Chapter Two
Jenna Maxwell followed along behind Sub-Lieutenant Sebastian Rayne as he hummed that maddening song she hated so much. Now it was going to be stuck in her head for the next three days.
The man lived up to every word she’d read in his file—one cocky fighter pilot with stubborn pride, a laid-back personality, and easy charm. She hadn’t bothered checking the attached photo of him. When searching for a potential pilot with the skills to drop her undetected where she needed to go, it hadn’t mattered what the person looked like. Looks could be deceiving, she knew that better than anyone—with all the appearance-altering tech she used, which changed the shape of her face and hair color. No one on this ship had ever seen her real face, not even her handler and the agent in charge of operations in this system, Stanton. Sure, she still used her own name, though she’d long ago changed her surname so no one could track down her family. Names could be bought and sold easily enough, but her own true face, that was a sanctity she protected at all costs.
So she hadn’t quite been prepared for the exact impact meeting Sebastian Rayne in the flesh would have on her.
When he’d first walked into the commander’s wardroom and his dark-amber gaze had landed on her, a fission of tingles had shot up her spine and into her brain, short-circuiting her thoughts for a long moment. His face was carved in strong lines, the slant of his jaw angular. But in striking contrast to this masculinity, his lips were full, the top one indented with a Cupid’s bow shape. Those lips shouldn’t have looked right on a man. In fact, they should have been illegal—so sexy, she couldn’t help but think of how his mouth might feel on hers. His russet brown hair was a little longer than standard military cut, but he’d spiked it nonetheless. And she wasn’t even going to start on his tall, leanly muscled body, or the subtle, warmly spiced scent of his aftershave.
Yep, a woman would have to be dead not to notice the hotness that was Sebastian Rayne. But she wasn’t just a woman, she reminded herself, she was a highly trained CI agent, and was not going to get distracted, even by the admittedly masculine glory of her temporary personal pilot.
They approached bay foxtrot-ten and the sub-lieutenant’s steps slowed.
“Are you sure Commander Yang told you bay foxtrot-ten?” He shot the question over his shoulder, not looking directly at her. Probably because he was having trouble taking his eyes off the hunk of junk squatting on the launch pad.
Good. Exactly what she’d ordered.
“Yes, I’m sure, because this is the ship I asked for.”
This time he did look at her, his incredulous gaze all but shouting are you crazy?
“Is this tub even spaceworthy? If we explode into a million pieces before we leave the ship, Commander Yang won’t be happy.”
She shrugged and brushed by him to palm the door control. “We’ll be dead, so it won’t be our problem.”
“Well, aren’t you just a bucket of rainbows, seeing the bright side to everything?” he muttered as he followed her inside.
Jenna paused beyond the doorway to survey the interior, which wasn’t any prettier than the outside. There were exposed cables and wires hanging in places and snaking across the floor, the screen on the control panel was cracked and patched with a special sensor adhesive so that the touch-screen properties still worked. The craft should have seated eight, but six seats were missing, leaving just the pilot and copilot’s chairs intact. And when she said intact, the cushions were stained with she-didn’t-want-to-know-what and ripped to expose the padding underneath. All in all, it was a death trap waiting to happen.
She retrieved the bag she’d left on board earlier with the ragged clothes she’d need to wear in order to blend in with Ilari’s poor population. What little money the inhabitants could scrape together was usually taken by the CSS as “donations” toward the cause, so the garments she’d sourced to look the part weren’t exactly flattering.
In a moment, she’d pulled the coarse material of the pants, loose shirt, and jacket over her shipwear, concealing her belt with a few handy tools. With thermo properties and many pockets, the garments were her standard operational gear, made to conform with Ilari locals, but still functional for an agent.
“Oh, this is just fabulous.” Sub-Lieutenant Rayne walked deeper into the ship, kicking an open toolbox out of the way, making tools skitter in all directions. “I love what you’ve done with the place. It just screams hobo-chic. I mean, look at the detail on the pilot’s chair. And you can’t get any more authentic than real bloodstains.”
Jenna marched forward and dropped herself into the copilot’s seat. “This ship was confiscated from the CSS a few months ago. We’re flying deep into their territory. You really want to do that in a shiny new ship splashed with the Valiant Knox’s emblem and battleship number all over the hull? Be my guest. Personally, I’ve got an assignment to complete before I get killed through rank stupidity. So buckle in and shut up, cowboy, before I go find someone else to fulfill your obligations.”
For a long moment he stared at her, one brow raised. She stared back at him, crossing her arms and arching her own brow in silent challenge. Either Sebastian Rayne would live up to his death-defying, danger-happy reputation, or he’d cut out on her, leaving her with a serious conundrum. Because they both knew no one else had the gonads or skill to fly this mission.
“Fine. One ridiculously dangerous flight in a space-junker coming right up.” He slid into the pilot’s chair, tapping the screen to life as he sent her a sideways glance. “You’re a charming one, Ms. CI Agent.”
She sat back and pulled the safety harness over her chest. “It’s part of the job description.”
At that, he laughed outright. “Oh, I’m sure it is.”
Jenna watched in silence as the he turned his attention to bringing the ship online, trying to see him only as a pilot and not the man, but failing miserably. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d had an immediate visceral reaction to a handsome face—probably when she’d been fifteen and too young to know any better. She’d certainly surprised herself. Surely, she’d long grown out of such girlish impulses. But the way her pulse skipped as the sub-lieutenant tilted his head and the lights caught the rich color of his eyes told her she definitely hadn’t.
When the shuttle vibrated with rough intensity as they started toward the launch bay doors, she wrapped her fingers around the armrests on either side of her, and her breath hitched in her chest. She’d never been a nervous flyer, but then again, she’d never taken a voyage in a trash can of a ship before, either.
As they shot out of the launch hatch, the shuttle gave a violent shake, rattling everything that wasn’t bolted down, before the non-atmosphere of space closed around them and everything settled back into a constant rumble.
They rounded out the far side of the Valiant Knox, giving them a brief view of the second battleship, Farr Zero, orbiting in the distance, before Ilari loomed, the swirling greens, blues, and whites of the planet taking up the entire viewport.
“This is some assignment you’ve pulled.” Rayne commented, hands moving over the control screen in unhurried motions as he guided the ship closer to the planet’s atmosphere.
She made her fingers unclamp as she glanced from the screen to look directly at him.
“I go where they tell me.” The shuttle’s quaking increased as they came up against the resistance of heavier atmosphere. “Aren’t you going to put your safety harness on?”
He shot her a sideways glance edged in exasperation. “If this junker goes down, no safety harness in the known-worlds is going to make any difference to the inevitable outcome of splatter.”
The ghastly image tightened her jaw. “Wonderful, thanks for the visual.”
“I know, how about we distract ourselves from our looming demise? Tell me your name. And not your operational name, though I’m sure it’s something appropriate like Tatiana Kickass or whatever.”
She shouldn’t find his irreverent teasing of her profession funny, but the guy was just too charming for his own good, and she couldn’t quite contain the smile tugging at her lips.
“My operational name for this mission is Mary Goodman.”
He made a face, features twisting into disappointed aversion. “Mary? That’s not very glamorous.”
She shrugged. “Where I’m going is not exactly glamorous.”
The rattling of the shuttle became harder as they got deeper into the upper atmospheric burn, but he didn’t appear all that concerned. She tried to take a leaf out of his book and relax back into her seat, but her shoulders had locked up with rigid tension. Surely if they really were in danger, the sub-lieutenant would at least look a little worried?
“Okay then, Mary-contrary, I’m still waiting to hear your real name here.”
“And you’ll be waiting a good long time.”
At last they cleared the entry and the shuttle evened out, going back to the loud rumble.
“The least two people can do when they’re on a stupidly dangerous mission is be on a first-name basis. So, call me Seb.”
He sat back, taking a second to shoot her a smooth smile.
Oh yeah, charm was just leeching out of this guy’s pores. If she were a different kind of girl, that grin might have had the power to make her heart beat a little faster.
“Of course, and feel free to call me Mary.”
Seb shook his head. “You’re a hard one to crack. But, never mind, I’ll grow on you and wear you down before we get to the drop-off point.”
“Since we’re only six minutes out from the coordinates, I find that hard to believe.”
He glanced at his screen, lips forming a crooked grin. “You can read navigational data, huh? So I guess that’s the end of my plan to take the long way there.”
A red light flashed in the corner of the screen, and Seb stiffened, leaning forward to tap the icon.
“I can also read emergency warnings. What’s the problem?”
His lips pressed together. “The aft thrusters have gone off-line.”
“What does that mean?”
Alarm flared in the pit of her stomach as Seb reached back without missing a beat and raked the safety straps over his chest.
“It means I have little to no steering capabilities, which is going to make landing a bitch. Actually, it’ll make doing pretty much anything a bitch.”
Never mind acting calm and collected. She double-checked her harness, and then hooked her hands into the straps across her chest as her breathing quickened.
“Commander Yang assured me that despite appearances, this ship was mechanically sound.”
Seb’s face tightened with grim determination. “And it probably was, but that doesn’t mean something hasn’t shaken loose in the meantime, or was damaged when we entered the planet’s atmosphere. I’m pretty sure this ship is older than my father and nowhere near as tough as that old bastard.”
Sheesh, the guy had a way with words. Even with the ship apparently falling apart around them, he could still make a joke. It’d been charming up to now, but this situation called for that legendary fighter pilot she’d read about, not a smooth-talking ladies’ man.
“Don’t you take anything seriously?”
“This is my serious face, can’t you tell?” Hands moving more swiftly over the controls, he didn’t take his eyes off the screen in front of him. “We’re about three minutes out from the coordinates. Exactly how close did you want to get?”
She glanced at the landscape of fields and forest beyond the viewport. “I thought you said we couldn’t land.”
Seb shook his head. “Never mind the landing, just tell me how accurate your drop-off is meant to be. Will it be detrimental if you don’t come down there exactly?”
“The landing point is just that. I’ll be moving on elsewhere once we part ways. Why?”
“Because, depending on what I see when we get to the coordinates, I’ll be looking for the best place to make what I like to refer to as a drop-and-slide landing.”
Thank God they could still land. Her tense shoulders lowered a fraction. “Well, that doesn’t sound so bad.”
Seb cut her a smile that was almost maniacal, a definite spark of danger glinting in his gaze. “I know, right? So, most other people would technically label it as crashing. But, whatever, they don’t call me a cowboy for nothing. I’ll ride this bronco down one way or another.”
“Oh, God.” A shot of fear-laced adrenaline surged through her, making her stomach churn.
“That’s good, getting into your role as a devoted CSS groupie already?”
She sent him a dark glare, coming up with half a dozen ways to tell him to get lost, but her stomach had taken up residence in her throat and talking had become impossible. Instead, she concentrated on breathing in and out slowly, trying to steady her racing heartbeat as they got closer to the ground, the ship skimming the tops of trees.
“Damn it, as if we’re not screwed enough,” Seb muttered, a different warning flashing on the screen in front of him.
“Now what?” Actually, why the hell had she asked that? She didn’t want to know. Crash landing was bad enough, without adding whatever problem was making the cowboy fighter pilot mutter an inventive string of curses.
“We got pinged by an air surveillance tower. They’re scrambling ships to intercept us.”
“But if you can’t steer this thing, how are we going to avoid them?”
“Won’t have to.”
Why didn’t she like that sound of that? “What do you mean we won’t have to?”
“This ship will be on the ground by the time any other vessel gets here. All they’re going to find is a wreck,” the words said as though their imminent high-speed impact with the ground was no big deal.
“Preferably without our dead bodies mangles inside,” she muttered, grip on the armrests making her knuckles ache.
“Give me some credit. I wouldn’t be much of a pilot if I regularly killed my passengers, would I?”
Damn him. The crazy sonuvabitch was actually enjoying this, while her stomach was churning harder and harder, threatening to spill into downright sick territory.
“Okay, the coordinates are just up ahead, so if I find somewhere with enough open space, that’s going to be our landing zone.”
She nodded, not that it made any difference. He wasn’t looking at her and she got the feeling he hadn’t expected an answer to his comment.
“We’re in luck. There’s farmland up ahead, open fields with enough space to set this puppy down. Even better, its dead ahead, so I won’t have to change course without the benefit of the aft thrusters.”
Just as he’d predicted, the trees cut out, widening to green fields of grain and grazing animals. The control screen showed they were nearing the coordinates precisely. Not that she cared about logistics any longer. The only worry spinning through her mind was getting on the ground in one piece.
The ship dropped even lower, scattering a herd of cows.
A tug at her midsection brought her attention down to find Seb yanking her harness tighter. He glanced up at her when he was done, and for the first time, he looked deadly serious, his gaze hard and jaw clenched.
“Trust me, okay?” The intensity of his dark-amber eyes caught the air in her chest. “Brace for impact.”
Jenna didn’t get a chance to agree with him or ask him to maybe just fly them back up to the safety of the Valiant Knox.
The ship got lower, and then all sound cut out, the engine going dead. Like he’d called it, they dropped the remaining yards to the ground like a stone and bounced into a rough skid.
Seb wasn’t working the controls any longer, instead he held on to his chair in much the same way she did, strapped in for a ride that seemed like it would never end. And then it did, with a sudden jolt that whipped her forward against the straps of her safety harness.
For a long second, she couldn’t find her breath. But before panic set in, her galloping heart kicked her lungs back into gear and she blew out the breath she’d apparently been holding.
She glanced up, the viewport splattered with dirt and clumps of grass, blocking out the sunlight.
“Hell, I’m getting too old for these rough landings.”
Jenna looked over at Seb, who was already unbuckling himself from his harness, craning his neck this way and that, presumably to stretch out the muscles. Her own neck felt stiff and sore.
“You all right?” He gave her a once-over. At her nod, he sat forward and tapped the control screen. It lit up, flashing with all sorts of warnings and alerts.
After all that, the damn thing still worked?
“We’ve got a few minutes to find some cover before the CSS patrol flies over, but this bucket of junkyard scraps won’t be going anywhere without some serious intervention.”
With unsteady hands, she reached down and unclipped her harness. “How will you get back to the Knox?”
Seb cursed under his breath and slapped his palm down on the control screen.
“I could try to fix it, I suppose, but it’d be easier to procure another ship.”
She eyed him as she pushed out of her seat. Was that a joke, or did he actually plan on stealing a ship? Like it would be that simple.
“We’re in the middle of CSS held territory and you’re wearing a United Earth Force uniform. You don’t think people might notice that?”
Seb stood and shrugged out of his flight jacket. “This isn’t the first time I’ve gone down behind enemy lines, Mary-contrary, so don’t go getting your underwear all bunched up on my account. You go off on your super-secret business and don’t give me a second thought.”
Maybe he’d been down behind enemy lines before, but not this far—not with miles and miles, plus an unknown number of enemy patrols, between him and safety. “Come on, we’d better put as much distance between us and this ship as we can before the patrol arrives.”
“We?” He arched an eyebrow at her. “Don’t you have a meeting to make or something?”
“Yes, but I’m not going anywhere until we’re both clear of that patrol, so that means we’re sticking together for a little while longer. You got me down here in one piece, the least I can do is make sure you’re not captured by the enemy five minutes later.”
He shrugged as if he didn’t really care what she did. “If you think it’s necessary.”
Seb took out his electromag pulse gun and fired a single round into the control panel and making the last few lights that had been working go dark. She must have had a confused look on her face, because when he stepped out from the pilot’s chair, re-holstering his gun, he simply said “insurance policy,” as he brushed by her.
At the back of the ship, the hatchway lifted, sending a shower of dirt to the floor at their boots, then a shaft of sunlight lightened the interior, bringing a swirl of damp earth and fresh, field-scented air.
The two of them jumped down from the ship, and Jenna turned back to take one last look at their shuttle. Surprisingly, apart from the generous coating of dark-brown earth where they’d gouged their landing into the field, it didn’t look that much worse than when they’d boarded.
“I am so not fixing this flying junk heap. It’s an embarrassment to technology,” Seb muttered.
She shaded her eyes against the sun as she turned to look back at him. “We have to find somewhere to duck the patrol, preferably with high ground.”
“Sure thing, Tatiana Kickass. Lead the way.”
She huffed, though it was hard to be truly irritated with someone who looked like he did, sending her a crooked, teasing grin. Especially when he was the same person who had just saved her life by managing to crash-land the shuttle and keep them in one piece. Now she kind of felt like she owed him.
“My name is Jenna. But don’t ever tell anyone I said so.”
That seemed to give him pause, as though he hadn’t truly expected she’d give up the information so easily. “Your real name is Jenna?”
She nodded. “Why? Don’t you think it suits me?”
His gaze roamed over her face, and despite the appearance-altering tech and makeup she’d applied before meeting him earlier, she got the weird sense he could see under every single layer she’d covered her real self in. It gave her a strange thrill and ripple of apprehension in the same breath.
“I don’t know. I’ll tell you next time we meet.”
A tingle ran up her arms and shot right into the middle of her chest. There wouldn’t be a next time. Even if she needed to employ another fighter pilot on a mission in the future, her handler would ensure it wasn’t Sub-Lieutenant Sebastian Rayne. Apart from her handler and a few fellow CI agents, she never dealt with the same people twice, a necessary isolation when it came to her job.
Hardening her resolve she stepped back, because she was supposed to be navigating through enemy territory alone and come out alive with the required information on the other side. She might end up stuck with Seb a little longer than the simple drop-off they’d planned for, but it was basic professional courtesy—making sure he got free of the coming patrol before they went their separate ways.
“Enough chitchat. Let’s find somewhere to hole up until the patrol is gone, then we’ll split up as planned.” Even as she said the words, a low hum rumbled in the distance from ships closing in.
His smile turned knowing, as if he could read her mind and knew she was effectively giving him his marching orders.
“Whatever you say, Jenna.”
She was not shivering at the intimate, teasing tone when he’d said her name. No way. It was just from the cool breeze.
She turned and pulled her half-size datapad out of her pocket to check her position. Higher ground was going to be hard to find, considering the flat fields, farmland, and forest as far as the eye could see. But there was a river through the tree line, and worst-case scenario, they could wade through the water so anyone pursuing them would lose their tracks.
“This way,” she shot over her shoulder, raking a quick critical gaze over the sub-lieutenant. “And do something about those FP patches.”
Not waiting for him to reply, she set off at a jog toward the tree line, scanning for any movement that wasn’t the local wildlife or farm animals. Even if he didn’t happen to have his uniform on, the man would stick out like a hundred-mile-wide crater on a moon. The people of Ilari were mostly poor and living hard, which was easy to see in their faces. He was too clean cut, too well put together, his manner all confident and military. She’d have to ditch him as soon as she could, or risk blowing her cover.
An unfamiliar pang tightened her stomach. What was that…guilt? That she was going to leave him in dangerous territory? He’d known the risks when he’d taken the mission; she didn’t have the time or clearance to help him.
And when was the last time she’d wasted feelings on anyone? People were either a commodity or a liability; that was what her handler, Stanton, always told her. She’d lived successfully by that rule for years.
Weirdly enough, she couldn’t seem to fit Sebastian Rayne into either of those categories.