The Seek (17 page)

The boy sighed and held up his hands. ‘Easy, then,’ he said. He pressed his fists into his eyes as though they hurt to look at the image on the crystalair.

‘Part of our mission is to establish how entrenched the Haitites are on the star, and the nature of their claim, if any, to it.’

The room fell silent.

‘And the most important thing?’

Tyrin again, hand raised. She nodded at him. ‘No guns,’ he said. ‘Once we land, no guns. The atmosphere can’t take it. The chemistry. It will set the place off.’

‘Yep,’ Kyn nodded. ‘We’ll all be toast.’ God, that was going to make it tricky. ‘Really burnt toast.’

The Avengers in front of her nodded. She prompted again. ‘Any questions?’

Twelve heads shook back at her. They had been over all of this several times already.

‘Right then,’ she said, nodding at them. ‘Rendezvous in the loading dock in two hours. We leave in three.’

As was her custom, she arrived an hour before the Avengers and crew were due to appear. All the things that ever went wrong did so in the last hour. She wanted to meet trouble head-on.

Mission crew was always small. When there were so few humans, everything was done with the bare minimum. This mission would have Kyntura and her twelve Avengers; Krysto on munitions (she tried not to think about him); the navigator; and the replacement Explorer. Kyn sighed thinking about Tabi. As the Primo, Kyn would be in charge, but she didn’t like her chances bossing Tabysha around. Tabi was no Avenger, and she’d fancied herself Kyn’s mother for too long to listen to a word Kyn had to say. And damnit if Explorers were not the worst kind of trouble, generally speaking. So smart and so damn curious. It made Kyn’s blood run cold thinking about it.

She moved through the launch pod one more time, checking equipment and thinking through the details. Symon’s words from the night before kept playing through her mind.
We’re not done yet
.

Well, where the hell was he if he wanted to talk to her so badly? He’d better do it soon, because she might not survive this. Might be that none of them did.

Before anyone else arrived, she needed to invoke her ritual. Everyone had a lucky thing. A trinket, a routine. Hers was this.

She made her way up to the navigation bay, where the driver/navigator and the munitions Avenger sat. It was small, dark and quiet. She sat in the snug, cool navtube and closed her eyes, imagining how it would all play out. If she did this, it would work like she imagined. At least that’s what she had always told herself.

She watched it in her mind’s eye. They would land, and there would be no resistance there to meet them. They would make their way overland to the encampment, dig in for the handover and then lead the crew back to the pod so they could get away. They would be swift, silent and careful. They would all make it.

She tried to understand what was going on down on Eden 13. The intelligence was sketchy. The Explorer down there was optimistic, the atmosphere looked good. Of course, after twelve years of experience, the people of New Earth knew that you couldn’t rely on your first impressions. Some stars had seemed perfect, but the atmosphere took its time to reveal its secret. Kyn shuddered thinking about the stories of Eden 9, where two Avenger crews and nine Explorers has died of slow-release carbon monoxide fumes that seeped from the rocks as the five suns rose.

It was so far, so good with Eden 13, and the crew had been there a month. But Kyn had not wanted to share that piece of news with her crew. With Kyn, nothing was ever hopeful until it was in the bank, and there were more tests to run. When life dealt you the worst kind of disappointments at a tender age, you learned not to get your hopes up.

Chicken counting was for the birds.

Anyway, getting the environment right was only one part of the equation when it came to finding a new home. Juicy little unsettled planets were rare finds — almost every place was claimed by someone or something, whether as a home or a colony or a resource ground. And that was where the Avengers came in — their job, as well as protection for the Explorers, was gathering the military intelligence needed to let the Council make the right determinations. Who were these Haitites? What was their claim on Eden 13? How strong were they? Could they be negotiated with? Could they be overcome?

Kyn lay in the navtube with her eyes closed, vaguely aware that she still had 53 minutes until the crew and her group rendezvoused, and pondered the questions to which she wouldn’t know the answers until she touched down. She breathed deeply. This part was important — it was like yoga, her mental preparation. She liked to lay it all out; all the knowns and all the unknowns, so she could hold them all in her head unconsciously and let her body take over at the moment the mission went live.

There was nothing in all the universe that Kyn trusted like she trusted her body.

She breathed deeply, separating out the scents of life in deep space. That cool disinfectant aroma. She knew the pod would have been sterilised prior to being prepared for the mission. There were bugs in deep space that would have made mince meat of the petty choleras and malarias of planet Earth. The plasticky cloy of the syntak interior. It was a hard smell to get used to, but recycling was the lifeblood of new Earth. She inhaled again, deeply, beginning the process of turning the reins over from her mind to her body. What else was there? Something spicy and sweet, a warm and somehow familiar smell…Kyn’s eyes popped open as she felt something soft brush her lips.

Her hand snaked out of its own volition and captured the offending finger, twisting it backwards to snapping point before her eyes focused on the person it was attached to. ‘What are you doing here?’ she barked at Symon.

He pulled the finger from her grasp, and rasped in that sweet growl, ‘That’s my line, Kyn. You’re in my navtube.’

Kyntura swung out of the tube, having had just about enough of the people from her past determining to get in the way of the job she had to do. It was only when she was close enough to Symon to rip his throat out that she focused on him properly. He was dressed in full Navigator Purple, and she saw that he was very senior and well decorated. So why was he flying this pissy local mission, this…taxi run?

‘Your navtube?’ She knew what was coming, but she still had to ask.

‘Yep.’ He grinned at her, showing even white teeth. Now how in the hell had he managed that? Most of the inhabitants of New Earth had really let their dental hygiene go when a race of intergalactic beings blew their planet to bits and turned them into wandering refugees.

‘You’re my navigator?’

He bowed low, brushing against her arm infuriatingly with his too-long hair as he did. He was so cocky, so damn certain of himself. He was also so very tall. When had he become so damn tall?

The navigation bay was relatively tiny, and Kyn couldn’t get past the sheer bear-like size of him in the narrow space. Which would have been fine, but he was looking down at her with laughter in those rich brown eyes. And something else. Something more hooded and secret. Something that made Kyn remember all the times he had tried to catch her and kiss her in their youth.

He was standing so close, and he captured her hands in his. He was warm, and he smelled so good. He was familiar and yet not. The product of her dreams. And she had no business wanting to stand even closer, run her hands over that dark stubble that peppered his jaw, bury her face in his neck. Especially not when he had somehow done away with her real navigator.

‘What about Entoz?’

‘Ah,’ Symon said, shrugging delicately. ‘He fell ill. I’m the only one available, sorry, darling.’

The way he said
darling
sparked outrage in Kyn’s skin. He sounded like a man used to murmuring endearments to women. She wondered if that was the man he had become, over the last ten years. He was certainly gorgeous enough. When she thought back, he always had been. But he’d also been Symon, her Symon. Her best friend. Her most loyal protector. Like a brother. The thought sat uncomfortably in the space between them and she knew it was a lie. The worst kind of lie. A lie to yourself.

No, not a brother
.

Symon had never made any secret of his designs on Kyn. And she had always laughed them off. Except for that one time. That one time just before she had gone. And there had been nothing brotherly about what he had done to her on that day.

She blinked to try to dispel the thoughts of it that crept, sly and wanton, into her brain. Now what had she been trying to…?

‘The only nav available, I’m sorry,’ he repeated. But he didn’t look sorry at all.

Kyn stamped her foot to try to relieve some of the tension clogging up her body. ‘So why were you running your finger along my lips?’

He shrugged. ‘You always had great lips.’ And his eyes were on them, and his tongue was darting out to lick his own lips, like the wolf in an Old Earth fairy-tale.

Kyn could feel her temper building. ‘Whether or not I do, it doesn’t mean you can just come along and start poking them.’

He laughed, a full, meaty sound that played havoc with her already confused senses. ‘Now I wouldn’t have called that a poke,’ he said gently.

‘What was it, then?’ She knew she shouldn’t ask.

He paused, licking his lips again. ‘An appreciative gesture,’ he said finally, shrugging once more. ‘A sneaky check, to see if they could really be that perfect.’ He grinned. ‘Or whether maybe it was just a trick of the dim light.’

Kyn’s breath caught at his words. He had always been like this, sweet and persuasive and too sure of himself, and too charming, and too honest, and too Symon for anyone to withstand. Whispered endearments were not something Kyn understood. And no-one had ever even called her beautiful, let alone perfect. Kyntura had been an Avenger since eighteen, and love, and beautiful, and poetry, and sweet words were not part of the steady diet of an Avenger. Life was about survival, and pain; rigor and discipline.

Symon pushed a finger into Kyn’s hard abs. ‘That’s a poke,’ he said, making her smile involuntarily as his long finger connected with the sweet spot under her ribs. ‘Ouch,’ he said, a wicked twinkle lighting up his face as he pretended that his finger bounced off the hardness of her six-pack. ‘But I can see you’re still ticklish under all that muscle!’

No. Oh no, no, no, no way
.

Kyn ducked to the side quickly, but this huge man was surprisingly fast. Especially for a navigator. He captured her from behind, his tummy pressed against her back, his arms snaking around her middle and holding her fast. She could have dropped him. Even with the good hold he had on her, she could have performed a very standard Avenger counter-move and had him on the floor, writhing in agony, in seconds.

But it seemed a little extreme.

And it felt kind of good to be wrapped tightly in his arms as his long fingers began to tickle her tummy experimentally. ‘What about this part?’ he breathed against her ear as she became aware of just how close and tight his hold was. ‘Still ticklish there?’

‘No,’ she bit out, feeling light-headed as she realised what she was doing. Playing tickles forty-five minutes before mission rendezvous. Her first live mission in two years. But his fingers were so firm and expert, and they felt lovely on her skin as they slid under the stretchy syntton of her Avenger reds and stroked her arousal-warmed skin.

‘I don’t believe you,’ he said, using his fingers to explore the front of her, poking and tickling randomly as he did. He leaned closer and experimentally licked her ear. Delicious shivers ran down her spine. ‘How about that? Does that tickle a little?’

Tickle definitely wasn’t the right word for what he was doing to her. Her nipples stood out hard and on edge as he licked at her neck and then at her ear some more. Kyn’s breath was balled up, high and hard in her throat.

This had to stop. ‘No,’ she said, going for casual but disconcerted at coming off a little breathy and giddy. She stepped neatly out of his clutches. ‘It just felt kind of…’ She searched for a suitable hosing-down word. ‘…wet.’

He raised his eyebrows at her, his mouth curving into a sexy smile. ‘Really?’ He inched closer to where she stood backed hard against the navtube. The space was so tiny, and he was so big. His smile showed all those white teeth, and he was like a wolf, or a shark, stalking her. ‘Because that’s not how it seemed to me. It seemed like you were liking it.’

She tried to snort. ‘Maybe you don’t know much about reading women’s signals.’ She twisted the knife. ‘Best stick to reading star charts.’

This time he laughed out loud, and his eyes got a strange, far-away look. ‘It certainly would be easier.’

There it was again: that secretive, shuttered look to his normally warm, open face. What was he hiding? The thought that there was something going on, something that might involve him, something secret, shook Kyntura out of the drugged haze she’d been in since she’d felt him skate his finger across her lips. Secrets were dangerous in New Earth. Only The Council had secrets. And The Council had to know everything. There were good reasons why.

‘Symon,’ she said, stepping forward. ‘There is so much you don’t know. About how it all works.’ A lot of it she had only learned as she had ascended to the rank of Captain. And she knew there was more, much more that she didn’t know, that others knew.

‘You’d be surprised, Kyn,’ he said, looking as though the warm playtime was over.

An awful thought lodged itself deep in Kyn’s brain.

‘Symon,’ she sighed. ‘You aren’t part of The Backlash?’

His face was unreadable. ‘And what is The Backlash, Kyn?’

Oh, man. She wanted to slap him. He had always been so clever, this boy. Always thought he knew better. ‘It’s a threat,’ she said. ‘A threat to the only thing we have anymore — our unity.’

Symon shrugged. ‘And here I thought it was just a bunch of people asking some questions.’

Kyn closed her eyes. ‘They’d like you to believe that.’

Symon stepped so close to Kyn he could have reached out and traced her lips again. ‘They, Kyntura? And who exactly are they?’