Diffraction (Atrophy) Read online

  “If you’re not Reidar, then why does the stunner affect you?”

  Aggravation pounded him, burning through his stressed muscles. Was this some different interrogation tactic? Send a pretty face in here to soften him up? Did they really think he was that much of a moron? He was an AF-one commando, for jezus sake. Resisting torture one-oh-one was a basic requirement soldiers had to pass, or they got booted from the training unit like trash on garbage day.

  “This is the last time I am having this conversation with anyone. So go tell that to whoever sent you down here. I don’t know a thing about frecking shape-shifting aliens, and I don’t know why in the hell that stunner knocks me sideways. You’re a doctor, you figure it out.”

  A kindling flare of interest sparked in her gaze as she stared at him, leaving some kind of weird ripple chasing beneath his skin.

  “If you’re telling the truth, if this has been some unfortunate twist of fate, then I would like to help you. But you have to be straight with us. Rian has a short temper. Right now he’s curious with a side of suspicious. If you don’t cooperate, he’s going to start getting suspicious with a side of pissed off, and then you’re really going to be in trouble.”

  “Cooperating with Sherron means cooperating with Qaelan Forster. And considering the number of times he’s pulsed me with that damned stunner, I definitely owe him a punch or five in the face.”

  A hint of anger touched her features, but not directed at him, more like she’d been unhappy with Forster’s antics herself. “And I’m sorry for that. But if you don’t fight Rian on this and tell him what you know, I can make sure no one shoots you with that gun again.”

  A low swirl of relief cut through the heat of his anger, loosening some tension within him. Maybe if he could get the doctor on side, she’d help him escape. Or maybe if he lulled her into a false sense of security, she’d agree to take his vitals, and when she opened the cell door… Well, either way, he was using her to get out of here.

  A muted roar vibrated to life on both sides of him, making everything jump into a low rattle. He glanced around before looking back at the doctor.

  “What’s going on?” He raised his voice a little to make sure she heard him over the mechanical growling.

  “We’re disembarking from the Swift Brion.”

  Oh hell no. He was not leaving the Swift Brion, and he sure as dick wasn’t going anywhere on this damn ship.

  “Listen, Doc. I understand your people are a little wary of me, but can’t you just leave me to my own? Let me be locked up in detention level on my ship until someone figures it out, but I’m not leaving my post—”

  She shook her head and crossed her arms, glancing over her shoulder. “Sorry, it’s too late. The Swift Brion’s crew were clearing the deck, getting ready to close the atmospheric doors and open the outer hatch when I came down here.” The engine vibrations revved higher, and she gave a short grimace. “Sorry about the noise, too. You’re right in between the engines down here. It might also get a little warm.”

  Frecking great. “How warm?”

  She shrugged one shoulder. “Honestly, I don’t know. I’ve never spent any time down here.”

  The doc went to step back, but he shot a hand out and clamped his fingers around her upper arm. “Not so fast.”

  She stilled beneath his grip and raised her eyes to meet his. For a long second they stared at each other, almost like enemies weighing up the advantage, but there was something far more dynamic and incandescent beneath the surface.

  “You might want to think about removing your hand from me.”

  So the petite doctor had a pair, which for some reason he found way too intriguing. On first impression, he’d never have picked that, but of course, she worked for Major Captain Sherron, and he probably wasn’t the type of guy to surround himself with wilting violets, or however the saying went.

  “And you might want to think about opening this door before the Imojenna breaks dock.”

  Her expression hardened. “I told you, it’s too late. Let me go.”

  He yanked her up against the door and grabbed her other arm, leaning in closer so that only the bars separated their faces. “Look at that, now I’ve got two hands on you. Open the door, before I start breaking bones.”

  He squeezed her right bicep just to make sure she knew he meant business. Really, he couldn’t have hurt the woman—not with the way her voice was doing a number on his central nervous system and the way her green eyes were making his blood rush, heating him up in all the wrong places—but desperate times and all that shite. He had to get off this ship. There were things about him that he needed to keep to himself. Because if they got out, his life as he knew it would never be the same, wouldn’t be his own any longer.

  She stared at him; a spark of something in her gaze, he told himself, was all in his recently scrambled mind. “Is this really how you want things to go down? Because I’m telling you, if you leave the Imojenna now, you’ll be vacuumed.”

  “I’ll take my chances.”

  She huffed a short sigh. “Fine. I’ll need at least one arm to release the door controls.”

  This time it was his turn to stare hard at her for a long moment. That had kind of been too easy. Did she have some ulterior motive? A weapon hidden somewhere she’d go for as soon as he let her go?

  “How about a compromise?”

  Her brow lowered over an impatient look. “What kind of compromise?”

  “I’m not prepared to let you go, in case you’ve got a weapon stashed somewhere in that petite package of yours. Instead, we’re going to tango.”

  Her expression morphed into skeptical confusion. “Tango?”

  He pulled both her arms through the bars into his side of the cage. “I’m going to let you go one arm at a time, and you’re going to keep them stretched out like this, until I’ve shifted sideways and reached around the next bar. Then we’re going to move your arms out and around, one at a time.”

  “Aren’t you in a hurry or something? This seems kind of excessive.”

  “Sure, I’m in a hurry, but I also don’t plan on giving you a chance to shoot me.” He let her bicep go and shifted to the side a little, reaching out and around to guide her arms around the bars.

  Her body tensed beneath his touch. “I’m a doctor. I don’t carry a gun. I aim to help people, not hurt them.”

  He glanced up at her as he shuffled sideways again to repeat his action. “Not even one of those stunner weapons?”

  Her jaw clenched. “Not even one of those.”

  They were almost at the edge of the door, near the control pad. “Well, I’d love to take your word for it, but I’m just not the trusting type. I’ll check for myself when I’m out of this cage.”

  Her lips pressed into a thin line, but she didn’t answer him as they ran out of bars to dance around.

  “Now, I’m going to keep a hold of your upper arm while you access the control screen, and you’re going to keep your other arm stretched out just like this. If I see any funny business—”

  “Yeah, yeah, you’ll break some bones. Got it,” she muttered darkly. Her gaze cut away from his as she slowly reached down and placed her hand on the screen.

  Varean took the unguarded moment to study her profile. Funny, but she didn’t seem the least bit afraid of him. She seemed more inconvenienced than frightened. She didn’t even seem that intimidated by his threat to break her arm. Yeah, the doc was definitely intriguing. If only he hadn’t met her on the wrong side of some bars feeling like he was coming off a hangover from being drunk on old-fashioned rocket fuel.

  The locking mechanism clicked free, and the door swung loose between them. Varean pushed the doc back a few steps, keeping a hold on her until they’d created a wide enough gap for him to slip through. As he stepped sideways through it, he changed his grip on her fast so she didn’t try to make a run for it.

  “I did what you ordered. If you want to get off the Imojenna before she leaves the Swift Brion�
��if we haven’t already—you better hurry.”

  Varean hauled her closer, sending a quick glance along the corridor to make sure no one was coming.

  “And give you the chance to shoot me in the back? No thanks.” He patted one hand over all the places people usually stashed weapons. Like she’d promised, he came up empty-handed. “How would you like to get acquainted with zero atmosphere? It hurts like a bitch’s mother, but we can last for about thirty seconds before we lose consciousness and melt from the inside out.”

  “If you want to be technical about it, dying in space is really like boiling and freezing at the same time.”

  He glanced at her as he started towing her along the short passageway, looking for any kind of expression from her to work out if she’d meant that seriously or was actually making a morbid joke. But she simply stared back at him blankly, giving nothing away.

  “Right, so we’re going to do that between leaving the Imojenna and getting through the atmospheric doors on the Swift Brion, depending on how far open the outer hatch is.”

  “Aren’t you worried about getting sucked out of the ship if the air is already venting?” She didn’t sound concerned, more curious.

  “Then I’ll die in space. At least I won’t be locked in a cage.”

  “Uh-huh. Wow, I’d heard AF commandos were crazy dedicated to their duty, but I thought it was just an expression. I didn’t realize the crazy part was literal.”

  They came out in the back of the cargo hold, and Varean glanced down as he tugged her beside him. Hell, was she actually mocking him?

  “Kira?”

  The voice coming from the other side of the cargo hold sent Varean into full alert. He yanked the doctor in front of him and spun them toward the source of the sound.

  Another woman and a man sat around a low crate, both with expressions of curiosity and concern on their faces. The guy had started to half stand, hand sliding toward his lower back.

  “Kira, what’s going on?” the woman asked. “Did Rian give you permission to let him out of the brig?”

  Varean leaned down until his mouth was a few inches from the doctor’s ear, the next breath he took laced with the sweet scent of her hair. “You knew they were out here, huh?”

  “Yep.” And she didn’t sound the least bit apologetic about it, either. But she shifted subtly in his hold, so maybe she wasn’t as cool and calm as she seemed.

  Varean straightened, keeping an eye on the guy slowly but surely going for a weapon. “He has a name. And he is an AF-one commando who isn’t going to be forcibly removed from his duty.”

  “Command Donnelly thinks he can still make it back onto the Swift Brion. He’s all ready to take on zero atmosphere,” the doc explained, using the general title of “Command” people gave to commandos when they were unsure of their rank. And he didn’t fail to miss the hint of dry humor in her tone.

  So she thought this was some big joke? His whole life had been sucked into a nebula vortex and the woman thought there was something funny in that? He tightened his hold on her.

  “And I’m taking the doc here for insurance. Whatever weapon you’re thinking about laying hands on, buddy, I’d think again.”

  The man stilled.

  “It’s okay, Tannin. I don’t think Command Donnelly wants to hurt us. He’s just a bit annoyed about being locked up and wants to get back on familiar ground.” The doc’s voice was soothing and gentle. All kinds of patronizing, really. He tugged her closer until her back was flush against his chest and let go of her arm to wrap a hand around her slender neck instead. Though his adrenaline was pumping, with the doc’s slight frame against him, an underlying calmness spread through him, the feel of her pressed in to him a little too enjoyable considering his circumstances.

  “Someone get to opening the hatchway.”

  Tannin shook his head. “Sorry, buddy, it’s too late. We’ve disembarked from the Swift Brion. So how about you make your way back to the brig and save us all a lot of trouble?”

  A low, creeping dread skittled under his skin, the temptation of reckless aggression uncharacteristically rising within him again. But he set his other hand on the doc’s stomach, pressing her more firmly against him, and clamped down on the sensation before it could get a hold of him.

  “I’m not going back into that cage. You’ll have to put me down first.”

  “The captain will happily take care of that for you,” the guy muttered.

  “Tannin.” The other woman’s voice held a note of warning.

  “What, Zahli? Don’t sit there and pretend like Rian hasn’t been on edge lately, and I’m talking the knife’s edge. One slip and someone is going to end up bloody.”

  Oh, so things weren’t all confetti parades and shiny medals for the ex–war hero? Well, Varean could honestly say he didn’t give a shite what kind of privileged problems Major Captain Sherron had, so long as they didn’t interfere with him getting off the man’s ship. And if they truly weren’t docked on the Swift Brion any longer, he had to find another means of escape.

  “Does this ship have emergency pods or some kind of evacuation craft?”

  The doc glanced over her shoulder at him as far as his grip on her neck would allow. She still didn’t seem overly concerned, but he could see a definite gleam of antagonism in her sage green eyes, feel the tension in the line of her body against his.

  “There are two skimmer shuttles located on the top of the ship.”

  “Seriously, Kira?” Tannin muttered.

  She shrugged, her shoulders brushing his pecs, leaving him too aware of all the places she was pressed against him. “Well, he asked. And anyway, he can’t get to them without going past Rian.”

  Okay, this whole thing was verging on stupid. And stupid had a tendency to make him cranky. First, the doc hadn’t seemed the least bit afraid of him since he’d grabbed her at the cell. And now, despite being a little wary, none of these people seemed to be taking seriously his plan of escaping and taking himself a guarantee in the form of the doc. For jezus sake, he knew over thirty ways to kill a person with his bare hands alone. If he wanted to take the lethal way out of this situation, the doc could be dead, and he’d have fingers on whatever weapon Tannin had stashed before her body even hit the deck.

  Instead, he was trying his damndest to be polite…well, as polite as a man could be when he had his hand wrapped around someone’s neck. None of these people were directly responsible for his imprisonment, so they didn’t deserve to get hurt. But if he ran across Rian or that bastard Qaelan Forster, who were the accountable parties, he might have words that needed speaking, which would likely be punctuated with a lot of violence.

  “I’ll take my chances on avoiding Captain War Hero. Where’s the access hatch to the skimmers?”

  “You really don’t want to do that—” the doc started in a low voice.

  “No, what I really don’t want to do is stay on this ship. So, point the way to our escape shuttle, Doc.”

  “What is he doing out of the brig?”

  A new voice joined the conversation, and Varean glanced over to the metal stairs, where Sherron stood on the second-to-last step. While he didn’t look particularly annoyed, he also didn’t look any kinds of welcoming. Just stone-cold and lethal. Despite the impassive stare, Sherron had both hands relaxed on the butts of his holstered guns. And he’d seen what a freakishly fast draw the guy was. No doubt about it, this was the only warning he was likely to get that Sherron was thinking about shooting him.

  “Nothing. Command Donnelly was just stretching his legs—doctor’s orders. But he’s going back to the cell now,” the doc answered, leaning back in to him with full-body contact as though she expected him to start retreating.

  “Like hell I— Ow!” Varean glanced down at the sharp jab in his arm to see the doc holding a small, slim dosing gun and an apologetic expression tightening her features. A single drop of blood beaded on his forearm. “Son of a bitch.”

  Varean tried to tense as his
arm suddenly went slack and his grip dropped away from her throat. The loosening of muscles and numbness shot through his body, until somehow the deck was at his knees. His head swam, and he blinked. Hadn’t he been standing a second ago? And he’d been going to do something—something important. Thoughts flashed elusively out of his mind’s grasp and a strange chemical warmth bloomed through his too-relaxed limbs.

  He had to—had to—lie down. Yeah, that was it. No! Escape. Escape from— Where was he again? He forced his eyes to focus, and everything was sideways. What the—? Oh right, lying down. His vision shifted out of focus and when he strained his eyes, everything looked different. Voices echoed in his mind, words he couldn’t understand, but were familiar nonetheless. The mutation within him—the one that wanted to act out with uncontrolled, wild hostility—it ballooned and eclipsed a bit more of the calm he’d always held onto like a lifeline.

  A comforting voice came to him, pulling him back from the gray-and-yellow tinted shadows, and then a face appeared in his line of vision, cinnamon-toned skin and stunning soft green eyes. But a feeling of treachery accompanied the angelic vision. She’d done something to him.

  “Going to pay for that, Doc.” His voice slurred like he’d gone ten too many rounds at a bar. And why had he called her doc? Did he know her? Yeah. That voice. Lilting but firm. He knew her voice.

  A light hand landed on his shoulder, the touch burning his oversensitized skin. “Sorry, Commando, but trying to escape is not worth getting yourself killed over.”

  He had a reply to that. Something he really had to say. But the words were dancing out of comprehension, and the lights along the upper bulkhead were flashing, burning his retinas all over again. He closed his eyes and rolled over to his stomach, the metal grate floor cool against the warmth radiating out of his skin.

  Whoa, who’d turned up the atmospherics? Okay, he’d just lie here for a minute until someone fixed the damn heat, and then he’d remember what he was doing. Must be nearly time for his shift. Or was it after shift, and he’d gone and gotten shite-faced with his AF buddies? That would explain the way his head was sloshing.