A Plain Jane Book One (23 page)

‘
I do not understand the point of
this misdirection,’ the Director said, twisting his hands over and
over again – if you could call them hands, that was. They were more
like pincers with digits. They made a clicking sound as they kept
on running into each other. It was clear that he was nervous,
worried even. Lucas would have it no other way. This situation was
not an easy one; it was absolutely intense and far too
fragile.

‘
It wants her dead. It is not
going to stop until it thinks she is dead . . .
trust me, it will come here. If you tell it you haven't killed her,
it will find a way to get here as quickly as it can. Then it will,’
he swallowed through a choke, ‘kill her itself.’

‘
But why? You just said she is an
administrative officer,’ Priya pointed out as she crossed her arms,
‘I'm sorry, but I have trouble believing that a member of a
mysterious and dangerous race has come all the way to Earth just to
hunt out administrative officers. She obviously doesn't have any
specialized knowledge or skills. Why on Earth would this creature
be after her?’

Lucas drummed his fingers on
his leg and realized that Priya was wrong about him. She only ever
saw what she wanted to see anyway. Lucas didn’t drum his fingers
when he was about to lie; he did it when he had no idea what to do
next. When he was nervous, when he had to try to come up with a
solution on the fly. ‘The Paran Artifact told us that Specimen 14,
the Darq, will go after the most important targets first, and leave
everything else to last.’

Priya snorted. ‘I am failing to
see how Jane could be important then. Do you think it is after her
implant?’

Lucas shook his head. ‘No, I
think the implant is what tried to keep her safe. Look, all I know
is that I think she is Paran, and that in itself is important. The
Darq wiped out the Parans. Maybe it is trying to finish off the
job . . . .’ Lucas flinched as he realized that
while his suggestion sounded plausible, it was missing the point.
There were plenty of other Parans out there in the Galaxy, well,
okay, not plenty, as they were reduced to a disparate and wandering
race these days. After the destruction of their worlds, the few
surviving Parans had disappeared into the various races, cultures,
and nation states of the Galaxy. Yet they were out there. Lucas was
sure that some of them, perhaps all of them, would hold positions
that were more important in the grand scheme of things than an
administrative officer. Wouldn't the Darq go after them first? If
it were simply trying to kill off all of the Parans, wouldn't it go
for the most important ones before it worked its way down to
Jane?

No, he was definitely
missing something; there was still so much he didn't know. Yet he
did know one thing: it was beyond doubt that Specimen 14 wanted
Jane dead.

‘
If we lie in our communication,
if we tell the Galactic Force that we have gone through with their
desires, fake or not, and claim to have killed Specimen
14—’

‘
Her name is Jane,’ Lucas pointed
out fruitlessly. It was obvious the Director knew what her name
was. Yet Lucas did it anyway; it was important to him.

‘
Jane then. If we tell the
Galactic Force that we have done as the communiqué suggested, will
not this creature come and check? Will it not come here anyway to
ensure that the job is done? If it is as determined and skilled as
you suggest, then I doubt it will simply take our word for
it.’

‘
It will buy us some time,’ Lucas
looked up at the Director, and he hoped his expression was just as
steely and gutsy as he needed it to be. ‘And we really, really need
time here.’

The Director kept on
moving his pincers around and around.

‘
Lucas, this is mad, standard
operating procedure—’ Priya began.

‘
No longer operates,’ Lucas
jumped in. ‘Galactic Force communications have been compromised. We
can no longer rely on directives from them, so it is up to us to
act autonomously until we can re-establish clear
communication.’

‘
But sending a communiqué back
lying—’ Priya began.

‘
Listen to me, Priya,’ Lucas
turned on her, and he was surprised at the very raw edge of emotion
in his voice, ‘this is important, trust me, this is important. We
need to do something now.’

Priya blinked, and it was
clear she was surprised. She probably had a great deal to be
surprised about; Lucas had never displayed emotion like that in
front of her before.

‘
Lucas,’ she said softly, ‘what
is going on?’

He shook his head, the
move jolting through his neck and shoulders.

The Director started to move
his pincers around faster and faster. ‘We have now received ten
more communiqués from Galactic Force asking for immediate
confirmation,’ the Director looked right up at Lucas.

‘
Tell them you've killed her,’ he
pleaded again. While Lucas could technically take command of the
security forces of the station, he did not have the authority to
tell the Director what to do, unless he outright removed the man
from his position. Though that was a power Lucas had – if he deemed
the Director to be compromised – that was a huge step. You needed a
hell of a lot of evidence in order to remove a senior official from
command. Right now the only evidence that Lucas had was a database
that had been uploaded to his armor by an artifact that had sprung
out of a box. That kind of crazy story never got you much support
in court.

There was a tense moment
of silence, and Lucas didn't shift his eyes off the Director
once.

Then finally the Director
nodded. ‘I will trust you, Lucas Stone, because you are Lucas
Stone,’ he said simply and with a staccato voice, a usual feature
of his race.

Priya rolled her eyes
derisively. ‘Just because he’s Lucas Stone doesn't mean anything,’
she pointed out, though thankfully she didn’t turn around and beg
the Director not to follow through with his crazy plan. She just
set her gaze on Lucas and shook her head. ‘I hope you know what
you're doing.’

‘
I have no idea what I'm doing,’
Lucas admitted, ‘but I know what I'm not prepared to do, and that's
enough,’ he added in a far more determined voice. ‘Now remove the
security field from Jane. I need to get her out of
here.’

‘
What, on that reconnaissance
ship of yours? Is that safe? Do you really know who she is? Do you
really know what that implant can do?’ Priya bombarded him with
questions.

‘
What is the nature of this
implant?’ the Director asked quickly.

‘
It's some of the most
sophisticated technology I have ever seen,’ Priya answered without
turning to the Director; her gaze was still locked on Lucas, ‘it's
also Paran.’

‘
Well then, it makes sense to
conclude that she is Paran also,’ the Director stated
plainly.

Priya shook her head. ‘That is
an unwarranted jump.’

‘
The Parans have never let
another race use their technology. In fact, I have read many
historical accounts that suggest only Parans can utilize it. So if
she has a Paran implant, it makes sense to conclude that she is
Paran, otherwise it would not operate,’ the Director's voice was
still choppy, but it was firm.

Priya now looked around at
him, and perhaps she took the moment to remind herself that while
she was the Chief Scientist she was not the Director.

The Director stood up
straighter, and Lucas reminded himself just how tall his race was.
The Director towered over Lucas by a good meter and a
half.

‘
I wish to go and meet this Jane
now,’ the Director said. ‘I have just sent a false communique to
the Galactic Force suggesting that we have disintegrated her. It is
only polite that I now go and introduce myself.’ The Director
walked out of his office, having to bend low to get through the
door.

Though the situation was
still fraught and incredible, Lucas couldn't help but laugh at
that. The Director's race always did have a strange sense of humor.
And when the situation was as black as this one, sometimes you
needed to laugh.

Chapter 12

Jane

At least now she was
sitting up on the edge of her bed, satisfied that she would not be
disintegrated if she so much as sniffed, let alone moved her hand
to brush the hair out of her face.

She tried not to look at
the worried human scientist too much. Every single time she glanced
over at him, he flinched in his chair. He was obviously under the
impression that she was about to race through the security field
and gobble him right up. She didn't have the heart to tell him she
was a vegetarian though.

For a while she just sat
there and tried to think, and while there was a great deal to think
about, she couldn't make her brain play nice. The thoughts kept on
dashing all over the place, and though she wanted to concentrate
hard on this situation, they always coalesced to the same point:
Lucas Stone.

It had not escaped Jane's
attention that she’d spent most of her life fantasizing about
adventures, and that she was absolutely and most definitely having
one right now. But there was a niggling thought that danced at the
edge of her mind too: every single one of her adventures had always
had romance.

While she was almost
certain she was having an adventure now, she wasn't sure there was
romance though. Well, not yet anyway. With that thought Jane found
herself blinking ferociously. What was she thinking,
really?
Lucas Stone? He was not her
type. She had read all of the various fan supplements from Mandy's
subscription to his Fan Club, and Jane absolutely knew that they
described a man that she could never, ever like, let alone
love.

That niggling little voice
deep inside her tried to point out that the fan supplements hadn't
been quite as accurate as she’d once believed. Next she would
probably find out that Lucas did not own a Catamaran space dog and
did not do extreme asteroid hopping every other weekend.

Honestly, Jane should not
be thinking about this now. She should be concentrating on the
dark, horrible creature back on Earth. The one that clearly wanted
her dead. She should also be consumed by the prospect she could be
disintegrated at any moment. In other words, the situation was an
absolutely horrible and terrible one, and now was not the time to
try to remember Lucas Stone's favorite dessert, or when he’d taken
his first spaceship ride, or his mark in sixth-grade
mathematics.

It was an odd fact, and it
wasn't one that Jane had entertained before, but she’d sure read
through a heap of those fan supplements. Mandy had always left them
scattered over their desk, and Jane had often picked them up
because there was nothing else around to read. She was exactly the
kind of personality that would pick up a data pad, or holo
supplement, and analyze the entire thing, regardless of whether she
was enjoying it or not. She had to be thorough. And she’d been
thorough, alright; she’d probably read every single one of the fan
supplements ever produced by the Lucas Stone Fan Club.

Again she admonished
herself that she was getting distracted.

Then again, there wasn't a
great deal she could do while she was stuck behind a security
field. If only she had access to that strange black cube, the
artifact that had been in Research Lab Two.
That . . . that had been incredible. The way it had
moved, the power it had displayed. If only she had that strange
cube with her now, then she could get
out . . . .

Jane sighed heavily, and
then she looked up to see that the door had opened. She had to
blink back her surprise as an incredibly tall Darwai walked
through, having to bend itself in half in order to get through the
doorway. Priya and Lucas followed behind, and Lucas immediately
made eye contact with Jane, and he smiled and nodded
reassuringly.

Jane smiled back. She
couldn't help it, it was automatic.

Then her eyes darted back
to Priya and the Darwai. Were they here for round two of
‘let's disintegrate Jane
day’?

The Darwai walked right up
to the edge of the security field, and using its considerable
height, darted its head to and fro, apparently assessing each and
every corner of the room, and each and every corner of
Jane.

‘
I must admit, Stone, that this
Jane specimen does not look all that dangerous. She looks, as you
humans might call it, mild.’

Jane clamped her lips
together and tried not to make any sudden movements. She looked
mild? It had also called her specimen Jane. What on Earth did that
mean?

‘
Her name is just Jane,
Director,’ Lucas said patiently from behind him. ‘But I agree, she
isn't a threat to us.’

She wasn't a threat to them?
Well, though she understood Lucas' sentiment, she couldn't quite
agree with him. While she wanted to believe she wasn't a threat to
anyone, she couldn't ignore what had happened back on Earth.
Something had taken control of her body . . .
the . . . she didn't want to think about it, because
she didn't want to have to put up with the searing pain that always
accompanied the mention of its name. But back on Earth that thing
had managed to make Jane an incredible threat. Nonetheless, she
tried to sit there meekly and look on at them in a thoroughly
non-aggressive way.