Chapter Eight

Outer Reaches. Geonate New Time, Year 2402
Mission: Day 9
Venture Stranded: 14 hours

The phoenix leader dropped to the floor, and in the corner of the room, Treena froze.

“No,” she whispered. “Don’t let it be because of me.”

The big one, Ivan, hefted the nearly-as-large Piotr across his shoulders while the dark, gorgeous one, Gregory, covered Piotr in a blanket.

“Follow me to the sick bay,” ordered Len, who always joked with Treena and had accepted her as soon as she’d come aboard. Now she looked concerned, and Treena feared the woman would hate her if she knew the truth.

They filed out, Len, followed by Ivan, Piotr, Gregory, and trailing behind, the captain. Treena followed in a daze. She’d have to confess to slipping a potion into the water recycling system. Perfectly positioned, she’d gotten rid of the contents of the vial her first hour as the supply officer trainee. Too perfect. Something had to go wrong, didn’t it? Didn’t it always?

Ronin would never be freed.

Before she’d processed what she’d witnessed, she stood in the doorway of sick bay. No one paid attention to her, as they all talked with concern over Piotr, who lay on a bed unconscious.

“He’ll be fine,” Ivan reassured Len. He didn’t address the captain at all but leaned over the engineering chief. “He drained himself a bit too much, but a day of rest, and he’ll be as hale as a Sirin velvet cat.

“What’s a velvet cat?” Len returned.

“A wild cat from our home planet,” Gregory interrupted. “We should let Piotr be so he can get some sleep.” He turned to the captain, who stood in the corner with a pale face and her eyes riveted to Piotr. “The ambient light will recharge him, so leave his chest uncovered. It’s not usual for a phoenix to deplete his energy, but it happens on occasion. Perhaps he was distracted from monitoring himself.”

When Gregory motioned the others to leave, Treena ducked into the deserted treatment alcove across from the one where they’d placed Piotr.

“He really will be okay,” Ivan said as they walked out of the sickbay.

Treena parted the alcove’s curtained entrance as Ivan slung his arm around Len and hugged her to his side. Gregory followed, and Treena wished she could go with him. She wanted him to hug her as Ivan had Len. Too late for that. Gregory wouldn’t want her to touch him. Nobody would give her a hug, the kind she missed from Ronin.

Treena parted the curtain further and had a perfect view into Piotr’s room. Intent on the sleeping man in the cot that barely contained him, the captain remained in the corner.

They didn’t have a medic on board, so nobody should walk into the clinic, but Treena broke into a sweat. She’d never be able to explain why she spied on these two. She should leave.

Treena held her breath in preparation to tiptoe past the captain’s vision when the woman moved. The captain walked to the cot and looked down with a troubled expression. Even from several feet away, the tear tracks on her cheeks glistened. Treena’s eyebrows shot up. The captain didn’t impress her as being a caring woman.

The captain leaned as if to sit on the bed, but hesitated for long moments before she did. Now intrigued, Treena didn’t make a break for it. She waited for the captain’s next move.

Captain Voron lifted a clearly shaking hand and reached toward Piotr’s face. She hovered there for interminable seconds before she put her hand in her lap.

“Piotr?” asked the captain with a small quiver. She cleared her throat. “Perhaps next time, you’ll heed proper safety protocols. I’m sure your people have those in situations like this. We must always remain in control if we are to protect those in our care.”

She cleared her throat again, but remained silent as a tear rolled down one cheek. She wiped it away.

“There is a decided lack of control on this ship. No propulsion, shaky battery backup, a man named Koschei who may mean us harm, a race of alien firebirds, and lest we forget, a star ready to implode.”

At the mention of Koschei, Treena nearly cried out in alarm, but she bit her lip and waited for the captain to turn away from the portway. Treena couldn’t wait here any longer. This was too much to bear.

A whisper came from the cot, “I’m not an alien.”

The captain leapt to her feet and rounded the bed. When the captain’s back turned, Treena sprinted for the exit.

At least Piotr was awake. Now Treena had to decide what to do about Koschei.

 

Outer Reaches. Geonate New Time, Year 2402.
Mission: Day 11.
Venture Stranded: 2.75 days.

The mirror reflected back puffy eyes and an oily, matted mess of hair. Now too loose, her once smart uniform sagged on her body. Nothing was right anymore.

“Stupid, stupid girl,” she chided herself in the empty locker room that hadn’t seen much use with the energy conservation in effect.

For two days, Treena couldn’t eat or sleep. Had the serum made Piotr sick? Had it changed him or harmed his impressive powers? She couldn’t cause anyone harm, no matter how much she needed to help Ronin. When the guilt consumed her and her stomach knotted in agony, her desperation caused her to find a way out of her quagmire. Hand to her stomach, she balled her fist against the burning that persisted there and went to sick bay.

Rather than run across Joylnn, who probably waited for her in the bay on the lower deck to double-check cargo for anything that could assist repairs, Treena took the stairs that wrapped around the central tunnel. Treena couldn’t face the woman that she’d trained to replace. Not when whatever had happened to Piotr could happen to Joylnn’s baby.

Up one level, she stepped into the circular mess hall, as empty as the locker room. Lined at the rear of the large room cleared of furniture now clamped to the walls, picture windows opened to the garden areas and green houses that circled the outside of the mess hall. Between the open garden and the functional hot house, the sick bay seemed out of place, but then again, if Treena were convalescing in bed, the beauty of the lush green rooms would be reassuring. Hopefully they wouldn’t have to cut environmental controls there and destroy all that beauty.

Rather than use the main entry from the mess hall to the sickbay, Treena took the scenic route through the long, corridor-like garden. Though she didn’t take the time to linger along the path lined with edible ornamentals, she took a deep breath to calm herself. Her lungs filled with clean air, and she almost smiled, until she heard the mumblings coming from a room in sickbay with the portal door locked open.

“I don’t need to stay in bed. I’m fine,” rumbled a deep, lyrical voice that Treena easily placed as Piotr.

“You may leave sickbay when we understand why you collapsed,” answered the captain.

“You don’t need to babysit me. You’ve been here almost non-stop for two days, and while I enjoy your company, this isn’t the bridge. There’s no time to nurse me when you need this ship running.”

“I don’t need to be on the bridge. To save resources, I’ve cut the power to the cone and transferred the controls to engineering.”

“You’ve given control of your ship over to engineering? I don’t believe that for one second,” Piotr sounded amused and incredulous at the same time.

“Well, no, I have full control with my PCU. The bridge is where I am, at all times.”

Piotr sighed loudly.

“I don’t need to be in this bed. Ask Ivan or Gregory.”

“We don’t have a medic to check you out, so the matter falls to me. When I think you’ve fully recovered, I’ll release you.”

“I can just leave, you know.”

“Not and come back aboard this ship,” the captain’s anger sounded barely leashed, another surprising revelation. The captain had never seemed riled in the weeks she’d known her, until now.

A chirp interrupted the conversation. The captain answered the hail from the comm unit on her collar. “Go ahead.”

“Captain, I’ve dispersed another round of distress signals after Len boosted the signal, but still no response.”

“Thank you, Hailey.”

“Our ship should be here soon.” Piotr paused and Treena leaned forward to peek around the door. He sat on the cot with his back to the wall, one leg extended, the other bent, his arm resting on his knee. The repose should make him appear relaxed, but he seemed tense. A flush of color spotted his cheeks. His slight frown turned into a boyish grin. “A good thing, too. My captain wouldn’t have kept me in sickbay for something so minor.”

Treena’s new captain sighed loudly.

“Fine. Ivan and Gregory concur with your assessment, and I have to admit you look good. Um, I mean...”

The laughter rumbling from Piotr’s chest sounded more like a purr. “Do you?”

The captain didn’t answer, but stared at the man whose entire body seemed to shimmer with increased pulses that runneled across the energy veins marking his chest.

Treena’s face burned. The air thickened with emotional tension in the room, and Treena backed away. This wasn’t the time to talk to the captain. An inner voice chided she’d never have the nerve to talk to the captain.

“You can leave sickbay, but no more harvesting power for the batteries. Besides, I think I can get the solar sails working,” said the captain. Her voice trailed off as Treena walked away.

When Treena entered the mess hall, she rolled her shoulders, and the cooler air in the room chilled her damp skin.

“There you are,” called Joylnn from the bank of food dispensers. She walked toward Treena, holding a mug that Treena presumed was her usual warm vitamin enhanced energy drink.

Treena shuddered. “How can you drink that?”

“It’s good for the baby,” Joylnn answered.

The chill in the air settled in Treena’s gut in a hard knot. “The baby will be fine.” Treena willed it so with all her heart.

“Well, with the ready meals running low, I may need to start passing these out to everybody to supplement the rations.”

Treena shuddered again.

“Are you alright? You look tired,” Joylnn asked.

“Never better,” Treena nearly laughed at the outrageous lie. It may not matter that she could’ve poisoned the ship. They may never get out of here, anyway. Perhaps it didn’t matter whether or not the Koschei who’d given her the serum may be the same Koschei who’d led them way out here to the Outer Reaches. Even though she should be worried about the dwindling food rations and being stranded in space, somehow Treena relaxed a fraction.

Was death preferable to owning up to her guilt?

She was afraid the answer might be yes.

“Let’s get back to the cargo bay and separate the crates that can handle the loss of enviro from the others.” Joylnn waved her toward the exit.

“Sure.” The situation seemed dire. The captain didn’t need another worry when they may never make it back to port. Maybe Treena wouldn’t need to confess after all.

Treena skipped to catch up as she followed Joylnn to the cargo bay.

*

“Where did you get those?” Len asked Anna.

“Since I cut the power to the cone, I commandeered the electrical lines that ran to the enviro units for that section.”

“Well, I guess this better work, then. It’s going to be uncomfortable reporting to the bridge in an Extreme Conditions Suit.”

“I don’t think we need the ECS just yet,” Anna replied with a sardonic grin.

Had it only been three days since they’d stood in this spot, looking up at that same tunnel to the solar sail rigging?

It all seemed a dream, except Piotr, Ivan, and Gregory stood behind them watching the progress of two engineers as they climbed down from the tunnel.

“All clear,” Len announced and signaled a crewmember who manned the controls.

Silence.

Anna shouldn’t expect to hear the sails extract, but the viewing monitors in engineering were at the work consoles. She couldn’t see or hear the action, and the frustration made her teeth grind together.

Though her fingers drummed on her thigh, she tried to dampen all other outward expression of her anxiety. Len didn’t bother with the appearance of calm assurance. She walked over to an empty station to watch progress. When she grinned at Anna, weight fell away from Anna’s shoulders. For the first time in three days, the building pressure behind her eyes eased. She smiled back.

“The sails have extracted. Good work, captain, commandeering that cabling.”

“Job well done to you, as well, Chief.” Anna walked to the same station Len now occupied and stood beside her. She nodded to the screen. “Can you calculate how long we need to collect solar before we can divert it to propulsion?”

“Well, since we usually use it to spike a wormhole, it doesn’t normally keep a reserve. We should trickle a bit to the batteries and redundant systems. I’d say. . .”

Anna dared a glance at Piotr, and Len’s words drowned in the buzz filling her ears. He stood with his men, head cocked to the side as if puzzled.

The relieved joy soured in her stomach. Something was wrong.

Before she could open her mouth to inquire, all three phoenix tensed and twirled to face the same spot on the outer fringes of engineering.

A mass of twirling lights coalesced in formation, and though the gathering masses of sparks looked similar to the now-familiar phoenix, these were darker, muddier colors, yellows and browns rather than bright white, red, and orange.

Anna reached to her PCU and initiated the intruder alert. Alarms whooped through the room while she gripped the sidearm that she’d nearly decided not the wear this morning since she’d spent so much time in sickbay.

“All hands to defensive positions, and arm yourselves,” Anna announced in the ship comm.

Beside her, Len reached down to her thigh holster and withdrew the only weapon aboard that wasn’t a small sidearm, a short-nosed repeating disruptor she affectionately called her baby.

The phoenix were silent, but formed a triangle with Piotr at point.

Bird creatures formed in the swirling mass to the side as the tall, fierce men of the phoenix began to shimmer into their change.

Anna got one last glimpse of Piotr as his fiery eyes ran over her, head to foot. He tilted his head, and her mouth ran dry.

“Be careful,” she whispered.

Piotr shimmered along the tree-like markings on his chest. In a flash, engineering became crowded with three firebirds towering to the ceiling, and six shorter birds no larger than she.

“What’s going on?” Len asked at her side.

“I’m sure going to find out,” Anna answered as the creatures squared off, taking up the entire room while the crew of engineering collected behind Anna and the now deserted workstations.

She stood between her crew and uncertainty, but damn if she wouldn’t get to the bottom of this.

“Who are you?” she asked with authority.

No answer but squawking. These birds were of differing shades of brown. Closer to a Geonate falcon, popular in the larger colonies with game preserves. Instead of feathers, these space birds had the same fibers as the phoenix, but they didn’t pulse with vibrant light.

The phoenix had proven to be friends. Before she could assess the newcomers—she didn’t want to act rashly—her gut told her that danger threatened her crew.

“I must insist to know your business aboard this ship,” Anna announced. She took a step forward with her heart beating wildly.

One of the falcons lunged toward Piotr, and Anna strangled a scream. Piotr’s beak slashed forward toward his attacker’s throat. Her hand rose with the blaster, but she held back, afraid to hit Piotr.

A loud clank filled the room, followed by a clatter.

Long pipes appeared in another show of light and rolled along the feet of the Falcons.

Teleportation? The Geonate had only experimented with it. Did these creatures have the technology?

“What the hell?” Len’s shouted and her disruptor fired toward a Falcon who tried to spear the phoenix to the left of Piotr, Ivan.

“Get these things off my ship,” Anna hissed to Len as she crouched, sidearm in hand, to run at the mass of energy birds fighting one-on-one, lunging at each other with razor sharp beaks. Three of the Falcons dissolved in a swirling mass and formed into nude men.

All three reached for the rods on the floor.

That was all Anna needed to decide these aliens were the enemy.

She fired at the nearest invader. He crumpled to the floor, hand clutching the smoldering wound in his thigh. The long bar he held thunked to the floor and rolled toward her.

Her hand closed around it, and her vision blacked with the cold shocking her body. She dropped it.

Memories of a cruel laugh and smirking mouth hovering over her brought her to her knees, arms covering her head. “Belusi is a bastard nobody without control or power over me,” she chanted and willed the blankness away.

Grunts and scuffling surrounded her, but she couldn’t clear the vicious, twisted lips from her vision.

“My sweet,” echoed through her, and static buzzed in her ears as if she were in a tunnel. She was nowhere.

Through the haze, a concerned voice warmed her chest, dispelling the cold achiness.

“Did one of those space-wastes hurt her? Help me get her to her feet.”

“I’m fine.” She wasn’t sure if the words came out because she couldn’t hear them.

Hands reached under her arms and lifted her up, and she stood on her feet. The world rushed in.

Eyes opened, she recognized engineering, and the sounds of fighting bombarded her at once. Len still held her arms, another crewman steadying her from behind.

The phoenix in front of her, standing majestically between her and chaos, had the distinctive white tail with knots and swirls at the bottom. Piotr.

Red rimmed eyes blazed brightly and then dimmed when the brown centers grew larger.

She’d have to ask him about that, why his eyes changed, as soon as she’d rid her ship of these intruders.

Two of the men wielded rods and swung them at Gregory and Ivan, who danced away to avoid contact.

Piotr stepped away from Anna and toward one of the falcon-like intruders. Beak extended, he knocked the creature back. A bright fissure opened on the smaller bird’s chest, and the intruder instantly took off to dissolve through the ceiling of engineering.

These things could be injured. Could the same happen to Piotr?

Anna swallowed and winced when her dry throat scratched.

Piotr erupted in a flurry of action. His beak slashed, his claws ripped, and his wings swiped through the air. In moments, he’d dispatched the other two falcons.

Only one—in his human form—remained.

He must have sensed his position because he gripped the rod in his hand and turned to run.

“Where is he going?” Anna croaked, unable to speak louder from her dry mouth. She hadn’t asked anyone in particular, but Len, now at her side, answered.

“Central tunnel,” Len said.

“Stay here and get everything under control,” Anna hissed, and took off after the man who’d reached the stairs that circled the transport tube. He wouldn’t take the chance the door to the transport was keyed to personnel only. It wasn’t the case on the Venture, but he wouldn’t know that.

Anna held her weapon out in front, leading with it as she climbed the circular staircase. Behind her, she heard a rustle and a corresponding caw.

Piotr likely followed, but she didn’t turn to verify.

Above, the pounding of steps on the metal stair stopped abruptly.

The invader had made it up one level before he left the tunnel. He was in the lounge.

Anna hoped none of her crew was there now.

Hand steady on her weapon, she rounded the steps. A current of air brushed her cheek, and the fragrance of fear told her the man waited out of sight to the side of the portway, ready for ambush.

Amateur.

She holstered her weapon and edged along the wall toward the open entry. In a low crouch, she darted her hand into the room with assurance and grabbed the man’s leg. With a rough yank, she pulled his legs out from under him and rounded the wall into the room.

The man’s eyes flew wide while he struggled for breath on the floor. The pipe in his hand rolled to the side. She moved to draw her weapon, but he scampered back, crab-crawling on his hands and knees. He began to dissolve. It was too late to capture him.

In a blink of an eye, he was gone.

Focused on the fight, she had no idea what the man had looked like, and he’d never said a word.

Warmth invaded her back. Cinnamon scent eased the tension from her shoulders. She turned to him. “Are you uninjured?”

Without the ability to speak to her, she still read the reassurance in his posture, the softening of his red eyes to a warm brown, and the soft thumping coo reverberating from his chest.

Whoever had invaded the ship, whatever their intent, they were now gone. She hadn’t lost control of her ship. They hadn’t harmed Piotr.

The phoenix stepped toward her and dipped his head, but before he could shift, Anna wanted to touch him again. She wanted the flow of his energy to pulse under her hand. A small shuffle forward and a slight lean, and she ran her fingers in the strands of life on his scarlet-hued chest.

Enveloped in luminous pulsing, his wings wrapped around her, and little fissures of warmth trailed over her skin where the fibers of his body vibrated. Cinnamon surrounded her, and she filled her lungs with his essence.

Peace edged with longing consumed her, and she wrapped her arms around him as far as she could reach.

“Who were those men? Were they from Koschei?”

A threatening rumble confirmed her question.

“What does he want from us?”

His soothing thrum ran over her entirety. Before, his mollifying purr had soothed her, but now, she shivered and grew hot all over.

“You don’t know either, do you?”

Wings still surrounding her, he rubbed against her, holding her closer while the drumming in his chest deepened into a throbbing bass.

Threads of energy touched her in endless pinpoints from his wings, chest, and flowing tail that now wrapped her legs. She stretched, bumping closer against him to luxuriate in his encompassing warmth.

In a cocoon of comfort, she smiled at the image that Piotr reminded her of the vids she’d seen of a butterfly who would unfold its wings to fly.

“I’ve never said this to you, but thank you for saving my life.” Unable to form the words through the turbulence the memories created, she paused, but could only say, “From before.”

Thankful beyond bearing, she kissed his chest, and her lips tingled with the electrical feedback. The purring revved to a rapid pace, encouraging her, making her bold.

Her arms tightened in a brief hug, and she kissed him again, keeping her face flush against him and rubbing her nose along the strands of his feathers. The bird held her, not the man, so she whispered the private thought, the one that kept her from running. “My avenging angel.”

He made a strange sound like a gurgling in his throat.

Like a waterfall of sand, his body changed and reformed.

Her breath caught as the warmth of this wings retreated, but before she could back away, arms of steel hugged her tight against a long, hard body. A nude body radiating heat in waves.

Piotr’s chest pulsed along his branch markings, with the same enticing scent, the same thrumming in his chest, and the same warmth.

No, not the same warmth. An intense, feral connection flew between them, and Anna didn’t pull back from the contact, though he was now the man. The phoenix had rescued her, could the man?

Anna gripped his arms, now covered in a fine mist. The first man to be so close since before that time she wouldn’t think about. Before she could tread that path of horrid memories, she closed her eyes tightly and crushed her face against him.

“Anna, I don’t know why you’ve closed off from me before, and I won’t ask,” he said. “But I want to kiss you. Will you allow me?”

Unable to speak past her clenched throat, she whimpered. Embarrassment heated her cheeks and neck, but she didn’t allow herself to think. She raised her head from the blazing heat of his chest.

His warm eyes were almost completely brown. Only a thin rim of red surrounded his irises. His soft lips firmed in a line as if he was in pain, and a bolt of awareness flooded through her. The bulge pressing into her stomach confirmed it, but she couldn’t think about that either.

She lifted onto tiptoe and rubbed against him on the way to his lips. He groaned, and in a swift motion, bent to meet her.

His lips brushed over hers, and their heavy breathing mingled. He placed a chaste kiss on her cheek, her nose, and the softest of pecks on her lips again. No one had ever been so tender with her. The ache in her heart nearly made her wince.

Her rescuer, her warrior, tightened his hold around her upper back before he deepened the kiss.

The taste of him woke the sleeping woman deep inside her. The soft lips, demanding tongue, made her yearn to cling to him and never let him go. That wild abandon had never taken her before, and she leaned into him.

Her hands ran through his hair, over the two braids that framed his face, and pulled him down to her eager advances. When she thrust her tongue into his mouth, he groaned and shifted his hold.

With one hand on the back of her head as if to hold her still, the other traveled down her back. When he cupped her rear, alarm bells clamored in her mind, and she pushed off of him, struggling for breath and control. Wet, full lips pursed in a frown, he let her go and gave her a puzzled expression. Hand to her heart, Anna willed the organ to cease its rapid fluttering.

“Are you alright, Anna?” Piotr asked with a husky tremor. “Did the mimics hurt you? Or was it me? Did I push too far?”

Anger rushed through her. She pushed away the awakening desire she’d lost for so long. Weakness in others she could forgive. Never in herself.

“I’m not a child,” she hissed and immediately wanted the words back.

“No, you certainly are not,” he answered with the same hoarseness that begged her to look down below his waist.

She didn’t. She couldn’t. Her heart fluttered even more wildly.

“Don’t get the wrong idea. I’m not fragile. You don’t need to coddle me. I’m not interested in starting a fling, and I wouldn’t want you to get the wrong idea.”

There. She’d said it. Now he’d leave her alone. She’d given the last word and taken back her control. It didn’t matter that she hadn’t kissed a man in well over three years. It didn’t matter that she wanted to do it again. Her crew mattered. Her ship mattered.

Besides, he had someone waiting on him. He wasn’t hers.

Careful to keep her eyes on his face, which slowly changed from confusion to satisfaction, she continued, “I’m heading back to engineering. If you would, please clothe yourself and join me there for debriefing in ten. We have to discuss these mimics.”

He didn’t appear to have heard her but looked at her mouth and replied, “I think you want me to kiss you again.”

Her lips grew warm and heavy, and she croaked her retort, “No. You caught me in the rush of the fight. It won’t happen again.”

“Liar.” He grinned at her in a way that’d make any self-respecting spacer want to take him for a spin for an entire planetary leave cycle.

He was right. She was a liar.

Her glare would have melted any cadet at Academy. His smile faded and confusion clouded his face.

“Let’s get my ship back underway, and then you can leave to get back to your promised mate,” she said with her patented captain’s voice.

He looked like she’d slapped him. She twirled on her heel to head to engineering.

The glint of metal brought her back to her senses. The weapon of the intruder lay on the floor at her feet. She picked it up, tucked it under her arm, and berated herself the entire way to engineering for getting distracted.

Her duty was to save her crew. Nothing else mattered.