Chapter Nineteen
It’d been just over two hours since Sub-Doctor Moore had sedated Seb. Soon after he’d checked out, they’d moved him down to a holding cell near military police operations. At least they hadn’t moved him to the far end of the ship where the prison modules were located.
Despite Bren and Alpha trying to convince Jenna to leave Seb be, after they’d put him on the narrow cot inside the cell, she’d sat down in the passageway, settling in to wait the several hours it’d take him to wake up.
While she understood his friends were only trying to make sure he didn’t get killed, knocking him out and locking him up wasn’t the best answer. They couldn’t keep him in there forever.
Whenever they did let him out, he’d still want the same thing—to see for himself whether Lawler had survived. To make sure whatever Lawler knew died with him and couldn’t compromise the safety of the Knox.
Maybe she hadn’t known Seb as long as the rest of them, but she’d become closer to him than anyone else in the past almost-decade, and she’d seen how hot the flames of betrayal had burned in his gaze when Alpha had told him about Lawler’s escape. That wasn’t something a person easily forgot.
Plus, Lawler’s escape complicated her own thorny issues. She couldn’t believe CI had a mole. It had to be impossible. When a person became a CI agent, there was no part of their life left untouched. CI scoured everything, and the smallest hint of anything unseemly—even if it was their second cousin’s wife’s uncle had a rap sheet—could mean a person wouldn’t qualify. Surely, whoever had come up with the theory of the mole being CI had to be mistaken.
There were only two people who could tell her either way. The mole—and she had no way of finding whoever it was—and Lawler. She needed to get to the ground, capture, and then question him.
And if she was going to the ground after Lawler, then she’d be taking Seb. He’d sacrificed so much for her. Even if she lived another two lifetimes, she’d never be able to make it up to him, but she could help him with Lawler, which was why she’d spent the past two hours on her datapad, skimming in and out of the Knox’s systems, gathering information and putting a few things in place.
The slight rustle of clothing and a low groan brought her attention up to Seb, who was shifting on the cot for the first time since they’d put him in the cell. She studied him as he went still again. Moore hadn’t said exactly how long it’d take the sedative to wear off, but she was hoping once it did, he’d wake right up and not be too woozy afterward.
He shifted again, this time rolling onto his side to fully face her. He groaned, one hand lifting slowly to drag over his face, and his eyes blinked open, but then seemed to have trouble focusing. Slipping her datapad away, she got to her feet and went over to the invisible force-field that made up the cell wall facing the passageway.
“Seb?”
He tilted his head, squinting as he looked up at her. But then he grimaced and pressed a palm into his forehead.
“What in the hell happened?” The words ran together, slightly slurred.
“You don’t remember?”
He shook his head, rubbing his eyes. “I don’t know, everything is blurry. We were on med level and then—”
He stiffened and snapped upright.
“Those goddamned ass-faced—” He swayed and clamped an arm around his middle. With a half stumble, half crawl, he got himself over to the sink as he started gagging.
She screwed up her face, feeling sorry for him almost as much as for herself.
Finally, he dragged in a long breath and reached up to tap on the water. He rinsed out his mouth and took a drink, then ripped out some toweling and blotting at the perspiration on his face.
“Sorry,” he muttered as he sat back. But then he shifted with a wince and lay down on the floor. “Got up too fast. Just give me a few seconds.”
She took out her datapad and tapped in the command to drop the energy barrier. After walking inside, she knelt down on the floor next to him, gently brushing her fingers along his hairline.
“Suppose, considering your recent employer, there’s no point asking how you just got into a locked cell.”
“Suppose not,” she murmured in return.
“Can you believe those butt-monkeys actually drugged me?”
“They thought they were doing the right thing.”
He took a short breath, then braced himself and pushed upward. She put a steadying hand on his shoulder as he closed his eyes and leaned against the bulkhead.
“And what do you think?”
She shifted to sit next to him. “Is this really what you want? To risk infiltrating uncharted enemy territory just to see a dead body?”
He tilted his head to look down at her, a kind of naked vulnerability in his gaze she’d never seen before. One she doubted he’d ever let anyone else know existed.
“I can’t live without knowing either way, without making sure he can’t use what he knows against us. He fooled everyone on squad, everyone on the entire damn ship. But I was his best friend. We were almost brothers in everything but blood. I should have seen it, should have picked up on something not being right. Hell, maybe I did, and I just didn’t want to see it.”
He dragged a hand across his eyes, leaving a track of moisture as he looked away from her.
“It’s all on me. All of it. If I’d just—”
“No.” She took his face in her hands, making him look at her. Another tear escaped, slipping down his cheek and over her fingers. “This isn’t your fault. You can’t take that kind of responsibility, because it’ll kill you. Lawler would have been trained, just like I was. He knew how to make sure no one suspected a thing. We always identify and befriend the smart ones, the ones we think will be the most likely to discover the truth, so we can keep a closer eye on them. If Lawler worked so hard at becoming close to you, it’s because you were the most likely one out of the entire squad who could have figured it out.”
He sniffed, wiping his face. “And what’s that supposed to be, cold comfort?”
“It’s a fact. Take it however you need to.”
He sighed, some of the tension leaving his shoulders. “Now what?”
She let her fingers trail over his jaw, short whiskers pleasantly abrasive against the tips. “If you’re still convinced this is what you need, we go to Ilari and find a crash site.”
He studied her, eyes still damp, making the deep brown a richer color. “What about your situation? I thought you were going to Earth.”
She sent him a small smile. “After everything you’ve done for me, it doesn’t seem like the thing to do—cutting out when you could use my help. Besides, I have my own reasons for wanting to find him. I need to know who helped him escape. I could be wrong, but what happened to me and this thing with Lawler are part of a bigger picture I can’t see yet.”
“I think you’re right. I think the connection is Stanton.”
Her heart skipped an apprehensive beat. “Stanton?”
“He’s the CSS mole inside Command Intelligence. It makes sense, Jenna.”
“I’m not jumping to any conclusions. I deal in facts. That’s all.”
She didn’t want to agree with Seb, but if his theory was correct, it made Stanton that much more dangerous. Acting under the orders of CI was one thing, but if he had his own agenda, that made him unpredictable. And an unpredictable element could prove deadly.
Seb placed a hand gently against the side of her face. “I know it’s a possibility you don’t want to consider.”
“This isn’t going to be easy, I can minimize our chances of getting caught or killed, but you heard Alpha. We’ll be heading into enemy territory where even CI hasn’t set foot. There’s a pretty good bet we won’t come out alive.”
For some reason, she sensed the gravity of that had finally sunk past Seb’s rage and drive for vengeance, and saw the fatalistic acceptance in his tight expression. But she doubted it would change his mind. The man was stubborn, and considering his record, running into danger seemed to be standard operating procedure.
“If you do this and we find Lawler’s body, you might never get your answers.”
“The outcomes of both my options are about the same. I could just as easily fail by going to Earth.”
In reality, infiltrating CI HQ for answers wouldn’t have eventuated. She’d likely have been captured or exposed and then executed long before she got answers. At least this suicidal mission was more likely to yield results, because getting in wouldn’t be half as hard as getting out again.
She took a clearing breath. “If you’re right and it turns out Stanton is CSS, it won’t make a difference to me. The damage has already been done.”
Seb nodded, as if he completely understood. Maybe he played the brawn, the airheaded lady-charmer, but deep down, he was a very sensitive, intelligent guy, and she couldn’t figure out why he hid that from the galaxy.
He glanced around the cell. “How long was I out for?”
“A little over two hours.” She got her datapad out. “If we’re going, we haven’t got much time. Moore said he was going to come check on you in three hours.”
“The guy better consider himself lucky when he turns up to find the cell empty,” Seb muttered, using the bulkhead to remain steady as he pushed to his feet. “Oh, by the way. That nurse back in my room—”
“I’m pretty sure she was CI.” She got to her feet as well, keeping an eye on him in case he looked like he was going down again. “Stanton must have sent her.”
“What was she going to do, kill Ace and me?”
She shrugged. “Maybe. Or maybe just to gather more intel. See how you reacted to the news about Lawler.”
“I’ve had it with Stanton’s games. I’m assuming you spent those two hours while I was getting my beauty sleep coming up with a plan to get us off the ship undetected?”
“There’s a supply shuttle heading to the Ilari base in about half an hour for routine engine maintenance. It’ll pretty much be empty, so I figured we can get on board and hide somewhere.”
“Half an hour? That’s cutting it close. What would you have done if I hadn’t woken up in time?”
She shrugged. “I always have a plan B. You would have liked plan B. It involved knocking people out and stealing a ship.”
His eyes lit up, chasing away the last cobwebs from the drugs. “Let’s go with plan B.”
She shook her head at him. “Plan B has a higher chance of getting caught before we even leave the Knox’s deck. Plan A might be boring, but we’ll be more likely to make it to the ground.”
“Buzzkill,” Seb muttered as they left the cell.
As they reached the end of the passageway and another locked door, Jenna input a command into her datapad to launch the protocol she had set in place.
“Okay, in about thirty seconds, the MPs are going to clear out. We’ll wait a minute or so and then sneak past whoever is left.”
On the other side of this door, they had to get past twenty on-duty MPs. She’d rigged the system to put in a false call—the highest-level emergency the MPs responded to. It should put nearly all the police into action and keep them distracted until the shuttle was launching. By the time they got back and realized Seb was missing, the shuttle would be halfway to Ilari.
A large, warm hand landed on her shoulder.
“In case I don’t get a chance to say it later, thank you, Jenna. No one has ever put themselves on the line like this for me before.” He kissed her cheek and then her jaw, along to her ear, the light, warm sensation of his lips on her skin sending a light shiver cascading through her. “I don’t have words for what this means to me.”
Just like she didn’t have words for what Seb now meant to her. His welfare had become more important than her own, and she hadn’t even noticed.
“Thank me after we get off the ship.” Though she could have happily sunk into his arms and forgotten about every little problem hanging over their heads, she pushed back from him.
“Yeah, that sounds like a really good idea.” The warm, wicked gleam in his gaze left no doubt what he meant.
She sent him an exasperated frown. “Keep your head in the game, cowboy.”
He simply grinned with an irreverent spark in his eyes.
Taking her own advice, she turned her attention back to the datapad to see the fake call had gone through and the MPs were mobilizing.
“Okay, we’re going to head out in one minute.” She checked the security feeds, watching as nearly all the MPs left the level. “I’m counting three marks to avoid on the way out.”
With a last glance, she charted their best escape route without being seen, and slipped her datapad away.
“Ready?” She glanced over her shoulder to see Seb nodding.
Opening the hatchway, she glanced out cautiously, though as expected, there was no one in the immediate area.
They hurried out, moving swiftly down the short passageway, then going low as they passed through the open central area where the three remaining MPs were glued to their consoles and very obviously not looking for escaping fighter pilots. Halfway across the room, Seb snatched something from a desk. She cut him a hard look, and he flashed her a packet of mints, before popping a couple into his mouth. Rolling her eyes, she sidled the remaining steps across the large open area, hitting the passageway that led out.
Once they reached the transit and the doors closed behind them, she breathed a little easier. No one except Sub-Doctor Moore, Alpha, and Bren knew Seb was meant to be locked up, with maybe the exception of Commander Yang. So there’d be no need to skulk about until they arrived at the beta launch deck.
For the rest of the journey, she used her CI clearance. If anyone went looking later, it’d leave them scratching their heads, since she was meant to be dead.
And okay, it was probably giving away her hand after she’d gone to so much trouble to conceal her presence, but there was a very good chance neither of them would make it back from Ilari. And if they happened to survive this insane mission, it would be well past time for her to disappear. It was a shame that the notion of leaving the Knox, of leaving Seb, was like taking a hot knife to the stomach.
She forced herself to ignore the smoldering sensation as they arrived on the beta launch deck. This was the busiest deck on the Knox, with supplies and other cargo constantly being moved on and off the ship. No one paid them any attention as they navigated the slight crowd. One of the first things a CI agent learned—if you looked like you belonged somewhere, people didn’t take a second look.
Seb kept his face angled down and away from anyone they passed too closely, but for the most part, remained relaxed. Maybe he thought he didn’t have the skills of subtlety or subterfuge, but he’d been doing a pretty good job at it.
Near their destination, they paused by a stack of crates, and Jenna took in the outlay. A woman in a pilot’s uniform appeared to be doing some kind of final check. A man joined her, presumably the copilot.
Once the two of them walked off, she tugged on Seb’s shirt and they hurried over and jogged up the ramp into the empty cargo hold.
“So the problem with empty supply ships is that they leave nowhere to hide,” Seb said in a low voice, glancing around.
But she’d already made her way over to one of the rarely used, fragile storage compartments. On a war supply ship like this, breakable cargo was hardly ever shipped, and most people forgot the lockers even existed. This wasn’t the first time she’d used one of these compartments to conceal her presence on a shuttle.
She pulled open the narrow hatchway to find a stack of likely-forgotten cloths. Shoving them out of the way, she opened the hatchway a little wider.
“You can go in first.”
“Well, that’s going to be cozy.”
She reexamined the space with a critical eye, realizing Seb’s shoulders were broader than she’d thought. While she’d hidden in these kinds of spaces before, she’d never shared one with another person. Cozy was an understatement.
“It’s only half an hour to Ilari. I think we can stand it.”
He sent her a flat look. “You’ll be standing. Me, not so much.”
“Hurry up.” She waved a hand toward the opening. “While you’re bitching, we’re increasing our chances of getting caught.”
With a long sigh, he turned and backed into the locker, dropping to his knees, and shifting the dusty cloths around to make himself comfortable. Well, as comfortable as he was likely to get squashed in there. Damn, he took up nearly all the room. Carefully setting a foot on either side of his thighs, she maneuvered herself in and then pulled the hatchway closed, shutting them into almost complete darkness, apart from a thin sliver of light at the bottom of the door.
Seb’s chin came up against her lower abdomen, making her jump.
“Well, this presents some interesting possibilities.” His hands landed on her hips, holding her in place as he found the gap between her pants and shirt, lips skimming the sensitive skin there.
“Shh!” She shifted a little, but there was nowhere to go.
“I can be quiet. You were the one screaming last night.”
“Seb—” His warm breath on her lower stomach was chipping away at her common sense.
“Are you really going to stand for the next half an hour?” His hands shifted to her lower back, pressing her into him.
“There’s not exactly any room for me to sit.” Her voice came out uneven, giving a hint to the way he unsettled her.
“We can figure something out.” He tugged, and she allowed herself to sink down, ending up in his lap with her legs around his waist and her arms around his shoulders. “There now. Isn’t that better?”
Hell no, it wasn’t. She could feel the hard ridge of his erection between them. One of his hands cupped the back of her head as his lips found hers. But he’d barely started kissing her when voices registered.
She leaned back, looking over her shoulder at the door that stood between them and being discovered, trying to catch her breath that had somehow gotten all out of control. Seb went still beneath her as the pilots boarded. But they didn’t start launch sequence, they seemed to be discussing some kind of delay. Hell, that couldn’t be good.
For a few tense minutes, as the pilots continued discussing whatever problem had cropped up—the details of which she couldn’t hear properly—neither of them moved. At the conclusion of the pilots’ back-and-forth, one disembarked again, stating they’d be back in ten minutes, leaving the other to double check things and ready the ship for flight.
“What do you think is going on?” Seb whispered.
She glanced down at him, able to see him a little better now that her eyes had adjusted to the darkness. “I don’t know, but now we have to decide whether to wait the ten minutes for the other pilot to return, or find another way off this ship before anyone realizes you’re missing.”
“This is proving to be more difficult than you made it sound,” he muttered, a typical hint of impatience to his voice.
“I told you this wasn’t going to be easy. You think this is hard? Wait until we get to the ground and across enemy lines.”
“The way I see it, we’ve got over half an hour before we hit dirt and have to worry about the hard part. In fact, there are some hard issues right here that need taking care of.”
Despite their tenuous situation, she couldn’t help grinning.
“You’re a scoundrel.”
“I’ve been called far worse,” he murmured, leaning in to catch her mouth before she could reply.
On the scale of bad ideas, this one was right up there, a solid fifteen out of ten. CI agents were always alert, never letting anything or anyone distract them. Except she wasn’t a CI agent anymore. And this might be their last chance to think about nothing but each other for a few minutes. If the pilots caught them, they’d face some questions, Seb might get suspended again, and she’d be handed over to CI. But once they were on the ground, any distraction that led to them being caught would see them dead.
Throwing caution to the stars for the first time in years, she sank into the kiss, spearing her hands into Seb’s short hair. He made a low, quiet noise of approval, and the kiss deepened, got a little wilder.
Reaching down, she tugged at the top catches of her shirt, exposing her chest. But that wasn’t enough for him. He slid his hands to her shoulders inside the shirt and skimmed her bra straps down, dropping the cups to her lower ribs and exposing her nipples to his roving mouth.
She clenched her jaw over crying out, arching and pushing her breasts more firmly into his hold, reveling in every rippling sensation that coursed through her. But she needed more, she needed all of him.
Pulling out of his hold, she flicked the fasteners of her pants open and stood. Toeing out of her boots proved to be a mastery in balance, especially as Seb took up kissing her lower abdomen, with more intent, his lips and tongue weakening every muscle in her body. He helped her tug her pants down and out of the way, but when she would have dropped back into his lap, he simply tightened his hold on her hips and shook his head at her with a truly wicked grin.
He couldn’t mean—
Oh, but he did. She almost lost her balance, knees buckling as his mouth found her very core. He lifted her left leg and hooked it over his shoulder, and she discovered a brace in the bulkhead just above her to hang on for dear life.
Seb took her with no quarter. This was no slow build, no gentle wind up to set her soaring. This was an incursion, an immediate, wicked assault on every nerve ending, ripping her toward a hard and fast orgasm.
The combustion came just as she knew it would, sudden and unyielding, tearing through her senses, leaving her dazed and weak.
Seb allowed her to slip down his body, shifting so she came down and took him into her still-throbbing core with no resistance. When the delicious heat and hardness speared into her, it sent another, deeper wave of pleasure reverberating through her.
He groaned in her ear, low and gravelly, sparking her senses with an echo of heady gratification at the sensation of them joined together.
Regaining some vigor, she braced herself and shifted against him, meeting his short thrust with the limited room they had. Tension built between them, and he pulled her harder against him, mouth taking hers as the urge to cry out got harder to control.
Seb braced a hand against the bulkhead next to them, and the next thrust had more power behind it, going deeper, driving the ecstasy within her higher. She clamped her thighs tighter around his hips, sinking more fully onto him and it was like the ignition point for both of them. Seb bucked beneath her, while she fused her mouth to his, muffling them as they hit orbit and burst into the black like shooting stars.
As Seb relaxed beneath her in the aftermath, blowing out a long ragged breath, she didn’t gently come down, instead landing straight back into too-alert territory. But she did allow herself the small luxury of sinking against his shoulder. And while she tried to catch her breath, she listened to the muffled voice of the pilot conferring with launch bay control tower to make sure they hadn’t given themselves away. Nothing sounded out of the ordinary.
“You know,” Seb murmured in her ear. “When we climbed into this cupboard, I was just imaging giving each other a hand, if you catch my meaning. I actually can’t believe we took it all the way and then some. I’m starting to think you might be the degenerate one in this relationship, leading poor impressionable me into all sorts of trouble.”
Though she was calling herself ten kinds of idiot, her insides got all warm and fuzzy over the word relationship. “And if I’d warned you what you were getting yourself into, it wouldn’t have been as much fun leading you down my dark path.”
Getting dressed proved to be harder than getting undressed, though she was the one who had more clothes to set right. Seb tried to help, but mostly didn’t, attacking her with the occasional teasing kiss that made her wish they were back in his apartment and didn’t need to worry about a stitch of clothes between them for the next two days at least.
When she checked the time, she was surprised to find it’d been more than ten minutes and the other pilot hadn’t returned.
“I don’t think we should wait any longer,” Seb said once they were decent again. “If someone notices I’m gone from the holding cells on MP level, they could lock down the ship—if they haven’t already. Maybe that was the delay.”
He might be right, which would make escaping that much harder.
“What do you want to do?”
“I assume you’ve got a gun?”
Instead of answering, she pulled the small pistol out of her ankle holster. “I don’t think shooting our way out is going to work so well.”
He sent her an exasperated look. “I’m not going to shoot my own people. But they don’t know that.”
Before she could reply to that cryptic comment, he maneuvered them around and quietly pushed his way out of the locker.
“Seb!” she whispered furiously, but he waved a hand in a shut-up kind of motion, sweeping a glance around the empty cargo bay, then sneaking toward the unsuspecting pilot.
Doing her own sweep, Jenna kept a lookout so no one could come up behind him.
When he reached the pilot, he shoved the gun into the back of the man’s neck.
The pilot stiffened, but immediately started reaching for the emergency icon on his control screen.
“Take your hands off the screen, or I’ll have to separate your head from your neck.”
The pilot froze, then slowly brought his hands up.
“Good.” Seb used his other hand to grab the man’s shirt collar. “Now stand up. Don’t turn around, and no sudden movements.”
“Sub-Lieutenant Rayne, is that you?” The pilot’s voice held a tight note of confusion. “Sir, what the hell is going on?”
“Don’t ask questions, Ensign, just do as you’re told.”
“Yes, sir.”
Seb gave a slight tug on the ensign’s shirt collar. “Step away from the flight console. I’m going to walk you off the ship, and I’m ordering you not to report this.”
“Sir?” The man glanced at Jenna as Seb steered him across the cargo bay to the ramp.
“Don’t question me, just follow orders. This is top secret. No one can know you saw me.”
At the ramp, Seb released the soldier and propelled him a few steps down the ramp, hurrying the ensign on his way. Backing up, he kept his gun trained as he reached over to the ramp controls to close up the ship. “Not a word, Ensign.”
The soldier half turned and gave a tight nod, before the ramp finished coming up and blocked him from sight.
Seb hurried over, handing the gun back to her.
“Think he’ll keep quiet?” She followed Seb to the helm and dropped into the copilot’s chair as he slipped behind the pilot’s controls.
“Hard to say, and probably depends on what he knows. He might follow orders, or if he’s heard any rumors about me getting locked up earlier today, he might go straight to Bren.”
His hands moved quickly over the controls, bringing the shuttle online in what seemed like record time, and then aiming it toward one of the launch hatches. Just as the hanger atmo-doors split open, the comms came to life, the ship’s control tower ordering them to desist.
The increasingly heated demands didn’t cause Seb to miss a beat. In a matter of moments, he’d launched, shooting them out into the star-studded blackness beyond the ship.
The intensity of the officer’s voice on the other end of the comm changed, now threatening injunctive weapon’s fire to disable them if they didn’t turn around.
Seb still didn’t reply, simply punched up the speed, his expression tense, but not worried. Would they really fire on one of their own vessels? Actually, there was no point in asking, because if they suspected this ship had been taken by a CSS mole, they wouldn’t hesitate in blowing them out of the non-atmosphere they were streaking through toward Ilari.
“Sub-Lieutenant Rayne.”
He finally glanced down at the comm tab on his screen as the voice of his CO came through. He clenched his jaw, but didn’t make a move to answer.
“Seb, I know it’s you on that shuttle, so answer the damn comm.” Bren’s voice held a tight note, but not simply of annoyance or anger, more concern. Like she was truly worried. Maybe even more anxious than a commander would usually be about one of their pilots.
“Listen to me,” Bren’s voice softened the slightest bit, and Jenna eyed Seb’s expression. He clenched his jaw, clearly struggling with ignoring the CAFF. “I get it, okay? Maybe I don’t know exactly how it felt for you, but I understand. I know you want justice, you want him to pay for what he did to you, for what he did to all of us. But this isn’t the way. This won’t give you that sense of justice. It’ll more likely see you dead, and we can’t lose you, Seb. Lawler is not worth your life—”
He reached down and slapped at the icon, silencing the comm. His face had set in a hard, grim mask, Bren’s words obviously striking the vulnerabilities he worked so hard to hide.
“Seb—” Jenna didn’t know what she could say to help him, but the look he cut her effectively silenced her.
“Just don’t, okay?” He returned his attention to the controls, tight shoulders telling her the conversation was over. “Just make sure you’ve got a sound plan for us when we get to the ground.”
She nodded, not that he saw, since he was very obviously not looking at her.
According to the map she’d checked during the two hours she’d been waiting for him to wake up, it’d take four days on foot to reach the crash site. Of course, if Seb could repeat his CSS ship-stealing trick once they got behind enemy lines, they could reach the site within a few hours. Unfortunately, CSS ships were few and far between, and usually zealously guarded. But they had to try. They simply didn’t have the time to spend getting to the site on foot.
The engines rumbled as they hit atmo, Seb making some adjustments and putting them on a trajectory for the Ilari base.
Jenna forced herself into agent mode with some difficulty, not quite able to bury her worry for Seb’s frame of mind or the outcome of this mission.
This definitely wasn’t the life for her any longer.