by Liza Probz
Stop obsessing over the female’s looks. She’s a human, for Noruma’s sake.
Captain Brooklyn wasted no time. Hitting the button for the first door, she stepped inside immediately after it opened.
Ontarii rushed in after her, wondering if she’d lost her feeble human mind.
“Hey,” he said, yanking her around to face him. “You’re not taking this threat seriously. If the Hareema thinks it’s trapped, it could be very dangerous.”
“Get your hand off of me,” she said, pushing his hand off her shoulder and burning him with her golden gaze. “And stop telling me what to do. This is my ship!”
“Well, it won’t be for much longer if you keep acting like that.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Is that a threat?”
Ontarii bent down so that his face was mere inches from hers. “No. It’s a warning. The Hareema have infiltrated sixteen planets in the neighboring systems. Taking over one little Earthling ship won’t cause them much of a fuss.”
“Point taken,” she replied with an expression that said anything but. “Now get out of my way.”
Ontarii stood his ground, not wanting to move. He felt a sudden magnetic pull to the female. Her lips were only inches from his own. What would it be like to taste those lips? To experience whatever the regent had himself wrapped up in, too?
He leaned in further and her eyes widened but she didn’t back away. Only a couple more inches. His heart beat hard in his chest as he started to reach for her and closed his eyes.
“Step away from the captain!”
Chapter 7
Brook let out a sigh of relief. For a moment there, pressed close to him in the small crew cabin, she’d thought the alien was going to kiss her. Oddly enough, she hadn’t backed away.
Curiosity killed the cat and it can kill the human too, idiot.
“Alvarez,” she said. “What are you doing down here? Why didn’t you stay on the bridge?”
“I heard the doors open during the blackout and I thought maybe one of the aliens was roaming the ship, so I went looking.”
Ontarii turned to face the man, his expression darkening. “Maybe you left the bridge because you’re a Hareema agent and you knew we would expose you.”
“Expose this, you asshole!” Alvarez brought his laser pistol up and pointed it at the alien’s chest.
“Stop it,” she said, pushing the pistol down again. “Alvarez, I need you on my side, not acting like a wild card. I need to know I can trust my security specialist to follow my orders and not go off half-cocked.”
Her crewman glanced down as his cheeks colored. “You’re right. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay.”
“It’s not okay until he consents to be tested,” Ontarii butted in.
Alvarez grimaced up at the taller alien. “Be my guest, homie. I’m all man.”
Brook watched as Ontarii grabbed Alvarez’s shoulder and sent a burst of energy through him. Her crewman opened his mouth in a silent scream and then fell to his knees.
“Shit, that’s worse than being tased,” he said, once he’d recovered the ability to speak.
“See, he’s human,” Brook said.
Ontarii nodded. “Three down, five to go.”
The three of them proceeded to check the remaining crew quarters but they didn’t turn up any other crewmembers.
“They’ve got to be in the cargo bay.” Alvarez turned and led them in the direction of the storage area. It was the largest part of the ship, and it had very little cargo, as space was saved for Dr. Cohen’s specimens on the return trip.
The three of them investigated the hold, moving storage containers and checking every compartment to verify that the bay was empty.
“That’s the whole ship.” Alvarez turned to face them.
“Not exactly,” Brook replied, pointing to the hatch at the rear of the cargo bay.
“What’s in there?” Ontarii asked.
“Engine room.”
“Let’s go.” The alien led the way and helped Brook open the hatch. There was a slim metal walkway that crossed over the main engines and drives. Things were relatively quiet at the moment, as there was no propulsion taking place.
“I don’t know where anyone would hide in here,” Alvarez said, scanning the area.
“By process of elimination they have to be in here,” Brook replied, although she agreed with Alvarez that a hiding place seemed unlikely.
Ontarii strode to the end of the hallway and began investigating the series of panels against the back wall. Brook leaned over the railing, peering down into the engine works.
Suddenly there was the sound of laser fire. Brook looked up just in time to see Alvarez groan, then fall backward over the railing. He hit the engine below, causing a shower of sparks and a loud grinding noise.
“Daniel!” she shouted, bending low to see if she could find a way to help her crewmember, but his body was already gone, ground up in the works of the Earhart.
“Get down!” Ontarii shouted, pointing behind her.
Instead of dropping, Brook turned in the direction of his pointing and screamed.
A six-foot tall red block of jelly was quivering at the end of the walkway, blocking the exit. Without warning, a tendril of red shot out from the being.
She was barely able to drop before it hit her, the hot beam instead sailing over her head.
There was a bright flash, and Brook rolled over, realizing that Ontarii had shot a bolt of energy at the creature. The bolt ripped through the tentacle and it fell, over the railing and into the engine.
The block of red jelly was surprisingly quick as it rolled out the exit door and started closing it before Ontarii could get another shot.
Brook jumped to her feet and ran to the door but couldn’t reach it before it whooshed shut. A noise on the other side resembled something being smashed, and she beat her hand against the button to open the door.
Nothing happened. The door was sealed with them on the other side.
“That thing, is that a Hareema?” Her voice was high, her breathing choppy. Fear sat on her like never before.
Ontarii nodded. “Now do you see why we are so vigilant?”
“Yes.” Brook looked over the railing of the walkway again, her voice pinched. “It killed Alvarez.”
“And it will kill again if it suits its purpose.” The alien’s face was grim. “It’s taking a new shape as we speak. But what shape will it be?”
Brook looked at Ontarii, her eyes wide. He was right. It could take any shape. Alvarez. Weitz. Chao.
Herself.
Ontarii.
“We’ve got to get out of here,” he said, heading to the door and putting his weight against it.
“That won’t work. The controls are jammed.”
“Every second we spend trapped in here is a second the Hareema can use to take control of the ship.”
Brook nodded. Something had to be done.
At this moment the Hareema could be donning her shape and ordering her crew to do God knew what. Here she was, stuck in the engine room with an angry Zantharian who already thought she was incompetent.
“There has to be a way out.” She glanced around and tried to swallow back down the bile that rose up and burned her throat, to no avail.
“Right, well, as you’ve pointed out a million times… it’s your ship, so find it.” His voice was low and ominous. Was he already Hareema?
Chapter 8
Captain Jennifer Brooklyn hadn’t known what to expect from her rescue mission to an alien world. One thing she hadn’t counted on was being locked in the engine room of her ship with a bossy, albeit handsome, extraterrestrial while the rest of her crew was at the mercy of a six-foot tall block of jelly.
Some days in outer space were better than others.
“We need to see if we can override the lockout.” This coming from her companion; a tall, well-built alien with midnight black eyes, dark tendrils for hair, and the ability to shoot electricity
from his hands.
He also had the ability to change color faster than she could change clothes, and currently he was hovering somewhere between yellow and mint green.
Only an hour ago she and her crew had been headed toward the planet classified as JL-398, on a mission to locate the missing scientist Dr. Sylvia Cohen. Dr. Cohen had come to the planet due to a NASA probe revealing that signs of life did, in fact, exist.
She hadn't been heard from since her ship entered JL-398's atmosphere.
Brook's mission was to locate Dr. Cohen, or her remains.
Before the Earhart could reach the planet, they'd encountered a massive alien ship and had been forcibly boarded by Major Ontarii and his two goons. Ontarii had revealed a plot by the Zantharian's enemy, the shapeshifter race known as the Hareema, to infiltrate Earth and JL-398, the homeworld that the alien called Zanthar.
While searching the ship for missing crewmembers, she and the Zantharian major had been locked in the engine room. This was after they'd watched the Earhart's security specialist be blown away by a sentient rectangle of jelly.
Nothing made sense at present.
“The controls are behind this panel here,” Brook said, kneeling on the hard metal grating and removing the panel underneath the button that controlled the door. “We might be able to open the door with the manual override.”
The Zantharian, Major Ontarii, stood close behind her, bending over to watch as she removed the panel and peered inside. She could feel his warmth at her back, which only seemed to distract her. He had a scent that reminded her of playing in the ocean as a child. It was a comforting scent, but the major was turning out to be anything but comforting.
Brook couldn't describe the feeling the alien major inspired in her. Like her, he was powerful and no stranger to authority. He was capable, smart, and in control. She glanced back at him and scowled, hoping to hide the hint of lust that rushed through her.
Good thing he was turning out to be a complete ass. Otherwise, she might consider taking a detour from the drama and entangling herself with him for a less than appropriate encounter.
“Can you override it?” he asked, his impatience palpable.
“Give me a minute,” she said, turning back to the contraption and blowing her bangs out of her face. “I’m not an engineer, you know.”
She fumbled with the mass of wires and connectors, looking for the small lever that activated the manual override. In the event of a system-wide failure, manual fail-safes were built in so that the crew could open doors without power.
“Every moment we waste here is another moment the Hareema could be taking over your vessel.”
“You think I don’t know that?” she snapped.
Ontarii might be handsome in an exotic-ET-kind-of-way, but he could annoy her faster than an itch she couldn’t scratch when she was wearing an EV suit.
Her fingers fumbled over the lever and she let out the breath she’d been holding. “Found it,” she said, pulling back on the lever.
Nothing happened.
“Well?” he asked, watching the door.
“See if you can pull it open now.” She motioned toward the still-closed door.
There was nowhere to grip the door so Ontarii put his hands flat against its surface and pushed. She could tell he was putting all his strength into it by the way his muscles twitched under his glossy yellow skin.
He may be the most well-built male specimen I’ve ever seen.
His uniform didn’t leave much to the imagination and she watched as his chest and abdomen muscles flexed. He had to have a mate. Surely someone as strong, healthy and good-looking as him did.
“It won’t budge,” he groaned after pushing against it for a minute more.
“Dammit.” She poked through the door’s wiring with more force as anxiety crept into her chest.
“My sentiments exactly,” Ontarii grunted softly.
“That creature must have shorted something out on the other side.” She pulled back the midsection foil to reveal burnt connections. “Yep. This thing is fried.”
Brook stood up, dusting off her knees. “I don’t have the means to repair it here, and even if I did, I’m not an engineer.”
Ontarii scowled down at her. “There has to be another way out of this room.”
Brook shook her head. “Unless you want to crawl down through the engine to the rear ventilation hatch. We’d have to avoid the energy module on the way down. If we made it past the module, the rear hatch is less than half a meter wide and I don’t know if you could squeeze through it.”
Ontarii’s expression straightened. “Get me there and I’ll make it through.”
“Even if we make it into the hatch, we’d have to crawl through several meters of ventilation shaft until we could get back to the cargo bay.”
“I said I’ll make it. Stop wasting time and start climbing.”
Brook’s hands settled on her hips as she glared up at her companion. “Look, I realize that you’re used to commanding an army of soldiers, but on this ship, I’m the captain. So stop giving orders and start taking them, or there’s no way we’re gonna make it out of this room alive.”
The alien’s mouth opened as if he were going to say something, but he didn’t. His face was as dark as a storm cloud, and his coloring was brightening to canary yellow.
Unexpectedly he laughed. His skin faded back to a light green and he shook his head, closing his eyes and pressing his hand to his face. “Understood, Captain. Lead the way.”
Brook was shocked by the quick turnaround. Her heart froze in her chest when he smiled, revealing even, white teeth, and a surprising dimple on his left cheek. He was even more attractive than before.
Focus, Brook! It took a minute to follow her inner voice’s command, but she finally pulled herself together. This is absurd. I’m about to make a dangerous climb through the ship’s engine with an alien who’s clearly a maniac. What else could go wrong?
She should have known never to ask that question, even if she didn’t say the words out loud. At that moment the ship shifted, shaking back and forth and emitting a loud groan.
“The ship is trying to break the tractor lock.” Ontarii’s face turned grim, all humor lost.
“We better hope they don’t,” she said, slipping under the railing to climb down the small ladder into the engine works. “If they kick on the propulsion, it’s all over. We’ll be burned to a crisp.”
Like Alvarez. Sadness rushed through her at the thought.
“Let’s move,” the major barked.
Brook ignored the desire to snap back and simply hopped off the bottom of the ladder and onto a narrow ledge that circled the outside of the engine. Faster-than-light travel depended on a high-energy source. Her ship ran on fusion power, and although the elements that were used in the fusion process were well shielded, the energy output itself could not be, which meant that during propulsion, this entire room was essentially a ball of energy.
She was careful to tiptoe around the ledge, making sure she didn’t slip. One false step and she’d fall into the core. Although she tried not to look down, she couldn’t help herself. She blinked away from the fusion generator itself, then noticed a small piece of fabric lying next to the generator.
It was a piece of Alvarez’s uniform. Scorched around the edges, it was the only evidence left of her crewmember’s demise.
Brook bit her lip and tried to concentrate on her steps, but her limbs had started to shake. Get ahold of yourself. If you don’t calm down, you’ll never make it out of here alive.
Halfway around the circular enclosure, Brook squatted and pointed to the next step in their progress.
“There,” she said, indicating a shelf that was about two feet long and a foot wide. “We need to step there so we can swing over to that ledge.”
Ontarii frowned. “That isn’t much space.”
Brook shrugged. “It’s all we’ve got.”
She took hold of the one-inch rim around the
landing and used her upper-body strength to support her as she stretched her legs out to reach the shelf. Once her feet were there, she pushed off, then slammed into the wall above the shelf.
For a scary second she thought she might slip. There was nothing to grab on to along the slick surface of the wall. But after a moment her balance kicked in and she was able to steady herself. The next part was slightly terrifying. She had to grab a bar that hung about a foot above her head, then slide along it to jump to a platform along the other wall.
As easy as the monkey bars in kindergarten, she thought wryly.
“What’s the holdup?” Ontarii asked, his face a mask of impatience.
“Just gaining my bearings.” She took a moment to wipe the sweat off her palms and onto her flight suit. She couldn’t afford to lose her grip.
Brook stared down at the danger below them. Between the fusion generators enclosure was a series of slats that could shift to funnel the energy during propulsion. Right now they were all locked in the upright position, meaning that below them was a minefield of sharp steel edges that would slice them to bits if they fell.
So don’t fall. She took a deep breath and leapt up to grab the bar. She held on tightly, starting to move hand-over-hand towards the opposite ledge.
A commotion rose behind her, and she couldn’t help but risk a glance backward.
Ontarii had made the jump from the enclosure onto the small ledge. He wobbled slightly and she held her breath.
If he falls, how are you going to explain it to his soldiers? It would create an intergalactic incident.
With surprising grace, before he’d even properly balanced, Ontarii leapt off the shelf and grabbed the bar over his head. He hung a few paces behind her and immediately started moving toward her with a speed she couldn’t match.
Brook concentrated on moving forward, one hand over the other. The trek took longer than she could have expected, and as she dangled, she regretted not training harder before the mission. Being in close quarters in space didn’t provide much exercise, and despite running on the treadmill in her cramped quarters, she wished she were in better shape.
