“Whatever you decide is fine.” Raisa couldn’t think of a single recipe at the moment. A few days? She took a deep breath. Fear trickled into her, an involuntary reaction that filled her chest. What if the Federation searched the ship and found the room? There would be nowhere to run. What if they took Jackson?
“I’ll be right back.” Alexis jogged down the corridor to retrieve food. Someone had cleaned the blood from the wall and if looked like any regular stretch of corridor.
“We have meal packs if it takes longer than a few days,” Jackson said. She guessed he was trying to sound reassuring but being trapped in a secret room didn’t sound like fun. “I’m sorry. This situation isn’t what I wanted.”
At that, she frowned. “Sorry? For what? Saving me from the Dokka? Taking care of me when I couldn’t take care of myself? Or for not abandoning me now because there’s a little threat of danger from the Federation?”
“Just because we didn’t know this chamber was here, doesn’t mean soldiers with scanners won’t find it,” Jackson said.
“Got it.” Alexis returned with her arms loaded down with food containers. “Let’s go.”
Jackson nodded and lifted the knife to his hand, cutting his palm. He placed it on the wall. It recognized him, soaking the blood in and opening.
“Hey, wait,” Rick yelled, running toward them with a small box. He stopped, craning his neck to look inside the room. “Whoa.”
“Rick!” Lochlann yelled, his voice carrying even though he didn’t appear.
“I love you,” Alexis called to her husband before stepping inside.
“Wow, thanks. I never knew you felt that way about me, Alexis.” Rick grinned, intercepting the words that weren’t meant for him.
“Be safe,” Lochlann shouted.
Jackson gestured for Raisa to go inside.
Rick shoved a box into Raisa’s hands. “Hide this and guard it with your life. The Federation can’t get hold of it. It’s important.”
Raisa nodded. She stepped into the corridor. Jackson joined her, and the door instantly closed to lock them in. Rick stood on the outside and ran his hand over the empty wall before winking at them and blowing a kiss before leaving.
For a long moment, they all stood there. Raisa and Alexis holding their containers, and Jackson with his knife. They stared at the door.
Alexis sighed, breaking the trance. “That kiss was for you, Jackson. I’m not taking it.”
Raisa laughed despite herself. She braced Rick’s box against her hip to hold it and reached for Jackson’s hand. She lifted his bloody palm. “You’re still bleeding. Let’s wrap this.”
Alexis tapped the door, opening it so they could walk into the larger section.
Raisa glanced at the blue woman and frowned. The light was dim, but the woman’s hand looked as if it had turned slightly. “Were her fingers like that before?”
Jackson leaned closer to the panel. “You said injectors came out. If she did move, it’s probably because the injector’s mechanical arm bumped her. Or she was jostled when we synced up to the fueling dock.”
“You’re probably right,” Raisa dismissed. She still held Jackson’s hand. Her eyes darted to where they’d made love before. “I’m guessing this stay is going to have to be different than our last one.”
Jackson chuckled. “To my great disappointment.”
“Uh-hem.” Alexis cleared her throat. “I should tell you that I have excellent hearing. And if you two want to get down and freaky, I can go into a search trance.”
“Does that work?” Raisa asked.
“No,” Jackson answered. “She can still hear everything.”
Alexis shrugged and gave a small nod, agreeing with Jackson. “Yeah, sorry. I tried to help a fellow lady out.”
Bedrolls stretched over the floor. Shipping crates had been stacked along one wall. They were stamped with the initials ESC.
“Why do you have crates from the Exploratory Science Commission?” Raisa asked.
“Oh…” Alexis drawled in a low tone as she turned her back and busied herself needlessly with the food.
Jackson didn’t avert his gaze, but he also didn’t answer.
“Oh, galactic hellfires of Bravon,” Raisa swore. “Of course! I’m such an idiot. You’re space pirates.”
“Good ones,” Alexis offered, as if the distinction was important. “Sometimes it takes pirates to keep the so-called legal entities from spreading evil.”
“The ESC knows if they leave equipment it is likely to be picked up by travelers,” Jackson said. “They actually write it into their budget proposals. It’s easier to leave it behind than to cart it back and forth between expeditions.”
Alexis stepped too close to the center and the medical chair lifted from the floor. She made a small sound of annoyance.
“That sounds like a justification.” Raisa lifted the box from her hip to look inside. Rick had been insistent the Federation couldn’t get hold of it.
“It is. But it is also the truth,” said Jackson. He examined the cut on his hand.
A low tone sounded in the room. They all stiffened, not moving as they waited to see what would happen. The floating orb came from the wall. It scanned Raisa, then Jackson. A bright stream of light shot out from the orb toward Jackson’s hand. He tried to jerk his hand out of the way, but the light followed it. When it turned off, Jackson’s hand had stopped bleeding. The orb scanned Alexis, and finding nothing else wrong, retreated into the wall.
“I guess that was nice of it,” Raisa said, leaning over to look at his hand. The procedure had left a small line of a scar. “Does it hurt?”
“It burned,” he admitted. “Now it’s fine.”
Raisa poked her finger into Rick’s box, pushing around the contents. They were mostly information discs, but there was also a broken handheld unit, and several space chip coins with different planet insignias. She placed the box on top of a crate.
“What now?” Raisa asked.
“We wait,” Jackson said. He sat down on a bedroll and glanced up at the wall where the orb was stored. “And occasionally we check the image in the corridor for the all clear.”
“I found a region whose language looked close. I’m going to see if I can find anything about the culture which can help me backtrack where else might have been using the dialect in these programs.” Alexis dragged her bedroll to a corner of the room and lay down. Moments later, she could be heard mumbling to herself as she sifted through data.
Raisa paced over the short distance a few times before finally sitting by Jackson. “Two seconds into this and I’m already worried about boredom setting in. What are we going to do in here for days?” She studied Alexis’ back as the woman faced the wall. Leaning closer to him, she whispered, “Did you know she was a robot? I mean it’s remarkable. She looks so real.”
“She’s not a robot. She is very much human. We rescued her from Pleasure Droid Corporation’s test laboratories.” Jackson reached into his pocket and took out playing cards. “Kiss My Comet?”
Raisa leaned over and pretended to check out his ass. “Maybe later when we’re alone.”
“I meant the card game,” he corrected with a laugh. “To help with your boredom problem.”
“I wouldn’t call it a problem. I like to keep my mind occupied.” Raisa again turned her attention to Alexis, curiosity still bubbling inside her. “How did she come to be at the pleasure droid test facility?”
“That is her story to tell, if she chooses to tell it,” stated Jackson. He tossed the deck of cards on the ground near the crates.
“They can’t just grab women off some planet and put them in a lab,” Raisa insisted, keeping her voice low.
Alexis stopped talking to herself and sat up. “My father had a gambling problem. He lost my older sister and then me to the Larceny Casino. They call it ‘repossession.’ To cover his debts, the casino sold us. She was sold into marriage. I was sold into slavery.”
“That’s horrible.”
Raisa pressed her hand to her chest.
“Yes. It is.” Alexis pursed her lips together. “I changed hands a few times and ended up as source pleasure droid companion model nine-point-seven. It’s easier for them to program their robots if they get their training directly from a live source. They filled me with nanobots, and uploaded millions of files into my brain. It’s too much for me to think at once, so I have to wade through it.”
“Like when you can’t remember a word, but it’s right on the tip of your tongue?” Raisa asked.
“Exactly.” Alexis nodded.
“So how did you get from there to here?”
“Rick found me and smuggled me out of the facility and this crew saved my life.” She started to turn back to the wall. “Turns out the crew was already looking for me. My sister had sent Lochlann to find me. A computer saw my picture, brought my location up as a possible sighting, and here I am.”
“So, what about your sister? What happened to her?” Raisa knew she was being nosy, but no one ever accused her of the opposite. She was always prying and asking questions.
“Kendell is married to one of the noblemen from Lochlann’s home planet of Qurilixen. She’s happy, that’s all that matters. But that is a story for another time.” Alexis ended the conversation by turning her back to them. She resumed her search.
“That’s…” Raisa shook her head. “I can’t imagine.”
“That’s what she was talking about when she said we’re good pirates,” Jackson said. “We’ve been flying the high skies for months trying to track down the traders to expose what the Larceny Casino is doing. We had chased down a ship when our electrical blew and we were forced to turn around.” He nodded at Alexis and said even quieter, “She did not take the setback well.”
Raisa studied Jackson’s face as he looked over the alien room. His expressions gave nothing away, except for his rare laugh. The man both amazed and fascinated her. Soldier. Pirate. Vigilante. Crusader. There were so many things she could call him, but none of them seemed to actually define who he was.
“All right. Grab the deck. You might as well teach me this game of yours,” she said. “But my version of the game would have been better.”
Jackson smiled and nodded as he retrieved the deck.
15
Raisa furrowed her brow as she stared at the puzzle in front of her. The broken handheld in Rick’s box of treasures proved to be a challenge. The other crates were food packs, miscellaneous clothing and lab equipment. The broken unit kept her mind busy while Jackson sat in the corridor watching the door, and Alexis went through her strange mental process.
“Mysteries of the Galaxy. A warning guide for space explorers,” Alexis said.
Raisa sighed and mouthed along with the woman, “Irrelevant to the situation. Reexamine.”
It was becoming a bad song she couldn’t get out of her head.
“Irrelevant to the situation. Reexamine.”
She had heard of a torture technique that involved repeating annoying sounds or songs to break the subject’s sanity.
“Irrelevant to the situation. Reexamine.”
Raisa was there. She was on the edge of saneness. Stress didn’t help. Fear didn’t help. Isolation didn’t help. It was impossible to tell time, but it felt like she’d been in the room for a week. Jackson swore it had only been a couple days. They’d slept on the hard floor. Raisa wasn’t a princess who needed a luxury suite, but a white tile floor and thin bedroll had taken their toll on her hips and back. She considered lying on the medical chair, but they had all been avoiding it, afraid lying on it would activate another device.
“Irrelevant to the situation. Reexamine.”
“Ahhh,” Raisa silently screamed, holding her head as she shook in frustration.
“Irrelevant to the situation. Reexamine.”
Grabbing the handheld, she went to the corridor to join Jackson. Alexis didn’t move. As she stepped through the door, Jackson looked at her in surprise from the floor.
Raisa gave a humorless laugh, and said, “Irrelevant to the situation. Reexamine.”
Jackson chuckled and nodded in understanding. “You get used to it, especially when you see the information she comes up with. That brain of hers has saved our asses more than once.”
“I know, she’s great. I’m just irritable. I didn’t sleep well on that floor, and not knowing what is happening out there is just… Well, you already know this. You know as much as I do.” She looked at the image of the corridor. “Anything new?”
Jackson shook his head. “No one has been by. The lights went off for about an hour.”
“That’s a long time,” Raisa observed. She sat next to him on the floor. The reminder of what happened between them in this corridor caused a shiver to work its way over her.
“The power situation could be getting worse.” Jackson slid his hand close to hers, letting their pinkies touch.
She closed her eyes, wanting to do more and knowing they shouldn’t start. Pulling her hand away, she lifted the device from her lap. “I think I fixed this.”
“Really?” Jackson straightened. “Will it turn on?”
“We’re about to find out.” Raisa pushed on the cracked casing to get it to latch somewhat into place. “It’s a face scanner.” She lifted it toward his face, and he instantly placed his hand up to stop her.
“Don’t.”
“But…?”
“It’s Federation Military,” he said.
Raisa wondered if he was worried that she would find out something about his military career. “It’s a manual sync. It has to be docked to get new information. Without a docking port, it’s only as good as the information already stored on it.”
“So it won’t send a signal?” He slowly lowered his hand.
“No.” She lifted it toward her face and pushed a button. The unit flashed three times and then she read the output. “See. Subject not identified.”
“What does it say about me?” he turned to face her so she could take his picture.
She lifted the unit. It flashed and then instantly, a red indicator light on the top of the unit lit up. She turned the small screen so they could read it at the same time.
“Soldier J-67114, specialized operations. Detain upon contact. Reason classified. Return immediately to Federation class A base. Notation: Subject might be resistant. Highly trained and dangerous. Proceed with caution.”
“What is this?” she asked.
“Something I want no part of.” Jackson took the unit from her and turned it off.
“This is why the Federation is coming after you? Someone used a unit like this and located you on Torgan, didn’t they? And you were safe until I came along.”
“They used that unit,” he corrected. “I might have slapped it out of their hands, breaking it, before I…”
“You…?”
“Knocked them unconscious.” Jackson averted his gaze toward the blue woman.
Raisa felt there was much in his past he didn’t want to talk about, and for some reason she felt no need to pry. She lifted her hand to his stubbled cheek and turned him to face her. Dark circles had formed under his eyes. “You haven’t slept, have you? You were up all night watching over us.” It wasn’t really a question, but a statement. She sighed. “You can’t keep doing that. You need to rest. Why don’t you lie down and I’ll take over watching the door?”
He looked as if he wanted to protest. To cut off his words, she leaned forward and kissed him. It was the first intimate contact they’d allowed since being locked in. The feelings which erupted inside her were hard to contain. There were so many emotions—uncertainty and fear, hope and promise.
Somewhere along the line, she had become invested in Jackson and his crew. Logically, she could have grabbed her molecular gastro-spectrometer, walked off the ship, and found another ride at the fuel dock—one that had a working electrical and propulsion system that wasn’t being cobbled together. Yet, she found she couldn’t just walk aw
ay from them. It never occurred to her that she should leave.
Jackson broke the kiss. His breath heavy, he whispered, “I’ll do as you suggest and rest. Wake me if anything happens.”
Raisa leaned her head against the wall and waved her hand in dismissal. “Go. Don’t worry about us. Blue, Greg, and I have guard duty under control.”
16
“I think I found it!” Alexis sat up from her bedroll and grabbed her head. “Whoa. I moved too fast. Everything is spinning.”
“That’s because you’re overdoing it,” Jackson scolded. She had been trying to locate the language for the last two days. He had heard her mumbling to herself when she should have been sleeping. Reaching into a crate, he took a meal pack and brought it toward her. “Here. Eat.”
“Mmm, nutritional paste in a bag. My favorite,” she muttered sarcastically. “Has it only been two days? I thought it was three.”
“I lost track,” Jackson admitted.
The door to the corridor opened. Raisa motioned frantically for him to come. “Jackson.”
Something in her tone made him drop the food pack and hurry to the corridor.
“Ow,” Alexis grumbled as it fell on her.
“They’re here. I guess Lochlann couldn’t convince the fuel dock authorities to respect the ship’s registration.” Raisa whispered. The door closed behind him and the holographic display appeared. The corridor was empty.
“I don’t see anything,” Jackson said. He walked closer and leaned to the side as if that could expand his view farther down the outside hall. It didn’t.
“Just watch.” Raisa continued to keep her voice low, even though those outside in the ship’s corridor wouldn’t be able to hear her. An arm in a black sleeve appeared, but the viewing screen flickered off as Alexis opened the door.
Jackson grabbed her arm and tugged her into the corridor so the door would close and the screen would reactivate.
“What is it?” Alexis asked.
An image appeared of a uniformed Federation soldier staring right at them. His black hair was slicked back on his head and his eyes seemed to pierce through the door.
His Earth Maiden AE Page 10
