Beyond Galaxy's Edge (17 page)

A lump of pain lodged in her chest. “You wanted me to catch you?”

“I just wanted to see you.”

Full-blown panic rushed through her. She didn’t
know if it was because of his confession or because of this terrible situation. “Justyn, you are not going to die here. I won’t let you.”

“Sweet, stubborn Nissa.” His face hardened. “You need to go now.”

“Screw you, Justyn.” She leaped to her feet. “Everybody who has ever said they loved me has never loved me enough to fight. My mother died. My father’s love comes with conditions. My brother
said he loved me, right up until he left and became a mass murder.”

“Nissa—”

She kept going. She was so sick of denying herself the things she really wanted. “No other man has
ever
said the words to me, but now you do and you expect me to believe it, even though you want to die here like a martyr?”

“I want you to live!” he shouted.

“And I want you to live, too!” she shouted back.

Pain was like fire in his blood but Justyn was entranced by an enraged Nissa.

She reached down, gripped the leech-creature on his arm again and gave a mighty tug—this one fueled by her incandescent anger.

The creature came out in a single rush.

Justyn groaned, the pain beyond outrageous, and fought the need to be sick.

Nissa fell backward on her ass, the black creature
wriggling around in her hand. She stared at it for a stunned second. “It’s not a leech, it’s a
plant
.” Her nose wrinkled and she tossed it on the floor. Then she grabbed the laser cutter and before it could slither away, she sliced it to pieces.

Justyn slapped a palm over the wound on his arm and tried to calm his harsh panting.

She scrambled back to him. “Okay?”

He swallowed. “I will be.”
Thanks to one stubborn, courageous Patrol captain.

She set the medscope over the ugly gash and soon it was healed up.

Instantly, he felt better. “Thank you.” He grabbed her and tugged her to his chest. “For everything.”

She sank down beside him and buried her face in his tattered shirt. Her fingers dug into him, holding on tight. He let the warmth of her body soak into him.

After a few
minutes, she pulled back. “We need to get to the cockpit.”

“Agreed.”

“You up for a stroll?”

He reached for a smile. “Only if you agree to hold my hand.”

She rolled her eyes. “You’re sounding more like yourself.”

With a shoulder wedged into his armpit, she helped him get to his feet. Hand in hand, they made it through the ship, stopping to gather some food, blankets and clothes. Once
in the cockpit, they boarded up the cracked viewscreen and closed the reinforced cockpit door.

In the dim red of the emergency lighting, Justyn eyed the charred and dented command console. “We need to get a message through to Dare and Rynan.” He sank into his chair and tried the console controls.

“Anything?”

“Nope. I’m going to have to set off the e-beacon.” All starships carried emergency
beacons that broadcast mayday transmissions on all frequencies. But Rynan had altered Justyn’s so that it only broadcast on a frequency used by the
Nomad
. No self-respecting smuggler wanted to broadcast to rivals, pirates, or God help him, Patrol, in an emergency.

“Tell me where it is.” Nissa stepped in front of him. “You rest.”

He didn’t argue. He was feeling like crud. “Take the panel off
the emergency cabinet. Over there, beside the comms console.”

He took pleasure in watching her move. She had such a sinuous way of moving that drew the gaze, made a man wonder how she’d look dancing…or writhing on top of him, naked.

She ripped off the panel, fished around in the space, then pulled out the beacon. It was a small metallic dome just a little bigger than his hand. After setting
it down in front of him, she perched on the armrest of his chair. He pressed the activation sequence.

The top of the beacon opened and four small arms opened out, making the beacon look like a star covered in blinking blue lights. He knew that inside the casing was a small shard of a Perman fusion crystal—a near-inexhaustible power supply.

“Done,” he said. “It’ll take a while to spool up and
get the signal out.”

With a sigh, Nissa moved to the supplies they’d salvaged, grabbed a couple of nutribars and sat in her chair. She held out a bar. “Care for some nutritious-but-dubious-tasting nourishment?”

“Sure.” She tossed it and he snatched it out of the air. As he ate, he tried to ignore the red gloom of the lights. It reminded him of things he tried very hard to forget.

“What’s
wrong?”

He glanced her way. “Why do you think something’s wrong?”

“You get this blank, slightly hard look on your face when something’s wrong.”

He stared at her. She hadn’t returned his words of love, or brought them up since, and damned if that didn’t leave a burn under his heart. But she noticed the looks on his face? A secret smile unfurled inside him.

“I hate the emergency lighting.
Reminds me of being a kid.”

“You crashed a starship as a kid?”

“Well, I’ve crashed more times than I’d like to admit.” He took a bite of his nutribar, chewed slowly. “But no, it reminds me of when my stepfather locked me and my brothers in our basement.”

Nissa gasped. “He locked you up? Why?”

Justyn’s stomach roiled. “He hated us. Thought we were brats. Possessive bastard wanted our mother
all to himself.”

“How often?”

He remembered the cloying darkness tinged with the red of the tiny light Ry had managed to smuggle in, the relentless hunger, hearing his brothers’ muffled tears. “A lot. Sometimes for days at a time.”

“Goddess, Justyn, how old were you?”

“Started when I was five.”

Nissa shot to her feet. “The monster!”

“Yeah, he was.” Justyn took another bite of the bar.
It tasted like dust. “Mom was too scared to leave him or fight him. It didn’t stop until Dare got big enough to hit back.” Justyn shook his head against the memories.

“He beat you, too?”

Every day for seven years. There’d been so many broken bones and bruises. “Yeah. But we survived. We had each other, and Dare started fighting back, protected Ry and me. I know Dare and Ry have
always
got
my back. The one good thing that came from that hellhole was that I learned the true meaning of loyalty.”

“How’d you get out?”

“When I was twelve, Ry fourteen and Dare almost sixteen, we finally knew we could take the bastard. We set an ambush.” Justyn still remembered his sweaty hands and racing pulse as he listened to the heavy thuds of his stepfather coming down the stairs. And he had no
trouble recalling the sharp scent of the man’s blood.

They’d left him a bloody pulp, and Justyn was just sorry they hadn’t killed the bastard. To stop him getting off on beating some other poor kids.

“Then we left.” They’d run as far and fast as they could.

“Your mother?”

He shrugged. “We left her, too.” She’d been scared, but she’d left her sons to rot for seven years. They hadn’t wanted
anything to do with her.

Nissa’s body was vibrating with constrained fury. “Your father?”

“Dead by then. He didn’t have much to do with us after he and mom split.”

“Three young boys. Alone!”

“Hey.” Justyn reached out, took hold of her hand, and pulled her closer. “We escaped. We survived. It gave me a good appreciation for sunshine and doing things that feel good.”

Her face softened.
“You are a good man, Justyn.”

“Whoa. Don’t go overboard.”

She slid onto his lap. “Most people would be in therapy, or turn out to be criminals, or just end up dead, but you grin at the world and enjoy yourself.”

He nuzzled her neck. “You know, Captain Smooth, enjoying yourself really isn’t a bad thing. You could do with learning a bit more about it.”

Her arms twined around his neck. “Maybe
I’m just starting to realize that.”

Desire fired through Justyn’s blood, pooling in his crotch. “Nissa—”

The beacon made a high-pitched beeping, colored lights blinking in a furious display like something had made it very angry.

With a curse, Justyn leaned forward helping Nissa to her feet with his hands around her waist.

He gave another curse and slammed a fist into the console. “The
signal can’t get through the dense vegetation.”

She squeezed her eyes closed. “We’re stuck here with no help on the way.”

***

Nissa paced across the cockpit. “What do we do now?”

Justyn was staring at the dense foliage outside through the half of the viewscreen that wasn’t boarded up. “We have to get the beacon above the canopy.”

Right
. They had to go outside. She smoothed a hand over
her head. “Suggestions?”

“Well, we can climb a tree.”

They both stared at the jungle. There weren’t really any solid-looking trees, just vines and giant flowers.

“Or we can search for any higher ground?” she suggested.

He nodded and moved to the comms console, the least damaged in the cockpit. “Let me see if I can reroute some emergency power through here and do some scans.”

She perched
nearby and watched him. A part of her was still seething inside at what he’d told her about his childhood. But she knew she had to set it aside. He hadn’t let what he’d suffered taint him. He’d made himself into the man he was and she’d never doubted the strong bond between him and his brothers.

He’d talked about loyalty. She knew now why it was vital to him.

And she was lying to him.

Her
stomach hardened. She also had the bad feeling it was because of her that their attackers had known where to find them.

Her throat was so thick she could barely breathe. She’d almost gotten Justyn killed.

After another minute of fiddling, he sat back and the console came sluggishly to life.

She cleared her throat. “Good work.” She looked over his shoulder as he ran the scans.

“Okay, we
only have info for a two kilometer radius.” The topographic map flashed onto the screen.

“There!” She pointed to a red spot on the screen. Higher ground.

It wasn’t much, but when Justyn switched to the geological analysis, he pumped his fist in the air. “It’s made of pure, solid rock. No vegetation.” He grinned at her. “Might just work.”

Then her shoulders slumped. “But we have to get there
first.” Again, she looked at the dense jungle…and thought of the blood-sucking vines and whatever other horrors might be out there.

As if reading her thoughts, an eerie screech sounded in the distance, and goose bumps broke out on her arms.

“How the hell are we going to survive the wildlife long enough to get to this hill?”

“We’ll wait for sunrise, which is only—” he glanced at the console
“—four hours away. So for now, we eat and get some rest.”

As they munched on more unappetizing nutribars, Nissa sat quietly beside Justyn. It was…nice. Just sitting quietly, not having to fill the space with needless words. She would never have guessed she’d ever find an ease like that with a man like him.

“When we get back, I want to know how the hell someone found out you and I were leaving
the
Nomad
. Only Ry and Dare knew so we could avoid the mole.” Even in the dim darkness, his eyes glowed hot.

Her stomach clenched. She couldn’t keep lying to him. “I think it was my fault.” Goddess, it was hard forcing the words out.

He stilled, his head turning slowly. “Explain.”

His tone sent a chill down her spine. “I…I’ve been reporting in to Admiral DeRuyter at GSS.”

Justyn’s blinked,
a muscle ticking in his jaw. “Reporting in.”

She swallowed the giant lump lodged in her throat. “I’ve been giving her updates on our hunt.”

“I thought you were on a leave of absence.”

Nissa moved to the edge of her seat. “I am. I…she promised me that transfer if I could get the Constitution back.” Nissa didn’t bring up her father and his commendation. She scrubbed a hand over her mouth.

“You endangered everyone on the
Nomad
. Us.”

“I was careful. But someone must have hacked my transmissions—”

“Or someone at your precious GSS is a mole!” He exploded out of his chair, his body tense.

“Justyn, I’m sorry—”

“I don’t want to hear it, Nissa.” He let out a harsh breath. “Every time I think I’m getting closer to uncovering the real you, there’s another wall.”

He glanced at her
with such a blank look in his eyes it made her feel sick.

He shook his head. “Or maybe I’m just imagining that you’re different from the uptight Patrol captain who only cares about her career.”

His words were like blows slamming into her. She couldn’t find anything to say.

With an oath, he shoved his hands in his pockets. “Get some rest. At first light, we’re out of here with the beacon.”

He strode to the other side of the cockpit—to the farthest point from her—and dropped to the floor, his back against the wall. He tipped his head back, eyes closed.

Nissa tugged one of the blankets around herself and huddled on the co-pilot’s chair. Her eyes burned with exhaustion, but she stared out at the jungle, unable to sleep.

Justyn yanked on his backpack and ruthlessly tightened the straps. He’d already placed the beacon and what rations he could carry inside. He also had his ion blaster strapped to his hip, and his favorite knife tucked into his boot. Finally, he hefted a machete he’d found in the weapons locker.

Not far away, Nissa was putting her own backpack on. Every now and then she looked
his way, but he ignored her.

He was still too fucking angry.

“Ready?” He made his way to the door.

“Ready.”

He activated the manual override to open the door. No vines or other deadly vegetation or unknown jungle creatures waited for them. A moment later, they stepped outside into the dappled morning sunlight. The humidity hit Justyn like a bad transition to interstellar speed, slapping
him in the face. Perspiration broke out on his brow. Great, nothing like a hike through a killer jungle on some alien planet with humidity you could barely breathe in.