Atrophy (26 page)

Chapter Twenty-Two

“S
en says the delta-shield is all ready to go.”

Tannin looked up from the newsreel he’d been reading on his commpad and saw Rian crossing the galley, stopping in front of the coldstore and helping himself to a bottle of water. Tannin had seen some bad injuries over his years living on Erebus, seen men die, killed,
slaughtered
. Yet, he’d never seen someone come back from a wound like Rian had.

What Ella had done was nothing short of amazing. And just a few hours later, here Rian stood, walking around as if nothing had happened.

Rian twisted the top off the bottle and paused by the galley bench to take a long swallow, some of the water overflowing and tracking down his neck into the collar of his shirt.

“What’s the plan?” he asked as the captain came over to the table and set the half empty bottle down then dropped into a seat.

“As long as you and Callan are sure all the authorization codes are set, we’ll be heading to Kasson Three within the hour.”

Tannin turned off his commpad and leaned forward, bracing his elbows against the table. “And what about when we get there?”

“Hack the space station’s systems and get us information.”

He nodded, since he already knew as much. “What exactly am I looking for?”

Rian shrugged and took another quick drink. “I don’t know. Anything useful.”

Unable to help himself, he coughed out a laugh. “You know how complicated it is to navigate data streams? Even when I know what I’m looking for, it’s like trying to organize atoms in a molecular cloud. Unless you’ve got something specific for me to look for, this will be a waste of time. Besides, I don’t know what will happen once I actually get into their system. I may only have a minute or two to get what you want before they take action.”

Rian frowned, crossing an ankle over his knee and bracing an elbow against it.

“Isn’t there some way you could just take whole heap of information, so we can make a quick getaway and then sort through it later?”

Tannin’s mind ran through some possibilities and he nodded. “I could do a hard rip. They’d know we were in as soon as we got there, but I’d only need a split second to cipher off a whole chunk of their system’s data. But it’s risky. We could hit pay dirt, or we could get the laundry schedule. We won’t know until later, and I doubt we’ll get a second go at it.”

Rian tossed the empty water bottle in the waste chute. “If I know the Reidar, they’ll be trying to blast us out of space as soon as we get anywhere near Kasson Three. If we make it back alive, I’ll take whatever you can get me. Launch is in five minutes. I want you up on bridge.”

Cold apprehension warred with heated aggravation as Tannin watched Rian walk out. He hadn’t mentioned anything about the possibility of getting blown up. Standing, he shoved his commpad in his pocket and went down to where Zahli was tidying up the guest room Graydon had stayed in. As he walked in, she was pulling blankets from the bed.

Stopping in the doorway, he leaned against the metal framework. “When I decided I wanted to join the crew, I didn’t realize that entailed putting myself at risk of getting blown into tiny pieces.”

She looked over her shoulder at him, but didn’t pause as she stripped the pillowcases. “Rian’s always threatening to blow people up. What did you do now?”

He laughed and moved farther into the room, catching her hips as she bent over, his mind speeding onto all sorts of interesting possibilities.

“Why do you assume I’m at fault?”

Turning in his embrace, she placed a hand against his chest, pushing him back a step.

“Because Rian’s the captain and what he says goes, whether we like it or not.” She stepped past him, gathered up the sheets, and took them over to the laundry chute.

“Well, this time I’m not talking about me personally, I’m talking about all of us. Did he tell you the Reidar are likely to attack as soon as we get anywhere near Kasson Three?”

She sighed as she turned back to him. “It wouldn’t be the first time. I’m starting to get immune to it, actually. Why do you think we had to make that emergency landing on Erebus? I know this ship might seem like a junker, but there’s a reason Rian chose her, and that’s because there’s never been another ship designed to outmaneuver and outrun weapon fire like the Nirali class.”

Tannin thought back to some of what he’d read on the ship’s specs. “Because they were used as a supply runner during the Assimilation Wars. I suppose they wouldn’t have been very effective if they were always getting blown out of the sky.”

She walked back toward him, hips swinging, and a heated gleam in her dark blue eyes. “So how long do we have until imminent death?”

He caught her up against him, groaning as she laced her fingers though his hair, nails scraping over his scalp, making him shudder.

“Not long enough. Rian’s expecting me on bridge. I should have been there two minutes ago. He’ll be down here with weapons drawn any second if I’m not.”

Leaning against him, she pulled him down and caught his mouth in a swift, intense kiss, nipping at his lower lip with her teeth. That alone almost made him forget why he couldn’t push her onto the bed and spend the rest of the day naked with her.

The ship’s comm chimed. “Scumrat, get your ass on bridge. We’re launching in ten seconds.” Rian’s voice cut out and Tannin pulled away, blowing out a deep sigh.

He let her go and stepped back with reluctance. “Just remember where we were up to for later.”

“I don’t think I’m likely to forget.” She blew him a kiss as he backed out the door.

No
. He wouldn’t be forgetting either. No matter what happened from here on out, his life would never be the same for having known Zahli. She made him want things he couldn’t even think of, especially considering—according to Rian anyway—there was a good chance they were about to be obliterated.

He arrived on the bridge just as the
Imojenna
lifted off the ground, its heavy-atmosphere engines making the ship shimmy. Rian stood in front of the viewport, arms crossed, feet braced wide, while Lianna sat in the captain’s chair.

“Get set up at the co-pilot’s station,” Rian said without turning, as Tetsu’s landmass shrunk away with rapidly gathering speed.

Tannin dropped into the chair, swiveling it a little as he brought the crystal display to life and navigated the ship’s receiver to make it ready for the data rip. As soon as Rian gave the word, the Imojenna’s subspace binary transfer system would tear a good sized chunk in Kasson Three’s data stream.

“I’m logging our travel plans with the transit gate authorities now,” Lianna reported, but then made an annoyed noise. “Gate authority is telling me Kasson Three’s Gate has been decommissioned because of the black hole. Deemed too dangerous for travel.”

Rian turned from the viewport and went to stand next to her, leaning over to look at the display. “I suspected they might. What’s the closest gate?”

She brought up navs across the viewport showing that region of space. “The nearest gate is in orbit around Chal. It’ll take us a bit over an hour on sublight engines to reach Kasson Three after that.”

Rian straightened. “Take us through, then. You can stand down for now, scumrat.”

“Sure, sounds great.” Just what he wanted. To live at Rian’s beck and call. Leaving the program open and ready just in case, he swiveled back around, but Rian nodded, indicating for him to stay where he was.

“I thought you should know, both the contact who talked with Quaine and your old friend have disappeared.” Rian braced a foot against the bottom of the co-pilot’s console and hooked a hand onto his belt.

Tannin didn’t want to care. He’d cut himself off from that life and had spent too many years hating Quaine—even though he hadn’t been the one who’d murdered Broc. The Reidar had probably found out he’d been talking and had him killed.

Okay, yeah, he did feel bad that his escape and Rian’s poking around in old business might have caused Quaine’s death, especially if he was as much a victim of the Reidar.

“And you’re telling me because…?”

Rian shrugged. “Thought you might be interested. Last report I got said Quaine had decided to head back to Barasa. I haven’t heard anything from my contact since they arrived on your old homeworld.”

“So this contact of yours, we can assume you got them killed, too? What are you going to do about it?”

Rian raised a brow. “Why do you think we should do anything about it? He knew the risks.”

Rian’s callous attitude pissed him off and anger burned through him, making him forget why he should be wary.

“When you say stuff like that, it makes me wonder why I agreed to help you. It makes me think if I got killed, you’d be like
oh well. Now where can I get another tech analyst so I can get him slaughtered, too?
”

Rian’s lips twitched, but his somber expression didn’t alter. “Keep your pants on, sweetheart. Once we get whatever information we can from Kasson Three, we’ll head to Barasa and see what we can find out.”

Tannin deflated a bit, since that’d been about the last thing he’d expected Rian to say. “Well, okay. Since you’re not going to need me for a while, I’ll finish reading the newsreel I downloaded.”

The captain didn’t say anything else to him as he headed to the galley and dropped onto the couch. Nearly an hour went by before footsteps caught his attention and he looked up to see Zahli cross the common room.

“What are you up to?” he asked as she passed the dining table.

“Somehow, I got roped into making dinner again. Lianna always reminds me of the beef-pot-surprise incident, and next thing I’m agreeing to take on her galley duties for a month.”

She walked up to the couch and took a small leap, landing across his stomach with a knee either side of him. He grunted as he took her weight, catching her hands when she would have groped him in places he usually wouldn’t have argued over, but the common room wasn’t the location to be getting into something like that.

“Right, you’re cooking dinner. Can’t say I’ve ever seen it done quite like this before.”

She leaned toward him, rocking back a little at the same time, sending bursts of starlight sizzling through his veins. “Dinner later. Tannin first.”

Her mouth landed on his, though he may have reached up to meet her; he wasn’t sure by that point. A firestorm erupted, getting him high from the simple pleasure of the slight weight of her body and the movement of her lips and tongue against his.

He clenched his hands almost convulsively on her hips, needing to be inside her. She trailed a line of teasing kisses over his jaw and down his neck, flicking open the top two studs on his shirt.

He swallowed down his desperation. “You should stop. Right now, before this gets out of hand.”

She gave a low laugh, her breath warm against his collarbone.

“Me? I’m not doing anything. You’re holding me down.” She wiggled her hips as if to highlight the tight grip he had on her.

Another stud on his shirt flipped open and she grazed her teeth over his skin, making him groan. “I’m serious, Zahli.”

“I know, you
feel
very serious.” She undulated against him, a long stroke along the length of his erection and the firestorm turned into a full, white-hot volcano. “Don’t worry, I locked the galley hatch.”

The temptation proved too much. With a growl, he flipped them over, putting her beneath him on the soft couch cushions, then kneeled up to rip his shirt the rest of the way off. Her supple hands came to rest against his chest as he dropped down again. He parted her legs with a knee and shoved his hips up against her. She moaned at the contact of his erection against her center, though clothes still separated them from what he really wanted to be doing.

Her hand slipped around to his back, running up his spine and then down, all the way to his ass, where she dug her fingers in and pulled him harder into her, making him groan.

He kissed her greedily, drinking in every little sigh and moan she made, his hands measuring her sweet curves until they were permanently imprinted on his brain. He felt her tug on his belt buckle, heard the soft clinking as she released the catch, but he couldn’t stop kissing her, couldn’t stop from slipping his arm beneath her lower back and arching her higher toward him.

His fingers found the hem of her T-shirt and slipped under the fabric along the smooth line of her stomach. Cupping her breast, he tugged the edge of her bra to brush a finger over her nipple, drawing out a deep moan from her. He imagined doing the same thing with his tongue and he burned all over—until he felt the cold, blunt end of a gun shoved into the side of his head.

“Make one more move and I’ll blow your goddamn frecking head off.”

Tannin’s breath slammed to a halt, his lungs seizing. Looking up, he met the psychotically pissed off glare of Zahli’s brother, and the nucleon gun got pushed harder against his temple.

Zahli gasped and pulled her T-shirt back down. “Rian—”

“Get off her
. Right now
.” Rian spoke right over her, his burning gaze never wavering.

Holding his hands out, Tannin climbed off Zahli and backed a couple of steps away from the couch.
So much for the bloody door being locked
.

“Rian, don’t you dare hurt him.”

Zahli jumped up and put herself between them, making him more terrified that she’d put herself in harm’s way, than the fact Rian seemed about ready to murder him. He grabbed her shoulders and shoved her behind him, holding her there with some difficulty when she tried to get back around him. She might have total confidence in her brother, but he didn’t trust Rian, not when he was this enraged. She could end up caught in the crossfire. And that thought inflated his own anger.

“What is your problem, Sherron?”

Rian’s expression altered so now he looked furious and incredulous. “What’s my
problem
? I don’t know. Could it be that I just walked in here to find you half naked and all over my goddamn sister?”

“Since I didn’t hear Zahli complaining, I don’t see how that’s any of your business. In fact, I’m pretty sure last time we did this she screamed
oh god, yes
.”