Baby, it's Cold in Space: Eight Science Fiction Romances

by Margo Bond Collins

  John Lee hunched his shoulders. “Not my business.”

  “Shalssiti pultafa,” the big man muttered.

  Rayna turned on him. “And you—we’ve been tracking you for months now, and finally timed it right so we could pick you up and take you back to Hellsmouth where you belong.”

  Sara could see he didn’t like the sound of that. “What’s Hellsmouth?”

  “A prison on the far side of the—oh, never mind. I don’t have time for long explanations. I need your help.” The mid-course correction in Rayna’s speech made Sara’s heart jump. This was all a joke, right? “Look, I understand Lydia was taken from a bar near here?”

  Sara and Jace were reduced to simply nodding in reply.

  “Then she needs to go back there, and these two need to go with me.”

  Jace finally woke up. “What? First of all, where is Lydia? And second, you expect me to just let these guys go after what they’ve done? If what you say is even half true, they’re responsible for kidnapping at least fourteen people and . . . shit, I can’t even finish that sentence.”

  Rayna held up her free hand. “Lydia is right over there.” She pointed to the dark shape Sara had seen lying in the field earlier. “She’s due to wake up in about an hour. Better for everyone if that happens back at the bar, which is the last place she’ll remember being.”

  Jace looked from Lydia’s sleeping body back to Rayna and ran a hand through his hair in frustration. “And the rest of it?”

  “Bix Tavar there—the big guy—is wanted for trafficking on several planets in the Consolidated Systems. He’ll be placed in the brig on our ship, the Shadowhawk, for transport to the nearest hub for trial. Mr. Davis, on the other hand, is local. He’s due for some special treatment to make him forget everything he ever knew about spaceships and aliens and kidnapping.”

  “What?” John Lee squealed. “Hell, no! I ain’t goin’ nowhere with you to get no ‘special treatment.’ I seen on TV about them alien probes! You can’t do that to me!”

  Now everyone chimed in on “Shut up,” including Sara. Lord, that man was the most annoying creature on God’s green earth.

  “Don’t worry, you won’t feel a thing,” Rayna said with a grin. “And you’ll be back home before you know it.”

  Jace was still frowning, standing his ground with the shotgun in his hands. Sara put a hand on his arm.

  “We’re wasting time, hon,” she said. “Personally, I think all this is just an elaborate story to get you to let her walk off with these mugs. Why don’t you ask her to prove it?”

  ***

  Jace stared at Sara, a slow grin spreading over his face. “Well, y’know, darlin’, I believe that’s just what I’ll do.” He nodded in the direction of the still figure lying in the field. “How about we get Lydia in the Jeep and you stay with her. I won’t be long.”

  Sara frowned at him. “You going somewhere?”

  “Maybe. You be all right here if I do?”

  “If you’re not back in ten minutes, I’m leaving.”

  Jace lifted a hand to her cheek. “Fair enough.” He turned to Rayna. “Sorry, but I need that, um, pistol now.”

  Rayna blew out a breath in exasperation and handed the weapon over, grip first. “Don’t shoot yourself in the foot, hero. Thing packs a nasty charge.”

  Jace snorted. “Reckon I know how to handle a gun, even if it does come from outer space. Sara, you take it. Keep an eye on her."

  He handed the odd weapon to Sara, then turned to John Lee and—what had Rayna called him? Bix something?—“You! Come with me.” They grumbled, but fell in step in front of his shotgun across the field to where Lydia lay wrapped in what looked like one of the thermal emergency blankets the EMTs used.

  “Pick her up—gentle! We’re taking her back to my Jeep.”

  Bix grabbed Lydia under the shoulders, leaving her feet for John Lee, and the group made their way back over the frozen ground to Sara, Rayna and the vehicle. With much grunting and cursing, Bix and John Lee managed to stretch Lydia out in the back seat of the Jeep. Jace kept the shotgun levelled on them until they finally backed off and stood scowling beside the vehicle. Sara brushed past them to check on Lydia.

  “So, Rayna,” Jace said. “You want to take these fellas with you, I guess I’m going, too, at least for a minute. I need to see this spaceship of yours.”

  “Oh, hell, no!” She started toward him until he raised the shotgun, then she raised her hands and stepped back. “Look, I can’t do that, Jace. I’m supposed to be keeping a low profile here.”

  He laughed. “Way too late for that! You’re not the only one who’s been tracking these guys. I’ve got records back at the office.” Not that anyone would ever look at them or know what they meant. But a little insurance couldn’t hurt in case Rayna or her friends thought it might be a good idea to make him disappear. “I only know half this story right now, and you know what they say—a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.”

  “Oh, they say that, do they?” A frown creased the woman’s dark face. She shook her head. “You realize we’ll probably have to mindwipe you, too. Just like Davis.”

  John Lee set up a howl again, and again a chorus of “shut ups” greeted him.

  Jace shrugged. “Well, I don’t know. Not sure what that is, but I do have this shotgun, which is more than what John Lee has. Maybe we’ll just see what happens when we get there.”

  “Jace, maybe you oughta listen to her,” Sara said. Two little worry lines had appeared between her brown eyes. “God knows what might be waiting for you . . . wherever she’s taking them.”

  He grinned at her. “I thought you didn’t believe her.”

  “Well, I don’t. Not really. But she could have a whole gang of regular flesh-and-blood criminals waiting below the ridge for all we know.”

  “You know, I’m not the criminal she thinks I am, but Sara is making sense, Jace,” Rayna said. He could have sworn she was trying to stifle a grin. “Just leave me to my business and get the hell outta here.”

  “Not until I know what your business is.” His mind was set on it now, even if it meant he died for the knowledge. He grabbed Rayna’s arm. “Just remember, wherever we’re going, you’re my ticket. Bullets start flying, you’ll catch the first one.”

  The tiny woman snorted, staring up at him. “If you’re looking for a shield, size differential does not work in your favor, sweets.”

  He looked back at Sara one more time. “Ten minutes. Then head back down the mountain.” She nodded, her face pale in the moonlight. His hand tightened on Rayna’s arm. “Let’s go.”

  The woman inclined her head in the direction of the open field near where Lydia had been found. “Out there. Away from the vehicle.”

  He gave each of the prisoners a push in the back to get them moving, then he and Rayna followed until she told him it was far enough. She reached for the phone with her free hand.

  “Rayna to Shadowhawk. Four ready for pickup. Yes, four. Have Security waiting in the D-mat room. Acknowledged. Standing by.” She looked at Jace and grinned. “Hold onto your socks.”

  The next moment that unholy light filled the night air and every cell in his body seemed to want to jump through his skin. The familiar mountain ridge disappeared around him to be replaced with a circular room surrounded by milky blue glass. Someone was screaming. It took a moment to realize the screamer was not himself, but John Lee, cowering in terror behind him.

  Disoriented, he turned and nearly stumbled off the foot-high platform where he’d landed. Rayna was already at the door to the room, watching his reaction in amusement.

  “Watch your step, there, Deputy. And can somebody smack some sense into Mr. Hysteria?”

  Jace turned and snagged John Lee’s arm, but Bix took it a step further and clipped the man behind the ear with both handcuffed fists. John Lee subsided to pitiful sniveling, his eyes rolling in his head as he took in his surroundings.

  “Come on! Down! Follow her!” Jace kept steel in h
is voice, as much for himself as for John Lee. Bix, he figured, was used to all this.

  They had just congregated at the door—Jace supposed they would call it a “hatch” on a ship—when the thing slid open to admit a tall, broad-shouldered man in something that might have passed for a uniform. He looked like the captain, and he didn’t look happy.

  “Rayna. Corridor, now, please.” Hands on hips, head cocked, green eyes sparking. No. Definitely not happy.

  She glanced once at her charges and slipped through the hatch to stand before him. The captain towered head-and-shoulders above her, but Jace thought Rayna showed no sign of backing down. And the bid for privacy was a joke; he could see them clearly and hear every word.

  “Why not invite the whole town up for a tour?” the big man growled.

  She shook her head. “I had no choice. The deputy there held a weapon on me. It was either bring him and maybe mindwipe him, or have him blabbing all over the countryside about what he’d seen. He was in this hip-deep already. Besides, I have a feeling he might be useful.”

  A frown creased the captain’s forehead. “Useful.”

  “Yes.” She gave him a dazzling smile—was there something going on between these two? “When am I wrong about these things?”

  The captain sighed. “Ray, we know nothing about him.”

  “That’s what computers are for.” She stared him down for another breath. “And we do know one thing. He’s Ida Mickens’s great-grandson.”

  “What? How is that even possible?”

  “Come on, once you’ve talked to him you’ll see.”

  The two of them came back to where Jace stood with the others. “Deputy Jace McCoy, meet Captain Sam Murphy of the Interstellar Rescue Ship Shadowhawk. Captain Murphy is my husband.”

  Inter-what? Jace looked from one to the other, not sure he’d heard right. And he’s her husband? He supposed that explained the back-and-forth in the corridor—only close partners would have talked to each other like that.

  He held out a hand. “Captain.”

  Murphy hesitated a beat before he returned the handshake. “Deputy. I don’t want to seem inhospitable, but the ’hawk is not a cruise ship.” The captain wasn’t aggressive in any way, but Jace had to root himself to the deck to keep from stepping back.

  He squared his shoulders. “I insisted on knowing where Rayna was taking my prisoners.” He glanced at the two in custody. “Guess they’re hers now.”

  Murphy shot a glare at Rayna, who merely grinned. “Uh, yeah, ours, technically,” she said. “But, thanks, Jace. I assure you they’ll each get just what they deserve. Cap?”

  Murphy gestured to a team of athletic men and women with Security emblazoned in yellow on their shirts who’d been waiting at the back of the room. “Sort this scum out, Chief. Big one to the brig, little one to Sickbay.”

  “Aye, Cap,” the crew chief said as his team stepped up to take charge of Bix and Davis. The pair was marched off, John Lee keening all the way.

  Jace glanced from Murphy to Rayna and back. “You said you thought I could be useful. How?”

  “Oh, you heard that, did you?” Rayna looked up at her captain. “How about we offer our guest a drink, Sam? After all, he did help us capture one of the worst criminals in the galaxy.”

  The galaxy? Shit, this was for real. Jace felt the foundation of his life shifting beneath his feet, which accounted for the knocking in his knees, he supposed.

  The corners of Murphy’s mouth curled upward, an action that hinted at an altogether different side of his personality than the stern commander Jace had seen so far. “You’re right. I said when we got Tavar Bix behind bars we’d pull out the good stuff. This way.”

  The captain stepped first through the hatch into a broad corridor busy with crew members going about their business, though just what they could be doing was beyond Jace’s guess. What was clear was that this was no warehouse stage set meant to deceive. It was a three-dimensional ship with an (apparently) working crew. Trying not to be obvious, Jace reached out to touch the dull metal of the corridor wall. It was warm to the touch, as hard as steel, but with no seams or rivets that he could detect.

  Murphy saw him touching. “It’s called plasteel, an alloy you won’t find on Earth. Molds like plastic at workable temperatures, hardens like steel in the presence of certain enzymes. Light, strong and easy to repair. We love the stuff.”

  Jace could only nod. His ability to speak had left him. He was on a ship made of something he’d never heard of that was here to capture a criminal known throughout the galaxy. Nope. Nothing to say to that.

  After a few twists and turns they found a room marked “Crew Lounge” and ducked inside. Murphy produced glasses made of some hard acrylic material and a bottle of some kind of brown alcohol.

  Murphy raised his glass. “Spit in Bix’s eye!”

  Rayna clinked the glass with hers, so Jace did, too. Not exactly a weird alien custom here. Then they drank. The liquor wasn’t Jim Beam, but it was pretty damn good.

  Rayna didn’t waste any time. “Okay, so here’s what I’m thinking. Your part of the world is too rich a hunting ground for the Grays to leave it untouched for very long. It’s not like it’s the only such place on Earth, but they’ve had success here and they’ll want to repeat it. They’ll be sending someone else to take Bix’s place; he or she will be recruiting another John Lee Davis to be the local contact. And the disappearances will just start up again. We’ll need someone on the ground to handle it locally. We can be there for backup, but it’s difficult for us to know when these things get started. We’re always too late.”

  Jace’s head was spinning. “Wait. Back up. Who are these ‘Grays’ and why do they want humans as slaves?”

  Rayna and Murphy exchanged glances before she took a breath to answer. “Right. Too fast. Okay, you know those little gray aliens everyone envisions in their flying saucers? They’re almost a joke with you Earthers.”

  Jace nodded slowly. “Ye-e-e-ss.”

  “Well, they’re for real.” She touched something below where she sat and opened a screen in the middle of the table. The image from the screen rotated upright then resolved into three dimensions. What the hell? Jace was looking at an alien like she’d described, with big, black eyes and a tiny mouth, an oversized head and long, thin arms and legs. She was still talking. “ . . . aren’t cute, or benign, or friendly. They’ve been coming here for centuries to steal humans for workers in their mines and fields and factories.”

  “How can that be? They must live hundreds of light years from here!”

  Murphy laughed. “Thousands. But your solar system sits right on top of a jump node connecting you with Minertsan—Gray—space. It takes literally no time to go back and forth.” The image in the center of the table changed to what seemed to be a map of space, then a graphic of the entry to a cone-shaped “node.”

  “When you add in human adaptability and strength and the fact that we just happen to breathe the same oxygen/nitrogen mix as the little slime lizards, Earth is—what do you call it?—a sitting duck.”

  Jace folded his arms over his chest. “I’m impressed you know what that is, considering you’ve never been to Earth before.”

  “Didn’t say I’ve never been here before,” Rayna shot back, the color rising in her dark face. “Just so happens I make a study of the places I infiltrate, including the planet my parents were stolen from.”

  Jace gaped at her. A million questions competed for answers in his mind. There was a connection between this strong, confident woman and the lost souls taken from Earth right from under his very protection. He struggled to make it with the information they had given him.

  Before he could ask another question, he saw a woman he’d been looking for appear in a hologram in the center of the table. Then another woman, and a man. He sat forward, his heart in his throat.

  “Wait!” Jace reached out, as if he could touch them. “Stop! How did you get those pictures?” They were in his files
, lost souls he’d never hoped to see again except in a morgue or a shallow grave. But here . . . where were they?

  “We’ve been able to locate some of the people Taken from this area,” Rayna said. “Only the ones in the last few months, people who were still on the slave ships or in processing where we could intercept them. We’re preparing them to be Returned.”

  “Returned?” he whispered, his mind whirling. None of this made sense.

  Murphy and Rayna exchanged a worried look. “We bring them back when we can, sweets,” Rayna said. “Like Lydia. Like your great-grandmother, Ida. They never know they’ve been gone.”

  Shock constricted Jace’s chest. Ida’s stories of how the lights had come in the night when she was a child, of her visions of other worlds with green skies and ferns as big as trees. Were they saying she remembered her time in slavery, when others didn’t?

  Only one word escaped his confused mind. “How?”

  “It’s complicated.” Murphy studied him. “It’s necessary. It’s best they forget the horrors of what they’ve seen so they can get on with their lives.”

  “But my great-grandmother didn’t forget,” he said. “She said she—”

  “—had visions,” Rayna said. “Yes, we know. Ida’s mind was resistant to our program to help people reintegrate. She suffered from her memories all her life.”

  Jace jumped up from his seat and began to pace in the cramped space. How could these strangers know so much about his own family? The mystery of Ida Mickens’s visions had intrigued him since he’d realized he was one of the few people she’d told about them. Most of his kin knew only that she suffered from “headaches” that required treatment by a doctor in Nashville. When she’d died two years ago, her secrets had died with her. And now these people—these intergalactic enforcers of a code he barely understood—somehow had all the answers.

  “The mindwipe works for most people. It’s a huge relief to them,” Sam said. “It’s an option you should consider taking yourself.”