Prime Obsession (5 page)

* * * *

Galanti Engine room

“Wulf, get over here!”

Iolyn’s voice roused him from a light nap. Wulf approached the station where his two brothers had been working on the tunnel trap overrides. Maren now stood with them.

Concern—and something akin to fear—etched all three men’s faces.

“What’s the problem? Another pirate in the tunnels?”

“No, your
gemate
is in the tunnels!” Iolyn said.

“What?”
Wulf shoved his brothers out of the way and stared at the screens.

Muttering all the gutter Prime he knew, he glared at the monitor. A slender, raven-haired female clothed in a tattered Alliance Military Command flight suit with a breathing unit covering her face emerged from one of the deceptively milder traps. She approached a dead pirate, an Erian. She had a knife in one hand and a laser pistol in the other. An Erian’s bile-colored blood dripped off the knife.

“What does she think she is doing?” he growled, slamming his fist on the desk. “And why is she carrying a bloody knife?”

She looked so small, so fragile—so easy to kill. This was not how he wanted his first look at her to be.

“She’s doing her job,” Maren said, cutting through Wulf’s shock and anger. “And the cameras seem to be out in the earlier sections of the tunnel. We don’t have surveillance on the docking bay and any of the tunnels leading into it. She must have entered there.”

Wulf ignored Maren’s calm tone. His tunnel vision could not get past Maren’s earlier words. “Her job?”

The older man clarified his earlier comment for Wulf as if he were an infant learning his numbers. “Coming to the aid of a ship attacked by pirates.
Her job
.”

“You think this is funny, Maren?” Wulf all but growled at his mentor, the man who was more a father to him than his own. “Your niece. My future wife. The mother-to-be of my heirs, who will in turn be future leaders of the Prime people, is crawling through a death trap and you are smiling?”

Maren’s eyes glinted. “You need to see Melina this way. This is her job. She is a warrior just as you or your brothers. Watch and observe. It may give you insight into her character.” Maren turned to leave, then hesitated. “You might think about how you will aid your warrior
gemate
in doing her duty.”

“Why is she the one in the tunnel? Where are her men? And why in Balcon’s balls don’t we have communication with her? I am sure she must’ve tried to hail us once she reached the ship.” Wulf beat on the blackened monitor that should’ve revealed the docking bay and its maintenance tunnels. The battle or the traitors had knocked out all eyes and ears in that strategic zone.

“She is sacrificing only herself,” Huw stated. “It is what she would do. She wouldn’t allow her men to fight the bastard Parker on Tooh 2—and he was your size, Wulf. The top of her head would only come to your mid-chest.”

“That’s supposed to make sense—or make me feel better about this situation? She is a woman,” Wulf said, then muttered, “and my
gemate
.”

“Brother, you are thinking as a Prime male with a traditional Prime female. Melina is not typical anything,” Huw offered.

Easy for his brother to say, it wasn’t his
gemate
in the deadly tunnels.

Muttering dire imprecations, Wulf shoved his brothers out of the way once again and shut down all the traps he could control between her current position and the engine room. The three most deadly, the last three in the final approaches to the engine room access, were still active and would be until Iolyn programmed around them.

“Huw, rearm the traps as she goes past them. We don’t want anyone chancing into the tunnels behind her.”

“What about shutting off the countdown?” Maren suggested.

“Yes. She is here. I will not risk her dying, not after she has come this far.” Wulf’s lips thinned.
She has to live so I can blister her ears for endangering herself.
“Iolyn, how far have you progressed in reprogramming the final three traps?”

“I almost have the one immediately outside the engine room back under control. But haven’t even started on the other two,” his brother admitted. Iolyn’s face was pale with dread for Melina.

Wulf smothered his fiery fear and anger at the situation under a layer of icy control.

He would not lose Melina. Not now. She was here on his ship. So close.

“Get communication back on in the section right before the first of the uncontrolled traps. She is small enough, she might be able to slither through those two traps with help.”

Wulf knew that all the traps on the ship were aimed at larger male bodies, probably short-sighted of his people, but they had never expected women warriors. The traps were a matter of timing and balance. He could talk her through them if he could contact her.

His brother followed his train of thoughts. “But what about the last one? No one could shimmy through it, not even Melina.”

“I’ll throw my body in front of the laser-array if I have to,” Wulf growled. “She will not die.”

“But you would,” Maren stated.

Wulf stared at his mentor. “And she would live. That’s all that is important.”

* * * *

Mel paused to catch her breath. The first two levels had had no traps, but she’d killed an Erian pirate who’d heard her crawling through the tunnel over a hallway. The only thing that had made the kill easy was the fact the pirate had gotten stuck trying to crawl into the tunnel. She slit the main artery to his brain and left him bleeding to death, hanging half in and half out of the tunnel access.

She kept her knife close at hand after that. Her laser pistol was in her other hand for the non-Erian brand of pirates.

A hissing sound ahead slowed her approach. Eyeing the camera lenses that were spaced every fifty meters or so, she saw that the one just ahead of her indicated a live feed. Finally! She breathed a sigh of relief. Maybe now she could communicate with the Prime. She had a sneaking suspicion her luck on finding no trapping mechanisms would run out sooner rather than later.

“Can anyone hear me?” She repeated the message in Prime just in case the ears on the other end were not multilingual.

Some static came across the speakers in the tunnel. “…watch … not…” Well, that was damn-frigging-fabulous. They had internal communications issues, also.

Approaching the turn in the tunnel with a great deal of caution, she stopped right before the junction. The hissing noise now sounded as if a dozen snakes had made a home in the maintenance tunnel.

Peering around the corner, she spotted a large Erian. The hissing came from him.

He’d been severely injured by the trap. Too bad he wasn’t dead.

Damn, she really hated Erians! They reminded her too much of Antareans.

She eased around the corner and remained just out of his reach. And Erians had very long arms. Just another black mark against them in her book. How was she going to get past the bastard?

“What are you looking at, human bitch?” hissed the injured male.

“You, lizard-bastard,” she stated in a calmly dismissive manner. “Looks like you got caught in the trap.”

“Yes-s-s-s,” he slurred in a low, ugly sibilant tone. “They turned it off right before you approached.”

“That was nice of them.” She smiled at the camera and gave them a finger wave.

“Guess I’ll just have to put you out of your misery then.”

“Try it.” The Erian flicked his long forked tongue over the seam that served as his mouth. “You look tasty. I could use some blood and protein—I heal faster that way.”
Damn
. Some of the pseudo-reptilian species, pseudo since they walked upright like humanoids, replicated injured body parts if they could stay alive long enough. She would have to make sure that this one failed in the basic biological feat.

Mel examined the Erian, who stared at her with menace in his slitty yellow eyes. The trap had cut him in many places in a cross-hatch fashion. Timing and size would have gotten her through, but she was glad she didn’t have to chance it. Now, she just had to get to the Erian and slit his throat before he touched her. Even bleeding and weak he could overpower her.

“What do you think, human bitch?” The Erian struggled to get up, but only made it to his hands and knees. He still presented a large obstacle. “You think you can get past me?”

She held up her dripping knife. The blood on it was yellow-green. “I just took care of one of your brethren. He’s dead. So, yeah, I think I can.” The Erian smiled, which made his already ugly face look downright monstrous. He flicked his long tongue across his lipless mouth. “I’ve always wanted to taste me a human bitch. Too bad you won’t live long enough to be my pet. I fuck really good.” He thrust his pelvis forward, his spiked penis fully aroused.

“Watch what you let hang out, lizard,” she snarled. “It’ll get cut off.” To demonstrate, she aimed her laser at his sex organ and seared it off. He would not live long enough to regenerate it. Lasers might not work on their thick epidermis but soft tissue was fair game.

The Erian roared his anguish and fell back to the deck, cradling the area where his sex organ used to be.

Estimating that the tunnel here was ten feet high, she ran toward the downed Erian at full speed. Right before she reached him, she leapt into the air, tucked and rolled, reaching out with her knife hand to slit his throat as she passed over him. Landing on her feet, she sprinted down the next corridor. The satisfying sound of a dying gurgle followed her into the next turn, followed by the bang-and-crash of the trap.

The Prime had witnessed her passage and rearmed the trap. Even if she’d missed slitting the Erian’s throat properly, the trap would efficiently finish the lizard off. Her back trail was covered.

“Thanks,” she said loudly, not sure where or how sensitive the microphones were in the tunnel.

“You’re welcome, Melina.”

She recognized that voice. It wasn’t the male that had issued the distress call, but she had met the man on Tooh 2.

“Iolyn? Huw?” She smiled at the live camera to her right.

“It’s Iolyn, Melina. Welcome on board the
Galanti
.”

“Glad I could make it. What’s it look like ahead?”

“Trouble,” growled a low, unknown male voice.

Well, not exactly unknown. That was the voice on the distress call. And as it had on the jump station, the voice sent fingers of heat throughout her body. She forced back a low moan as she rubbed at her hip. Heat like she’d never experienced radiated from the marking she’d had for as far back as she could remember. Her birthmark, as her mother had always called it.

“Who’s that?” She frowned, shaking off the unusual sensations caused by the unknown speaker. “What kind of trouble? Trap or pirate?”
Or you?

“Me,” rumbled the same male.

Mel gulped. That was what she’d been afraid of. Damn, her extra senses were really working spot-on this trip.

“Melina,” Iolyn said, his voice practically drenched with suppressed amusement.

“Meet my brother, Wulf. He is the captain of this ship.”

“Iolyn, he doesn’t sound very grateful that I’m here to help rid his ship of pirates.”

“You should have sent one of your men,” snarled Wulf. “This is no place for a woman.”

Mel sighed and bit back the harsh retort. Okay, sexy-to-die-for voice in the body of a male chauvinist. Well, no one ever promised allying with the Prime military would be easy. Alliance female soldiers would just have to prove themselves. Beginning with her.

“Sorry, Captain.”
Not.
“But I’m the only one who speaks or reads Prime.” She started forward once more, found the Prime words for the engine room and followed the correct tunnel. “Besides, I couldn’t risk my men. By the way, I do hope you’ve turned off the self-destruct. There are now two squadrons of Alliance battlecruisers lying immediately outside the danger zone waiting for the all clear.”

“Can you give it now?” Wulf’s voice was calmer, not as snarly and filled with anger as before.

She wasn’t sure why she could read this man’s moods so easily, but she could. And why in the hell did it make her feel calm that he was calm? She’d never made it a practice to worry about any man’s moods.

“There’s something blocking external communications,” she explained as she cautiously approached an access panel to a hallway labeled the weapons deck. “We tried to hail you before we boarded the ship.”

Wulf’s curses came across the speakers clearly. The growl was back in his voice.

Mel laughed. “Those are some new words for me. I learned your language from ancient texts. My contemporary colloquial knowledge of your language is lacking, I’m afraid. I caught
bhau
, balls or testicles, but what is
ansu
?”

“You don’t need to know,” growled Wulf. “It is not—”

Iolyn laughed and cut his brother’s next, undoubtedly sexist, remark off. “In your language, the closest translation is ‘devil.’”

“
Ansu bhau
. Devil’s balls.” She grinned. “Can’t wait to use it on an Antarean.”

“You will never get near an Antarean, if I have anything to say about it,” bellowed Wulf.

Staying alert to her surroundings, she wondered why Wulf sounded so possessive, because that was how she read his voice. And since when could she read voices? Her psi abilities usually only worked when she was in close proximity with the person she read.

Maybe his emotions were stronger and traveled farther. She mentally shrugged.

“Well, it’s a good thing that I answer only to the Alliance Military Command, then, isn’t it?” She stopped and opened her senses wide, seeking another presence in the tunnel ahead. “Besides, I killed two Antareans just over sixty hours ago—and wounded and left to die two Erians in this tunnel. They’re dead. I’m not. ‘Nuff said.” She raised a hand to the camera and signaled for silence just in case Wulf felt the need to holler at her again. Something wasn’t right in the tunnel ahead. She hand-signaled asking for a recon report. Two clicks came over the speaker.

Thank God, the Prime still used their old hand signals. She’d remember to thank her father for letting her read all his Prime military finds. They were coming in very useful.

She raised two fingers to confirm.

The two clicks sounded again.

Two pirates dead ahead—and they weren’t dead. She could feel their life signs.
Well,
shit.

Spotting a ladder to the right, she looked up. Ooh, goodie, handholds for zero gravity.

Holstering her pistol, she wiped the knife blade on her uniform pants leg and then gripped the handle between her teeth as she climbed silently up the ladder. Once she reached the handholds, she climbed like an upside-down-monkey along the tunnel’s ceiling, halting just as the corner was reached.

Peeking around the corner, she spotted the two men. They’d obviously heard her talking, and now they awaited her. The good news was, they were merely humanoids.

The bad thing was they looked meaner than shit. Oh well, the bigger and nastier they were, the harder they fell. A laser shot to the head of the big one would even the odds.

She’d have to drop and fight the second one, since the initial advantage of surprise would be lost when she made her position known.

Taking her pistol out, she zeroed in on the forehead of the big blonde man.