Matt & Michelle 1: The Fugitive Heir (21 page)

It was my absolute favorite vid seven years ago. I watched it so often Mom and Dad threatened to throw it in the recycler. I hadn’t watch it once since their disappearance.

“Go away and leave us alone.” The voice belonged to my father. It sounded older to me, less firm, but there was no doubt who was speaking. “This is our family time.”

I tried to find my voice but couldn’t. Seeing my mouth open and close, Michelle lowered her blaster and said, “Mr. and Mrs. Connaught, we’re here to rescue you.”

Two heads spun around and eyes widened in surprise. Mom found her voice first. “Mattie? Oh my God, is it you Mattie?”

The next thing I knew, I found myself leaning over the back of the love seat hugging my parents, with tears streaming down my cheeks. Mom covered my face in kisses while Dad just said, “Son!” and held me tight.

Behind me, Michelle spoke quietly to Jonas. I heard their conversation but had no idea what they said to each other. Mom, Dad, and I kept repeating the same inane things over and over again.

“We never thought we’d see you again!”

“I love you so much!”

“How did you find us?”

Then Michelle pulled me back from my parents. “I really hate to break up this reunion, but we’ve got work to do before you three can catch up with each other. The pirates will get here eventually and we need to be gone before then.”

“Of course, you’re right young lady. Who-” Dad sat back and took his first good look at Michelle. “Good God! Aren’t you Jonas’s little girl?”

“Yes sir. And I’ve got Daddy on this comm. I’m putting it on speaker so we can all hear him.”

Michelle tapped a button on her comm and held it between us. “You’re on, Daddy.”

“Richard? Angela? Can you both hear me?”

“Loud and clear, Jonas,” Dad said. “It’s a relief to hear your voice. When this is over, you’ll have to tell me how you found us.”

“You’ll have to ask our children. It’s been all I can do to keep up with them.” I detected definite pride in Jonas’s voice. “But right now, let’s concentrate on getting the four of you out of there.”

“Have you got a plan, Jonas?” I asked.

“I think so, sir. Based on the station designs, it appears there’s a huge door at one end of the original station. It keeps the pirate ships hidden until they go out raiding.”

Mom and Dad both nodded, with Mom adding, “That’s right. We can see the thing open and shut from here.”

“Good. Your help—and your ride out of there—has to come through that door. Now comes the tough part. We can’t find any way to control the door from here. Sir, can you hack the pirates’ computer system and open the door?”

“I can try-”

Dad interrupted, “That won’t work. The door can only be opened with a manual control. The pirates put it in place specifically to keep hackers from finding the door controls.”

“Damn, that makes this a lot more complicated.”

“No it doesn’t, Daddy. It makes this a lot easier.”

“No. Absolutely not. You are to stay put, young lady. With the pirates alerted to your presence, going out there is too dangerous.”

“There aren’t many places intruders can go down here, Daddy. Staying in one place is just as dangerous as going back out.” Michelle frowned as if just thinking of something. “And you can drop that ‘young lady’ bit, too. I am a married woman, after all.”

Mom and Dad exchanged surprised looks and then their eyes widened further. They turned toward me.

“I was going to tell you once we were all safe,” I said. “And that’s still the best time to talk about this.”

“Jonas, did you approve their wedding? Is it part of your plan to keep Matt safe?” Mom asked.

“I learned about the marriage two minutes ago,” Jonas replied. “But as much as I
want
to talk about it now, Matt is right. We’ll discuss it once everyone is safe.” Jonas paused for a few seconds. “All right, pump- um, Michelle, what’s your plan?”

“I’m going to slip out of this little office-prison, sneak over to the controls, and open that big door. It’ll be easy.”

“No, it might not be that easy,” I said. “What if there’s a code on the door controls?”

“You can talk me through it from here, babe.”

Mom’s and Dad’s eyebrows rose at Michelle’s endearment as I shook my head. “It’ll be easier if I’m there to do it myself. Besides, who will watch your back while I’m talking you through it?”

“No, it’s too dangerous,” Mom insisted. “Both of you are going to stay right here until help arrives.”

“No, Mom, we’re not. Michelle and I can handle this.”

“Jonas?” Dad asked. “What do you think?”

“As Michelle’s father and Matt’s bodyguard and his…father-in-law, I think it’s crazy dangerous.” Jonas spoke slowly, as if working his way through complex feelings. “But from a strictly professional point of view, our kids are right. Someone has to open that door and they’re the best ones to do it.”

Silence hung over our little group when Jonas finished speaking. Then Dad said, “All right. But for God’s sake, be careful.”

Mom added, “Married couple or not, I’ll ground you both for a year if you get yourselves killed.”

Jonas, with help from Greg, told us where to find the door controls. Of course, the controls were on the main floor of the docking bay.

My parents gave me quick, heartfelt hugs and surprised Michelle by hugging her, as well. Then the two of us went back to the door with the chip reader. Leaving the office’s interior lights off, we slipped out and started toward the nearest set of stairs down from the catwalk.

I handed my comm unit to Michelle, replacing the one she’d left with my parents. “You keep this. Any advice Jonas offers will be for you, anyway.”

Michelle fitted the comm into her ear. “Can everyone hear me? Good.”

We reached the nearest set of stairs and, as silently as possible on old metal stairs, descended. The descent was surreal, though not for the reason you might think. While I found sneaking down to the ground floor of a pirate base disconcerting, I’d done equally disconcerting things since boarding the maglev train back on Draconis all those weeks ago. No, the surreality came from listening to Michelle’s side of a three way conversation with my parents and her father. A conversation about us.

At first, she simply responded with a soft “Yes” or “No,” leading me to believe the discussion centered around our current situation—and maybe that was the case. Then Michelle responded to a question obviously asked by my mother.

“I don’t think any girl could study your son as closely as I have and not fall in love with him, ma’am.”

“Michelle,” I hissed, “tell my mother to save the third degree for when we aren’t surrounded by pirates.”

“It’s all right, Matt. I can descend stairs and talk at the same time.” Michelle listened for a few seconds then smiled. “Yes ma’am, that’s pretty much exactly what Matt said.”

We descended further as our parents continued questioning Michelle. “No, I don’t think the marriage is premature. I love Matt and he loves me. And we both know it beyond all shadow of a doubt.”

Michelle’s eyes widened. “You figured that out, Daddy? I never did until he told me.”

That almost made me miss a step. “Jonas figured out about my psychic ability?”

“Daddy says it took him years, but he spent more time around you than anyone. And he’s really observant—it’s part of what makes him so good at his job.”

Her attention returned to the comm unit. “What’s that, Daddy?” I almost missed it in the dim light, but suddenly Michelle blushed. “In, um, really…intimate…moments, Matt’s feelings come through loud and clear…Well, if you don’t want to hear the answers, then stop asking the questions, Daddy…Thank you, ma’am. I appreciate the support. And just in case anyone I call ‘Daddy’ is thinking of asking, I’ll tell you right now that I am
not
pregnant.”

By this time, we’d descended halfway to the floor below. Noise still echoed around us and hand-held lights still waved around on the catwalk above. Those searching were getting closer to the junction box I’d sabotaged. If they found it, could they repair the shield before help arrived? We needed our connection to the outside world to coordinate with our help when it arrived. Then I cut my speculation short as I heard a commotion from below, followed by the pounding of feet on the stairs.

I tapped Michelle and pointed down. She nodded. “You’re all going to have to shut up now. Matt and I have to get off the stairs so I’m pocketing the comm.”

Without another word, she pulled the comm from her ear and stuffed it in her pocket. Then she muttered, “Parents.”

We went to the stair railing and Michelle climbed over the rail. “We’re going to have to climb around the framework and hide behind the stairs.”

I followed her example, adding, “You know heights terrify me.”

“Yes, even if it wasn’t in your briefing, I’d have figured it out watching you during that trip to the amusement park back in eighth grade.” Michelle led the way along an extremely narrow girder, using one hand to steady herself with a girder just over her head. “I never did figure out why you rode the roller coaster so much, though. Didn’t that scare you?”

I knew the chatter was Michelle’s way of taking my mind off the yawning gulf below us, but I went along with it. Both of my hands gripped the girder above and I shuffled my feet, never picking them up from the girder below. “Roller coasters are the worst—until the coaster crests that first hill and the ride really gets started. Then they’re the best thing ever.”

Michelle reached a point beyond the stairs and casually stepped across a meter of open air to a girder behind the stairs. I reached the same point and froze, staring down to the docking bay floor far, far below us.

“Okay, babe, just take one big step and then we can just duck down in the shadows and let the pirates run right past us.”

I nodded but my feet stubbornly stayed where they were while the pounding footsteps came closer and closer.

Michelle reached for me. “Just take my hand and step across, Matt. I know you can do it.”

I reached toward her hand and then, hating myself, snatched my hand back to grab onto the girder above me. I whispered, “I’m sorry.”

“You know it’s bad luck to get your wife killed before you’ve even been married for a week, right?” Michelle gave up coaxing and shifted to a stern whisper. “Well, that’s what will happen when those pirates see you standing over there. They’ll shoot you and you’ll fall. If I’m very lucky, the pirates will shoot me when they find me. Seeing how short of pretty women this base is, though, I’ll probably end up as the plaything for a ship full of criminals.”

“That’s
not
going to happen,” I whispered fiercely. Taking a deep breath, I stepped across to the next girder. I wobbled a bit, but Michelle steadied me.

“Great job, babe. Now we just have to sit down on the girder and we’ll disappear into the shadows.” Michelle gracefully straddled the girder, her feet dangling off either side of it. She patted her lap. “You can lean forward and lay your head in my lap. It’ll be just like the night in the spaceship before we left Draconis.”

Michelle held out a hand to steady me as I lowered myself onto the girder. With a shudder of relief, I leaned over and laid my head in her lap. Michelle gently stroked my hair as we huddled in the shadows. A moment later, feet pounded around the landing just below our position and up the stairs. We both held our breath, knowing this was when the pirates were most likely to spot us. They never even slowed down.

We waited for the pirates to ascend a few more flights of stairs before deciding it was safe to move. Before we got going, Michelle kissed me, smiled wickedly, and said, “You did really well, honey. So well you deserve something special in return.” 

“Like what?” I couldn’t keep a bit of a leer off my face.

Michelle rose to her feet. “I’ll tell you when we’re back on the stairs.”

Proper motivation is everything. I made it back to the stairs right behind Michelle and never once needed coaxing from her. Then she told me what her ‘something special’ was before leading off down the stairs.

“How am I supposed to concentrate on this mission after you planted
that
image in my mind?” I asked.

“That’s easy, Matt. It won’t happen until we get out of here and find ourselves a private room.” Only then did she reach into her pocket and pull out the comm unit.

“Then let’s get this over with.”

We finished our descent without further incident but could no longer keep to the shadows. The floor of the docking bay around the two ships was brightly lit, providing illumination for the work being performed on the two pirate ships. Trying to act inconspicuous, we turned away from the two ships and toward the huge docking bay door.

Several pirates carried pads similar to Michelle’s maintenance pad, so she pulled hers out and flashed it about. It’s all about looking busy without actually being busy. It didn’t work.

A pirate called, “Hey, you two. Can you help me over here?”

We needed to get the docking bay door open so Jonas’s help could get inside and couldn’t really spare time to help the pirate. But we also couldn’t afford to rouse the man’s suspicion. And, most importantly, we couldn’t allow the pirate to get a look at Michelle. Just having the man watch her walk away, even wearing the loose and shapeless maintenance coveralls, was risky. If the clothes shifted at just the wrong moment, any man alive would recognize the feminine swing of Michelle’s hips.

“I’ll take care of this,” I murmured. “You just keep walking away.”

Not waiting for Michelle’s answer, I spun about and headed toward the man who’d called. As subtly as possible, I put myself between Michelle’s retreating form and the pirate. After all, the less he saw of her the better.

“What do you need?” I called.

“What I need is both of you.” The pirate waved toward a portable machine mounted on a motorized cart. The right front of the cart rested on the floor, its wheel caught in the well for recessed rails. “The last moron to come through here with the crane didn’t put the metal plate back over the tracks after he got past here.”