Freeker (6 page)

The grainy outside image displayed the culprit’s location.

“That’s the first cargo box? Below the hatch where we’d connected to the station and where they’re entering the ship?”

“Yes,” Ursula answered. Warrant stared at her as he worked through his thoughts.

She frowned worriedly, an unusual expression for her. She’d bleached the tips of her hair just like Chaz had. They must have been on station for a little while, anyway, while Warrant was spending his time licking Chara’s body. His face heated and he shuffled his feet. He gruffly asked, “And that cargo box can’t be detached?”

“It could, now. If we keep their crew aboard. If we’d detached before, we’d have been giving them all that cargo, including the arms stash. Then we’d have a bounty on our heads. More than we have now. All they have against us to this point is that we’re likely harboring Cenak as a fugitive, but getting him back presents them with problems, too.”

“True.” Warrant nodded. Their father was wanted for multiple counts of murder. They’d rescued him from execution but if the geonates recovered Cenak, they’d have to answer as many questions as he. The black ops portion of the military—called the Nex—had turned him into an assassin and his kills had been under orders. They didn’t actively want Cenak back. But gun-running would really put the Scoriah on the shit list.

“We get our people out of the cargo bay, leave theirs, and detach. They die but the anchor still tows the cargo pods back toward the station,” Grendel pointed out in his gruff voice that Warrant had finally gotten used to.

“We have to detach it.” Warrant glared at the image.

“Not necessarily. I mean, I don’t know how to do it, anyway. But there’s another way.” Grendel came forward. It was a major accomplishment, to approach one of them and stand so near. They’d had a rough few weeks getting to know one another when the Scoriah had first bought the ship with the on board closet monster. Grendel was still skittish and thought the Scoriah were the monsters. Not an unreasonable notion.

“I might be able to detach it,” Ursula interrupted. “All we need is a blow torch, a suit, and then I need schematics.”

“No, love.” Grendel gave her one of his snarly, fang-filled smiles that really could be scary if Warrant didn’t have his own fangs. Not to mention his truly superior fighting strength. “There are explosives built into those clamps. Tampering is too risky.”

“Let’s hear Grendel’s plan, heart-sister.”

Ursula’s bottom lip protruded but she nodded. “Of course. Just wouldn’t mind playing with it.”

Grendel’s tail flopped around behind him and he hissed but he didn’t chastise his lover. Instead, he laid out his plan.

Chapter Four

Chara ran a finger over the knife she’d concealed in the seam of her dress. She’d palmed it from the utensils drawer in the mess hall. The Scoriah were formidable in stature and aggressive in nature but strangely naive and trusting. They had never searched her.

One of the big Scoriah, Tee, used the nearby console to communicate with the boarding party. Chara stayed at the rear, her back to the far wall, and eyed the exit. The nice one, Nick, stood next to her.

“I can hear your stomach rumbling from here.” He grinned. “You should have had the gormer meat rolls I made earlier.”

The earlier fighting and snarling didn’t seem to have impacted him in the slightest. Her stomach made a truly pathetic noise as if to say that her hunger hadn’t been impacted either.

With a laugh, he slid out the exit. “Wait right here.”

She didn’t bother replying. Running would buy her time. Maybe. Very little time. Seeing who stepped through that hatch would give her more of an opportunity than huddling under a bed while the Scoriah sniffed her out. As if she could do anything or recognize anyone, but the instinct to know her enemy was too strong to deny.

Tee appeared to stall. “I’ve detained your fugitive but you must show proper credentials to board an independent cargo runner. This is a widely known geonate law.”

“We sent the proper notifications.” The exasperated reply didn’t sound like anyone she knew.

“They do not have the authority to take me,” she spoke up.

Tee flipped off the comm and turned toward her with a sneer on his face. “It doesn’t matter. We have no authority to do anything we do. Yet, here we are.”

“If I had family claim me, they’d have to leave,” she tried.

“Where is your family?” The question held disdain at her lack. She glanced at the others, all with varying degrees of pity and amazement at her lack of relatives. Their similarity in form and feature only united the four of them as brothers. They couldn’t understand being alone.

She didn’t remember her family but she had one. She knew it.

“Anyone will do,” she blurted. “They’d have to investigate any claims to me and in that time, I can disappear.”

Tee turned back to the console and no matter what he’d intended to say, the insistent speaker on the other side didn’t wait. “The
Twelfth Night
, we insist on entry to remove the prisoner otherwise we will notify the appropriate geonate authorities and they can search your ship top to bottom.”

“She insists she has family claim that will negate yours,” Tee replied.

“That is not possible,” snapped the man speaking on behalf of the boarders.

The two men continued to argue the finer points of boarding etiquette such as how many sidearms and guards were allowed to enter the Scoriah domain and how none were allowed into the nest. For long minutes, it seemed impossible that the two could agree to terms.

Chara stared at the hatch.

Her legs trembled. This time, it wasn’t the recovery from her coma. The injections her rescuer had given her had gotten her most of the way back to health within three days. Since then, she’d gotten stronger every day on her own, but she was weak in the knees again. She couldn’t blame her medical state.

She’d had the time to consider. She knew why she’d been incarcerated and while she’d been at Johnson’s she’d even seen the effects of the freeker drug when one of the customers had paid richly for it. The freeker had wanted company to fuck through the aftereffects. Knowing about it, Chara had been unable to resist peeking in—which was relatively easy to do. All the employees knew about the spy holes, hidden cameras, and faux walls.

There was no way to know if the drug used that night had been created from Chara, but she wanted to see it anyway. It could have been her memory causing the high.

The woman who’d used freeker had been glorious to watch but the emotion seemed too big for her body. Pale, lithe, and sexually aroused, she’d been alluring. A man and a woman came to her bed once the high had passed and the sex had been mouth-watering. At that moment Chara had realized many things about her past. Her sexuality was open to most anything but she couldn’t stand the touch of men. Something had happened and perhaps she didn’t want that memory back, but she couldn’t find the memories of the men she’d killed. She’d killed them. The knowledge was there but not the recall.

She needed to remember. If she couldn’t have those memories back, she’d break apart. Perhaps going back under would be best.

One of the Scoriah crossed in front of the hatch and she blinked.

Tee had raised his voice and his cheeks protruded. It was like some sort of armor plating that ridged on his face. She frowned and concentrated on the conversation again.

“You will not be allowed aboard with weapons. No negotiation.”

Warrant arrived. Her every sense stood up and took notice. Sauntering past her, he gave her a nod then approached Tee. “We have a solution.”

Tee nodded and spoke to the negotiator from the attached shuttle. “A moment to consider.”

He shut off comms and the others gathered around. Chara stayed near the door. She could still run.

Warrant glanced back at her. His expression gave nothing away. Then he stared at the hatch and his husky voice drew her. She took a step toward him before she jerked to a stop.

“Tell them, if they insist on bringing weapons aboard, Chara will be locked in one of the rooms in the crew’s quarters.”

Tee interrupted, “They’ve been…”

Warrant slashed a hand through the air to silence his brother and Chara glanced at her hand, fisted around the knife she’d hidden in her dress. Grinding her teeth, she forced herself to listen to Warrant’s plan before she challenged them.

“They may enter the bay then go immediately into the deserted cargo pod connected to it. There, they may negotiate with us to sell Chara back to them.”

“Sell me?” She marched up to him and brandished her knife. The point settled against his sternum but she didn’t apply pressure. “You’re just like all the men out there, then. Disgusting and after nothing but your own interests.”

Warrant grinned at her and shook his head. “Stop. You’ll hurt my feelings.”

“And what will we be doing if they fall for that ploy?” Tee asked with a note of amusement.

Chara snapped her mouth shut. Still shaking, she eased the knife away and nodded for Warrant to continue.

“We detach the pod. They’ll be spaced.” Warrant reached for the console but Tee caught his arm.

“Kill them all and then what? Nothing will happen?”

“Killing them all is a solid plan.” Chara slid the knife back into the slot she’d made in her dress.

“Then we empty this cargo bay.” Warrant paused and let that sink in. The rifles. The reason they’d wanted to kill her. They wanted those hidden badly enough to risk her life. “Then, once it’s empty, we detach this cube, along with the shuttle and rig it to blow.”

“That covers our ass?” Tee glanced at the other Scoriah. They all shrugged. “This is reckless.”

“We’re always reckless,” Chaz said.

“Chara, I’ll need to lock you in my quarters.” Warrant stepped toward her. His tall, delicious frame was close and she couldn’t ignore the way he wasn’t scared. Not
of
her. Or
for
her.

“No. We need to let them see her. I had my doubts that this will work, but if she’s the lure, they’ll follow her to the other bay.”

“We’re going to need a back-up plan.” Echtei raised a brow as if to say he didn’t think much of Warrant’s idea.

“Don’t worry,” Warrant said. “This will work.”

It wouldn’t work. There was no way trained guards would docilely go to another bay and wait in there for the ship to detach them. The Scoriah really were naive to a point of recklessness. Warrant wanted to help, though, and that dulled any disdain she might have at his inability to plan an attack rather than follow his primitive instincts. It was obvious they could fight but they couldn’t plan a way to avoid one. At least, not this time.

The outer hatch groaned.

“Dammit, they’re coming in.” Echtei bared his fangs and he crouched, looking like a predator about to rip into prey. The rest of them followed suit, snarling.

Whatever plan they might agree on, it was too late for her to get out of the bay.

She stared at the hatch. Sweat dripped down her back. It itched.

This was it. She didn’t do this for them, the Scoriah. This was purely self-preservation. She felt herself coming apart, her mind unanchored, and her anger dulled. If she had to live in this fractured state for much longer, she’d do something unbearable like rely on a man for help. Never. She’d never be at the mercy of another again.

Warrant crept into her field of vision. Instead of speaking to her, he stood to the side of the hatch. Then, the sound of air pressure popping sent her the signal. She crouched behind Echtei. He didn’t move or give her away. Maybe they weren’t quite so naive. Warrant remained near the door. Body relaxed, he appeared at ease and unconcerned. In only a glance she could read him. His thumbs were hitched into his waistband and the claw-tipped fingers twitched toward the knives he wore. Not so relaxed, then.

Those claws. She shivered. The memory sent a visceral response through her. With all her memories distant blurs in her mind, this one was sharp, focused, overpowering. When his claws had punctured her flesh, it’d sent an intense pang of pleasure through her core.

The re-lived moment crashed, draining away as the outer door flew open.

Two station security officers, sidearms raised, edged out. They split, one to each side of the exit. Her shoulders ached but she didn’t roll them. She barely breathed. Warrant’s fingers drummed against his hips. So near the knives but not touching.

The guards didn’t speak. They stared around them but they focused on the Scoriah, sizing them up, determining the danger. Nobody hailed them or questioned them. It was eerie and the silence, unnatural. Another pair of guards slid out of the door and followed the first two. Now four guards stood, tense, watching.

From the size of the ship, there couldn’t be many more inside the shuttle.

Finally, after a few seconds, Tee spoke. “You need to put the weapons away.”

“You have a fugitive aboard. We don’t know the circumstances here,” one of them replied.

“Circumstance is, if you don’t put those away,” Tee growled. He stepped forward and the four humans tensed. All eyes on him as he roared, “You will not set one more foot aboard.”

The guards muttered and glared. One of them kept insisting they be allowed their weapons while Tee continued to deny the request. Amid the arguing, Echtei chuckled and spoke so low she didn’t think the guards could hear him.

“Wartei shows much patience. I wonder why.” The tenor of his voice made it obvious that Echtei knew the reason. “He hasn’t pulled his knives and he’s silent as Tee speaks for us all. Truly a momentous day.”

Chara had no answer and Warrant was on his own. Nobody had noticed her. She was only a few feet from the open entry. Time to act.

She lunged. Barreling head first through the hatch, she bowled over a remaining guard and landed on the floor of the small shuttle. A large body shoved into her. She struggled but couldn’t throw it off. The door clanked.

Warrant’s voice snarled in her ear, “Stay down.”

His body covered hers. He grunted then growled viciously. His weight lifted from her and she rolled to a crouch.