Last Call (Stranded in the Stars Book 1)

by Naomi Lucas

  She looked down at the gun still in her hand and wondered if he could control that too.

  “There is only one life form on his ship. If he had crewmates, they are dead.” He got up and exited the cockpit, motioning her to follow. They walked down through the central hub and toward the docked passageway.

  When they reached the door he turned to face her. “I want you to wait here. Keep your body behind the door, only look if you absolutely need to.” He lifted her hand with the gun. “If anyone tries to get through, shoot them. Never hesitate. They won’t.”

  “I– I don’t know how to shoot.” Her battered nerves short-circuited.

  “Pretend. Be confident. They don’t know what you know.” He checked his weapons, all of them much larger and scarier than hers. “I’m nearly 98.8 percent positive you will encounter nothing. If I felt this situation was at all dangerous, you would be far, far away from it.” He said as he stopped what he was doing to bore into her eyes. His were sparkling storms, the glisten from the visor enhancing his most unnerving features. “I need to know that you’re near. I need you close to me so I can protect you. You wouldn’t even be here right now if this wasn’t a great opportunity to start your training. I never dock my ship with my enemies under normal circumstances.” He went on, trying to make her understand.

  I do understand. I need you close to me too.

  Jack turned away from her as the hatch opened. “I’ll be back in several minutes.” He stepped through.

  “I love you,” she blurted quickly, stammering her words. Allie crushed her teeth against her bottom lip.

  He stopped in his tracks. She let her feelings leave her, let them settle in the air between them to be caught or to float away.

  “I love you too.”

  She watched as he disappeared into the weighted gloom.

  Chapter Seventeen:

  ---

  His steps were soft but they didn’t need to be. He had control of Larik’s ship and he knew where his heat signature was located. The man was sitting at the helm of his broken ship, eerily still at the captain’s seat.

  Even if he didn't have a blueprint ingrained in his mind, Jack would have been able to locate the pirate by his breathing alone. The man was relatively relaxed, his breaths quiet and sad. Just not quiet enough for a Cyborg to miss.

  Jack wondered why Larik was making this so easy for him.

  He passed through the ship with ease, dust mites and unsterilized dirt glided behind him in his wake. He was impressed with the heavy, dark appeal of it. Even the interior trappings matched in style and mood. Shadows clung to the ship like a death shroud.

  It was half the size of his but was decked out to the nines like a fallout bunker. The only color besides the oppressing black was a military gunmetal-green. Jack would never have pictured Larik as such a stoic, combat-ready man.

  He clipped his gun back into place and dimmed the streaks of light on his armor as he entered the helm. “That’s it? No fight?” He clicked his visor up and perused his surroundings.

  Larik was hunched over in the captain’s seat, his elbows resting in defeat on his knees, staring at a revolver in his hands. “Have you come here to kill me or capture me?”

  “Capture. You pissed off the wrong people this time, Larik.”

  The man sighed, “It was a risk worth taking.”

  “Mmm.” Jack understood his meaning. “Was it a woman?”

  Larik’s weapon went limp in his hand, only held up by his finger through the trigger. “It was for an ideal.”

  Fuck idealists. “You’re known throughout the inhabited galaxies, Captain Larik, Commander of a legion of outlaws and pirates. Organized intergalactic crime. What kind of ideal does a man like you have?” He was incredulous.

  “You might find this surprising, Cyborg, but we’re the good guys.” He sighed. “I’m tired. Let’s get this over with.” He stood up and turned the handle of the revolver over to him. Jack took the ancient weapon and led Larik out.

  When they approached the hatch, he stopped the pirate and called out. “Allie, we’re coming through.” Larik turned toward him with a look of surprise.

  Jack grabbed the back of his vest and pushed him forward, shutting down the ship behind him and closing the second hatch. Allie stepped out of her hiding place behind the door and checked out the new man.

  He felt an unusual flame of jealousy course through his systems, both halves equally affected by his abrupt possessiveness. It didn’t help that Larik dug his feet in, bringing them to a halt in front of her.

  “A girl?” He asked, nodding his head toward him.

  “Keep moving, she’s none of your business.” He ground out.

  “You better listen to him.” Allie swung her charged gun between Larik and him, making them both jerk back. “He’s a Cyborg.”

  “Is he now?” Larik smirked.

  Jack unceremoniously pushed him forward. “Keep. Moving.” Leading Larik into his ship and forcing him to break eye contact with Allie. He could hear her follow quietly behind them.

  Once he threw Larik into the brig and sealed the entrance with a laser shield he relaxed his tense muscles. He watched as Larik settled his back into the cushioned wall and slid down; his arms loosely draped over his knees.

  “Where are you taking me?”

  “Taggert.”

  The pirate swiped his hand over his long golden dreadlocks and swore. “That’s going to be a bitch to escape from.”

  “I don’t doubt you will.” Jack kneeled down to keep eye contact with the man, feeling a modicum of respect for him. “Why did you drag me all the way out here? There’s no place to hide out in open space, especially from me.”

  “Why does it matter?”

  “After all the shit I’ve been through these last several weeks, it matters a lot.”

  Larik looked at Allie behind him then back at him and grunted. “After I heard that the council hired you to apprehend me, I knew it was just a matter of time before you caught up with me.” He sighed, “death is the only way to escape you... is what I've been told.” Larik ran his thumb over his lip in thought. “I ditched my syndicate and left my second in command in charge. I figured I could spare them at least.”

  “Cut the crap. I don't care about your underground kingdom. Why did you take us out to the fringes?” Jack needed to know, something uncomfortable ticked at the back of his thoughts.

  “My brother.”

  “Your brother?” Allie asked, stepping forward.

  Larik lifted his gaze back to her. “When did you get a girl, Jack?”

  Jack cocked his gun and pointed it at his head. “Answer her.”

  “My brother’s ship disappeared out here about six years ago. Never had the time to come out here and investigate. But since I was on a countdown… It seemed like the right time to do it.” The pirate trailed off, still looking at Allie. “You’ve seen it, haven’t you.” He sat up, hope glistened in his eyes.

  Jack interrupted. “We encountered a battlecruiser. Crashed and dead on the planet’s surface, Argo, most likely hit by a meteor shower like we did and there were no survivors.”

  “What about her?” His eyes had yet to move from Allie.

  “I was the only survivor.” She whispered.

  Jack had a headache brewing behind his eyes as Larik sized her up. “No one else survived. The ship is gone, it’s deep beneath the planet’s surface and in crumbles– Fuck, it probably has been eaten at this point.” Larik ignored him and questioned Allie, angering him.

  “Why were you on my brother’s battlecruiser?”

  “He– he was transporting myself and others.”

  An awkward silence stifled the air as a thick tension settled in. Larik’s jaw ticked, his fists clenching and unclenching. Allie barely breathed as the silence continued. Jack closed his eyes and willed the pounding in his head away.

  The pirate turned his gaze back toward him. “You are cer
tain there are no other survivors?”

  “There were no other survivors.” He heard himself say, unsure why he cared enough to answer.

  A long exhausted sigh released from the pirate as he leaned back into the wall, his head tipped up, his eyes closing.

  Jack hit the intercom screen and shut the brig with a bang.

  ***

  “Jack, we need to talk.” She looked over at him staring at the wall where the brig had just been. Her Cyborg turned toward her with a wince.

  “We do.”

  She followed him as he led them into the cockpit.

  “What happens now?” She watched as he unhooked the gun attached to his arm and set it aside. She wanted to stay, she knew she could, but she wanted to hear it from his lips again.

  The rubble of Larik’s ship caught her eye and she walked over to the view screen to examine the pieces floating in space. The tiny pieces of metal that flaked off sparkled with starlight. She watched Jack’s reflection approach her in the glass.

  His arms snaked around her and pulled her into his armored form. A deep, low voice whispered in her ear, “You love me.”

  Allie bit her lip as her gaze caught his, their faces overlaid with the nebulous colors and abyss of space. “I love you.” She lost her breath as his body tightened around her.

  Before she could respond she was forced up against the chilly window and her leggings were yanked down around her knees. His heated fingers gripped her hips as he pushed his way into her.

  “This is what happens next.” He grunted as he encased her and his hands moved over hers and plastered them to the cold glass. Her forehead rested on the barrier before her as she braced for his thrusts, her toes came off the ground as he claimed her with each breath. “I love you too.”

  He took her hard until his desperation died. He took her until she was sore and her muscles shook from overuse. They ended up curled together on the captain’s chair with their clothes, armor, and weapons strewn across the glistening floor.

  His fingers brushed through her hair as they relaxed into the calm afterglow.

  “We need to leave. The distress beacon will have been picked up by others before we arrived.”

  “Where are we going? To take the pirate in?” She asked.

  “Yeah. It’ll take a few days.” He strapped them in.

  “Okay.” She smiled, relaxed for the first time in years as Jack blasted the ship into space. She could live like this. Live in the moment with him. They didn’t need plans as long as they were together.

  ***

  Several days had gone by without incident and the further away they got from the ‘Hell-in-Space’, the lighter the mood became. Allie spent most of her time looking at the stars and with practicing how to handle his weapons. She also ate a lot. He found her often punching in random codes on his food replicator to try new cuisines. He would have done the same if he had been deprived of real food for half a decade.

  Dropping Pirate Captain Larik on Taggert was bittersweet to say the least. He had grown fond of the quiet, reserved pirate. Probably because he had never spoken after that first day. Allie had remained in the cockpit when he took him off board and delivered him to the Earthian Council guards. The bounty instantly wired to his accounts. Soon after, the news of the infamous pirate’s capture flooded the intergalactic networks and he had requests coming in for his service from hundreds of sectors.

  He had Allie choose their next contract, equipping her with a personal computer that had a list of requests, criminals, and a separate list of missing persons to review and choose from. They had enough money to last a lifetime, even with the repairs to his ship setting them back.

  They had uninstalled the salvaged pieces and jettisoned them out into deep space. Hoping no one will ever encounter the strange metal again. A heavy burden left them with the pieces gone.

  Now he found himself at a loss, his thoughts drifted off; ending up picturing Allie. He always ended up there. Before he knew it, he was searching her out as he fantasized about what he wanted to do to her.

  Jack located her in the gazer’s loft above the circular atrium, lying on her back and gazing at the vast, twinkling space.

  She smiled as he settled next to her.

  “Under the stars?” She giggled, a lightness in her voice that hadn’t been there previously.

  “Under every star.” He corrected.

  “There’s a lot of stars.”

  “Then we better get started.” He leaned in and kissed her.

  Epilogue:

  ---

  His cheek was stuck and prickles of ice-needles stabbed his skin as he lifted his face slowly off the cold, stygian ground. A silvery layer of frost expanded out from where he had been lying, creating a beautiful, intricate masterpiece etched across the floor. The silhouette of his form was devoid of its effect.

  He would have savored the beauty, being a lover of the arts, if he wasn’t neck deep in a shitty situation. His hands stuck to the floor as he lifted away, the cold metal peeled at his luke-warm skin.

  The breath he released blasted out before his face into a wispy, milky cloud as his lips frosted over with his saliva. He continuously wetted his mouth, only for them to harden and chap a moment later.

  He was fucking cold.

  The air howled, screeching with violent gusts of wind as crystalline flakes of snow blustered through a doorway and he lifted his face toward the hollowed sound. His eyes cleared as they adjusted to the freezing atmosphere.

  He was in a metal cube, an iced over jail cell. The ceiling and walls a tombstone grey that was petering close to black. A frigid metallic odor filled his nostrils and it smelled cold, if cold had a smell.

  The only thing in the freezing icebox besides himself was a decrepit frame of a bed, the metal bars encased in ice. The bedding long gone.

  On unsteady feet, he tested out his legs and his head pounded with the effort.

  He couldn’t feel the tips of his fingers nor the edges of his ears; his hair fell in sharp icicles around his shoulder, strands of it splintering and cracking off.

  He watched as a golden-grey lock dropped to the ground and shattered.

  I’m going to die if I don’t move.

  A wave of wind rang through the space as another deluge of snowflakes blew around him and that's when he noticed the doorway was open to his room. Just beyond was an endless sea of white.

  His lids grew heavy as his eyelashes hardened, he peeked through the slits to protect his pupils as he took a step forward. His boots crunched over the frosted floor, the sound foreign to his ears. His feet felt heavy with the effort of movement, they were blocks of frozen leather furled around his numb limbs.

  He stood right before the passage, unsure if he should continue. The frame of his exit looked like glistening black tears. He tensed his hand and dug his cold nails into his palm but he didn’t feel its stab, the appendage devoid of sensation.

  He closed his eyes and took an icy breath, accepting the burden of his choices, the choices he had made to end up here at this moment; regretting nothing.

  Larik stepped through the barrier of frozen tears.

  And into an alabaster Hell.

  Author’s Note:

  ---

  Thank you for reading my first book, I hope you liked it as much as I loved writing it! If you enjoyed my book please leave me an honest review on Amazon or Goodreads. You can reach me at my facebook page NaomiLucasRomance for updates and announcements on future installments. You can also view the artwork I have created/will create for the world I have built.

  Keep an eye out for Ophelia’s story as I’m well on my way to finishing her dark adventure. Why did Allie never find her body? Where did the darkness come from? Could she have possibly sold her soul to save herself and her friend? Who knows!

  Stranded in the Stars, Book Two, will be released Fall of 2016. Stay tuned.

  Naomi Lucas

 

 

  Naomi Lucas, Last Call (Stranded in the Stars Book 1)