by Nina Croft
What the hell?
Milo’s muscles locked tight, his eyes widening as he stepped into the chamber with the alien spaceship and came to a halt. The ramp was up and bright white lights lit up the underside. A loud whirring filled the air, like a giant drone. And as he stood staring, it slowly lifted from the ground.
The whole thing seemed to vibrate. In fact the air in the cavern throbbed.
Then the lights went out and it dropped suddenly, hitting the sandy floor of the cavern with a thud.
He ran toward it, then stopped a few feet away. The door opened and the ramp appeared. He couldn’t make his feet move forward. What if he went up there and the thing took off again?
What the hell had she pressed?
After what seemed an age, Destiny appeared at the top of the ramp and the tension oozed out of him. She was grinning widely, her eyes lit up with excitement.
“You pressed a button, didn’t you?” he asked, eyes narrowing on her.
She hurried down the ramp and stopped just in front of him. “A big red one. But I was sure that it would be okay.”
“How sure?”
She shrugged. “Fifty-fifty. Do you want to come in and have a go? I turned it off pretty fast, but we could try for longer next time. A whole lot of things flashed up. There was a screen and when I swiped my hand over it that’s when we went up. Then down. It was easy.”
He shuddered. “I hate flying.”
She patted his arm. “Maybe you need to face your fears, Milo. Get over them.”
Why did he suspect she wasn’t only talking about flying? “Another day, perhaps.” Like never. She was dressed differently, in blue jeans that fitted her perfectly and a dark blue tank top that skimmed her breasts and matched her eyes. “You’ve got some new clothes.”
She twirled. “Dylan brought them for me. He stole them. But he said sometimes stealing is all right.”
“How long did he stay?” he asked, trying not to sound suspicious.
Dylan had turned up at dawn, smelling of sex and looking very self-satisfied. He’d thrown himself into bed, muttering something about the tech officer from the Trakis Four. A pretty redhead if Milo remembered rightly. But maybe that had just been a ruse to throw him off the scent, and he’d actually spent the night with Destiny. Taking advantage of the fact that Milo was doing the honorable thing.
“Not long,” she replied. “He said he had people to see.”
“Good. He’s a bad influence. You want to explore the tunnels with me?”
His stalkers had gone by the time he’d gotten up that morning and he’d made sure he wasn’t being followed before heading around the lake. Unfortunately, he didn’t think there was a chance of him doing anything unnoticed in Camelot from now on. They had clearly gone into high alert after Destiny had disappeared.
He didn’t think they suspected him or Dylan of anything specific as yet, but the fact was, they stood out as different. However hard they tried to fit in—and he was the first to acknowledge that he hadn’t tried that hard—they were different. They asked a lot of questions.
Which all meant he needed an alternative route back to the tunnels close to Destiny’s cell. He wasn’t sure how far he had transported them when he had done the spell, but likely the tunnels were all interconnected.
“Yes please,” Destiny said. “Why are we exploring?”
“I want to see if I can find out what they were hiding that first night we met.”
“Oh. An adventure. And a mystery.”
He handed her a bag of fresh donuts.
“Do we need a torch?” she asked, biting into one and then licking the sugar from her lips, while watching him out of lowered lashes.
“No.” He forced himself to turn away, then stood for a moment orientating himself and working out which direction they needed to head in. Finally, he selected a tunnel. “That way.” He pulled his wand from his belt as he walked toward the darkness of the tunnel. Destiny fell into step beside him.
“That looks like a wand. Like Harry Potter.”
“It’s just a…sort of torch.” He raised it up and murmured a word under his breath and a bright white light shone out. He blinked. Too bright—nothing worked as expected here—and he murmured again and the light dimmed. “Let’s go.”
“Did you find any useful information in Mr. Kinross’s computer system?” she asked as they walked.
“Some, but not the stuff we really need. We do know that he has detailed information on all the ships, the people on them, and what they brought with them from Earth. And we know he has an army at his disposal.”
“The men in the green jumpsuits with the weapons. But where did they come from? I read about the Chosen Ones and who was given places on the ships and there was no mention of an army.”
He paused for a moment as he came to a crossroads. He could go left or right. “That way,” Destiny said, pointing left.
They headed off again. “Kinross set things up before he ever left Earth. Put his own people in place.” He thought for a moment. Should he tell her about the crew members? Specifically about Dr. Yang’s family. Maybe she could give him some insight into how best to use the information. “He switched over the crew member families and replaced them with his own men.”
She stopped and turned to look at him. “That’s wicked.”
“Yep.” Perhaps he wouldn’t mention how he’d gotten his own place on the fleet. Though he hadn’t had a lot of say in the matter—Rico had knocked him out and given him no choice.
“All of them?” Destiny asked.
“We don’t know for sure. But all of them on the Trakis Two.”
She blinked, processing that information. “But you said Dr. Yang’s daughters were on the Trakis Two.”
“Not anymore.”
“Oh, poor Dr. Yang. Have you told her?”
“Not yet. We just found out. Not sure if we’re going to tell her. We might need her help at some point in the not-too-distant future and offering to get her family for her might make all the difference.”
“But that’s…”
“That’s what?”
He turned again so he could see her face; she had a cute little furrow between her brows. “I don’t know. It seems bad, but really it won’t make any difference to Dr. Yang’s daughters. And not much to Dr. Yang. Except put off her feeling horrible.”
She was amazing. A few days ago, she had seemed so naive. But it had only been ignorance and already she was coming up with her own version of morality.
“But won’t she find out?” she asked. “Won’t she be expecting them to join her?”
“Right now, Kinross has put a lockdown on the other ships waking up any of the Chosen Ones or family members. And most of the people are happy to follow his leadership.”
“People like to be led.”
“Yeah. My guess is some of them, including the retired crew rotations, will never be woken. He’d have a mutiny on his hands if they ever work out what happened to their families. Your Dr. Yang was an exception. She must have been woken for a reason.” And he was guessing that had something to do with Destiny. But what?
They came to another junction. “Right again,” Destiny said.
“How do you know?”
“I’m not sure. But I think I have a good sense of direction and I can sort of visualize in my head where we are in relation to the building.” They walked on. “So Kinross is not a good man?”
“He’s using child labor to build a goddamn church.”
“That’s not good. You don’t believe in God? I read the Bible and the Book of Everlasting Life. I think they are as much fiction as Fifty Shades of Grey.”
“Probably more.”
“And not nearly so…interesting.”
“You like the idea of being tied up? Does pain turn you on?”
> She shook her head. “I don’t think so. You turn me on.”
“Maybe that’s just because you have no other options right now. Once you meet more people, that will change.”
She sniffed. “I have options. Dylan said he would…fuck me if I asked him nicely. Hard.”
He’d kill fucking Dylan first. He was messing with him. “Don’t even think about it,” he growled.
“Would you be jealous?”
“Yes.”
“I knew you liked me really.” Her tone held more than a hint of satisfaction. “Anyway, so what are you going to do about Kinross?”
“Nothing, except make sure he can’t bother us on Trakis Two.”
“What about everyone else?”
“Hey, you’re mistaking me for someone who gives a fuck. That’s their decision. If the assholes want to follow him, why should I give a damn?”
“But that’s…” She trailed off, clearly unable to come up with a word. He decided to help her out.
“Immoral?”
She scowled. “Maybe amoral. But I was thinking more along the lines of lazy. You know he’s a bad man, and he shouldn’t be in charge, and you’re just going to make sure you and your friends are safe and then leave everyone else to suffer. What about the poor little children?”
No one had helped him when he was a child. Except that wasn’t entirely true. Rico had taken him in. It wasn’t Rico’s fault that he’d been a pretty new vampire as well as a natural asshole. He’d actually made sure Milo didn’t starve and had some sort of an education, if a somewhat eclectic one. “They’ll survive. Children are tough.” But he felt a stirring of guilt and he also realized he didn’t want Destiny to think badly of him. Maybe he wanted to be her hero. Just for a little while. Maybe he’d been hoping that they would part ways before she realized he wasn’t hero material at all.
“They shouldn’t have to be tough.” She stopped. “We’re nearly there. We’re just coming up beneath the building.”
He halted and listened but could hear nothing.
He murmured a word and the light went out, leaving them in complete darkness; there was obviously no one else down here. He turned the light back on and she blinked.
“Do you know where your cell is?” he asked.
She sniffed. “My room you mean.” She raised a hand and waved it straight ahead. “Down there, close. But this isn’t the direction the men with the boxes were going in.” She turned and headed a little way back, then took a fork in the tunnels. After a few minutes, she stopped again and waved a hand at a door. “My luxurious quarters.”
He hadn’t even recognized the place.
“They were coming from that direction,” she said, waving a hand down the corridor, “and heading that way.” She pointed in the opposite direction.
They didn’t have to walk far until they came to a black metal door that blocked the tunnel. A newly installed door by the look of things, with a big padlock.
“It’s locked,” she said, sounding disappointed. He had an idea that she craved adventure.
He stepped closer, pretended to fiddle with the lock, and whispered an unlocking spell. “Not any longer,” he said, then gave a shrug. “I had a somewhat misspent youth.”
“Very impressive.”
“I’m good with my hands,” he said.
“I noticed. And I wondered how you had gotten into my cell that night. Let’s see what’s inside.”
He pushed open the door. It led into a big chamber where the tunnel widened, maybe twenty feet by twenty feet. The room was stacked with boxes. Some big, some small. He crossed to the nearest, pulled his knife from the sheath at his waist, and forced the lid. It was full of automatic rifles. No doubt the rest would be full of weapons as well. An arsenal for Kinross’s army.
“Here,” Destiny said, handing him a piece of paper. “This was stuck to the wall.”
It was an inventory, itemizing the location and contents of all the boxes in the room. He cast his eyes down the list: rifles, pistols, hand grenades, gas grenades, C4 and other explosives. And something marked NW. According to the inventory it was in the far corner of the room and he glanced over. A stack of twelve boxes, bigger than the rest, maybe around six feet by three feet, by two feet. He forced open the lid of the closest, then stepped back and swore.
“What is it?” Destiny asked.
“Nuclear warheads.” Enough to destroy a planet at a guess. He remembered the rocket launcher he’d seen parked in the docking bay of the Trakis Four. Was it for launching nuclear warheads? What would the range be?
“That’s not good, is it?”
“Not good at all.” He needed to get back and report in. Decide on their best course of action. Maybe destroy the lot, but if they blew up the store, likely they would destroy the whole planet. Maybe they could remove some vital component, render the bombs harmless. Or he could do a spell, shift the warheads to the shuttle, take them with them. Hold them as a deterrent in case Kinross tried to come after them. But he didn’t trust his magic enough on this planet. And he didn’t think there was an immediate threat. They had time enough to come up with a plan and get safely away.
“I don’t suppose you know how to disarm a nuclear warhead?” he asked.
“No, but we can probably find out in a book.”
She was right. He’d get Rico on it. He closed the lid and knocked it back into place, then glanced at the list again. He crossed the room and came to a halt in front of another pile of boxes, smaller this time. He opened the lid and grinned. “You never know when a grenade will come in useful.” He filled his backpack with as many as he could carry and then closed the lid. “Time to get out of here.”
“Is this what you expected to find?” Destiny asked.
“Maybe not nukes, but weapons of some kind. People are going along with him for now, but he can’t assume that will last forever. He needs to be able to back up any threats he makes.”
“You need to stop him.”
“I’m not a goddamn hero, Destiny. Stop mistaking me for one. It’s not who I am.”
She stood her ground. “I never said you were a hero. I’m not that naive anymore. But you helped me. I thought you were a decent human being.”
Ha. She was way off there. Both on the decent and the human part. “Well, now you know different.”
“Then maybe I can stop him. We have a duty—”
“Jesus, stop the duty crap. We don’t have a duty to anyone here. Not to Kinross, or your Dr. Yang, or all those people sleeping in cryo, who probably bought their places and murdered the people who did win the fucking lottery. The only person you have a duty to is yourself.”
She opened her mouth, no doubt to argue some more, but then she clamped her lips closed. He could almost see her brain working, going over what he’d said, her brows drawn together. Finally she muttered, “I need to read some more.”
He sighed. He’d liked her naive; there had been a freshness to her. He had a feeling she was going to get difficult and stubborn and… “Come on, let’s get out of here.”
They left the chamber, locking the padlock behind them, and then headed back toward Destiny’s cell. As they turned a corner, lights flashed on somewhere up ahead.
“Stop!” a voice called out.
“Shit,” Milo said. “Run.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
“…for there are two distinct sorts of ideas, those that proceed from the head and those that emanate from the heart.”
—Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo
Milo grabbed her hand and they ran.
Behind them, the thud of booted feet sounded so close. They came to a junction and Milo hesitated, and she dragged him to the left. Then they were running again, flat-out. Her heart was racing; every cell of her body felt alive.
Milo was holding her hand. And sh
e could still hear the people behind them. Suddenly, he tugged her to a halt and dragged her into the opening of another tunnel. He waved the torch and the light went out, then he muttered a few words and stepped back against the wall, wrapped his arms around her, and pulled her hard against him. “Quiet,” he murmured. “Cloaking device.”
She closed her mouth and held her breath, totally conscious of his arm around her middle, his hard body flush against her back.
Outside their tunnel, she could see an approaching light, and the sound of feet getting closer. A few seconds later, five men hurried past, not even hesitating as they ran within feet of their hiding place. Destiny hadn’t come across any information on cloaking devices in all the books she had read—except science fiction. And Harry Potter. But this one clearly worked very well.
The light was disappearing and the sounds fading.
Milo put his mouth so close to her ear she could feel his breath, and a shiver ran through her. “Stay still. They’ll likely come back this way.”
She nodded. “How does the cloaking device work?” she asked.
“Don’t worry about it.”
“I’m not—” Then the words trapped in her throat as his mouth pressed against the side of her neck and the cloaking device vanished from her mind. He trailed hot kisses across her skin, and she was suddenly conscious of his hard hands splayed against her middle. She wanted to turn and face him, but he held her in place, one hand sliding over her to cup her breast, and her head fell back against him.
He squeezed gently and her nipple hardened under his touch.
His hand left her, and she opened her mouth to complain as his palm slid under her shirt and touched her bare skin.
“Oh,” the word escaped her as his fingers plucked at her hard nipple.
“Shh,” he whispered against her ear and a shudder ran through her.
Closing her eyes, she gave herself up to the sensations filling her. His warm breath against her ear, one hand on her breast, the other splayed over her belly, inching closer to the waistband of her jeans.
“You can breathe, though.”
She gulped in air as his teeth nipped at the sensitive spot where her shoulder met her throat, and she tilted her head to the side so he could do it some more. He licked along her skin, then nibbled her ear.
