Unfortunately, the hatch door was closed. They raced up the gangplank on tiptoes and then turned to look at one another.
She was supposed to know how to get in?
Thankfully, after staring at her a split second, the child moved to a small box, which had a keypad and keyed in the code. The door slid open silently.
Thank god!
As soon as they were inside, Jules used the keypad to close the door again and led her to the control room. “I don’t think the guard knows how to get in.”
“How did you know?”
He shrugged. “I watched them. They don’t pay me no attention.”
Having scanned the control console, Noelle grunted. “I don’t suppose you watched them fly the ship?”
Dismay flickered over the boy’s face. “You don’t know how?”
“How would I know how? This is alien technology!”
His dismay deepened. “It’s not going to be fun if we have to go back. We’re gonna be in trouble big time.”
“I didn’t say I couldn’t figure it out. I’m sure I can,” Noelle responded, more hopeful than convinced. “But it’ll take me a few minutes.”
Nodding, Jules found a seat and settled in it, fastening the safety harness.
Noelle glanced at him a couple of times and then dismissed him from her mind. It was nice that somebody had faith in her!
After studying the console for a good while, she finally identified—she thought—a communications device and turned it on. “Hello?”
The word echoed through the cavern loud enough to make Noelle nearly jump out of her skin. “OMG! I thought it was the damned computer!”
Unfortunately—not that it really mattered after the first screw up—that also echoed through the external broadcast speakers. Noelle twisted the knob frantically to switch channels.
“What did you do that for?” Jules yelped.
“Shits and giggles,” Noelle muttered.
“What?”
“It was an accident, ok?”
“It ain’t ok. That guard ain’t deaf!”
“I don’t suppose you know how to lock the damned door?”
“No.”
“Shit!” Noelle frantically checked the various channels on the communicator.
“I do not comprehend that order.”
“Oh thank god! Computer, lock down the outer hatch!”
They heard the guard reach the keypad and start punching keys. Jules bounded out of his seat and looked around a little desperately for a place to hide. Noelle held her breath, listening.
“Hatch locked.”
Noelle let out the breath she’d holding. Turning back to the console, she used the computer to help her familiarize herself with the working of the ship.
“Start engines. Retract the gangplank.” She moved to the nearest porthole and watched while the gangplank was retracted.
The guard landed on his ass on the stone floor but bounded up quickly enough she was sure he wasn’t injured.
“Ok. No unwelcome riders now. Let’s see if I can guide this bitch out of this hole without shaving off anything we need.”
Jules stared at her. “Who are you talking to?”
“It’s my fairy godmother. Never mind! We’re going home! That’s all that matters.” Unfortunately, she’d no sooner gotten that announcement out than it occurred to her that she hadn’t thought to get the computer to check all systems to make sure they had the fuel they needed and everything was operational!
Well, damn it! Like she could think of everything! She was no pilot! She’d figured the damned computer would fly the thing if she could get it activated. There would have to be a computer of some kind. A person couldn’t handle a space craft without one!
Chapter Fifteen
Drak damned near bloodied his nose on the fucking door when he grasped the handle and pushed and it didn’t budge. Pain shot through his nose and speared into his brain and anger erupted instantly. Convinced, at first, that he just hadn’t depressed the handle completely and disengaged the latch, he tried again.
It wouldn’t open.
Because it was latched.
He debated briefly whether he wanted to take a chance on everyone in the fucking fortress learning that his woman had locked him out of his suite and finally decided that was something he wanted to avoid if at all possible.
Simmering both because of the pain from ramming his nose into a door that didn’t open and because Noelle had locked him out, he turned and headed down to the vault to see what progress had been made on the mechanicals. All the while, he allowed himself to think of various ways he might enjoy punishing Noelle for defying him without actually harming her.
That went a long way toward soothing his temper and he was pleased enough to see the young men Noelle had been training hard at work on his treasure that he pushed his anger to the back of his mind. Strolling around the room, he paused at each work station and studied the thing the boy was working on, trying to guess what it might be, and then moving on.
He’d almost made the circuit when he realized Jules wasn’t there when he was usually to be found in the vault even when Noelle wasn’t there.
Mostly with Noelle, though, and clearly he was becoming attached to her.
That wasn’t a good thing.
He was trying to make a man out of the child! Women were always running around trying to nurture and that only weakened a man, made him dependent and unable to stand on his own!
Jules had so much potential! To his mind the child was a far better fit to rule even than his eldest son. Well, he showed potential. There was no telling at this point what sort of man he’d grow up to be—especially if Noelle was determined to baby him!
“Where is Jules?” he asked Kulle.
Kulle’s eyes widened. “I have not seen him since yester-eve.”
Uneasiness slithered through Drak. Turning abruptly, he followed the corridor to the teller’s suite, but there was no sign of the child there, either, and the teller claimed he also had not seen the boy since the previous evening.
Insensibly more alarmed, he moved more quickly when he left the teller and headed up the stairs to see if the boy was in the great hall.
He had covered maybe half the room in his search when one of his men burst through the outer doors. “The star woman is stealing the ship!” he bellowed at the top of his lungs.
Terror shot through Drak, momentarily freezing him—mind, body and soul. The ship would never make it to the sister world at this time of the year if she managed to take off! Uttering a roar that was a mixture of sheer terror and fury, Drak vaulted over the nearest table and raced toward the door. Behind him, his stunned men struggled to gather themselves and follow. By the time the first had boiled out of the doors, however, Drak was already mounted and heading out of the gate at the best speed his beast could manage.
* * * *
Noelle was shaking like a leaf by the time she managed to maneuver the ship out of the cavern and that was only partly because of the nerve-wracking experience of moving a ship through such a tight opening when she wasn’t at all familiar with this ship in particular. She hadn’t, in point of fact, done more than practice with the simulators aboard ship for the escape pods and she’d only done that because it was a required part of the safety measures.
Mostly, though, she was shaking because she’d screwed up and shown her hand and she was committed now whether she really wanted to escape or not—whether she really felt competent to pilot the ship from this planet to the sister world. And she didn’t particularly feel confident in her abilities.
“Shit! They’re coming!”
“Jules! Don’t say that word!”
“You said it.”
“That’s beside …. Never mind!” Trying to ignore Jules’ announcement that they were about to have very angry company, she focused on the computer’s system’s check. Thankfully, fuel wouldn’t be an issue!
Unfortunately, the computer informed her that t
he target planet was beyond the ship’s current capabilities. “You cannot be serious!”
“I do not understand.”
“Why can’t we reach the damned planet? You said that we had plenty of fuel!”
“The planet is moving away from this one at a speed this ship cannot match. Or surpass, which it would need to in order to catch up to it.”
Noelle frowned. Like she couldn’t do that much math! “What about the other direction? If we headed the other way wouldn’t we meet up with it?”
“Yes. In three months.”
“Oh my fucking god!” There wasn’t three days worth of supplies on board! They certainly weren’t going to make it if it took that damned long!
“What?” Jules demanded uneasily.
“Sit down and buckle up.”
Jules frowned at her, but he obeyed her command.
Noelle searched her PMAI for anything she’d learned at any time that might help. She recalled abruptly that, in the early days of space travel, they’d used the gravity of planets to assist their crafts in getting up to the speed they needed. “Could we gain enough speed if we swung around Aiper a few times?”
“Calculating. Affirmative. My calculations indicate that four orbits should increase the ship’s speed sufficiently.”
“Alright then! Let’s do it! Fingers crossed.”
“I do not have fingers.”
“I was talking to the kid,” Noelle muttered. Moving away from the console, she took a last look out of the porthole. Drak and his men were nearing them along the pass. A mixture of fear at being caught mingled with an abrupt dimming of her elation as it suddenly occurred to her that she would probably never see Drak again.
She had his ship.
It was probably for the best. He’d probably want to choke the life out of her for taking his ship and his son!
She felt like crying when it hit her that she really had committed herself.
And maybe this wasn’t what she really wanted.
She shook the thought. She couldn’t go back now. She had to look forward.
After taking one last look at the man in the lead, Noelle moved to the seat next to Jules, fastened her safety harness and gave the computer the command to launch toward space.
The trip to K’naiper was actually uneventful and would’ve been downright boring if Noelle hadn’t been so fearful that the computer had miscalculated the speed and trajectory and they’d miss the planet entirely.
Of course, they had plenty of fuel.
What they didn’t have was plenty of supplies, but Jules was both clever and brave. He didn’t whine or misbehave when she explained they had to be very careful with what they had to eat and drink because it would have to last until they reached K’naiper. He spent most of the trip exploring the ship.
Noelle spent most of the trip imagining she’d been able to see the look of pure rage on Drak’s face when he realized what she’d done and wishing she hadn’t been quite so impulsive.
She hadn’t really considered that Drak might have felt something for her beyond a sense of ownership. He’d seemed almost fond at times.
And he wasn’t a bad man even though he was undoubtedly a savage.
She’d really pushed him several times and he hadn’t done anything more barbaric than screw her brains out and—well she could lie to anybody but herself. She hadn’t hated it. The bondage-punishment thing had been pretty damned scary—at least when it started out. But even that hadn’t been a completely terrible experience.
She shook those thoughts, over and over, but they kept coming back and by the time they saw K’naiper in the forward viewing ports she knew she’d screwed up in a really big way.
She wasn’t just physically attracted to the barbarian. She thought she loved him.
Maybe that was just the captive syndrome, though?
She needed therapy!
It took longer to find Jules’ village than it had taken to get to the planet in the first place!
Noelle was anxious to get home herself, but the distraction wasn’t entirely unwelcome. It at least sidetracked her from thinking about Drak constantly.
They weren’t welcomed at any of the villages, but fortunately the weapons the villagers had weren’t anything that could seriously damage the ship because they had to drop really low for Jules to look around and decide whether it was the right village or not. Finally, they spotted one near a wide river that Jules thought he recognized, though, and it transpired that he did. When they’d dropped low enough the villagers all came out to run and or throw rocks and spears, he recognized his mother.
Noelle opened the com unit so that Jules could use it to call to his mother from the ship and they managed to scared the villagers half to death. The important thing, though, was that they threw their weapons down and surrendered so that Noelle could safely land and lower the gang plank.
Jules peered out cautiously when they opened the door—because Noelle had threatened to beat the snot out of him if he charged down the ramp and made a target of himself. It was just as well she had a firm grip on him because he’d no sooner poked his head out to look than one of the warriors launched a spear at them.
“Mother! It’s me! Jules!” the child yelled.
“Jules?”
Noelle and Jules moved cautiously into the entrance and looked to see if it was safe.
The woman that charged up the gangplank scared the hell out of Noelle, but Jules’ scream, she discovered fairly quickly, was joyful.
The woman caught her son in a tight embrace and lifted him from his feet. Noelle was misty eyed at the reunion, but it also brought to mind the image of Drak embracing the child and she realized he must ache for the loss of the child as the mother had.
How sad that only one could have the child and one must ache for the loss!
But then it dawned on her that Drak had made a child with the woman holding Jules and she began to look at the woman in a whole new light.
Without surprise, she saw that the woman was a handsome specimen. Dressed as one of the warriors of the tribe, she displayed a good bit of well toned body. She was built like an athlete or maybe a ballerina or a gymnast—a taut, well sculpted form that defied age. Noelle couldn’t tell any more from her face. She didn’t look to be very young, but she certainly wasn’t very old either—maybe around thirty.
But then that was judging her by human standards and they didn’t know enough about the indigenous people to have a clue of what their life spans were. It could be comparable to their human counterparts or not even in the same ballpark.
The woman met her envious gaze with one of hostility.
Fortunately, Jules didn’t forsake her now that he was home again. “This is my friend, Noelle. She’s a star-child, Father said. She brought me home.”
Noelle couldn’t see that the woman unbent a great deal, but she nodded in a gesture that might have been ‘thanks’ or ‘ok I won’t shoot you’.
“In that case, you are welcome to refresh yourself, stranger.”
Noelle hesitated. All she really wanted to do was race home—strip off everything that reminded her of Drak and then crawl in her bed and cry her eyeballs out. These people were their neighbors, though, and it was a chance to offer friendship—not just for herself but for all of the colonists. She nodded, therefore, instead of making her excuses and, after punching the keypad to close the hatch, followed the woman and child down the gangplank and into the village.
She really, really hoped she wasn’t going to end up being a captive again!
* * * *
Drak was too stunned when the ship shot skyward even to think. His mind went perfectly blank, barely even capable of recording anything with his senses. Dimly, he was aware of his men milling around him, some cursing, some speculating, many of them simply as shocked and dismayed and unable to grasp the full implications of the situation as he was.
Slowly in sank in upon him as he watched the ship become no more than a dark spot, and the
n a dot and then vanish altogether that he had lost them.
He had lost the child dearest to his heart and he had lost the woman. He’d lost Noelle.
He felt as if someone had just ripped his heart out of his chest.
There was so much pain for many moments that he couldn’t catch his breath.
They were gone. Dead. Or as good as dead. There was no way the ship could reach the sister planet at this time of the year.
And there was nothing he could do about it.
He couldn’t save them.
For a few moments wild thoughts circulated in his mind as he considered which of the other clans might have a working ship. They all kept their ships carefully hidden and well protected ….
That thought brought his guard to mind. Rage engulfed him as he turned to look for the man. “Where is Dolf?”
The men around him simply gaped at him and then began to look around. “He is not with us,” the nearest man finally responded.
“Find him!” Drak roared. “And then bring him to me!” With that, he turned his beast and rowled it into motion, racing back toward the fortress with as little regard for life and limb as he’d had when he’d raced to try to catch Noelle to save her. Less. Except for the pain, he felt dead inside.
The beast seemed to beat out that refrain in the rhythm of its hooves against the ice—lost, gone, dead.
He had nothing but the fires of rage to keep the cold from spreading outward from his heart to completely envelop him.
Dolf was not to be found. Apparently, he’d had enough sense to realize he was very likely a dead man for losing the ship and when the men had tore out of the fortress to try to stop the ship from taking off, he grabbed a few of his belongings and some supplies and took off to try to find shelter with another clan.
Drak did not take the news well. He wanted someone or something to vent his frustration on.
Tossing the reins of his beast to a stable hand, he stalked inside, up the stairs … and slammed face first into the door of his room again. That time he was caught completely off guard and bloodied his nose. He let out a roar that could echoed through the halls of the fortress. Half the men turned around and left the hall again, figuring it might be better to hunt for the missing man than face Drak’s wrath. Kulle had more balls than the rest. He and a handful of men raced to their Prince’s side.
The Raiders Page 18
