Dremiks (54 page)

After he filled Dr. Fortunas in on their findings, the decoded transmissions, and the assumptions they’d reached, the captain paused. “Do you have any other suggestions?”

“Only that you should be worrying about your personal safety too. Ryan has access to weapons and other means of assassination. Of that, we’re unfortunately sure. He’s going to keep trying to neutralize you two and the threat he perceives from the
Hudson
‘s crew.”

“This thing is ready to go. I’ll go grab Cassie and Marissa. We’re getting off this planet, ASAP. Could you please get the engines warmed up, Captain?” She looked at Fortunas. “You’ll be ok here, alone, on the planet?”

“I’ll be fine, Margaret.” Dr. Fortunas rose as she departed. The captain stepped in front of him and grabbed his arm.

Ben looked down at the captain’s hand and purposely tensed his muscles. Brett dropped his hand, but not his aggressive posture. “After this is over, we’re going to have a long talk about your deception, particularly the fact that you continued with it even after the first attempt on her life.”

“After this is over, you will return to Earth with your ship and Margaret, and I can get on with my life. My debt will be paid, as sickeningly gothic as that sounds. I told you, I look out for myself first, now. I’m not going back to Earth, and I’m damned sure not letting your sniveling coward of a brother ruin my chance for a new beginning.”

***

Maggie walked into a chaotic medical station. Johnson and Lewis were hunched over a patient, shouting orders back and forth to each other. She had to shout three times to get their attention.

“Hey! What the hell is going on? Where’s... Oh, shit.” Lewis had moved enough for Maggie to see the face of his moaning patient. Marissa Hill gripped the sides of the bed in white knuckled agony.

“Where’s Doctor Ruger?” Johnson jabbed a syringe into Marissa’s arm while he snapped his question.

“What do you
mean
where’s Doctor Ruger? She’s not here? What the hell is going on?” She whipped her head back and forth. “Never mind. I’ll find Cassie. Do
not
let her deliver that baby!”

Lewis gaped at his co-worker as the commander stepped outside. “How are we supposed to do that?”

***

Ryan Hill watched Dr. Ruger struggle back to consciousness. Her eyes flicked open and immediately shut again. She groaned. He saw her leg and arm muscles tense as she took a physical inventory of her state. She groaned again.

“Hurts, doesn’t it, Doctor? Stun drugs have some nasty side-effects. You might want to lie still. Don’t die, though. I need you.”

Cassie didn’t make the mistake of opening her eyes again. She concentrated on controlling her breathing and staying very still. She knew that moving would cause the latent drugs to make her muscles spasm again. The floor of the hut was hard, helping to keep her uncomfortable enough to stay awake. She hoped, if she stayed quiet long enough, Ryan would grow bored and start talking.

He didn’t disappoint.

“So kind of you to come running right into my little trap. I find it interesting that a woman so obviously intelligent about medicine can be so completely clueless about human motivations. Do you even realize how thoroughly your roommate and your lover have deceived you?”

Cassie licked her lips and winced at how dry her mouth was. “Do I need to be here for this monologue? Because, really, I’d prefer to just go back to the ship.”

He chuckled, if it was possible to call the mirthless sound he made a chuckle. “You’re not going anywhere, doctor. Even if those drugs wear off faster than they should, and I used a double dose just for the sheer pleasure of it, you’ll find the doors sealed with my personal code. Which I will not let you talk me into revealing. You have work to do right here on the surface.”

She processed that bit of information and stored it for later. “So, what, you brought me here to try out your amazing rhetorical skills? Or do you prefer your women helpless and nauseated?”

That quip bought her a swift, booted, kick to her ribs. Unable to control her breathing or the instinctive need to roll away from the pain, Cassie yelped and gagged as a fresh rush of nausea washed over her. The younger Hill brother watched her dispassionately. When she stopped retching and rolled again onto her back, he sat down in the nearby folding chair.

“As I was saying, I have work for you to do. Now I have all the leverage I need. My dear brother has to come to your rescue in order to save Marissa. You see, I gave her a very large dose of labor-inducing pitocin before luring you here. By the time they realize that I have you, and negotiate your release, she’ll be ready to deliver. Brett won’t take her to the
Hudson
without a doctor and you won’t let them move her once she’s delivering.”

Cassie lay on the floor of the hut, eyes closed, horrified, but thinking.

“If you think your duty-bound, puritanical, brother is going to trade one civilian doctor for the future of an entire planet, even at the risk of your traitorous bitch of a wife dying, you are a colossal fool.”

When Ryan leapt to his feet and aimed another kick at her, this one to her head, Cassie was ready. She rolled toward him, into the space between his outstretched leg and the foot he planted for balance. With a gulp of air, she sat up and punched Ryan Hill in the groin as hard as she could. The effort made her head swim and her kicked ribs scream in agony. She flopped over and retched again. She felt Hill fall behind her and heard him begin to dry heave.

Captain Hill and Doctor Fortunas chose that minute to override the door codes and barge in. They stopped to process the image of both the room’s occupants lying prone and puking. Try as he might, Brett couldn’t be totally unconcerned for his brother. Ryan turned blue in the face. With a tortured sigh, the captain turned to the medic and armed military crew behind him. “Better take him to sick-bay first. See what Johnson can do for him before we take him up to the
Hudson
.”

While the armed rescue party surged around them, Ben knelt beside Cassie. He turned his head to watch Ryan being carried out. Catching the captain’s eye, the scientist grinned. “My pixie has claws.”

“So it seems.” Worried, Captain Hill asked, “Will she be able to move?”

Cassie didn’t bother trying to sit up. She lay curled in a ball, clutching her sore ribs, cursing Ryan Hill, and questioning his parentage.

“Easy there. That’s my mother, too, you’re talking about.” Brett watched Fortunas gently lift the doctor’s head onto his lap. “I’m going to check on Marissa and O’Connell. We need Ruger back in the medical hut as soon as she can walk.”

Ben nodded his understanding while he focused on Cassie. “Stupid woman. What were you thinking running in here all alone?” His fingers softly brushed her hair back from her face, belying the harshness of his words.

“You came.”

His white eyebrows drew together as he frowned. “Of course I came. Margaret was screaming orders at me over two different com-channels. Now, hush and let this pain killer take effect.”

She stared up at him, confused, and trying not to throw up whatever might have been left in her stomach. He smiled and stared right back, still stroking her hair and cradling her head in his lap. “Don’t go to sleep just yet, liebchen. You have a baby to deliver and a planet to save.”

“Oh, nothing pressing then.”

“Just a typical day for the bravest little pixie in the universe.”

Chapter 32

Head swimming with exhaustion, ribs aching with pain, eyes brimming with tears, Cassie Ruger turned away from her patient and stumbled out of the Quonset hut. She blinked against the artificial lighting inside the dome. Outside the protective enclosure, the night sky of Dremiks was bright with stars. She jumped when Ben’s arms folded around her shoulders.

“You shouldn’t be out here alone, liebchen.”

“Does it really matter, now?”

He didn’t have an answer for that, so, he kissed the top of her head. They stood in silence, watching falling stars streak downward.

“What’s today’s date? On Earth, I mean?”

Ben thought for a minute. “November third, Greenwich time, I believe.”

“I suppose that date just became a very important one for human history.”

“How is the child?”

Cassie sighed. “Beautiful. She’s thirty-five weeks gestational age. She’s slightly smaller than I am comfortable with, and her lungs will need careful care. They are the last things to develop, you know.” She felt his nod against the crown of her head. “On Earth, I would give her health an excellent outlook. Here….”

“And Marissa?”

“Dying.” Cassie bit her tongue to stop herself from sobbing. “The stroke was in her brain stem. The machines are the only things keeping her heart and lungs working. That bastard gave her too much pitocin. She contracted so hard her uterus ruptured and her heart failed. It was so terrifying, Ben. I
had
to do the c-section. They both would have died if I hadn’t.”

“No one doubts that you did everything you could.”

She spun and slammed a fist against his chest. “I shouldn’t have had to! There was no reason for this! Ryan Hill should be charged with his wife’s
murder!
“

“Shh, liebchen. Calm down.” He rubbed her back. “Come back inside. I promised Margaret I would keep you safe.”

“Call them. Tell them what he’s done to his wife. What he’s done to us all.”

***

“Where is she?” The hatch was still swinging shut behind Swede as he barked the question. The captain rose from behind his desk and walked to the inset shelving along his office wall. He filled two glasses with amber liquid and handed one to the lieutenant before answering.

“She’s in there.” With a short jerk of his head he indicated the private area of his quarters. He watched the lieutenant’s shoulders bunch. While he waved the other man to a seat, Hill rolled his eyes. “Relax, you overgrown Doberman. It was her idea. She refuses to be out of earshot. Supposedly that assures her that I won’t go beat Ryan to a bloody pulp. At least she can get some sleep while I get some work done.”

Swede sipped the bourbon, letting the oaky flavor roll over his tongue and softly burn his throat. He raised the glass. “Some of Nate’s stash?”

Hill shook his head. “Young Mr. Robertson isn’t the only one with a taste for fine alcohol. This is
my
stash.”

Swede looked over the rim of his glass and considered his commanding officer. “How are you, sir?”

Brett looked into his own glass as he spoke. “You know Marissa was once my fiancee?”

“Worst kept secret on the ship, sir.”

That comment brought a crooked grin to the captain’s face.

“Do you still love her?”

“No.” He shook his head. “Not unless pity counts as love. I was in love with the ideal of her, not the person she truly is. Was.” He winced and refilled his glass. “Which is ironic, since
she
was apparently infatuated with the man she thought I was—someone cold, calculating, focused, motivated by career ambition.” Brett saw Swede blink. “I know. Oddly, it took her betrayal to turn me into the man she wanted all along.” He shrugged in self-deprecation. “That was a long time ago. I learned my lesson—the hard way, to be sure.” He took a gulp of the bourbon, relished the burn in his throat. “That doesn’t mean I won’t hold Ryan accountable for her death.”

The door to his sleeping quarters slid open. “Hullo, you two. I thought I heard voices.”

Swede rose as Maggie walked into the room.

“It’s not my fault, Swede. I swear all I did was—oomph!” Maggie’s frantic assertions of innocence were cut off as her face crushed against Swede’s chest. One large hand cupped the back of her head while the other splayed across her middle back. Swede bent his neck and rested his cheek against the springy curls atop her head.

“I know. Thank you for getting the captain, and yourself, out of there alive.”

Maggie smiled at his words. She was enjoying the hug but didn’t need him thinking she was going soft. She wriggled with feigned impatience, and he let her go.

“I’m really ok, you know. Just a few scratches.”

He looked down at her. His fair features betrayed no hint of whatever he was thinking. She shifted her weight. Her eyes narrowed.

“So, uh, you know…. nothing to fret over. No need to check up on me. All’s well.”

He waited. He was tired. He’d been so worried all day, stuck on the ship with no ability to help those on the surface. A stress headache lurked, waiting to cripple him. Assured with his tired eyes that she was, in fact, ok, all Swede wanted now was a dark room and a bed. He waited, though, curious and wondering if she would actually say the words. He was acutely aware of the captain watching them from behind his desk.

Her red head dipped. She chewed on her lip for a second before lifting her chin. A soft little smile flitted across her face. “Thank you, for caring.”

Swede picked up his glass, emptied it with one drink, and nodded to his captain. “With your permission, sir. It’s been a long day.”

“They aren’t likely to get any easier. Dismissed, Lieutenant.” He watched the engineer leave before standing. Walking around his desk, he placed his hand in the small of O’Connell’s back and pushed gently. “We need to talk, Maggie.”

“Why?” She whispered the word, sounding far more meek than she felt. She should feel trapped, hemmed in, another pawn in yet another stupid power game. Yet, she felt free. Free, happy, uninhibited and she couldn’t understand why.

Confused. That’ll do. I’m confused.

Brett made a sound that should have been a grumble of frustration, but it sounded far too much like a growl—the barely contained growl of a predator seconds before it pounced. Self-preservation warred with the curiosity born of confusion. The seconds that elapsed while she struggled to decide which emotion to respond to, passed too quickly.

He was standing right in front of her, invading her personal space as if such a concept was foreign to him. He wasn’t calm and collected, snidely sarcastic, or completely in control. He was, one look at his face showed her before her eyes skittered away, reveling in being
free
of control.