In Service

by Mima

  The perfect team. Their specialties blended seamlessly, and each had myriad other skill designations that provided redundancy and a deeper scope. Grady and Shon had been together for almost twenty years, from the beginning of the war. Vel had been with them for ten and Kor had joined them when they’d lost a member six years ago. An extraction team that had survived intact for six years of this war was a miracle. These men were the best.

  Should she continue? She wasn’t done with her program. They were an active duty

  team involved in battles she’d rather stay out of. But those faces. Malla’s fingers itched to touch the clenched jaw of the team leader, Shon. His eyes were black and full of rage. He stared out of the picture as if one false move would bring him right through the vid screen and onto her throat. She could help them. She knew she could. She, Malla, could serve each of these men. She was convinced of it.

  Her thumb pressed to the corner of the tablet. She heard the headmistress let out a deep breath. Shifting in her chair, she read the protected information with disbelief.

  Merdino Blakingvel Rum’ondis, known as Vel, was the Crown Prince of Shaubia, son of King Rosswenifal, who controlled the seat of Allied space -- and he had chosen to lifemate with Grady. Besides that multi-layered political bomb, every man on Team Epsilon 983 was gifted.

  In Luo terms, this made them leaders. In human terms, this made them terrifying.

  Grady was a mindwiper, hostilely psychic, wreaking havoc with people’s brains. Shon was a berzerker, summoning adrenaline beyond human capacity for extra strength and endurance.

  Vel was a phazer, able to pass through most objects, and Kor was a telepathic networker, connecting minds if they had psychic ability. No wonder they were one of the best.

  “What do you think? Intrigued? They would be a challenge for a novice.”

  Malla looked up, jaw agape. Headmistress was behind her opulent wooden desk, the window showing a soothing space scene of a pulsing, rainbow-hued nova.

  “Headmistress, why are you showing me this placement? I’m months from graduating.”

  The older woman opened a drawer, took out a polished bronze medallion, and laid it in the center of the desk.

  Elite server Malla

  Quyoon Base, 34025

  “Oh!” Malla stared at the disk, shocked. “I’m an Elite ?” To think she’d wondered why Headmistress was always throwing all those bodies in bed with her… This was going to set her apart. Delight, pride, and unease swirled through her.

  “Malla, you tested Elite when you arrived. I’ve kept you here for over two years because I believed you needed the confidence a more complete education would bring, despite my advisors’ disapproval. Even when servers have raw power, they are more effective when they can master control. Given this opportunity, you’ve grown in skills and power. I hope your case has shown the cabinet the power of education, how it will serve the future greater for its investment.”

  Malla nodded seriously. “The training was invaluable. I don’t know if I still feel quite ready.”

  “In any case, this is an extraordinary group of men, and they are in extraordinary need.

  The team is adamant they will only accept female servers with Veylon experience. You fit their profile, and several of their psych profiles as well, I might add. You can look at those later.”

  Malla’s fingers twitched, eager for that access.

  “I have absolutely every confidence you will serve this team successfully. However, the situation is not good. The Prince is in a coma, and his lifemate is draining their remaining server to keep him alive. She will no doubt be burned out by the time you arrive, making you the sole provider. The other two men are starving themselves, fearing for a human woman’s safety at this point.”

  Headmistress flicked her robes smooth, an irritated gesture. “There's a highly

  suspicious High Post approval requirement on this placement, which is how the last two bases have had their offered servers turned down. Enough is enough. Someone is trying to kill this team slowly where the initial attack failed to kill them quickly. The situation is dire, and these men deserve better. They deserve you. You could be on their station in ten hours if you leave now.”

  “The Prince… I’m not exactly court material. I’ve never been good with formality.”

  “He’s only the Prince part-time. What have I taught you?”

  Malla’s lips twitched. “All men work the same.”

  “Yes, dear.”

  Malla reached out a shaking hand and lifted the heavy medallion. It was thick, the edges inscribed with a leaf pattern, the symbol of her base. The back contained a com patch that, once activated, would relate as much of her personal, medical, historical, and educational file as she chose. It was a travel pass, a medical update, a financial credit line, and a badge of respect that would grant her access to high-end facilities across Allied space.

  Shifting her gaze to the vid tablet in her other hand, she looked at the images of each of the men. Hard faces, handsome faces, scarred faces, cold faces. Warriors who gave their all, some when they didn’t even have to. Her nipples tightened. They called to something deep within her body. This was what she’d come here for, a survivor aching for revenge. The bug attack she’d survived had taken her co-workers and her dreams of a normal life. But looking at the reality of an actual assignment, she didn’t ache to be a good little server, a cog in the war. She ached to be with these men.

  “You could wait, graduate in a few months. I’m sure I could find you an exploratory team.”

  That had been the goal she’d listed at the beginning of this, her final study year. She’d imagined herself discovering new areas of safety away from the Veylon bugs. She’d imagined a life relatively distant from ever seeing the disgusting, violent things again.

  Lifting her gaze to the kind regard of the headmistress, Malla pressed her thumb into the black “DEPLOY” box. The tablet chirped. Headmistress reached out her hand for the medallion and Malla passed it to her. She pressed it against the heavy, ancient key that hung on a thick gold chain around her neck. The medallion lit up with a soft amber glow, then faded to opaque metal again. She passed it back to Malla.

  “Congratulations, graduate, on your first placement. You are now on a month trial as a permanent team member to Epsilon 983. Your shuttle is powering up and leaving in ten minutes.”

  Malla blinked. She took in a deep breath, and let it out shakily. Then a blinding, huge smile spread across her face. “They won’t know what hit them.”

  “That’s my girl. Rip up their sheets, Malla. Remember your training and have fun.”

  Chapter Two

  Six hours later, Malla was fuming. She had been sitting on the cold, waffle-grid bench for almost an hour. Her ass felt numb and lumpy. She glared at the teafé, fragrant and steamy in her ice cold hand. She barely refrained from dumping the drink on the hangar floor. But no, that would give her position away. She would be serene. She would be competent. She would escape.

  Her third transport had landed and, once again, signed her off to the station security crew as if she were a package. Malla sat with her one tiny mag case hovering beside her. Her first inkling something was wrong was when no one approached her with information on her next leg. After fifteen minutes, she’d gone to the deck manager, and been politely rebuffed with an excuse of ignorance. After another fifteen minutes, they hadn’t offered her a private room, a breach of protocol.

  When she stood and crossed to the hangar’s station door, someone had hurried over with papers for her to sign. She knew a stalling tactic when she saw one. Still, she’d sat and finished the four pages of papers.

  Now, they’d brought her the teafé. Malla’s brain went from frustrated and confused to outright alarmed. Servers were never offered refreshment. Ever. It was simply too dangerous for them. She’d accepted the cup and, under the cover of her lashes, waited until the deck manager finally wandered to the far side of the hangar. She had to get out of he
re.

  Standing, she walked swiftly to the door that led into the main station.

  “Can’t take uninspected cargo onto the base, ma’am.” A worker clearly functioning as a guard stepped up to her and gestured at her mag case. “I have some paperwork that will bring an inspector to get it through. Shouldn’t take long.”

  She drew her shoulders back and glared at him. “This isn’t cargo. I’m entitled to one personal piece.”

  “It isn’t on your person, Ma’am.”

  Malla glared at him. She thrust the teafé out at him, and he was startled into taking it.

  She snatched up the case and pulled out the shoulder straps, then heaved it up onto her shoulders under her cloak.

  “Have a nice day.” She smiled at him and moved up to the door.

  “Ma’am, you can’t --”

  “Don’t.” Malla froze with her hand hovering over the button that would open the door between the hangar and the station proper. “You forget yourself.” She put every inch of her ferocious fury at this ambush into her clenched words. If her eyes had been lasers, he’d be a smoking pile of ash.

  He was a deck worker, a mechanic at best, probably a maintenance worker. She was a Luo server. No. An Elite server. He shouldn’t have even looked at her, let alone dared to stop her.

  He pulled his hand back from where it reached for her arm.

  Malla stepped out into a large, busy walkway. She merged with the stream of people, her heart beating hard, face red with emotion. She couldn’t believe this. Her suspicions were true. They were trying to delay her. Her men were waiting. At this minute, Vel was dying, Grady was terrified, Shon was wounded and dangerous with it, and Kor was starving.

  Not a dozen steps down the hall, she came to a large business center, where several halls merged. The voices were cacophonous in the large metal space. There. A row of bars.

  Malla moved toward them, thinking like the wind. That one, with the blinking ship.

  Once inside, she turned her cloak on. Without the hindrance of a crowd around her, it was now a powerful defense. She negotiated carefully through the tables to the bar.

  “Excuse me. I saw the ad in your window. I need a private runner. Immediately.” She set her medallion on the bar, in case he hadn’t noticed her cloak.

  The man at the bar tipped his head. “Not often that a server doesn’t have a ride of her own.”

  “Where can I hire a runner?” She put her medallion back in her cloak.

  “Well, it’s your lucky day, sweet cheeks, and mine, too. I can run and outrun anything you want, for a price.” The man next to her at the counter turned her way and smiled. He was relatively clean and had a face old enough to have earned such a statement. His eyes shone with greed.

  Over the next ten minutes, Malla checked out Captain Krevnoy’s credentials, his ship, and his three-man crew. He checked into High Post’s bank account via her medallion -- she would not feel guilty, and they turned to leave.

  She was three steps from the door when two men entered and stood blocking it. One was a burly station guard, the other an Allied clerk, by his uniform. Both looked shifty.

  Malla stared at the pair of closed faces, noticing how their beady little eyes anxiously swept the suddenly interested room of star-hoppers and travelers.

  “Server Malla, please come with us. You are hereby called into protective custody,” said the large guard trying to speak quietly, but the closest patrons listened.

  Malla glanced at his nametag. “That’s ridiculous, Mr. Dotry. Whatever for?” She

  couldn’t help but notice how her newly hired captain hung back, letting her take the initiative.

  The clerk, with no name tag, spoke with an outright sneer. “Your Base was never

  authorized to place a server with incomplete training with an Elite team. You are hereby recalled to your base. We’re here for your safety.”

  Over the last few hours, Malla had read over the profiles of Team Epsilon 983. Her team. She was already half in love with all of them. They were heroic and intelligent and survivors. Malla thought of her team, waiting for three days for relief. She thought of how they’d survived a bug attack on their R & R and how the lifemates’ lives were hanging in the balance. She thought of how two server training schools hadn’t had a headmistress courageous enough to go to the team’s rescue, when they had rescued so many. She thought of the outrageous, and suspicious, delay. She felt her pulse in her throat. Her knees were loose, but she stiffened them, glad for the floor length cloak.

  Malla lowered her voice to a sensual, playful purr that surprised her. “Mr. Dotry. Do you know what I am?”

  Silence expanded around them. Every eye in the bar was now on them.

  “Yes, of course, ma’am. We were sent for you.” He was patronizing, as if calming a rowdy drunk.

  “No, Mr. Dotry. I don’t think you quite understand. I am the energy source for a Luo team that is waiting for me. I have no idea why your officers don’t want me to get to them, but I can tell you this will be investigated.” Malla let her voice carry farther, rising with emotion. “And sir, you are not taking me anywhere!” She took a breath and channeled Headmistress. “Step aside.”

  Mr. Dotry, the brunt of her focus, did so, and she swept forward.

  But the clerk had less respect. “I’m afraid you’ll need to stay for --”

  Whatever platitude he’d been about to offer cut off. The members of the waystation staff finally passed beyond rude into illegal. He reached out and sank his grip into the soft flesh of her upper arm. Her scratchy traveling cloak of reflective laser mesh came alive. And he was promptly electrocuted, falling to the floor in convulsions.

  The two men by the door were the only people who moved in the frozen tableau of the bar. The clerk was choking and flopping. Mr. Dotry took an enormous step farther away from any hint of contact with her cloak.

  Malla sent him a beaming smile. She cooed, “Oh, and did they neglect to tell you I am not just any server? I am an Elite. And you are in deep, deep poo. Captain Krevnoy? Shall we continue?”

  Her heart pounding, her arm throbbing, skin sizzling from the residual charge in her cloak, she swept out, head high.

  * * * * *

  Shon stared at the com in shock. His good leg trembled and he braced his hands on the console. He and Kor had been taking six hour shifts for almost three days. Neither had fed since Anya had crashed. Grady had drunk her dry upon returning from sick bay. She’d been packed off to High Post with the boxes of bug parts. They’d all given her generous parting gifts and sent a prayer for her recovery. Thank Spirit she hadn’t had hysterics but had been stoic about the collapse of her energy well. Grady was eking a healing from Bea, but she wasn’t going to last.

  Shon was existing on a pattern. Check his men, report for duty, check his hunt, and sleep. Kor had joined the military when the war was well underway and staffing was a well-oiled machine. He had never known hunger and wasn’t dealing with it very well. Shon had left Kor in charge of the com as he took care of setting the hunt in motion for that traitorous scum, Duke Lester Harris. A few minutes prior, Kor linked to him, admitting he’d spaced on checking the com over the past day. So, here Shon stood at 10:48, staring at three old messages that left a trail of ice in his veins.

  He read the words again. And again.

  22:04! Elite server assigned and en route. File attached. Arriving approx. 8:40

  tomorrow.

  4:36! Malla reported missing at waystation Zepron 34. Scrambling trackers to her coordinates.

  9:22! Malla’s server key destroyed. Last known coordinates reveal private runnership debris. Four unidentified human remains recovered.

  Shon bit into his inner cheek when his knee gave out. He sat hard in the chair. Stared at the list of messages. An Elite. Spirit, no. They’d lost her before they even met her. Malla.

  She would have been worth the wait, he knew, even though it was still inexcusable High Post hadn’t gotten the team someone sooner.
And now they’d have to wait all over again. For the Duke to delay and kill whoever he could until Vel and Grady died. He had no doubt that the Duke was behind it all. An Elite had been on a private runnership. No doubt, she was either kidnapped or driven to it by a suspicious escort.

  The Fury bubbled up. His heart thumped in his chest until his ribs shook from it. Not now. No enemies now. Only his team. Not his team. Not ever his men. He clenched his fists, but the words from the message flashed across his closed eyes. Four unidentified human remains recovered. Fuck. They’d killed her, because of them. He shook, the pressure building in his head. Balling his fist, he brought it crashing down onto his wounded thigh.

  He bit his tongue and coughed through the pain. His Fury boiled, but it was confused now. Vel, laying helpless. Grady, so weak. Kor, with no backup if he lost it. His team. His.

  Get it together, you useless fuck.

  Shon pushed his thick fingers into his eyes until the pain kicked his brain out of shock.

  There was some wetness he scrubbed into his lashes. For the pain. For fear of his team. For loss of a daring woman. For the gnawing, screaming hunger pains shrieking up and down his spine.

  How ironic that if she’d arrived on schedule, he’d have been late meeting her at the docking hangar. Breathing deep, slowing his heart rate, he stared again at the black com screen. He looked at the green attachment symbol. Just delete it. Don’t torment yourself.

  She’s only a name. The heat of deep anger kicked in his belly. She’d died in the line of duty because she’d been assigned to them. He opened the file.

  Malla. 31. Elite graduate effective twelve hours prior. Spirit, she was right out of training. She probably hadn’t even had a chance to get stuck up yet, like the other Elites he’d tasted. His eyes skimmed her personal details without much focus. Orphan. Attack survivor.

  Highest rating in tactics. Prior career medical research. He let it all fall away and stared at the face he’d never see on his pillow. She had big brown eyes like Anya’s and long, thick, wavy hair like Bea’s, only dark. Her eyes held Trina’s intelligence.