low roundkick to the back of the Captain’s knees that sent him to the floor. She followed the attack by jumping up in the air, intent on landing with both feet on the Captain’s ribcage. Not being terribly keen on having his ribcage crushed, Maverick rolled out of the way, kicking her square in the center of her back. Had she been human, he would have cracked her spine and the fight would have been over. Even though her face reflected the pain he had inflicted on her, she got back up to resume the fight.

As they squared off, the Captain thought he was seeing things when he noticed a perfect circle being cut out of the wall from outside the ship. Knowing there was nothing but space on the other side, and that in a matter of seconds, once the hole was completed, the ship’s inside pressure would push everything in the room out through it, he quickly ran through the door leading back out of the engine room and activated the airlock.

Through the glass window on the door he saw his old enemy activate an energy field around herself and throw down a little round explosive device that adhered to the metal floor. As the hole was completed, Captain Maverick watched as his longtime enemy was sucked out into space. On the other side of the hole was a small ship that quickly attached a tractor beam to her.

“This is Maverick,” he called the bridge. “We have an explosive device in the engine room that’s going to blow, as well as a hull breach. Drop us out of hyperspace immediately and send an emergency engineering team to the engine room on the double. Secure an energy field around the hull breach.”

“Aye, Captain.” Commander Hollinger acknowledged. At least he had his most unflappable officer on the bridge, giving him the confidence to continue his other duties without worry.

If the device went off before they were out of hyperspace or before they had it contained, they could be blasted light years off course. He just prayed it was a small device as he ran at top speed away from the engine room, literally, for his life.

A dizzying feeling enveloped him for a few moments as the ship abruptly dropped out of hyperspace. He knew that to have done so as quickly as Hollinger had was no easy task. If they lived through the experience, he would have to give her a raise!

Seconds later, Captain Maverick heard the device go off. He felt the ship rock and prayed they wouldn’t be hurled into a planet or asteroid. He just hoped his crew had secured the energy field around the engine room in time.

“Commander Hollinger; damage report.”

“Captain, it’s not good. We were able to partially raise the energy field on the inside perimeter, but not along the outer hull. It appears to have been a plasma explosion so there’s nothing left in the engine room to try and patch up. I am recalling the emergency engineering team. I need them elsewhere. There’s a chain reaction echoing through the power grid. I don’t need to tell you what will happen if the reaction reaches the power generator, or worse, the central power core. As soon as I am able I’ll check on our coordinates.”

“Carry on, Commander. I know you’re doing your best.”

Another explosion rocked the ship. He felt his feet lift off the floor as the ship’s artificial gravity failed. The lights flickered and went out leaving the ship’s interior in total darkness for a few seconds, while the emergency lights came on-line.

This is not good. The power generator must have blown.

The Captain could hear air circulating through the vents, indicating that environmental controls were still on line, but he also knew that was a temporary state of affairs. His ship didn’t have much time left.

Experience had taught him that a secondary chain reaction was now in progress and would soon reach the central power core. Within minutes every power supply along the path of the energy conduits would be ignited. In five minutes, at most, the reaction would reach the ship’s central power core, at which point matter would meet anti-matter.