Atrophy (14 page)

He caught the scent of exotic moon jasmine again and crossed his arms, moving back from her. “Rance said we shouldn’t.”

Kira scowled at him. “And you’re going to take Rance’s word on anything?”

He clenched his jaw, coming to the end of his temper. “He didn’t give me a key.”

Kira took one of Miriella’s wrists, holding the shackle up for inspection. “There must be some way to—”

“No one’s doing anything I haven’t ordered them to do, got it? Now, unless you all want to be left behind on this frecking desert rock, board up and lock down.”

He clomped back up the ramp, wondering what that bitch karma was paying him for this time. Stabbing the scumrat? Maybe. He’d been gratified when Rance had made contact concerning this
cargo
the Reidar wanted. Now he was frecking pissed. If he’d known the shipment was a woman, would he still have come? Yeah, he sure as shite would have. His burning desire to destroy every Reidar he could get his hands on went above and beyond any morals he might once have claimed.

“What are you going to do with me?” The priestess’s firm, calm voice behind him made him pause. For some reason, he expected someone who looked like her to speak with a ringing dulcet accent. Yet her words and demeanor were no-nonsense and composed.

“I don’t know.” He didn’t turn to look at her, because he might make promises he couldn’t keep.

Sure as the universe was made up of dark matter, he wouldn’t hand her over to the Reidar. He could too well imagine what the soulless bastards had in store for her. Yet what other option did he have? The Reidar already had an execute-on-sight decree out on him and had proven they were willing to remove anything that stood between them, including his crew and sister. How much more dangerous might it be keeping the priestess aboard?

“You could return me to Aryn.”

He bent his head to the side a little, catching her near-naked form in his peripheral vision. “No, I can’t.”

Striding toward the stairs and the Violaine waiting for him in his quarters, he forced down the uncomfortable sensations stirring in places he thought the Reidar had successfully destroyed. “Someone find her some frecking clothes.”

W
hen Tannin walked into the galley, he got the distinct feeling the conversation going on around the large table had halted at his arrival. In the tense silence, as thick Yarinian cream, everyone was either looking at him or doing a good job of ignoring him. Zahli seemed to be the only one who didn’t look uncomfortable about him being there. In fact, she looked pleased to see him.

“Don’t let me stop you. Continue with whatever it was you were planning.”

He walked over to the cold storage compartment and bent to look in. The last apple had a small knife through it with a note attached saying
touch this and die – Callan
.

One good thing he could say about living on Erebus, no one had ever killed someone else over an apple… That he knew of, anyway. Living dirt-side meant there had always been a good supply of fresh fruit, vegetables, and meat available. Being shipbound had its draw backs. He grabbed a couple of carrots and shut the compartment, turning to face the silent room.

Rian leaned back in his chair, arms crossed, and expression guarded, but surprisingly not hostile. “Who said we were planning anything?”

Tannin shrugged and snapped one of the carrots in half. “Educated guess.”

The captain leaned forward in his seat, resting his forearms on the table and clasping his fingers loosely. “If you want to know the truth, we were discussing whether or not the IPC officers might still be around and exactly where we were going to dump your sorry ass.”

“So, hack into their ship’s data stream to determine their position.”

Rian glanced at Zahli, who nodded, before returning his unnerving stare back to him. “You can do stuff like that?”

“Sure. It’s easy.”

“Hacking into an IPC ship’s data stream is
not
easy. I should know. I’ve tried before,” Lianna said.

“Can you do it or not?” Rian demanded.

He set his shoulders, only just catching a scowl before it slipped free, Rian putting him on the defensive as usual. “I had a lot of spare, unsupervised time in the admin offices and learned a trick or two.”

Lianna shook her head, her expression appearing a little impressed. “But hacking into IPC data streams? That’s not a trick, that’s genius.”

Rian stood and moved around the table toward him. “Can you hack anything else?”

Tannin took a considering bite out of his carrot before answering. Did he tell Rian the truth, or fudge things a little? And what reason could Rian have for needing to know? He didn’t want to unwittingly put himself in more danger, as if Erebus officers searching for him weren’t enough. He glanced over Rian’s shoulder to where Zahli sat at the table. She caught his gaze, her blue eyes warm. Making a face, she nodded toward Rian. How was he meant to interpret that? He could only guess she wanted him to trust her crazy-ass brother.

Finding Zahli and her affectionate expression too distracting, he looked back at Rian. “So far I haven’t come up against anything I
couldn’t
hack.”

Rian’s expression took on a determined edge. “You’re coming with us, then.”

Tannin swallowed a chunky piece of carrot awkwardly and then coughed. “Excuse me?”

He dropped a hand to his knife, as if to remind him he was only a stab wound away from cooperation by force. “You’re coming with us to Kasson Three.”

Tannin coughed again. He must have heard wrong. “Isn’t that space station—”

“Abandoned and stupidly close to the event horizon of a black hole? Yes.” Rian’s attitude all but dared someone to take him on. And he’d confirmed Tannin’s initial impression of the guy. He really was a deranged sonuvabitch.

“Why in the fiery pits of Erebus would you willingly go to Kasson Three?”

“Rian, are you serious?” Zahli stood but didn’t move away from the table.

Rian frowned at her. “Do I often say things I don’t mean?”

His sister rolled her eyes. “Only every other day.”

“I mean, when we’re talking about what we’re talking about.”

If Tannin thought he could get away with rolling his eyes like Zahli had, he would have done it.
When we’re talking about what we’re talking about?
Cryptic much? Instead he raised an eyebrow and directed an exasperated look at Zahli.

“If you’re serious about taking him with us to hack Kasson Three, then he needs to know the truth. The
whole
truth. He should make his own decision about whether or not he wants to get involved. Like we all did,” Zahli said in a resolute tone.

Rian looked back at him and for the first time it seemed the captain didn’t have that demented I’m-going-to-stab-you-when-you-least-expect-it glint in his eyes. “I guess I could always vent him into void-space later on if it doesn’t work out.”

Zahli heaved a sigh. “Rian—”

“All right.” Rian held up his hands, the beads on his wrist clinking as they moved. Spinning, he returned to the table and pulled out a chair. “Take a seat, scumrat.”

With cautious steps, Tannin walked forward and took the offered chair, finishing off the last of his carrot. Rian skirted the table to the opposite side and flipped around the other chair, straddling it with his forearms resting along the back.

“My crew and I aren’t just space-freighters. That’s what Zahli has us do to earn a steady income.”

Tannin nodded, not surprised. He’d gotten the feeling early on there were other things going on around here. “Okay, I’ll bite. What do you actually do then?”

“We’re hunters,” Callan said from the other end of the table.

Tannin took a moment to process the answer and when he did, it filled his stomach with ice. “Like…bounty hunters?”

Bloody hell
. He’d escaped on a ship full of bounty hunters. If the IPC put a high enough price on his head, they’d turn him over in an instant.

Rian inclined his head. “Kind of, but not the way you’re thinking. We hunt aliens.”

Tannin laughed, and a full second passed before he stopped, because no one else seemed amused. In fact they were all staring at him with expressions varying in degrees of seriousness.

“Aliens? I’m sorry, I find that a bit hard to believe since aliens don’t exist. I never took you for a conspiracy theorist, Sherron.”

“You can laugh all you want, scumrat. I would never have believed it myself. Not until the war when the bastards captured my ship, the
Lone Cadence
. The Reidar killed the entire IPC crew—a hundred and seventeen people—and kept me locked up for months.”

“Aliens.” He sounded like an idiot repeating it, but he couldn’t help it. No matter that even Zahli nodded, he just couldn’t bring himself to believe Sherron’s words. Yet…the reports Zahli had wanted. The gaps in his military records, the three years they’d had him listed as KIA. Zahli mentioning that Rian had been
different
when he’d returned.

But aliens? While it made a twisted kind of horrific sense, he couldn’t quite wrap his mind around it.

“Wouldn’t the entire universe have worked out by now if aliens actually existed? And if they’re murdering whole ships worth of people, wouldn’t the IPC have done something about it?”

Rian shook his head. “People don’t want to know about the things that exist in the dark corners of the universe. And as for the IPC, who knows? They’re either living in ignorance or covering it up. But it doesn’t change what we do.”

“Which is hunt aliens.” Tannin tried, but he couldn’t keep the skepticism out of his voice.

Callan slapped his palm against the table. “This is a waste of time, Cap’tin. I doubt he can even do what he says anyway. Jezus, if Lianna can’t hack IPC data streams, why should we believe a piece of filth from Erebus can?”

“Give him a chance, Callan.” Zahli’s voice held a note of steel to it, chillingly similar to her brother. “I seem to remember you having trouble believing until one of them tried to take your head off.”

Tannin took a deep breath. Whatever was going on here, Rian had actually asked for his help. Well, not so much asked as demanded. But it meant he could stay onboard for the time being. Apart from the fact he’d get to spend more time with Zahli, he couldn’t imagine any better way to hide from the IPC than on the ship of a deranged war hero, whose name would make most officers defy orders before taking him on.

“All right, let’s say I believe you. I need more questions answered.”

Zahli nodded. “Of course. Go ahead.”

“What do these aliens look like?”

“They’re shape-shifters, so they look human. They can appear to be anyone. In fact, they could make themselves look like any of us.” Rian motioned to indicate the rest of the crew.

Tannin let his gaze run briefly around the table. “Then how do you know none of us are Reidar?”

“Truthfully? We don’t. But we know each other well enough that any inconsistencies personality-wise would be noticed,” Rian replied.

Tannin returned his gaze to Zahli. “So you’re taking a huge risk in trusting me.”

“This will be the first time we’ve allowed anyone new on a run in a few years,” Zahli confirmed.

“Yeah, it’s just been us for the past couple of years, and now we’ve managed to pick up two strays in a matter of days,” Callan muttered.

Callan’s grumbling caught his attention. “Two?”

Rian shot a glare at Callan. “Arnon Rance’s cargo wasn’t cargo. It was a woman. An Arynian priestess.”

A small bubble of shock rose within Tannin. He’d heard of slave-trade in far reaches of the galaxy, but never thought he’d see it for himself. “What do the Reidar want with her?”

“That’s what we want to find out, which is why you’re going to come with us and hack into Kasson Three’s data streams to see what we can discover. I’ve been searching for the Reidar’s base of operation since the Assimilation Wars, and I might have inadvertently found it.” Rian stood, shoving the chair back under the table. “But first, you’re going to give us a little demonstration. Just to make sure you’re not shamming us.”

“Because sneaking aboard in the first place and helping Lianna fix the virus wasn’t proof enough?” Tannin tried to keep the annoyance out of his tone as he got up and moved away from the table, but from the captain’s glare, he hadn’t succeeded.

Rian walked past, bumping a shoulder into his, the one that’d been knifed a few rotations ago. The impact made the still-tender injury throb. He resisted the urge to rub a palm over it, and with a scowl, turned to follow Rian out of the galley and up to the bridge. He was sure the ship’s systems and whatever ciphers Rian wanted him to hack would be as simple to unravel as he’d found others in the past. Hopefully his skills wouldn’t fail him now, otherwise he might be taking a fast trip out the
Imojenna’s
cargo hatch next time they hit void-space.

Chapter Ten

Z
ahli leaned against the outer side of Rian’s command console as Tannin moved swift fingers over the crystal display of Lianna’s co-pilot seat. Rian sat in his chair, reclining with one booted foot crossed over the other and a hand braced against his mouth as he watched Tannin work. Lianna stood just left of Tannin’s shoulder, leaning over slightly, shaking her head every now and then as she followed Tannin’s progress.

The bright Arleta sun shone in from the viewport, making some strands of Tannin’s black hair look almost blue. If he passed Rian’s little test, he’d be staying onboard for an indeterminate amount of time. Still, Tannin would spend his life a wanted man on the run. And if Rian got a hint of something between them, the next stab wound probably wouldn’t miss Tannin’s vital organs.

But the more time she spent around Tannin, the less she cared about those apparent obstacles. He was intelligent and caring. And so frecking sexy she thought maybe he’d be more than worth the risk of Rian’s wrath. There’d only be consequences if Rian actually
caught
them. On a ship this size, the likelihood of Rian finding out would be high, but her lust-soaked brain couldn’t muster much concern.

“Have you found the IPC ship yet?” Rian asked, breaking what had been a lengthy silence.

Tannin didn’t look up from the screen. “Finding the ship’s subspace data signal was easy. They’re set down only a few clicks from here. Far enough that the
Imojenna’s
proximity alert won’t be triggered, but close enough to monitor us. Hacking into their data stream is a whole different matter.”

“Lianna, are you following what he’s doing?”

Lianna stepped back and glanced over at Rian. “I was for about two seconds. Now I’m totally lost. His hacking skills are far beyond my understanding. He could be altering our primary systems, and I wouldn’t have a clue.”

Rian straightened. “You’re frecking kidding me—”

Zahli sighed. “Relax, Rian. Tannin’s not going to mess with the
Imojenna’s
systems, right?”

“Of course not. So long as certain people don’t stab me again.” Tannin cut her a sideways glance then returned to his work. She smiled, coughing over a laugh as Rian glared. Tannin must have been feeling better about things if he could make a joke at the expense of her brother.

There were a few more quiet minutes before Tannin sat back, a satisfied expression crossing his features. “So what do you want to know?”

“You’re in?” Lianna bent down to study the display.

Rian tapped his fingers on the edge of his console. “Can you find out whether or not Lieutenant Marshal Raleigh plans on following us once we leave here?”

Tannin ran through some information, the letters and numbers looking like gibberish to her until he pulled up some kind of message log.

“Raleigh has reported in several times to say nothing has raised his suspicions and the search didn’t turn up anything. He thinks you’re hiding something though. Actually, he thinks you killed me and left my body back on Erebus somewhere.”

Rian shrugged. “Disinformation and deflecting suspicion has always worked well for me in the past.”

“Raleigh requested a more thorough search on Erebus. He’s not going to follow us because he doesn’t think I’m aboard. Plus he’s eager to get home. He received this transmission in the middle of last night.” Tannin tabbed in a command and looked up at the viewport, where an image appeared of a naked woman, leaning arched against a wall in a provocative stance. Her blond hair looked brassy and obviously not natural, while her breasts were obscenely large. A tattoo encircled both nipples and ran down the center of her abdomen to curl about her belly button.

Ewww
.

Lianna made a face, which no doubt mirrored her own expression.

Rian gave a short laugh. “Naughty, naughty, Lieutenant Marshal.”

“Was it really necessary to put that up on the viewport?” Zahli frowned at Tannin, but he wasn’t looking at the provocative image. He stared at her, heat sparking in the depths of his green eyes. A flush started in her chest and radiated upward.

“Whoa baby, who’s the filthy vixen?” Callan asked, of course picking that moment to come up on the bridge. Sometimes Callan said the stupidest, sexist things, but then other times he could be surprisingly smart and insightful. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t work out if he really was such a chauvinist meat-head, or if it was all just an act.

“She’s a friend of Lieutenant Marshal Raleigh.” Rian turned and tapped his own crystal display, switching the image off.

Thank god
.

“Mind saving me a copy?” Callan reached for Rian’s screen but Rian shoved him back again.

“Down, Roarke.” Rian crossed his arms with a stern expression. “Did you have something to report?”

“Sen and I just got back from scouting. The
Dixie
took off a few minutes ago. Doesn’t look like Rance is sticking around for any reason.”

“All right then. Assuming we have no company, how long will it take us to get to Kasson Three?”

Lianna leaned over Tannin and brought up nav data. Tannin slipped out of her chair and let her sit down. Zahli watched as he moved around Rian’s console to stand next to her.

“Kasson Three is a fair stretch across the galaxy from here,” Lianna said as she put an interstellar chart up on the viewport. “We’re probably looking at least a couple of weeks in void-space. I initially charted a course without factoring in drop-outs for supplies. But, with regular stops, we could be looking at close to a month.”

Zahli studied the red dot flashing on Arleta, while a million stars away, their destination blinked in blue. Funny, but a month stuck on this ship didn’t sound as bad as it normally would. She glanced at Tannin and caught his gaze. He shifted closer until their shoulders brushed, a devilish smile tilting his lips.
Oh stars
… He was asking for trouble, tempting her into danger. She forced herself to glance away from him.

Rian frowned and opened a ship-wide comm channel.

“Sen, get your ass up to the bridge.” Rian pushed his hair back in an annoyed kind of way. “A month is too long. Even a few weeks isn’t going to be good enough.”

The sound of Jensen’s boot-steps on the stairs echoed a moment before he appeared in the bridge’s hatchway. “What’s wrong?”

Rian turned to face him. “Can the
Imojenna
withstand the molecular deconstruction and reintegration of wormhole travel?”

Zahli opened her mouth, but no words came out. Surely Rian wasn’t considering taking a Transit Gate to Kasson Three? Granted, it’d take a few minutes instead of a few weeks, but the
Imojenna
wasn’t exactly in peak condition, and trips through wormholes didn’t come cheap.

“You’re kidding, right?” Jensen shook his head when Rian didn’t answer, but stared at him expectantly. “The chances are fifty-fifty. She might handle it, but she might also break apart. For something like that, we’d need to upgrade to delta-class shielding.”

Rian rocked back in his chair. “How much will a delta-class shield cost?”

Jensen raised both eyebrows and then rubbed a hand across the back of his neck. “Legally? Thirty thousand credits or so. Illegally with hard currency, we might be able to get one for half that.”

Her brother had only done the most basic repairs and upgrades when they could spare the money for the past few years, and now he wanted to splash out for a shield to take a trip through a wormhole? Okay, so his fixation on the Reidar bordered on obsession, and she mostly accepted that, but this seemed extreme.

She cleared her throat to unfreeze her vocal chords. “Rian, a jump through a Transit Gate will cost a few thousand alone. Plus, we have no official documentation for the IPC field marshals regulating traffic through the gate system.”

Rian swiveled his chair away from them all and brought the ship online, something he always did when the decision had been made and he didn’t want any more input from them.

“We’ll head to the Rim to hand off the Grigorian liquor, and then I’ll review our situation. Zahli, take the scumrat down to my office and set him up at the display there. I want Raleigh’s ship monitored to make sure they don’t follow us.”

She straightened, tugging on Tannin’s sleeve. “Come on.”

Zahli cast one more glance at her brother, but he was doing a great job of pretending they all weren’t there. She sighed as she descended the half-dozen steps down from the bridge.

Tannin’s shoulder brushed hers as they passed by the common room and galley.

“Was it my imagination, or did he sound not so insulting when he called me
scumrat
this time?”

She glanced up at him, finding easy distraction in his presence. “It’ll probably end up sticking as a nickname, if you stay onboard.”

Tannin made a sour-lemon face. “God, I hope not.”

She smiled as she led him along the short length of passage to the captain’s quarters and into Rian’s office. Pausing by the hatchway, she put in the command that would lower the large screen viewer and then grabbed the remote commpad off the desk.

“Here, have you ever used one like this before?” She handed over the commpad and Tannin’s rough fingers brushed hers as he took it, sending a shiver along her spine.

Tannin didn’t seem to notice, tapping some commands into the hand-held device and then glancing up at the results displayed on the monitor. “No, but I’ll work it out quick enough.”

She stepped back, leaving him to his task as he moved a bit closer to the screen. Seating herself on the edge of the desk, she watched his features, the soft lights from the display playing over his face as he worked, fully absorbed in his undertaking. It seemed amazing to her that he could decipher anything out of the codes and lines of information scrolling across the screen. But somehow he navigated it, used it, and gleaned knowledge from the ciphers.

Tannin set the commpad against the screen and turned to her. “Ok, I’ve got a tag on Raleigh’s ship. If he moves, we’ll know about it.”

“And they can’t tell you’ve done that, they won’t know we’ve hacked their system?”

He walked over to stand in front of her. “If I’m as good as I think I am, no, they shouldn’t notice anything, unless someone goes looking really hard. But they’ve got no reason to do that.”

“They would if they knew they’d let the galaxy’s best hacker escape from their prison.”

Tannin shrugged and ducked his head, the self-conscious gesture charming her all the way to her toes. She could feel warmth radiating from him, smell the starchy scent of the ship’s sani-powder their clothes were washed in, and the creamy fragrance of the soap everyone had in their privy facilities. Yet on Tannin, it all seemed different, enticing, making her want to press up against him. He raised his deep green gaze and her breath caught because that look pierced her all the way to her soul. How could he make her feel like this from a single, searing stare?

His head titled and he moved nearer by gradual degrees. “Did you know you have freckles?”

Zahli rubbed a finger over her nose, self-consciousness pricking her. She’d been having a perfectly dreamy moment and he had to go and mention her damn freckles. “I hate them.”

He caught her fingers and wrapped his hand around hers, lowering it again. His chest brushed her as he got closer still. Warm vibrations burst to resonance beneath her sternum and rippled through her limbs until she all but tingled.

“I think they’re gorgeous. They make me want to—” He broke off, his breathing uneven as he looked down at her.

She could relate. She’d started having trouble finding enough air herself. “Make you want to what?”

His other hand cupped her cheek, angling her chin up a little. The intense memory of their last kiss, those few stolen moments of ecstasy, rushed at her and she braced a hand against the middle of his chest, stretching towards him.

“What’s the status on Raleigh’s ship?”

Zahli collided into the desk behind her as Tannin dropped his hand and turned to where Rian stood just inside the office door.
Damn Rian
. He had the worst timing. And so much for him not finding out about Tannin and her.

Rian crossed his arms and glared at Tannin with the expression he usually used to scare the crap out of people who didn’t know him. The one that said
if I find you alone, you’re a dead man
. But the lethal glower was just swaggering bravado… Most of the time.

Tannin cleared his throat and turned to the viewer. “I’ve got a binary tag on Raleigh’s ship. If he moves, I’ll know about it.”

“Good. Now mind giving me a few moments alone with my sister?”

Tannin looked back at her, a mixture of concern and frustration crossing his features.

“Its fine, Tannin. It’s my turn to cook tonight anyway.” She squeezed his hand reassuringly as she passed. If Rian wanted to lecture her, then he could damn well follow her.

Rian’s heavy footsteps trailed along behind her, but he remained silent as they walked into the galley. The empty galley.
Damn
. Usually she could have counted on at least one of the crew hanging around, but not today.

“You know there are several problems here, don’t you?” Rian’s tone bordered on condescending, making the aggravation within her coil tighter.

After stomping over to the cold storage compartment, she wrenched open the door to see what she could use for dinner. “I’m sure you’re going to tell me all about it.”

“You know I have rules about fraternization between crew. And you’re my sister. You, more than anyone, I expect to adhere to this.”

She pulled out the leftover beef bones from the night before and the remaining vegetables. It’d have to be soup tonight.

“Since Tannin isn’t a member of the crew, your argument is flawed.”

Rian’s jaw clenched. “Fine, I’ll rephrase that to inter-personnel relationships onboard my ship. And you don’t know anything about him. He’s a convicted criminal.”

She opened her mouth to argue, but Rian held up a hand.

“Yes, I know, he wasn’t guilty of the crime they committed him for. But he’s spent the past twelve years living on a prison planet. Who knows what he might be hiding?”