Jax heard the drip of water hitting stone first.  It made the dry, dusty feel of her mouth seem that much more pronounced.  The headache made it impossible to gauge what else might be wrong with her.  The feel of her head splitting open and pouring out her brains made any other injuries superfluous.  She lay there listening to that annoying drip, drip, drip, until gradually her headache eased and she could chance opening her eyes.  It didn't seem to make much difference.  The room was still an impenetrable black with warbles of white light flittering across her eyes like ghost images. 

She really hated sedatives, especially this one. Sadly, she had been dosed before, only once, but that was enough.  The last time she had woken up in a ship bound for Dainaree.  She could tell without being able to see that she was not on a ship.  She could feel metal and electricity somewhere close, but the walls around her were natural, not manmade.  She might have a bigger affinity for the things the normal Dainaree could not usually handle, but that did not mean there was anything wrong with her understanding of nature.  She felt the stone, and absolutely no life inside or around it.

Where in the universe was she?

Then she felt something else, a shimmer across her nerves the headache had been camouflaging.  Her mate was near.  Now she just had to find out if that was a good thing or a bad thing.  Because if he was near, why wasn't he coming to her aid?  If he was near, why didn't she feel a ship close by?

Then she heard the rustle and hiss in the dark and knew she was not alone.

"Tolan?" she whispered, because that was the best she was capable of at the moment.  There was more rustling and then a pained groan that made her think having him here was a bad thing.  He was hurt.  But how badly?

Jax forced herself to roll to her knees and had to lie there, with her knees under her and her forehead pressed to the rock floor when the move created a wave of pain in her head.  She deep-breathed until the pain lessened and the nausea passed.  Then she inched across the rough stone floor toward where she could feel her mate.  Occasionally she could hear movement and sounds of angry pain.  It was only when she felt the hard, naked hip beneath her seeking hands that she could breathe again. 

She moved up that hip and over the ridged muscles of his stomach and chest until she felt the chains securing him.  She gave an angry hiss of her own, because now she could also smell the blood and feel it hot on her hands as they trailed the chain to the lock that secured his arms twisted at his back.  She snorted in derision.  What was a lock but a machine with small moving parts?  With nothing more than a thought her hand heated over the lock and it fell from his chains.  She wasted no time pulling them off his prone body, a body that was beginning to thrash in earnest.  She found one other chain and lock around his legs and ankles and realized he was chained to a bolt in the stone floor.  Not good.  She released that one too and then tried to feel as much of him as she could, searching for injuries.  There were quite a few of them but none seemed life-threatening. 

He wore his human skin rather than his Shakien warrior form, which should have been automatic when he was in a fight, so that worried her.  When she got to his face the blood there and the swelling worried her more.  She also found the leather gag and removed that.  It was secured tightly enough that it nearly cut into the skin of his cheeks, and because it was leather she had to remove it the old-fashioned way, by untying it.  It took her a while and the leather was slick with blood and probably her own sweat by the time she succeeded in removing it.

By then she was so tired and her head was throbbing so badly she fell to her back, her head resting on Tolan's shoulder while she very nearly fell asleep.  But resting would have to wait. 

In a moment she would get up, she thought, staring at the black ceiling above them, knowing that if she had no night vision that meant there was complete and utter blackness; anything else and she would have seen something. 

She knew she was thinking these thoughts to stall moving again, but she still gave herself a small increment of time, scenting and feeling her mate as he struggled to wake beside her, then she forced herself to move toward where she felt the tech and mech calling to her abilities.  It was faint so she knew it was non-operable, whatever it was, and there was no power surging inside the walls of lifeless rock that surrounded them.  But something was there, and besides that, the air they were breathing was coming from somewhere. 

The two opposite parts of her Dainaree magic was telling her it was not green growing things that made the air they were breathing, which meant there was something to be found.  And she could use something, anything, about now.

She would think about why she and Tolan had been dumped on a lifeless hunk of rock and deserted some other time.  It was enough to know that there was no life around them that was close enough to sense.  But there was mech here, and tech, and she could use that.

She took a moment to wonder how long it would take the others to find them, or if the solid core of the rock that surrounded them would make it as difficult to find the signal as it was to sense the mech.

Eventually she made it to the control panel she had sensed.  She had felt along the rough walls so long she had wondered if she was imagining things but it was there, her fingers tingling at the first touch of manmade metals that hid the dead circuitry. 

She closed her useless eyes and sent a small wave of her power through that metal and wire, and felt the purpose behind the machine.  An old control panel for the room, for a room it must be, even if it felt hewn from solid rock.  She breathed her power through the machine until she touched along the line where the power had been cut off.  She repaired each small damage she could find as she felt along that long line, and eventually her power touched upon an answering power.  She connected with the distant source that powered the space station encased in rock that was all around her, and a second later the panel hummed with life.  She pulled her awareness back into her body and pressed the now lit-up buttons.  The lights behind her flashed on and she heard a click.  She looked toward the sound and watched a large metal door open, no longer locked down.  She smiled her satisfaction, then she passed out.

***

Tolan Lark awoke abruptly.  He was ravenously hungry and knew from experience that his body had used his reserves to heal the worst of his wounds.  He would need to eat and soon, before his Shakien healing ability could finish what it had started.  When he opened his eyes the glare of the room had him slapping a hand over his sensitive eyes and at the feel of his face he realized he was not wearing his warrior form.  He had been very injured indeed and had not had enough power to sustain both it and his healing.  Which meant he really needed food, and time to recuperate.  Though he had a feeling from the sound of shifting chains when he moved and the cold rock of the floor that he would not get either one. 

Then he smelled something, felt something, and knew Jax was near.  His eyes flashed open, and he sat up, too fast it seemed, but he ignored the dizziness and pain and looked for Jax.  He found her slumped naked on the floor beside what looked like about a hundred-year-old panel of mech.  The panel looked like someone had taken a war axe to it at some point but miraculously it worked.  Or maybe, he thought, going to his unconscious mate, not so miraculously.  He pulled her into his lap. Both of them were naked, and he had a brief moment to mourn his extremely expensive nanite armor before his eyes fell on the spots of blood and mangled chains where he had been lying a moment ago.  Jax had freed him and then used her powers to get the panel working. He saw the open door and the blackness and rock corridor beyond it. 

She had done much.  Now it was his turn.  They needed to find a com station, they needed food, and they needed to find out why the hell Gorson raiders would drop him and his mate off on what sounded and smelled like an empty, dead planet.

When he looked her over he could find no sign of injury.  He had no clue when she would recover from whatever they had given her and the power drain of using her powers, but at least she seemed uninjured otherwise. 

For now, he sat as long as he dared just holding his mate and resting.  Then he forced the shift to warrior form over his weak human skin and stood up, unsteadily but with his mate in his arms.  He needed his warrior form for the heightened senses, but also because it was his best bet to protect Jax if they ran into something he could not yet sense down here in the dark.  Because he knew without a doubt that Cor Warrung was behind this, he had no clue what was coming, but he knew it would be bad.  But why was Jax included?  If he did not want her for her breeding skills and she was expendable, as he was, then why go to the trouble of looking for her?  None of it made sense, least of all the dead, deserted feel of the place.  But he could only take what came at them when it came.  For now, he raised his nose and scented the air, hoping for something that would pass for food, and smelled nothing.  With no other choice, he hefted his mate higher and chose a direction at random. 

If there is nothing here, where is the air we breathe coming from?

***

Jax woke with the headache no longer a throb but a dull ache behind her eyes.  Once again, she was in the dark but she could feel the hum of power both in the man who carried her so carefully, and within the walls he followed.  When he started to turn right at the next fork of corridors she stopped him with a barely heard word.

"No," she said as loud as she could then cleared her throat when he froze and tried again.  "Go to the left; there is a power source feeding something in that direction."

He did not argue or express his relief that she was recovering; he just followed her directions as she gave them and eventually they ended at what felt like a huge metal door.  He almost argued when she directed him closer so that she could touch the dead lock panel, but they really had no choice.  Anything could change at any moment and they were without armor, weapons or food.  They needed whatever was being powered in that room.

"It feels like a control room for the space station, not in use, but I have already reconnected much of the circuitry to get the one in our cell up and running.  If we can find some food and I have a chance to rest I will be able to get the com system inside here going.  Or if there are no satellites within reach, at the very least I can get all the security cams working so that we can see what we are dealing with."  She touched the metal of the lock without giving him a chance to respond, and the door opened with an audible whoosh.  The air smelled dank and unused, but something that produced light was inside because as soon as the doors opened he could make out shapes and blinking lights on consoles.  There was a large bank of com screens, some broken, some just coated in a thick dust, but something was alive in there.

"Now you need to put me down and tell me how hurt you are.  We may find a med kit in here somewhere.”  He grunted but set her down gently on a long dusty bench that lacked even the shadow of a cushion but that was better than the rock of the floor.  Even here, the walls and floor were merely carved out rock, not ship’s metal.  Interesting.  Where the hell were they?

She was looking him over carefully in the dim glow and with a sigh of frustration she slapped her hand on the nearest circuit board and closed her eyes.  Before he could stop her the lights in the room flashed on and more boards began to blink.  She slumped down further, but still managed to look him over carefully, right before she passed out again.

Tolan cursed his mate’s stubborn idiocy but could do nothing for her but make her comfortable and get stronger for the both of them. He began to look for something edible. 

The cabinet of dusty emergency rations was so miraculous as to be suspect but after a careful sniff he opened them and added the reactor fluid from the second pouch, causing the food to expand and cook inside the shiny silver bag it came in.  He ate the entire pouch of unrecognizable food and felt immediately better.  He ate three more of the atrocious things before he felt rejuvenated enough to heal the rest of his injuries.  He took two of the pouches back with him to Jax's prone form for when she awoke. 

Then, placing it in easy reach, he used some of his returning Shakien strength to move a steel shelf that was bolted to the far wall over to barricade against the opening of the door.  Someone might be able to move it, but the scraping across the floor would wake him no matter how far gone to the healing sleep he was.  He lay down beside the long metal bench his mate slept on and pulled her down off it and into his arms, scooting them both under the metal bench for further cover in case they were surprised while they slept. 

He turned her in his arms until she rested between him and the rock wall, her head on his shoulder, one of her legs braced over his.  Later he would make a more thorough search and hope for some armor or weapons.  And when Jax awoke she could feel out the mech for him and get the tech up and running for the com.  Once she got the power to the right place and got him a working com station he could take it from there, and she would rest.  Even if he had to tie her down to make her do it.

As he felt his body grow heavy, his mind was fighting the pull of the healing sleep because he still had no clue why Warrung would put them here, and what he had to gain by it.  Was this just a temporary prison while he came to collect them or something more? 

Truth be known, no one would have suspected what Jax could do with her powers.  She was the stuff of legends as a whisperer.  So maybe this was just somewhere the Gorson had dumped them until Warrung could collect them, but he did not think so.  This was a game, and somewhere, somehow, Warrung was waiting to see what they would do within the impossible limits of a dead space station.  But why?  And for what purpose?  More importantly, what else did he have planned for them?

Eventually Tolan could fight the healing sleep no longer and he dozed, but it was a fitful, watchful sleep, and his arms around his mate never softened, even in the deepest part of it.