Rebels and Lovers (40 page)

“Makaiden?”

It was Devin. Hope rose. Maybe he’d gotten
through that code-laden back door and her ship’s primaries were already reinstalling. That would mean they’d lost twenty, thirty minutes at most. Maybe, just maybe, they could make it to Lufty’s beacon before the other ship tagged them with an ident sweep. Maybe, just maybe, someone at Lufty’s could help, send a ship to do an intercept.

“Here!” She flicked on the handbeam and had gotten as far as her bedroom door when Devin’s tall shadowy form reached her.

His hand closed firmly around her arm. But there was a tremor in his voice when he spoke. “Barty collapsed again. Trip said you have a med-kit in here. We need it now.”

Kaidee, kneeling next to Barty’s quiet form on the decking in front of the communications console, angled the small medical analyzer’s screen so Devin and Trip could see it. “The infection in his lungs is back. He really needs to be in sick bay. Best I can do is … Here, hold this.” She shoved the medalyzer into Devin’s open hand, then rummaged in the kit by her knees for an inhaler. “Trip, give me some light.”

Trip pointed the handbeam at the open med-kit. Kaidee spotted the palm-sized triangular unit slotted into the side of the kit and grabbed it. She fitted it over Barty’s nose and mouth, then tapped it on. His eyelids fluttered slightly, but he didn’t rise to consciousness. And his breathing, even with the inhaler, was labored.

Her own chest felt heavy. Damn it, she should never have listened to Kiler and agreed to move the sick bay to Deck 2, behind the galley. But he’d been insistent on having a cargo area near the bridge, and it never occurred to her she’d be facing a total lockout of her
own ship. In a normal power failure, emergency systems would power sick bay.

Trouble was, tampering with a ship’s primaries didn’t trigger a normal power failure. It triggered a catastrophic one. Which meant that even if sick bay was where it belonged, on Deck 1, there would be no power to run its medical units.

Devin held the analyzer unit down by the side of the inhaler and frowned at the data on the screen. “How long will this breathe for him?”

“At current output?” She studied the screen, her heart sinking. “A little more than two hours. It’s only meant to be a temporary measure, just enough to get the patient to sick bay or the closest hospital.”

“But …” Trip said, then fell silent.

“But two hours wouldn’t get us to Lufty’s, even if we had full sublights,” Kaidee finished softly for him. “I know, Trip. I know.”

“Isn’t there a way? Can’t we just open the blast doors to Deck Two?” Trip moved the beam of light from Barty to the corridor, then back again. “The air will flow down there.”

“Aside from the fact that the air ducts seal in a total lockout, the air we’re breathing here is all the air we have. You open up Deck Two, you’re splitting an already limited volume. Plus, even if we had air, there’s no power to run sick bay.” A short sigh of frustration escaped her lips. “I’m sorry.”

“Is there anything we can do?”

Kaidee rose. “We can make him more comfortable. You have the handbeam. Go pull the cushions from my couch. You’ll find a spare blanket in the closet near the lav. Bring them back here.” It wasn’t much, but it was something.

“Would he be better off on the couch or the bed in your cabin?”

Kaidee shook her head. “Someone would have to stay with him. That would split us up. If we get boarded, I want all of us together here on the bridge. You understand?”

“Yeah, that makes sense.” Trip nodded, then headed doggedly down the corridor for her quarters. Gone was the bright-eyed young man who’d found her diversionary tactics on Dock Five to be so “apex!” Trip was maturing, and it clearly wasn’t a pleasant lesson.

Kaidee took the few steps to the pilot’s chair and, crossing her arms, leaned them against the chair’s high back. Weariness and frustration washed over her. Then strong arms encircled her waist, drawing her back.

“Devin. Don’t.” She didn’t sound terribly convincing, but she was too tired to care.

A masculine sigh, half growl, half rumble, filled her ear. Warmth cascaded down her neck. Her heart sped up, which only added to her frustration. To be betrayed by her own body. How slagging annoying.

He turned her in his arms until she faced him in the darkness of the bridge. “Maybe you don’t need this. But I do.” He clasped her against him, one hand threading up into her hair. His lips brushed the side of her face and came to rest against her left ear.

And that was all. This was not, she realized as she melted into his warmth, a sexual encounter. It was one of comfort, a touching of two souls amid desperation and disaster. Devin just held her, and she remembered the guilt he must feel—the changes to the ship’s ident program were all his doing—and that Barty was his friend.
Had
been his friend for decades.

She hugged him, stroking the strong planes of his back. “We’ll get through this somehow,” she whispered. She didn’t believe that, but she had to say it because, in saying it, she had a better chance of believing.

At the sound of Trip’s approaching boot steps, she pulled away from him.

Devin sighed. “I have a few more things to try with that program yet. Get Barty as comfortable as you can.”

She knew Devin slid into his seat, because the chair at the comm console had a distinct squeak and because his face was again a silhouette limned in green. He took his glasses off, rubbed them on his shirtfront, then put them back on and tapped a databox, moving it to the right. Then he reached for Barty’s DRECU, swiveling it toward him.

“Lucky he left this on,” Devin said, as Trip put the stack of cushions on the decking, the light from the handbeam brightening the bridge slightly. “There’s no way I could access it. I don’t know his codes.”

Kaidee took the blanket from Trip. “If that’s an Imperial ship out there, we should probably destroy Barty’s microcomp before they board us. The less they know about him, about us, the better.”

“Will they get here before his inhaler runs out?” Trip asked.

“If it is a Fleet ship, there’s a chance,” she said. The real question, though, was would the Empire restore him to health so they could sentence him to death? Likely, in Kaidee’s opinion, but she wouldn’t voice that. Devin probably already knew. Trip, at his age and for all his impending maturity, didn’t need to know. ImpSec was rarely kind to those who left its ranks. And Barty didn’t have the Guthrie name to
protect him, though she knew Devin would try every avenue. But too many things pointed to the Empire’s involvement in the attacks on Trip on Dock Five. Kaidee held no belief that an appearance of an Imperial ship—if that’s what was out there—equaled rescue.

“Let’s put the cushions against the bulkhead, in the corner over there.” She guided the handbeam Trip held toward the rear of the bridge. “That will help steady him.”

The three of them moved Barty carefully, then Kaidee showed Trip how to monitor Barty on the small medical analyzer and check his inhaler. The unit would assist his breathing for another hour and forty-five minutes.

“You have EVA suits on this deck?” Devin asked, kneeling next to her.

She pointed to a locker in the opposite corner, even though Devin probably couldn’t see her fully. “Two. But the breathing apparatus is different.”

“I might be able to rig something using one.”

“Get those primaries installed and we won’t need it.”

“Yes, Captain,” Devin said, but as he pushed himself to his feet, he leaned forward and brushed the side of her face with a kiss.

She shook her head slightly, as if by so doing she could shake off the emotions that rose every time he came close to her. She wished she didn’t like him—
genuinely
like him—so much. It would make it far easier to push him away or ignore him.

She turned back to Barty, tucking the blanket around his hips a bit more snugly, because it was something to do and she felt useless. Then she pushed
herself to her feet. “I have some supplies in my quarters we might need. Trip, stay with Barty. I’ll be back in a couple minutes.”

Kaidee reclaimed her handbeam and made several trips, bringing the rest of the bottled water, the snack packets, and her bed pillows, then heading back down the corridor for her cold-weather gear and extra blanket. Ship’s temperature was already dropping.

If they had to, they could conserve their air supply and heat by shutting down the rest of Deck 1, staying confined to the bridge and the small lav adjacent to it. It might buy them another half hour or so, stretching their five-hour limit to a bit more.

If it comes to that, why bother?
She didn’t know. Tears pricked her eyes—unusual for her. She wasn’t the soggy sort. But she was and always had been a fighter. A survivor. Maybe in that extra half hour—if it came to that—they’d think of something. Devin would work one more miracle.

But Barty might be dead by then.

All because she’d decided to rescue Trip Guthrie. And because she hadn’t had the sense to walk away from Devin.
You own this ship now? Fine; you fly it
. That would have stopped the whole thing right there. They’d still be on Dock Five, where she had friends, options, resources.

But what if Devin had hired another pilot? Dock Five’s brimming with them. Then he’d be gone, maybe in the same circumstances, and he’d be dying. And you’d never know what really happened. Just like with your father. Just like with Kiler
.

Was she destined to be the death curse for the men she loved? She stripped the blanket off her bed, folding it carefully for no reason other than it felt better to be doing something.

You don’t love Devin
.

Yeah, I do
.

Idiot
.

No argument there
.

She pulled her heavy coat and a thick sweater from her closet, folding them neatly and placing them on top of the blanket. Neither would fit Trip, Devin, or Barty. And the ship would get colder, the air less breathable. She had some towels, could maybe even use her bedsheets as a buffer against the cold, but when it all came down to it, did it really matter? An extra ten minutes before they froze to death or ran out of air?

She dropped the handbeam on her bed and sucked in a harsh breath. She would not cry. She would not collapse. She would not give in to the fear gnawing at her like a mad, ravenous
crigblarg
, insatiable, unrelenting …

Boot steps behind her. She recognized them, knew them by heart already, knew the way Trip loped and the way Devin strode. This was Devin. She did not want him here right now, not with tears streaming down her face and her breath coming in hard hiccups.

She scrubbed hurriedly at her face but it was too late, because he was saying her name and, when his arm slid around her waist, she realized she was trembling. And wanted nothing more than to be held by him forever.

“Hush, Kaidee, hush.” He nestled her face against his shoulder and rested his head against hers.

She gave a little half laugh, half sob. “It takes all this to finally get you to call me Kaidee?”

A sad chuckle rumbled in his chest. “I always thought that when I called you Kaidee, I was sharing you with everyone else who did. When I call you
Makaiden, then you’re mine alone.” He brushed a light kiss over her forehead. “But I know you don’t like it—”

“Actually, I like it too much. I like
you
too much, Devin Guthrie.” She made a fist with one hand and rapped him on the chest before pushing away—as far as his arm around her waist let her. “I’m sorry. I’m not usually like this.” She swiped at the wetness on her face. “This has been the best and the worst couple of days in my life. I feel like, I don’t know, I’m in free fall. Plummeting into a gravity—”

She stopped, her own words suddenly blazing in her mind.

Plummeting into a gravity well
.

Gravity
.

She looked down at her boots and Devin’s—what she could see of them in the glow of the handbeam. She stamped her foot, hearing the thud, feeling the thud. She couldn’t believe her own stupidity. How could she not have realized?

“Makaiden?” Devin was frowning.

“Gravity.
Gravity
, Dev.”

“What about it?”

“Ship’s artificial gravity is working.” She couldn’t keep the excitement out of her voice. “It’s
still
working.”

“Why …?”

“Artificial gravity should have gone off with the sublights when the primaries crashed. It’s
supposed
to go off. But it didn’t. That means—”

He stepped back, grasping her shoulders hard. “There’s power. We have a power program functioning normally outside the parameters of the lockout.”

“Can you use that to reinstall the primaries?”

“Hell’s fat ass, yes!” He yanked her back to him, his mouth covering hers in a kiss of joy and passion.

She clung to him, knowing they were wasting time but not wanting to let him go. It was just a few extravagant seconds. A celebration. A reaffirmation.

If he got the primaries reinstalled, they might make it to the
Prosperity
, to GGS, to the Guthrie estate on Sylvadae. She was sending him back to Tavia.

Hell. She’d deal with that crisis when she had to.