Deviation (24 page)

She'd been very wrong.

And since David knew that she was aware of his research, Reesa was certain he would try to kill her.

"The Balor is already in route to Mars." Matthew was completely unruffled by his brother's irritation, apparently unaware of the glare he sent toward Reesa. "You'll join us shortly."

David's scowl only deepened as he thrust a metal case toward Matt. "Keep her calm. As little stress as possible."

Matthew squeezed her shoulders in a reassuring sort of way and she relaxed. Being married would protect her from the Novo Femina. Being married to the most powerful man in the galaxy would protect her from the Makeem, and by extension, hopefully David, too.

"Come," Matthew murmured to her ear. "The Fomorri are settled and ready to depart."

Reesa was led up the gang plank and to a private room in the Io. Matt deposited her into a chair, taking the time to strap her in. She watched him set David's metal case on the floor and heard the snap of magnetics latch it down.

"Reesa," he said when he was finally settled in the chair across from her. "I don't like heading into battle without a plan."

"I know."

The ships engines were a gentle rumble underfoot and she felt when they lifted off. It was far smoother than the Lothogy. Reesa could completely understand his pride in this ship. The Lothogy was supposed to be the most advanced Field Arc vessel around, but obviously the Borden Company had surpassed it. She wondered why he hadn't presented it to the public yet.

He smiled after a moment. "Then you know we have approximately three hours to come up with one."

She smiled back, but only faintly. "Plenty of time."

"The Fomorri are very good at what they do," Matthew continued. "You can count on them to locate Kate and get her but ... they will need a considerable distraction while they do so. With this attack from the Makeem the temple will be in serious lock down."

"No."

He stopped and hiked an eyebrow in surprise.

"The Temple will be evacuated," Reesa said. "Celeocia has the Citadel ... a ship just above Mars, much like the Balor. It's more secure. She would have ordered the evacuation already and headed for the ship."

"I would ask you how you know," Matt gave her a quirky smile, "but I already know the answer."

"The Citadel will be harder to get into," she frowned as the warning lights came on.

He glanced at the revolving blue light and explained. "We're entering the wormhole."

Reesa did her best to ignore the idea of wormhole travel. It was still extremely dangerous, or at least she had written it that way. One out of sixty entries was unsuccessful. They met with some disaster or another, be it antimatter disc failure or space weather patterns or even a stray particle that entered at the same moment as a ship.

It had taken an extremely long time to come up with her personal version of interstellar travel and she suddenly wished she'd relied more heavily on light speed. But she could still hear the scientists grumping about the improbabilities of light speed. It took something like a hundred years of constant acceleration to reach light speed, which would eat up so much fuel that you wouldn't be able to go anywhere. Wormholes, she'd been assured, were the most probable version of interstellar travel.

Unfortunately, wormholes were unpredictable. They collapsed any time matter entered them, which was, of course, why Reesa had created antimatter discs to sort of trick the pesky wormholes into thinking nothing was there. Inasmuch as a wormhole "thought." To be honest, she only vaguely understood the science behind her novels. Most of her research was done through the internet and approaching scientists for help. When it came down to the final edits, however, she'd always reminded her science friends that they were delving in fiction.

Reesa felt her stomach flip and did her level best to focus on Matt's face. Matt's handsome, calm face. Arrogance or confidence, or maybe both, leant his features a passive and serene look. He had no doubts in his mind that they would reach the other side of the wormhole.

"Well," he said after a moment. "We do have one thing working for us."

She tilted her head, wordlessly watching him and trying to adopt his demeanor and confidence.

"We have you," he strummed the arm of his chair. "You mentioned that Celeocia is searching for patient zero."

Reesa perked, fully alert now, "She is."

"Let us see if we can't work that to our advantage."

"You want to bluff?"

"No," Matthew grinned at her. "No, I want
you
to bluff."

***

Something sharp pinched at his jugular and Hedric jolted awake. Without thought or preamble he shoved himself upright and took stock of his surroundings. The metallic room spun three times in his vision before he was able to concentrate.

He was on the Lothogy.

How had he gotten on the Lothogy?

Jellison was kneeling just beside him, frowning and scrutinizing him at the same time. "Quiet Cap'n," the soldier said. "I was under orders to keep you drugged."

"What?" Hedric's temper flared. "By who?"

"Myron, sir," Jellison glanced at the door.

Hedric swore. "Mutiny."

Hedric's fingers did an involuntary twitch. Blasted Myron and his heroic need to get Kate home, the twit wasn't Mesa and never would be. She was no concern of theirs.

"I'm also supposed to keep you away from Kate."

His mind went to static for a moment.

What if Myron was so adamant about Kate because he'd been in love with Mesa? What if this was the poor man's way of keeping Mesa alive.

Jealousy grabbed him full force.

"Where are they now?"

"Checking the damage on the ship," Jellison reported. "Freeman's setting the perimeter. Keats is with them."

"Good. Let's get armed. This has gone far enough."

Jellison grunted agreement and helped him to his feet.

***

Kate hovered close to Myron, trailing him around the ship and trying hard to ignore how much he looked like Ben. The Martian jungle hung heavy around the crash site, massive rounded leaves making a broken canopy overhead. There was a hole in the leafage above where the ship had touched down, allowing the late day sunlight to warm them.

It was insufferably hot.

Apparently the perimeter around the temple regulated the temperature because outside, in the thick of Mars, the heat and moisture pressed heavy on all sides. It sunk into her skin, beaded through the air so thick she could feel herself breathing. Sweat soaked and uncomfortable, Kate glared up through the branches. The sky was a heavy blue color, almost as oppressive as the heat, with bright clouds drifting lazily through the atmosphere. There were no signs of the Plexiglas orbital panels from here, and it looked so similar to Earth that her heart ached.

She looked down and saw a bright yellow flower, obnoxiously large, tangled in a mesh of purple leaves and frowned.

Not Earth.

Her eyes found Myron as he was yanking something out of the hull of the ship. He'd stripped to the waist and his muscles were doing something nice as he strained against the branch stuck in the Lothogy's undercarriage. He was fairly aglow with sweat, dark eyes focused on the repair and as appealing as he was she frowned some more.

Not Ben, she thought. Close, but not Ben.

Ben would have been humming something obnoxious like the Oscar Meyer song as he worked. He knew how easily little songs like that could catch in her head and she couldn't get rid of them for days. Sometimes she thought he did it out of spite.

Ben also didn't have a half-moon scar making a crescent around his ribcage.

An earsplitting crack jolted her out of her thoughts and Kate half-ducked. It almost resembled a gunshot, only there was a distinctive humming sound that followed. The left sleeve of her robes tore open as something whooshed past her. An instant later the tree line just ahead of her exploded with ripping branches and torn foliage.

Startled beyond coherent thought, Kate glanced over her shoulder.

Hedric stood on the loading dock of the ship, his weapon aimed in her general direction.

Myron cursed and tackled her, rolling them both into a crevasse between the ship and the ground. Then he was scurrying under the ship, one arm looped around her waist to pull her with him.

"Cap'n!" Freeman yelled from somewhere at their left. "I don't think it's wise to be killing the pilot!"

"You choose your side right now, Freeman!" Hedric shouted back.

He was closer now and she caught her breath in her throat. Myron froze, his arms tightening on her body and Kate made an effort to breathe softer.

He'd shot at her, she thought. The crazy man had actually shot at her.

Her heart rammed hard against her chest. The air was already difficult to breathe but in her panicked state it was becoming almost impossible.

"Side?" Freeman called. "What side?"

"His or mine!" Hedric's voice took on a guttural tone. "Either way, this mutiny is over!"

"Mutiny?" Freeman said. "Cap'n, you went nuts over there! You were shooting at civilians! What me and Myron did was a rescue!"

Two shots fired, followed by the humming noise and Kate's mind snapped to life.

Reesa had come to her about weaponry since she'd been in the military. Or rather, she'd come to Ben and Ben had helped her create a suitable weapon for the Field Arcs to carry. Bile seared the back of her throat as she remembered it.

R413. That's what she'd named it; handheld rail guns.

If she'd had a breath to hold she would have. She heard Freeman curse and saw a streak of movement toward the tree line. Several more shots, a crossfire if she wasn't mistaken, and Myron began to move. Carefully grabbing the holstered weapon at his thigh, he snaked deeper into the crevasse before he whispered to her. "There's a way through," he said. "When I say so, run for the tree line. Do not stop. If you trip, get the hell back up. I will be right behind you."

Kate nodded once and began to squirm under the ship, following his direction. The shooting kept going, Hedric and Freeman shouting at each other, metal smacking into trees and leaves and ship. She had to concentrate on Myron's hushed voice telling her where to put her foot, when to arch her back and how much space she had to maneuver in.

Mars might smell like honeysuckle, she thought, but it tasted like shit. Her left cheek smeared across moist dirt, welcomingly cool against the humidity of the planet. Were she not squirming her way under a space ship, she might have paused to enjoy the sensation, but a combined threat of a million tons of ship crushing her and Hedric's continued rant kept her going. She heard Myron's grunts of effort as he negotiated the tight space until finally they squeezed out on the other side. Her robes ripped on something and she felt a scrape against her back but kept moving.

"Hedric Prosser! You arrogant fool!" Keats' voice joined the argument and Kate faltered.

She pulled herself from under the ship and crouched beside Myron as he checked his weapon. From their new vantage Kate could just see the loading dock of the ship, half hidden under the smooth contours of one of the wings. They still had good cover, but the fight was more visible. She couldn't see Freeman but she could see Hedric, back facing them, with Jellison just beside.

Keats stood halfway between the ship and the tree line, and Kate caught her breath in her throat. His left hand was raised to prove that he was unarmed, his right arm was held securely in a sling, but something told her that wouldn't be enough. Hedric was far too pissed off to care anymore about who he was shooting at. He was a maniac with a big gun, she thought. And he didn't seem to care that he was shooting at the very men he'd served with for years.

Kate glanced at Myron and he met her eyes.

Kate had never seen combat but she had been a soldier. She'd dug trenches and trained in fox holes and conformed to that unspoken bond that fuses between people in uniform. For a breathless moment they communicated without words.

Myron knew it was pointless to confront Hedric. He knew that his Captain was lost, at least for the time being. And they both knew that Hedric Prosser would shoot them down if they revealed their position.

"This is insane!" Keats yelled.

"Whose ship is it, Alexander?" Hedric shouted by way of answer.

Even from a distance, Kate could see the shock on Keats' face. Myron whispered a curse. The moment dragged on, tense and unmoving and Kate's fear for Alexander Keats increased exponentially. The man had to know the danger he was in. He couldn't really fight the captain while unarmed, exposed and surrounded by a crash site.

"Now," Myron muttered and stood up.

Kate's feet were moving before the shots fired. Her left foot tangled in her heavy robes and she had to yank the fabric up, hiking it high over her thighs so she could run. Forcing herself to focus only on the run, the push of her body for the jungle line, Kate ignored the whoosh of something just past her left arm, the intensifying battle behind her, and just ran. When she reached the jungle line, Kate threw herself forward, jumping between two massive trees and ducking to avoid the overhang of vines and leaves.

As she leapt into the thick of the jungle she became suddenly and acutely aware of a gravity difference. Why she hadn't noticed before was beyond her, but when it took several extra seconds for her feet to connect with the ground again her mind tripped on the revelation.

Mars, not Earth, she reminded herself.

Realizing that the gravity issue could slow her down, Kate tried to keep from jumping. But it was a heavily wooded area and there were many plants, bushes, felled trees and other such hindrances that forced her off the ground.

The sounds of battle distanced. In her prime Kate could run a mile in just over seven minutes. She wasn't certain how long she'd been running and she was no longer in her prime so she kept on running, praying Myron really was behind her. Until her lungs couldn't stand it and her legs had pushed to buckling point and try as she might she couldn't hear Myron's feet behind her.