CHAPTER FIVE
People Change
Sterling pushed some buttons, and I watched the movement on the screen. He watched the enemy ship for a moment and then spoke. “Do you see how it moves like a snake?”
I watched his profile when he spoke. He’d changed since we’d been forcibly separated. He’d been so sure of himself before. Now I was afraid I could break him in half emotionally. I placed a steady hand on his back to feel his heat. The time away had destroyed us all. We’d had to put ourselves back together. The question was, who were we now? There was no going back, just figuring out the future.
He turned to me. “Am I crazy, or is it moving like a snake?”
“I would never willingly call you crazy.”
Sterling snorted. “You’re funny.”
“Hysterical, I know.” I shook my head. “He’s matching us. He doesn’t know we’ve seen him. If you move in a serpentine way, so does he.”
He shook his head. “Did you know this much about warfare when you were with us, or have you had to learn?”
“I woke angry. In pain. A wounded animal.” I wondered if I should confess everything. “Thinking about strategy made me think about you. I felt less far from you.”
His eyes widened. “Diana, fuck, I love you, sweet baby.”
“I know you do. I love you, too.”
His voice was low when he finally spoke again. “For years there was only death. I almost longed for it. I hated being the perfect soldier, but what else was I made for? Then there was you. Well, the guys came first, but that always felt like a pause, something I was allowed to do before I had to go back to Evander. Then there was you. What I want to do right now is go onto that other ship and slaughter everyone on it, to make you safe. This is downright painful for me.”
I kissed his arm. “What else did you want to show me? Maybe that can distract you.”
“I’m not easily distracted. I’ve got a brain for details.” He caressed my lips with his finger and sent shivers through my body. “But you’re right. I wanted you to look. I was charting the figures from the log, and I noticed this anomaly. Does this pattern mean anything to you?”
I stared at the Xs and Ys, reading them like the pattern they were. I’d seen it many times. “That’s the black hole opening. You must have seen it when you came through it.”
“Sure, of course.” He pointed at the screen. “But the video log doesn’t concur. It opened, and nothing came through.”
He was right, which wasn’t a surprise to me. Sterling was so rarely wrong. “Hidden?”
“That’s where my mind went. But I tend to go darker than need be. I see threats where there are none. It doesn’t randomly open and close.”
I rubbed my forehead. “That poor black hole has been forcibly opened and closed so many times I’m not one hundred percent sure that any of us knows what it will and won’t do anymore.”
“All right, well I’m going to make a note. I don’t know who I’ll give it to, but I’m recording it, nonetheless.”
He looked strained, and it panged my heart. Something else was going on with my Sterling. “Want to talk about it?”
“It?”
I smoothed my hand down his arm. “Whatever is bugging you.”
“I told you what it was, sweet baby. I want to go kill the people behind us. It’s a very real problem for me. Difficult to explain. I was genetically designed and then encouraged—violently—to be really good at that. You’re on this ship; they are too close.” He set down his tablet and looked upward at the ceiling of the ship. “Until they are gone, I am going to be on edge. I’m following someone else’s plan—I was always the leader on the teams—and I am feeling a little bit off.”
I rubbed my forehead against him, needing the contact and pretty sure he required a little touch as well. “When we get to the station, you can kill them. I won’t get in your way. Does that sound brutal? Should I be encouraging you not to take a life? They’d take ours in a second. I like that you can protect me. Maybe that makes me bad or wrong or weak or—”
He cut me off, kissing me. “I’ll make it fast. I just want it done.”
Maybe I should have been afraid of him, but I knew I never would be. Violent men for violent times. Sterling had once told me he would only kill for us, his family. It seemed he’d meant it.
“I’m going to push the engines and increase our speed. I want to arrive tomorrow.” He entered the new parameters and released the throttle on the engine output.
“Sterling, you need to go take a nap.” I sat in the Captain’s chair. “I got this for a while.”
He cocked his head to the side. “Are you serious?”
“As a heart attack. You’re going to make yourself crazy if you keep this up. Nothing we can do for twenty-four hours. It’s obvious none of you have been sleeping. Go take a nap.”
I’d handled Artemis on my own for months at a time in unfamiliar environs. I could certainly manage her in familiar territory.
He plopped into the chair where the navigator sat, or would if Artemis had a full crew to warrant such a person.
“You didn’t used to give me orders.”
I spun around in my chair. “Things change. So do people. You want to keep me safe? Guess what, bub? I want to keep you safe and healthy. I’ll order you around to achieve the objective if I have to.”
Sterling smirked. “Fair enough.”
“You’re not leaving to take a nap.” My orders, apparently, only went so far. He had, at least, taken a seat.
“Noticed that, did you?” He leaned back in the chair. “When we lived on the other side of the galaxy, I had a planet picked out for us to reside in when we made our farm. Quiet, it never did come back from the destruction and then warfare between the corporations.”
I lightly kicked his shin with the top of my big toe. “I loved that dream.”
“Can we still have it? Somewhere here? When this is over? Can we have a place alone?”
I nodded. “We can. Actually, where we’re going after we pick up Ari and get rid of our tail is kind of similar. On the edge of space, one of the planets in the string of Dark Planets, meaning we don’t have much information about them. My family has purchased lots, quietly of course, over the years. The irony is, it’s really close to Sandler space. He considers it worthless, so he doesn’t pay attention. Quinn, when he made the plans, would have sent us there anyway. Turns out we were right.”
A muscle ticked in Sterling’s jaw. “I wish I had been here for the planning. I’m not saying it’s wrong.”
“You’re frustrated because you like to know firsthand what the plan is. Even more so you wish you were in on the planning.”
He spun in a circle. “Correct.”
“I get how it feels to be out of control. When I was little, I felt like my life was in a constant uproar. I was born in the middle of a battle, barely made it out alive, spent my first five years on a frozen planet. Then we left there. I suddenly had these men in my life, my father and five people who wanted to be father figures.”
He kicked my shin gently, imitating what I’d done. “Must have been the apple of their eyes.”
“Yes and no. They loved me, that was for sure.” I didn’t know why these memories made me sad, but I had to swallow away my tears. “I started talking again. They were all over me, all of the time. We kept moving. Black hole. Earth. Mars Station. In the middle of the night, we’d up and go …” I shook my head. What was the matter with me? “I shouldn’t be complaining to you.”
Sterling’s early years were spent in a dorm being trained to kill people. My moving around with five uncles, my dad, and mom were nothing to what he’d been through.
He leaned forward. “I like you talking to me. I learn things. How am I going to help our kids? So, right off, I’m not going to pick up and move us over and over, unless it’s an emergency, without speaking to the kids.”
“I think my family did the best they could given the circumstances. They didn’t have the other kids until they were settled. I was a surprise.”
He rose and inched to me to kiss me lightly on the lips. “You had to be the best surprise ever, sweet baby.”
“I know they love me. But I try to imagine what it would be like if I was suddenly pregnant—in these circumstances when everything is on the line and our future is unclear. How hard would that be?”
Sterling laughed, which surprised me, and then kissed my nose. “Be easy. No more decisions to be made. We get out of here. Find our spot and screw the rest of the universe. You and the baby are safe. Done.”
“Not so sure it would be so easy.”
He sat back in his seat. Comfortable silence filled the bridge. Sterling studied maps of the galaxies, and I watched our unwanted visitor while I made minor adjustments, heading for the station. An echo—a memory, really—of my mother laughing filled my mind. I had a vague recollection from my early childhood of playing in the corner while the grownups talked. One of them usually sat on the floor with me. I blinked. Nolan or C.J. They were the two most likely to get on the ground and color with me.
When was the last time I’d thought about that?
Was it possible to raise kids and actually have them feel safe?
I looked over at Sterling. He hadn’t said anything for a few moments, which was weird. With his head back, leaning against the chair, his mouth slightly open, he was out cold. I stood and made my way over to him on quiet feet. I’d told him he was tired, and I hadn’t been wrong. I kissed the top of his head gently, and he didn’t stir.
“Hey,” Judge whispered from the doorway. “Can I steal you?”
I padded over to him and gave him a hug. “I don’t think you can. He’s out like a light, and someone has to keep on an eye on our tail while we make our way to the station.”
Judge looked over my shoulder. “For real? Wow. Okay. I can come back …”
“Don’t bother, brother.” Damian scooted around us. “I’ll take the helm for a bit. Let Sterling catch some sleep. I don’t think he’s done it in over a year. Not more than an hour here or there. Take Diana. Figure out the shielding. You’ve been bugging us with it for too long now.”
I linked hands with Judge and let him take me to the engine room. I knew what the problem was. “Uncle C.J. and Uncle Wes have screwed with this shielding so many times, I’m not sure even I can decipher it.”
“If you could assure me it’s working I would feel better.” Arriving in the engine room, he pointed upward. “What exactly is that?”
“Yeah.” I nodded at the ridiculous mess of wires above our heads. “System redundancies. I don’t touch them. I leave them alone. Honestly, I’m not one hundred percent sure they do anything, but I’m afraid to mess with them. I bypassed this part of the room as much as possible when I was living alone on this ship.”
Judge made a sound, something close to a tsk-tsk. “Di, we can’t have wires hanging around that don’t do anything. I would think it would upset your sense of order the same way it does mine.”
“I would think you wouldn’t care about it at all. You like to invent not maintain. You put up with having to keep things running.”
He nudged my shoulder. “Artemis is my favorite ship. She brought us you and then brought us back to you.”
I went into the maintenance closet and then had to step back to look at it. Judge had really made it his own. I wasn’t sure I could find anything if I wanted to. Tools were everywhere. Knowing Judge, he had a system only he could understand. Fortunately, the ladder was big and obvious.
I pulled it out and set it down under the wires in question. Judge stepped back. “Are you actually going to look at it? I’m terrified it’s connected to the shielding your uncles invented, which somehow works even though I’m at a loss for why.”
“Was your frustration at these systems what led you to make a mess of my closet?”
His grin was just what I wanted. I’d given him a hard time about how built he’d become, but that smile remained my Judge. He still bounced. He still grinned. Some things hadn’t changed.
He walked over to the closet, standing next to me. “What are you looking for?”
“Either the wire cutters or the laser. Anything to start the project I’ve avoided for years.” I shook my head. “Artemis is too old for this. She needs to be put away. She’s practically destroyed.”
Judge handed me the laser from wherever he’d pulled it out of the closet. “She’s beautiful. Old, a little broken, but safe. I love her. She’s not going to be put away like she doesn’t matter. Not ever.”
I climbed the ladder. “Are you talking about Artemis or me?”
“Considering that you’re twenty-four, I don’t think we can really compare you to the ship.”
I stared down at him. He’d put his foot on the bottom rung of the ladder to keep it safe. “Oh, let’s face it, I’m a little broken. Always have been. The voice.” I pointed to where I’d been bit, the part of my arm that would never heal. “This new addition.”
“I love your version of broken. And I like my view right now, too.”
I couldn’t make sense of any of the wires. I’d tried to do this twice before and gotten down without ever making a cut. But now I wasn’t alone. If something broke, Judge could help me set it right. Also, there were no pods to take my husbands away.
Picking a wire at random, I stopped before I sliced it. “This might be better to do in space dock. At the station or, better yet, when we get to my family.”
“I’m concerned I won’t know if the armor is active if we don’t get this sorted out.”
I climbed down the ladder. “What if all we manage to do is turn it off entirely? I think we’re going to need a little luck. If we don’t draw attention, then maybe we don’t have a problem before we get it fixed.”
He took me in his arms. “You suddenly believe in good luck?”
“How could I not? You came back. I worried about you in that pod. Your bad dreams …” Maybe I shouldn’t have brought it up. He probably didn’t need a reminder he’d endured months of being forced to sleep as he whirled through space.
Judge pushed my bangs off my forehead. “They were pretty bad. Waking was worse because that was when they told me you were dead. I want some day to be able to make love to you in the sunlight, outside.”
I loved the image. “I’ve spent so little time in sunlight, at least not the real variety. But I love the idea of making love to you anywhere.”
He pulled me closer against him, his cock hardening. “I can’t wait to see you bathed in the sunlight. I got to be outside a lot during my early years.” He kissed me on my mouth, a breathy moan sounding as he tightened his arms. “It’s too soon, right? You’re sore from last night?”
I wished I could tell him otherwise. “I can make you feel good. Doesn’t have to be about me.”
He scrunched his nose. “Yeah, that’s just what I want. Don’t be ridiculous. I want to be in you. I will wait. If we aren’t going to fix systems because you’re insisting on being reasonable and not messing with wires while we’re flying and being pursued by someone who wants to kill you, then I’m going to draw you a bath.”
“Draw me a bath?” I couldn’t help the laugh that came out of me. “I swear I can fill my own tub.”
Judge nipped my neck, and heat infused me. Maybe I wasn’t in as much pain as I thought. “If I do it for you, I can get in it with you. Hold you against me naked. See my plan?”
“Sorry, you two,” Lewis interrupted. Judge groaned, turning his head but not letting go of me to regard our interruption. “I need to take Doll, here.”
“No.” Judge shook his head. “I have bath plans.”
Lewis grinned. “Sounds like fun. Hate to interrupt.” He raised his eyebrows. “Seriously. Cash and I have decided we can’t do the surgery tomorrow unless we give her doses of her medication today. I’m worried about stirring the infection tomorrow if we haven’t done it.”
I shuddered, and Judge must have felt it because his hand moved to the back of my neck to massage me there. “You okay?”
“I hate the needles.” I took a deep breath and made myself step out of his hold. If I had to do it, then I had to do it.
Judge rounded on Lewis. “Surely there must be another way. She hates the needles.”
Lewis nodded, suddenly wearing the same solemn look I’d seen so often in Uncle Dane’s gaze when he went through this. “You know I’d never hurt her for anything in the world. This will be the last time, Doll.”
I had to believe them. Tomorrow they’d see to it I didn’t needed the injections anymore.
“Let’s get it over with.”