Prime Selection (24 page)

The Prime doctor swiped a finger over the control panel until the ground sonar scans appeared on the monitor. He pointed. “See? There are the underground passages and rooms. They were reputed to be a natural phenomena and the Prime explorers merely adapted them. The entrance is at the base of a mountain not more than thirty kilometers from the ships.”

“That’s odd, Kerr. How did the cave systems form?” Nadia pulled up another screen.

“My readings show no tectonic activity … ever. The core of the planet is not and never was molten, but is instead a solid core of iron. This planet is more akin to a piece of a larger planet that had broken off and was pulled into the Ursa solar system as a satellite.”

Kerr frowned. “I don’t dispute the readings, Nadia. I’m just telling you what the early explorers said about the underground cave systems.”

“Let’s see if we can spot any evidence of carbon life-forms underground.” Nadia entered the search code and the results were immediate … and saddening. She glanced at Lia and Kerr. Their expressions of grief were a reflection of her own.

“They’re all dead.” Nadia refined the probe’s parameters. Yes, the readings were indicative of decaying carbon life-forms. “We need to go to the planet and see if we can figure out what killed them. Plus, I know Wulf will want to transport the remains back to Cejuru Prime for proper burial.”

Kerr’s expression was grim. “Yes. We must take them home. I would like to be on the away team.”

Nadia nodded. “You were my first choice. Lia can take charge of preparing one of
Galanti
’s storage bays for the receipt of the remains.”

Lia moved to another station. “I’ll contact several of the orderlies and we’ll begin now. Let me know when you send up the first group of bodies. I’ll consult with Wulf as to the proper Prime protocols for preparing the bodies for burial rites.”

“Kerr?” He turned away from the monitor to look at Nadia. “Pick your medical team.

I’ll take the Jod brothers from my department and contact Aeron to have him pick his scientific teams. We’re here, so we might as well document the current status of the planet. It doesn’t look as if anyone has updated the planet’s conditions since the Prime first visited here centuries ago and established this as a way station.”

“What are the surface conditions?” Kerr asked.

Nadia switched to a live view of the planet’s surface and accessed the probe’s up-to-the-second readings. “It’s the top of the day. The temperature is three levels above Standard zero. Atmosphere isn’t breathable.”

She hit several keys and another set of readings appeared. “The underground temps are warm enough. The facility’s atmosphere is unknown. If the Prime technology has survived, we might be able to get it up and running so we won’t need the survival suits underground. But we’ll prepare for the worst and hope for the best.”

Kerr nodded. “Will you ask Huw to come along? He is the best engineer we have in case the ancient equipment needs some work.” His tone had definitely been tentative.

And why shouldn’t it be? No one, least of all her, understood what was going on with Huw. The man blew hot and cold where Nadia was concerned—and his constant vacillation was wearing on everyone’s nerves.

Immediately after the attack on Cejuru’s dockside, Huw had remained at her side until she’d begun to recover. It was Lia and Kerr’s opinion the connection between Nadia and Huw had helped heal her more quickly.

Nadia knew it had. Even unconscious, she’d sensed Huw pouring his strength across their connection. He cared—but he didn’t want to—and that hurt.

For much of the time since then, he’d managed to avoid her. He stayed in Engineering and she stayed on Command Deck or in her labs. No one commented on the distance between them, but everyone watched them. But she’d sensed he always knew where she was and how she felt. One of the Jods had told her Huw had destroyed a punching bag in the fitness center after she’d made a trip to the
Leonidas
to visit Aeron.

Several times Mel and Lia had sought to talk to her about Huw, but she’d broken into tears. They’d comforted her and derided stubborn Prime males as a species.

The weeks confined to the ship had made her an emotional basket case. Huw’s connection was omnipresent—simmering in the back of her mind, burning in her lower abdomen, and aching in her heart. She could smell where he’d been as she went about her duties. When he called up to Command to speak to Mel or Wulf or even the helmsman, his voice sent a frisson of awareness across her skin.

He was there, but he wasn’t.

His side of their mental connection had been locked down since her recovery. So, she’d locked her side down also and mourned the loss of his mental touch, his energy.

But even with the telepathic lock-down, her empathy ran strong. Huw was hurting.

She was hurting.
Damn him!
He hurt them both with his rejection and was too damn stubborn to see it.

“No, Kerr.” Her tone was harsh. She patted his arm to show she wasn’t upset with him. “Cas Jod has an engineering background. I’ll take him and his brothers. We work well together.”

“I understand.” Kerr’s expression was full of sympathy.

She suspected the Prime doctor really did understand her emotional state. She’d heard him curse several times under his breath about Huw being an idiot. That was the general consensus among all of the unattached Prime males on the ship. Too bad Huw wasn’t listening to his peers.

Kerr continued, “The Jods have named themselves your protectors. They sing your praises to anyone who listens. There isn’t a Prime crew member in Gold who doesn’t know about your courage. They are calling you the ‘Warrior Goddess.’”

Nadia blushed. “I told them to stop calling me that.”

But deep inside, it had been that praise and support which had helped her move on as best as she could. She pushed away from the computer console. “I need to advise Wulf and Mel about our plans. They’ll probably wish to send a security team. Until we know what killed the survivors, we’ll need to proceed with caution.”

As Chief Science Officer on the command ship, Nadia had sole control of what scientific missions took place on planets they visited. Even with that unilateral ability to say yay or nay, she always consulted with the co-captains as a matter of courtesy. “After Mel and Wulf are informed, I’ll contact Aeron. Have your team suited up and in the shuttle dock in one standard hour. Will that give you enough time?”

“More than enough, Nadia. I’ll have no live patients to triage, just dead ones.

Determining cause of death and body identification will have to take place on the
Galanti
.” He shook his head, his golden eyes dulled to the color of aged Valerian scotch.

“This is so sad. Three planets with evidence of Prime landings. The last two, no one could have survived the crashes. This one, the ships hitting dirt-side had survivors, but none still live. With no more clues as to where any other Lost Ones’ ships might have gone, we are out of options for finding the remainder of our lost women and children.”

“Yes, out of options.” A small, selfish part of Nadia rejoiced.

Finally, Huw would have no more excuses to ignore her. He would be forced to face what grew between them, connecting them more and more each day despite Huw’s best efforts to avoid her as if she had a dreaded disease.

But had Huw’s rejection already done too much damage to her heart? Could she trust a man who’d ignored the very real evidence of the bonding between them?

Did she have a fricking choice?

Hell,
she
had tried to ignore the bond—will it away—but without success.

Once the mission had begun, Nadia had attempted “dating” Aeron. Several times over the last few weeks, she’d taken a small transport to the
Leonidas
and had drinks and dinner with him in the Officer’s Lounge. They’d even taken a walk on a Tooh 2 beach in one of the simulation rooms. When Aeron had kissed her, it had been a dismal failure on her side; gut-wrenching guilt had washed over her as if she’d been unfaithful. But the hunky Prime science officer had seemed pleased.

So, no, she had no fricking choice. The bond existed … period. And she’d be damned if she lived the remainder of her life celibate and alone—childless. Huw would have to man up—and he needed to do so sooner rather than later.

Nadia shoved her personal problems to the back of her mental issues-to-be-resolved shelf and turned to the two doctors. “Let me know if you need anything else, Kerr. Lia, ask Wulf or Mel for whatever help you need.” She left the lab’s computer room and took the lift to the Command Deck.

When the lift doors opened onto the command level, her heart stuttered. She clenched her teeth in order not to cry out as a piercing pain traveled over her body and concentrated over her right ovary. It was all she could do not to hunch over with her arms wrapped around her lower abdomen.

The anguish wasn’t even hers—it was Huw’s.

He sat with Mel and Wulf. The trio stared at the forward monitors that displayed a magnified view of the two ships on the planet’s surface. Grief. Anger. Frustration.

Confusion. Guilt. An olio of emotions, all emanating from the man who denied the link between them.

Huw turned his head. He’d sensed her. His golden eyes blazed with some hard-to-nail-down emotion for a split second before he lowered his dark lashes and turned back to face the screen. The darker emotions overtook him once again, but became muted as if he knew he’d hurt her.

Dammit all!
Rejected again!
It hurt as much now as it had the first time he’d shut her out.

Mel swiveled in her seat and smiled, a showing of support and encouragement.

Nadia was sure Mel would want to “talk” later about Huw and his “issues” once again. It was a talk Nadia didn’t want to have. Both Mel and Lia had urged her to be patient—that Huw would come around eventually. She’d gotten the impression her friends weren’t telling her everything they knew about the whole bonding process.

Fine. Whatever. Huw might “come around,” but Nadia didn’t want mere acceptance as if she were the consolation prize in some damn contest. She wanted him to love her— unconditionally.

Yeah, I’m stupid. Love sucks.

“Nadia? What do you have to report?” Mel asked, waving her closer.

Wulf and Huw turned their chairs, waiting to hear what she had to say.

Nadia concentrated on presenting a succinct report to Mel and Wulf and keeping her hungry gaze away from Huw. Everything in her wanted to go to him and be held, comforted, and loved. Her head told her not to be silly.

“There are no carbon life-forms alive or dead on the ships themselves.” Huw’s feelings of hope at the news washed over her like a warm, gentle wave. “I located the underground fortifications.”

Nadia moved to her station on the Command Deck and put the ground sonar images up on the monitor and paralleled a live view of the mountain under which the complex sat. “As you can see, the underground passages and rooms are quite extensive. The entrance to the complex is here, approximately thirty kilometers from the downed ships.”

She used the laser pointer and circled the area on the live surface view.

“Anyone alive down there?” Wulf voiced the question on every Prime-male-on-the-Command-Deck’s mind.

Nadia took a deep, painful breath past the constriction in her throat. “No.” Huw’s low moan of pain became a sharp ache in her heart. “I’m deeply sorry. Just bodies.”

Mel clasped Wulf’s hand. He nodded. “Thank you, Nadia. It was too much to hope for. We must take the bodies home to Cejuru.”

Nadia avoided looking at Huw although she felt him beating on her shields.

Now he wants to speak mind-to-mind.

Mel and Wulf looked between the two of them, frowning.

Shit, they felt Huw’s telepathic attempts to break her shields. Let him try. She’d built them stronger over the past five weeks. The emotional hurt from constant rejection was a powerful building block.

“Dr. Lenke and I had already discussed that very topic,” Nadia said. “His and my teams are preparing now. We’ll bring the remains to the ship for transport home. I also contacted the
Leonidas
and asked Commander Ard to meet me on the planet with an away team of his own choosing. Aeron and I will do a quick mapping and assessment of the planet to update Alliance and Prime Commands’ records—and of the complex for the Alliance Space Archaeology Institute. If all environmental systems are operational, the fortifications might be usable for military outposts in this region and definitely would be important to add to the study of early Prime space exploration.”

“Yes, I agree.” Wulf stroked a finger down Mel’s arm. “We’ll send a security team along—just in case.”

“I anticipated that. While Aeron’s and my people do the scientific assessment, Dr.

Lenke’s team will recover the bodies for transport to the ship and attempt to determine their causes of death and make preliminary identifications if he is able. Lia is preparing a storage bay for the bodies.” Nadia left her station and walked to the lift. “I’m meeting my away team in the shuttle dock in under a standard hour. I’ll stay in constant contact from the time we hit the surface.”

“I’ll go with the away team.” Huw’s low, rumbling voice echoed around the abnormally quiet Command Deck.

Nadia looked at Mel and Wulf. “I already have engineering covered.”

“Who?” Huw moved to stand in front of her, his hands fisted at his side.

His aura read as angry—and jealous.

She allowed a tiny bit of satisfaction to cross her mind before shutting it down. Just because he’d shown jealousy over her trips to visit Aeron and over this situation didn’t mean he’d changed his general mind-set about what constituted a real bonding.