Jordan (11 page)

She might not be able to see, but she could hear shouting coming from the direction of the bridge. And George was barking.
He must be terrified.

Damn it. He wasn’t the only one. Had those objects sucked out all of the
Draco’
s power?

Mind whirring with fear, Vivianne reached the bridge. Gray had turned on a tiny portable penlight and held it between his
teeth as he helped Tennison remove a panel. Sean had snagged George, but the moment she entered he thrust the dog at her and
went to help with the generator.

Vivianne caught George and soothed him. Although she was full of questions, she didn’t want to add to the confusion.

Jordan wore the headset and spoke quietly. At first Jordan was calm, but then his eyes narrowed, his mouth tightened, and
she suspected he’d begun to issue threats.

Jordan tore off the headset, his eyes dark and furious. “No one’s answering. After we shot at them, I suppose they have their
reasons.”

She gasped in surprise. “How could we shoot at them? We have no weapons.”

“Sean rigged up a laser during his shift. When the objects appeared, Lyle panicked and fired.”

“I was trying to protect us,” Lyle said.

She bit back a curse. This was why they shouldn’t have left with an untrained crew. With no self-discipline or rules to serve
as guidelines and no plan to deal with a first contact with an alien species, Lyle may have doomed them all.

And they had no contingency measures to deal with hostility, either.

Jordan spoke as he leaned over his monitor. “Lyle destroyed one cube, and then the others put us in some kind of stasis field.”

“Stasis field?”

“An energy dampener,” Gray explained. “We have power, but somehow they’re suppressing it.”

“What about life support?” she asked, and set George on the floor.

“It’s on the fritz,” Sean said, “like every other system onboard.”

Jordan remained calm, but she heard an underlying thread of fury in his tone. “Shut down everything that’s still emitting
even one amp. I want to go totally dead.”

His orders shocked her almost as much as his anger. He seemed to be taking the blackout personally.

“You’re going to kill what little life support we have left?” she asked.

He nodded.

“Even our air scrubbers?” Tennison asked.

“If they think we’re dead, maybe they’ll lose interest.” Jordan’s tone was hard as a cut diamond.

He edged very close to her and whispered into her ear, his tone so low no one else could possibly hear. “If killing all our
power doesn’t work, you’re in charge.”

“What?” She spun around to face him, but Jordan had disappeared. Vanished. Had she imagined he’d told her to take charge?
Not that she needed any urging, but it was so unlike him to just depart during a crisis that her gut churned.

She floated before the viewscreen. “Without the ship’s scrubbers, how long can we keep breathing?”

Gray came up beside her. “All our instruments are down, but I’d estimate about a half hour.”

Sean joined them. “Air isn’t our problem. The cold’s going to get us first. Without the ship’s heaters, we’ll freeze long
before we run out of air.”

George whined, and she grabbed him from midair. The poor little dog was not adjusting to the lack of gravity. He pushed his
cold nose into her hand. Already the bridge temperature had dropped ten degrees, and she held the dog against her stomach,
sharing heat.

“Sean, Tennison, grab Darren in the galley and you three go down to the cargo bay and don the spacesuits,” she ordered.

“What about you?” Sean asked her.

“Go,” she snapped, and the three men hurried off the bridge while Lyle hung his head.

“Let me help,” Lyle demanded. “I caused this mess. I want to fix it.”

“I appreciate that. And you may get an opportunity to help.” George licked her hand and she cuddled him tight, his body lending
comfort and heat. “If the ploy to cut all power doesn’t work, I need everyone to help implement plan B.”

“Plan B?” Gray asked.

“We wait as long as we can to convince them we’re dead. If that doesn’t work, we turn what power we have back on—”

“And shoot them?” Lyle asked.

She shook her head. “We don’t have enough power for that. But I want to talk to them.”

“Talk?” Lyle shook his head. “If Jordan’s threats didn’t work, you think they’ll be afraid of you?”

“Maybe they’re afraid of women—you never know.” She tried to joke, but her mind was working furiously. She needed to reason
with them.

“Where’s Jordan?” Gray asked.

“He went to check on our power,” she lied, and her teeth began to chatter. “Lyle, please go find us some jackets and blankets
and hurry back.”

After Lyle tugged himself off the bridge, Gray said quietly, “I can turn on the power by myself.”

“I know.” She sighed and forced her jaw to open wider to prevent her teeth from chattering. “But Lyle needs to feel useful.”

“Captain?” Tennison’s voice came over the speaker system.

“Yes?” Vivianne answered.

“Darren’s giving his spacesuit to Knox.”

He was disobeying her orders to save his girlfriend. Vivianne didn’t like it. “Darren?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Next time you want to disobey an order, you ask for permission to do so. Is that clear?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Then zip Knox into that suit and make sure she knows how to use it.”

“I will. And th-thanks.”

She peered back out the viewscreen. “Th-they aren’t leaving, are th-they?” No longer able to stop her teeth from chattering,
she stared at the strange cubes. Had Lyle’s hostility caused this crisis? Would those machines be dampening their power if
they hadn’t fired first?

Very likely they were going to die. Freeze to death.

She’d heard that it wasn’t a bad way to go. But as her core temperature dropped, she began to feel light-headed.

To her surprise, Lyle returned with blankets, and he and Gray wrapped one around her and George. “Th-thanks.” In truth it
didn’t help much. Her fingertips had gone numb. Ditto for her toes.

As Lyle and Gray wrapped more blankets around themselves, she knew they had only a few more minutes left before they froze.
“Huddle close,” she ordered. “We n-need to share body heat.”

The three of them floated shoulder to shoulder, but without gravity they kept moving apart.

“This isn’t working,” Gray said.

“All right.” Vivianne had to do something. “T-turn th-the power back on.”

Gray and Lyle soared over to the panel. Gray’s fingers were so clumsy with the cold, it took both men to kick in the power—such
as it was.

“D-done.” Gray moved slowly. “You want power to go to heat or communications?”

She picked up the headset. “First we talk.”

Blessed heat would have been wonderful. But Vivianne knew it would take hours to get their core temperatures back up, and
she had a job to do first. “Tennison, Sean, report to the bridge.” She placed the icy headset over her freezing ears. “Gray,
route all power to my station.”

“R-routed.”

Lyle floated unconscious. Vivianne prayed she hadn’t waited too long. Her eyelids were heavy. But going to sleep meant never
waking up. “You are k-killing us. We have no heat, which we need to s-sustain life. If you continue to t-take away our power,
we’ll die. When you surrounded us, one of my crew panicked and fired at you. We hope you did not suffer a loss of life, but
if you did, I’m willing to give you my life in return. There’s no reason to k-kill others aboard who are innocent. I repeat,
you are killing everyone on this ship. If you do not restore power immediately, we’ll all die. We’re at your mercy.”

Gray crumbled against a wall. Vivianne swayed on her feet. Her plea was their last chance. Had anyone heard? And if they’d
heard, would anything she’d said make any difference? As the cold seeped deep into her bones, her mind drifted.

To Jordan.

Where the hell had he gone?

Some of us are looking to the stars.

—L
ADY OF THE
L
AKE

W
ake up.” Jordan had piled blankets on top of Vivianne, but as the
Draco’
s heaters kicked in, her flesh had remained cold. So he’d crawled under the covers to warm her with his own body heat. While
he’d broken into a sweat, her face remained pale, lifeless.

At least she was breathing. But her pulse was weak.

So weak, Vi’s sudden thoughts barreled into Jordan’s mind, and he was suddenly back in another of her memories.

A teenage Vi hadn’t eaten a good meal in so long her hands shook.

But the little kids were suffering more. This foster home was the worst she’d ever been in. With a chain around the refrigerator
and a locked pantry barring the children from food, they were all pale, skinny, and hollow-eyed.

“Haven, you’re the lookout,” Vivianne said to the second-oldest girl. “Let me know if anyone comes home.”

Haven shoved a bookcase over to the garage window, then climbed up. “All clear.”

“James,” Vivianne told a little boy, “stop crying.” Vivianne plucked a penknife from her pocket. “We’re all going to eat soon.”

She inserted the penknife into the lock. And twisted. But the lock held.

Vi’s real parents wouldn’t have called this stealing. The state paid for their food. Only, the greedy people who were supposed
to care for them never gave them enough.

Vivianne had become accustomed to the gnawing hunger pangs, but she couldn’t get her hands to stop shaking.

The penknife slipped out of the hole. Vivianne wiped her sweaty fingers on her jeans, then tried again.

The lock clicked. Yes!

“All right.” Haven let out a whoop.

Vivianne opened the cabinet where the foster parents stored their hurricane supplies. She had to choose something that wouldn’t
be noticed. After spying several blue boxes, she snagged one and held it up. “How about mac and cheese?”

The kids cheered. Vi helped Haven replace the bookcase, then lifted the little boy onto her hip. “All right. Now, who wants
to help me cook?”

Jordan knew children went hungry. But to feel the gnawing pain in Vivianne’s empty stomach had him angry and frustrated, and
puzzled at this new connection between them. They hadn’t made love. So what was going on? Had he been wrong about the Staff
causing them to share memories?

Whatever was happening, it was too late for him to stop caring about her.

He placed his fingers on her pulse. Still weak.

“Come on, Vi. You’re a fighter.
Fight.
” He smoothed back a reddish lock from her forehead, massaged her arms and fingers with his hands, rubbed her calves with
his toes. He’d give the
Draco’
s plumbing another five minutes to warm up, then he’d take her under a hot shower.

“Vi?” He breathed warm air onto her face. She remained still. Deathly still. He cupped her jaw and stroked her cheek. “We
need you with us. Wake up.”

Her eyelids fluttered and stilled.

“Vi? Please. Open those pretty eyes for me.”

Her lids fluttered again.

“Come back to me, Vi,” he murmured. “You can do this. Open those clever green eyes. Look at me. Just open your eyes and look
at me.”

Ever so slowly, she woke up.

Finally.

But although her eyes were open, at first she didn’t seem to see him.

“You’re safe.” He gathered her against his chest, inhaled her scent.

But then she pulled back, focused. Frowned. “Where the hell did you go?”

He was so happy to see that she was all right, he threw back his head and laughed. Then he reached for her again.

She pummeled his shoulder with her fist. “It’s not funny.”

Jordan couldn’t have been more pleased when his shoulder hurt. It meant she had strength. It meant she would live to fight
with him some more.

“How do you feel?” he asked, sitting up and tucking the blanket back around her.

She craned her neck to look out the cabin’s portal.

“Thanks to you, the cubes are gone,” he said, rubbing her forearms through the blanket. “Your plan worked. They left, and
the energy came back on.”

“Everyone’s okay?” she asked.

“Yes.” He pointed to her feet where he’d wrapped the dog in part of her blanket. “Even George. He wouldn’t leave, so I figured
you might as well get the benefit of his body heat.”

“Here, boy.” She wriggled her fingers and the dog crawled up the blankets to lick her hand, then plopped onto her chest and
peered right into her face. “I’m okay. But George is heavy.” She slid him to one side but kept him cuddled against her hip.

Her eyes fluttered closed again and she slept. Relieved, Jordan eased back beside her and slept with her. When she wakened
a second time a few hours later, their legs were twined, one of his arms resting intimately on her hip.

He got up and fed her some hot broth. Again they slept, and this time when she woke up, her strength had returned.