No Such Thing (32 page)

She moaned his name in gratitude and delight, turning her head to kiss him and slipping fingers through his hair to hold him there. Her fierce need to
get as close to him as possible went far beyond physical and her deep satisfaction in his heavy slide into her body went beyond the shimmering coils of pleasure
that shivered and shook her over and over again.

When she fell asleep once more, he was still buried deep within her, her body limp with throbbing satiation, the rest of her filled with ecstatic peace.

Chapter 18

A tingling warning on her talent brought Ryelle slowly to wakefulness. She frowned without opening her eyes. She really didn’t want to be
awake—she’d been having the most wonderful dream. Then something heavy and warm shifted next to her and she realized it wasn’t a dream
after all. Her frown smoothed into a beatific smile as she peeked through her lashes to find Declan watching her with those fantastic blue eyes of his.

"Oh, wow," she mumbled, rather less coherently than she would have liked.

He grinned. "Good morning," he rumbled in a low, sexy, sleep-graveled voice as his fingers made delicious little forays over her skin.

"Good is too mild a word," she sighed, lifting a hand to run wondering fingers over the hard planes of his face. "I—" She cut
off the words
I love you
before they could spill out and chase him away again. With another sigh, she continued, "I’m sorry to say
it’s about to get a lot less good. Up and at ‘em, Master Chief. Your station is going to get company soon."

His easy, warm grin faded into wary hardness, his hand going still and tense on her abdomen. "The GenTec?"

"Closing in. I’d prefer a shower and clothes before I deal with them." She paused a second then gave him a lascivious wink and a smirk.
"Don’t mind if you go naked, though."

He ignored her, vaulting out of bed with an amazing amount of energy and masculine grace. Ryelle tried to sit up and froze with a groan, her entire body
muttering complaints.

"Ryelle? What’s the matter?" He leaned back over the bed, brow creased as he studied her.

She let out a pained laugh and rolled carefully to the side of the bed. "I’m sore in places I didn’t even know I had," she said
with a grimace, while she slowly pushed to a sitting position.

"Ah, damn. Honey, I’m sorry." He reached to help her, chagrin and a species of furtive humor written on his face.

"Don’t look so proud of yourself, McCrae," she retorted.

He grinned as he lifted her to her feet. "How bad is it?"

"I’m going to walk in a way that will embarrass the hell out of me," she said with a severe lift of one eyebrow. Then she let her
expression slide into a sly smirk. "On the other hand, if you want to join me in the shower, I won’t stop you."

It was a long shower. The end result was that she could barely walk afterward but had the petty revenge of watching him sneak back to his quarters in a
towel for clothes to replace the ones she’d shredded. He walked with her to main operations, a hand under her elbow to steady her gait and a
carefully blank look on his face. She tried to maintain a stern expression, but she was feeling too smug this morning herself and as her stride improved,
so did her sense of humor. She was fighting giggles when they finally stepped into main operations, but humor faded quickly when she saw the anxiety on the
upturned faces of the crew. For once, every single employee was giving the boss their undivided attention.

"Morning, people," Declan said in a level tone. "Scans show incoming vessels?"

Most of the faces relaxed immediately and turned to their displays.
Boss is on it,
she could almost read in their expressions and smiled at the
confidence they showed in their employer.

Pete joined them on the entrance deck, his face carefully bland. "A load of ‘em, MC. We were gettin’ kind of a bad feeling."

"Our telenetic is on it, Pete," Declan said with a reassuring half-smile. "How far out are they?"

"They’ve made good time," Ryelle answered before Pete could. "Should see them outside the ‘roids within the hour."
They’d be in weapons range of the station by then.

"Pete, notify the miners to pull back drillers, shut down operations, and get all personnel to our station." When Pete opened his mouth, Declan
held up a hand. "I know they don’t take orders well. Just tell them the GenTec are on their way in. That ought to motivate ‘em."

Pete’s jaw dropped and his eyes bulged for a moment, before he sputtered an incomprehensible response. Declan nodded as if he understood every word.

"Cease all wormhole operations and send out a general quarters alert. Nobody in or out of the station and all personnel need to be in safe
containment areas. Tell my mother that means her, too. Don’t mention the GenTec yet, though. I’ll do that before the shit hits the fan."

Ryelle gave him a narrow-eyed look. "Excuse me, there’ll be no shit on my watch."

Declan inclined his dark head with a lazy grin. "Your pardon, Telenetic. Retracting the shit comment. You wanna take ‘em on blind-folded or
with one hand tied behind your back, Sunfire Angel?"

"No tying me up, Declan," she purred, running her eyes down his long, delicious form. "I’ll get distracted."

Pete coughed and she glanced over to see him looking away with a red face and crinkles of laughter around his eyes. He caught Ryelle’s grin out of
the corner of his eye and wheezed "Off to work I go," before scampering down his ramp, muffled chuckles drifting back up from his work station.

"He likes you," Declan murmured with a rueful half-smile.

"And I like him right back. Jealous, darling?" she asked with a sparkling smile and a flutter of her lashes.

He rolled his eyes, lips still curved. "Status, Telenetic Soliere."

She made a face at him and sobered reluctantly, focusing on the task at hand. "All right, let’s get a count on these guys. They’ve got a
whole fleet of screamers, plus three larger ships about the size of cruisers. Screamers have a small crew, five max, but each cruiser has
about…"

She paused with a puzzled frown, head tipping to one side while she sampled the GenTec crews. Something was off. Something— "Oh my God,"
she gasped, staggering back a step from shock and from the attack. The
attacks.

"What? Ryelle, what is it?"

"They’re not here for me. They don’t need to capture a telenetic for genetic material. They’ve figured out how to make their
own."

"What?"

"Hang on," she said in a strained voice, concentrating on her opponents and thinking fast. There were three of them and while they were very
strong, possibly stronger than level fours, they still weren’t a match for her if she decided to come down on them with everything she had. But
should she? "Declan, they’re children," she whispered in an agony of indecision.

He swore viciously, his hand closing around her arm in an urgent grip. "How many are there? Can you handle them?" he asked in a crisp, tense
voice.

"There are three. And yes, I can handle them. They are very strong, amazingly so. How did they do this? They aren’t…aren’t as
mutated as the other GenTec. Declan, I don’t know what to do."

"You protect this station," he said in a sharp tone, his hand tightening in fierce command.

She threw him a disgusted glance. "No kidding. But I can’t kill children."

"What are they doing right now?"

"They’re fighting me. Trying to contain me. They’re taking turns. Practicing I think. Maybe that’s what the GenTec are after.
Practice for their telenetics, a test to see what they can do against a Fleet telenetic."

"And if they gang up on you?" he asked with a thread of tension in his voice that she recognized as fear.

"No need to fuss. They’re strong, but it would take a lot more than three of them to bring me down." She chewed on her lip, mind speeding
along faster than light. "All right, here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to keep pretending to be a level four and let them
think they’ve got me."

"Are you nuts?"

"I want them to board the station—"

"No sarkin’ way, Ryelle! Don’t even—"

"Listen, Declan. Those aren’t just children. They’re telenetic children. I want to see them for myself, talk to them. I want to see if we
can work something out." He stared at her as if she’d lost her mind. "I’ll contain them and keep the GenTec at bay. The station
will be safe."

"Safe. With three hostile GenTec telenetics in residence. You really are nuts. Why don’t you just talk to them over the com?"

"Because they’d still be with the other GenTecs. I want to see what they’re like alone, without their creators’ influence."

"Take them away and isolate them? Isn’t that what the Institute did to you?"

Ryelle felt the blood drain from her face and turned to give Declan the full force of her furious attention. "What the hell else would you suggest?
They aren’t here for tea and cookies, Master Chief. They may be as scared and lost as I was as a child, but they are attacking me with extremely
hostile intent. If they succeed here, they won’t leave a single soul alive, because you are witnesses to their newest strategy. This is a test. If it
works, they’ll start the war all over again, this time with a level playing field, telenetic for telenetic. I doubt these are the only telenetics
they have, but if so, you can bet there will be more soon."

His face tightened, eyes blazing blue fire at her. "I get that you need to stop them. I just don’t get why you’ve gotta do it on my
sarkin’ station, Ryelle. I’m responsible for these people. Bringing GenTecs on board is a risk I can’t accept."

She took a deep breath, trying to keep hold of her patience. "I promise you, they won’t harm this station. They weren’t going to anyway
until after they’d bagged me."

"I thought you said they weren’t here for you."

"They don’t need telenetic genetic material. But I think they still need me for training. These attacks…" She gestured vaguely in
the direction of the ships, sight swimming out of focus as she analyzed the sequence and pattern of the telenetic attacks. "They aren’t trying
to kill me. They’re testing, learning from what I do to counter their actions. They’ve started using some of my own techniques. They
haven’t had anyone to hone their skills. They need a teacher."

The word arrested her and she considered it for a long moment, not hearing Declan’s reply. Was it possible? It was fraught with risk, both in the
short and long term. But killing them all wouldn’t solve anything. She’d already tried that. "The GenTec want to come home," she
whispered, mind drifting down avenues built by years of fighting and then wielding political power.

Declan shook her arm, recapturing her attention. "Ryelle! Are you all right? What’s wrong?" His face was paler than normal, eyes dark
with concern.

She sighed. "I keep telling you, I’ve got this. They’re fast learners, but they’d have to get a hell of a lot stronger and quicker
to affect me. The only tricky part is keeping up the illusion that I’m just a level four." She peeled his hand from her arm and held it in both
of hers. "Please, Declan. Trust me."

"Goddamn it," he muttered, running fingers roughly through his hair. He suddenly noticed his people watching and straightened, face smoothing
into a hard mask. Stepping to the rail, he said with calm command, "Skeleton crew only. Everybody else, go to the nearest safe containment area.
Don’t forget a deck of cards and munchies."

There was a smattering of nervous chuckles as most of the people rose from their stations and rode the grav steps to the entrance deck, filing past Declan
and Ryelle with edgy, furtive glances. Ryelle paid them no mind, concentrating on her three adversaries with a frown. Just children. Damn those GenTec.

When most of the crew was gone, Declan turned to her with grim demand. "They don’t get out of your control. Got that?"

"Yes, Master Chief," she said in a bland voice. "Now hush and let me concentrate."

He moved away, giving her space while he dealt with the frantic miners and Mobulus HQ’s demands for information. The ships came on with ponderous
inevitability, the three child telenetics lobbing her back and forth between them like a new toy. She played the tiring level-four telenetic to the hilt.

When the ships broke out of the ‘roids and into open space between the field and the station, Ryelle was limping along for them, yielding one moment,
then battling them back in an act of desperation. It was a fine bit of theater, if she did say so herself, aided by their naiveté and inexperience. A
battle-hardened telenetic would have seen through her deception, but these children had had no such training.

By the time the ships reached the station, she was defeated, feigning exhaustion while they held her contained and immobile. The room was silent and tense
as the sparse crew and Declan watched a holo of the ominous array of GenTec ships descending upon them. The Mobulus station had no defenses, so they were
helpless at the feet of the GenTec.

As she had suspected they would, a midsized transport left one of the larger ships and headed for the station, carrying all three telenetics and a
contingent of GenTec soldiers. Declan turned from the hologram, staring at her with fierce blue eyes and grim features. She winked at him, lips quirking
just slightly at the edges. It was the most she could allow herself to move. He grimaced at her and turned his head to watch the transport’s
progress, his knuckles white where he gripped the rail. Ryelle sighed, wondering when he’d lost his trust in her ability.

She waited until the ship docked and the telenetics disembarked with their soldier guard. Once they were on the station proper, she shrugged off their
telenetic hold and turned on them, immobilized the group in an instant. Then she methodically destroyed each of the ship’s communication, propulsion,
and weapon systems. Some either fought or fled as they realized what was happening. She deflected any blasts and caught the runners, holding all the ships
until she had disabled them to the point that they had life support and little else.