Cyberevolution Book One: The Awakening: Fifty Shades of Dark Kaitlyn O'Connor by Kaitlyn O'Connor, Kimberly Zant, Marie Morin, Stacey St.James, Goldie McBride (3)

He arched a brow at her.

She presented him with her back.

“This view’s good, too,” he murmured, laughter threading his voice.

“I’m not used to having men in my bath,” she said testily.

“Good.”

When she glanced back, she saw he hadn’t moved so much as a hair.

She thought about telling him to go away, but she doubted he would. He had to know she was uncomfortable with being watched, and that hadn’t fazed him.

And he had certainly not come in only for the purpose of telling her they would go to eat when she was done. He’d already asked if she was hungry.

Deciding to simply ignore him, she finished lathering herself and switched to the rinse. The fine mist that began to spray her from every direction caught her in the face, too. Covering her face, she found that the only way she could avoid the spray was to turn toward the door--where Dax still stood, watching.

She tried to ignore him anyway, lifting her arms and legs to make sure she’d rinsed the lather off thoroughly before she shut the rinse off and touched the dry button. The warm air that immediately enveloped her made goose flesh rise on her skin, but it dried most of the water up.

Dax tossed a small towel at her as she stepped out of the shower. She caught it by reflex, glancing up at him as she did. There was no amusement in his eyes now. They were stormy, glittering with some emotion that her body sensed and reacted to. Pushing away from the door frame, he stared at her a moment and finally turned and left.

Feeling weak-kneed, Lena dried the residual dampness from her skin and blotted as much water from her hair as she could before she grabbed the uniform and tugged it on. Dax was sprawled in the chair at his desk when she returned to the main room of the cabin, a glass in one hand.

She glanced at the glass disapprovingly and then, without saying anything, moved to the lav and looked around hopefully for a comb or brush.

“In the cabinet next to my shaver,” Dax offered, his voice sounding husky. From the fire water, Lena wondered, or something else?

Her hair was still damp when she’d finished combing it, but she merely blotted the wet ends again and left it to dry naturally. It was one of the things she liked about her new hair, that all she had to do was comb it and allow it to dry.

But it hadn’t been worth what she’d paid for it, she thought as an avalanche of guilt washed over her, wondering if what Dax had said was true, or if he’d only said it to keep her from feeling so guilty that that one act of vanity had cost them all so much.

Dax was studying her pensively when she returned the comb and turned to him at last.

Without a word, he downed the last of the liquid in the glass, set it down, and stood up.

Lena found that her body was still buzzing with ambiguous sensations as she moved along the corridor slightly in front of Dax. He’d settled his hand along her waist, resting on the top of her hip, as if to guide her, which was nonsense of course since the corridor was straight and he must know she’d already been to the mess hall before. She couldn’t decide if it was possessive in nature, or a precaution because she was still an unknown entity, or maybe even protectiveness, but she found it raised the level of awareness in her until she felt almost breathless. When they reached the tube, he gestured for her to precede him.

She heard voices coming from the mess hall long before they arrived and the sound instantly redirected her tension from awareness of a sexual nature to anxiety. Slowing, she threw a glance at Dax’s face. His grip on her tightened fractionally, urging her forward, but she abruptly felt a protectiveness in his touch and his nearness and some of her uneasiness abated.

The mess hall, she discovered to her dismay, was full. If Dax hadn’t been directly behind her and had a firm grip on her she would’ve retreated immediately, particularly since conversations all over the room died the moment she was noticed in the doorway. They picked up again almost immediately as Dax pushed her gently but firmly into the room and guided her toward the buffet. “I already got a tray earlier,” she murmured when he took a tray and handed it to her.

“You can get it later.”

She didn’t want to argue about it, not when she felt like everybody was listening. Shrugging mentally, she took the tray, but she was very careful this time only to take a little food. She was hungry but unnerved by being around so many strangers. She would have been anyway, feeling as she did that all of them watched her, but it made it particularly bad knowing what she did now.

A man of obvious tino heritage hailed them as they left the buffet and Dax guided her toward that table, pulling out a chair for her before he set his tray down.

“What’s the word?” Dax asked without preamble as he settled in the chair beside her.

The man glanced at Lena. “One.”

Dax’s brows rose. “Only one?”

“It was a trawler.”

A smile of satisfaction curled Dax’s lips. “Good. They took the bait.” Reaching into his pocket, he pulled something out and dropped it on the table in front of them. It pinged metallically as it landed.

The tino man stared at it as if it was a snake.

After glancing from one man to the other, Lena peered at the tiny fleck of metal. “What is it?”

“The last of the locators.”

“You brought one with us?” the man asked in a strangled voice.

Dax shrugged. “They planted six on her. The only thing they could deduce from sending them off in six different directions was either that we’d killed her and cut her up, or we’d removed the locators and sent those off in six different directions--in which case, I thought it might work better to be one of the ‘diversions.’

“Take it, attach it to a torpedo, and launch it toward the sun of this system when we leave. When you get back to the bridge, you can set a course for home base. Keep a sharp eye out, though. Once they’ve eliminated the ships not carrying, they’ll figure out pretty quickly which one of the diversions is us.”

“That was in me?” Lena asked, stunned by the entire conversation.

Dax slanted a glance at her. Almost casually, he leaned back in his chair and draped an arm over the back of her chair. “One of six. Obviously, they were pretty certain we’d come in after you.”

Lena met his gaze. “I didn’t know they’d done this,” she said faintly.

His lips curled, but the smile didn’t reach his eyes. “I know.”

Lena looked down at her plate, wondering if she could manage to choke down enough food not to look like she was a nervous wreck. It wasn’t enough everybody on the damn ship thought she might be a clone? Now she might also be a spy? Or a clone who was a spy?

She didn’t know what to make of his behavior, which seemed to be a vast contradiction. Obviously, he still distrusted her, but he was behaving in a way that would surely convince everyone that saw them together that he’d accepted her, more than accepted that she was the real Lena. His manner had seemed protective as they’d made their way to the mess hall, but almost from the moment they’d stepped into the doorway she’d sensed a subtle change in him from the protective to the possessive. She just wasn’t sure whether it was deliberate on his part, or a subconscious reaction to the way the men in the room were all studying her, either blatantly or furtively, but she didn’t think she was imagining it.

Dax leaned down until his lips were next to her ear. The gesture, Lena was sure, must look almost like that of a lover to anyone who saw it. “Eat.”

A shiver traveled through her as the warmth of his breath caressed the sensitive flesh, but she picked up her fork and went through the motions, finding after a few mouthfuls that it was easier. “What do you think would’ve given them the idea that anyone would consider me important enough to try to get me out?”

Dax shrugged. “You were important to Nigel … and Morris.”

Lena’s head came around so fast a bone popped. Cold washed through her. “You think they know about Nigel offering to help in return for getting me out?”

A look of irritation flickered across his features. “Nigel’s safe. I’m fairly certain it was the connection to Morris, not Nigel, that interested them most.”

Lena set her fork down. “Not if he keeps his end of the bargain, he isn’t.”

His lips thinned. “They made the connection between you, Nigel, and Morris before any of this went down. If I was guessing, it would be that they just hoped they could use you to bait their trap. They knew about Morris. They may have suspected that Nigel was the source they were looking for and you were the go between, but I doubt it. They took the informant out that had contacted Morris before he could deliver the goods.”

Lena frowned. “They kept interrogating me about the rebels. They thought I knew something. They were asking for names and meeting places.”

Dax flicked a glance at the man across from him. “They interrogate everybody, just in case they know something,” he said slowly. “The fact that they questioned you isn’t necessarily significant.”

Lena frowned, trying to recall anything about those sessions that might give her a clue. “Maybe. There were two of them. One was like a med tech. He gave me the injections and it seemed he was only there for that and to observe. He said if I knew anything, I’d have to tell them because of what he’d given me.”

“What did you tell them?” the tino man asked.

Lena glanced at him when he spoke. “Nothing. I didn’t know anything.” She frowned, wondering whether to mention what she had told them or not. Finally, she decided against it. “Morris never told me anything. I didn’t even know he was actually involved in the rebel movement. I thought it was just … talk.”

“What did Morris talk about?”

Lena shrugged. “He was always talking about gov conspiracy. I knew he hated them, and with good reason. But I thought that was all it was. I mean, it just didn’t make sense to me. The Prez doesn’t have that kind of power anymore, not since just before the downfall, the one back in the early part of the century that abused his office so badly and ruined the economy and the environment that they changed the laws to keep anyone from holding that much power again. Even the congress, because they were either ineffectual against him, or a part of his agenda, doesn’t have that much power anymore. Of course, he never talked to me about the cloning, not until toward the last, but the only way anyone in the gov could benefit would be if they could remain in power, and they can’t. The Prez can’t. The congress can’t, because they can’t serve more than two consecutive terms either anymore. It’s not like it was in the way back when a lot of them ended up serving in congress for life, getting elected over and over. If it was, then it might make sense.”

She frowned, thinking about it for several moments. “I suppose,” she added slowly, “it could be like a hereditary agenda, programs hidden beneath other programs until most of them don’t even know it’s there, but if that’s the case, there’d be no stopping it short of overthrowing the entire gov and starting from scratch because there wouldn’t be one target, or even a handful. It would be policy that would have to be attacked and changed, not people.”

Dax and the tino man exchanged a speaking glance. “So, that’s your theory?” Dax asked.

Lena looked at him in surprise. “I don’t have a theory. I don’t have a clue. I thought all this was just rumors--the cloning. I didn’t even realize the rebels were as organized as this,” she said, gesturing toward the room at large. “The gov’s broke. How could they afford a project like this?”

Dax’s lips twisted in disgust. “The gov isn’t broke. That’s a rumor. They’re not too broke to live well while the common man suffers, not too broke to keep a standing army to keep everybody in line, just too damned broke to provide any of the services they’re paid for and too busy looking the other way while the wealthy in this country turn the citizens into slave labor for themselves and the gov. There’s no life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for any of the people anymore, just the pursuit of survival. And no justice when the home guard is judge, jury, and executioner.”

“The head of one of the mega corps, you think?” Lena asked tentatively.

Dax shrugged. “It’s beginning to look like the only way to stop this, the only way to be sure, is to take them all out and let God sort them.”

* * * *

Lena encountered a dilemma she’d never expected to have to deal with--how to behave as an innocent around people who obviously thought she wasn’t. It seemed to her that there was nothing she could do that would change the way they looked at her. If she was friendly, they were suspicious. If she avoided them, she was behaving suspiciously. If she did neither, but merely lingered in the areas where they spent their time off duty, then she was probably just hanging around in hopes that she would overhear something.

No one said anything, but they didn’t have to. It was the way they looked at her, the way conversations died whenever she approached and then picked up again in an entirely different vein.

With no way of knowing how long she might have to remain with them, she made an effort to try to behave as if she was comfortable around the ship’s crew, as if she felt like one of them. It wouldn’t have been easy if she hadn’t felt that every move she made and every word out of her mouth was being monitored and judged. She was a historian. She spent most of her time alone with books and artifacts. She had never learned how to be sociable, which hadn’t mattered before because her work didn’t require it and she was satisfied with being a loner.

Mel was the only member of the entire crew who seemed to actually try to make friends, but Lena wanted nothing to do with her after the things she’d told her that day in the med lab. Maybe Mel honestly had been trying to be helpful, but she’d only succeeded in making it impossible for Lena to set aside her paranoia.

To make matters worse, Dax was increasingly irritable, even though she tried to be as unobtrusive as possible, knowing it couldn’t be easy sharing space he was accustomed to having to himself. He spent more and more time on the bridge and less in his cabin all the time.

She might have been relieved that he spent so little time around her since it was becoming harder and harder for her to ignore the fact that Dax was dangerous to her in more ways than she could count. Because there was no getting around the fact that she had passed well beyond merely being attracted to him. She’d begun to feel like a she-cat in heat any time he was in her vicinity, so jittery, so keenly sensitive and on edge that it grated on her nerves, tempting her almost beyond bearing even though she knew becoming intimate with him would be disastrous for her.

Beyond her tenuous position among the rebels, he was a dangerous man, period. Tenderness of any kind seemed to be beyond his understanding, which was small wonder considering the life he had lived and continued to live. Unfortunately, it was that arid desert that she sensed inside of him that drew her just as surely as it unnerved her, touching off a growing need in her to try to give him what he had never had, or at least could barely remember.

She was inclined to think that desire was almost like having a death wish because not only was she not at all certain that he would welcome it, but she knew in her bones that she would not be able to hold anything back and she would suffer for it because he was what he was and it was too late to change that. He was a rebel and he would be until he died, or terminated his enemy. Nothing, and no one, was going to turn him from the path he’d chosen.

What made the entire situation untenable, though, was that she needed to feel like she had at least one ally and Dax was the only one onboard that she trusted enough even to feel a modicum of security.

When the tension between them began to seem more and more explosive instead of less so, she couldn’t help but wonder and worry that something she’d said had triggered alarms in his head that he might have been hasty in trusting her even enough to allow her to roam the ship at will and to give her the umbrella of his protection. And she was as torn by the fear that he’d decide to withdraw his protection as she was concerned that any overtures she might think to make toward him would either be flatly, and embarrassingly, rejected or looked upon with the same suspicion as everything else she did, that he would think she was trying to seduce him for some evil agenda.

Trying to talk her way into acceptance hadn’t gotten her anywhere. She’d done her best to allay both Dax and Mel’s suspicions and couldn’t see that she’d made any appreciable headway even with the two people who seemed most inclined to believe her.

It seemed to her, in fact, that the harder she tried, the less they believed.

With no idea of what else she could do, she finally decided that the only thing she could do was to try her best to be invisible. Once she was with Nigel, it wouldn’t matter what they thought. Nigel would know her. If Nigel was determined to see his part in this through, then she would try to help him and then they could find somewhere to go where they would be safe both from the rebels and whoever was behind the conspiracy to replace thinking human beings with workers that were more like drones.

It would’ve helped her feelings immensely if she’d just known how long she would have to deal with the situation, but she was afraid even to ask that much. When she’d finally nerved herself to ask Mel where they were going and been told ‘home base’, which she’d known already, she had been so focused on learning some time frame that she’d pressed her for just where home base was located. She didn’t need to be psychic to see that the question had set off alarms. Mel had looked at her as if she’d just grown two heads and informed her that only a handful of people knew the exact location and she wasn’t one of them.

Retribution wasn’t long in coming. She’d barely scurried back to her cave when Dax had arrived. One look at his face was enough to assure her that Mel had lost no time trotting to him to tell him Lena was trying to wheedle top secret information out of her.

“You have some need to know the location of the base?” he growled after staring at her for several moments as if he was contemplating tearing her head off.

Unnerved as she was by the barely leashed violence she sensed in him, Lena’s anger surged to the forefront. “I don’t care where the damned base is!” she shouted at him. “I want my brother and I want to get out of here and away from you. All of you!”

His lips tightened. “If it bothers you that much to share the cabin with me, you can move to the barracks. I’m sure as hell not going to complain about it. I might get some damned sleep!”

The threat struck home, sending Lena’s anger into a tailspin. “It wouldn’t bother me if you didn’t go around like … an old bear all the time! And I do not keep you from sleeping!”

“Like hell you don’t!”

“Fine!” she snapped, realizing she’d painted herself into a corner and only had two options, neither of which was really palatable. She could find someplace else to sleep, or she could try to calm the savage beast. She was just mad enough to be stupid, though, and too hard headed for her own good. “I’ll sleep somewhere else.”

“Good!” Dax snarled. Moving to the bed, he plopped down on the edge and began working his boots off.

After glancing at him doubtfully for several moments, Lena finally turned to leave. Unfortunately, she didn’t have a clue of where she was going. She sure as hell wasn’t going anywhere near the barracks.

She was already halfway down the corridor between Dax’s cabin and the access tube when she heard him behind her. One look at his face was enough to shoot a rush of adrenaline through her and set her feet in motion. He caught her while she was still trying to decide whether to race up, or down, the ladder. Hooking an arm around her waist, he yanked her off the ladder. Instead of setting her on her feet, though, he turned and strode back to his cabin.

She wouldn’t have minded being ‘made’ to do what she wanted to do anyway, except that he was in a mood she didn’t quite trust. “Put me down!” she demanded, trying to pry his arm loose.

She couldn’t, and he ignored her demand until they’d stepped into his cabin again. When he finally released her, she whirled and headed for the door again.

He caught her again just as she reached for the release to open it, whirling her around and shoving her against the panel with a palm planted just beneath her breasts. “Baby girl, you are trying my patience.”

“You don’t have any patience! At all!”

He ground his teeth. “I know you don’t have a clue of what’s going on here,” he growled. “But these people here know their lives are on the line. And it’s really stupid to make them nervous about your loyalties by asking questions like the one you asked while ago.”

“I’m not stupid!” she spat at him, struggling with the wobble in her chin. “I know they’re just as afraid of me as I am them. I’m just … tired of being scared all the time. I want Nigel. He’ll know me!”

Dax stared at her a long moment, his expression haunted. “I know you, baby girl.”

She sniffed, trying to blink back the tears that began pooling in her eyes. “Then why do you act like you hate me? Why don’t you trust me?”

He lifted his hand to her chin, stroking his thumb lightly over her lower lip. “I don’t trust anybody, baby girl. That’s why I’m still alive.”

She squeezed her eyes closed, twisting her face away from his hand. “I don’t see how you could possibly think I would be any sort of threat to you.”

“Then you’re not as smart as I thought you were,” he said dryly. He caught her cheeks between both of his hands, pressing his forehead against hers. “I don’t hate you. I’m trying to protect you.”

She looked at him in surprise. “From what?”

His lips tightened. “From me.”

Chapter Ten

Lena gaped at him in confusion. “I don’t understand.”

“No?” he growled, dropping his hands from her cheeks and lifting his head.

Lena couldn’t prevent the blush that heated her cheeks.

His gaze flickered over her face. Abruptly, he caught her arms and dragged her up against him. His mouth was hard, hot, almost savage as he caught her lips beneath his and breached the sensitive barrier where her lips met with the possessive thrust of his tongue. A tidal wave of need broke over her instantly, swamping her senses, sucking her down into a dizzying whirlpool of mindless need. She made a sound in her throat of want as his taste and scent enveloped her with a breathless rush of excitement, inebriated her until her mind was a swirling morass of confusion. Her strength abandoned her, sucked away by the hot friction of his tongue as he raked it along hers in restless possession, by the heat and hardness of his body as she leaned weakly against him for support.

He broke the kiss almost as abruptly, pressing his forehead against hers for a moment, his breathing ragged as he struggled for control.

With an effort, she lifted her lids to stare at him when he released her and stepped back, swaying weakly until she managed to lock her knees to keep from melting to the floor. There was wariness in his expression and something else that took her many moments to understand. “You think I’m afraid of you,” she said in surprise and then frowned, trying to think what she’d done to give him that impression. Abruptly, she remembered that time when he’d been forced to enact a rape to keep her from actually being raped and she knew that had to be it. She hadn’t been terrified then but not of him.

He slid a glance her. “Aren’t you?”

She was, but not afraid that he’d deliberately hurt her, she realized.

His lips curled wryly. “That’s what I thought.”

She frowned when he scrubbed his hands over his face tiredly, realizing that he’d managed to regain control when moments before he’d been within a hair’s breadth of completely losing it. She should leave well enough alone, she knew, but she found she couldn’t. She lifted a hand and placed it lightly on his chest. “I’m not.”

He fisted one hand around her wrist. “Leave it alone, baby girl.”

The warning growl of his voice almost tipped the scales in the other direction, but she was beyond caution. Lifting her free hand, she placed it on his chest, slipping it upward as she came up on her tiptoes and tipped her head back, offering her lips to him, offering her everything to him. He glared at her warningly. Refusing to back down, she brushed her lips lightly along his throat, just above his collarbone. “I’m not Morris’ baby girl anymore,” she murmured.

Settling one hand in the middle of her back, he cupped the other over the back of her head, digging his fingers into her hair and tugging her head back. “I did warn you,” he muttered hoarsely, covering her mouth with a violent possessiveness that sent Lena’s heart skittering into overtime. She dug her fingers into his shoulders, locking her knees as her world seemed to spin off kilter in a dizzying rush that was, impossible as it seemed, more debilitating than the one she’d experienced before. Her own sense of urgency, fed by the hunger of his possession, goaded her to kiss him in return, to move closer, to feel his body against hers. She traced her tongue along his, suckled it.

Uttering a groan from deep in his chest, he withdrew his mouth from hers abruptly and dragged open mouthed kisses over her throat to her ear. Her knees buckled as he teased the sensitive shell with his mouth and tongue. He caught her, his hand slipping from the middle of her back to cup one buttock and pull her snugly against his erection. Her flesh, all over her body, seemed to tighten, prickling with keen sensory perception so that the faintest of contact between them sent fresh waves of delight and awareness through her to gather at her core.

“You’re going to hate me for this,” he muttered against her throat.

“No.”

“I’m going to hate me for this,” he said harshly, brushing his face along her neck and throat and following with nibbling kisses.

The light brush of his engorged flesh against her mound only tormented her with unfulfilled promise. She lifted upward on her toes, slipping her arms around his neck to steady herself and arch against him. Uttering a pained grunt, he released his grip on her buttock and bent her back over one arm. Grasping the front of her uniform, he gave it a wrenching tug that separated the front from neck to groin with a sound ominously like ripping fabric.

It barely registered in her mind beyond the fact that she couldn’t touch his skin. She made a grab for the front opening of his suit as he tugged the back of her uniform down, trapping her arms in the fabric when it reached her elbows. Frustration flickered through her briefly. It vanished the moment his mouth closed over one distended nipple. The jolt of pleasure that went through her made her belly clench almost painfully with need and turned her knees to water.

He caught her as she began to wilt toward the floor, lifting her and striding toward the bunk. Even as she landed solidly in the middle and began trying to wiggle out of the snug fitting cloth, he came down over her, covering her mouth in another heated kiss that forced everything from her mind but savoring the heat and urgency of his kiss. Somehow, she managed to wrest her arms free, curling them around him as he moved from her mouth to her breasts, scouring her with the heat that flashed through her with the teasing suction of his mouth.

She began to thrash feverishly beneath his assault, gasping for breath. “Dax!” she gasped a little desperately.

He lifted his mouth from her breast, shifted upward to suck a love bite on her throat and then to brush a light kiss across her lips. “Easy, baby.”

Squeezing her eyes closed, she dug her nails into his shoulders. “Please, Dax. Please.”

He sat up, sat back on his heels. Grasping her suit, he peeled it from her hips, and then disentangled it from her legs, propping one foot on either side of his hips so that her thighs were splayed, the lips of her sex parting, exposing the more tender petals of flesh beneath.

She slit her eyes to look at him as she felt him shift, watching as he yanked the front of his suit open and peeled it off his arms and shoulders, pushing it down his hips until his cock sprang free. She swallowed as she studied him, feeling her body tighten all over in anticipation, reaching for him as he leaned down.

Instead of moving over her, he slipped his hands beneath her hips and lifted them, burying his face against her cleft. Her breath left her as if it had been punched from her lungs. Her body clenched as he dragged his tongue slowly along her cleft and teased her clit until she felt like a mindless, writhing bundle of raw, exposed nerve endings. She sucked in a desperate breath, shuddering, jerking against the intensity of the sensations that pounded through her as he alternately sucked and teased the acutely sensitive nub. “Oh god!” she gasped out shakily, her voice skating the edge of a scream as she felt her body begin to quake, convulsing in hard shudders.

He moved over her, burrowing his face against her neck as he thrust his cock into her quaking passage. She gasped sharply, wrapping her arms tightly around him as she dug her heels into the mattress and lifted to meet him. Her body resisted, clinging, still convulsing with aftershocks of release around his hard flesh. She was nearly weeping by the time he’d claimed her fully, certain he’d wrung every ounce of pleasure from her body that she could bear.

Her body responded regardless to his thrusting caresses, gathering itself once more toward culmination. He sucked on her neck and shoulder as the moisture of her body eased his passage at last and he set a desperate rhythm to find his own release. Her body crested, reached the limits of endurance and ruptured with ecstasy. He shuddered as her passage began to quake around his flesh, uttered a hoarse growl and plunged raggedly as his big body began to shake with uncontrollable tremors, pumping his seed into her.

They wilted in the heated aftermath, melding together limply, gasping for breath.

* * * *

For the first time that he could remember, Dax gave up the relaxation of slumber with reluctance, drifting lazily in and out of awareness for some time before he finally recalled that he had duties to perform and opened his eyes.

Lena lay curled up against him, her cheek and one arm resting on his chest. After staring at her sleeping face blearily for several moments, he dropped his head on the pillow once more, closing his eyes against the memories flooding into his mind. They teased him anyway, refusing to be banished. The urge to roll her onto her back and wake her to his possession was so strong his gut tightened almost nauseatingly.

As badly as he wanted to, he couldn’t afford to indulge himself anymore than he already had.

He shouldn’t have touched her at all. It had been hard enough trying to keep his hands to himself before, when he’d only spent three quarters of his time brooding about fucking her six ways from Sunday. Knowing what it felt like sure as hell wasn’t going to make it any easier on him.

He might have asked himself what he’d been thinking except that he knew the answer. He hadn’t been thinking.

Scrubbing a hand over his face, he rubbed the bristle on his chin, realizing he must have slept a hell of a long time to produce that much beard and finally eased out from under Lena and got up.

He’d abandoned his post in the middle of his shift and he hadn’t gone back. There was no way in hell that that was going to slip by unnoticed, especially since he’d left the bridge in a thundering rage and everyone knew what his destination was. “Shit!” he growled, heading for the facilities.

She had rolled onto her back when he came out again. The sheet was tangled across her hips, but he glimpsed a tuft of the dark, curling thatch of her mound. He stared at it for several moments, feeling his mouth go dry, before his gaze seemed to travel up her body of its own accord, skimming her flat belly and rounded breasts and settling finally on her face. She looked almost painfully young in her sleep, fragile, innocent, and at the same time pure temptress.

If Morris had still been alive, he would’ve cut his heart out for touching Lena.

No doubt Nigel would be willing to take Morris’ place and do the honors.

Disgusted with himself, he moved to the lav and shaved quickly, then pulled a fresh uniform from his locker and dragged it on. She stirred as he shoved his feet into his boots and he froze, half hoping she would wake up and half dreading that she would.

She didn’t, merely rolled onto her belly, and he relaxed again.

Moving to the door, he paused, staring at her for several moments and finally left, mentally kicking himself all the way to the bridge.

Rodriguez made the mistake of grinning at him when he flung himself down in his chair. “You got something on your mind, Rodriguez?” he snarled.

Rodriguez’s eyes widened. “No, Sir!”

“What’s our status?”

“Twenty four hours. The communications officer tried to hail base, but there was no response.”

Dax frowned, feeling his gut tighten uncomfortably. “They must have a black out. Give it six and hail them again. Any sign of stalkers?”

“That’s a negative, Captain.”

Nodding, Dax retreated into his own thoughts. It wasn’t really that unusual for base to go silent. In fact, they didn’t respond almost as often as they did. The idea was not to be predictable, because there was always a chance the enemy might get hold of the frequency and try to hail them so that they could triangulate the beacon.

His gut was telling him it was a bad sign though. Unfortunately, not only was there not a damned thing he could do about it, right or wrong, but he wasn’t even sure he could trust his instincts at the moment.

They sure as hell hadn’t kicked in when he needed them or he would’ve left the fucking cabin before he succumbed to idiocy.

Sighing heavily, he propped his elbow on the armrest and dropped his chin onto his balled fist, staring balefully at the blackness of the viewing screen. He should have worked off his frustrations on one of the female crew members, he thought irritably. There were at least two that wouldn’t have minded scratching his itch, and if he’d taken care of the problem, it wouldn’t have gotten to be a huge problem.

He might have been able to exert a little more control.

Doubtful, he decided.

If she’d just kept running instead of deciding to stop they would’ve both been better off.

Now he had a hell of a fucking mess on his hands.

He had no business with Lena, at all, for any reason. She didn’t belong in his world, couldn’t have fit in if she’d tried, and it wasn’t hard to see she didn’t want to try.

And he sure as hell didn’t fit into her world.

Not that he thought there was any likelihood that she would consider such a thing even if he would.

She was probably in the shower now scrubbing herself raw and trying to erase him from her body and mind.

He didn’t know why she’d let him--probably that soft heart of hers--but she was bound to regret it as soon as she’d had time to think it over.

Twenty four hours and she’d be off his hands.

Twenty four hours and he’d probably never set eyes on her again, not in this life time anyway because, sure as hell, the minute her feet touched down she was going to be off like a cat shot in the ass.

That would be a relief. A real fucking relief. It was just a god damned shame he hadn’t had enough brains to keep his dick in his pants in the meantime, because it was going to be hell trying to put her out of his mind.

* * * *

The bed was cold when Lena finally cracked a wary eye and glanced around the room. Without a great deal of surprise, she saw that Dax was gone. Stretching, she lay frowning at the ceiling for a while, wondering what had possessed her to provoke Dax when she’d seen he was struggling against his needs. She shouldn’t have pushed it. She should have left well enough alone. He didn’t need her. He didn’t need anyone and it had been stupid and sappy of her to think that it was her he needed when all he’d really needed was to get laid.

She didn’t blame him for something that had been her own decision, regardless of what he’d seemed to think at the time, and she certainly didn’t hate him. It had been every bit as wonderful as she’d known it would be and she was going to try to look upon the experience in a positive light.

She’d wanted him. He’d wanted her. They’d had wild, fabulous sex, and that was that.

It wasn’t going to develop into something more meaningful, not for him anyway. She knew that. She’d known that all along, and she’d also known that she was too susceptible to becoming emotionally entangled with him to risk it without also risking terrible emotional pain. If she suffered the consequences she had no one to blame but herself, but she thought she was going to be all right. They couldn’t be very far from home, now, she knew. How deeply could she fall in so short a space of time?

* * * *

Lena discovered for the first time since she’d boarded the ship that she was bored. That was her first indication that her outlook had changed radically. The second was when she realized she kept checking the time and wondering when Dax would go to the mess hall.

She hadn’t willingly left the dubious security she’d felt being in Dax’s cabin since she’d been with the rebels. It disturbed her to realize that she wanted to leave it because she wanted to be with Dax and she knew she wouldn’t be allowed to go up to the bridge. She didn’t find it particularly comforting to realize that nothing had changed, really, except that Dax had said he knew her. One vote of confidence out of an entire crew, especially coming from a man like Dax, shouldn’t have been enough to give her the sense of security she felt now. Of course, he was the captain, and she knew his crew would obey him, but she also thought she knew Dax pretty well. If it served his purposes, he would lie, and do it very well.

He might only have told her he believed her and knew she was who she claimed to be because it had suited him to do so at the time, maybe for no other reason than to knock a hole in her defenses so that he could get a piece of ass.

She didn’t think that was the reason. She thought he’d told her the truth, but she didn’t know. It could just as easily be another mind fuck to see how she would react, because she’d figured out that that was what that conversation with Mel had been about.

She knew why they’d done it. She knew Mel had probably only been following orders from Dax, but she hadn’t forgiven either one of them for scaring her out of her wits.

She blamed Mel most, even though she knew it was unreasonable and that she should’ve been blaming Dax.

And that worried her. Wanting to be with him plus wanting to forgive him for anything and everything equaled stupid female falls for totally inappropriate male, because he was dark, dangerous, wounded, sexy as hell, and she’d been itching to mount his rod since the first moment she’d laid eyes on him.

Morris would have had a brain seizure if he’d ever heard anything like that come out of her mouth, let alone discovered she thought that way. He certainly would have had a stroke if he’d had any clue that she’d thrown ‘lady’ Lena to the wind the moment she’d gotten the chance to get into Dax’s bed.

And Dax was a cauc. Morris had expected her to respect her heritage and find some nice, wholesome, well educated neg who was a gentleman to settle with and make babies.

If Dax had been a neg, Morris would’ve been furious about her taking up with him, because he wasn’t a gentleman, he was probably self-educated at best, and he was never going to hold an upper class job or live in an upper class neighborhood.

Dax wasn’t going to be hanging around long enough to produce any breeds, though, and Morris wouldn’t be around to see it. He wasn’t going to be around to enjoy any of the grandchildren he’d always talked about, but she didn’t doubt for one moment that Morris had loved her without reservation. He might have been disappointed in her if she’d chosen to marry outside her race and produce breeds, or even if she’d decided she was in love with a man that wasn’t upper class, but he would still have loved her and them.

As long as it wasn’t Dax.

She had known Morris well enough to know that he must have loved his son deeply and been proud of him, but he’d never spoken about Dax to either her or Nigel, and he wouldn’t allow Dax anywhere around them. That couldn’t have been because he was worried about anything happening between her and Dax because she wasn’t old enough for that sort of problem to cross his mind. The only reason that she could think of was because he’d made up his mind that he was going to keep her and Nigel away from the sordid side of life that was the only thing Dax knew.

Except for worrying about pleasing or displeasing Morris, on a personal level, she didn’t care. She never had cared in spite of the fact that Morris had tried his best to instill a class snobbery upon her and Nigel, sent them to the best schools, made sure they got the education they needed to find positions that would place them in the upper class economy and social hierarchy.

And she hadn’t cared because Morris, bless him, didn’t fit into that society. She supposed he’d never figured that out, never realized that if he’d succeeded she would have been ashamed of him and her beginnings.

She’d assumed a façade that would please Morris. She had walked, talked, and behaved like a lady because he was determined she was going to be one, but, deep down, she was still Morris’ baby girl. She was shy, but she wasn’t particularly squeamish about the more sordid side of life because as carefully as Morris had tried to shield her, there probably hadn’t been a whole lot that she’d missed about the world she’d grown up in.

Drugs or no drugs, if she’d been a ‘real’ lady, she should have been revolted about the incident in the jail cell--maybe not at the time because she hadn’t had her wits about her, but certainly afterward. She’d had plenty of time since to piece it all together and feel shame if she was going to feel any, or horror. If she hadn’t been drugged, she probably would have been terrified at the violence. She knew she would’ve been humiliated past bearing to be mounted in full view of so many men, as if she was no more than an animal, but she hadn’t really been aware of that at the time and she supposed that was why it still didn’t particularly bother her.

Not that she supposed it really mattered how she felt about it or that Morris wouldn’t have liked it if he’d discovered she was mooning over Dax.

And it didn’t really matter how she felt about it, because she knew Dax lived by the law of the jungle, survival of the fittest, not the laws of societal man. He wasn’t going to feel any sort of obligation to make things right because he’d taken what he wanted--which she didn’t mind because she would’ve hated that. But sex probably didn’t mean any more to him that relieving bodily need and he also wasn’t very likely to think he just couldn’t live without her only because it had been good.

For that matter, she didn’t know if it had been particularly good for him. She’d been too busy enjoying it herself to think much about pleasing him.

That anxiety occupied her mind for a while, but she discovered trying to recall wasn’t very helpful. Details were hazy and mostly centered on how she’d felt about everything.

Besides, dwelling on it very quickly had her nearly as on edge and needy as she had been before she’d been thoroughly pleasured by the man.

Deciding when she saw that it was meal time that it would be better to brave meeting up with Dax in public view than to stay in his cabin and dwell on her mostly unpleasant thoughts, Lena left the cabin and went to the mess hall. There were a number of people gathered there, some already settled, others still selecting their food, but she didn’t see Dax among them. Disappointed, and finding that she wasn’t nearly as comfortable about joining the crew as she’d thought she would be, she was tempted to turn around and leave again. Unfortunately, she knew she’d been noticed and she didn’t want them to think that she’d only come to look for Dax.

Her paranoia had kicked in, and she was instantly certain that they’d know that food was the last thing on her mind.

They’d probably spend the rest of the day ribbing Dax about his conquest with the mousy wall flower.

Stiffening her spine, she entered the mess hall after only a brief and, she hoped, largely unnoticed check at the door. She wasn’t certain of where to sit once she’d filled the tray, but finally she spied the tino man she and Dax had sat with before.

He didn’t flag her over, but there were two empty seats at the long table and she decided to take the corner seat that she’d taken before.

She had only managed to swallow a couple of bites of food when a sort of tension seemed to ripple through the room. Glancing up, she saw that Dax had just stepped through the doorway. Their gazes collided. Without thought, she smiled at him tentatively. He stopped as if he’d hit a brick wall. For several panicked moments Lena thought he was going to reverse engines and leave again.

Her cheeks flamed.

Hastily, she averted her gaze to her tray, trying not to look as horrendously uncomfortable as she felt. There was no way to look unconcerned. She knew that, and she could just imagine what sort of thoughts were running through the minds of everyone that had noticed that byplay.

She was so focused on trying to pretend to be unaware of Dax that she jerked all over when his tray landed on the table next to her, spilling the water she’d just picked up to drink all down the front of her suit.

Setting the glass down again quickly, she grabbed her napkin and dabbed at the water before it could soak through. When she looked up from drying the puddle that had formed at her crotch to see if Dax had noticed, she looked him right in the eye … sort of. His gaze was actually on the dark spot on her crotch.

As if he wasn’t even aware that he’d been sitting perfectly still, staring at her crotch for long enough that everyone sitting at the table had noticed, he finally glanced at his tray and picked up his fork.

“Hungry today, eh, Captain?”

The tino’s teasing grin flat lined when Dax looked up and glared at him.

The remark drew Lena’s attention to his tray, though, and her eyes widened.

Dax slid a glance at her out of the corner of his eye. Dark color started at his neck and moved slowly upward until it disappeared beneath his hair line.

The blush caught Lena completely by surprise, shattering her defenses. When he flicked a glance at her, she smiled at him tentatively as she had before.

He scowled, rubbing his chest absently as he looked away again.

Rebuffed, again, Lena struggled to focus on finishing her meal so that she could leave without giving the appearance of flight. It might have been sawdust for all she noticed anything about the flavor.

There was nothing quite like being relieved of all doubts, she thought morosely, wondering why she’d allowed herself even a tiny sliver of hope that something had changed in their relationship. She should have known by the way he’d sneaked out and left her asleep that he was trying to avoid any sort of confrontation.

It was a good thing she’d gone though, she decided after a few moments, forced him to publicly snub her, because now she knew beyond any doubt where she stood with him and she could put the whole thing behind her as experience.

“I guess you didn’t manage to hail base camp?” the tino asked after several moments.

Dax glanced at him. “Still nothing. You can give it another couple of hours and try again. Next time, though, instead of trying a hail, just send the ‘package retrieved’ code. If they’re listening, but can’t broadcast, they’ll know it’s us and that the mission was a success.”

It didn’t take Lena more than a split second to figure out that cryptic remark. She was a package, Lena thought indignantly?

Finishing her meal, she got up abruptly and left the table, disposing of her tray, utensils, and her glass.

She was so hurt and angry that she didn’t realize the tread she was vaguely aware of behind her was Dax until she’d stepped into the cabin.

The door slid half closed and then popped open again, jerking her out of her abstraction. Dax caught her even as she whirled to face him.

Chapter Eleven

Caught completely off guard, Lena didn’t even have time to throw up defenses before she felt the pressure of Dax’s hard, demanding mouth over hers, felt the possessive thrust of his tongue as he breached the barrier of her lips and claimed her with his touch and taste. Heat and dizziness washed through her instantly, draining her of strength, will, or even the thought of protest.

She was barely even aware that he’d caught her tightly with one arm around her shoulders until she heard the sound of her suit being wrenched open and felt the brush of his other hand along her skin and coolness as he parted the fabric.

“Never smile at me like that again--in public. I almost had a heart seizure right then and there,” he growled when he lifted his mouth from hers, shoving his hands beneath the fabric of her suit and peeling it from her body even as he explored her throat and the upper slope of her breasts.

The comment touched off a flicker of doubt, but Lena discovered she was already too far gone to be capable of anything approaching normal thought processes. It was all she could do to hold herself upright as he moved down her body, exploring her bare skin with his mouth and hands as he dragged the suit down to her ankles. When she lifted her foot to free it from the fabric, he caught her thigh, draped it over his shoulder, and burrowed his face against her mound.

Her knees wobbled and gave out as his tongue delved her cleft.

He caught her, lowering her to the floor instead of rising and carrying her to the bunk. Dragging the suit from her other foot, he hooked both of her legs over his shoulders, lifted her hips clear of the floor and fastened his mouth hungrily over her mound. Lena gasped, jerked, shuddering at the ferocity of his assault that sent her spiraling so rapidly toward culmination that she couldn’t catch her breath. Her body seized as it caught her, began to quake and convulse almost painfully as he continued to lick and suckle her clit with ravenous need.

Unable to evade the maddening tease of his tongue, Lena felt her climax jolting endlessly, until she began to think she would die if he didn’t stop. “Dax!” she cried out when she felt like she was on the verge of passing out.

She thought for several moments that he was too intent even to have heard her. Finally, he lowered her hips until they were resting on his bent knees, dragged her legs from his shoulders, planted her feet on the floor, and then grabbed her arms and jerked her upwards. She slumped weakly against him, her arms draped around his neck to keep from falling but too limp to be of much use to her.

Lifting her hips with both hands, he spread her cleft with his fingers and pressed the head of his cock into the mouth of her sex, bearing down on her hips slowly but relentlessly until she was gasping. When he’d sunk his cock inside of her to the root, he bore down on her more tightly, grinding his groin against her nether lips as if he felt the need to go deeper still, until his cock head was butting her womb almost painfully.

She groaned, dropping her cheek against the top of his head as he held her there for many moments, his arms wrapped tightly around her. Her neck felt too weak even to hold her head up. Abruptly, he released her, grabbed her hips and began to lift her and press her down again until he was slamming into her. Tremors began to run through his arms, his entire body. As suddenly as he’d begun pounding into her, he stilled, uttered a choked groan and wrapped his arms tightly, almost crushingly, around her again, his body shaking so violently with tremors that they swayed precariously.

Heaving a shuttering sigh, he loosened his grip on her and finally leaned down, supporting them with one arm and easing her to the floor with the other. When she’d settled to the floor like a puddle of melted wax, the arm he’d been using to brace both of them gave way and he slumped onto his side and then rolled onto his back, gasping for breath.

Mellow in the aftermath, Lena nevertheless began to feel as if she’d just been run over by a tank as the cold hardness of the floor began to sink in--stunned, wondering if she was going to feel pain in a few moments, wondering what had just happened.

Finally, with an obvious effort, Dax got off the floor, reached down, and lifted her up and carried her to the bed. Settling her on the mattress, he leaned over her, kissed the tip of each breast briefly, and then her lips before he straightened. She stared up at him in bemusement. Slowly, it sank into her mind that she was splayed naked and spread eagle to his gaze … and he hadn’t even taken off his clothes.

After staring at her for several moments, he moved to the lav, washed his genitals, and stuffed them back into his suit, closing the seam. He frowned when he’d finished adjusting himself. After looking around a little absently, he grabbed the towel he’d discarded by the lav earlier and dabbed at the crotch of his suit.

Lena sat up abruptly as he headed toward the door, bracing herself on her elbows.

“You are not going out like that!”

He stopped, turned to look at her in surprise. “It’s not noticeable.”

“Like hell it isn’t!”

He frowned, but after a moment his lips twitched. “Language, baby girl!”

Lena felt her jaw go slack for about two seconds and then rage kicked in. “You are not my father!” she snarled, looking around for something to throw at him and coming up with nothing more substantial than the pillow.

He caught it. His good humor had vanished though. Anger simmered in his eyes. “If you’re pissed off because of what just happened, then you need to think before you wave that tight little ass of yours in my face, because I want it, and, if you offer it, I’m damned well going to take it.”

Lena gasped in outrage, feeling her face flame at his crudity, remembering abruptly that he’d lifted her up to devour her as if she’d been a sandwich and wondering indignantly if that was what he was referring to. “I did not wave it in your face!”

“Exactly what did you think I was going to think when you gave me that come hither smile back in the fucking mess?”

“I was just trying to be friendly,” Lena snapped angrily, more because she realized instantly that he hadn’t made the mistake, or misinterpreted anything. She had very purposefully gone down to the mess hall at a time when she’d thought she was likely to meet up with him.

And she had smiled at him, which was enough to give any man the same impression that Dax had gotten, because if she’d been pissed off about it, she wouldn’t have smiled at him. She would’ve given him a drop dead glare.

Balling the pillow up, he shot it back at her like a cannon ball. Instinctively, she ducked. The sound of parting fabric was the only warning she got before she felt her wrists seized. He bore her down onto her back, pinning her with his weight, manacling her wrists to the bed on either side of her head.

His expression was implacable when she blew her hair out of her face and peered up at him in stunned surprise, his eyes were narrowed and tumultuous with emotion. “I am not your friend,” he said through clenched teeth. “And I’m damned sure not your brother or your father--I’m not that damned much older than you. Maybe I’m a dumb fuck, but when a woman I’ve just fucked senseless gives me a smile instead of a drop dead look, I figure that means she didn’t mind it.”

She hadn’t realized what that ominous ripping sound was until she felt the head of his cock nudge her cleft, press the fleshy folds apart and then move down unerringly toward the mouth of her sex. She wasn’t hot, wasn’t even warm, but it didn’t matter, because her sex was still thoroughly lubricated. With little difficulty, he wedged the head of his cock into her and drove deeper. She gasped, instinctively tensing. She heard his teeth grinding together as he withdrew slightly and drove into her again even as she recovered her wits and began squirming against his hold.

Ignoring her attempts to free herself, he bore down inexorably until she was panting for breath, could feel his pelvis grinding into the tender flesh of her cleft. A mixture of pain, fear, and panic went through her as he stopped, gasping harshly, his own face twisted as if he was in pain.

Abruptly, an image flashed through her mind, of Dax above her as he was now, his face contorted with remorse, his teeth gritted. Scream damn it. This is supposed to be a rape.

The fear and panic vanished as abruptly as it had descended upon her.

This wasn’t about anger, and it wasn’t about power. It was about protecting her. He was trying to drive her away, she realized, trying to make her believe he was a heartless monster so that she’d keep her distance.

Because he thought she would get hurt? Or because he was afraid he would?

He released her wrists the moment she ceased to struggle. His head dropped forward. Lifting her hands, Lena cupped his face in her hands. When he glanced up at her warily, she slipped her hands around his neck and tugged, lifting up to meet him when he resisted and brushing her lips lightly across his. He released a harsh breath that he’d been holding. Settling against her, he buried his face in the pillow beside her head.

She wrapped her arms tightly around him, holding him for several moments and finally began to stoke his back soothingly, arching her neck to kiss his shoulder, the side of his neck. She hesitated when she reached his ear and finally teased it with the tip of her tongue, rocking her hips against his.

A shudder rippled through him. Turning his face to hers, he moved his lips over hers in gentle exploration, his touch more apologetic than coaxing.

She sensed when he tensed that he would withdraw. She wasn’t about to allow it. Slipping her hands down his back, she cupped his buttocks, arching up to meet him.

He lifted his head, studied her for a long moment and then dipped his head to kiss her, this time deeply, with growing need and hunger. She kissed him back, sucking on his tongue until he began to move faster and the warmth inside of her blossomed into a conflagration. Her body began to convulse with release the moment she felt him tense as his own climax caught him.

They lay perfectly still for many minutes afterward. Finally, Dax stirred, lifting slightly away from her. “Lena....”

She felt her throat clog with emotion. Lifting her hand she touched a finger to his lips. “It’s all right. I know.”

She didn’t, actually. She just knew she didn’t want to hear what he was going to say. She didn’t need or want an apology, if that was what he’d had on his mind, and if he’d intended to tell her that there was nothing between them, and never would be, then she also didn’t want to hear that.

She knew she couldn’t stay with him, and he wouldn’t stay with her. As soon as he’d handed her over to Nigel, he would leave again on some other mission to save the world.

He frowned. After a moment, he moved off of her without another word. She rolled onto her side when he’d gotten off the bed, closing her eyes firmly. She didn’t open them again until she knew he’d left the room.

It was amazing, she thought glumly, how protective a person’s mind could be, dulling pain, hiding the truth, refusing to see things that were too awful to see. Only that morning she had been assuring herself that she was coming out of this unscathed. She’d had a narrow miss, but she wasn’t going to be hurt, because she’d just scratched her itch like Dax had. And there was no danger, really, of becoming emotionally wrapped up in him, because she would be home within a matter of days and it just wasn’t possible to fall for anybody that quickly.

It was though, because she’d just hit the ground after the long fall. She was pretty sure he’d sliced her right down to the quick the day he’d pulverized the men trying to rape her and told her he’d come to rescue her from that nightmarish place. She was hurting already and she hadn’t had to say goodbye yet.

* * * *

Surprise flickered through Nigel when he looked up and saw Dax striding toward him. Knowing the vids were on both of them, though, he tamped the sensation of finding himself off kilter and merely jerked his head in invitation as if he’d been waiting for him.

“How’ve you been?” Dax said, smiling in a friendly way and extending his hand.

Again a flicker of something not quite right went through Nigel. He returned the smile and the handshake mechanically, deciding finally that Dax was putting on an act for the vids. “I didn’t expect you. How’s Lena?”

Something flickered in Dax’s eyes. He hadn’t expected the question, Nigel realized, and for a moment he thought he’d really screwed up. He was not good at this cloak and dagger shit! “Never mind. Tell me later.”

Dax shrugged when he’d settled in the chair across the table from Nigel. “She’s taken care of.”

Nigel frowned into his coffee mug as the server bot rolled over. By the time Dax had ordered a full breakfast and the bot had left again, Nigel had himself well under control. “I guess it’ll be me and you, then?”

“Yeah.”

Nigel chewed his lower lip, glancing around at the other patrons at the sidewalk café. Finally, he picked his cup up, drained the last of the coffee, and stood up. “Seven, at the rear service door.”

“We need to meet at the base.”

Nigel looked at Dax in surprise. After a moment, his expression cleared. “Afterwards, you mean? I thought that was the plan?”

Dax nodded. “That’s what I meant.”

A cold sweat had begun to form on Nigel’s brow before he reached the entrance to Quasar Corp. The meeting he’d just had wasn’t just unexpected. It had been downright strange. His instincts were screaming at him to turn around and head in the other direction as fast as he could go without drawing attention to himself, but like a bot, he kept moving, going through the motions of his daily startup. He relaxed fractionally when he made it through the security check without incident.

Maybe he was just imagining things?

It was halfway through the morning when everything that had been tumbling around in Nigel’s mind since the morning meeting abruptly clicked together into a solid picture.

The man in the café hadn’t been Dax.

They were on to them. Cold fear washed through him again, tying his guts in knots. It took all he could do to focus on the procedure he was trying to perform, but it helped that he had been on the job so long that most of what he did was more by rote than thought. When his heart settled into a more normal rhythm and the panic receded, he began trying to think exactly what his situation was and what would be the safest move to make.

That part wasn’t any easier than gaining control of his initial fear.

Dax had been cloned.

Cloned and replaced? Before or after he’d gotten Lena, Nigel wondered?

Was she safe? Was she dead?

He focused on those questions for a while, trying to decide what meeting up with Dax’s clone must mean besides the fact that he was fucked.

They had to think there was no chance that anyone could meet up with Dax and his clone, so Dax was either out of the picture all together, or they knew, or thought they knew, that he was a long way from the city.

Or this whole business was making them sloppy?

When the time for his lunch break rolled around Nigel still had no idea of what do to, so he did what he usually did. He left his lab and headed down to the company lunch room, expecting any moment to be confronted by security and escorted out of sight so that they could make him disappear permanently.

Instead, he arrived without incident. He was feeling vaguely ill with nerves, though, and it took a concentrated effort to behave as if nothing was any different from any other day. He decided after lunch, when he was on the way back to his lab, that he must have carried it off. He couldn’t remember anybody looking at him strangely, or commenting that his behavior seemed off.

His case of acute paranoia didn’t wane though.

He rarely took his afternoon break. Today, he deviated from the norm, because it had finally dawned on him that it wasn’t just paranoia. He really was in deep shit, and he had to let the people at base camp know it.

He couldn’t send the signal from inside Quasar Corp.

Leaving the building, he crossed to the café and ordered a coffee to go. While he waited, he moved to the edge of the café, propped against one of the pillars that supported the overhead canopy and flipped his watch face back. Tapping the code in, he hung up, tapped in again, waited for a count of ten, and then repeated the code the third time.

Captured--Evacuate.

There was no response to that code--none designated as far as he knew--and he had no clue whether they’d gotten it or not, or if he’d even remembered the code correctly. Hell, he didn’t even know if they would pay it any attention coming from him.

He’d done what he could to warn them though.

* * * *

The clone was waiting for him when Nigel opened the rear service door. Nigel had had all day to come to terms with his situation, however. He’d walked into a trap. He wasn’t certain of exactly how they planned to spring it, but he had a fair notion that what they wanted was for him to lead the clone back to home base. Obviously, they’d tried everything else they could think of to discover its location and they’d decided to use the breach in their security to get what they wanted, or finally figured out a way to use it to their advantage.

That meant he was going to be alive at least long enough to lead the clone to the base.

He still hadn’t decided whether or not the clone’s appearance meant that Dax and Lena were dead, but he couldn’t see that he had a lot of options at this point. He was going to do his best to see the thing through and hope that he lived long enough to avenge them if the bastards had gotten to them.

Neither man spoke as they moved quickly through the service area of the building and finally reached the main entrance level. They took the tube from there, passing twenty levels of labs and halting at last on the lowest floor of the administration offices.

The informant had been an accountant.

Mentally, Nigel shook his head at the thought. Who would ever have thought it would be an accountant--more of a bookkeeper actually because the man hadn’t even been upper rung--that would save the world?

The door to the general office was locked. Nigel glanced at the clone.

“You don’t have the key code?”

“I’ve forgotten it,” Nigel lied. “I’m a med tech. I’m not used to this cloak and dagger shit.”

The pseudo Dax’s lips thinned irritably, but he stepped forward and, without hesitation, keyed the code in.

Nigel swallowed a little convulsively.

The clone had definitely been in touch with them if he had the code. The question was, had he been ordered to help? Or hinder?

He didn’t bother to look up at the vid trained on the door. He knew it wasn’t disabled, as it was supposed to have been.

The minute they were inside, the clone led the way through the rabbit warren of cubicles, heading unerringly toward the cubicle that had once belonged to Gerald Smith and now belonged to his clone.

Nigel began to go through the desk immediately, searching every article he came across for a crack or crevice the man might have used to hide the film. He was only half way down the first wall when the clone straightened abruptly. “I think I’ve found it.”

Nigel whirled in surprise, extending his hand for the film. “Let me see it.”

The clone hesitated for a fraction of a second and then handed it over.

It was a memo, Nigel saw, frowning.

A memo?

I’ll need a replacement part for Mr. S. Mullins.

Nigel read the memo three times before it dawned on him that S. Mullins must be the name of someone they wanted replaced. Still more confused than enlightened, he glanced at the date, and then the origin of the memo. Coldness washed over him abruptly as the date and name clicked together.

The date was the day after Stephen Mullins was inaugurated as Prez.

And the origin of the memo was the head of a government agency.

He handed the memo back to the clone. “You might be right,” he said. “But it doesn’t make any sense to me. This looks like something that just got misdirected. Maybe we should keep looking?”

The clone looked like he wanted to argue. After a moment, though, he merely shrugged, tucked the film into his pocket and made a pretense of searching. “We need to make this quick, though. Security’s liable to notice the vids are down any time.”

Nigel’s mind was working at light speed while he finished the fruitless search. Unfortunately, his mental calisthenics were equally fruitless. He had no weapon, and he wasn’t likely to find one between the accounting office and the exit.

Reminding himself that he’d already decided the trap wouldn’t be sprung until he’d shown the clone the way to home base, and hoping he was right, Nigel focused on trying to figure out some way of leaving the information for someone … just in case he didn’t make it.

They finally reached the point Nigel had been dreading. “Either that’s it, or it isn’t here.”

The clone nodded. “We’ll get this back to home base and let them study it. Maybe they’ll be able to crack it. It’s e-ink. Maybe it isn’t the message that appears on it now, but the one that was on it before?”

Nigel tried to look excited about the suggestion. “I hadn’t thought about that.”

When they’d exited Quasar Corp, he made his gambit. “See you back at base.”

The clone checked. “I don’t see any reason to split up. We’re out. They aren’t on to us. Anyway, I thought you were in a hurry to see Lena. I left her at the base.”

He should’ve known it wasn’t going to be that easy. It didn’t take a lot of thought to figure out if he made a break for it he’d be dead before he’d gone three feet. He had information the gov had already killed a half a dozen people to keep quiet. There was no way they would’ve planted it there for him to find unless they’d been ready to make sure he wasn’t going to live to pass it along.

It occurred to him as he merely shrugged and headed toward the people mover that the whole message might be bogus, but he decided after a few moments’ thought that he could be reasonably certain it was. They would’ve known that it had to be something good or he wouldn’t believe it was the evidence they were looking for. And if he wasn’t convinced, then he wouldn’t lead them back to the base.

He wouldn’t have risked it himself, but it occurred to him that the mastermind behind this nightmare had become increasingly desperate to locate the rebel base. The rebels must be getting close anyway, because he was starting to get really sloppy.

He didn’t even know Dax all that well and he’d sensed almost immediately that the dupe wasn’t Dax. Lena had figured out right away that Morris was a dupe, too. Of course neither man would’ve been easy to replicate. They’d both been like ghosts.

He met up with another moment of truth when they reached the entrance to the tube station. Take the clone on a wild goose chase and hope something would come to him? Or head directly for base and hope they had gotten the message he’d sent earlier and were waiting?

It wasn’t much of a contest. He didn’t want to risk dying with the information he had without making a hell of push to get in the right hands.

* * * *

Dax was sitting at his desk, his legs crossed on the top of it and a glass in his hand when Lena came out of the bath. She tilted her head, studying him for a moment to gauge his mood.

His gaze flickered over her slowly and then returned to the liquid he was idly swirling in his glass.

After a moment, instead of pulling on her suit, she moved to the bed and got in, pulling the sheet up and tucking it beneath her arms. “What is it?”

Dax’s gaze flickered to her. He shrugged, downing the last of the liquid in the glass. “I’ve been playing with the puzzle.”

Her brows rose. “The puzzle?” she echoed curiously.

“We’ve been compiling data for years. With no leads and hundreds of possible suspects, it’s no wonder we’ve barely scratched the surface. I decided to go back over it again after the conversation we had the other day.”

Lena frowned, casting around in her mind in search of what conversation he might be referring to.

“What you said about the gov, and the fact that whoever was behind this would have to be someone in power who didn’t have to worry about losing it through an election.”

“Oh!” She shrugged. “I’m a historian. Mostly we don’t always find specific facts, especially not since the storms when so much was destroyed. We have to figure out things by the process of eliminating the most unlikely.”

His lips curled faintly in a smile. “And sometimes you can’t see the forest for the trees.”

Lena’s brows lifted. “Meaning, things go out of focus when you get too close?”

“Exactly. So, assuming the culprit really is somebody in the gov, and not some high powered corp head, eliminating the people we’ve already checked out, and all of the people that have to worry about getting re-elected every four years--the list is a lot shorter. In fact, really short, but I’m not sure any of these possibilities even make sense.”

Lena hesitated, but finally decided if he didn’t trust her nothing she could say was going to make him trust her less. “Can I look?”

As if he’d only been waiting for her to ask, he dragged his legs off of the desk, picked up a sheet of film and moved to the bed. Sprawling beside her, he handed her the list.

Lena read through the names slowly, pausing to dredge up what she knew about each of the men and women on the list. When she’d gotten to the bottom, she went over it again. “This woman is too young. She was only appointed to that position maybe five or six years ago. This man, too. He’s been around maybe twice that long, but the conspiracy predates his arrival on the scene.”

Dax looked her over appreciatively. After a moment, he got up, moved to his desk to collect a laser pen and returned, deleting the names from the list.

“She’s too old,” Lena said after a moment.

“She’s been around a while, though.”

“Yes, but she’s too old. She must be nearly eighty. She couldn’t hope to hold the position much longer no matter how many people she replaced. Besides, neither money nor power means a lot to people that know they’re facing the end of their life. She’s looking forward to retiring and spending her last years with her grandchildren, or great-grandchildren, not controlling the world.”

After working over the list for several hours, they had cut it down by almost half.

Lena frowned at the names that remained. “My money would be on him, if I was just guessing,” she said finally, tapping her fingernail on the lettering.

Dax looked at the name and chuckled. “Any particular reason why? Other than the fact that everybody hates them?”

Lena smiled reluctantly. “You’re probably right. I was just thinking, though, that I don’t know a thing about him. I didn’t even know his name and I keep up with the people in charge of the government.”

Dax took the list from her hands and dropped it to the floor beside the bed. “I’ll make a note of that,” he murmured, leaning forward to brush his lips across hers. “Baby girl doesn’t know the guy so she doesn’t trust him.”

She pulled away and he leaned back, eyeing her warily.

Reaching for his suit, she grasped the front and tugged it open. “I want to feel all of you,” she whispered, placing a light kiss in the center of his chest.

Chapter Twelve

The certainty that something was bothering Dax grew upon Lena as they lay curled together in the aftermath of their lovemaking. She supposed it might be that he had gone back to worrying over the puzzle, probably was that, at least in part, but she sensed that there was something else.

She had a feeling she knew what that something else was.

“When do you think we’ll reach home base?” she asked him finally, idly playing with the hair on his chest.

He tensed. “Six hours … more or less.”

Pain squeezed Lena’s chest as if a hand had fisted around her heart. Six hours. It had been a hell of a whirlwind romance--not that it was actually a romance. They’d been together a grand total of two weeks, just long enough to make her feel like dying at the thought that he was going to walk out of her life just as abruptly as he’d walked into it.

When she’d finally gained control of her wayward emotions, she turned in his arms, tracing a trail of kisses along his hard chest to his chin. If she wasn’t going to see him anymore, she was going to make the most of the time left.

He tucked his chin, aligning his mouth with hers. After kissing her almost lazily for several moments, he shifted, pushing her to her back and moving over her.

* * * *

“Captain Morris!”

Dax disentangled himself from Lena and strode to the com unit. “Yes.”

“We’re on final approach, sir.”

“I’ll be up in a few minutes.”

He saw when he turned to look for his uniform that Lena had sat up in bed. Her hair was tousled, her lips swollen, her eyes heavy from lack of sleep. He felt like a complete ass for keeping her up all night, but he’d felt a desperation to make love to her over and over, as if doing so was going to make it any easier.

Scrubbing his hand over his jaw, he discovered he needed a shave--which probably accounted for the redness all over Lena’s neck and chest. Moving to the lav, he shaved quickly. “Would you like to come up with me?”

Lena looked at him hopefully and he felt his gut clench. He forced a smile. “Nigel will probably be watching for our arrival.”

Nodding, she climbed from the bed and moved to the lav as he moved away and grabbed a uniform to put on. He saw when he glanced up from pulling his boots on that she’d pulled her borrowed suit on and was trying to get her feet into the boots. Crossing the room, he tapped her chin to make her lift her head and aligned the front edges of her suit, smoothing the seal.

When she’d combed the tangles from her hair, he took the comb and raked it through his, irritated when he realized it was halfway down his shoulders and wondering if had been that long since he’d remembered to get it cut or if it was just growing faster than he remembered.

Rodriguez glanced at him questioningly when he saw Lena was in tow. Dax glanced at the forward viewing screen. As he did, it went black. “Still no contact?” he asked, pointing Lena toward a vacant seat before he sprawled in his own.

“We got a blip right after I called you, captain.”

Dax frowned. “Return hail?”

“No sir.”

Dax glanced at Lena and then looked at Rodriguez again. “I’m not in the mood for guessing. What was it?”

Rodriguez flushed. “Don’t know, sir. S. That’s all.”

Dax stared at him uncomprehendingly for a moment. Abruptly, his eyes widened and he whirled to look at the blank screen. “Screen on!”

A flash of light filled the room. A few seconds later the ship began to shudder.

“My god! We’ve been hit!” Rodriguez exclaimed staring at the screen in disbelief. “The base is gone!”

Pushing himself from his seat, Dax moved to stand closer to the screen, scanning the scene of destruction. “There!” he growled, pointing to a spec in the distance. “Bogey at ten o’clock. Take that son-of-a-bitch out!”

“There’s another one--at three.”

Turning, Dax stared at Lena for a moment and finally strode towards her. Grabbing her arm, he hauled her out of the seat she’d only taken moments before. “Go back to my cabin, now!”

Lena stared at him fearfully. “Why?”

“Because it’s safer, closer to the pods. If the evacuation alarm sounds, don’t hesitate. Go straight down to second level and get into one of the pods.”

He must have seen her reluctance to leave in her expression. His face hardened. “I need to be here. You don’t.”

“Captain!”

Lena nodded even as he turned away, not because she wanted to go, but because she felt much safer near Dax, even if he thought she’d be safer in the cabin. She didn’t want to distract him, though, not when he needed to focus his entire attention on the ships attacking the base.

The trip down the tube was scary as hell. The ship shuddered, bucked, began to weave and sway, nearly throwing her off the ladder several times. She was shaking like a leaf by the time she reached the level for the crew quarters. The ship had begun to shift so violently and abruptly from side to side, she felt like a drunk trying to make her way down the corridor, stumbling into first one wall and then the other. Relieved when she reached the cabin at last, she looked around for the safest spot and finally moved to the desk chair. Swiveling it into its upright position, she locked it down and looked around for a safety harness. Dax had loosened them, she discovered, and flung them out of his way for comfort.

The jolting and jouncing grew progressively worse until she had to clench her teeth together to keep from biting her tongue. She realized after a few moments that she could hear air screaming around the ship, explosions in the distance, and then several close enough that the whole ship quaked.

Dizziness assailed her as the ship tilted sharply to one side and then abruptly rolled. She let out a squeak of fright, squeezing her eyes more tightly shut. Something either slammed into the ship, or exploded so close by the effect was nearly the same. The noise was nearly deafening. The ship did an abrupt freefall that almost made Lena lose what was in her stomach. The lights went out. Blue and yellow lights flickered on a few seconds later and alarms all over the ship began screaming deafeningly. The freefall ended so suddenly that she thought for several moments that the ship had slammed into the earth.

She was clawing at the restraints to escape when it dawned on her that there’d been no evacuation alarm.

Drawing in a shuddering breath, she listened to see if she could hear running feet, shouting, anything that might tell her if the ship was going down.

It was still airborne. She knew that from the bouncing jolts that kept rattling her bones.

The alarms were shut off after a few moments and the lights came back on.

Hardly daring to breathe, Lena tensed for another hard jolt that never came. The ship seemed to glide smoothly for several moments and then she heard more sounds that she didn’t recognize that totally terrified her, whirrs and clicks and moving metal.

She nearly jumped out of her skin when Dax’s voice abruptly bellowed from the com unit. “All hands, suit up!”

Was that the evacuation order?

He hadn’t said evacuate, and besides, that sort of announcement was usually made by a voice from the computer. Hearing a bustle of activity, she unfastened the restraints and rushed to the door.

As it opened, she saw men and women piling out of the crew quarters, fully armed and armored and racing toward the tube.

After staring at them for several moments, she finally realized that Dax was launching a ground assault--or expecting one.

* * * *

It wasn’t as difficult to find the off loading level as it might have been. Lena merely waited until the soldiers had moved out and followed them.

Dax was in the hold.

Since she was fairly certain he wouldn’t be at all pleased to find her down in the hold with the troops, she moved to the back.

“I don’t expect any ground force, but look alive out there. And keep a sharp eye out for any survivors.”

Any? Did that mean he wasn’t expecting to find any? Nigel might be out there, she thought in sudden fear. Dax had said he might be!

The moment the hatch opened, even before the gang plank was extended, the troops began pouring out the side of the ship. Lena followed them, determined to search for Nigel if there was any possibility that he might have been in the base when it was hit.

She’d managed to make it half way down the gang plank when Dax spotted her.

He caught her around the waist as she leapt from the side to run.

“Get back on the damned ship!”

“I’ve got to look for Nigel! He might be hurt!”

“We’ll look for Nigel. We’re looking for any survivors.”

Lena looked up at him in horror. “Any?”

His lips tightened. “Just go back inside and wait. If he’s here, I’ll find him.”

She was tempted to try to escape him and go anyway, but it occurred to her that as long as she held him up, he wasn’t looking and if Nigel was hurt minutes counted. Finally, she nodded. He caught her cheeks in one hand. “Promise me you’ll stay put!”

She looked away. “All right!”

When he released her, she trudged back up the gang plank, glancing around at the rubble and wondering if there was any possibility that they were going to find any survivors at all.

He didn’t trust her to keep her word and stay. As she reached the airlock, he whistled, making a hand motion when one of the men turned to look at him. The soldier glanced at her and nodded. Turning, he trotted back to the ship and up the gang plank behind her.

He caught her arm when he reached the top.

“He didn’t say I couldn’t stay here and watch!” she snapped, trying to wrest her arm loose.

He let her go. “Stay back from the door.”

“I’m just looking!”

“You’re liable to catch one between the eyes if you stand there,” the guard snapped back at her.

Glaring at the man, she moved behind the edge of the door and peered out, searching the rubble with her gaze for any sign of someone that might be trapped beneath it. It was a waste of time, or more accurately, only something to do to keep her from feeling so helpless and useless. The soldiers were making a sweep. If there’d been anyone nearby, they would already have found them.

Time seemed to drag by, but her anxiety only sharpened the longer she waited to hear if Nigel was among those who’d been here when the feds had attacked. The soldier who’d been sent back to watch her began to fidget. She tried to ignore him, but his restlessness began to grate on her nerves.

“I’ve got to take a leak,” he announced.

Lena turned to stare at him with a mixture of embarrassment and outrage. Like she wanted to know that, she thought indignantly!

“Stay put.”

Lena blinked. Finally, she nodded.

Apparently her hesitation was enough to alert him. Instead of dashing off to find the head, he glared at her, snatched the lower seam free and dragged the thing out right in front of her.

Lena’s eyes narrowed. Pursing her lips, she looked away. When she slid a glance at him again, she saw that he’d turned his back to her and was pissing off to one side of the gangplank. Without even stopping to consider the possible consequences, she burst into a run and slammed into his back with her palms. He yelped as he went out the door, but Lena didn’t pause to see if he landed on his feet. The moment she gave him a shove, she whirled and raced down the gang plank, leaping off when she neared the end and dashing toward what was left of the building that had once been the rebel base camp.

A shout behind her to stop alerted her to the fact that he was giving chase. Instead of stopping, she ran faster. She didn’t dare look back to see if he was closing in on her, fearful that she’d trip, or that it would slow her down enough to help him catch her.

The moment she managed to jump behind a wall that blocked her from his view, she began a frantic search for some place to hide. A section of one wall had cracked and folded over, leaving a narrow space at the floor. It looked impossibly small, but she figured if she could squeeze her ass into it, that would work in her favor.

Making a scrambling dive for it as she heard a curse not far behind her, she managed to get the front half of her body in on her hands and knees, and then flattened out and slithered snake-like the rest of the way. She froze when she heard the scrape of a boot and the sound of scattering rumble nearby, holding her breath, hoping against hope that she’d crawled in far enough that her feet weren’t sticking out the end.

Her heart was pounding so frantically in her ears that many moments passed before she realized the sounds were moving away from her. When she’d caught her breath, she began to back slowly out of the narrow, tunnel like space.

She eased up onto her hands and knees and looked around cautiously when she’d backed completely out. When she saw no sign of the guard, she got to her feet and looked round. There was no sign of anyone in any direction and she wondered if she was even in the building that had housed the secret base.

There were broken walls, shattered windows, and bits and pieces of furniture everywhere, but no sign that anyone had been in this particular area. Climbing out of the hole that had been created by falling debris, she glanced around again. Far into the distance, she could see the troops spread out now in a line.

They’d swept the area for the enemy first, she realized, and were moving back slowly now in search of survivors.

There was one soldier between the line of soldiers and the building where she stood, jogging quickly away from her.

No doubt to report that she’d escaped him.

Dismissing them, she began to pick her way carefully through the rubble, pausing to listen for any faint sound that might indicate anyone was buried beneath the broken bits of mortar and stone. “Nigel? It’s me, Lena!” she called softly.

She kept calling as she looked, softly at first and then, as she grew more focused on finding Nigel and less on being caught by Dax, louder.

She saw no one, no one at all. Instead of feeling comforted by that, she grew more distressed, moving more quickly, shoving pieces of wallboard out of her way, flipping others over. She’d covered most of what seemed to have been the main part of the building and began to climb carefully down into what looked like it might have been a bunker, or possibly only a basement when she heard something. She stopped abruptly.

“Nigel?” she called, her voice quavering on a note of fear as it occurred to her belatedly that it might not be Nigel at all.

“Lena!”

It was little more than a harsh whisper, but Lena whirled toward the sound.

“Nigel?” she called again, feeling her heart began to hammer with hopefulness as she looked around.

He emerged from a pile of rubble, so dusty with the powdered mortar that she didn’t recognize him at once. He was holding a pistol, however, and it was leveled on her. “Say something so that I know it’s really you!”

“Oh, Nigel,” she said in dismay. “Don’t tell me you don’t know me!”

“What color were mother’s eyes?”

She was on the point of telling him she’d finally remembered when she realized that she had always told him she couldn’t remember their mother. “I was just a baby when she died. You know I don’t remember her!”

He grinned, but even as she started toward him, the smile froze on his face. He swallowed. “Get out of the way, Lena!”

Realizing his gaze was focused beyond her, Lena turned.

Dax had frozen halfway down the pile of rubble she’d just climbed through.

“Dax! I found Nigel!”

“That’s not Dax,” Nigel said harshly. “It’s a fucking clone.”

Lena’s head whipped around, her eyes widening. “It’s not. I came here with him!”

His lips tightened. “Then who’s that?”

When Lena turned to look again, she saw that another Dax was standing at the edge of the pit, looking down. “Oh my god!” she whispered, covering her mouth with her hands.

“Come to me, Lena. You’re in the line of fire,” Nigel ground out.

Reluctantly, she took a step toward him, wondering how she was going to prevent him from shooting Dax if she moved out of the way.

“Don’t!”

Startled at Dax’s voice, Lena turned to see which man had spoken.

“He’s a clone,” the Dax standing nearest her said.

“Just get out of the way, Lena!” the other Dax said sharply.

Uncertain now of whom to trust, she stood perfectly still, glancing from one man to the other. Striving for calm, she examined each of the Dax’s, but she couldn’t tell any difference even in their clothing, for both were wearing similar uniforms and she couldn’t recall enough detail about the one she’d last seen Dax in to know which was which.

She knew Nigel though. Did that mean the one who’d warned her against him was the clone? Or was it Dax, trying to protect her in case he was a clone?

Her chin wobbled. “I don’t know what to do,” she murmured, unwilling to move in any direction until she was certain she wouldn’t get Dax killed. She closed her eyes. “Dax! I love you!”

“I love you, too, Lena.”

Lena’s eyes popped open. She stared at the man who’d just spoken as he took a step toward her.

“Move your ass, baby girl!” Dax snarled.

Whirling abruptly, Lena fled toward the man standing atop the wall. The moment she moved, all three men began to fire.

“Get down!” Dax bellowed as he leapt from the top of the wall and landed just in front of her.

Lena dove for the floor, closing her eyes as she saw the broken, uneven bits of stone rushing up to greet her. Something hot sliced across her arm even as she fell, seemingly in slow motion, toward the rubble strewn floor. Her arm gave way as she tried to catch herself with her palms. Pain seemed to pelt her from every direction at once, her shoulder, her knees and palms. The worst of it, however, was pain that exploded in her head as she skidded across the floor and slammed into something sharp and hard. Blackness crowded in around her.

Someone grabbed her shoulder and rolled her over. She heard her name in stereo and opened her eyes with an effort. Two faces were leaning over her. “I bumped my head,” she murmured, lifting a hand to examine the throbbing area and finding a knot on her forehead.

“I feel like beating your ass,” Dax growled. “Didn’t I tell you to stay in the ship?”

“Try it and I’ll knock your head off,” Nigel snarled at him.

“Shut up, Nigel!” Lena murmured, pushing herself upright. “He’s trying to tell me he loves me.”

Both men gaped at her, but Dax recovered first, pulling her to her feet and examining her head and then her arm. “It doesn’t look too bad,” he said finally.

“Exactly what is ‘bad’ in your opinion?” Nigel demanded.

Still wobbly legged, Lena managed to wedge herself between her brother and Dax. “Actually, I really don’t feel at all well.”

She’d barely uttered the last word when Dax scooped her into his arms and turned to survey the climb. “You can’t carry me and climb up that!” Lena protested.

Apparently Dax agreed. Placing two fingers against his lower lip, he let out an earsplitting whistle that, within a very few minutes, had drawn a pack of soldiers to ring the top of the pit, staring down at them. “Get me a sling to bring her up!”

She didn’t especially like the sound of that, but she knew Dax could carry her up and she still felt a little dizzy and disoriented. “Did you kill the clone?” she asked, dropping her head against his shoulder.

“Nigel did.”

Lena looked at her brother in surprise. “How did you know which one was the clone?”

“It wasn’t that difficult, actually,” Nigel said dryly. “I knew the moment Dax started bellowing which was the real asshole.”

Chapter Thirteen

Lena’s head hurt, but it wasn’t entirely from the knot she’d given herself when she dove to try to avoid the laser fire. Dax and Nigel bristled like two cur dogs every time they looked at each other.

She had a pretty good feeling she knew why.

Nigel sensed that Dax had done a lot more than just rescue her, and Dax didn’t appreciate Nigel’s possessiveness toward his sister.

“Did you find anyone?” she asked, joining the two men at the table they’d taken in the rec room of Dax’s ship.

Dax shook his head. “Most of the personnel evacked before the attack.”

Lena glanced from Dax to Nigel questioningly.

Nigel shrugged. “I went in to retrieve the data, but I knew the minute I set eyes on Dax’s clone that something wasn’t right. After a while, I realized I’d walked into a trap, but they weren’t after me and they weren’t after the data. They wanted me to lead them back to the base. That’s what they really wanted. As soon as I realized that, I used the code I’d been given to warn them.”

“What data?”

“The memo that everyone’s been dying over,” Dax responded, tossing a roll of film onto the table.

Grabbing it up, Lena looked the e-paper over thoroughly and finally read the message. “My god! This is an order to replace the Prez!”

Nigel and Dax exchanged a look. “We should’ve just gotten Lena to figure it out for us before.”

Lena looked at both of them with a touch of indignation. “All right. What do you think it means?”

Nigel gave her a sour look. “Exactly what you think it means.”

Mollified, she went back to studying the memo. “You think this is authentic? I mean, why would they let us get the real thing?”

“Because it isn’t the big boss behind this operation,” Dax said. “It’s one of his recruits.”

Lena frowned. “Morris?”

Dax’s lips thinned. “The informant worked for Quasar Corp. I don’t know how he managed to find his way to Morris, but he’d run across something that scared the hell out of him. Fortunately, as scared as he was, his conscience just wouldn’t allow him to destroy it and forget it, so he started asking some really dangerous questions. When he learned about Morris’ ties to the rebel army, he went to see him. He didn’t particularly trust Morris either, though, and he didn’t take the memo with him when he went, wouldn’t even tell Morris what it was all about--only that it was something that was tied to the rumors about clones.

“That’s why Morris was so upset when he found out you’d been to Quasar Corp, because the minute the guy contacted him, Morris contacted me to nose around and see what I could find out about the informant. And it didn’t take long to find out where he worked.”

Lena frowned. “You mean the guy was in on it?”

Nigel shook his head. “I don’t think so. He was just a bookkeeper. I think the memo got mixed in with some of the work he was sent to pick up. An accident that ended up costing him his life--but it probably would’ve when they discovered the memo was missing and tracked it back to him whether he’d done anything or not.”

“Why didn’t they just retrieve it then?”

“Because the guy had led them to Morris, and it didn’t take them long to connect the dots between Morris and the leader of the rebels--Dax.”

Lena sent Dax a startled glance.

“Claxton, the head of Quasar Corp, probably decided that it would look a lot better to go to the big boss with the information that he’d tracked down the headquarters of the rebels and destroyed it instead of having to tell him that he’d gotten sloppy and let dangerous information out.”

“That still doesn’t mean that this memo is the one the guy found.”

“No. There is a way to be sure though,” Dax said.

Lena and Nigel both turned to stare at him. “How?”

“We have a pretty good idea of which gov officials have been replaced. If we can connect any of the known clones with Quasar Corp and the big boss, then we can be pretty damned sure we’re on the right track. You said yourself that Cameron Mitchell was probably our guy. And he sure as hell fits the profile. He doesn’t owe his office to elections. His branch of the gov is more secretive than the CIA, and as heavily protected as the national treasury. From where I’m sitting it seems to me that he has more power and more money at his disposal than anyone else in the gov … probably in the world.”

“Yes, but … I was just guessing. I don’t know anything for sure. We couldn’t just kill the man because we think he might be the one. And he doesn’t control the money. He has nothing to do with where it goes after it’s collected.”

“Unless he’s replaced everybody that might call him to account. And the memo certainly seems to indicate that.”

Nigel stroked his chin thoughtfully. “We’ll have to move fast. The big boss is bound to hear about all of this before much longer.”

“As far as Claxton knows, he wiped out the rebel base--and the leak. He knows by now that the ships he sent to attack the base were destroyed, but he doesn’t know, yet, that the base had been evacuated beforehand. That’ll buy us some time to hack into the security system at base beta and see what we can see about the head of the IRS.”

* * * *

Lena glanced at her watch as she settled in the chair across from the receptionist. There were two applicants in front of her and she couldn’t help but worry that he’d decide on one of them and terminate the interviews, or decide to wait until after lunch to finish up with interviews. After sitting for a few minutes, she got up and asked the receptionist where the ladies room was.

The woman gestured with her pen toward a door down the corridor. “If he calls you and you aren’t here you probably won’t get another chance for an interview.”

Lena didn’t try to hide her dismay. “It won’t take me but a few minutes, but I get nervous about interviews.”

The woman shrugged.

Moving quickly down the corridor, Lena ducked into the ladies room. After a quick check to make sure all of the stalls were empty, she moved to the waste receptacle, pulled the liner out and bent down to retrieve the pistol at the bottom. Shoving it into the purse she carried slung over her shoulder, she replaced the bag and headed out again.

The reception area was empty of other applicants when Lena returned. “Has he called me yet?”

The woman shook her head. Breathing a sigh of relief, Lena returned to the seat she’d claimed before. Outwardly, she felt sure she didn’t display any more jitters than might be expected of someone about to do an interview. Inwardly, she felt sick to her stomach with nerves.

I can do this, she told herself for the hundredth time.

“Ms. Brinson?”

Lena jumped when it suddenly dawned on her that the receptionist was speaking to her.

“You can go in now.”

Lena’s heart seemed to leap right out of her chest and into her throat. Nodding a little jerkily, she straightened her skirt and headed toward the door the woman had indicated. Another woman came out as she reached it. Catching the door before it closed, Lena went in and stood nervously near the door.

The man behind the desk didn’t look like a monster, but then that was the trouble with monsters. They so rarely looked like what they actually were.

“Have a seat,” he said pleasantly.

Lena sat, more because her knees felt as weak as water than because she wanted to. Lifting a film from his desk, the man settled to studying her resume as if he had never seen it before.

Lena focused on trying to breathe easy and steady her nerves.

He’d just dropped the film to his desk and turned to speak to her when the alarm Lena had been waiting for went off.

Attention! Attention! This is not a drill. This is not a drill. There is a bomb in the building. Please proceed to the nearest exit and leave the building in an orderly fashion as quickly as possible.

A breathless hush seemed to fall over the entire building. Lena counted to three and reached into her purse as she rose from her chair. Almost at the same instant, bedlam cut loose beyond the walls of Cameron Mitchell’s office. The sound of stampeding feet rose to a deafening roar.

Lena leveled the pistol at Mitchell as he surged out of his chair.

He stared at it blankly.

“For crimes against humanity,” Lena said coldly, pointing the pistol directly at the man’s chest and pulling the trigger.

The blast caught him directly in the heart, stopping it instantly. His mouth gaped. He clasped his hands to his chest and fell back into his chair, staring at Lena as his eyes slowly glazed.

Feeling ill and faint, Lena stepped up to the desk and looked at him. “That was for everybody you’ve murdered you cold blooded bastard!” Taking aim at his head, she issued the coupe de grace. “And that was for Morris!” she added, controlling the wobble in her chin with an effort.

She’d scarcely fired the second shot when the window behind Mitchell’s desk exploded inward, showering the room with glass. Instinctively, Lena threw her hands up to protect herself. When she peered between her fingers, she saw Dax standing over Mitchell, checking for a pulse. When he turned to look at her, his lips curled into a slow grin. “You are the most amazing woman, Lena Marie,” he murmured, holding his arm out to her.

Relieved beyond measure to see him, Lena hurried to him, throwing her arms around his neck.

“Hold tight, baby girl,” he murmured as he tightened his arms around her and moved back toward the window he’d entered.

Lena closed her eyes as the pulley yanked both of them through the window, gasping to catch her breath as they swung back and forth forty stories above the ground.

By the time they were finally hauled through the airlock, Lena was quaking like a leaf, half frozen from the ‘ride’.

Unhooking his harness from the pulley as soon as they were on the ship, Dax strode to the com unit. “We’re in. Kick it in the ass before they figure out we aren’t a rescue unit!”

Apparently the pilot took the order to heart. The ship’s rockets fired and the ship shot forward so fast Lena and Dax both nearly ended up in the floor. When he’d steadied the two of them, he hit the com unit again. “Rodriguez, you smart ass!”

Uttering something midway between a cough and a chuckle, Rodriquez responded innocently, “Yes, sir, captain sir!”

“When you hit the ten mile marker, lay down fire.”

Slipping his arm around her waist, Dax walked Lena across the hanger deck and then guided her up the tube to the bridge. Rodriguez threw a grin over his shoulder as they reached the deck. “Top to bottom? Or bottom to top?”

“Top to bottom,” Dax responded promptly.

“You heard the man,” Rodriguez said into his headset. “Take it down.”

As they watched the vid screen, two missiles shot from somewhere beneath their view and straight toward the building they’d just left. Another pair followed closely behind the first two, and then a half a dozen more, spaced as the first were. The first two impacted with the top of the building, demolishing it instantly. The crowd below the building scattered for cover. The second two hit three floors below, blasting debris in every direction and the top settled.

“We’ve got company,” Rodriguez announced as the third and fourth pair impacted with the building.

“Then it’s time to go,” Dax said. “They sub orbital. Take us out beyond their range.”

He glanced down at Lena. “Are you all right?”

She couldn’t help but smile. “Yes.”

Catching her hand, he led her back to the tube. “I think you should let Mel have a look at you.”

She thought it over. “No, really, I’m all right.”

He frowned, but he didn’t press her any further. Without another word, he started down the tube. Lena watched him a moment and climbed after him.

He stepped off when he reached the crew level, slipping an arm around her waist and walking with her to his cabin.

“Is it over?” Lena wondered out loud, amazed that in the end, it had been so easy.

Dax glanced at her. “I doubt we’re completely out of the woods yet. We’ll have to track down his network and shut it down.”

When they’d reached his cabin, Lena moved into his arms, wrapping her arms around his waist. He stroked her back soothingly. “Are you sure you’re all right?”

“Mmmhmm.”

“I shouldn’t have let you talk me in to letting you go in there.”

She pulled away to look up at him. “I needed to go. Besides, you wouldn’t have gotten past the front door.”

He shrugged, but didn’t argue the point. Instead he pulled her close again. “We could’ve found an assassin--a trained assassin.”

“I really am going to be ok with this,” Lena murmured. “I’m not nearly as delicate as you and Nigel seem to think.”

“Maybe not, baby girl, but killing is something a lot of people have a problem with, no matter the provocation.”

“Morris is dead because of that man. Hundreds, maybe thousands more than that. All I feel is relief that he can’t do that to anybody else.”

His arms tightened around her. “I’m thinking about retiring,” he said tentatively.

Lena pulled away and looked up at his face. “Seriously?”

“Very seriously.”

A smile curled her lips. “Where are we retiring to?”

He stared at her for several moments and finally swallowed thickly. “You’d go with me?”

“Where ever,” she said promptly.

He drew in a ragged breath. “I love you, Lena Marie.”

“I know.”

He chuckled. “Just I know?”

“I already told you I loved you,” she reminded him with a smile. “And you said, ‘move your ass, baby girl!’ That’s when I knew you loved me, too.”

The End

 

 

Labyrinth of the Beast

By

Goldie McBride

( c ) copyright by Goldie McBride

Cover Art by Jennie Dixon

New Concepts Publishing

Lake Park, GA 31636

This is a work of fiction.  All characters, events, and places are of the author’s imagination and not to be confused with fact.  Any resemblance to living persons or events is merely coincidence.

Chapter One

When Lilith woke to discover that the bear cub she’d rescued had demolished the last of the grain in her larder, she realized she could no longer put off a trek into the village.  She scolded the cub, thrashing him with the brush broom and chasing him from the little shed she housed her stores in, but it did not change anything.  She still had nothing to make her bread and the burst of temper did not even help her feelings, for the young bear, she knew, was only doing what came natural to him.  He was hungry and so he had searched until he found something to eat.  He did not understand why she was angry with him and beat the brush broom on his rump until she had broken most of the brush.  She had been feeding him since she had found him alone in the forest trying to nurse his dead mother.

Panting slightly with exertion and temper, Lilith dropped the broom and glared at the cub, which had run no further than the edge of the wood and hidden beneath a frond that covered little besides the top of his head.  “If you are big enough to break down my shed door then you are certainly big enough now to fend for yourself.  Go back into the forest, little man.  You belong there and I will not coddle you anymore!”

Instead of obeying her command, the little bear settled on the ground to watch her with mournful eyes as she turned to assess the damage and clean up the mess he had made.

There was not even enough left for a small loaf of bread, Lilith discovered, feeling her spirits plummet and anxiety begin to churn in her belly. 

She hated going to the village.  Everyone stared at her and whispered about her at the best of times.  If she happened to arrive on the heels of someone’s misfortune, instead of merely staring and whispering, they glared at her as if their misfortune was somehow her fault. 

They thought she was a witch.  She supposed, she was, but she was no threat to them.  The gifts she had could not harm anyone or bring misfortune them. 

She knew that much, for she had always feared and hated the villagers, and they had always feared and hated her.  There had been many times, when she had been younger and had gone to the village with her mother, that she had left the village so angry that she had tried very hard to curse them, to weave some spell that would teach them a lesson.

She did not have the power even when she had the will, and mostly, she did not have the will.  She only wanted to be left alone.  She had lived in the cottage her whole life, tucked safely away in the forest with her mother until the winter that had taken her mother’s spirit and set it free from her body.  Since that time, she had lived alone except for the animals and the trees.

She had the gift of communing with the creatures of the forest, and on occasion, she had found that she could use that same gift that soothed the wild beasts and allowed her to move among them as pleased to bend people to her will.  She knew, because her mother had taught her, which herbs to gather from the forest to make potions that healed, that soothed pain and fevers.

She supposed that made her a witch, but it hardly made her a creature to be feared and hated and distrusted. 

There was no hope for it, though, she realized with dismay.  She had no magic to make grain appear.  She had no magic to make bread from dirt.  She would have to go into the village and trade for grain.  And if she had to go for that, she decided that she would make certain that she got all that she would need for many months so that she would not have to go again before the fall.

When she had finished cleaning up the mess the little bear had made, she went to the well to draw water and wash the filth from her face and hands.  She stared at her reflection when she had finished bathing off, wondering if it would be better to tidy herself up more, or better to go with her hair all a tangle and wear her most worn and stained dress.

She did not especially like to go into the village looking so slovenly, but she decided that it would probably be for the best.  If she tried to make herself presentable and happened to catch the wandering eye of one of the village louts, they would accuse her of using witch craft to lure their men away.

As if she would have one of the pigs! She thought angrily, for there was not one, young or old, who had not tormented her when she was a child, or leered at her since she had reached womanhood and she hated the lascivious looks they gave her.  She had not been with a man, but she did not need to to know what thoughts ran through their minds.  They wanted to mount her and plow their man things into her body and fill her womb with their nasty seed.