Dark Solstice (4 page)

She reconsidered that thought once they’d climbed onto the shuttle. They were packed in in a nearly suffocating wad that made it clear the company ran an operation that routinely dismissed the safety of the prisoners they used as terraformers. She supposed they reasoned that the men had, basically, been condemned when they were sent to them, but that hardly justified such a complete disregard for their lives. They hadn’t been charged with exterminating them.

Beyond that, she shouldn’t have been there at all and it made her wonder how many of the prisoners of Phobos were like her—in the wrong place at the wrong time, or had just pissed off the wrong person.

Raathe’s voice came to her over the communicator once they’d been fastened down with their safety harnesses and then their ankles chained to the floor for good measure. “Panic will get you dead faster than anything else in this place.”

Chapter Four

The trip down to the surface of Mars was an exercise in endurance by itself due to the conditions and the time it took—hours of sheer misery. She discovered that was just the tip of the iceberg, however. When the ship set down at long last and the guards came around to unchain them from their seats, she saw as they made their way down the gang plank that they’d been brought to the newest construction site of the atmosphere plants being erected around the planet.

Their basic function was to produce green house gases to ‘artificially’ create global warming. Like so many of the ‘brilliant’ inventions of mankind, the human race had stumbled upon this completely by accident when they’d almost destroyed the Earth’s delicate ecological balance. Theoretically, it should work, but although that was the government’s prime focus in hiring the company and there were no absolute guarantees that it would end as expected, the company wouldn’t lose either way.

They were being paid to run the prison they’d built and also for the job of terraforming Mars. The factories they were building were either outlawed on Earth altogether or were required to spend tremendous amounts of money on cleaning up their waste byproducts to prevent further damaging the Earth. Whereas on Mars it wasn’t just ignored, it was
the
main purpose—in the mind of the sponsor—Earth’s government. Added to that, the company was reaping huge profits from the ores they were processing.

It was a win/win situation for them, resulting in astronomical profits—not just free labor, but labor they were
paid
to use, all the minerals they could mine and process for a clean profit, and the bare minimum of cost involved.

She should’ve considered that before she’d leapt to announce her discovery. One breath of what she’d found on Mars and the company’s profits in this venture would plummet—not stop altogether. They were being paid to act as jailors and no doubt would continue to be, but the profits from that paled in comparison to the credits they were collecting for building the processing plants and the profits from the ores and minerals themselves.

She could count herself lucky to be alive now, she realized, feeling coldness creep into her at the realization that it was just dumb luck—or, more specifically, she supposed, her own greed. If she hadn’t been so focused on making certain that she could claim full credit for her find and determined to keep it to herself until she’d written her paper on the find of the century, she would probably have had a convenient ‘accident’ on Mars. Her report had been intercepted, though, and the company execs hadn’t been as willing to soil their own hands with her blood—not so directly as to personally see to her execution. They’d deposited her in the black hole that Phobos Prison was and never expected her to see the light of day again—and she probably wouldn’t—but they could comfort what conscience they had that they hadn’t murdered her themselves. They’d merely silenced her by putting her where she couldn’t cause them harm and the prisoners would no doubt take care of the wet work.

She wondered if she would be alive now if not for Raathe. If anyone else had claimed her the night before, would she have survived the night?

She didn’t want to die. It was almost amazing what people were willing to endure only to have the chance to continue breathing for a little longer.

It wasn’t a question that had ever arisen in her mind—what she would be willing to endure to live, but she supposed it never really entered anyone’s mind until they were faced with death. At that point, they either accepted and endured, continued to struggle and fight for each breath no matter how torturous, or they gave up and prayed for death.

She’d prayed for it when she’d been so filled with terror she didn’t think she could bear it and yet now, as afraid as she still was of what she might have to face, a tentative sense of hope had arisen and with it the will to ignore pain, strife, and fear if she could only breathe a little longer.

She lifted her head to study John Raathe’s back at that thought, wondering abruptly why he’d stopped after he’d woken her that morning with every indication that he intended to reap the rewards of his battle the night before. She couldn’t have fought him off if she’d tried, and she hadn’t tried, not just because she knew it was useless, not even because she was more afraid of the pain he might inflict for her effort.

Without consciously acknowledging it, she’d accepted that she was perfectly willing to barter the use of her body to survive if that would gain her a few more hours of life.

He hadn’t accepted, though.

Why?

Was he toying with her? Had he devised some twisted sort of game in his mind to play with her to entertain himself?

Or did he have no motive but rather a lack of any interest?

The thought piqued her, scared her, too, but she found that she was almost more angry. Women were in short supply. Shouldn’t that alone make her tremendously desirable even if she wasn’t just to his taste? She’d never harbored the illusion that she was any great beauty, but she was still a comfortable distance from ugly in her own mind and, she thought, most men’s. She’d certainly never lacked for male appreciation. Far more men looked at her with at least a little interest than those who seemed oblivious to her.

Were men more to his taste?

She couldn’t recall any mention of a love interest of the iceman that was of the same gender. In fact, once she set her mind to trying to recall the details of what she’d heard about him, she remembered that he’d seemed to have a penchant for great beauties of the female variety. There’d been a number of women—models, actresses, sports and political figures—who’d been ‘horrified and revolted’ at the discovery that the man they’d taken as lover had turned out to be the iceman.

It wasn’t hard to resurrect the images of the women associated with the iceman and it didn’t comfort her. Ordinary obviously wasn’t sufficient.

Or maybe, considering what he’d had—some of the greatest beauties known to the solar system throwing themselves at him—her own lack of enthusiasm had piqued him?

It chilled her to think that might be the case, but she wasn’t certain, even now that some of the worst of her terror had worn away, that she could manage enthusiasm—acceptance was hard enough.

It wasn’t that he lacked physical appeal. Even as battered as he was now from the arena, he was a remarkably handsome man and if anything, his physique was even more appealing than before. He was leaner now than he had been before he was imprisoned, but that only seemed to emphasize the bulging, ropy muscles all over his body, defining them more sharply without the softening effect of the extra pounds he’d carried before.

Regardless, the fact that he now owned her, body and soul, intimidated her to a degree that made enthusiasm extremely difficult even if it hadn’t been for his history of violence. And that, in and of itself, was dampening to say the very least.

He paused when he reached the lock boxes that apparently held the construction tools and turned to look at her speculatively for several moments, as if weighing her usefulness. Finally, he picked up a coiled length of hose and handed it to her. It was heavy even with the lighter gravity.

She didn’t object. She took it, waiting obediently while he pulled out a leather tool belt and fastened it around his waist. When he’d finished shoving hand tools into every loop on the belt, he took another length of hose, slung it on his own shoulder and then grabbed a power tool of some sort and a bucket that appeared to hold rivets. Turning without a word, he headed across the slab. Rhea followed him, wondering just how useful she was going to be.

She didn’t even know what the tool was that he was carrying, let alone the purpose of it. He stopped beside a machine near one of the columns that had been setup to form a framework for the building that was being erected. Taking the hose she’d carried, he connected it to the machine and began to uncoil it toward a ladder leaning against the column.

He climbed it, uncoiling the hose as he went.

Rhea stayed where she was, tipping her head to watch his progress.

When he’d reached the second level, he connected the hose he had over his shoulder to the first and then stared down at her.

“Bring the rivets up.”

Rhea felt her jaw slowly drift downward in surprise. He missed it. He’d already turned away and was walking along the beam above her head, unrolling the hose he was carrying.

“Turn the air compressor on before you come up.”

Rhea jumped when his voice, carried by the comm. unit built into her helmet, sounded in her ear. Glancing toward the machine after a moment, she moved slowly toward it and stared at it. There were gauges and buttons all over it and she had no idea what any of them were for.

“It’s the switch that says ‘on/off’. Switch it to ‘on’.”

Smartass! Rhea crouched to study the machine more closely and finally found the switch and flipped it. The machine came to life with a roar that startled her. She leapt back. Her heel connected with the bucket of rivets Raathe had set down when he’d connected the hose and she lost her balance, sitting down hard on top of the bucket.

“I see you’ve identified the rivets. When you’re done resting, maybe you could bring them up so I can get started?”

Amusement threaded his voice. Rhea felt her face heating with a mixture of embarrassment and irritation. Pushing herself to her feet, she grabbed the handle of the bucket and pulled. It was a lot heavier than she’d expected. Raathe had lifted it and carried it as if it hadn’t weighed anything. Grunting, she managed to lift it from the concrete slab and staggered toward the ladder. She stopped when she reached it, debating whether she actually wanted to climb the thing or not and whether there was any possibility that she could climb it with the bucket.

She thought not.

On the other hand, Raathe was on the second level and she was on the first … by herself—except for the hardened criminals walking around her looking at her like she was a particularly choice piece of steak. That reflection was enough to convince her to give it a try. Grasping the bucket handle again, she lifted it to the highest rung she could reach, balanced it and then climbed a couple of rungs. Bracing herself, she lifted the bucket to the next rung and inched up the ladder.

She was nearly half way up when she felt the ladder shift. Her heart sprang into her throat, visions of slamming into the concrete below her with the heavy bucket of rivets directly behind her instantly leaping into her mind. A moment of vertigo swept over her before she realized the ladder wasn’t falling. Craning her neck around, she discovered a man on the ladder behind her.

“I’ll carry that up.”

She stared at him, trying to figure out how he planned to manage that when she was above him on the ladder.

He managed it by climbing up until he was standing on the rung below her feet. Caging her in, he grasped the bucket and lifted it out of her way.

He was certainly no threat—no immediate threat in any case since neither of them could survive without their suits, but Rhea was still unnerved. At any other time or place, she might have thought chivalry had prompted him to help her. Now, she knew better.

Kyle Justice felt something when Rhea turned to look at him that he sure as hell had never expected.

He felt like he’d just been kicked in the head and kicked in the gut at the same time—breathless, disoriented—stunned. A vague awareness of his surroundings remained, enough to make him realize that his reaction couldn’t go unnoticed, either by her or anyone else if he couldn’t kick start his brain, and it still took an effort.

He didn’t know what he had expected when he’d decided to take the opportunity to try to make contact, but it wasn’t what had happened.

He supposed he should have expected it, he thought wryly, given that he’d gone catatonic when he’d watched her shimmy out of her suit and into the PEC. As brief as his glimpse of her had been, it had imprinted itself indelibly on his brain. His cock had stood at attention, and his brain had gone dead from blood loss. If it hadn’t been for the poor son-of-a-bitch that had discovered his suit was compromised, there would’ve been two dead men in the hanger, because it had taken that to jolt him back to his surroundings.

He couldn’t recall the last time he’d seen a real, living, breathing woman that flawlessly, beautifully formed—if ever. She was almost as perfectly rounded and curved in all the right places as a sex doll—except real, living flesh and blood woman.

And he still hadn’t expected to discover that the face that went with that sinfully womanly figure would rock him back on his heels. He managed after a moment, though, to gather his wits enough to try to hide his reaction.

He wasn’t altogether certain what to make of Raathe, but he knew he wasn’t a man to take lightly and it was clear Raathe didn’t want anyone getting any ideas about Rhea.

Raathe, Rhea discovered when she looked up, had crossed the beam once more and was staring down at the two of them, his hands on his hips. She couldn’t see his face for the reflection off his face plate, but she didn’t need to. His stance was enough to assure her he wasn’t pleased.