Branded By Kesh (8 page)

“I have to get to the bridge,” he told Manik as he passed the medic on his way out the door.

Manik nodded, but didn’t say anything. He didn’t need to. Kesh understood the worried look on his face.

The corridor was clear as he made his way to the pressure lift that would take him directly to the bridge. The small sensor that picked up a heat signature telling the computer a person was waiting for the lift blinked red at him, an indication the lift was offline. There was one other way to get into the bridge.

Kesh turned and walked towards the lift at the other end of the floor, hoping he didn’t have to climb the six floors to the bridge. He passed the doors to the medical station and kept walking towards the lift. He stopped abruptly to see Delarians coming the other way.

Shouts rang out down the hall as he fired off shots, taking down two of the three Delarians in rapid succession. The third Delarian managed to wing him in the arm with a stray shot before Kesh dove out of the way. Leaning up against the wall, he looked at the smoking hole in his shirt and the searing pain in his arm, an arm that was now useless. “Fuck.”

He wouldn’t be climbing up to the bridge after all. Aiming down the corridor, he took a quick look and fired off a shot. The thump of a body hitting the floor told him he’d hit his target.

Kesh resumed his trip down the corridor until he came to the lift. The indicator light was green and the lift was waiting for him. He stepped into the lift, revising his plan to get to the bridge. He’d have to bypass the lift’s controls. To do that, he needed an access panel or Devral who could remotely access the ship’s computer.

There was an access panel outside the lift right where he needed to go, right beside the hatch that led into the conduits. If the Delarians were smart, they’d have that hatch open and be trying to get into the bridge through it. If the Delarians were smart they would have blown the ship up instead of trying to take it. Tor’Arr’s crew would fight to the death to save their ship. It wasn’t just their home, but rather the freedom it represented to each and every one of them that they would fight for.

Kesh flattened himself against the wall of the lift seconds before the doors opened to mayhem. Laser fire shot through the doors, shouts and curses filled his ears. The scent of blood hung heavy in the air, the scent of carnage.

A body fell through the door of the lift to thump heavily down on the floor. Kesh recognised one of the newest members of the crew, a man they’d picked up on a moon they’d stopped at to resupply after finding Tarnee’s parents.

Now he was dead.

Taking a quick look, he counted five Delarians down the hall and numerous bodies on the ground just outside the doors to the lift. With only one arm working, it was going to take him a while to get where he wanted to go. The last of the men from the crew were standing with their backs to the walls just outside the lift. Devral was one of them. That solved one of his problems, so now he had to get rid of the Delarians and to the bridge.

A body flew through the open doors of the lift and pressed up against the opposite wall. Kesh looked at the man standing opposite him—Devral was covered in wounds, his clothing burned by laser fire in multiple places. The cyborg was a tough bastard. He’d proved more than once he was a valuable man to have in a fire fight. More machine than man, he could take a hell of a lot of damage before being out of action.

“I need to get to the bridge,” Kesh told him.

“I figured,” Devral replied.

“If we clear a path to the lift, can you remote link to the ship’s computer and activate it?”

“Of course.”

Kesh took another quick look down the corridor. There were now only four Delarians. The men outside the lift had shot at one of them.

“You take the left and I’ll take the right,” he told Devral.

He received a nod, then they both checked their weapons, readying themselves.

“Ready?” he asked Devral.

Another nod and they were turning towards the corridor, firing their weapons and retreating. Laser fire hit the back of the lift. Steady streams of blue light sizzled through the air to land with a hiss on the back wall of the lift, blackening the sheet and filling the air with the smell of heated metal.

They looked at each other briefly before stepping out again and firing at the last two Delarians. They fell into crumpled heaps on the floor of the corridor, their bodies piling up with those of their fallen brethren.

“What are we up against?” Kesh asked.

“I don’t know. We haven’t been able to get past here. They kept killing us.”

Faces appeared in the doorway, the men who had been standing out in the corridor. They had faces with anger painted on them, and some with a little fear.

Kesh could understand the anger. He was pissed that they hadn’t killed all the Delarians when they’d escaped, pissed that they were on the ship and that Magnolia had been hurt. Nobody had the right to hurt his woman.

He couldn’t understand the fear. They lived, they died, there was no use fearing death. He didn’t believe there was anything after you died, he believed you just ceased to exist. He was looking forward to the argument he’d surely have with Magnolia over the issue of life and death, and the making up part after the argument.

First, they had to get to the bridge, and to do that, they had to find out what was at the other end of the corridor.

“Let’s go,” he said to the men gathered around him.

They separated into two groups, one for each side of the corridor. There was a slight bend in the hall about halfway along. The group on the left would get the first clear look of what they were up against.

Kesh took the front position of the group on the left, Devral the head of the right.

Cautiously, they made their way down the corridor, one step at a time. A hush had fallen over the ship, seeming to be waiting with bated breath for what was going to happen next.

A quiet voice spoke in Delarian, urging someone to go faster. A mumbled response was unintelligible.

Kesh got his first look at what they were up against as he reached the bend. A group of Delarians stood outside the lift, the hatch to the conduits open, a body halfway through climbing in.

So, they were trying to get to the bridge through the conduits. Tor’Arr and the crew on the bridge would pick them off one by one as they emerged onto the bridge. Indicting with his hand that the men behind him should step back, Kesh fired off three shots before retreating. Shouts came from down the corridor, harsh cursing and the sound of shuffling movement. Laser fire slammed into the wall of the corridor right where he’d been standing only moments before.

Devral moved up and took a look before firing off a series of shots. More fire peppered the wall, stray shots firing down the corridor. There had been seven Delarians, not including the one-half in the conduit. Kesh had downed two, Devral had fired two shots, and from the thud of a body hitting the floor, he’d succeeded in killing one. That left four.

Kesh inched forward, the laser fire that hit the wall missing him by centimetres. His arm hung useless by his side, more of a hindrance than anything, the pain an insistent throbbing that was starting to annoy him.

A break in the laser fire had him stepping forward and firing off two more shots before ducking back around the bend.

There was one left. He holstered his weapon and held up two fingers to Devral to show how many Delarians were remaining. At some point, they’d have to clear the conduits, but at the moment, the most important thing was getting away from the Delarian’s ship and stopping the influx of men pouring in.

Devral stepped forward and fired off two shots, with the sound of a Delarian hitting the pile of bodies following the shots. Silence reigned down the corridor. After the sizzling hiss of laser fire, it was too quiet.

Kesh headed for the lift, his men close behind him. A pile of bodies lay on the floor that he stepped over. The Delarian’s blood smelled odd to his acute senses. The fluid welling from a wound on one of the downed men was an odd shade of blue, rather than the red he was used to seeing.

Turning to Devral, he saw that the man had his eyes closed. He was already hacking into their systems. The light above the lift blinked twice before turning green.

Devral opened his eyes, “All set,” he said.

Kesh had often wondered what it would be like to have a computer in your brain. The things the man could do without being anywhere near a console were astounding, where he could run the whole ship if he wanted to.

“Shut down the other lift and shoot any Delarians who come up the conduit. After I get to the bridge, shut this lift down, too. We’ll be free of these bastards soon and then we’ll have to clean the ship up,” Kesh added.

Devral nodded and Kesh stepped onto the lift.

“Bridge,” he told the computer.

The lift whooshed upwards, the sensation pulling his stomach through his boots. He stood back against the sidewall of the lift. Knowing Tor’Arr like he did, he’d have a weapon aimed in his face the minute the doors opened.

“It’s Kesh,” he called out as the doors opened.

Tor’Arr appeared in the doorway to the lift, a weapon in his hand.

“I almost shot you, you crazy son of a bitch.”

“That’s why I’m in this spot,” Kesh told him from where he was still standing against the wall of the lift.

“You’re just in time.”

“We need to pull away from the Delarians—too many men are dying.”

“That’s what we’re about to do,” Tor’Arr said over his shoulder as he walked back to his seat.

Kesh walked out of the lift and moved into place at the console that oversaw the whole ship, the flashing red warning lights reflecting off the plexi glass surface. The blaring of the warning had been ringing in his ears since the Delarians had turned up. He could ignore it if he tried hard enough, but along with the pain in his arm, it was starting to get on his nerves.

“Ready?” Tor’Arr called out from his seat in the centre of the room.

A chorus of acknowledgment sounded around the room.

“Bask, do it,” Tor’Arr instructed their pilot.

Kesh didn’t want to imagine the damage that was being done to the ship as the scream of metal and deep groans came from the vessel. He braced himself against the console and watched the multitude of flashing lights that appeared on his screen. Hull breaches appeared on decks seven through nine where the Delarians ship had been anchored to theirs. He pressed the screen, touching places on the image of the ship, setting up containment fields to stop the leak of oxygen out of the ship.

“Set up containment fields,” Tor’Arr instructed.

“Already on it,” he replied.

He hoped there weren’t too many crew in those areas, since good men had already been lost in the fighting. If there were any survivors in those areas, they would be dead within minutes. No species on board the ship could survive without oxygen.

“Hoss, fire when ready. Let’s blow these mother fuckers out of space,” Tor’Arr told the lieutenant at the weapons station.

Kesh watched dispassionately as Hoss fired on the Delarian’s ship. Explosions followed each impact, pieces of their ship hurtling into space. He felt nothing for the men who would die as he watched the damage they did to the Delarian’s ship.

Bask and Hoss worked in tandem, their actions synchronised as they flew the ship around the Delarians and systematically crippled them, turning their ship into a smoking hunk of twisted metal. Small explosions could be seen around the ship along with pieces of debris and bodies floating off into space.

“Get us out of here, Bask. If they can follow us after that, we deserve whatever they dish out to us,” Tor’Arr said.

Kesh had a feeling they hadn’t seen the end of the Delarians, but they were a long way from home and the help they would need to get their ship flying again. That was if they could get the damaged ship flying again. Sometimes it was better to cut your losses and start again.

Tor’Arr stood from his chair, weapon in hand.

“Now to rid the ship of whatever is left of these bastards and get to Tarnee,” he said.

Chapter Nine

The medical bay wasn’t my idea of a fun place to spend my time. Luckily, I’d been unconscious when most of the injured crew had been brought in. The place was packed, with stretcher beds lining every inch of spare wall. You could barely move around there were so many of them.

I knew from the conversations I’d overheard that they had lost a sizeable number of crew. It was a harsh reality check to the kind of life I’d live if I were to stay with Kesh.

They were pirates, and they were in fights all the time. Could I live that kind of life? Could I live not knowing when the next time would be that I might get hurt, or Kesh might get hurt?

I’d been awake when they’d finally dragged him down to medical to get his arm looked at. I’d seen the ugly wound and felt deeply worried when Manik the ships medic had told Kesh he might lose the use of his arm because he’d waited so long.

My initial reaction was to shout at him and demand to know what he’d been thinking. My strong reaction showed me that I already had significant feelings for Kesh. If I stayed with him, if I allowed myself to fall in love with him and I lost him to a fight, how much more would it hurt than if I walked away now?

The brands on the back of my hands still burned, but with the pain medication Manik had given me for my wounds, it was a manageable pain. I looked down at them, tracing the swirling lines with my eyes. Could I walk away from Kesh knowing we were meant to be together? Knowing I was the woman for him and he apparently was the man the Universe had deemed mine?

If I stayed with him, I would have to give up everything I’d always thought I wanted, and I’d be separated from my family. I didn’t know if I could be what Kesh wanted me to be. I didn’t know if I could walk away from the life I’d always seen myself having. It was who I was. I was a free spirit, and I needed that freedom. I needed to be able to come and go as I pleased. If I’d been a one-man woman, I would never have been interested in Kesh. I would have been happy with the relationship I had with Jaxxon.