Adira's Mate (4 page)

“
By
the gods.”
She went pale; she knew she had, because she had felt the blood leave her face.
“I. Oh my.”
She guessed she really was that naïve,
because she hadn’t believed her people were that bad. “They’re even worse than
I thought.”

“
Nothing compared to how they
behaved in your facility. How is it you run the place, if the markings on this
crawler are to be believed, and yet you had no idea of all they were doing
there? Do you never go there?”

“
The last time that I visited was
eight months ago. The woman that was in one of the cells with you wasn’t there,
and nothing seemed out of place. I run the
Imarian
medical facilities, so I oversee all of them on the planets. The facility where
you were, they were supposed to be testing vaccinations against an illness that
plagues our people.”

“
Uh-huh,” he grunted. Shifting in
his seat he let out a breath, took a look at the console, then returned that
suspicious gaze to her. “Do you have a name? Or should I continue to call you
Doctor for the balance of our time together?”

“
Adira
.
Most people call me
Adi
.” Well, those that weren’t her subordinates. “So you
can call me whatever, I suppose.” As long as he didn’t call her bad names, that
was. He was already putting her race to her as an offensive name.

“
Adira
,” he said slowly, like he
was tasting
it. “Pretty name,” he told her. Leaning his head
back against the seat, he crossed his arms over his chest and let out a breath.
He really didn’t look all that comfortable.

“
Thank you,” she said as she
watched him. “We will be on autopilot for another two hours. If you want you
can go and catch a nap in the bunk. You have the controls locked out, so you
might as well get comfortable while you can, right?”

“
This is only the first leg of the
trip. We’ll be making a turn in two hours to continue on for the balance of our
trip together. I’ll need to unlock the controls for the adjustment before
resetting them back to autopilot. The turn needs to be made manually, though,
because it will be through an asteroid belt, another tactic to lose anyone that
may or may not be following us.”

“
Smart.” She had to give it to
him, the man was exceptionally intelligent. “Well, then, if you don’t mind I’m
going to close my eyes for a bit.” She needed to try to figure out how she was
going to survive this.
Or at the very least
try
to
survive.

When he didn’t say anything, she
took it as a sign that he didn’t mind if she dozed off.

Chapter Four

She woke at the brush of skin to
her arm. “I’m taking the lock off,” he said. “You need to move to the other
seat unless you think you can navigate this field.” Pulling back, he looked
down at her with his unusual eyes and waited for her answer.

Her arm tingled where he touched
her, and again she had the oddest sensation of something just out of reach. She
was missing something but, at the moment, there wasn’t time to examine the
thought. “No. No I can’t navigate this field. I’m a decent pilot but I’ve never
been able to handle asteroid fields.” She shifted slightly so that she could
rise. “How are you feeling? Any better now that your knee has been popped back
into place? By the way, what is your name? I’ve told you mine, but I didn’t ask
for yours.”

He moved back a step to allow her
to switch seats. “It’s swollen to twice its normal size, throbbing with every
beat of my heart, and aches like I’ve been on a twelve day hike uphill.” He
eased into the chair she’d vacated, and adjusted it for his longer legs. “
Fintan
,
Fintan
Daykin,” he said
with a look her way before he took the controls. “You may want to buckle in, as
the crawler’s artificial gravity may not always keep up with what’s needed.”

“
Do you want a cold pack for it?
And I’m fine with the
grav
shutting off. It’s not the
first time I’ve been banged around my craft. Give me two minutes and I can bring
back a cold pack for your knee. That should help a bit with the pain,
Fintan
.” His name flowed like honey off of her tongue; she
liked the way that his name sounded as she said it, liked the way that it felt
to say it.
Odd.
Very odd, indeed.

“
Be quick about it. There are
satellites around here that I really don’t want spotting us sitting on the edge
of this field.” He was making some other adjustments on the panel and buckling
himself into the seat.

Once she got his acceptance she
moved quickly, grabbing a cold pack and an additional one to put in the console
cold keeper for later. She passed him one and explained to him that the second
one was for later. Once she was buckled in, she looked over to him. “Are you
sure that you’re going to be okay with the flight through this field? Is there
another way?”

He set the one pack aside and
looked to her. “Do up your safety harness,” he said, not a request that time
around. “I’ve trained in this asteroid field numerous times. Usually not in
something as slow and clunky as a crawler, but at least at the speeds we’ll be
going the chances of crashing are greatly diminished. Hold on, and try not to
throw up all over the controls if the need arises.” Reaching out, he hit a few
buttons,
then
shoved the speed controls into the fully
open position. She was pressed back into her seat as the artificial gravity
lost out for a moment.

Adira
let out a yelp. She couldn’t
help it. Her hands clenched the arms of her seat and she watched the view panel
closely, until the first near miss. She closed her eyes. Oddly enough she
was trusting
this man to keep them safe, another clue for
her already overtaxed mind, something she was missing.

An odd sound had her peeking over
his way. He was laughing, actually laughing as he manned the controls to dip,
swerve, and roll through the field. It sounded rough to be sure, like he hadn’t
laughed in a long time, but the joy on his face was nearly as big a shocker as
the laughter had been. He was enjoying himself. She took in the intense gleam
in his eyes, the excitement,
the
sheer joy in his
laughter. He was in his
element
.“
I
can’t believe that you are enjoying this,” she blurted. She paused and cocked
her head to the side. “Wait, you said you trained in this field before. I can’t
believe your people were this close to our borders.”

“
It’s been a long time since I was
here personally, but we all train in this field. Because the asteroids move and
shift around it’s the best place to learn to anticipate the absolute worst
possible thing in battle. We’ve been using this field as far back in our
history as I could find for training. It’s been moving steadily closer to the
Imarian
border, though, so soon enough we’ll lose it until
it comes back around. According to records, it’s on an eighty year loop. It spends
about fifty years in our system, and thirty to thirty-five in yours. No one has
any idea why, or how it’s been pulled along, or what causes it to turn on its
path, but it does. Unfortunately we’ll lose it for a time, so our newest pilots
won’t gain the very up close and personal experience of this.” He sent them
into a roll that dipped under a big asteroid before he sent them up between two
that were coming together much too fast for her liking.

She frowned thoughtfully. “So
there are times when our worlds are closer together than they are currently,
right?” When he sent them spiraling, she let out a cry of shock and put her
hand on the console before her.
“Mercy.”
She was
shaking slightly. “Please tell me that we are almost out of the belt, Fin?” She
shortened his name without even consciously thinking of it.

“
Every forty years our worlds
synchronize up for about a month when they are furthest from our suns. It’s the
only time that the satellites can pick up the glow from the planet in the
opposing galaxy. To you or I
it’s
still many weeks of
travel, but in the grand scheme we’re close enough to touch.” He sent her a
look right as he did another maneuver that had the artificial gravity going
out. “We still have another fifteen minutes in here. We’re going through at the
smallest point of the field. The widest is over two hours to get through. You
should try and relax,” he told her. Another quick push to the controls had them
skimming along one of the asteroids as he finally returned his gaze to the monitors.

“
I’m trying.” She let out a breath
and nodded. “I’m trying, I swear I am.” She began to try to calm her own mind.
Forced
herself
to go to that tranquil place inside of
herself and finally did just as he instructed, soothing herself.

“
Better, but I’d recommend keeping
your eyes closed for this next part. If that upset you, you won’t like what’s
coming next.” She heard him flicking switches. Then they were swaying, the only
word she could use to describe the way her body was rocking slightly side to
side. Again he was testing the extent of the artificial gravity of the crawler.
Then came more loops and spirals, and there went the gravity with her upside
down in her seat. Or so it felt, given her arms wanted to lift over her head.

“
You are having a blast with this,
aren’t you?” She asked him as they flew through the asteroid belt. When there
suddenly were no more twists and turns she opened her eyes and looked to him.
“Fin?”
She realized what she did and added, “
Fintan
, are we done?”

He was looking at the monitors,
and after a moment more he nodded. “We’re clear of the field.” He punched in a
new set of coordinates and waited a few more minutes, then reengaged the
autopilot.

“
Thank the spirits we are done
with that,” she muttered. “Because I’m not sure if I would have been able to
continue without throwing up.” She was proud of herself for not doing just that
before they got out of the field.

“
You survived the asteroid field
better than most new pilots do. Their first flight through it is with a
seasoned pilot in the front seat while they ride in the back. Not one has ever
made it ten minutes without throwing up. I’d say that says something about you,
Doctor.” He pushed the seat back as far as it would go, lifted the cold pack
from where he’d set it, and put it on his leg with a curse.

She winced in sympathy. “I know
what you’re feeling. I crushed my arm when I was a child and had to have the
bone replaced.” She showed him the back of her arm. “I still remember how
painful that was.
As for making it.”
She shrugged.
“I’ve spent a great deal of time on crawlers.”
And other
ships.
With a brother like hers and a father like the one they had,
she’d practically grown up on a ship.

That earned her another look, one
she couldn’t read. He gave a shrug and relaxed into the chair. At which point
his stomach decided to make its demands known.
Loudly.
Very loudly in the enclosed space.
Fintan
put a hand over his gut and rubbed, but didn’t say anything.

“
How about I make us something to
eat? I have a kitchenette as well as cold storage. Come on. You’re hungry and
so am I. Or you can remain here and I will bring you back food? That way you
can continue to rest your knee?”

He sat up, shaking his head.
“I’ll come with you. Just to ensure you don’t make something that will kill me.
Your people seemed bent on seeing what foods would send us into
shock,
or on the edge of death.”

“
That’s them. Hopefully one day
you’ll see that they are not me.” She rubbed at her chest. She didn’t know why,
but his constant references that
lumped
her with her
people made her hurt. She didn’t care for that at all. “Come along, then. I’m
starving and you are as well.”

He grabbed her wrist in a firm,
but oddly gentle, hold. “I didn’t say that to upset you. I was merely stating
the obvious. They were feeding us things to see what we could and couldn’t
tolerate. They are
Imarian
, and therefore they are
your people. You say you didn’t know about it, and I’m willing to allow you
didn’t, since you seemed genuinely horrified by their actions. Though you need
to know, I have no
clue
what the
Imarian
meant by three dead. I knocked two men out, and left them tied up in a closet,
but I didn’t kill anyone.”

“
I killed one,” she admitted
without hesitating. His touch was intoxicating. She found herself wavering
closer to him. Was he drugging her somehow? That had to be the answer, because
she didn’t behave like this. She didn’t move closer to men. She didn’t lean
into their touches. “He had done horrible, horrible things. He had raped a
Craegin
female, not the one that had been in captivity for
so long. There was another, and he had hurt her, badly. I was able to smuggle
her out with a trader that trades with both of our peoples just an hour before
I met you. She’s on her way to your home world. I wish I’d been faster, though.
I will live with that for the rest of my life, the fact that I couldn’t save
her from the injuries that she survived at the hands of people that were
supposed to be protectors.”

“
You got her free. That’s all that
matters. You are sure,
though,
the one she is
traveling with won’t harm her? If she’s been subjected to even a little of what
I was she won’t be very trusting of whomever you chose.” His grip tightened for
a moment before loosening, his fingers trailing down her wrist to brush lightly
over her palm.

Adira
shivered in reaction to his touch.
She had never before felt such an intense and immediate reaction from something
as simple as the touch of fingers to her palm. “
I’m positive. The family that took her
are
pacifists. They don’t believe in war or harming another
living being. Besides, I saved the family head’s eldest son a few years
earlier, and I called that life debt in order to keep her safe. He will protect
her and get her back to your worlds.”

He nodded slowly, his fingers
lacing with hers and squeezing gently. “I believe you,
Adira
.”
With another squeeze to her fingers, he let her hand go. “I recall you
mentioning something about food, maybe? It’s been about two days since I last
ate, and I’m starting to feel it more than a little.”

“
Yes, yes let me get us some food
made.” Her mind had begun to spark when he touched her, his hand squeezing
hers. Vaguely, she identified the spark as
…
recognition.
Impossible.
She shook her head. “What is it that you can eat?” she asked, and offered him
choices on what options that they had.

He pointed out which items of the
Imarian
diet he couldn’t eat, and told her why. In
perhaps a little too much detail for her peace of mind. He did point out a few
others he hadn’t minded but since he didn’t know the names of the items, she
had to explain and even told him a bit about the foods. Once the meal was
prepared and they were sitting, she noticed that for the first time he didn’t
have the weapon with him. She didn’t know where it was, but she knew it wasn’t
in the kitchenette with them.