Factor (4 page)

Her blade was far too cumbersome for the close quarters. She dropped it and curled her hands into fists as a flickering Twist led the fake Cowl into the small confines of her kitchen.

Cowl’s voice was wrong as he crooned, “There you are, my pet.”

She blasted both men at the same time. “I am no one’s pet.”

Jianne watched the men shift on the ground as they tried to rise, so she shot them again. Cowl’s hood fell back, and she saw the same features that had been at the reserve. Whatever he was, his features were very attractive and his skin was luminous, but she still stood with her fists ready and her blasters charged.

He opened dark silver eyes and they crinkled in a pained smile. “He was right. You are impervious to us. Excellent. I look forward to meeting you again, my pet.”

She was about to ask what next time, when the four men shivered and disappeared. “Oh, that is not good.”

Jianne was still in a battle-ready mode when the real Guardians burst through the broken door. She swung her fists toward them, and the light whine of the blasters was loud in the sudden silence.

Cowl came forward. “Easy, Jianne. It’s us.”

With her name came relief. “They looked like you, all of you, and then they disappeared.”

Cowl frowned. “Did he remove his hood?”

She knew which one he was referring to. “Yes. He said something about me being impervious and someone being right, and then they shivered and were gone. If I had the relays up, I could have tracked the power signature, but I had to shut everything down to delay their finding me.”

Twist was surprised. “They were after you?”

“Did they take anything from the base aside from wires and camera feeds?”

Roil shook his head. “No.”

“Then, I would hazard a guess that they were indeed after me. Though I have no idea why.” She relaxed and dropped her fists to her sides.

Flare grinned, “Your armour is nice.”

“Thanks. It was a gift from a friend. She gets a lot of the latest tech and passes it on to me.” Her voice was light as she swayed in place.

Cowl stepped forward. “Are you all right? You look very pale.”

His countenance blurred, and she felt hands take hold of her arms. “I feel very pale.” She exhaled with a gust. “Where am I going to live now?”

The men around her shrugged as she was picked up by Cowl and carried back through the tunnels to the main seating area of the Guardian base.

Twist brought her a cup of tea and Roil was making some sort of luncheon.

She smiled weakly. “I had no idea you guys were so domesticated. You will make some women good companions one day.”

Flare looked at her with an innocent expression. “Some of us sooner than others.”

Her mind was tired, but she wasn’t stupid. “What is going on? The break-in today was just to get you away from here so they could come after me, but I am nothing exceptional.”

Cowl sighed and stroked her cheek with his thumb. “You may not have been exceptional before you came to Cadar, but now, you are something my people find most desirable, and we are both aggressive and persistent.”

Roil interceded. “Of course, Cowl has an image painted by one of your own people that foretells your destiny and his are intertwined. He had no idea how it would be possible that you were looking into his eyes, but there it is in the picture.”

“Picture?”

“On Yacaro, Charm’s mate is an artist, and she can paint your fate. Some folks ask about wealth, some health, but most want to know their true mate. I was no exception.” Cowl smiled and stroked her cheek again.

“Where is this picture?” She struggled to sit up. Armour was not meant for lounging.

As if he had caught on to her distress, Cowl started disarming her and removing the plates one by one.

When she was sitting in her bodysuit and boots, she finally started to unkink the muscles that had been tense since the whole thing started.

Cowl chuckled. “The picture is with the artist.”

“If the picture is with the artist, how did he know about me?” Jianne tried to move out of his embrace, but he hung onto her while Roil pushed the tray table toward her with a shy smile.

“Eat this. You look really pale, even for you.” He sat back and watched her with the attentive gaze of a Labrador retriever.

She turned in Cowl’s embrace and ate the omelette set in front of her. She drank the tea Flare handed to her and settled back when Twist brought in a blanket from his quarters. The four Guardians fussed over her like she was a combination of dear sister and precious treasure. She leaned her head against Cowl’s chest and breathed deeply. His scent reminded her of cinnamon and rich chocolate.

She heard them speaking in low tones about a secondary base, but there must have been something in that tea, because she didn’t know what happened next.

Chapter Six

Jianne jolted upright the moment she realised that she wasn’t getting any images from her feeds. She clapped her hand to her right eye and then removed it, checking to make sure that it was working…it was.

She slipped out from under the blanket that Twist had put over her and looked around the room she had woken up in. It was a small bedroom but perfectly suited to a one-night guest.

Jianne headed for the door, and it opened at her approach.

Cowl was elbowing his way in, his hands occupied with a tray. “Ah, Jianne, I am glad I don’t have to wake you.”

“Um, I am glad too. Would you like me to take that?”

He set it down at the small desk near the bed. “Nope. It is fine. I need to speak with you in private, so this is the best situation.”

She blinked. “Privacy? For what?”

To her surprise, he flipped his hood back, the heavy fabric moving with a snap. She stared at him, his dark features had a glowing silvery hue and his pewter eyes had a hypnotic cast. She took a step toward him, her hand reaching up to touch his skin. She curled her fingers into a fist and returned it to her side before she made contact.

“Why are you showing me your face?” She cocked her head and took in the clear purity of his features, all hard angles and delicate edges. If all of his species were this elegant, it was a wonder that they could walk the streets without being mobbed.

He smiled. “I wanted to see if you would react as I had hoped or as most do. I am very pleased to see that is the former.”

She frowned at the delight in his face. “What was I supposed to do?”

“Freeze in place. It is the standard reaction when faced with a Mah-Duh-Sai. We have a long-lasting hypnotic effect on most species, executed via the optic nerve.” He smiled.

She had to admit that the smile did have a weakening effect on her knees, but she wasn’t in danger of freezing in place. Overheating was far more of a danger for her. “Why am I not affected like that?”

He reached out and caressed her right temple. “Your vision bypasses the strictly visual and into additional spectrums. You can’t be chemically influenced by my pheromones to the same extent that other races are.”

She reached up to pull his hand away, but she kept her fingers wrapped around his wrist, the pulse under her fingertips was a slow and steady beat. “I am still affected, though.”

Sarnvil cocked his head slightly, stroking her cheek and rubbing his thumb along her lips. “How so?”

“Rapid pulse, generalized increase in body temperature, shortness of breath.” She bit her lip as the pad of his thumb moved to her jaw.

He leaned in, and his lips were less than an inch from hers. “I hate to tell you this, but those are not side effects of exposure to one of my kind.”

She blinked and tried to ignore the definite tones of arousal being rung throughout her body by his proximity. When his lips touched hers, she shivered from her neck downward. It was the first kiss she had had since before her time in Janial, and it erased all others from her memory.

When he raised his head, she was leaning against him for balance, and she said the first thing that came into her mind. “What happened to my scanning feeds?”

He blinked and frowned. “I must be losing my touch.”

She smiled. “No, you just cleared my mind and that was the first thing that came forward.”

He chuckled and raised his hood once again. “We have moved to the secondary Guardian base held for just such an event. You will need to change all your access frequencies to regain your feeds.”

She sighed in relief. “I thought something had gone wrong with my eye.”

“No, you are simply in a lined room that does not allow for signals to be transmitted or received. There is a signal being broadcast out of your mechanicals, and it took us a while to pin it down and deactivate it.” He gestured for her to have a seat at the desk.

She sat and lifted the covered dish on the tray, eating mechanically. “There was a signal coming from my implant?”

He sat on the edge of her bed and leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. “It was a beacon. That is how they were able to track you. They could locate the Guardian base easily enough, but the maze of signals you live in confused the issue until they got close. That is our guess anyway.”

“So, once they got close enough…”

“The signal led them right to you. Since I doubt very much that you had a tracking signal installed, I have to ask what kind of modifications have been made to the unit since it was put in?” Sarnvil’s voice was deep and concerned.

She sipped at the tea and swallowed. “The only mods made to it were done by the Guardian Cyber. I don’t think she would have planted anything.”

He scowled. “We will look into it, but if that is the only alteration you have had, it will have to be investigated. What was the modification?”

“A firewall for my increased activities.”

He froze in place. “You didn’t have a firewall. Your mind was wide open.”

The food felt like lead in her stomach. “What?”

“Your mind was wide open. Whatever protection you thought you had, you didn’t.”

Her hands shook, and she set the teacup back on the tray. “How about now?”

“Now, you are protected by your lack of connection. Are you feeling up to taking a tour of the base?”

She nodded, but her stomach was roiling. Jianne ran through everything she could remember about Cyber and her movements before she gave Jianne the
firewall.
Cyber had disappeared for twelve hours on an assignment. After that missing period, she had contacted Dispatch with a new program.

He slipped an arm around her waist and supported her as they left the shielded room. The moment that they left the enclosed space, light streamed around them. Jianne smiled as she recognized the pattern of light. “We are on the southern continent. Near Tarki.”

Sarnvil chuckled. “Yes. You do know your locations.”

“The previous set of Guardians had an assignment here. I saw it all through their eyes. That is how I have seen most of this world, through the cameras of others.” She wanted to run out and wiggle her toes in the white sand, but now didn’t seem the time.

As the light glittered on the water, she had a thought. “Did you bring any of my personal effects here?”

“Of course. We brought everything we could find, including your armoury. Very impressive by the way.”

“Was there a two-inch data crystal in my desk?”

He blinked. “We can find out. A more comfortable room is waiting for you, as long as you don’t mind sharing.”

The words surprised her, but she shrugged. “As long as I get to hog the covers, I am good.”

The hand on her waist clenched, and she looked up into the shadows that covered his features. She was looking at her new roommate.

Chapter Seven

A desk was waiting for her and inside it was the data crystal that Cyber had left for her. She pulled out her scanner and hoped that she was wrong. The unit hummed, purred and finally the crystal turned red. “Damn.”

The Guardians were standing behind her.

Cowl asked, “What is it?”

“A virus. I don’t know what it was designed to do, but it was probably a little nasty.” She lifted the crystal out of the scanner. “Is there a sealed-system reader around here anywhere?”

Twist stepped forward with his hand extended. “I will take it. I have a system that will do the job.”

She set the crystal into his palm, and he whisked off with it. Jianne looked around at the opulent bedroom and blinked, “Well, this is an improvement over my little underground hole.”

Cowl laughed. “This was originally supposed to be the Guardian base, but it wasn’t done in time, so the first teams took up residence at the more utilitarian base while this one was quietly finished and used as a resort for Guardians in the vicinity.”

Jianne blinked. “I thought that was a myth.”

Roil chuckled. “No. This was designed by the Cadar government to thank us for our protection.”

Flare grinned, “Even the Cadar aren’t sure where this base actually is. We have a shield that extends down the coastline. Nothing gets in or out without authorization.”

Roil stepped forward, knelt in front of her and pressed a kiss to the back of her hand. “We are very glad that you came out of the skirmish none the worse for wear. Cowl was worried, and he is a bit of a bear when he is upset.”

Flare executed a graceful bow, and he and Roil followed Twist out of Cowl’s bedroom.

Jianne got to her feet and started exploring while Cowl watched from his own desk on one side of the room. Floor-to-ceiling windows showed a lovely view of the bay, the white sand and the brilliant blue water.

A deck outside connected all of the bedrooms, and Jianne itched to put on a sundress and feel the breezes, but she was on duty. She was always on duty.

“Why do you look so depressed?” His hood was back, and he was looking down at her with concern.

“I was just thinking about how nice it would be to have a day off.”

Sarnvil caressed her cheek. “You are officially off duty until we get to the bottom of who is trying to sabotage you.”