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"`Zounds! I was never so bethump'd with words since I first call'd my brother's father

dad,'" snapped the cybot.

Cree looked around at the AIU. Thèbot was limping along, dragging its left leg and

hiccuping. The program was malfunctioning again. There had only been a few minor

glitches in Troilus' programming since the cybot had been put on-line ten years earlier,

but when one occurred, it was usually complicated to repair.

"That moronic `bot is dancing," Dr. Yul remarked, staring at the AIU as it headed for one the Keeper's sleep unit.

"I can see what he is doing. There is no need to tell me."

"Ì have very poor and unhappy brains for drinking,'" Troilus commented. "`Potations pottle deep.'"

Drewe snorted. "I wish you hadn't programmed him from that gods-awful Terran

writer, Cree. I don't understand half of what he says."

"You programmed thèbot?" Dr. Yul asked, turning a surprised face to Cree.

"I can deprogram him, too."

"`The daintiest last, to make the end most sweet.'" The cybot chuckled as he threw the pressure lid up on the Keeper's unit.

The Keeper opened his eyes and looked up into the smirking face of the AIU. "Get

stuffed, you hunk of molded plastic," he groused.

"`Sell what you can, you are not for all markets,'" Troilus swapped insults with him. It reached into the sleep unit and tickled Lt. Alexi Noll, the ranking Keeper, who let out a

string of obscenities that made the Med Off blush.

"Has he been infected with a virus?" the Keeper inquired. "Maybe you should run a diagnostic, Lona."

"I don't have time to worry about that right now," Drewe ground out. "I've lost the ABC Amber LIT Converter

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navigational beacon!"

"Repeat?" Cree asked.

"I've lost—" Thèbot started giggling madly then shouted at the top of it's voice: "Kam and Bridie, Sitting in a tree! K...I...S...S..."

Cree's brows shot up into his hair.

"I...N...G", the cybot yelled. "First comes love, then come marriage, then comes Bridie..."

"
That is enough!
" Cree thundered, pushing away from the command module. He reached for the plastiform, but thèbot skipped away.

"Pushing a baby carriage!" it finished. It hopped across the floor, twirled twice, burped, then collapsed in a heap on the floor.

"What the hell is wrong with our `bot?" Ensign Shepherd Paegan Thorne, the

Communicators Officer, asked as he climbed out of his sleep unit.

"Ah, Cree," Drewe said softly. "That's not our only problem." He looked around, his face pale. "I'm getting a systems-error in the Navigational console. My monitor is down."

"And there is a warning light on the life support systems array," Dr. Yul warned.

The Keeper, Alexi Noll, saw the flashing warning signal on his screen and spun

around. "Captain! There's a system-error blip on our landing thrusters. They are

disengaged."

"They're doing it again," Thorne, the Com Officer whispered. "The Resistance is at it again." He tried hailing FSK-14, but all he got in return was deep space static.

Cree's head snapped around. "Say again, Thorne!"

Thorne looked at him. "I said the Resistance—"

"That's what I thought you said!" Cree ground out. He shot up from the command

console. "There's nothing wrong with this ship."

"Sir, I have complete navigational console shutdown!" Drewe cried out.

"We're going to crash and burn," Dr. Yul muttered.

"They're not going to let us crash and burn with Terran women on board!"

"Type in the commands you know you need to get us back to the station."

"Our oxygen level is—"

"There is nothing wrong with the oxy level. Continue to monitor the targets and don't

worry about it!"

"I've lost everything," Drewe whispered. "Everything!"

"It's there," Cree growled. "I don't know how they sabotaged the screens, but the data is getting through. Just input what you know is correct and stop worrying about it!"

"How am I to know where we are?"

"Just set your course as you always do."

"Sir, I've got no visuals," advised Thorne.

"You will," Cree told him.

"Nothing is responding," Drewe breathed. "I can't—"

"Give me back control of this ship or I will start feeding on your gods-be-damned

penguins!" Cree bellowed. He glared at the Vid-Com screen closest to him. "Do you

doubt that I will?"

Nothing happened for a moment or two then the computer screens returned to normal.

Lona found out the ship was exactly where it should be; Thorne began intercepting long-

range communications; Noll test fired the landing thrusters and ascertained they were

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functional.

Cree glared at the Vid-Com and made a vow to slaughter the woman responsible for

what had happened.

THE TWO Ensigns slammed themselves against the corridor wall as the Prime

Reaper stormed past them. They had gotten a good look at Kamerone Cree's face and

neither would forget what true, deadly fury looked like. Both were silent as they moved

on toward the Defense Strategy classroom, but each kept looking behind them, watching

the enraged Reaper bulldozing his way to the Office of Operations. They saw others

scurry out of the Captain's way, as well, and hoped they never had the misfortune to be

assigned to one of Cree's missions.

Cree barged into the Ops Office and shoved a Shepherd Commander out of his way

before reaching across the counter and grabbing the Duty Ops Controller by the collar of

his blue uniform and dragging him over the top of the counter.

"I asked for a Defense Investigative Team to meet me in Bay 3 when I docked! You

had better have a good reason why one wasn't there waiting!" bellowed Cree.

The Duty Ops Controller's face began turning purple for he could not breathe. His

larynx was being crushed in the powerful hand of the Prime Reaper and he wet himself as

he stared into infuriated eyes that bore little resemblance to a sane man's.

"P...please, C...Captain," the terrified man gasped. "T...they will b...be...there!"

"Why the hell weren't they waiting for me as I ordered?"

"Your ship has been put off-limits, Cree," injected a calm voice.

Cree spun around, dropping the Duty Ops Controller, leaving the man coughing and

gagging his way back to the world of the living. The Defense Minister, himself, was

standing in the open doorway off the Office of Operations.

"My crew could have been killed." Cree walked up to the Defense Minister. He had

about as much respect for politicians as he did for the Resistance. "Someone tampered

with the monitors."

"Yes, we are aware of that, Captain," the Defense Minister conceded. "That is why no one will be allowed on Docking Bay 3 until Admiral Cree has personally hand-picked an

expert team to do the investigation. No one is even allowed down that corridor, as I am

sure you noticed on your way here."

"I sent instructions—"

The Defense Minister held up a hand to forestall his words. "We did not ignore your

request for a team to meet you, Captain. It was Admiral Kahn's decision to put the

Docking Bay off-limits." The older man narrowed his eyes. "Do you question Admiral

Kahn's command decisions, Captain Cree?"

Cree ground his teeth together and a muscle spasm began in his left jaw. He held the

politician's oily gaze, then pushed past him and stomped from the room.

"Cree is the most arrogant, self-important son of a bitch I've ever known," the

Shepherd Commander declared. "One of these days he's going to meet a tougher bastard

who will put his ass down!"

The Defense Minister nodded. "I've no doubt that will happen, Commander Inse." The

older man smiled nastily. "No doubt at all."

BRIDGET JUMPED as the door to Cree's quarters slid open and she looked up to

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see the man himself framed in the archway, his flight bag clutched in his right fist.

Slowly, she stood up, closing the book she held. His sudden, unannounced presence had

caught her off guard and she had no idea what to say to him. But from the look on his

face, he didn't appear to be in any mood to talk.

"Bridget," he acknowledged her in a tight voice before striding past her and

disappearing into his bedsuite. The door shushed to behind him with a finality that told

her he did not want to be disturbed. She barely had time to put the book she had been

reading back on the shelf when his quarters door shushed open again and a cybot hurried

through, injection jet in hand. Cree's bedsuite door opened, thèbot swooped in, and the

door closed. When the AIU came out again, one of its plastiform arms was missing and

its head was twisted backwards on its neck. Obviously, Cree had taken out his anger on

the cybot.

"Better it than me," Bridget mumbled as she started for the food preparation center.

"Where are you going?"

Bridget jumped again; annoyed that he could appear so suddenly to unnerve her. She

turned, swallowed the lump in her throat. "I was hungry," she explained. "Would you like

—"

"Food is the last thing I need right now," he snapped. He was stripped down to the

waist, his hair slicked back and wet. He was holding a wrapped package in his hand that

he lay down on the bar that separated the food prep center from the living area.

"Did you have lunch?" She knew he'd been on the station since early morning. Dr.

Dean had called to warn her.

Cree's mouth turned hard and he had to catch himself before he told her that it was

none of her business if he had or not. Instead, he shook his head then pushed the wrapped

package toward her.

"I brought this back for you," he told her. He pulled out one of the two barstools at the counter and straddled it. He laced his fingers together and fixed his gaze on her face. "Go ahead," he said irritably. "Open it."

Bridget walked to the bar and picked up the package. It was heavier than she had

expected it to be and she looked up at him with curiosity.

"Open the gods-be-damned thing, woman," he grated. "It's not a bomb!"

A faint smile tugged at her lips. He was more anxious for her to see what he had

brought her than she was to see it. She unwrapped the crumbled brown paper she

suspected was a grocery bag from Earth. As the layers of paper came unraveled, she

realized what it was she held in her hand. When she removed the last of the paper, she

drew in her lower lip between her teeth and a little groan escaped.

Cree's brows lifted with expectation. "Well?"

She looked up from what was in her trembling hand to the dark face of Kamerone

Cree. There was a childlike expression there that told of his fear of rejection.

"You don't like it," he said on a long, tired breath. He held out his hand. "Give it back and I'll—"

She ran out of the room, tightly clutching his gift to her bosom. He heard her sobbing

before the door to her bedsuite closed to shut out the sound. Staring after her, Cree sat

there for a moment, unsure what to do, knowing he had hurt her in some way he didn't

understand.

"Captain?" the Vid-Com intruded.

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Cree closed his eyes. "What?" he asked in a weary tone.

"Do you require anything, Sir?"

"No," he said in the same defeated voice. He pushed himself from the stool and headed for his bedsuite. His shoulders sagged beneath his tiredness and the day's disappointments

and he became aware of a niggling headache just over his right eye. As he was about to

enter his bedsuite, Bridget's door shushed open and she came out, clutching his present to

her.

Her eyes were red and there were tear marks down her cheeks. Although her lips

trembled, she smiled at him, then walked up to him, stood on tiptoe to place her lips on

his unshaven cheek. Completely unprepared for what she had done, he stood there

gawking at her, the place where she had kissed him burning, the blood in his veins

pulsing faster than he thought it ever had.

"Thank you, Captain," she said. She looked down at the delicate bisque statue of the Virgin Mary in her hand. "Thank you so much." Here voice broke as fresh tears pooled in her eyes. "You have no idea what this means to me."

Even with her eyes puffy and red, her cheeks streaked with tears, he thought her the

most beautiful woman he had ever seen. He ached to touch her, to draw her into his arms

as he had seen some of the Keeper crews do with their companions and mates upon their

returns from Terra. He longed to know what it felt like to press his mouth to hers, to taste

her, to experience the forbidden sensation of true sexual pleasure.

"Did you have a good trip?" he heard her asking him and had to dig his nails into the palms of his hands to tear his mind from the image of her lying beneath him, their naked

bodies entwined.

"We had computer problems," he found himself answering.

"Nothing serious, I hope."

Cree shrugged away the anger that had gripped him for the last eight hours. Looking at