Diffraction (Atrophy) Read online

  He swore as his fingers got jammed between the railing and the floor, though, from the other side of the medbay, Callan had started up a cursing streak much louder and more colorful.

  Varean took a split second to brace himself for the inevitable pain and put his whole body into yanking his left arm. The cuffs snapped but sliced deeply into his wrists. Still, part of him hadn’t expected to pull free so easily. A couple more jerks and he’d escaped the bindings altogether. He made it to his knees just as Callan got around the end of the bed. Obviously the guy had been expecting him to be lying there helpless, because the slack-jawed shock on the dick-hole’s face would have been hilarious, except for that damned stunner in his hand. Freck him to hell if he was going to take another hit from that weapon.

  He launched from his knees, tackling Callan around the legs. The guy roared his own fury as they both went down, knocking one of the carts, sending it crashing into the bulkhead and spitting instruments all over. As Callan tried to bring up the stunner, Varean scrambled to get a hold of his wrist. Clamping a hand around the guy’s forearm, he smashed it down with all his strength, leaving Callan swearing and the stunner skittling away into a corner.

  A fist rammed into his jaw, stunning his already aching head for a too-long second, leaving him vulnerable. He reached out blindly, finding Callan’s throat and closing one hand around it. The guy bucked beneath him, but the mutated rage in his depths had taken hold, driving his fury-filled actions. And then, a trickle of hot power welled at the base of his skull—one he knew all too well but hadn’t allowed himself to feel since he was a teenager. He should have realized this was going to happen. All the stress of the past days compounding until his instincts took over and released the abilities he’d worked so hard to conceal. The energy flowed out through his limbs on a precise vibration until it reached his fingertips. Callan’s eyes widened for a split second, then the guy started going gray.

  Something rammed into his chest, bringing a fiery burn of pain and loosening his hold. Callan shoved him and he fell back into the lower medical cabinets, glancing down to see a knife sticking out of his chest. Before he could react, Callan reared up, catching the handle to twist it, then yanked it out on a spurt of blood.

  Acid-burning pain lit through him, and he couldn’t breathe, couldn’t swallow, couldn’t do anything but slump to the floor.

  “Callan! What did you do?” Kira came down next to him, tugging at his clothes, though he couldn’t feel her rushed ministrations.

  “Damn it, he was trying to kill me.” The words came out hoarse, ending with a cough.

  Over. It’s all over.

  For a second he floated on a bubble of disbelief. But it quickly burst, and his survival instincts kicked in, buoyed by the parts of him that had been tainted and forever distorted by the insistent, hostile mutation taking over more and more of the controlled person he used to be. He finally sucked in a desperate breath.

  No. He refused to die like this.

  It hadn’t even been a fair fight. He’d survive this, if only to destroy Callan and his bastard of a captain, Rian Sherron. Might as well add Qaelan Forster to his vendetta while he was at it.

  If a man could endure on the idea of vengeance alone, then he had more than enough to carry him through this injury and sustain him for the next hundred years.

  Callan had gotten to his feet and come closer. Despite the pain ripping through his chest, Varean shot out a hand to wrap around the man’s ankle. “You’re a dead man.”

  Though he’d wheezed the words, they must have held a definite bite, because Kira paused in shock, then shook her head and pressed something against his wound.

  Callan seemed taken aback, but then laughed. “I’m a dead man? I’d tell you to take a look in the mirror, but by the time I actually got one and came back here, you’d already be a corpse.” He kicked free of Varean’s weakening grasp. “I’m going up-ship to tell Rian about the commando’s unfortunate demise.”

  As the gorilla stomped out of the medbay, the doc muttered a few choice words.

  “You’re not going to die, all right? So don’t listen to him. Just hang on until I can get you hooked up to the ship’s diag systems. You know that would have been much easier if you hadn’t tipped over the gurney.”

  A somber laugh escaped him but turned into a cough. “Sorry, but the plan was to avoid being shot. Obviously that didn’t pan out so well.”

  “And he’s got a sense of humor even when he’s dying,” she muttered, shoving some medical supplies out of the way that had gotten knocked about during the scuffle.

  “Thought you said I wasn’t going to die.” Funny, but the pain seemed to be fading, although his body felt heavy all of a sudden, his mind slow and tired.

  “I’m the doctor, that’s what I’m supposed to say.” She finished shoving equipment out of her way and turned back to him.

  For a moment, he focused on her gorgeously disheveled mop of dark hair and those soft green eyes. She really did have the face of an angel hiding the core of pure metium-reinforced steel inside her. Right at that moment, she looked like an angel who’d been put through hell. A sheen filled her eyes, leaving her blinking rapidly. He grabbed her hand covered in his blood, leaving the grip slippery.

  “You’re not actually upset over me, are you?”

  She speared him with a pissed-off, indignant glare. “Of course I’m upset! You don’t deserve to die just because Rian wanted his damn curiosity sated.”

  His muscles rapidly weakening, he reached up with his other hand to cup her cheek. “I’m not worth it, Kira. I’m a commando; it’s the only end I had coming.”

  She leaned down, tugging her hand free to press the cloth harder against his injury. Her other hand came up to grip his chin. “I am not letting you die.”

  Warm vibrations erupted from deep within him, his inherent abilities fully blooming. She was right, he wasn’t going to die, but when he survived, Rian was going to have even more damned questions.

  The truth would be much harder to conceal.

  The low reverberations streaming through him reached the wound, taking away the pain and leaving him breathing easier. But it was getting harder to keep his eyes open. Just before he succumbed to the healing sleep, Kira’s eyes widened, her hand releasing his chin to lift and cover where he still had his palm against her cheek.

  “What in the stars—?”

  He let his hand fall away from her cheek as she stared down at him with a mystified expression. At least she wasn’t looking at him like he was a freak.

  Chapter Six

  “I thought you said he was dead.” Rian shot a glance over his shoulder as Callan brushed past him, stepping into the medbay. He and Lianna had only just gotten the Imojenna to burn hard and fast off the quarry moon to avoid the IPC trans-cops still hovering in orbit when Callan had come to report the latest trouble with their guest.

  Callan crossed his arms and glared at the unconscious commando on the gurney hooked up to the ship’s medical life-support system. “Hell, Kira, you saved him? The frecking bastard tried to strangle me.”

  “I know. I was here, remember?” Kira paused in setting various instruments onto a diag-cart and half turned to aim a frosty glare at Callan. “But did you really think I was going to stand by and just let someone die in my medbay if there was a chance I could do something about it?”

  “Yeah? Well, you just wasted your time.” Callan didn’t seem overly concerned about Kira’s obvious annoyance. “Because when he wakes up, I’m going to pay him back in kind.”

  Kira slammed a tray onto the cart, rattling the instruments.

  “Captain, I understand you have security concerns about Command Donnelly being in the medbay, but I refuse to have him in here any longer when the result is this.” She flung a hand out to indicate the half-cleaned-up mess from what had obviously been a dirty fight. “The commando is not and never was our enemy, but we’re doing a really good job of treating him like one. And the next perso
n who gets any ideas about using that damn Reidar stunner will have to go through me.”

  Rian glanced from Callan to Kira and then to the half-dead commando. Huh. Kira had always been passionate and hard-lined about her views on saving people. They all knew she was more than willing to put herself in harm’s way if it meant helping someone else, especially anyone she considered innocent. That zeal and fortitude made her a great medic and part of the reason he’d taken her onboard. However, in this case, her fierce defense of a man she didn’t even know seemed a little excessive.

  Of course, it might have something to do with Callan destroying her medbay. She could be kind of OCD when it came to her corner of the ship. The crew all knew not to go in and mess around with anything, so she was probably about ready to dose up Callan’s lunch with a laxative for his part in the fight.

  “Ha!” Callan scoffed, hooking his thumbs into his belt. “I’ve never seen you hold a weapon even one time in all the years I’ve known you. And we’re supposed to take that threat seriously?”

  Kira’s expression turned almost sweet, except it was underlaid with metium-reinforced determination. “I took down a tier-one AF commando. And unlike you, Callan, I can kill people and make it look like an accident.”

  His eyebrows shot up and his mouth opened, no doubt with some kind of poetic comeback along the lines of freck you. But Rian stepped forward before he could get one word out, holding up a hand to cut Callan off.

  “When he’s stable, send him back down to the brig. And this time, chain him up.”

  Callan grinned and saluted him, while Kira’s expression went from annoyed to downright infuriated.

  “He doesn’t deserve to be chained!” She abandoned the tidying up and crossed her arms. Though she’d voiced opposition to his opinions once or twice in the past, she’d never outright defied him before. A small, dark thread of anger trickled down the back of his neck.

  “He threatened to space you the day we left the Swift Brion, and just now he did his damndest to choke the life out of my security specialist. You told me you don’t want Callan in your medbay. The commando is dangerous, Kira. I’m not going to explain that to you again.”

  “Here’s a novel thought. Why don’t we let him go? In fact, what business did we have in taking him off the Swift Brion in the first place?”

  “You know why. He reacted to the stunner. If he’s not Reidar then the aliens did something to him. I want to know what it was and why. The guy answers my questions, I’ll let him go.”

  Kira clenched her jaw, shooting an aggravated frown at Callan then turning her back on them. “And I still think I can talk him around if I’m given half a chance. I was just about to try when Callan so rudely butted in.”

  He clenched his fists, about ready to tear a verbal chunk out of her. But this was the first time she’d caused him any problems in the three years since she’d come aboard. So instead he took a second to suck in a breath. Look at him, all controlled and respectable-like. Well, almost anyway.

  “And what makes you so special that you think he’ll take any heed?”

  A slight flush of color stained her cheeks, but she kept her expression impassive. “Varean obviously isn’t going anywhere while he’s unconscious. I’ll comm Callan when he stabilizes.”

  Callan took half a step forward. “No way—”

  “Roarke.” The low warning in his voice was enough to make the ship’s security specialist take a step back. “We’re aiming to dock on Kalaheo Two station in around forty-eight hours. I need you to review a few things for me.”

  “Yes, Cap’tin.” Callan cut a thwarted sideways glance at Kira then headed out of the medbay.

  Her shoulders dropped a touch, and she let out a low sigh as she bent and picked up a stool.

  “I know it’s in your nature to see the good in people, Kira, to give them the benefit of the doubt and save them even if they don’t want saving.” He set his palms on his weapons and focused on the still form on the gurney. Something about Donnelly sent hot, prickling vibrations rippling down his spine. Every instinct told him the guy was far from a simple commando. “But I’m telling you to be careful with this one.”

  Her already tense expression tightened the slightest bit, but she didn’t reply, simply nodded and turned her attention back to sorting out her medbay.

  Rian cast one more look over the patient to where the broken ankle restraints hung off the end of the bed, before leaving the medbay. Maybe someone desperate enough could have snapped those binds on an extreme adrenaline high and damn near broken their ankles in the process. However, according to Callan, the commando had simply flicked them off like they were string cheese.

  Despite his orders sending Callan up to the bridge, he didn’t plan on leaving Kira alone with the prisoner. The next sensible choice security-wise, besides himself or Lianna—who needed to be on the bridge—would have been Tannin, but she’d see right through that and send the tech analyst packing. So it’d have to be someone less obvious.

  On the upper level, he stopped by the galley-communal room where some kind of damn tea party was taking place. Ella, the Arynian priestess, had half his crew hooked on that frecking Jasmynah tea, leaving his entire ship smelling all flowery and perfumed to the point the last trader he’d had onboard had commented on it. Everyone else said the scent had a kind of calming effect. But he sure as hell didn’t find the scent calming. Not one damned bit. It amped him up until sometimes it felt like his skin was itching from the inside out.

  In fact, some days it was all he could do not to take a shuttle and fly himself into the nearest star, because dying in some spectacularly messy crash or bloody chaos was about the only way he could see this all ending. But not yet, not until the Reidar had paid for the weight of his sins in rivers of blood.

  So that meant putting up with Ella and her damned Jasmynah tea, until he figured out once and for all what the Reidar had wanted with her when they’d abducted the priestess from the peaceful temple planet of Aryn. Before he could focus on that, however, he had to keep a promise to his sister’s tech-analyst fiancé and take a suicidal trip to one of the IPC central systems to find out what had happened to one of Tannin’s childhood friends who’d probably gotten too close to the truth about the Reidar and then gotten dead.

  “Did Callan really kill the commando we brought onboard?” Zahli asked as he stepped into the galley. Ella and Nyah, both seated with their backs to him, turned to look over their shoulders, though Ella had likely sensed his presence well before he’d walked into the room.

  He shoved the niggling awareness of her mysterious powers into the compartment where all the other crap he didn’t want to think about went. “Not quite, though he did make a decent mess in Kira’s medbay.”

  Zahli’s lips lifted in a half smile, a definite edge of wickedness to the expression. “Then Callan might need to employ a food taster for the next few rotations, otherwise he might end up paralyzed or unconscious somewhere for a few hours.”

  “Or getting intimately acquainted with the head.” Lianna hadn’t been seated at the table, but behind the galley bench, making a coffee. “Are you sure it’s worth stopping at Kalaheo Two? No one else wants to say anything, but it’s bad enough we’re flying right into one of the IPC central systems and heading to Barasa to chase up a guy we don’t even know. Adding a pit stop to that is just giving the government or UAFA one more chance to realize there’s a ship of wanted intergalactic terrorists flying right up their noses like a bunch of morons.”

  He stopped in front of the table and leaned over to grab a muffin from the tall stack sitting in the middle of several other baked treats. Still warm. And his mouth was not watering. No, because he was eating it only for the fact that his other choice was repli-rations, and he couldn’t be frecked making himself anything else.

  “We’ll dock and then launch before the engines even have a chance to cool.” He turned to face Lianna, who’d come out from the galley bench holding a second cup to hand
over the coffee she’d made for him. At least some people still remembered who the captain was around here. “All I need to do is call in a favor with a guy who owes me. Figure I might as well cash in my chips, since we won’t be returning to this region of the galaxy anytime soon, especially now that we’ve aligned ourselves with Rene Blackstone.”

  “I’m still trying to work out how cozying up to the psycho pirate who runs the Barbary Belt is our best option,” Zahli muttered.

  “Because it was our only option.” He took a bite of the muffin and almost wanted to groan at the soft, fluffy, cakey goodness. Hell, it should have been a crime that something so simple tasted so good. He leaned over and snagged a second treat then glanced at his sister. “Zahli, I need you to go hang in the medbay with Kira and comm Callan or me when the commando wakes up.”

  She nodded and pushed her teacup away, but snagged a cookie before rounding the table and heading off to follow his orders.

  He backed up a step, casting a glance over Ella and Nyah. “We’re docking at Kalaheo in just under forty-eight hours. We’ll be keeping a low profile, so that means I’ll be going to make the meet while everyone else stays onboard and doesn’t attract any attention to themselves.”

  Nyah uttered a low affirmative while Ella simply inclined her head. And he didn’t fail to notice the gleam in her unusual moss-hazel eyes, one that told him she either had her own opinion on his dictate or was possibly considering doing her own thing no matter what he said. Technically, since she wasn’t one of the crew, she didn’t have to listen to a damn word he said. For her own sake, and the sake of the thin threads of his temper, he hoped she kept whatever was going on in that head of hers to herself.

  He stuffed the last of the muffin into his mouth and washed it down with a gulp of coffee—laced with a generous amount of brandy, just the way he liked it—as he left the communal room and headed up the short steps to the bridge.

  Lianna cut him a brief glance from her console as he sat in the captain’s chair but, smart girl that she was, didn’t say anything else, instead made herself busy reviewing the flight path to Kalaheo Two.