Desire Disguised (2 page)

“Too bad we didn’t realize they were coming for someone else. We could have finished our dinner in peace instead of hiding in the chimney and coughing out soot for the next few days,” Soren added, his eyes canted over in Mat’s direction. Cara hoped they could see each other.

“Cara, I’m scared,” Mat’s voice quavered, and her heart clenched in her chest. Considering how many terrifying moments they’d gone through, she still quaked with fear for him. Wishing she believed in something enough for prayer, Cara tried to ignore the screeching noises, intense heat, and their imminent death and instead started to sing one of the old lullabies. She remembered someone kind and soft singing it to her when she was a child and had sung it to Mat many times since they’d been exiled. Hopefully, its lovely tune and words would calm them all.

The ship bucked and shuddered as if it was coming apart, and all the interior lights winked out, leaving them in terrible darkness. The comm frequency disappeared with a
crack
. Mat screamed loud enough to be heard over the howling echoes inside the hull of the ship, and Cara winced as tears coursed down her cheeks. There was a terrible shrieking noise, Falk squealed, and then the world fell apart.

* * * *

They saw the ship plummeting to the surface as if a burning orange comet trailing a pale grey trail of smoke and debris from about ten kilometers away. It was impossible to tell if the main fuselage was holding together, and Ben hoped the pilot was releasing all the fuel in the tanks.

He sucked in a deep breath and resisted the urge to reach over and take over the manual accelerator from Soloman. The young man piloted the flyer according to standard procedures, and it wouldn’t help anyone if Ben interfered. The vehicle wasn’t safe at a higher speed with the weather conditions they’d found themselves in. It was squalling rain, and the winds gusted over the entire section. Ben supposed he should be grateful the precipitation would halt any fires caused by the crash, but it was miserable flying weather.

Their path would intersect with the dying ship very soon. He glanced across the display pad showing projected trajectories and then peered out the front shield of the cart to see it happening in real time. It was hard to tell, but it seemed as if the pilot of the cruiser was still in control. The spectacle of the impending crash had all the crewmembers riveted to the viewport.

Tension filled him as the fireball ahead approached the canopy of the jungle and burrowed in with an enormous gout of smoke and flame. Rough landing. Several troopers gasped, and he noticed Soloman shaking his head as he decelerated.

“Think anyone survived?” the lieutenant asked in a low voice as others unfastened their harnesses and prepared to exit as soon as the vehicle halted. Ben had ordered them to follow proper debarkation protocols, but adrenaline and basic humanity caused his staff to bunch at the exit hatch like over-eager trainees. As soon as the doors opened and they descended to the jungle floor, they’d hew closer to their training.

Soloman banked over the destroyed swathe of forest, shattered trees and smoke obscuring whatever had made it to the ground. Scans indicated most of the ship was in one piece, and the lieutenant circled it until he found a landing spot. With a gentle hand, he brought the flyer down.

“Let’s find out.” Ben’s hand was on his harness clasp, and as soon as the door seal released with a puff of air, he was on his feet and debarking, his team close on his heels as they made their way down the ramp and stood on soggy ground.

The air was filled with acrid smoke, and he could hear flames crackling from the direction of the downed ship. A few steps away from the rescue flyer the wind shifted, and they could finally get a visual on the crash site. The formerly sleek cruiser was now a crumpled and charred lump, half buried in the boggy ground. Orange glints of flame glowed around the crash site as any combustible bit of vegetation in the vicinity burned.

Ben checked over the people assembled around him. All were properly geared up and carrying the equipment they’d need to suppress the fire and crack open the ship. At the moment, the metal skin was still too hot from reentry to approach. A sudden downpour of rain sizzled and steamed on the hot metal. Fog and smoke obscured the broken ship for a few seconds as they squelched their way around the perimeter of the crash and inspected it, putting out flickering fires along the way.

“Sir, it looks fairly intact. And if I read the alignment right, she isn’t upside down.”

Ben nodded. It appeared as if the ship was embedded at a forty-five degree angle. Pulling up specs on the cruiser, helpfully forwarded by Wren from the station, he plotted a couple of potential entry sites. Pointing them out to his people, two teams assembled and took temperature readings.

“It’s hot, but our suits will manage it,” Officer Rand yelled back as he hopped up the side of the ship, slipping on the wet surface as he climbed. Ben shook his head. Rand was energetic and prone to choosing the most challenging approach to everything. So far it had landed him in medical twice after parkour misjudgments and once when he approached an uninterested woman for sex.

Ben watched the crews operate their cutters for a few moments and approached the team that had made the most progress as they clamped on a pull and tugged at the metal. The ship’s skin groaned as it buckled and bent apart, allowing atmosphere from the inside to escape in a puff of what seemed to be steam. Not a good sign if the interior had heated that intensely. The officers parted as Ben approached the opening. Better for him to assess it on his own. Too many of his people were relatively unseasoned. He suspected none on this crew had seen a victim of violent death yet. A rancid stench of hydraulic fluid filled the dank and smoky air, and he breathed deep before leaning in and activating his hand light.

The interior of the ship was chaotic. Wiring and debris littered every surface. It looked as if they’d cut their way into the far rear of the hold. With an echoing groan and squeal, Rand’s crew peeled back a layer at the top and sunlight filtered in from overhead. That’s when he spotted the activated crash pods. Three foam lumps attached to the walls of the hold, and the dark, humanoid shapes visible within indicated the passengers had time to activate them before everything fell apart.

Watching his step in the deep drifts of debris littering the deck, he made his way in and approached the first crash pod. Whoever was inside had been alone on that side of the ship. The monitor glowed red indicating the pod was experiencing failures, and the readings for the health of the inhabitant blinked erratically. The occupant was in serious medical trouble. He peered in the visor and saw an elderly man who was pale and comatose.

“Trin, get in here with a carry cot. We’ve got someone alive but not for long.” Ben heard the people outside shout orders at each other as he turned to inspect the two pods attached to the other bulkhead. One contained a boy, perhaps ten or so years old. His pod was functional, and his monitor indicated he was unconscious but essentially stable. The next pod’s monitor glowed green, and Ben breathed out with relief. Two survivors, possibly three. He had to check on the pilot next, but first, he glanced in the faceplate to get a visual on the third passenger. A young woman, stands of wet hair plastered across her forehead, bruises under her closed eyes. Someone yelled behind him, and the woman inside the crash pod woke, her blue-green eyes fluttering open, and her confused gaze met his. He tensed as if someone had punched him in the stomach.

Cara ached in the dark. All she could sense was pressure and pain. There was a loud noise, and she jumped, frightened the ship was crashing again. She opened her eyes, expecting to find darkness and danger, but instead, she saw a man’s angular face. He had on a bright yellow helmet and peered at her with the darkest eyes she’d ever seen, long black lashes curving around them. His caramel skin seemed to glow in some sort of diffused light from overhead. How could there be light inside the ship? Did that mean they’d survived?

“Mat!” Cara called out for her brother, and the man narrowed his eyes.

“You’re safe,” he assured her as he moved to let someone else, also in a yellow helmet, duck beside him. “What’s your name?”

“Mat!” Cara wanted to hear her brother’s voice. She didn’t care if he cried or screamed she just wanted some indication he was alive.

“You’re going to be fine, Mat. All your vitals are steady and within normal parameters.” The man didn’t quite smile at her.

Cara tried to shake her head, but the foam held her too tightly. “No, my little brother, he’s next to me. Where is he? Is he…” She couldn’t say any more, speaking her worries aloud had never eased any of them.

The dark eyed man glanced away from her and looked in the direction of the pod where she’d fastened Mat what seemed like hours ago.

“His vitals are fine. He’s out, no, he’s awake.”

“Mat!”

“Cara, what happened?” Mat sounded croaky and tired. No wonder, the boy had just survived a suborbital crash.

“We crashed. We’re alive.” Suddenly the constriction around her head and throat eased as the foam moved from her body. The cool air hitting her skin was a relief, but as she tried to turn to Mat, her body collapsed, and she slid forward. Arms encased in yellow armor reached out and held her up as she pressed against the man who’d spoken to her. She twisted her head and saw Mat’s foam cushions fall away. He looked for her and smiled as another person in a yellow suit propped him up. He was as pale and sweaty as she was, but she couldn’t see any injuries. Thank it all.

“Soren!” Cara tried to push at the person holding her tightly, but she was too shaky to make much of an impact on the hard plates of armor.

“He’s the one across from you?” that same deep voice asked, and she nodded her head, unable speak because her throat was so dry. A hard lump rose up in her stomach, and she shivered as cold clenched her limbs.

The man holding her said something else, but she didn’t catch it as a roaring filled her ears, echoing the terrible sounds of the ship as it had fallen. She felt someone wrap muffling fabric around her, but she refused to cooperate when hands tried to lift and move her. Cara tried to call out to Mat. She could barely see him as the other armored person bundled him in a bright red and blue blanket and hoisted him up. She got one look at her brother’s thin face before he disappeared through a hole smashed through some part of the ship. The hard arms still held her, and she tried to push away again, hampered by her weakness and the muffling folds of the blanket. Wrenching her head around, she looked for Soren, but there were too many rescuers clustered around his pod, all speaking quick gibberish and moving their hands.

* * * *

Ben shook his head as he inspected accident-prone Rand. They’d managed to reach the crash site, rescue the passengers, collect the pilot’s body, and return home in a few hours with no problems other than this young man’s mangled hand. He’d been climbing down from his perch at the top of the crumpled ship, slipped in a combination of moisture and fire retardant foam, and sliced himself open in an amazingly destructive way. The doctor was doing her best, but repairing nerves, capillaries, and micro fissures was tricky work at best. Rand didn’t help the process along by continually watching and then jerking away every time he saw a drop of blood as the nanoclippers did their work.

“So, Chief Zashi, a pretty eventful day off if you ask me,” Doctor Deval Polin murmured as she supervised her tiny mechanical assistants.

“Suppose so.” Ben glanced from the room into the hallway of the medical clinic, wondering how the passengers were doing. They’d brought the survivors in and deposited them in rooms. The old man, Soren, was in a bad way, and there were too many people working in that room for him to interrupt for an update. The boy was groggy but asking for something to eat by the time they’d hovered over the settlement, while his sister had drifted in and out of awareness for the whole flight. She’d revived enough to insist on sharing a room with her brother, and he’d left the siblings to specialized care in order to check on Rand. He knew the survivor’s weakness and disorientation was due to the trauma of the crash and the compression effects of the crash pods, but he still worried.

“Your man is going to be fine if you want to go check on something else,” Polin said. “He’ll be on the disabled list for a few days, but all the repairs are proceeding successfully. Something to be said for patching up the young and vibrant. Not like that poor man from the crash.”

“True. I need to start interviewing our other victims and putting together what happened. With the pilot dead and most likely not recording accurate information into his log, I’m dependent on the passengers.” Ben nodded at the doctor, scowled at Rand, and left the room.

He stood in the hallway and took a deep breath as he tried to remember what he needed to do next. Right, see if he could interview the woman, Caraline Belasco. He’d overridden the security features on a low-end datpad they’d found in the wreckage and managed to identify the pilot and passengers but not much more than that. Not nearly enough information to satisfy all the waiting lines and fields of his pending incident report.

As he walked down the hallway, he thought about seeing Citizen Belasco again. Forget how he’d seen her before. Unbidden, a vision of her swam up in his imagination like a dream. Her frightened eyes, her limp body damp with perspiration. He’d played his part in plenty of rescues, but something about her made him feel as if she was still in peril. It was enough to distract him again, and Ben ground his teeth together in an attempt to get his brain on point and do his job.

The quiet corridor suddenly filled with the sound of raised voices and then an echoing crash. Without thought he ran. Bursting through the exam room doorway, he took in a strange tableau. Caraline Belasco was crouched in a corner of the room, her brother pushed behind her as she glared at the medtech holding a scanner and staring open mouthed at her cowering patients. Caraline’s brows were furrowed even as she placed a shaking hand back to steady her brother who seemed weak enough to slide to the floor without her support.