by Tasha Black
“Can’t we just carry it down to the floor?” he asked.
“We could, but it might be hard to get back up here if the gravity isn’t this low,” she replied. “Plus, these are huge. We might end up blocking a door.”
He glanced at the room below and realized that she was right. Between the furnishings and the doorways, there would be nowhere to put this thing.
“Okay,” he said. “But the brackets aren’t that strong.”
“Good thing the gravity is low,” Raina replied.
They stopped talking for a moment to balance the huge panel on the ceiling brackets.
To Raina’s credit, the panel was the right size to stretch between the brackets, and they did hold.
“It’s precarious,” he admitted. “But it works.”
She smiled grimly.
“Now what?” he asked.
“Now we do the one on the other side of the chandelier,” she said.
She grabbed the crown molding and went hand over hand without missing a beat.
Nick followed, trying not to notice the sway of her hair over her shoulder, the curve of her hips as she swung gracefully through the air before him.
Every cell in his body screamed for him to claim her.
She’s human, he reminded himself. And she’s a thief. She wants to take the baby like he’s a prize to be won.
She began wrenching away at the end of the panel while Nick held his end steady.
“What did you mean before, when you said I should tag the baby?” she asked, as if she had heard his thoughts.
I meant it’s not right to sell a baby. I meant he’s not a thing to be plundered.
“I apologize,” he said carefully. “I was angry, so I didn’t express myself well. To me, it doesn’t seem right to treat that small human as if he were a possession. He is an individual.”
Her forehead furrowed.
“Nick,” she said after a moment. “I hope you don’t think my plan was to sell the baby.”
“It doesn’t matter if you sold him or accepted a reward for his return,” Nick told her. “His intended caregivers must be long dead. He needs love and shelter. He shouldn’t be passed around like currency.”
“He will have the love of the entire sovereign nation of New Russia,” Raina said. “He will have every comfort his heart could desire. And they will be able to help him realize his potential. He could make life better for so many people if he has the talent and desire of the man he was cloned from and the resources of a wealthy people.”
Though what she said was optimistic, her voice was sad.
“And what about you?” Nick asked. “How do you feel about surrendering him to become a spoiled princeling, pressured to live up to some genetic potential he never asked for?”
“I hate it,” she said quietly. “I want to take care of him myself. I don’t want to let him out of my sight. I don’t know why, but I feel like he’s my responsibility now.”
A floodgate inside Nick’s heart burst, and he felt as if he would drown in the flow of the love he felt for this small, fierce woman.
“I know why you feel this way,” he told her. “I feel it too.”
BFF20 buzzed his way up to the ceiling.
“The gravity is at point three two,” the drone announced. “Our situation is getting worse by the minute. The baby’s pod must be taxing the system even more than before.”
Nick met Raina’s eyes and saw the panic he felt reflected in her face.
“We have to hurry,” she said.
They threw themselves into the project and soon had the second panel lowered onto the aluminum brackets.
“I’m going to electrify the hull,” Raina said. “Can you go into the dining area and look through the portal ceiling? I want to know if the web responds.”
“Are you okay to do that?” he asked her.
“Yes, my dad was an electrician,” she replied. “I know what not to do.”
Nick paused.
“Go,” BFF20 squealed.
He drifted down to the ground and made his way into the dining area.
Through the glass domed ceiling he could see the smoky tentacles wrapped around the ship and beyond that, glittering stars and freedom.
Could his mate really have found a simple way to get them out of this mess?
“Okay,” Raina yelled back.
Before his eyes, the web constricted, recoiling away from their part of the ship until he could no longer see it.
“It works,” he yelled to her, triumphant.
There was only a bloodcurdling scream in reply.
Raina.
Ice in his veins, Nick cursed the low gravity and his lazy, drifting movements as he tried to rush to her.
19
Raina
Raina held the exposed wire to the hull.
“Raina,” BFF20 said in an alarmed way.
“It’s fine,” she said.
“Raina,” he repeated.
She rolled her eyes. Was she destined to be surrounded by men who constantly questioned her mechanical abilities?
The surface of the hull was humming now.
“Okay?” she yelled to Nick.
“Raina, it’s coming in through the ventilation shaft,” BFF20 squealed.
“It works,” Nicked called back happily from the other room.
But Raina was already turning to see inky tentacles emerge from the vent closest to her. They pulsed and drifted in the low gravity, seeking her out.
Something primal clicked inside her, and she screamed like an animal.
“The baby,” BFF20 said in a low tone.
“Raina,” Nick called to her from the other room.
She tried to get down from the ceiling, but in the reduced gravity, everything felt like slow motion.
At last she reached the wires holding the sofa and pulled herself down.
She didn’t mean to look back, but it was irresistible when she heard the click.
The thing had locked a gnarled onyx claw around the wooden table that hung in front of the sofa. It was peeling itself slowly out of the vent in swirling smoky strips that melted together again on the other side.
In the few seconds that Raina watched, it had swollen up like a hot air balloon and then condensed itself into a throbbing, roiling mass that braided itself up the cable that held the wooden table. It pulled and bubbled, using the cable to extricate itself from the vents with greater speed.
“Raina,” Nick said, grabbing her by the shoulders.
She turned to him, shaken.
“Go get the baby,” he told her.
“But…” She was helpless to explain the ice-cold fear she felt at leaving him with the thing that had expanded behind her.
“This is what I was made for,” he said.
Then his blue eyes left hers and he was striding into the room, as if he could wrench the thing apart with his bare hands.
BFF20 buzzed impatiently and Raina swam through the freezing air, back to the bedroom.
What had seemed like a breezy, romantic setting now felt like a funeral. She might never see Nick again.
She forced her eyes away from the bed where they had postponed sealing their mate bond, and headed to the closet. The door was open. She pulled herself inside and slid out the panel to reveal the little chamber where Tesla awaited.
In the blue gloom of the little room, the baby’s amber light was a beacon. But it was fading in and out, dimmer than it had been before.
BFF20 made a worried sound.
“Go to Nick, check on him,” she told the little drone, grateful that he was worried. “Help him if you can.”
Without another word, the droid zipped off to find Nick.
Raina placed a hand against the baby’s pod, willing him to feel her, to know someone loved him.
“We might not make it out of here,” she told him softly. “But know that you were loved. By me and by Nick too.”
She closed her eyes and imagined little Tesl
a in her arms reading a story book, going for a walk, baking chocolate chip cookies, gazing out the portal at the stars and wondering if they might find one that no one had ever seen before.
“Raina,” BFF20’s voice cut through the stillness.
“What’s happening?” she demanded.
“They’re fighting but Nick is overpowered,” BFF20 said. “He needs your help.”
Raina moved toward the door.
“No,” BFF20 said. “Not that. They’re fighting under the ceiling panels you exposed. He can’t lure it back into the hallway. It seems to know you’re here. It wants to get back here.”
Raina stepped back.
“What are you saying?”
“He wants you to unplug the baby’s pod,” BFF20 said.
Raina blinked.
“If you unplug the pod then non-essential functions will return to normal,” BFF20 said in a careful way.
“But the ceiling,” Raina said. “It’s not secured. It will fall on them. How will Nick be able to get out of the way?”
BFF20 didn’t answer.
“I won’t kill him,” Raina said.
“He wants you to do this,” BFF20 said. “If you don’t, you’re all going to die anyway.”
“I won’t,” she said.
“This is the only way he can save his family,” BFF20 said quietly. “Don’t deny him that.”
“I - I can’t,” she said.
“If you don’t, I will,” BFF20 said. “But it will take me twice as long and Nick is hurting badly right now. Show him some mercy, Raina.”
Pain seared her chest as if she were being slashed by those cruel claws herself.
She moved to the baby, as if in a trance.
“Don’t worry, little one, I’m here,” she murmured as she unlatched the frame that held the pod in place.
The enormous plug behind the frame let go after she spun the bolts loose on either side.
She pulled the pod into her arms.
A weight settled on her as if she were under a truck.
There was a terrible crash in the other room that shook the whole suite.
She fell to her bottom on the floor, Tesla’s pod wedged against her chest, feeling heavy as an anvil.
BFF20 sank to the floor beside her.
“Gravity is at two-hundred percent,” he spluttered.
“The gravity,” she whispered.
She suddenly remembered bumping it up to 2 Gs when she was in the control room, trying to figure out what was wrong with it in the first place.
Nothing had happened. And then Nick had come in and distracted her before she could return it to normal.
Her heart sank as she thought about Nick, trapped under the ceiling, which had fallen on him with twice the weight it would have had in normal gravity.
She moved her legs under herself and stood carefully. It was hard to keep her balance, especially with the pod in her arms.
“Raina,” BFF20 muttered.
She slowly bent to place the baby’s pod on the floor and pick up the little robot in her palm.
He was flat, but he trembled as she stroked his edges.
“I’m going to place you on the dock,” she whispered. “Can you connect?”
“Yes,” he said softly.
When he was safely clicked onto her wrist, she lifted the baby up once again.
Slowly and painstakingly, she made her way out of the chamber and through the bedroom.
It was silent except for the whistling of the ventilation system, which must have sustained some damage from the creature.
From the threshold of the living room, she surveyed the damage.
Both ceiling panels were in cracked pieces on the floor, rough canyons of jagged ceramic exposed the cruel metal ribs to which the material had been fixed.
Broken crystals from the chandelier sparkled all over the living room floor, as if it had been raining diamonds.
The chandelier itself lay atop the crumbled remains of the ceiling, reflecting the emergency light in the room, like a campfire on top of a demolished building.
A lifeless onyx appendage reached out from under the apocalyptic mass, claws extended. It was the only sign that there had ever been life in this room.
Raina allowed herself to sink to the ground.
Clutching the baby’s pod tightly, she bit her lip and tried not to weep. She still had to get them out of here somehow, before Tesla’s back-up energy ran out. She only wanted a moment to regain her strength and say good-bye to Nick. Her heart felt heavier than any increase in gravity could measure.
The memory of his blue eyes and kind expression made her feel as if she were ripping in two.
Slight movement caught her eye.
She whipped her head around, unsure if she could run under these conditions.
The claw remained where it was, unmoving.
But something else was stirring.
If she couldn’t run, what was she supposed to do to protect the baby?
Her mind scrambled for answers.
Something slid out from under the wreckage. It looked like… a fairy. No, a mouse.
Raina blinked.
The tiny thing scampered toward her, stopping to shake its body and flutter nearly transparent furry wings, sending a tiny shower of dust to the floor.
Something crazy began to occur to her.
“Nick?” she whispered.
Its tiny crystal blue eyes locked with hers.
And then it closed its eyes and zoomed in closer.
No.
It wasn’t coming closer, it was growing larger.
By the time the thought had solidified, Nick stood before her, a tender expression on his masculine face.
He knelt next to her.
“You saved us, Raina,” he murmured, bending to kiss her forehead.
Her whole body shook as she wept with relief.
He pulled back and she saw tears running trails down the powdery debris on his cheeks too.
A loud tone issued from the pod in her arms.
It sounded like a warning.
20
Nick
Nick froze, his arms still encircling his mate.
The terrible sound issued from Tesla’s enclosure again.
Raina pulled back and held the pod out between them.
The light in the amber fluid was going dim.
Inside, the baby thrashed his chubby limbs. His home was cooling, the comforting warm light receding. He was unhappy.
“The backup battery must have been no good,” Raina said. “What do we do?”
“Where are your tools?” Nick asked.
She handed him the pod.
It was so unexpectedly heavy he nearly dropped it. He had forgotten that gravity had surged back to normal. Maybe his muscles had weakened in the days of low gravity.
“Gravity is double normal,” Raina said, as if reading his thoughts. “I was trying to adjust it when I first met you, and I got distracted.”
Nick tucked that information away, hoping to tease her with it if they ever got out of this mess.
“Easy, son,” he crooned to the grimacing baby in the pod.
Raina ran the edge of a screwdriver against the seam of the pod.
“Looks like we’re supposed to push on the top and then twist,” she said. “Like a childproof container.”
“Like what?” Nick asked.
“Never mind,” she said. “Just go ahead and push.”
He pushed with all his might, but it wouldn’t budge.
“The composite must have broken down over time, stasis pods are not designed to be in use for centuries,” Raina mused.
“We have to get him out,” Nick demanded, not caring about the desperate fury in his voice.
“I wonder,” Raina said thoughtfully, but did not say what she wondered.
She dug around in her holster and pulled out a metal tool with a slide button.
When she slid the button a cruel-looking blade was exposed o
n the end.
“Raina, what is that?” Nick asked.
“Hold him still,” she commanded.
He obeyed, eyes locked on the glittering blade.
She applied it to the seam where the glass viewing area of the pod met the composite frame.
Nick fought the urge to scream.
She could hurt herself. She could hurt the baby…
But he did not really believe that his mate would hurt the baby. The serious set of her mouth told him she would obliterate planets to save him if need be.
Inside the pod, Tesla’s agitated movements were slowing.
Fear gripped Nick’s throat like a murderer’s hand. His child was losing the will to survive. He was running out of oxygen.
Raina calmly slid the tool in an arc from one side of the glass down to the bottom and back up the other side.
The glass squealed under the blade.
She repeated the motion.
This time the blade found friction on the once-scratched surface.
She traced the line again and again.
“When this comes loose, we’re going to want to get him out of there as quickly as possible,” she said calmly. “The fluid is going to leak out, but we want him out before it’s empty.”
“We’ll get him out,” Nick said over the lump in his throat.
Tesla had gone still and pale inside the pod. His tiny fists had relaxed, and his rose bud lips were slightly open.
Raina drew the half circle one last time.
“Now,” she said.
Liquid spilled over the edges of the cut.
The alert sound ceased.
Nick squeezed the pod as Raina grabbed the exposed glass and popped it out of place.
Before he had time to question what he was doing, Nick scooped Tesla up from the pod and pulled him close to his chest.
The baby was frighteningly cold to the touch. But after a moment Nick could feel him warming against his bare chest. The sensation of the baby’s soft skin against his was extremely gratifying, even as he fretted about his safety.
Instinct brought Nick’s big hand up to rub circles between the tiny shoulder blades.
Tesla twitched slightly and then coughed against Nick’s shoulder.
“Tesla,” Raina moaned in relief.
Nick gazed down at the little fellow.
