Cold Victory

 

 

Fiona Jayde

 

 

 

Cold Victory

Copyright © February 2010 by Fiona Jayde

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eISBN 978-1-60737-518-0

Editor: Jana J. Hanson

Cover Artist: Anne Cain

Printed in the United States of America

 

Published by

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www.loose-id.com

 

This e-book is a work of fiction. While reference might be made to actual historical events or existing locations, the names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

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Chapter One

 

They lined up in two perfect parallels on the main launch deck, rook pilots eager for war. Stark wondered how many of them would end up dead in the first few hours at the front lines.

Beside him, his second-in-command surveyed the puffed-up chests and military stances, matching faces to their data files. “Barely out of the academy.”

Stark counted fifty. Fifty potential tattooed dots over his upper arm. “I'll ask again about time for drills.”

Dex spared him a glance. “They'll need it.”

The standard gray rook uniforms reflected in the cold, dull shine of the deck floor, while the rooks themselves looked infinitely miniscule next to the combat birds linked with fuel-data wirings to the port stations in the walls.

“You're aboard the battle cruiser Victory.” Already Stark could pick up on their bearings: the ones closest to him were the squad leads; the ones with grins stretched on their faces were fresh graduates. The redhead wearing civilian black was a concern who would be dealt with later. She hadn't bothered to hide a conviction for stealing supplies when filing her background. And yet Stark didn't have any choice but to accept her assignment to his ship.

“We'll return to the blockade when we complete the resupply and upgrades.” His voice echoed over the metal-infused plaster. “We don't have the luxury of time, but I expect you'll make the most of it.”

Beyond the human line, a barrier of energy and steel kept them from being sucked into the vacuum. Sometimes Stark wondered how the cold emptiness of space would feel without the barrier of air, gravity, and steel.

“There are three things I'll expect from each of you.” He walked between the razor-sharp lines of the rooks, nearly smelling their excitement. “Focus. Discipline. Control.” He stopped before the redhead and took in the stubborn oval of her face, the empty gaze staring ahead at nothing.

“Your name, rook.”

She pressed her lips together, as if not thrilled to be here. At least in that, they were both in agreement. He didn't want a convict on his ship.

“Scott, Zoya. Sir.” She didn't tear her gaze away from the nothing at which she stared.

“Your orders?” He had no interest in her name or her assignment signoff. Stark simply wanted to establish that her connections had no meaning on his ship.

Still refusing to look at him, Scott, Zoya handed him a slim gray data unit. And when their fingers briefly touched, the shock rippling through his blood nearly knocked him backward. Confusion mixed with heat. Arousal followed, swift and vicious, pouring through his body like a primal scream.

He fought for focus, for a single breath, while she maintained the same distant expression, her gaze trained on a spot behind him.

“You'll follow standard protocol aboard this ship.” He knew his voice had dropped, was furious that he couldn't control it. Images of skin and sweat and tangled limbs flashed through his mind as his pulse shuddered with accelerated rhythm.

She looked at him now, those exotic amber eyes empty of feeling. “My apologies, Commander. I've been on civ div far too long.”

Heat wouldn't let him breathe. Despite himself, Stark engaged his ocular implant, watching the waves of red surrounding her form, her body temp spiking, her blood vessels pumping overtime. If not for the pink, delicate flush over her face, she showed no outward appearance of being affected by the same beast that clawed at him.

“You're dismissed.” He didn't know what the hell had happened, couldn't understand why an impersonal touch charged him with a sexual awareness he had no business feeling. He simply knew he had to put her out of his reach. “I suggest you find a standard uniform.”

“Yes, sir.” Empty, smooth voice. A touch of sarcasm. Nothing that warranted another deep, unwanted spike of lust.

She stepped back from the rooks, her body slim and strong in a black jumpsuit, her lips pressed into a thin line. For a swift second, Stark wondered what her mouth would look like when she screamed in orgasm.

“Pazlov's Pet.” The mutter pierced the heated image in his brain just as Stark's communication implant beeped an incoming.

Problem?” Still processing rooks, Dex tilted his head in question, the trio of scars splitting his left cheek and eyebrow a dark contrast against pale skin.

Stark shook his head, then turned to the squad lead who'd spoken.

“Did you say something? Officer?”

Three stars on the rook's collar indicated Triple Ace status. Fifteen virtual kills. Maybe this guy would last more than thirty seconds in real-time war with real Murk pilots on his ass.

“No, sir.” Clipped voice, tall military stance of someone used to milking regulations. A quick scan into the ocular confirmed him to be Squad Lead Gerald Poll.

“That is unfortunate.” The implant also showed the red, pulsing shape of Zoya Scott walking toward the hangar doors, her head held high, her posture stiff and solid. To his surprise, the dark red braid of her hair hung all the way down to her lower back.

Stark forced himself to not picture his fingers combing through that rain of red. “If you have things to say, Officer Poll, you say them in the open. Otherwise, you'll keep your hangar shut.”

The squad lead clenched his jaw, kept his hands stiffly at his sides. He had the smarts to remain silent.

“Get situated.” The strange heat of arousal still rippled through Stark's blood, milder now, but still enough for him to clench his jaw against it. He forced back anger that would only spin him further from control. “All rooks, dismissed.”

They filed out, rows of men and women clad in gray suits with oblong gear bags slung over their shoulders. Stark felt their curiosity and apprehension, their darting glances as he passed by. They trusted him to lead them into battle. And he didn't even want to learn their names.

When they cleared the deck, flight crews in orange jumpsuits resumed their swarm over the birds. Silence was now replaced with fusion drivers and the smell of burned plaster. The resupply was well ahead of schedule. They could return to the blockade in a few hours.

Dex caught up with him at the wide hangar doors.

“You have to be so damned efficient?”

His second-in-command lifted a scarred eyebrow. “I'll see if I can screw us up some time.”

“They'll need it.” Stark still had no idea what the hell had happened with the redhead. At least that sudden flash of arousal had eased enough for him to force her image out of his mind. Dark red hair coursing through his fingers. Strong and smooth limbs straining under his touch. Hell. “It got so bad, we're recruiting convicts.”

“Pilot's a pilot.” Dex plugged something into his wrist unit, rubbed a finger over his temple as more data came in. “Your stats went flyshit. If I didn't know better, I'd say you popped a stick.”

Anger stirred once again, then was ruthlessly stomped out. “Surveying a superior without cause is against protocol.”

“Yeah. Brig me.” Dex paused for a short second. “Her temp spiked same as yours.”

“I'm thrilled.” Outside the launch deck, the corridor curved into a smooth tube of dull, dark gray, with dark flexible conduits twisting along circular walls. The pattern reminded him of red hair twisted into a long braid he was determined not to think about touching.

“They call her Pazlov's Pet.”

Stark frowned at the splashes of yellow on the wiring. Reused conduit patches weren't holding up as well as he'd been told to expect.

Following his gaze, Dex forwarded a holoimage of the patch to the repair chief. “I'm surprised they don't call her his plaything.”

The implication stirred an unpleasant feeling which Stark didn't want to deal with.

Dex plugged more commands into his wrist unit, then listened to something with a frown. “Another leak at Comm Processing.” He pulled up a schematic on his wrist hologrid and cursed. “We keep using this plaster, the Murks won't have much of an opposition left.”

He snapped off a command for the comm chief, then met Stark's eyes over the hologrid. “Maybe she'll decide she'd rather live on a labor colony than deal with you.” A grin. “Easier all around.”

“True.” And yet Stark couldn't keep himself from picturing that stubborn, delicate face and empty amber eyes as he walked through cold tubes of gray scarred with patches of yellow.

His quarters offered him a comfortable silence and a stingy square window for a premier view. Looking out into space, he entertained the thought of contacting Tactical to have her reassigned. She was a convict; she didn't belong in the military; she sure as hell wouldn't be trusted by the other rooks…

The communication would be useless. With the shortage of personnel, he was lucky he'd gotten a full squad of pilots. And the only one with real-time skills was a rogue convicted of pilfering supplies.

His data indicated Admiral Pazlov had used his influence to get her released from the labor camps, probably because they were both Primus survivors. And on the launch deck, Stark had given the rooks nonverbal permission to give her hell.

Example through leadership. Well, shit .

Stripping off the top half of his uniform, Stark focused on the plastic replicas of three Japanese swords. Steel and any of its compounds had long been used to fortify cheaper materials like plaster, but the elegant shapes of the swords had always brought him the calm serenity that was supposed to come before a battle.

He focused on them now as he accessed communications, the graceful, lethal lengths reflecting sparks of light as his father's holographic image came into view.

Neither of them bothered with hellos. “A full squadron of pilots.” In exchange for Victory's experienced pilots shuffled throughout the fleet. “I should be grateful.”

“You should be.” Tactical General Stark regarded him with cool steel-colored eyes. “If you're after more training, you can go to hell. I busted ass getting a full squad as it was.”

The war had not been going well. Tactical was already short on pilots, and staffing battle cruisers was becoming an issue similar to that of rationing supplies.

“They won't survive without more training.”

“Most of them won't survive.” Calmly voiced fact. “They know the risks. And we need numbers.” The general steepled his fingers together. “You shouldn't let the dead weigh on your shoulders. They make their sacrifices. So should you.”

He'd heard that before. “Don't dwell on those who passed.”

If the general heard the bite of sarcasm, he ignored it. “Exactly.”

Stark wondered how his father would react if he saw the neat rows of red ink tattooed on his son's upper arms and shoulders. One dot for every life. One dot for every crewman lost under his command.

“You have the forty-eight hours earmarked for resupply. That should be more than enough time for training.” The general leaned forward. “We need Victory at the blockade. We're at a turning point.”

“Yes, sir.” Stark nodded sharply and turned his father's image off.

The hell of it, the general was right. There was no room for feelings, no time to honeymoon the crew. There would be those who would survive. There would be those who'd die in a swift, fiery second. For some, dying at war was just a means to end survivor's guilt.

Unbidden, he flashed back to Zoya Scott's empty eyes. A Primus survivor, one of the few remains of a colony termed unrecoverable and left to its own fate. The first great battle in a war where the only things known of the enemy was their hate for humans and their name.

* * *

The sonic shower stall offered her privacy. She had enough strength to turn on the cleansing ionizer to keep curious onlookers at bay.

Her back pressed to a cool, hard wall, Zoya clutched her knees with trembling fingers and let the shudders spear through. Her muscles clenching into tight and painful knots, she focused straight ahead and forced herself to drag in oxygen.

A few seconds more . The syringes with stabilizers were somewhere on the bottom of her pack. She hadn't thought she'd need them. Lucky for her, Pazlov insisted she keep a stash of orals close at hand. Zoya hated knowing he'd been right.

She rarely felt the need to take one stabilizer, much less the two she'd shoved into her mouth as soon she was out of view. Sitting on the floor, unable to fight the convulsions, Zoya couldn't remember the last time a situation pierced through the cold numbness of her mind enough to spike her adrenaline.

Since anger helped, she focused on Commander Galen Stark, the epitome of fucking military, whose low rich voice and steel merciless eyes sent her hormones straight into overdrive. As sweat beaded on her face, immediately whisked away by the ion pulse, Zoya clenched her teeth and thought back to the sudden, overwhelming heat when their fingers brushed.

The spike and crash of the resulting adrenaline left her a lovely parting gift, something Pazlov's scientists hadn't had time to correct. Before, during testing, nothing seemed to have warranted an adrenal reaction. As shudders lanced through her bones, Zoya had no idea what had changed.

When she was certain she could stand, she walked out of the shower and used her thumbprint to access a ration of water to splash on her face. The liquid cold felt good against her lips. She took a good, long gulp so that she wouldn't waste it.

A fucking perfect way to start a tour of duty, Zoya thought, and figured it was time to face the rooks.

The pilots' racks were stacked three high. She thanked the stars that she had been assigned one on the bottom. At this point, she didn't have the strength to climb.

She didn't have much to unpack: a couple of uniforms, tankshirts, a few loose unisuits for working out. Although she never wore her sister's necklace, she hung it on the small hook in her locker meant for such things.

“Scott. Zoya Scott.”

One of the squad leads loomed behind her. “Check your damned volume. You got a comm from your friend Pazlov.”

He kept looking at her as she reached for her ear communicator.

“Admiral.” She could picture him, the droopy jowls, the clear, pale blue eyes.

“Zoya.” His voice was slightly fuzzy in the ear comm. Since implants rendered the thing obsolete, nobody bothered to improve the quality of sound. “You're settled in?”

“I am.”

The squad lead still loomed over her, his hands over his hips. He had identified himself as Poll on the transport to Victory. A trio of silver stars pinned to his collar signified him to be a Triple Ace. His attitude and curled upper lip complemented that status.

“Difficulties?” Pazlov said in her ear.

“As we've anticipated.” She gave Triple Ace a thin, razor-edged smile. “Our friendship was questioned once again.”

“The crew's reaction to your past won't matter in the long run.”

“No, sir.” She wouldn't think about why. She found it easiest not to think about it.

Triple Ace kept watching her, his gaze hard on her face. At least he had enough respect for Pazlov's rank not to interrupt her end of the conversation.

“It's the only way left to end this war.” Pazlov had said the same thing when he'd contacted her after the mockery the military called a trial.

“I understand, Admiral.”

“I'll contact you again when there's a change in our position. For now, you'll continue as one of their pilots.”

“Yes, sir.”

She made a move to pull the piece out of her ear when Triple Ace got in her face.

“You'll remain at attention when addressed by a superior.” His barked words made the other rooks turn their heads.

Technically, they still weren't on duty. Technically, she didn't give a fuck about his superiority or his rank. Except she didn't need a confrontation, couldn't afford calling attention to herself.

“They say Pazlov is stuck on top of wheels.” Poll kept his tone loud to ensure the widest audience. “Is that correct?”

Hoping he'd grow disinterested, Zoya kept her stance, her body at attention, her hands by her sides. “General Pazlov is paraplegic after the failed battle at Primus colony.”

“That's right. A war hero.” A trace of sarcasm in those words. “And being a Prim, he wouldn't let his body be repaired.”

She waited for the cold numbness to overtake her, the same numbness she had always used as a shield against grief or rage or worse. “The Primus colony advocated against enhancing the human body. General Pazlov honors that edict.” She paused for a thin smile. “As do I.”

“I see.” He kept nodding his head, pretending to be listening. “So General Pazlov can't move his lower body?”

Zoya forced herself to remain still, her pulse even. “That is correct.”

“I see.” Another nod followed by an ugly smile. “So could he get it up when you sucked him off?”

He'd hoped for shock. She shouldn't have obliged him. The snickers and the gasps washed over the familiar cold numbness laced with a low, bubbling rage. Zoya let him gloat for a short moment before she plowed her fist into his nose, sending him stumbling back into a group of open-mouthed pilots.

“I fucking hate the military,” she muttered to herself and felt a gleeful stab of satisfaction when her knuckles sang.

* * *

“Let me make sure I understand.”

She didn't want to look at him. Instead, Zoya discreetly glanced around his quarters, noting the maps of various systems projected on the walls and the blueprints of human and Murk ships. No holograms of friends or lovers, no whimsical Earth or Martian or Saturn views. Nothing but chrome and lights of comm systems. Nothing with color. Nothing personal. She didn't care for the fact that she could understand exactly how he felt.

Stark kept looking at her as if expecting her to speak, his gaze a hot, subtle caress over her lips.

“We were off duty, sir. And I didn't like what Squad Lead Poll was saying.”

He looked at her with cold, hard eyes. “Therefore you broke his nose.”

She let her lips curl in a smile. “That's correct. Sir.”

He shoved back from his seat, a motion she had to admire. He was too big a man to move this smooth, had too much nano-built muscle on that brutal frame. She knew plenty of men who pumped their bodies with technology to build athletic shapes without straining their muscles. Commander Stark, with his huge arms and deck-wide shoulders, probably fit into that category. Zoya really hoped that was the case.

Poll, sporting a white stripe over his swollen nose, stood at attention next to her like a good little soldier. The perfect military type, one who kissed superiors' asses and followed every order.

“You knowingly punched a superior.” Stark's voice dipped just a bit, soft with an edge of danger. The sound of it sent lances of arousal into her blood.

At this point, she would welcome the transfer he would surely demand. The heat between her thighs intensified with every word, as if his rich, clipped baritone strummed on a pleasure cord inside her.

“As I said, I didn't care for the conversation.”

His steel blue gaze wouldn't let her go. “And why is that?”

She swallowed, nearly trembled. Hoped that he couldn't see her pulse pounding inside her throat. “It was of a personal nature. Sir.” She pushed away the urge to lick her lips, focusing instead on the rank insignia on his chest, reminding herself that he was military. Everything she despised.

Her hormones didn't seem to care.

When his gaze finally let her go, Zoya allowed herself a single tiny tremble.

The dark gray fabric of his uniform exaggerated the strange mix of blue and silver in his eyes. His face, when she dared to look at him, was a harsh study of features: a granite jaw, a slash of lips, heavy, dark eyebrows. Short military buzz of dark hair only brutalized his features more.

“Squad Lead. Anything to add?”

She knew what would come next. After a riot act, she would be told to pack her gear and shipped off somewhere else. And a small part of her really hoped that he'd go through with it.

“She shouldn't be here, Commander.”

As Poll spoke, she permitted herself a tiny smirk. Pazlov would have a field day transferring her, but then she wouldn't have to deal with this dance of hormones.

“She shouldn't be flying for the military. She shouldn't be allowed anywhere near a ship.”

“I agree, although that isn't our issue.” Those soft, dangerous words scraped with delicious roughness at her skin. “Officer Scott would not disclose your conversation. I suggest you do.”

Typical. A chance for Triple Ace to show how he was merely joking, trying to uplift morale of his new squad. She clearly overreacted; she didn't fit in with the rooks.

Poll shuffled slightly next to her. “I commented about Scott's relationship with Admiral Pazlov. She clearly has no sense of humor.”

“About her mentor's cock?”

Shock had her nearly gaping. Zoya made the mistake of looking at Stark's face and got lost in that silver and blue electric gaze.

“Officer Scott, did you find the comment about the admiral's cock funny?”

She hoped she didn't flush even as shock slowly spread through her system. “No, sir.”

“Why is that?” Rough, rich words.

She really hoped she didn't shudder. “I said already, it was personal.”

“Cock conversations tend to be.” His mouth curled in a short and lethal smile, making heat surge through her once again. Desire hummed over her skin, coiling somewhere in her belly.

She had to get away from him.

“I would have followed up with a good kick to his balls. To keep it personal and remind the squad lead he is lucky to feel them.”

Third time today that she was shocked. Third time in years.

Beside her, Poll noisily sniffed through broken cartilage.

Stark lifted up a heavy eyebrow. “You have something to add?”

“No, sir.”

“That's good.” That blue gaze pinned her once again, held her immobile, helpless. “I've tried my damnedest to get you transferred off Victory. Since I wasn't successful, you'll have to deal with the crew.”

“Yes, sir.” For a short second, Zoya wanted to make him understand. For a short second, she contemplated telling him about strangers huddling in tents, rivers of waste, empty-faced, hungry children. Her nephew's body shriveled up in the dirt.

“I take full responsibility for my actions. Sir.” She tried to force the cloak of numbness to come back, to protect her from the wild color of his eyes and the coil of unwarranted arousal.

“I'm thrilled to hear it.” If she wasn't mistaken, his eyes flared wild and hot for a short moment before returning to cold, hard steel. “Dismissed.”

And the alarms went blaring.

The shrill noise of code red throbbed in a jagged rhythm. Stark pounced to his comm, called up a hologrid of the surrounding space. Beyond the wide cluster of planetoids concealing the resupply station, Zoya saw rapidly approaching oblong shapes.

“Murk fighters. Nine. Four more.” She heard Sub-Commander Dex over the comm unit. “Nobody knows how the fuck they got through the blockade.”

“Transmit to Tactical. We're going to need cover.” If possible, Stark's eyes went even more intense. “Scrounge two finger-four formations, three if we got enough pilots with experience.”

His voice stayed calm, intense, and gorgeous.

“Poll, Techeon, you're leads. Your choice of crews. Get birds out there.”

“Commander.” She didn't know why she stepped into Stark's path. Somehow it became vital. “I have field experience. I can lead a formation.”

“You've no business flying.” He tried to step around her, as if careful not to brush against her arms.

“You need me.” She grabbed his wrist, ignored the flash of heat bursting through her and echoed in his gaze. “Your two squads will be outnumbered. I can even the score.”

He pulled his arm out of her reach, as if her very touch disgusted him. “I don't have time for squad disputes.”

“Which is my point.” She rushed after him into the garbled noise of Victory's command post. “I have the skills.” She didn't know why suddenly the fight became important. She simply knew she had to be out there, flying a team, taking down a Murk or two before the final course.

Stark didn't look at her as he reached Central Communications. “Squad leads, you have a third leader.” He frowned at the holodisplay. “Let's not regret it, Scott.”

Chapter Two

 

She shoved through the confusion of orange techs and excited rook pilots. Alarms blared in silent flashes of yellow light, reflecting off the dull gray floors and wired bulkheads. Over the blur of voices, she heard the barked commands for Sabres to be prepped for flight.

“I need two wingmen and a second lead.” Zoya fought to keep her voice above the roar of engines. “You.” She pointed at the fresh-faced rook with one star on his collar. Poll and Techeon had already chosen their guys. “You're with me. Nouvelle. Ortega. Find a bird.”

All three stared at her, not moving.

“Now, pilots!” She grabbed an orange suit, shook him when he tried to scramble away. “I need four birds. Right now!”

Amid the blur of noise, she suited up into a pressure suit and hauled herself into a fuel-reeking Sabre as orange suits finished last-minute checks. The ear comm already hooked into her helmet, Zoya furiously fought with the display for visual output.

Two squads of four were already out. She concentrated on the countdown for her guys. Three. Two. She held her breath for one.

The move between air and vacuum slapped Zoya back into her seat, her suit automatically adjusting for loss of gravity. Victory remained starboard, cannons in position, sensor arrays unfurled to battle mode.

The other pilots moved into finger-four formations, two triangles of four Sabres heading toward the field of spinning planetoids.

“Nouvelle, you're second. Rest of you are wings.” She felt their apprehension, the excitement of being out for the first fight. She'd heard them talk about it plenty of times on the transport to Victory.

Ahead, the squads skirted the first few large planetoids on the fringe of the field. No fire, no energy signatures. If she hadn't seen them on Stark's grid, she would have called this trip an exercise in readiness paranoia.

“Don't see the bastards.” Poll's voice was laced with the authoritative arrogance of a squad lead. “Probably hid their asses as soon we got out of the air lock.”

She really didn't like the lack of energy sigs. Watching for them, Zoya kept her speed steady while her squad slid into a messy finger four. “Freshman, steady on the throttle. Nouvelle, your verticals aren't on mark.”

Over the empty glow of the display, she felt excitement curling in her muscles, the slow pound of her blood, the dark resolve to take at least one bastard down.

“Squad leads.” Even through the ear comm, Stark's voice sent a small shiver through her nerves, a shiver Zoya forced herself to deal with later. “Main goal is to protect the supply station. Keep comms open at all times.”

The first finger four got well inside the field of planetoids but still didn't incite any fire. The shape of the supply station loomed just above the much smaller Victory.

“They are too quiet.” She hadn't meant to say the words out loud.

“Your squad stays back.” To her surprise, Poll actually addressed her. “Make sure none of the strays get through.”

She squinted as the planetoids got near, felt the small pull of grav from the few large ones on the fringe. Her grid stayed empty even as her nerves started to fray.

“Turn back!” She hit the single shots, sprayed rapid-fire above Poll's wings.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Loud voice over loud static.

“They're using gravity to move.” She split her focus between the squads and the holo-output. “No energy sigs, not until you get close enough for a straight shot.” Somebody cursed, vicious and low, inside her ear comm.

“You're fucking crazy.” A lead bird—she assumed Poll—skirted a planetoid ahead. “I'm not taking orders from—” He was cut off by rapid flashes of single shots as Murk ships swarmed them.

She fought to keep her eyes on target, blinking back sudden sweat. “Freshman, Ortega, you're support. Nouvelle, you're free on the triggers. Now!”

She met a Murk head-on, overshot, then spun into a split S to compensate. Ortega stayed steady on her wing; Nouvelle sprayed fire alone, while Freshman fought to hold his Sabre steady.

Orange gas smashed into her canopy. The grid showed a lead bird leaking ignited plasma fuel. Poll would be dead in just a few more hits.

Another crazy spin, the G stabilizers flashing a warning light Zoya ignored.

“I'm hit!” Poll spiraled above her and went nose to nose with an enemy ship. “I'm fucking hit! I'm gonna take a bastard with me!”

Freshman spun hard somewhere to her left; Nouvelle spat out single shots in rapid-fire rhythm. Both of them with Murks on their tails.

Poll spun into reverse and nearly clipped a good-sized planetoid. Zoya streaked a burst of fire just under his wings and managed to hit the Murk ship on his ass, somewhere close to the fuel lines.

The force of the explosion pushed her back enough to get caught in a grav field. She nearly dived into a rock before throttling up, despite the whine of engines.

“Cut your damned vents!” The orange glow was in her face; she almost felt its foul scent pressing into the canopy. “Throttle up! Do it!”

“I'm hit, damnit!”

“Throttle up! Tech, he needs cover!”

The burst of fire nearly blinded her. Poll cut his vents. She finally could see the exhaust line of his Sabre through the thick orange burned-up fuel.

“Cut power on my mark.” Somehow her voice remained ice-cold. She knew her pulse thundered like crazy, knew somewhere behind her a Murk burned on a nameless rock.

“Three. Two.” She edged closer to Poll and aimed her nose shots at his exhaust. “Mark. Cut your power.”

He did. The suddenly dropped noise level allowed her to hear the command post calling back the birds. Ahead of Techeon, Murk fighters pulled back, probably seeking their baseship to lick away the wounds, which left them free to do the same.

She exhaled with a sudden force, as if she'd held her breath for hours. Exhilaration mixed with a strange, grim need to laugh. She had forgotten how much she loved to fly, feeling the Gs slapping against her.

She'd just killed off a Murk and became full-fledged fucking military.

“Good work, Scott.” This from the commander, a clipped, low tone, and if she wasn't mistaken, a hint of a grudging respect.

She could've told him that she'd learned plenty of tricks stealing supplies under the military's stout noses. “Thank you, sir.”

Poll neatly cut her off now that she'd gotten him close enough for Victory to have the safety guides take him through the launch tubes.

She'd saved his ass. At this point, Zoya figured she should watch her own. Then Freshman rolled his bird from side-to-side, simulating the wiggling of a rear, and Zoya let out a quick and startled laugh.

* * *

“You're ordering rooks to defend a supply station.” Rage was concealed inside closed fists. Showing emotion was a weakness, something a soldier never allowed an enemy to see.

On the holo-output, his father's square face remained impassive. “We're thin on personnel. Tactical needs everybody they can get to staff the ships and fly the Sabres. Your rooks have been signed off. They'll have to do.”

Stark pushed away the urge to pace. The rooks had been signed off in virtual combat since fuel for the single shots and engines was too precious to waste on training exercises. Most of them never went though actual battle in real time. “We still don't know how Murks got past the blockade. And Tactical can't afford to lose supplies if my rooks can't contain them.”

“You'll have to ensure they can.” Cool words, steel-colored eyes.

Stark had an image of himself smashing his fists into the comm unit. Instead, he forced his voice to remain calm. “Get me another squad of pilots. I need field experience, not virtual ace stars.”

“All experienced pilots are at the blockade.” Finally, a small sign of impatience when the general huffed out a breath.

Stark ignored it. “Perhaps that is a sign the blockade should move inward.”

“We'll make that call when it's appropriate.” The man who sat in front of him was a tired-eyed stranger. “You wanted extra hours of field training. You have those hours now.”

What he had was a squad of rooks shoved into combat without any backup. “Our data suggests we're dealing with a single baseship.”

“I concur. When you engage, I want detailed readings on the hull. Anything you can get on tactical advantage.” Another sigh. Years into the war, they still had minimal intel on the composition of the Murk ships.

“I've already considered it.” Ancient Japanese fighting technique: go with the enemy before you redirect him. “Perhaps it's a good time to engage Central Diplomacy. If Victory gets close enough—”

“You're leaving Central Tactical?” The general dragged his fingers through a shock of white hair, a rare sign of true annoyance. “It's not enough that you're the youngest commander in the fleet? You're bucking for the blue bars of Central Diplomacy? Chained to a desk?”

Again, Stark clenched his fists outside of the holo-input field. His next words came out slowly, carefully chosen. “I have no interest in diplomatic relations. However, since we will be in proximity—”

“If you're in proximity, you shoot the motherfuckers.” Steel-cold eyes locked with his. “You're a soldier, and you commit. We aren't trained for talking.”

But they were trained to lead rook fighters to their death. “Yes, sir, General.” He fought the grim, ironic laugh that welled inside him.

“You think because we're in Beijing we aren't connected to reality?” Another swipe of his palm through thin white hair. “We're trained for our specialties. Central Diplomacy will tell us when and where they want talks. You”—he pointed a finger—“will fight Murks and follow orders.”

Because he wanted to shrug, Stark stood stiff at attention. Major military units still adhered to the same narrow mindset of the past hundred years, disregarding the recently pronounced lack of experienced personnel across the board.

“In case of failure, salvage what you can and then destroy the station.” The general's voice went quiet, as if the exchange had tired him. He didn't bother with good-byes.

When the holo-output faded, Stark finally allowed himself to pace. “Poll. Techeon.” A pause. “And Scott. Report for debrief.”

Waiting for them, he focused on the replicas of the katanas, searching for some semblance of serenity in the symbols of war, honor, and death.

Less than ten minutes later, the squad leads filed into his quarters, more than likely expecting praise.

“We're here until further notice.” He forced himself to look Scott in the eye, noted the carefully hidden weariness. Maybe it was a fluke; maybe that strange stab of arousal wouldn't repeat itself, although he'd wouldn't take the risk and touch her to find out. “Defense of the supply ship is our primary objective. You'll divide the squads in shifts. I want them ready at first sighting.”

With his hands clasped behind his back, Techeon, a middle-aged man who had been shuttling supplies before being called to war, nodded in agreement. Beside him, Poll puffed up his scrawny chest and waited to be told that he'd done good.

“Officer Scott, you're not in uniform.” The black slim jumpsuit outlined her body, finely tuned muscles, and long, supple thighs. He found himself wondering how the dark red of her hair would fall down to her hips once he unbound it.

“No, sir.”

“You'll find one before you start leading rotations.”

That gold, exotic gaze locked with his, unfurling more sparks of arousal inside him. “Excuse me, sir?” Calm voice, slight tint of color on her cheeks. Stark fought the urge to use his ocular to see if this strange heat affected her as much as it did him.

“Your background gives you the advantage in the field. You'll share that advantage with your team.”

For a swift moment, she dropped the cool shield of nonchalance, gifting Stark with a breathless glimpse of the woman behind it. Unwarranted, his body went diamond hard. Heat speared him, coiling every muscle, tightening around his cock with a vicious mix of pleasure laced with pain. He gritted his teeth against the barrage of sensations.

“We don't need a thief's tricks.” If possible, Poll's back straightened even further, his short, blond hair crisp over the egg-shaped head.

This snapped Stark's focus back. “Those thief's tricks kept your ass alive.” He needed a good drink and a good workout. A good fuck, a small voice whispered inside his head and was immediately shoved away. “Your virtual Triple Ace status means nothing in the field. You'll learn what she's got, and you'll keep your team alive.”

He watched her mouth tremble open, as if she had something to say. Soft, luscious lips he pictured stretched over his cock or flushed pink when she orgasmed. He pushed away the image of long, silky red hair covering them both as she moved above him, her lips parting in a silent moan.

“Dismissed.” Stark nearly allowed himself to breathe when she paused at the hatch.

“Commander.”

The hatch closed, sealing Zoya inside with him, trapping him with an arousal he did not want. Pushing his hands behind his back, he forced himself to look her in the eye and hoped she wouldn't see the heat licking his skin.

“Thief's tricks or not, they aren't going to survive a full-fledged battle. This was just foreplay.”

He watched her mouth shape the word, felt his cock pulse under his uniform. Gritting his teeth, Stark forced himself to take a good step back. “Do you have something to recommend?” She was his pilot, a subordinate officer. And all he could think about was laying her on his comm and fucking her till both their eyes crossed.

“We need experienced pilots.” She seemed oblivious to his discomfort. “Another battle cruiser. Maybe two.”

“So noted.” Through the unwanted heat of rising frustration, Stark contemplated beating a fist against the gray dull plaster of a bulkhead, hoping that the pain would bring his focus back. “You're dismissed.”

“Excuse me, Commander.” Those gold eyes flared. “Perhaps you were misled about their skill level. Most of them never had field experience. Their battle skills were taught in hologames.”

He had to get away from her before his damned glands forced him into doing something stupid. Like kissing her. Fucking her breathless. Feeling her shuddering around him as she came. “So noted.”

“Right.” A bitter smirk. Those eyes went dull again, as if he were responsible for leeching out the light inside them. “Your job is to give orders and coordinate attacks. You don't know who is out there dying.”

He couldn't breathe without taking in her heat, couldn't think beyond the words she hurled at him. “You're right, I don't. I don't know their names or anything about them. They're just soldiers. They're trained to follow orders.”

Before he knew what he was doing, he roughly pulled at the sleeve of his undershirt, exposing neat rows of tattoos. “I don't know them.” He shook his head, battling arousal, emotion, and frustration. “I just count their deaths.”

Silence. He was an idiot to lose control like this, to share the part of himself which he'd always kept hidden. He was an idiot to need her to understand the only way he could grieve. He was an idiot to feel this raw, sexual pull toward her.

“I'm-I'm sorry.” Her voice thick, her eyes shattered, Zoya lightly touched the dots on his upper arm.

Shock rippled on his skin, pinpricks of heat and vicious, coiled lust. He nearly staggered, fighting the dark urge to cover her lush mouth while his body primed to take, to feast. Her eyes flared wide, yet she didn't pull her arm away when his fingers closed around her wrist.

“You shouldn't touch me.” Her pulse beat hard under his fingertips, her skin like warm, smooth silk. He gave her time to back away, to rip her arm away, say something cutting. Yet she did nothing, simply looked up at him with hot, unguarded eyes, her mouth vulnerable and soft, seconds from his.

Flashes of skin, hot gripping palms, moist hungry lips. Stark didn't know when he pressed her against a bulkhead, when her hands clutched his shoulders, when her ragged breaths became his own. He couldn't get enough, couldn't take a breath, couldn't tear himself away from ravaging her lips, plunging into the sweet depth of her mouth.

Her scent was like a potent drug pumping into his veins. Lips fused, tongues mated, he kissed her like a starving man, as if both their lives depended on it. Cupping her head, he held her steady for his onslaught, fighting himself, fighting against the soft, hitched breaths she made against his mouth. Even as someone screamed inside his head about duty and protocol, the beast inside him wouldn't let him stop.

Over the thunder of need, Stark lifted her up so she could wrap limbs around him, her arms gripping his neck, her thighs clamping over his hips. He pressed himself into the softness of her core, relief and dark arousal searing his insides. The little moans she made somewhere in her throat only inflamed him more.

He left her mouth to scrape teeth over the sweet curve of her jaw, nibbling at the fragrant skin under her ear. She moved against him in urgent, rhythmic beats, grinding herself into him with each harsh, ragged breath.

His fingers trembled lightly when he tore at the collar of her jumpsuit just as his comm beeped a priority. Sanity returned with a sharp snap.

His breathing harsh, every muscle demanding to finally sink inside her, Stark forced himself to move away, watching as she staggered along the wall, then righted herself. With shaking hands, she reached for something in her pocket.

He didn't need an ocular implant to tell that she was trembling, her pulse pounding fast, her lips parted and shiny from his kisses.

“If, ah…” She loudly exhaled, as if cleansing her mind.

His pulse tripped and then doubled as he began to realize the possibility of what had almost happened. Control and protocol aside, the only explanation was impossible. Improbable. Completely crazy.

“If I may be dismissed.”

She fled before Stark could find the breath to scrape out a word.

Chapter Three

 

Nothing had gone as she'd expected.

Zoya wasn't supposed to lead the rooks, train with them, become friendly with them during drills and exercises. She sure as hell didn't intend to break down her old maneuvers so that they could understand and use them.

She certainly hadn't anticipated being pressed against a wall by Galen Stark and kissed into a mindless ecstasy.

“I understand you took more than one oral stabilizer.” In the holodisplay of Secondary Communications Backup, Pazlov watched her with shrewd, pale eyes.

She should've figured he had a way to track them from Beijing. “We underestimated the effect of real-time combat.” During the testing phase, she undertook various combat scenarios without major spikes in her adrenaline. Cold, calm, ready to die if need be.

She wasn't about to tell him that a strange hormonal burst of lust blew her calm all to hell.

“Make sure you aren't noticed.” He always kept his wheelchair in range of the holo-output, as if making sure everyone knew he was of Primus. Even in their private communications, he made sure Zoya saw his weakened state. “I don't want questions if a med tech runs a standard test.”

“I doubt it will be a problem.” And she'd made sure not to cross paths with the commander. Judging by that kiss three days ago, she knew the heat suffocating her affected him as well, not that the knowledge made things any easier. She had no business feeling this way, especially for a regulation-loving military man who'd kissed her brainless.

“This delay is threatening our schedule.” Pazlov steepled his fingers together, his posture military straight, three rows of bars and stars gleaming against the dark gray of his uniform. “We don't know how long our time window will last.”

Her heart beat slow and thick inside her throat. “You've verified those ships to be of value?”

“It makes good sense.” His pale gaze went razor-sharp. “Biggest hull design we've seen so far, that odd formation.” He looked up as if picturing them. “Diplomacy, of course, won't share their data”—he rolled his eyes—“but they believe that trio protects something extremely vital. Something that could be crippling to their command structure if we destroy it.”

“We're protecting the supply station.” Zoya let the familiar cold numbness sweep over her skin. For the last three days, she'd pushed away the thoughts about her purpose here, flying and training with the rooks she was supposed to kill.

“I'm moving through all possible channels to reassign Victory to the blockade. If Tactical allowed us battle cruisers of our own…” He didn't finish the sentence, but simply rolled his eyes and frowned.

For once, Zoya found herself grateful to the military. The sticky tape of interdepartmental bickering could keep Victory away from the blockade for a good while. She could convince Pazlov to reassign her somewhere else. Another ship she could destroy, without the confusion and the mess of sudden unwarranted attraction to its commander.

“You're having doubts.”

She thought back to the silent, starving kids and the military that did nothing to protect them. The cold resolve that used to harden her soul no longer seemed to be enough. “I am committed to this project.”

“You were when I found you.” He leaned forward in his chair, as if to convey some sort of understanding. “You've been promoted to squad lead, and while it's not conducive to this mission, I'm not surprised given your natural ability. You train with these men. Fight with them.”

Obviously Pazlov counted on her past to keep her from forming attachments to the crew. Zoya wondered what he would say about the suddenly intense biological reaction to Victory's commander. The possibility of what that reaction could mean was not something she was prepared to discuss with Pazlov.

Those shrewd, old eyes missed nothing. “It's harder now to know what you may have to do.”

She hadn't slept in days because of it. Because of him. “I don't think of the mission.”

Pazlov nodded. “When you do, you should think of your family. Your sister.”

She thought about her locker where she'd stashed Zorina's necklace in plain view. To remind but not to be touched.

“Your family. My family.” Pazlov rubbed his palm over his broad forehead, as if to push away the memories of the dead. “They were collateral. A sacrifice.” A subtle way of saying that the military had fucked them both, and they had divine right of retribution. Up until recently, she'd been in nonchalant agreement. “Yes, Admiral.”

He coughed, the sound harsh and wheezing. “Perhaps in time, we'll be condemned by history. A philosophical dilemma—sacrifice a few lives for the survival of the human race.” His gaze was hard on hers. “We have a chance to end the war. Philosophy aside, we're going to take it.”

He'd said those words plenty of times as she was prepped for the invasion of technology into her body. She had believed him then, considered it some sort of morbid destiny. Avenge her family and end the war. Sacrifice few to save many.

Instead of thinking of it, Zoya focused on the memories of torn fields and dead bodies on the riverbanks. Primus was on the edge of human space, a colony of people determined to break through the punishment of evolution. They'd lived an average of one hundred years because they didn't enhance their bodies with technology, convinced that they could overcome evolution's wrath.

The colony numbered over two hundred children at last count. A handful of those children were left to starve because supplies were better rationed to the ones who fought the war.

We have the means to end this war.” She heard Pazlov's urgent voice inside her head, repeating the same words with quiet intensity. Sometimes Zoya wondered if he had programmed her quarters at Beijing to repeat that phrase while she was sleeping.

She had the means to end this war. Philosophy or not, she was a tool of larger forces. She wouldn't jeopardize the human race because she couldn't keep her damned hormones in check.

Stark did something to her, broke through the cold shield of her defenses. It wasn't the first time she'd been attracted to a man, but she had never experienced arousal of this intensity before, the kind that speared through control and will and went straight for the senses. These sudden flashes of aroused heat were potentially symptoms of a bloodmatch, a biological compatibility for the simple purpose of procreation. Nothing but instinct, raw and senseless. Ironic that her DNA reacted to the man she was ordered to destroy.

For now, she wouldn't think of it. Just as she wouldn't think how he had kissed her as if starved, his body hard and hot against her.

Involuntary biological reaction, Zoya told herself as she left Secondary Communications Backup and headed for deck three. She'd barely slept in the past seventy-two hours. A good workout session helped keep her mind empty while she lay awake.

She should have left as soon as she saw Stark pummel a punching bag, sweat glistening on arms bulging with muscle. Nano-built muscle, she tried to tell herself, even as arousal pierced her soul.

That olive-toned skin echoed the mixed heritage of his ancestry, the crisp hair of his forearms somehow an erotic sight. That wild steel-blue gaze wouldn't let her back away. Desire that refused to be controlled pulsed through her veins, heating her skin, licking at her with teasing shivers. His massive biceps clenched, and her body shuddered in response. She couldn't get away from picturing those arms around her, his strength surrounding her, pulsing inside her.

Nano-built strength, she tried to tell herself.

Her body simply didn't care.

“Officer Scott.” Another punch sent the bag swinging.

His gaze was like a physical caress. He'd upped the grav stabilizers. Zoya could feel the shift in weight sneaking up through the already-clenching muscles of her thighs.

“Commander.”

“I'll get out of your way.”

Desire, reckless and hot and unwanted, swam through her system, quickening her pulse, her blood, her breath. She had to pound on something. “You box, Commander?”

The sudden weariness in that hot gaze told her he was infused by the same heat that kept tormenting her. Involuntary biological reaction, she told herself again, and licked her lips.

He seemed to focus on her mouth. “I'm more of a kickboxer.” A heavy hook kick into the bag demonstrated his point.

“Impressive.”

He raised an eyebrow but didn't say a word. Zoya had the distinct feeling that he was forcing himself to stay away from her.

She kept her voice cool as another spike of arousal stabbed through her. “I need to work off some aggression. I figure you can understand.”

He simply nodded.

“Care to point spar?”

The look from those wild eyes nearly sent her temperature to melting. “I don't think it would be a good idea.”

She lifted up her fists. Came closer. “No rank. No insignia. I need to kick somebody's ass, Commander. I'm sure you'd understand why I want it to be yours.”

She needed a good sweaty workout to wipe away the thoughts of death and ravenous lust. “No contact.” Like an Earth predator, Zoya circled him, tucking her chin low.

“Hit anywhere you like.” His low, challenging voice sent shivers rhythmically tapping down her spine.

He circled with her, his muscled forearms protecting his torso, his hands open and loose. She'd always liked wide palms and long, blunt fingers on a man. Picturing those hands stroking her skin, she led with a right cross.

It should have sent him stumbling. Instead he moved out of her reach, didn't roundhouse her abs when she deliberately left them open. She wanted pain. Something brutal and mind-numbing and hard to overshadow this dark, conflicting arousal.

A step, a weave, Zoya swung out again, stopping seconds from cracking into his jaw.

A narrowed gaze, those blue eyes blazing hot. “Feel free to hit.”

“Same goes, Commander.” A fake to the left, a spinning wheel kick which he evaded.

“I should apologize.” He blocked her fist with a hard forearm, kept contact for a short, sizzling second. She forced herself to move away before his heat consumed her, before she gave in to the wild need pulsing between her thighs and wrapped herself around him, war and her mission be damned.

“No need.” Her thighs clenched at the memory.

“We both know what's happening.”

She didn't want to go there. “We don't.” A straight cross finally made contact. His head snapped back; those wild blue eyes flared. Excitement pumping through her blood, she lifted her fists, expecting payback. Instead, Stark caught her arm and spun her around so that her back pressed hard into his chest, his hand gripping her wrist, the heat of him fueling the tug of need inside her.

She couldn't move, couldn't force herself to think. In a slow, controlled motion, he banded his other arm around her and brought her flush against him, back to chest, her buttocks pressed against an unmistakable arousal.

A biological reaction. Nothing more . And yet her pulse shuddered in her throat, her muscles tightening against him, wanting to get away yet needing to get closer.

“I keep thinking about this,” he muttered in her ear, his rough voice an unwanted and delicious rasp over her senses. “I can't get it to stop.”

She couldn't speak because her throat went dry.

“You're my officer. Hell, you shouldn't be on this ship.” His breath caressed the sensitive shell of her ear. “And yet I want you so damned bad, without regard to sanity or protocol or code of conduct. Do you know why, Officer Scott?”

Bloodmatch . Wild, tight shivers danced over her skin. “It's not going to work.”

“We're in agreement.” He led her to the nearest bulkhead, turned her around so she faced him, thigh to thigh, chest to chest. Her nipples stabbed out, aching for his touch. Her lips tingled when he lowered his mouth close to hers. “Let me propose a solution.” She felt his breath on her mouth, his lips inches from hers, his erection pulsing with heat against her belly. “We get it over with. And consider it done.”

She tried to speak but couldn't get the words out, didn't even know which answer she would give him. Then she licked her parched lips, and his mouth claimed hers and Zoya could do nothing but grip his heavily muscled arms.

His lips moved over hers, devouring her moans, her breaths, her hunger. His taste drove her mad. His skin felt moist under her fingers, heat over rock-hard muscles. Her pulse was a dull roar in her head when Stark tore his mouth away to spin her around so fast she had to brace her hands on the cool plaster of the bulkhead, facing away from him once more, vulnerable and aroused.

“Do you think of it, Officer Scott?” That dark, dangerous voice caressed her ear. His large palms spanned her waist, slowly moving up over her ribs. “Do you think how I would touch you?”

She couldn't answer through the roar of blood, remembering the heated fantasies of him above her, beneath her, his muscled arms banding around her waist.

“Do you think about what I'd do to you?” He cupped her breasts in those wide palms, lifted them, running his thumbs over the aching nipples. Mindless, she let her head fall back to be cradled on his wide shoulder.

“I know how you would taste. How you would feel when I'm inside you.” Rough, panting breaths and breathless words.

She shuddered when his teeth scraped at the sensitive skin just below her ear, then his lips trailed fiery kisses to the hollow of her neck. She wanted him to slide his hands under her uniform, to touch her skin without the barriers of clothing.

“Do you think about it, Officer Scott?”

She exhaled sharply, fought for words.

“Tell me what you want.”

“Just touch me.” Zoya didn't recognize the soft, low tone as hers. She pushed at the arousal pressing into her buttocks, grinding herself against him for some semblance of relief. Slowly, his hands left her breasts to start a torturous path over her belly, lower, finally cupping the center of her heat. The firm touch of his palm seared her through the dark fabric of her unisuit.

“Here?” Rough, breathless words.

Instead of answering, she pressed the core of her arousal into his palm.

“Spread your thighs for me.”

Mindless, her muscles clenching, she obeyed, trembling as he unclasped the front snaps of her uniform and finally slid his hand inside the fabric.

The steel of his arousal throbbed against her buttocks through the unisuit, teasing her with images of him sinking into her, driving into her from behind.

Strong, callused fingers brushed over soft, sensitive skin. He cupped her once again, held her in the vicious storm of spiraling excitement before sliding over moist, sensitive tissues, wickedly teasing a path between her nether lips before slipping between them to circle the throbbing knot of her clitoris. She held her breath when Stark suddenly stopped, then exhaled roughly when his finger teased her slick sex.

She didn't need this spiral of sensation, didn't want to draw out an encounter she had no business craving.

Just finish it .

He stopped to press his fingertip deeper inside her. Sparks of pleasure erupted into flames.

Zoya shuddered in his arms, would have buckled if his strength hadn't supported her. A long and wicked finger rasped her delicate skin, plunged into her clenching sex, withdrew once again to torment her with gentle, rhythmic caresses until the coiling in her veins imploded into sharp shimmering sparks.

She didn't know how long he held her, how long she gripped his wrists. Her eyelids were heavy when she was turned around, when his lips found hers again, when he tugged apart the front clasps of her unisuit.

The sound of someone clearing his throat went unnoticed. “Whenever you're done, Commander.” She cringed at the cold voice behind Stark's back. “If you could get your comm implant online. You're needed at Command Post.”

Zoya felt him tense before he even moved a muscle. And still, he made sure that she could stand on her own before he took his body heat away.

She didn't have a lot of time. Already she could feel the tremors usually accompanying the sudden drop in adrenaline. The chills already roughening her skin foreshadowed a seizure on a boil. With hurried fingers, she snapped her uniform back up and hoped that he wouldn't see the first telltale shakes.

“Excuse me, sir.” She had to find a warm dark place to fall apart in. Forcing herself to walk instead of run, Zoya passed by the sub-commander, her eyes straight ahead. She thought she heard a terse “fuck” just as she reached for her syringes. At this point, oral stabilizers wouldn't be enough.

* * *

Stark paced, since standing was impossible. Hours later he still could feel her touch, those moist pliant lips, the desperate clench of her inner muscles when she shuddered in climax.

The loss of control had been inexcusable and had to be addressed. He had avoided Dex, using the timely distraction of a possible Murk sighting, but he would not allow another loss of focus. As such, Stark figured this would be the perfect time for them both to deal with what had happened.

He didn't risk looking up the facts, not with Tactical monitoring all accessed data. All he had was the layman's term for that biological matchup of DNA: a bloodmate. An evolutionary twist for humans who extended their lifespan yet couldn't produce enough offspring to take their place.

Protocol dictated for him to report his findings to Central Research and submit a sample match of DNA. And when CR would insist on hauling him and Scott off Victory for further testing, everyone in the military would know that Galen Stark couldn't control his dick.

When he heard the soft, determined knock, he pushed away the sudden nerves and popped the hatch to let Zoya into his quarters. At least she had the balls to look him in the eye, her hands clasped tight in front of her, her red hair smoothed back into a braid as if nothing had happened. As if she hadn't climaxed in his arms less than two hours ago.

Desire tried to flare up again and was ruthlessly pushed down. He had to get it over with. Two stones with one fuck, as it were. “Again, I must apologize.”

“No need.” Her voice stayed calm, if a bit frigid.

Stark wondered what she would do if he pulled the clasp that bound her hair to let it spill over her shoulders and her back.

“We both know what is happening here. It's a perfect opportunity to get me off your ship.” Calm voice and distant eyes. Her skin was much paler than its usual gold tinge, a sickly cast that made Stark frown. “After a match is verified, you will claim inability to focus. I'll do the same.”

“You've given it some thought.” He saw the cold, sharp shield she had pulled around herself, but he couldn't see why she was angling to transfer. From what he understood, she had requested Victory specifically, and Pazlov found the strings to make sure she got here.

“Per protocol, we must report the DNA match to Central Research.” She sneered, a small curl of her upper lip. “I understood you always adhere to protocol.”

“You understood correctly.” He fought the urge to shake her out of that cold bubble. To counter it, Stark sat behind his comm unit, putting the width of it between his need and hers. “Our current situation takes priority.” He matched her tone in cool, stiff nonchalance. “Despite your background, you are an asset to this ship. With the current shortage of personnel, transferring a skilled pilot on account of hormones is shortsighted.” He thought he heard her snicker, but her gaze remained the same. Cold, empty amber. “May I speak frankly?”

Her hands clasped in front of her, and she gave him a cautious nod.

“What happened in the gym is our business.” He saw a slight flush tint her cheeks. “Protocol aside, my hormones—and yours—are not something I'm prepared to report on or discuss.” Central Research would insist on a long study, and neither of them could afford a leave at this point in the war.

That stubborn chin came up. “Your privacy concerns won't resolve this issue. If I may be equally frank?”

“Please do.” Under her shell of cold control, Stark got a sense of something vulnerable, something she desperately needed to keep hidden.

“As you asked earlier, I think of…it.” Those distant eyes dared him to request an elaboration. “I'm finding it difficult to sleep or focus, a direct impediment on the duties you asked me to perform. Frankly, sir, I don't have positive regard for you. So you can understand my wish to avoid this”—she groped for the right words—“this biological connection. I would prefer to transfer to another ship.”

She might as well have told him to go fuck himself.

“I appreciate your candor. This 'biological connection'”—he used his fingers to form quotes—“won't go away, and I am not ready to get rid of you until the rooks are up to speed in their training.” He offered her a hard, sharp smile. “We could allow the urge to run its course in a controlled and scheduled environment. Your personal regard for me did not appear to be an issue at the gym.”

The flush in her checks fascinated him, the color a direct contrast to the cool nonchalance of her expression.

She gave him a cold smile of her own. “I appreciate your offer, Commander. However, I prefer a bit of romance when I fuck.”

Chapter Four

 

He had no business thinking of a smart-ass pilot with an erotic mouth. Maybe he hadn't slept because of hot and sweaty dreams or hadn't been able to keep his mind and body from remembering that carnal moment at the gym, but he didn't have time for it, and he refused to let his hormones control Victory.

Stark grimaced as he drank thick and bitter tea to counter the lack of focus as he studied the large hologrid of the surrounding space. The rounded X shape of Victory floated closest to him, with the supply ship close at starboard, and the planetoid field a dusty shield between them and the Murks.

“I'd say they're gauging their time.” Dex, with his face paler than usual, studied the map on the other side of the grid. “Waiting for us to make a move to see how much bang we're packing.”

“I'd say you're right.” They'd calculated three possible locations, each marked with a faint outline of a snub-nosed oblong ship. “Tactical should've seen it go past the blockade.”

A thoughtful nod as Dex turned the map on the z-axis to study the hollow center between the scattered rocks. The scars over his brow seemed darker than usual.

“You aren't looking good.” He'd been so preoccupied with his own shit, he hadn't noticed Dex looking worn out.

To his surprise, the sub-commander didn't reply with a joke. “Haven't been sleeping much.”

“I can relate.”

The eyebrow that wasn't split by scars went up into an arch. “Now that's surprising.”

Years of friendship trumped protocol. “I could order your ass to stop overtaxing the inputs you stuck in your brain.”

“You could.” A somber nod. “Won't work, of course, but nice to know you care.”

His arms crossed, Stark took another sip of bitter tea and waited

Dex held his gaze for a long moment before shrugging. “I rerouted Victory's communications into my ocular.”

Stark bit back an oath. “You're that bored? Or you just feel like violating privacy protocols?”

“I haven't been able to sleep.” Calm, even, self-effacing voice. Except those dark eyes held a hint of desperation. “It's been over five years since…” His voice trailed off. Whatever happened five years ago, Dex never talked about. “Still eats at me.”

“So you fill up your brain with ship's communications.” He couldn't ask about what happened to make Dex shove that much tech into his body, but he could at least be concerned about the result. The strain was probably enormous, having that much data processed by a feeble human brain.

“It's too much to get individual conversations, if you're concerned about protocol.” A shrug that could've passed as a short shudder. “I'm focusing on output logs, see how much data I can process.”

“In case every comm backup shuts down?”

Dex simply shrugged.

“You can't sleep, so you fill your brain with shit to keep yourself from sleeping. Makes perfect sense.”

“We're talking sense?” Over the planetoids, Dex tilted his head and gave him a long, questioning stare.

His turn to shake his head. “It's nothing.” Stark hadn't known whether he should've laughed or beat his head into the wall when Zoya exited his quarters, her stubborn chin held up, her neat braid all but pointing at her buttocks.

He wondered if she'd contacted Pazlov to have him pull his strings, though Stark doubted the admiral could once again dictate something outside of his particular department. Intelligence and Tactical didn't exactly get along.

“Really.” Dex gave him a brief look.

“What do you know about bloodmates?” He hadn't meant to ask, yet when the question came out, he realized the word felt right over his tongue.

The change in Dex was subtle—a brief flash of pain and grief and rage. “Why do you…oh.” A pause followed by a swift, sad smile. “Shit.” He strung out the i like a long, meaningful whistle. “I've…” A short pause. “Central Research tried to duplicate it.” Already pale, Dex's skin was near white against the dark trio of diagonal scars. For all the tech he shoved into his body, he'd never allowed any sort of procedure to have those things removed.

There was more to the story. Frowning, Stark studied the man he'd known since childhood. They had grown up together, fought and played, competed at the academy. “Was CR successful?”

“No.” A lot of fierceness in that short statement. “You figure all that out in the gym?”

Heat licked at his skin with the memory of her shuddering in orgasm, her sex scorching and wet under his hand. “Let's say we both confirmed it there.”

“No shit.” Dex ran a hand over his cropped pale blond hair. “You've reported it?”

Now Stark could laugh. “Imagine the general questioned by Central Research about my reproductive skills.”

“He'd have a field day.”

The map flashed red just as his comm implant signaled priority incoming. Dex rubbed a fingertip over his brow and winced. “Looks like you're too busy to report it now.”

Stark borrowed his friend's phrase. “No shit.”

Command post buzzed with shift changes and roll call. The central hologrid mapped Murk fighters approaching.

“Birds?” Stark swallowed a grim curse as he ran the numbers. At this point, stats ran one to two, and they still hadn't sighted all the enemy ships coming in.

“Sabres en route.” The comm chief, Alta Hahn, took her position by the trio of hologrids, the loose folds of her jumpsuit indicating she was probably roused from sleep. Despite the tired eyes, she kept her posture ramrod straight.

“Cannon fuel?”

Beside him, Dex moved virtual blocks on the gray supply grid. “We're got five straight shots, a good amount for snuffing theirs. I could squeeze out six if you don't ask me how.”

“Do it. Sabres.” He knew Zoya could hear him as she prepped for another fight and forced himself not to consider he was sending her into a potentially losing battle. “Alternate between fire and pursuit. Let's see where those motherfuckers feed from.”

“Understood.” Poll's voice, which in itself was a small blessing.

He refused to think about her flying into battle while he stayed relatively safe behind Victory's hull. “Engine plasma?”

Hahn spared him a nod. “All go.”

The birds were on the grid, five finger-four formations blinking toward the planetoids. The net of Murks remained steady and still. The grid tracked their last known energy sigs. No weapons yet.

The field of planetoids moved with unhurried speed, its trajectory the same as they'd originally mapped. Except Stark didn't remember a rock with that much mass on the outer perimeter.

No movement from the Murks. All comms stayed silent. Stark took cannon controls and debated briefly about wasting fuel on a guess without factual backup.

He didn't have time to be wrong about it. “Sabres, watch for friendly fire.”

He eased out a single shot and cursed as the exploding rock particles revealed another squad of fighter ships now bleeding onto the grid amidst the floating dust.

“Sabres, you're outgunned.” He flagged the comm chief and refused to let his pulse effect his voice. “We need more birds out there.”

“Commander.” Zoya's voice came through fuzzy with interferences. Stark pushed away the need to see if the rapidly moving green dot displayed on the hologrid was her Sabre. “We should split up, single units of weapon and wing.”

“For playing hide-and-seek?” Poll's voice. “We're stronger in formation.”

“And present larger targets.” Stark almost heard Zoya roll her eyes.

Still no weapons. He leaned onto the comm and studied the approaching enemy targets. “Keep fours for now, split up on my mark.”

“Baseship is somewhere near here.” Dex plugged in frequency combinations to try to get a bead on a common destination of enemy ship comms. “With this many fighters out, it can't be far behind.”

Tactical data did support that theory. He'd just wasted a shot thinking along those same erroneous lines. And yet, the thought that raced through him was bold and huge and had nothing to do with tactics. “Sabres, do not engage until my mark. No weapons.”

“Sir?” Poll didn't sound thrilled.

Dex spared him a glance. “What are you planning?”

“You have their frequency?”

A swift, negative shrug. “I narrowed them to a few thousand.”

“Hahn, how fast can you cycle through them?”

She did not appear shocked. “Thirty per second. Maybe more.”

“Do it.” Stark switched to audio input, ignoring Dex's “What the fuck?” look. “This is the human battle cruiser Victory. Acknowledge this communication.”

“You're engaging them in talks?” Even as he spoke, Dex moved Communications' monitoring controls onto his hologrid so Hahn could cycle through frequencies.

“This is Commander Stark of battle cruiser Victory. Respond to this communication.”

A section of a comm grid went from gray to dark. “Power overload on deck four B.” Dex cursed. “Remember not to ask me how I got that sixth single shot.”

Hahn sent him a quick look. “Call beta crew.” Her fingers flew over the input paths, randomizing frequency settings to ensure the widest distribution. On the main hologrid, a burst of red indicated a large energy mass rounding on the small dots of the Sabres.

“They're on top of us!” Poll's voice, dread and excitement. “Let's kick ass, motherfuckers!”

“No weapons! Not till I give the go.” Stark switched back to the comm input. “This is the battle cruiser Victory.” He heard the desperation in his voice, ignored it, and clenched his teeth. He willed the enemy to respond. “We have not engaged weapons. I urge you to respond to this communication.”

“Say 'pretty fucking please,'” he heard Dex mutter just as the enemy fighters broke apart into small groups and the energy output flashed to orange. “Sabres, split up. Snuffers!”

The engines acknowledged the command to move. Dex engaged antifire just as enemy shots slammed hard into Victory's hull. Flashes of light, a smell of smoke. At least Victory's outer shell wasn't infused with plaster.

She could withstand a hit, but it didn't stop the stations from smoking up a shitstink. On the now fuzzy hologrid, the Sabres split into teams of two, exchanging single shots with Murks.

“Use outside grav if you can.” Zoya's voice remained calm, but he heard the small telltale tremble. “Conserve your fuel.”

The grid fizzed out. Stark slammed a fist into the central comm, which somehow brought the image output back, showing enemy fire as red lines and the Sabres fighting back as rapidly moving green dots.

“Clear the cannon. Two bursts, short and sweet.” He compensated for the gravity correction, hearing a whine of fuel as the engines followed a sharp turn command. “Sabres, return fire. Watch for friendly at twelve B.” He couldn't wait to check if they moved out of the way before he plugged in double bursts of cannon fire. He almost heard them whistle as they locked on the target.

“Direct hit.” Dex had to shout over the whine of the engines. “No return fire yet. They're conserving ammo.”

The hologrid redrew itself again, as if it couldn't follow an overload of input. Red and green dots mixed together; red and green lines extended into space.

“We're wasting shots!” Poll's voice exploded through the comm.

“Then lay off the damned trigger!” Techeon, who rarely said a word, came through with a surprising clarity of sound through the buzz of noise. “Fresh, watch the curve. Fresh. Fresh!” The grid flashed an explosion as one of the green dots collided with a red.

Silence, despite the roar of engines. Then Zoya's voice came in over the shock. “Nouvelle, you're with Techeon.”

Tech's heavy voice came through the comm, as if he struggled with composure. “I'm good.”

“Trust me, it's better. Victory, I'm cutting off the comm.”

“What the hell are you doing?” Stark watched a green dot disappear from the grid. “Scott!” A planetoid lit up with enemy antifire just as another burst of orange lit up the hologrid. His pulse beat wildly in his throat. “Damnit, Scott!”

He saw her dot again, blinking before disappearing once more behind another rock.

“She's fucking playing hide-and-seek.” Poll's voice, irritated and tired. Another line of green lit up the grid. Another flash of red. A blink of orange indicating an energy sig heightening.

“Watch for incoming.” Beside a smoking station, a uniform was wheeled away, replaced immediately by another. “Prepare to snuff.” Stark gripped the comm unit.

“They're on to you, Scott. Scott!” A flash of orange scattered the floating rocks. “Zoya!”

No answer.

His heart froze for a paralyzing second. He fought for breath, fought for control while picturing her face, wondering if she was terrified.

“I'm hit.” A forced calm voice that had him breathing once again. “Grazed the starboard engine.”

“Return to base.” He couldn't hear over the thunder in his ears. She was a pilot; she knew and accepted the risks of that rank. He wouldn't breach protocol because of his damned hormones or the heavy relief inside his chest.

“I'm good, Commander.”

“I can't afford to lose a bird. Return to base.”

He heard a muttered curse, then watched the red dots of Murks move in on the lone green one. “Tech, she needs cover.”

“On it.” Two green dots closing in on her location.

“Baseship powering up again.” Dex slapped the holo-unit when the image fizzed again. “Snuffers online…now.” The imaging coords managed to locate both incoming targets. Another flash of white covered the grid.

“Power up all we got.” They had to end this, now. “Randomize targets.”

Victory shuddered a release of fire. Stark watched thick white lines pierce the grid just before Zoya's Sabre rapidly moved behind a planetoid.

“Scott, you're to return to base. Tech, spread them out!”

Another flash, another green dot went white and then blinked out.

“Shit! Navarette!” Tech's voice was nearly drowned out by the noise.

A shuffle of static on the comm. “Caught my fucking engines.” A muffled cheer.

“I'll escort you to base.” The raw voice was Zoya.

Hahn lifted up a finger. “We got movement!”

The orange mass rapidly moved away, the red dots quickly following. Watching the grid clear of red, Stark unclenched his sweaty fists and breathed out for the first time in what felt like hours. He took a few short seconds to calm the heart permanently lodged inside his throat.

“Birds, return to base.” He couldn't afford to take the extra second to ensure she got safely back into the launch deck. “Report to Sub-Commander Dex for debrief. Hahn, we'll need cleanup crews.” Various stations pooled plasma under his feet, with burned wirings clattering somewhere against a smoking bulkhead. “Pull us back as soon as the Sabres get in.”

Dex nodded in acknowledgment, calling up damage reports before Stark asked for them. He needed somewhere to breathe, to put his fist into a wall. To absorb what the hell had happened. To start the grueling task of separating the dead from the injured, and after cleanup, fill out the death certificates.

“I got teams to inspect the hull as soon as we're in position.”

“Good.”

The hologrid was now a serene map of floating dust and rocks and metal particles. The supply ship was somewhere under them, safe for the moment.

You've got a diplomatic streak?”

Stark didn't need to look up to know Dex originated the incoming. “Was worth a shot.” He didn't have the patience to key the words into a comm input. Sometimes he wondered if Dex figured out how to think into his.

Central Diplomacy will have a shit fit.”

Stark figured as much. “They'll have to get in line.”

* * *

She should've taken the pills prior to takeoff. Now, Zoya couldn't get to them until the launch crew got her out of the pressure suit. The rawness on her upper arm was an illusion; the suit protected her from the flashes of heat. Nevertheless, she had a strong urge to rub her biceps as soon as the damned pressure suit was lifted off her body and she could finally take an actual breath that didn't involve recycled oxygen.

She didn't have much time.

With small trembles already slithering through her bones, Zoya forced herself down the ramp as the technicians swarmed her Sabre to assess damage and initiate repairs. With fumbling hands, she reached for the side pocket of her uniform and groped for the syringes. Last time she'd used them, they gave her a good dose of nausea, but at this point, they were her best bet. Biting her lip, hoping that no one noticed her unsteady gait, she turned to find the nearest head.

“You gone deaf?” She blinked, and Poll was in her face, his face covered with his sweat, his eyebrows heavy. “We're debriefing.”

She would be seizing on the floor in any moment. “I need a minute.”

His fingers closed over her arm. “Now you're feeling guilt? Remorse? Shocked that your stupid stunt didn't kill more people?”

Her teeth started to chatter. “Let go. Now.”

“Or what? You'll knock me out? Try it. Try it now.” His eyes grew dark with grief mixed with exhaustion. “You're fucking the commander now? That why he let you get away with it?” Both his hands were on her, gripping on her shoulders. The first tremor speared through her bones, her knees barely holding her.

“We fly formation. That means no fucking tricks, no hiding in the fucking craters. You could've been killed just like that fucking kid. Your tricks didn't help him, did they?”

“Back off,” she managed through numb lips. “Right now. Back off.” Her vision went gray at the edges.

“Go ahead, punch me again. The commander will let it go if you blow him.”

“Enough.”

Cold sweat poured down her back. She was already shaking. It took tremendous effort to lift up her head and see Sub-Commander Dex striding toward both of them.

“I need—” She desperately tried to focus. “A minute. Sir.”

He frowned at her for a long moment. “You got one. Rest of you, with me.”

She barely had the strength to remain upright. If she could have been certain no one was watching, she would have crawled. Luckily, the head was a short walk from the launch deck, a walk that seemed to take a painful hour. Zoya used her whole weight to pop the hatch so she could fall inside, then feebly pushed the door closed.

Her hands shook hard enough for her to drop a syringe, and she didn't have the strength to look for it. Instead she leaned against the wall and fought the oncoming convulsions while fumbling for another stabilizer in her pocket.

No pain, at least not yet. Her world became a dark, cold tremor, rattling her teeth and bones.

“Looking for this?”

She shook too hard to be jarred by the words. Her trembling fingers couldn't seem to grip the slim, smooth syringe packet.

Dex crouched down in front of her, holding the silver-wrapped stabilizer she'd dropped moments ago.

“Where?” His voice stayed calm, matter-of-fact.

“Vein. Neck.” She wanted him to go away but was pathetically grateful for the sting of the syringe when he pushed the chemicals into her blood, then simply studied her with thoughtful and dark eyes.

“You're seizing.”

She didn't bother answering as cold sweat dripped into her eyes.

“How long before the meds kick in?”

If asshole Poll hadn't gotten in her face, she'd have been fine already. “Minute. Or so. I'll be fine.”

“I'll wait.” He frowned at her, his gaze somber and tired. “I know I didn't see this on your medical.”

She couldn't even shake her head.

“Pazlov cleared it for you?”

Zoya clutched her knees and simply nodded.

Dex moved out of her line of sight just as the shakes started to ease. She forced herself to lift a heavy hand to swipe at the hot moisture on her forehead. Nausea slowly took possession of her insides, a welcome rolling in her gut indicating relief. Embarrassment followed. She never allowed anyone to see her in this state. The fact that he had, the fact that he'd been helpful, was nearly as unsettling as the idea of him finding a weakness he could use against her.

“Here.” Something miraculously cool was pushed into her hand. Grateful, she wiped her face, then closed her eyes for a short second.

“Adrenaline or blood sugar?” He probably engaged ocular sensors and scanned her stats for blood pressure and temp.

“Adrenaline.” At least that was the truth.

“You realize I'll have to report this to Stark.”

Of course . There it was, the not-too-subtle turn of weakness into a weapon. Except the seizures could be just the excuse she'd need. Stark couldn't afford a pilot losing control of a bird. “I understand.”

She willed herself to stand and was surprised when he grasped her arm to help her. Things didn't seem so bad now that she was unsteadily on her feet.

She needed water and a dark, cool place to rest.

“You've had three calls for incoming. Your Admiral Pazlov doesn't like to wait.” A slight hint of sarcasm or maybe distaste in his calm voice.

She rubbed a slightly trembling hand over her clammy forehead. “I left the ear comm inside the pressure suit.” The roaring in her head was backing off now, the black edges of her vision lightening to a dull gray.

Dex nodded. “Report to the commander when you're able. I'll hold off my report if you'd prefer to talk to him yourself.”

She exhaled when the realization hit. “He'd spoken with you. About…” She couldn't say the word, as if keeping it silent made things easier. “About the thing with us.”

“He has.” A shrug, as if to say it wasn't a big deal. “I'm not sure which one of you I should feel worse for.”

Since he'd already registered for a ration of water, Zoya scooped some up into her hand to take a small gulp and splash some on her face. She nearly felt human. “You sound like you have some experience in the matter.”

She nearly missed the dark, hard look that came and went from his face. “I've seen a bloodmate link go bad.”

Chapter Five

 

“I've waited nearly three hours.”

She felt dead calm, her blood running cold and clear. “My apologies, Admiral. I had to rest after our engagement.”

“I've read the reports.” He snapped the words at her. “Your Sabre was damaged.”

“Small dogfight.”

Now he smiled, a cold, warrior-hard glint in his eyes. “I'm told you kicked Murk ass.”

She didn't smile back. “Yes, sir.” He had been Tactical before the run-in with the Murks left him dependent on a seat with wheels. From what Zoya had understood, Tactical took that as an opportunity to get him off their hands.

Inside the cramped, dark space of the Secondary Comm Backup, she barely had room to keep Pazlov's holo-output from standing on top of her.

“I won't risk all our efforts. Victory will be relieved in the next twenty-four hours. Sooner, if I get the reports I need.”

“Admiral.” She paused for a short second. “I should tell you, Sub-Commander Dex is aware of the symptoms.”

“You told him?”

“I didn't have a choice. He'd scanned my stats.” She forced her face to stay impassive. “He is notorious for employing implants. If he is able to comprehend the nanite signature…” She let the sentence hang.

“He will report it to Commander Stark, and we will find ourselves in a drawn-out evaluation of our strategy. Tactical personnel adore evaluations.” Pazlov pinched the bridge of his nose while Zoya waited for him to reach the desired conclusion.

She was a cold-skinned coward. She admitted it. She had no heart, and that she could accept. She'd rather kill a hundred faceless people than betray the man for whom she had “no positive regard.” She wouldn't have to think about it once Pazlov transferred her.

“I had a damned good reason for putting you on Victory.”

With that, her heartbeat slowed.

“It's the newest ship in the fleet. We need something that'll hold together during the final onslaught.”

Furiously, Zoya tried to think of something else yet couldn't up with anything that didn't require telling him of the bloodmatch. And even that, Zoya already knew he'd simply bury under interdepartmental bull.

“You'll stay on Victory. As far as Sub-Commander Dex, even if he sees an abnormality, you're officially attached to the Department of Intelligence. As such, before submitting to any scans, you will—per protocol—inform me. I will take care of the rest.”

There was no time to panic under that shrewd gaze.

“You'll be at the blockade in three days' time.”

She didn't remember when she ended the comm or sneaked out of the wire-laced Backup closet.

She had three days.

Rubbing her hands over her arms, she walked along the busy corridors, with crews patching up conduits and metal-infused plaster. Orange and yellow on a background of gray.

“Hey. Scott.” She turned to find Navarette catching up to her, the gash over his forehead neatly closed. He had survived two up close fights, so she would kill him later.

Clenching her jaw, Zoya pushed away the thought.

“We're drinking for Walker. Freshman.” He laughed, a quiet, sad sound. “He was a good kid. Sharp. It'd be good to lift a glass for him.”

“Yeah. It sure would.” They would be dead, all of them, in three days' time. Sacrifice few to save many.

“I never did report to the commander.” She had to go see Stark. Zoya didn't quite know why, except that need was crystal clear. “I'll find you after to lift up that glass.”

* * *

His biceps stung from the five new tattoos he'd just applied. The hull repair crew caught by enemy fire had joined Ken “Freshman” Walker. From what the med techs said, they didn't have time to feel the slash of burns.

“The baseship appeared to conserve both energy and ammo.” Stark didn't bother looking at his father. Instead, he focused on the trio of katanas on his wall. “That would explain short bursts of fire and their insistence to stand by.”

“Intelligence seems to agree with you.” Short, staccato words. The general wasn't thrilled about interdepartmental sharing of information. “Regardless of the intent, you should have sent the report through proper channels.”

Stark was too tired to care. “We can assume the Murks are tired and running out of supplies. I copied Central Diplomacy as well. Seems to be a good time for a dialogue.”

A shocked, short silence. “You copied Central Diplomacy?” The general audibly exhaled. “I didn't approve that.”

“I did not send it to you for approval.”

“Protocol dictates a specific path of communication to avoid false and misleading data.” The calm, clipped tone hid rage Stark knew all too well. “As such, you are to send suggestions to me to forward through proper channels.”

At this point, protocol could go to hell.

“You are the youngest commander in the fleet.” Fury was barely hidden in his father's steel-cold eyes. “Nevertheless, you should be aware of the past mistakes that cost us thousands due to miscommunications. You're trained to be a solider. You follow orders. Rocking the very foundation of our stability is not the way to ensure we survive.”

Five men were dead. That number wouldn't change if Stark followed the fucking regulations.

His father sighed, as if the outburst tired him out. “You realize Diplomacy will not take a report from someone at your level.”

Diplomacy probably wouldn't shit if that went against protocol. “You're right. They won't.”

“If you would like to send it to me, I will review it before forwarding it up.” At least there wasn't a long chain of aides between them.

“I will.” Five men were dead. “Thank you.”

“It's a damned good idea.” That grudging tone had Stark frowning in surprise. “I'll follow through on it.”

As usual, there were no good-byes.

Stark was still brooding in the window when the knock came. He didn't answer it, hoping Dex would leave him the hell alone, except the persistent bangs on the hatch only got stronger.

Cursing, Stark popped the thing to find Zoya Scott on his doorstep.

“Dex said you'd be reporting in.” Even through the numbness and grief of exhaustion, the need for her sent a low ache into his gut.

Dex told him she had been dealing with shock, but he hadn't had the time to check on her. Now that he looked at her, Stark wondered if he should have.

Dark circles under her eyes, her face nearly leached of color. Those amber eyes were devastated, lost. He wanted to kiss away the sad curve of her mouth.

“You did a good job out there.” At least his voice stayed calm even as his body hardened.

She shrugged, the gesture meant to look callous. “We lost a man.”

“We lost a couple.” He knew that sign of nonchalance, the conscious act of not allowing yourself to care.

“Commander…” She stopped for a moment as if gathering the words. “You shouldn't have let this thing with us interfere.”

He walked toward the tiny window and looked out into cold vacuum and dust. “I did not.”

“You called me by my first name.”

“You're right. Zoya.” He liked the way her name felt in his mouth. The first time he'd said it was in a crush of battle. Now, Stark gave himself permission to savor the sound of her name and watch her reflection in the window. A delicate shade of pink bloomed on her cheeks.

She remained standing at attention, her back straight, her hands clasped in front of her. “You ordered me out of the fight.”

“You were hit. I couldn't afford to lose a Sabre.” There was plenty of logic in that lie.

“We shouldn't be serving together.” A hint of desperation in her voice.

He turned to give her a hard smile. “If you're that set on getting off Victory, you should contact your friend Pazlov.”

She didn't react to that. “I share your privacy concerns.” Stiff, quiet words.

The shield of cold nonchalance she usually wrapped around herself seemed thin now, revealing a vulnerability she probably never allowed people to see.

“They're drinking for Walker,” she said finally. “Navarette asked me join them.” A frown, as if the invitation had surprised her. “I can't…I can't do it.”

That he could understand. Without a word, Stark dug into a compartment of his comm system and took out a green flask. Two small transparent glasses followed.

“I marked all of their deaths.” Stark lifted up a sleeve to show her the angry red dots lining up in a new row on his triceps. He never took pain neutralizers for this commemoration. “I don't usually lift a glass for them, but I will if you join me.”

She shook her head. “I want to take you up on your offer.”

He poured himself a shot and drank deep. Felt the soy whiskey burn a path down to his stomach. “What offer would that be?”

“The offer that we get it over with.” Her cool gaze dared him to act surprised. “Seems suitable to celebrate death with a pretense of making life.”

Stark poured himself another shot, using the time to study her. A nonchalant expression, distant eyes. Earlier, she looked dead on her feet, and yet, despite the weight of grief mixed with frustration, the words she coolly offered sent throbbing curls of need into his blood. “I thought you wanted romance when you fuck.”

A small lift of her eyebrow. “Too tired for romance.”

“Is that supposed to be a turn-on?”

She didn't move a muscle. “You tell me.”

“What made you change your mind?” Stark kept his voice mild even as he went diamond hard. He hadn't expected this and didn't care for the cold way that she approached the situation, intending to use sex to numb the pain of grief. She clearly wasn't thinking, clearly was trying to cover up deeper emotions with something mindless and raw. The problem was, his body didn't seem to give a fuck about her reasons. Desire flared again, pooling low in his gut, clenching his muscles. He'd stroke away the paleness of her cheeks, make those pursed lips cry out with pleasure. He'd have her shuddering once again, and this time he would be inside her.

“It's not something either of us can fight.” Her words were wrapped in ice, her arms now crossed in front of her. “As you mentioned before—controlled and planned environment.”

Stark put down the thin glass before he crushed it in his fingers. She spoke as if it meant nothing to her, just a couple of animals rutting somewhere in the darkness. Controlled environment could fuck itself.

“I wouldn't disagree with you.” Testing them both, he took a step closer to her. The heat between them flared, a teasing caress licking with delicious roughness at his skin. He had to grit his teeth to keep from simply spinning her around and tearing off her uniform to sink inside her, deep and hard.

She hadn't moved. “What are you doing?”

Nerves now. A hint of apprehension. She came here with intent to control both of them, and Stark intended to strip her of it before they were finished. “You came here to take my offer.”

“Yes.” She looked up at him with empty, amber eyes.

He would watch that cold gaze go wild in climax, her lips parted and wet while she screamed his name. “My rules. My orders.” He reached out and lifted up her chin with two blunt fingers. Her skin felt like the softest silk. “Do you understand?”

A small, challenging smile. “Yes, sir.”

Taking his time, Stark circled her, barely caught the tiny shiver which she tried to hide. “You came here with the intent to use me and then leave.”

Standing behind her, he couldn't watch her expression. “Yes, sir.”

“This won't be over quickly.” The need to strip her of control was now a burning flame inside him. “This will not be a fast, furious fuck.” Another tiny shiver. “Do we understand each other?” A part of him grimly laughed at the fact that he placed himself behind her so she couldn't see his face. If anyone would lose control, Stark feared he would be the first.

“Yes. I understand.” A cold, hard voice with barely a hint of suppressed excitement. He was afraid to touch her for fear of tearing off her uniform and sinking deep.

Testing his resolve, Stark came to stand in front of her, centimeters away from that lush mouth, noting the flush over her checks, the bright eyes staring above his shoulder into space. He didn't need his ocular to see her temperature rising. He didn't need a sound implant to hear a sudden hitch of her breath.

“Would you like me to kiss you?” He had to force his voice to remain calm.

She spared him a glance, her eyes both calm and challenging. “If you'd like.”

He gave her a slow, feral grin before he leaned forward, only to stop scant millimeters from her lips. “Would you like me to kiss you?” He couldn't keep his voice from going hoarse.

“Yes.” A soft, trembling whisper that had his cock straining against his uniform.

“Yes, what, Officer?”

Zoya's slow, shuddering breath nearly shattered his control. “Yes, sir.”

“We understand each other.” He still didn't trust himself to touch her and simply spoke the words against her lips. “You should know I intend to hear you beg.”

Her eyes flared.

“Do you understand?” He was ready to burst.

She exhaled, her breath sweet on his lips. “Yes, sir. I understand.” His cock twitched, as if that rough and sexy tone caressed him.

Stark closed that final gap between their lips, leisurely tasted her, determined not to give into to the need to ravage. Sweet and unhurried kisses, brutal and gentle brush of lips. The rhythm of his own heartbeat damn near deafened him.

When he lifted his head, her lips were moist and shiny, her gaze guarded and hot. A wild pulse beat at the hollow of her throat, and Stark wanted to put his lips there to see what it would taste like.

“Take off your uniform.” He stepped away from her for fear of giving in to the need to tear at the fabric.

“Excuse me?” Her tone was breathless and yet determined. Her hot gaze damn near ripped him to shreds.

“You heard me the first time.”

With a sharp move, she turned her head to look at him, subjecting him to all the power of that potent, molten gaze. He would have been prepared for sarcasm. The sweet, sharp smile she had given him nearly sent him over the edge.

“Yes, sir, Commander.”

His blood roared at those long, delicate fingers reaching for the snaps at her collar. She didn't look down, didn't look away, just challenged him to keep his distance as she worked the snaps between her breasts. A shrug of her strong shoulders pushed the gray fabric down to her hips, leaving her in a thin white undershirt.

He could already see her nipples puckering, as if already calling for his hands. Those witch eyes dared him to come closer.

“All of it.”

A small and catlike smile. “Yes, Commander.” A tug, a wiggle of her hips as she pushed down her uniform over a smooth length of finely muscled thighs. A quick toss of her undershirt, followed by a slow bend to unlace and remove her boots.

Then she stood naked in his quarters, slim, strong, all golden skin and molten eyes and firm pink-tipped breasts that were made for his mouth. The bare, smooth crevice between her thighs begged him to taste her.

Stark forced his pulse to remain level, his voice to remain calm. His body pounded with savage need, arousal coiling tight in his gut and throbbing in his cock. He had to lock his feet to keep himself from coming closer.

“Turn around.” Those gold, aroused eyes drove him insane as she held his gaze for a long molten moment before slowly turning to present him with the long erotic line of her braid pointing at the crease between her buttocks.

His throat went bone dry. He allowed his hand to tremble when he reached for the clasp holding her braid and set the red silk of her hair spilling to her hips like loose waves of the softest fire. Since she couldn't see, Stark gave himself the luxury of reveling in the softness of a fragrant strand before bringing it to his nose to take in her scent. He hadn't smelled the sea in years, yet her clean scent reminded him of it.

“Are you aroused, Officer?” He wasn't sure how he held out this long.

A pause. “I don't know yet. Commander.”

“Then we'll have to see.”

He forced himself to take a calming breath and closed his eyes for a moment in an attempt to fight the urge to spread her thighs and take that first taste. She had to be just as crazed with arousal as he was. Stark had to feel it in her body, see it in her eyes.

The need to see her gripped in raw arousal allowed him a small shard of control. He used a single fingertip to touch her skin, tracing a fragile line between her shoulder blades down to the curve at the base of her spine. Testing them both, he pressed his lips into the tender spot above the firm globes of her buttocks.

A low, shuddering sigh. She made a move as if to get away from him, then stood still as if knowing that would lose this game. Stark spread his palms over the smooth skin of her buttocks, finally giving in to the urge to cup and squeeze the firm, supple flesh.

He shuddered. “You won't deny me. Anything.”

“Yes, sir.” A whisper, as if she understood what he implied and trembled with the thought.

She wouldn't hold out much longer. Stark wasn't sure he could either. “Say that again.”

“Yes, sir.” She hissed the words, helpless, irritated arousal.

“I like the way you say that. Like you're telling me to fuck you at the same time you're telling me to go to hell.”

He slid his palms over her buttocks, down to the silk skin of her thighs, and heard a quick intake of breath. “Do you like when I touch you?”

Another short-lived shiver. “Yes, sir.”

He would inflame those shivers into a fire. Stark only hoped he would survive the flame. “That's good.” He pressed his lips between her shoulder blades, felt the rapid tattoo of her breaths, the rhythm of her heartbeat.

“I love touching your skin,” he murmured against the rapid rise and fall of that erotic back, feeling another shiver rake her body. “I've been thinking about you. How I would touch you.” He slid his hands over the slim curve of her belly. “Here.” He moved his palms up to her ribs, achingly slow, torturing them both with greed for more. “Here.”

Finally he allowed himself to briefly cup her breasts before sliding up to caress the arching column of her neck and slowly coming back to linger on her nipples.

She shuddered under his hands and dropped her head back on his shoulder, sending dark satisfaction through his veins. Mine, something whispered in his ear, and somehow his very core knew it was true.

“Let me touch you.” A low, breathy voice that had him boiling.

Stark exhaled through his teeth. “Not yet.”

His palms cupping her breasts, he nudged her forward until she stood close to the comm center, all but vibrating under his hands.

“Turn to face me.”

She didn't answer this time, and Stark didn't think he had the will to press the point. He forced himself to look into her eyes and tortured them both by lifting a pink-tipped breast and breathing the words over the tempting, straining nipple. “Spread your thighs for me.”

He saw her gulp then nod, as if she couldn't get the air for the words. His breathing harsh, Stark knew exactly how she felt.

Finally he could touch her freely, letting his palms roam over all that warm, sensitive skin, finding the spots that made her shiver, lingering over those that made her gasp.

Arousal shuddered against the iron-hard control. “Lean back.”

She braced her palms over the comm unit and arched her spine, breathing sharp and fast through that erotically flushed mouth.

“I'm going to watch you come.”

 

She'd wanted a quick fuck, something to dull the thoughts and feelings. She had expected Stark to either tell her to fuck off or simply jump at the opportunity to get it over with as he'd suggested. This battle of willpower quickly became something Zoya didn't know how to handle, a challenge of control, a taut and subtle stretch of her arousal to a boiling point.

She stood before him, leaning back on the cold plaster of the comm unit, her breasts arched toward him, her sex open between slightly spread thighs. There was no need for an ocular implant to determine the rising level of his arousal. She simply wasn't sure if she could hold out long enough to see him break.

His wild blue gaze stayed locked on hers as he touched her, long, firm caresses that sent her heartbeat pounding thick and hot inside her veins. A circle of fingertips between her breasts, a slow, lingering trail over her belly.

He made no move to touch her sex. His gaze challenged her to keep her eyes open as he leaned closer, made her wait for a delicious, torturous kiss. His mouth trailed a tingling path over her jaw just below her ear and lingered there long enough to have her let out a quiet moan and close her eyes.

“No. Keep them open.”

His palm moved slow and sure against the sensitive skin of her inner thigh while he tortured her with slow and wicked kisses, trailing a path down her neck, tasting the hollow of her throat, licking a searing line between suddenly heavy breasts.

She wanted his mouth on her nipples. His eyes challenged her to beg. Instead Zoya arched her neck and silently offered herself to him. His mouth closed softly on an aching tip of her breast just as his hand finally found the wet heat of her sex.

She held back a ragged moan as his fingers lightly teased her nether lips, gently sliding over their softness before spreading her labia to circle that swelling knot of concentrated pleasure.

Control be damned. Her body clutched at him and shuddered, her thighs clamped on his wrist and wouldn't let him go. There… Almost. She ground her hips into his hand, trying to align herself fully onto that teasing, wicked fingertip.

“Almost,” Stark murmured against her breast and lifted his head to watch her.

His gaze wouldn't let her close her eyes. “Will you come for me?”

She couldn't breathe, couldn't think to answer except to lift her hips into his hand, matching his rhythm as he stroked her, steady and maddeningly slow. The edge of need sharpened the sensations, the greed for more tightening and pulsing in her core. Her hand was on his wrist now, trying to control his movement, trying to reach the final thrust over the edge that he withheld from her.

“Will you come for me, Officer Scott?” Soft, whispered words against her lips, light and bold strokes of his strong hand. He loomed over her, his other palm supporting his weight on the comm station. His body pulsed with heat, so close it nearly seared her, surrounding her, making her helpless, weak. Craving every sensation he could give her.

She strained against his hand, against his wild gaze and gasped hard as she tried to reach a mindless, shattering climax.

“Will you come for me?”

“Please. Yes.” She hissed the words, let her head drop back in a silent scream of ragged sound as his strokes firmed, sending wild, sharp-edged pleasure throughout her blood. More, harder, faster, until the sparks became a shuddering fire, and Zoya shattered into a million points of light.

She hadn't realized his arms held her against his body until her breath returned to normal. Zoya opened her eyes to find Stark watching her, his eyes wild and blue and burning with desire.

“Again.” Low, savage words. She was lifted into his arms, carried as if she weighed nothing through his quarters until he laid her onto a bed covered in soft gray sheets.

“Let me touch you.” She didn't care anymore about control or games or orders. She had to get her hands on him, to feel the burn of his skin against hers, to feel him inside her. With trembling, clumsy fingers, she tore at the snaps of his uniform.

His undershirt was a short battle of frustration. With a sharp move, Zoya ripped it off his shoulders and finally spread her hands over taut, olive-tinted skin. His heart pounded under her palms as she dug her fingertips into those massive muscles and rubbed her cheek against the crisp dark hair of his chest.

“You're heart's racing, Commander.”

His answer was to palm her breast, then capture her nipple between his third and second finger. “Same goes, Officer Scott.”

Her gaze still locked with that wild blue of his, Zoya ran her hands from his thick chest to his rippling belly, over the line of hair arrowing under the fabric where his cock bulged thick.

She licked her lips. “I want you naked.” A slow smile. “Sir.”

His teeth scraped at her ear. “Since you asked nicely…”

In seconds, he knelt on the bed in front of her, gorgeous and naked, with gleaming skin poured over rock-hard muscles, his massive chest and shoulders rapidly rising and falling with each ragged breath.

His cock jutted out toward her, smooth velvet over steel. Zoya reached out to wrap her fingers around it and felt his hand restrain hers.

“My rules. My orders.”

“No.” She nearly drowned in that heated blue gaze. “Not anymore.”

He took her mouth in a long, punishing kiss, nearly brutal, as if trying to reclaim his power over her. She reveled in the strength surrounding her, the taste of him, the raw masculine scent.

Her gaze locked with his. Zoya let him lift her above his lap and position her so that the tip of his arousal pressed hard and sure into the wet heat of her sex.

“Do you want this?” Brutal jagged words.

She gripped his wrists and tried to force her weight down onto him. “You know I do.”

“Then say it.”

He let her sink onto him, slow and steady, his cock incredibly thick inside her clenching, shuddering core. “I want this. I want you.”

Those wild eyes darkened as he slid inside her to the hilt, so she knelt over him, afraid to move, afraid to breathe for fear she'd simply die from all that molten, quivering pleasure.

“Am I hurting you?”

She only shook her head and tried to move, feeling her muscles clench around him. The fullness of his cock pressed into her inner walls, each movement a subtle caress, each shudder a dark spark of pleasure.

Control belonged to her. Zoya moved over his body, her lips hovering over his, taking in his gasps, his grunts. Her inner muscles squeezed around him as she rode him, slow and steady.

“Do you like this?” She watched his eyes as she clenched her thighs around his waist and slammed down hard.

“Fuck. Yes.”

And she nearly squealed when a swift blur of motion had her lying on her back, her thighs still wrapped around him, her hips up high, his palms gripping her buttocks, holding her up for a slow, sensual onslaught.

Pleasure she had thought was sated unfurled to become need as Zoya rose to meet each forward stroke, mourned each slow, torturous withdrawal.

“Look at me,” he murmured when Zoya closed her eyes.

She only shook her head.

“Look at me.”

His muscles stood out in relief, his shoulders wide, his skin glowing with perspiration. She reveled in the scent of a hard, aroused male pumping inside her, stoking the fire that was both a coiling of need and a relief from it.

Her pulse pounded thick and hard as Stark watched her face, his jaw clenched, his gaze a mix of tender savagery.

A deep plunge into her. A slow withdrawal. Another forward motion, impossibly, incredibly full, spreading her, filling her, only to pull back and start again.

The tremors started low inside her belly, then spun faster out of control. His movement slow and steady, Stark slammed inside her, watching her face, always watching her face. And when she came again, a silent scream bubbling out of her throat, he gripped her hips and hammered into her with short, furious strokes until he froze above her body to grunt in his own climax.

Zoya couldn't quite breathe with the weight of a warm, satisfied male on her. The wonderful press of skin against skin, thigh against thigh, chest against chest, as if they were one body, as if nothing mattered except for eradicating every small pocket of space between them. For a short moment, she didn't have to think, didn't have to push away dark thoughts. Instead, she ran her hands over his back and marveled at the strength she felt under her palms.

“Do men pump their muscles full of nanites to look bigger?”

He shifted a bit so she could breathe. “I prefer pumping other things.”

She snorted, couldn't help herself. Stark's arms banded around her waist, holding her tight. His scent surrounding her, Zoya inhaled deep to take all of him in, but she couldn't avoid the thought that in a few short hours, he wouldn't have time to ask what the hell she had done.

“Not yet,” he muttered when she tried to move away.

At least she didn't need more stabilizers. The ones she'd taken earlier would keep the nanites happy for a few more hours, regardless of how and what she felt. “You know I can't stay here.”

“Can't? Or won't?”

The soft mood was already broken.

“Poll is already making accusations…” Her voice drifted off, and she shrugged.

“Poll is a prick.” He shifted so that all his weight was on the bed, his heavy arm holding her steady. Those steel blue eyes were solemn now. “It hasn't gone away.”

“I know.” She had to stop herself from touching him. “But hopefully it'll be easier to concentrate.”

He shifted away from her, and Zoya felt a chill dance on her skin.

“Hopefully. You'll have to let me know.”

Naked, he got out of bed and headed to a small partition she assumed was the head. And when he closed the door behind him, she took the opportunity not to have to face him as she sneaked out of his quarters like a thief.

Chapter Six

 

They had less than twenty-four hours to prep Victory for the blockade. The intense repair schedules, reshuffling of personnel, and checks and rechecks of weapons and fuel systems kept Stark from brooding over a certain redhead who'd snuck out of his quarters like a fucking thief.

“I'd have figured you'd sleep.” Dex walked beside him, plugging something into the virtual display on his wrist unit as always, blinking at the responding data sent into his eyes.

“I'd have figured the same.” Zoya had left while he was in the head, as if what they had done had been shameful. A part of him could understand her point of view. After having been called Pazlov's Pet, she probably didn't want to be the commander's playmate. Logically it made sense for her to leave, to avoid any speculations. Except he didn't give a fuck about logic. He wanted her in bed or spread out naked over his comm. He wanted to hear that quick catch of her breath just before she came.

Again he had to force his hormones back.

At least Dex didn't ask questions. “I'm still not clear about Intelligence's involvement. I didn't think the general would stand for that.”

Which was another way of saying the general probably shit a brick upon finding another department sticking its nose into Tactical business.

Stark frowned at the data coming into his ocular, ignoring another complaint from food storage that some supplies were missing or had been rearranged.

“Tactical figured out that Intelligence pushed through the order for Victory to move. They even offered to send two of their own ships to cover the supply station.” Stark snorted. “They know full well their ships wouldn't hold up in a fight.”

Noting another ugly crack on a communication bulkhead, Stark shot off a holo to the comm chief while ignoring a small headache brewing between his temples. He'd had it since the conversation with his father at the start of the shift.

“They offered two of their own?” Dex lifted an eyebrow.

“The general was thrilled.”

“I can imagine.” Dex frowned, as if something inside his overtaxed inputs didn't add up. “You do realize we have numerous outbounds to Intelligence.”

“And?” Stark stepped over a piece of bulkhead waiting for a yellow crew to rewire its guts.

“And it appears to be a nice, shiny coincidence. Intelligence is suddenly dictating tactics, while you have a pilot officially attached to one of their rank. Who, by the way, stonewalled her physical.”

That last part had Stark coming to a stop. “Physical? What the fuck for?” Images of her hurt, in pain, bruised, something, flashed into his mind. Maybe that's why she'd left so suddenly. He should've made sure she was all right, he should have—

Dex simply stared at him with calm and knowing eyes. “She didn't maintain after the last fight.” He shrugged, as if tabling the topic. “Regardless of her official attachments, it's against protocol to flash-secure communications with other department seals.”

Stark couldn't exactly invoke protocol after fucking her blind.

“I'm simply noting the coincidence.” Dex slicked a fingertip over the scars that split his eyebrow. “And since neither of us can assess those communications, it may be logical to ask.”

One didn't argue with logic. And Stark was damned if he'd ignore an officer simply because she'd left his bed without a word.

A quick glance at the pilot rotation schedule showed her to be at the launch deck with her newly reshuffled squad. Before he headed there, Stark took another glance at the rewired bulkheads and wondered how long plaster could last.

“Officer Scott.”

She sat cross-legged under a Sabre, and when she looked at him, Stark thought he saw a number of things in her gaze: apprehension, vulnerability, arousal. Dread.

He forced a normal timbre to his voice, aware that every ear on the launch deck went to abrupt attention. “You'll stand when approached by a senior officer.”

Without a word, she rolled onto her feet, her movements graceful, her eyes carefully blank. The heat inside him flared once again, arousal tightening his muscles. At this point, he didn't need to touch that soft and supple skin to get rock hard.

She wouldn't look him in the eye.

“You've flash-secured your comms with Central Intelligence.” He didn't phrase that as a question.

Controlled uneasy stance. “I have.”

“And you're aware of interdepartmental protocol.”

A strange half smile. “Yes, sir.”

He refused to feel heat at those words. Instead Stark stepped closer, if only to show both of them that he could do his job regardless of the need for her. “Then you knowingly broke it.”

She didn't bother lying. “That's correct.”

More than likely, Pazlov had been the one insisting on security. Yet Zoya's lack of excuses set Stark's teeth on edge.

“You want to tell him how you've stolen supplies?” Poll sauntered up behind them. “Maybe the commander would find it interesting.”

Silence accompanied with an empty, dark gaze.

Stark went still. “Do you deny these allegations, Officer Scott?” He couldn't comprehend the words even as their meaning sank like shards of ice inside him.

“Will I find unauthorized supplies inside your Sabre?”

A soft and final exhale. “Yes. You will. Sir.” She wouldn't meet his eyes. The lush erotic mouth that had explored his skin with greed two days ago was now pressed into a tight and stubborn line.

A cold, tight feeling inside his gut choked away any remaining tendrils of arousal.

“Your purpose for them?” He heard his voice drop, didn't care.

Her face remained a smooth, calm mask. “As I've told you before”—quiet and firm voice—“I've requested a transfer. I'm expecting an approval anytime.”

“I've seen no comms on transfers.” Something flickered in her eyes. “Until then, you're under my command. You will allow the sub-commander access to your communications with Intelligence.”

She took a breath and squared her shoulders. “As soon as Admiral Pazlov approves.”

Every crewman on deck suddenly stopped whatever he or she was doing. Stark felt their gazes on his back. “I am approving it.”

Those gold eyes didn't flare at the challenge; that smooth, cold mask didn't slip off her face. “I'm afraid I can't comply.”

Betrayal tasted bitter on his tongue. “Officer Scott, you're confined to the brig.” He was afraid to look at her cold, empty eyes for fear he would simply grab her arms and shake her. “Squad Lead Poll will escort you.” He forced himself to watch that prick Poll take her arm and lead her toward the exit, her posture stiff, her movements calm.

Stark didn't bother engaging his ocular to see if this exchange affected her. Dex stood silent beside him.

“I need a favor.” Stark forced himself to face his longtime friend, accepting the silent look of understanding. “I sure as hell won't be requesting secured comms.” He kept his voice low, brisk. “I'm asking you to fuck with protocol. I'm asking you to dig inside the shit you loaded in your head to see if you can filter out her comms with Pazlov.”

Dex thought about it for a moment, then finally nodded his head. “So you're saying it's a good thing I haven't been sleeping.”

“Yeah.” At least he could laugh. “That's exactly it.”

* * *

She sat in complete darkness because that asshole Poll hadn't left her any light. Zoya didn't know how long she had been stuck in the gravity-heavy brig on the supply level. At first she had paced, but the increased grav easily wore out her muscles, weighing on her until she didn't have a choice but to sit with her back pressed to the wall and simply breathe.

The cold dread circling inside her stomach had become a giant knot hours ago.

She had to get off Victory. Maybe she was a gutless coward willing to kill somebody else, but Zoya was prepared to deal with it. Perhaps stealing a Sabre full of supplies wasn't the most thought-out plan. It had seemed like the simplest way to get out of there.

Pazlov would bitch, but he wouldn't compromise the mission. He'd leave her on whatever battle cruiser she'd end up on, and she, in turn, would kill dozens of faceless people for a chance to end the war.

The air was warm, as was the hard bulkhead against her back. Poll didn't know or didn't care that she didn't possess an implant to see in the dark, and Zoya sure as hell didn't ask him for it. Someone probably watched her. At this point, she simply didn't give a damn. She hadn't been able to sleep after she'd left Stark's quarters, tormented by the voices in her head. Sacrifice few to save many. Sometimes she wondered if she'd simply gone insane.

She had agreed to Pazlov's mission with a clear head. She had no love for the damned military, and killing Murks seemed like a better deal than rotting away in a labor colony for convicts, growing food or mining meager resources. Pazlov's promise to set aside supplies specifically for refugees was the final bonus to have sealed the deal.

She had a chance to end this war, to let children live normal lives again. She wasn't hesitating because of loss of life, a cold, impersonal decision to “sacrifice few” by people far removed from combat. She hesitated because of a single, irritating man. She had no problem killing everybody else.

A part of her wondered if she had truly died on Primus next to the tiny, emaciated body of her nephew.

The sharp scrape of the doors had her heart jolting, and yet she still couldn't see through the opaque darkness pressing onto her eyes.

“I'll remind you again. You stand in front of a superior.”

Zoya flinched at the cold, sharp tone but didn't bother moving, not wanting him to see her struggle against gravity. “I'm afraid I can't.” She couldn't help the whispered, breathy tone. Due to the grav, she told herself, and tried to fight the urge to reach out with her palms to see if she could touch him.

Through some sixth sense, she knew that Stark stood close. Despite her own resolve, she reached out with her hand and heard a sharp intake of breath just as her palm connected with a wall of muscle. She couldn't see, but she guessed it was probably his thigh.

“What the hell are you doing?”

“My apologies, Commander.” She kept her voice mocking and light because a piece of her, the one usually shielded with cold, sharp numbness, was suddenly ready to cry. “I cannot see.”

“That's right.” She didn't hear his move, but Zoya could picture him nodding. “You're a Prim survivor. Like your friend Admiral Pazlov.”

She couldn't stand that lifeless, cutting tone. Because she didn't think her voice would keep from breaking, Zoya didn't bother with a response.

“I should thank you.” His voice came at her everywhere at once, jagged words slicing into her skin. “Aside from your claims about wanting privacy, I had assumed you came clean with Pazlov so he'd approve your transfer.”

Dread crawled inside her belly and made her hold her breath.

“Instead, I'm finding he wanted you specifically at Victory. And I'm not thrilled with his reasons why.”

She'd rather choke than have her voice come out this breathy. “It's against protocol to break secure communications.” He couldn't have gotten through, not in this short amount of time. Dread mixed with a small dose of relief. If he did manage to unscramble her communications, he would contact Pazlov himself to get her out of there.

“Protocol.” A frigid chuckle. “I didn't get all the details. You'll have to fill me in.” She hadn't realized that he was inches from her face, either kneeling or leaning above her. At some point, the high grav would take its toll on his muscles. Zoya hoped it would happen soon.

Maybe she should simply tell him everything. He held the safety of his crew in the highest regard. She could be in a Sabre within the next half hour.

“You were that adamant to get away. I thought it was from me.” His mouth was inches from hers, his breath caressing her lips. Unwanted desire flooded her senses, smothering some of the nerves, inflaming others. Even now, with her muscles screaming from the higher grav, she couldn't keep her thighs from clenching as she remembered how he had moved between them.

“Maybe I was wrong.” He didn't seem to be at all affected by the flash of desire gripping her. “Maybe you're stealing supplies and trying to get away for a whole other reason.”

She swallowed. “What reason would that be?”

“You're going to tell me.”

She didn't want these aroused nerves curling inside her belly. “I carry an explosive. I figured you would want me off your ship.”

“You carry an explosive.” He repeated the words, a soft, dangerous whisper. “We must have missed it when you came aboard.”

Zoya swallowed, hard. “You wouldn't have found it.”

“You're hiding it inside your body?”

She wondered if he'd touch her, a crazy part of her hoping he would.

“Would you like me to search you?”

She shuddered, imagining his hands on her. “You're insane.”

“Perhaps I am.” He kissed her, rough, nearly bruising, a punishing caress that had her blood roaring inside her head.

“Don't.” Shivering, she barely could whisper.

“Don't what?” His breath was soft against her lips, his tone ice hard. “Sub-Commander.”

She froze now, realizing Dex was in the brig with them, watching her in the dark.

“My bloodmate”—Stark bitterly chuckled at the word—“doesn't want me to touch her. Maybe she'd prefer your touch instead.”

Zoya strained but did not hear a sound. Maybe Stark was simply fucking with her mind.

“You said you can't get up?”

She couldn't speak with nerves, dread, and desire forming a knot low in her throat. Instead she simply shook her head and realized that he could see her, every nuance, every expression, while she sat helpless in the dark.

The thought should have enraged her. And yet she felt another burst of unwanted heat pooling between her thighs. Nothing but hormones, she told herself and tried to fight the empty ache inside her.

“Answer me.” He still didn't make a move to touch her.

“Lower the grav, and I'll get up.” She kept her voice soft, a low threat.

He coolly chuckled. “Sub-Commander. If you could lift my bloodmate up.”

The thought of having someone touch her made Zoya try to gain her feet despite her screaming muscles. Then hands were on her arms, lifting her up in an effortless, impersonal movement.

Stark still hadn't touched her.

Dex held her up in such a way that she was forced to let him support all her weight. Despite the unwanted arousal and tired muscles, Zoya fought against his hold, knowing that Stark watched her with cool, merciless eyes.

“I won't hurt you.” Dex's voice could've cut plaster.

“Unless I order him to do so.” Warm, cruel lips spoke near hers again.

“You can order him to go hell.” She had to get away from this unwanted spike of heat. “You can join him there.”

Stark laughed. “We're headed there, if I understand correctly. You intend to end the war with the help of Central Intelligence. Victory is part of that intent.” Through the haze of unwanted arousal, Zoya sensed fury. “My only question is how.”

She didn't know how to deal with her own arousal, couldn't stand the disgusted coldness in his voice. He was playing her body against her, using the bloodmate bond to establish control.

“I've told you.” She refused to acknowledge that another man held her against him, taking her weight with ease. Neither of them seemed to have been affected by the gravity that all but held her paralyzed. Bastards probably had implants to compensate for the increased endurance. “I carry an explosive.”

“I've asked already if you want to be searched for it.”

Zoya jerked at the soft, low words and shook her head against Dex's shoulder. She didn't like this feeling of helplessness while standing between two large male bodies. And yet the wet heat between her thighs proved otherwise.

“If you carry an explosive”—steel-edged tone with just a hint of velvet—“and your goal is to end the war, you intend to explode Victory into enemy lines.”

She had to laugh at that. “Your tactical analysis is flawless.” She wondered if he could bear to even look at her once she told him the truth.

“This is where you tell me your feelings for me clouded your judgment.” His mouth once again hovered over hers. “That you were trying to get away just to keep me alive.”

Another weak laugh. “That's it. Exactly.” She was willing to kill dozens of others simply because she couldn't stand to destroy him.

“You could try to convince me.” He brushed cruel, warm lips over hers. “You could try.” He took her mouth, and Zoya couldn't bring herself to turn her head away. She tasted controlled fury mixed with passion, cursing herself for craving him this much. The bastard teased her with soft, light kisses, inflaming her, drawing away to make her try to seek his lips for more.

She wouldn't beg for his touch. Had she the strength, she would've slapped a fist over her lips to keep the whimper back when he finally stopped the tender, cruel onslaught on her mouth.

“You Primus survivors never considered technology's advantages.” Stark breathed harshly against her, lifted her chin with hard, blunt fingers when she tried to turn away. Dex was a silent wall of muscle behind her, a cold, immobile restraint.

“I can see the fluctuations of your vitals. They tell how to touch you to get the most response.” Stark trailed a fingertip from her chin down to her neck, then dipped it just under the closure of her uniform. “Pleasure or pain or both.”

She breathed hard, feeling the heat of that light, merciless touch.

“If I had an olfactory implant, I would smell your arousal.” A pause. “Can you smell my bloodmate, Sub-Commander Dex?”

Short silence. “Yes. I can.” His voice was monotone, as if he wasn't here. She fought to calm the racing of her pulse.

“What are your exact orders from Intelligence?” Stark's low voice caressed the sensitive shell of her ear.

“You should go fuck yourself.”

“Did that already.” Over the top of her uniform, his finger lightly traced a path between her breasts, moving toward her belly. “And I'm starting to think you like our little game.”

Those words had Dex holding her higher, away from him. As if he didn't want to touch her any more than he had to. And she preferred this cold touch of a stranger rather than having Stark holding her prisoner, aroused and helpless. Because if he had, she would most likely say fuck it to pride and simply beg.

She had to get this over with. “The explosive is carried in my blood. I'm to detonate it inside Victory's engine when ordered to so.”

“That nearly makes sense.” Steel in that ice-cold voice. “Except I still don't see why you were adamant to get away.”

She laughed again, a breathy bitter sound. “You had it right, Commander.” Zoya had a hard time dragging in enough air to speak. “This thing between us”—his chuckle was a razor to her heart—“is impeding the mission. I can't exactly use Intelligence codes to access the engines if you won't let me out of your bed.”

His touch was gone, a small, cold victory. The hell of it was that without it, she felt completely lost in the opaque darkness.

“So your plan was to switch battle cruisers.” Dex's voice cut in from behind her. Somehow having him say the words out loud made it worse.

“Yes.” Chills threatened. She was a monster, a coldhearted bitch.

“Pazlov wants Victory specifically.” Stark moved away from her; she felt the distance between their bodies growing.

She didn't bother making sure her voice didn't shake. “That's right.” She wouldn't cry until much later. “Victory is the only battle cruiser capable of closing in on the enemy and staying in one piece. If it helps, the detonation would be on your order.”

“My order.” His harsh tone shouldn't have felt as if it just caressed her.

She tried to fight against the hands that held her up. The tremors were already starting their soft, deceptive curl into her bones. “You'll order a collision course. I'll take care of the explosion.”

“That's wrapped up nicely.” The words were soft, as if he'd squeezed them through his teeth. A part of her preferred he slap her.

“Sacrifice few to save many,” Zoya said and bit her lip so that she wouldn't laugh. Once she did, she wouldn't be able to stop crying.

“Your temp seems to have dropped. Bloodmate.” He should have just called her a bitch. “You should ask Dex if he can make it rise back up, since you seem to enjoy our game.”

Zoya didn't flinch at the words, didn't blink at the cold sound of the hatches being opened. She was surprised she wasn't dropped onto the floor. Instead she felt herself lowered, almost carefully, until she was back in a seated position. And as the shudders unfurled deeper through her blood, the part of her that could still think wondered if she'd survive.

Chapter Seven

 

Stark thought about throwing up. He would have if he'd had something to work with in his stomach. The raw and empty nausea rolled inside his gut, scraping his insides with its jagged edges.

She'd flinched away from him, and that gave Stark a nasty satisfaction. She'd been aroused despite her own resolve. He'd seen her blood pumping, seen her react. Seen those tired eyes pleading with him for something.

Her orders were to kill his crew.

Sick with himself, he braced a hand over a newly replaced bulkhead. Bloodmate or not, he had a duty to Victory and to the crew. Regardless of this fucking biological anomaly, he would stand by them.

He'd left her with Dex. The thought frayed at him, just as that lost and devastated gaze wouldn't leave his mind. He had a purpose leaving her with the sub-commander, watching Dex touching her. Bloodmate or not, he had the strength to walk away from her while she was held by someone.

The thought made his gut churn.

“What the fuck were you thinking?” Two minutes later, Dex caught up with him, paler than usual, his scars dark on his face.

“You're done that quickly?”

“You're interested? You want to know how I touched your bloodmate?” Fury bloomed high, was barely contained. A part of Stark wondered at the source of it. A part of him simply didn't care.

“It needed to be done.”

“You showed her and yourself that you don't give a fuck. Congratulations.”

Stark breathed through tight clenched teeth, trying to force down the heavy burning low inside his stomach. “Were you able to verify if she carries explosives?”

“I didn't have time.”

“Why the hell not?”

“I'll show you.” Dex stabbed at his wrist unit, calling up a pale gray column of transparent light. The base of the holo-output showed a small figure huddled in a corner, arms wrapped tight over her knees, her body curled into itself as if warding off a beating.

Rage wasn't questioned as he grabbed Dex's uniform. “What the fuck did you do?”

“Nothing her bloodmate hadn't done already.” Dex spat the words with fury in his eyes. “I simply administered her meds.”

A wave of ice washed over dread. “Meds?”

“If you look hard enough, you'll see that she is seizing. And has been since just before you left.”

“Hence the meds.” He refused to feel guilt, couldn't hold out against it.

“Yes.”

“So she'll be fine.” He couldn't keep his gaze from the small figure on the holo-output. “I'm more concerned about the safety of this ship. As you should be.”

“Then you should've gotten a med team to examine her instead of playing idiotic games.” Dex broke off and enlarged the holo-output to display vitals. And cursed. “Convulsions should've stopped by now.”

A brief glance at her vitals had Stark breaking into a run.

He didn't hear Dex call for a med team, didn't notice people jumping out of his path. A call for lights illuminated her small form pressed hard into a corner, violently shaking. She didn't even flinch away when he knelt by her side.

“Zoya.” No response. He couldn't see her face under a few loosened strands of hair. “Zoya. Come on, baby. Zoya.” Nothing. He gripped her shoulders and felt the strength of the convulsions reverberating through his bones.

“Med team on its way.”

Dex felt along her calf and fished out a silver oblong packet before Stark knocked back his hands. When understanding dawned, he lifted up her hair with shaking fingers and watched Dex plunge the valve into her pale and fragile neck.

She simply shuddered in his arms, her body cold, her muscles spastic.

“Come on, baby. Stay with me.” He saw her face now, pale and soaked with sweat, her eyes open and staring at nothing.

“Pulse is too rapid.”

He saw that for himself. “Come on. Come on, baby. Stay with me.” He didn't realize he had her in his lap, cradling her, rocking her.

“BP's lowering. Finally.”

He could see that too, but somehow it was comforting to hear it. When the med team ran in with its equipment, he let Dex muscle him away as they pumped more drugs into her as the convulsions slowed.

“She's out for now.” The head tech smoothed a lock of hair off her face. Stark had to clench his fists to keep himself from knocking the man's hands back. “We know the cause?”

He didn't know what to say. Instead he lifted her up to the antigrav plank, realizing the extra pressure of increased gravity made it much harder on her heart.

“Seems to be caused by a drop in adrenaline.” Dex subtly nudged him out of the way so that the techs could move her. “When you're ready, I'll need her blood sample.”

The head med tech simply nodded.

“You knew she had seizures.” Adrenaline fading into guilt, Stark felt the increased grav slam back into his muscles. Every damned officer he knew had implants to correct for sudden shifts in gravity. “Fucking everlasting shit.”

“That sums it up.” The sub-commander fell into step beside him as they walked out the brig.

“I shouldn't have gotten you involved…earlier.”

Dex only shook his head.

* * *

“You've had Intelligence on board. All this time.”

Stark didn't have time for interdepartmental politics, but not answering didn't deter his father.

“Pazlov's demanding access to his officer.”

Stark spared a glance at the holo-output emanating from his wrist unit. The general's face was set in stern, furious lines, his eyes a dangerous glint of steel, his posture stiff and uncompromising.

“His officer is still unconscious.” He had no intention of revealing her mission to the general until they had assembled all the pieces. Dex had spent the last few hours in a lab, studying Zoya's blood. As such, Stark had to deal with bitching personnel and high-strung tempers. And since he didn't have the sub-commander's infinite finesse, he scowled his way through crew disputes and wouldn't allow himself to check on her.

Zoya had been out for five hours.

“I need your full report.” The general's voice sounded more clipped than usual.

“I don't have all the information.” Stark plugged in a denial for a request to switch fuel safety conductors to Supply Locker Three. If they were all to die tomorrow, at least they'd do it knowing their shit was all in the same place. “If I would speculate, I'd say Intelligence planned something big and invited Victory to party.”

His father frowned at that.

“I'll fill you in when I have facts instead of speculations.” He understood what wounds of war could do to someone. He even understood the reasoning to kill a few with the intent to save the race. He simply couldn't understand how somebody could carry out the act, that cool intent to send people to their death, without even telling them what the fuck they would die for.

Because he couldn't fight himself, he flipped the inputs to see Zoya in the med bay, lying peaceful and silent on the same antigrav pallet the med team had carried her out on from the brig. His wrist unit output her stats: BP, pulse, brain activity. All normal. All resting.

He switched back to his father.

“I want those details soon. Pazlov is breathing down my neck, and his breath hasn't gotten better since he was booted out of Tactical.”

Stark didn't question how the admiral managed to circumvent protocol to contact his father directly. Instead, with a swift nod, he switched to Dex. “Progress?”

“The same. They aren't harmful to her health, if that's what you are asking.” She carried nanites that could blow up a ship, but they weren't harmful to the carrier. He wasn't sure if he should feel outraged or grateful.

“I need a confirmation before meeting with Pazlov.”

He couldn't see Dex's face, but the man's voice sounded on edge. “The nanites in her blood secrete neutrinos upon contact with heat. Hotter the heat, the more neutrinos you get.”

“So she was going to bleed into the engines?”

He heard a crashing noise, as if Dex dropped something. “That'd be my guess.”

Well, shit .

The med bay was mostly empty, with a few techs rearranging equipment and running data checks on various trauma centers. After tomorrow, this light gray sterile place would reek with death and bodies.

And she'd been sent to kill them all.

“Revive her.”

The head tech leaned over her status output. “She could use more rest.”

“We rest when we're dead.” Somehow the phrase seemed most appropriate.

Stark waited till those amber eyes opened, refusing to feel guilty at the frown of confusion on her face when her gaze met his.

“Admiral Pazlov demands to speak with you.” He hadn't meant to keep his voice low.

Zoya blinked at him. He watched her gaze go hard, as if she just remembered what had happened. The tentacles of guilt were firmly shoved away.

She ignored his hand when she got up. “I'm fine.” She might as well have screamed “don't touch me.”

“We'll use comm three.”

She spared him a look. “My conversations with the admiral are private.” Hoarse, husky voice that never failed to make his cock harden.

Pushing arousal away, Stark used his ocular to read her vitals: a slightly elevated heartbeat, but otherwise, all systems go. “Not anymore.”

The short walk to comm three was filled with tense and empty silence. He wanted to ask why, but had a feeling he already knew the answer. The military had allowed the Murks to destroy her family, her entire culture. This mission was a way for her to strike out at both.

Except she'd tried her best to get away from him, requesting transfers, prepping a Sabre for a long-term run. A part of him, the part that Stark called foolish, really wanted to believe she'd tried to leave because of him.

Connection to Tactical took longer than usual, the signal being routed through various secondary arrays. They sat in silence on opposite sides of a comm unit while the display informed them Central Communications was repairing its systems and to expect delays.

“General.” His father's holo-image finally materialized to his left.

The general narrowed his eyes. “Commander.”

“Present is Officer Zoya Scott, a member of Intelligence. Per protocol, you're to be present as my superior in this communication.” Technically, both Tactical and Intelligence chairs were supposed to lead this meeting, but somehow Pazlov had weaseled under the bureaucratic tape.

His father touched something on his own comm unit. “Pazlov's online.”

And clearly not thrilled to be there. “I'm glad to see my officer unharmed, but I do need to speak with her in private.”

Zoya withstood the scathing gaze.

“My apologies, Admiral.” Stark kept his voice calm. “Protocol dictates a superior officer to be present for all interdepartmental communications”

Pazlov simply glared at him. “Personal inquires have nothing to do with interdepartmental protocol. I am simply concerned about my friend.”

A quick look showed him Zoya stiffened at that “friend.” “She was unconscious for five hours upon the recommendation of my head medical technician.”

A short beat of a pause. “I gave explicit orders to be contacted for any medical decisions regarding Zoya Scott.”

“You'll have to put me on report for breach of orders.” Stark stared at the man who coolly sent him toward death. “I have reason to believe your friend poses a threat to Victory, which is the reason for this meeting.”

A true Intelligence officer, Pazlov didn't blink an eye. “I have no knowledge of Victory procedures. Scott's conduct is, of course, under your jurisdiction.”

Through this exchange, Zoya kept silent.

Stark slated a glance at his father. “General, were you aware of Intelligence requesting use of our resources?”

The general gave him a tiny frown. “I haven't seen any requisitions from them.”

Stark nodded. “Admiral Pazlov knowingly planted an explosive on Tactical property, with the intent to use it in battle.”

His father's eyes were cold, hard slits. “You have facts backing this?”

Pazlov sat pale and silent, his face a mask of stubborn lines. Zoya stared ahead at nothing. “Officer Zoya Scott carries explosives on her person. She has confirmed her intent to use it inside Victory upon an order for collision course.”

Victory is our newest battle cruiser.” Stark didn't like his father's alarmingly red color. “An order of that magnitude would come either from me or Tactical chair. And I assure you, it would not have been made lightly.”

“That order would come from the fleet admiral himself.” The holo-output of Pazlov rolled away from the comm station, showing his weakened body trapped in a chair with wheels. A Primus survivor, he refused the nanites to repair his spine, yet he had no scruples infusing them into Zoya. Fucking coward.

“Intelligence has no business directing our resources.” The general valiantly kept his voice calm. “I want her”—he nodded at Zoya—“escorted off Victory till further notice.”

“She will remain on Victory by my authority.” Pazlov couldn't get up. Instead he used his voice to command attention. “I won't allow bureaucratic evasion tactics to keep us from the greater goal. We have a chance here to end this war. Tomorrow. At the front lines. And I assure you, the fleet admiral has approved this plan.”

“He's aware you're killing personnel, which is already thin across all lines? Or that you're destroying one of the few battle cruisers we have left?” The general fisted his hands above the comm unit.

“The fleet admiral is aware that we can win the war.” Pazlov switched to a clipped, dry tone. “Various sources confirm the three-ship formation at the Omega sector carrying a valuable target. We have identified all baseships communicating with that target. Every single one. While we can't break their encryption, it's logical to assume it is the main point in their command structure. Destroy that, we can end the war.”

The elder Stark could only shake his head. “You're out of your mind. What makes you think they won't just send another? You'll delay them at best.”

“Their confusion will become a valuable tool, even if it's short-lived.” That pale blue gaze locked on to Stark. “They're running thin on resources, the same as we are. Wouldn't you agree to this, Commander?”

Stark simply nodded. Zoya didn't say a word.

“If they had more of the large ships protecting the command hub, they'd have used them to shred the blockade to pieces.” A short pause. “I may not be a hundred percent right. You think I don't understand the consequences?” Pazlov wheeled closer to Zoya. She didn't try to move away.

“Our people were abandoned. Left to die. A Tactical”—he paused as if to highlight that word—“decision. Abandoning Primus minimized further loss.” His voice went quiet. “This is along the same idea.”

Stark cleared his throat. “I prefer fate deciding when I die. Admiral.”

“You joined the war knowing that would happen any moment.” Pazlov sighed, as if tired. “How many people have we lost? How many are we losing as we speak? We have a way of ending that.” His pale eyes flashed. “The fleet admiral agrees that we should take it.”

“Unfortunately, Admiral, we have encountered a problem.” For the first time, Zoya actually spoke, her hands clasped in front her, her face calm, her voice even. “I have discovered an unanticipated biological connection between Commander Stark and myself. Central Research will demand to be brought in to study this connection. I would prefer not to alert them, as I'm sure they will add more to the bureaucratic evasion tactics.”

Shocked, Stark forced his gaze to remain on the admiral.

“As such, I request an immediate transfer. We can complete our mission, as we planned.” Her voice stayed cold and empty. “But not on Victory.”

“I agree.” The general quickly took the reins. “I'm authorizing the transfer—”

“No.” The word came out before Stark realized he'd spoken.

Zoya didn't turn to look at him. His father shot him a look from tired, worried eyes.

“Your transfer means another ship could be destroyed. I won't have that on my conscience.”

“Conscience has nothing to do with it,” his father snapped just as Zoya's shoulders slumped.

“Unfortunately, it does.” Stark knew exactly what he had to do. “A hundred people here, or a hundred people somewhere else. Either way, somebody has to die.”

That empty, amber gaze finally turned to lock with his. Stark gave her a short nod. “What data do we have on the target?”

A short pause before Pazlov spoke. “We have no data on the design, no previous encounters. We will have other battle cruisers covering your approach.”

The cold he felt meant nothing. “And I assume the fleet will know to keep back at a reasonable distance?”

“You assume right.” Pazlov waited a beat, as if expecting someone in the room to shut him up. “The nanites release neutrino particles upon contact with heat. As the particles compile, they will produce a massive but fairly localized explosion.” Another pause. “Victory has the best chance to get close enough.”

“And if we succeed, best-case scenario, we end the war.”

Pazlov nodded. “Worst-case scenario, we deal them a major blow. Imprint that we're not someone to fuck with.”

Sacrifice few to save many. Millions. Maybe even more.

“General.” He sent a small smile at his father. “I will need Thug transports for my crew.”

His father nodded back, his face calm, his eyes mutinous.

Pazlov lifted his head. “You're letting your men abandon ship?”

“They deserve a choice in this.” He couldn't help but snort at Pazlov's stunned expression. “Tactical employs soldiers. My men will have a choice in how they die.”

Chapter Eight

 

“You're actually going through with this?” Zoya uttered the words after the holomeeting ended.

Stark still hadn't moved to get up from his seat. He knew exactly what she was. A cold-blooded, heartless killer. No wonder he had been barely able to touch her in the brig.

“You should get back to the med bay.” He barely glanced at her.

“I'm fine.” The rawness in her belly was both nerves and drugs. “Look, I can fly a Sabre into an exhaust vent. Explode one of their engines from the inside. Victory can cover my approach.”

Stark simply shrugged, still didn't bother looking up at her.

“You were pretty adamant about the safety of your crew.” She refused to give in to the bitter tears. “Now, suddenly, you are eager to die?”

Finally that hard blue gaze locked with hers. “You came here with the intent to destroy Victory. Now, suddenly, you're looking for ways out?”

“You're my bloodmate.” The word explained everything and nothing.

Those cold eyes narrowed. “I've always held the safety of my crew as the highest priority. You have no problem killing dozens.”

“Do you know how or why I got convicted?” Suddenly it was vital to have him understand.

Stark rubbed a hand over his eyes. “Pilfered supplies.”

“That's right. Under the noses of the military.” She was too tired to inject nonchalance into her voice. “Tactical always hides supply ships in spatial distraction. The one where I was caught was stationed also in a large field of planetoids.”

“I'll tell General Stark to keep that thought in mind.”

He clearly wasn't in the mood to listen. Regardless, Zoya kept on, needing to get it out, needing for him to understand why she accepted Pazlov's offer. “When Primus was…attacked”—she choked a bit, remembering—“there were survivors.” She waited for the cold, dark numbness accompanying the memory and was surprised to find that she hadn't felt it for some time.

“My sister and her child survived. Kegin. He was six years old.” She'd never cried for him. “They died a year after the attack because the medical supplies were earmarked for the military. With all this outcry about humans dying out, children”—she shuddered out a breath—“my nephew was allowed to die. Because meds were sent to the people who didn't protect him.”

She stood because she couldn't bear sitting down. She swiped her hand over her face and realized it was the first time in years that she'd cried.

“I died with them. With my sister and Kegin. The only thing that got me through the nights was stealing what I could from your damned people and taking it to the refugees.” She squared her shoulders and wondered if he even heard her. “When I got caught and was sentenced to the labor colony, I didn't fucking care. Then Pazlov”—she let out a small and nasty laugh—“offered me the two things I wanted.”

“Revenge.” He watched her with hard eyes.

“No. Well, yes, that was part of it. He offered me a way to damage the two things I hated most.” She tried to find some semblance of empathy in that cool gaze. “You need to understand. I did not care. It was a damned good idea at the time.” She wondered if he understood that this whole bloodmate thing had pierced the numb, cold shield with which she had surrounded herself.

“You were grieving.” He didn't offer any sympathy. “Pazlov used your emotions for his means.”

She shrugged. “I didn't care.”

He nodded once again, his face a mask of calmness. “You should get to the med bay. Dex's checking if my blood is compatible with the nanites.” An empty chuckle. “I'm betting it will be, given the 'unanticipated biological connection,' as you called it. After the transfer, you'll be free to leave.”

No tension, no anger. At last, Zoya felt the same cold wave of numbness wrap around her, and yet she couldn't find any comfort in it. “I'm staying.”

He speared her with a cold gaze. “You don't belong on Victory.”

“Then let me put it this way.” He wasn't taking her choice away. “I won't allow any more probes or scans or any other shit. You want the nanites? You'll fucking have to drink them out of me.”

No reaction, just a slightly raised eyebrow. Disgusted with herself, with all of this, Zoya headed toward the exit. “You try to force the issue, I'll explode any equipment that comes toward me.” She exhaled when he didn't say a word. “I'll leave this ship the same way you will.”

* * *

Less than an hour later, Zoya hid among the Sabres at the launch deck. As she moved through the gathered crew, she caught the snags of gossip floating around her.

“Something about a new technology.”

“A new weapon that will kick Murk ass.”

“The military is negotiating surrender.”

Ahead, Stark, with his somber face and tired, fierce eyes, stood flanked by a huge Thug transporter.

She wove among the gray-dressed pilots, repair crews in their orange and yellow jumpsuits, various techs, and comm specialists. About a hundred people. She would kill them all.

The buzz of voices only got louder when Stark lifted up a hand.

“We'll be at the blockade in a few hours.” He didn't raise his voice.

Zoya fought to make her way closer without him seeing her.

“We will take our position across the Omega sector, and we'll fight.” He paused as if to take a breath. “We'll fight until I hear from the field admiral. At that time, I may be ordered to take Victory into a collision course with an enemy target.” The launch deck went dead silent.

“We've found the hub of their command. Victory's goal is to destroy that ship and fuck their command chain.”

She heard a low buzz of murmurs.

“We have a chance to win the war. We won't know if it works, because we will not live to see it. As such, you have to make a choice. Anyone who wants to get off Victory is free to do so.”

More buzzing of voices.

“You all knew what the risks were when you signed up to fight this war. I need you all to understand, this isn't a risk. What it is…?” He laughed and shook his head. “It's fucking suicide. You have an hour to decide.”

The noise level rose again, dread and excitement, fear and remorse. Someone bumped into her, then steadied her when Zoya nearly stumbled.

“You believe this shit?” Poll nodded toward the Thug.

“Yeah.” She moved back and waited for a verbal slap. He wore only his undershirt, his arms tattooed with some sort of ancient kanji.

“You're gonna stick around?”

She couldn't help but chuckle. “Yeah. You?”

Poll nodded. “Yeah. We'll kick Murk ass.” And to her shock, he held out his palm, expecting her to shake it.

* * *

“You're pale as death.”

Dex raised his sliced-up eyebrow. “You're too funny.”

Stark rarely came into the sub-commander's quarters. The lush greenery climbing the walls and claiming most of the flat surfaces always got him confused. The man with enough implants to suck most of the oxygen out of his blood tended to plants as if they were his lifeline.

“Listen.” He didn't quite know what to say. “I meant what I said earlier. I shouldn't have involved you.”

Dex shrugged. “I couldn't maintain.”

“I noticed.” Stark raked a hand through his short hair. “You never said what happened with your scars.”

With surprising delicacy, Dex used a pen laser to snap off a yellow-colored bloom. “Deathbed confessions aren't my style.”

“You know that you can leave.”

That got him a short glance. “Fuck you.”

Now Stark could smile. “If we die tomorrow, you might as well spill all of it. You disappear for six months, and you come back with scars and nightmares and a penchant for implants. Then suddenly I get a bloodmate, and you get jumpy—oh.”

A dark, bemused gaze. “Satisfied now?”

“You found your bloodmate.”

“Found wouldn't be the word I'd use. And don't talk about it.”

“Your call.” Stark shrugged and waited.

The sub-commander sighed, then put down the pen laser. “That time when you first met Zoya at the launch deck? That sucker punch into the gut? I know exactly how you felt.”

“And?”

“And…it did not work out.” A pointed silence.

He'd take what he could get. “Thank you for trusting me with this.”

Dex nodded and handed him a blooming yellow rose. “Go see your bloodmate.”

“She told me she was done being prodded.” He chuckled, remembering those words. “And she'll explode any equipment we may force on her.”

Dex gave him a small smile. “She probably could.”

He'd given her the choice to leave, and she chose to stay with him. Die with him, if it came to that. He hated the idea and yet found it comforting somehow. “This bloodmate thing. Is it just hormones?”

Dex bent over his flowers, his long fingers manipulating the blooms, leaving the young ones, cutting off the dying. “It always starts with hormones. Where it goes… I guess it's up to you.”

* * *

Stark found her in one of the lounges, partially concealed by the thick smoke of cigars, sitting alone by a thumbnail-sized window. When he approached, a group of pilots made a valiant effort to hide the booze and their cigars.

“As you were.” They remained standing up, their poses at attention, their chests puffed up. Good men who'd die tomorrow.

Stark clapped Poll on the shoulder and nodded at the array of emptied shots. “Got another one?”

“Yes, sir.” Poll fished out a gray flask and poured a large double. Stark dropped the vile liquid down his throat and felt it burn. “Thanks.”

“More where that came from, Commander.”

“I appreciate it.” He knew everyone there watched him. Despite their eyes following his movements, Stark walked toward Zoya, and feeling ridiculous, held out a yellow bloom.

“What's this?” She didn't extend her hand for it.

“One of Dex's roses.”

“Oh.” She frowned, those amber eyes confused.

“It's for you.”

“Um. Thank you.” She took it from his hand, then jerked back from the familiar heat that rushed between them. She still fought her need for him. Stark figured he was partially responsible for that.

This bloodmate thing started with hormones, Dex had said. The rest was up to them.

“We dealing or paying for a show?” Poll's voice broke through the smoky air.

Amid the chuckles and calls for more shots, Stark sat down next to her without knowing what to say. On her uniform she wore a flat green-colored circle hanging from a thread looped around her neck.

“Jade?” He nodded at it.

“Malachite.” She ran her fingers over the smooth surface. “My sister's. I…” She sighed. “I never wear it. But always keep it with me.”

“You loved her.”

“I left her when I left Primus for the flight academy.” She looked out through the tiny window into the emptiness of space. “I wasn't happy with the simple things. Didn't want my goal in life to be popping out babies.” She spared him a bemused look. “Ironic, isn't it?”

He didn't know what to say. “What happened in the brig—”

She lifted up her hand, the yellow rose cheerful in her fingers. “I would prefer we didn't talk about it.”

He had to. “I needed Dex there.”

“Because you couldn't stand touching me. I get that.” She kept staring into vacuum.

He put his hand over her knuckles. “Because I was afraid I wouldn't stop touching you.”

Frowning, Zoya finally spared him a glance but didn't jerk her hand away. Stark considered that a small victory.

“I had to prove to you—and to myself—that I didn't need you. I didn't want to need you. Can you understand?”

“That part I can understand.” Self-deprecating voice. The hand under his palm was warm and strong, and at the same time, delicate.

“When I saw you…” He broke off as images flashed through his mind of her convulsing on the floor, her clammy skin deathly pale. “I'd left you there. In pain. It won't make me a lesser bastard to apologize. If I had known—”

“It doesn't matter now.” She simply shrugged. Those lush lips trembled for a second before she firmed them once again.

“You tried to steal a shuttle. No. Look at me,” he said when Zoya tried to look away. “You tried to back out.”

He heard her take a shuddering breath. “I clearly wasn't successful.”

“No.”

She didn't say the words Stark hoped to hear, but he believed what he could read between the lines. She'd tried to leave because she couldn't harm him. A wave of warmth smothered his chest.

Watching her eyes, he leaned in closer and captured her mouth in full view of twelve drunken pilots and a heavily smoking engine crew.

Warm, pliant lips and bright gold eyes. Stark stood up and extended his palm toward her. When she stood up and placed her hand in his, some of the weight pressing on him edged back.

Chapter Nine

 

She shouldn't want to read too much into Stark's gestures. They'd die tomorrow, but at least tonight they'd live. The words she had wanted to say were stuck inside her chest. Zoya couldn't seem to get them out.

Her hand felt small inside his as they walked toward his quarters, stepping around crewmen in various stages of sobriety and dress.

In her free hand, she held the flower Stark had given her, a delicate, sunny bloom that seemed ridiculously cheerful against the gray utilitarian bulkheads and wire tubes.

“Let me.” He took it from her hand and tucked it into her hair. Then he placed a sweet, lingering kiss over her mouth, a kiss that made her insides hum despite the dark thoughts in her head.

She had only hours left, and she couldn't find the words. And when he kissed her once again, gently pressing her against a bulkhead, his large palm cradling her head, Zoya decided words could screw themselves.

She'd simply have to show him.

He paused at the hatch of his quarters and lifted her hand up to his lips. “You're sure you want this?”

She reached up on her toes to brush her lips over his cheek.

Silence greeted them inside his quarters, silence and the cold light of the stars. Not wanting to break the moment, she took his palm and pressed it to her thundering heart.

His gaze flamed hot and wild. Before he could utter a word, Zoya pressed her mouth to his and led him toward his bed. Their gazes locked as she reached up to the clasps of her uniform. He wrapped his fingers on her wrists. Let me, he seemed to say, and Zoya nodded.

He took his time, slowly working the clasps, his large hands firm and gentle. When all the clasps were undone, he pushed the jacket off her shoulders and lowered the pants down past her hips. With a swift motion, he stripped off her undershirt, leaving her standing in her boots with the smooth malachite pendant hanging between her bared breasts.

She held her breath while Stark simply looked at her as if memorizing every curve. The words inside her chest bubbled higher, yet still wouldn't come out from her lips. Instead of struggling with them, Zoya kicked off her boots and touched her lips to his.

Need flared brighter as she delved into his mouth, reveling in the raw taste of an aroused male. Greedy for more, she licked a path under his jaw, trailed kisses on his neck, lightly scraped her teeth where it curved to meet his shoulder. His large palm cradled her head. Zoya hadn't noticed when he had unbound her hair, but he seemed fascinated with the red length of it, running his fingers through the strands as if savoring the sensation of the finest silk.

She couldn't stop running her hands over those wide, strong shoulders, feeling the heat and power rippling beneath. With trembling fingers, she tugged at the clasps of his uniform and nearly whimpered when she couldn't simply tear them apart.

His hands closed over hers to help her undress him.

She wanted to see skin, to press herself against him, to feel his heat and power wrapped around her. She craved his mouth, was starved for it. She hungered to feel him straining under her, wanted to hear his breaths, ragged and rough. When all the clasps were undone, she pushed the uniform down his arms, tugged on his pants and undershirt until he took both off and stood magnificently naked in front of her, all muscle and sinew and olive-tinted skin. All hers.

He urged her to stand up with hands cupping her shoulders when Zoya knelt on the bed in front of him. With a small wicked smile, she watched his head fall back when she finally wrapped her fingers over his arousal and stroked him.

His groan was her reward. His sigh was her salvation.

Still kneeling on the bed, she leaned toward his cock and placed a soft kiss over the plum-shaped head before taking it into her mouth, loving him with her lips. His fingers tangled in her hair when she blew a soft breath over the rigid, engorged tip.

She caught a glimpse of his reaction before she found herself sprawled on the bed, her knees over the edge, her body slightly trembling. My turn, that wicked blue gaze seemed to say as his hands moved over her thighs and spread her knees apart.

He leaned toward her, nuzzled her belly button, his mouth firm and hot. The slow, warm path down to her sex left her breathless with anticipation. She couldn't help but shudder when he reached her mons and inhaled deeply, as if savoring her scent.

Anticipating that first intimate caress, Zoya tilted her hips toward his mouth and waited, trembling with need. He pressed a soft kiss just above her sex, then used his tongue to trace between her nether lips, the tender stroke inflaming all her senses.

Soft, teasing licks, each one setting off sparks of pleasure through her body. His hands felt hot and rough under her buttocks when he lifted her up to hold her steady for his mouth. His eyes were a wicked blue when they met hers.

Lost. She couldn't breathe under the myriad of sensations, couldn't gather the words she'd wanted to say. Each slow lick fueled the fire inside her, each soft caress teased the flames. Tremors she couldn't control speared her body, reaching, aching for that final point, and still he held her steady, giving her just enough to keep her just below the edge, teasing her with merciless and tender sweeps of lips and tongue. Shaking, she fisted her hands in his sheets and hooked her knees around his neck, urging him closer, needing more, more.

The firm sweep of his tongue robbed her of breath, of very thought. He pleasured her with wicked, teasing licks and bold, thorough caresses, his long fingers finding her slick opening, circling, teasing it with each caress. And when he finally slid a finger inside her to press up against the slick wall of her sex, she shuddered for a breath and broke into a hard, spiraling orgasm.

His gaze was wild when he lifted his head and watched her face as she slowly slid back into herself, his long and clever fingers where his mouth had been, teasing out clenching aftershocks of pleasure.

Soft, nibbling kisses on her belly, a breathless trail between her breasts. He kissed a straining nipple, drew it into his mouth to send sparks through her skin.

She arched into his hand, pumped her hips against his fingers, showing him where she needed to be touched, where she needed him. His lips closed over hers, potent and hungry, and with his arms banding around her, Stark swiftly reversed their positions so that her weight was now on top of his.

He gave her full control.

His gaze was like a hot caress as Zoya slid over him, straddling him, poising herself over his rigid length. Stark's hands moved on her hips, sliding deliciously over her skin to grip her buttocks, guiding her as she settled over him, insanely, torturously slow, the fullness of his cock rubbing the delicate nerve endings swollen and hungry with arousal.

She glided up so she could slam herself onto his cock, hear the slap of flesh, watch his face as she rode him with hard, sensual movements of her hips, his hands on her buttocks, his gaze hot and wild on her face.

Another kiss, this one more bruising as sensations coiled tighter inside her. She tightened her muscles around him, heard his sharp intake of breath as the delicious friction intensified. Her gaze never leaving his his, she slid over his cock, then withdrew to glide over that full length once again. Somehow she felt his pulse thunder under her fingertips when her pendant slid off her skin to lie over the gleaming muscles of his chest while she moved above him, tortured him, pleasured them both.

Stark gripped her hips for faster, harder strokes, working her over his cock as she found his mouth again and clenched her muscles against him. She wanted to prolong that final fiery moment, holding her breath, his gaze, before she shattered over him, riding hard and fast, breathlessly moving over him as his arms banded around her and he surged into her, hot and tight.

At their last encounter, she'd wanted a quick and dirty fuck and had partially gotten what she came for.

This time, there had been no games, no struggle for control, no erotic dominance or submission. And yet, her heart thundered as loudly as before; her body still shivered from the explosive orgasm.

The words were ready to bubble out, yet she wasn't willing to break the soft, dark intimacy of silence.

Her heartbeat pulsed in a lazy rhythm. Under her palm, his did the same. Zoya lay on his chest with her face buried in his neck and simply breathed in the musk of a contented male.

All hers.

He slid his palms tenderly over her buttocks and her back, languid and intimate caresses, as if he couldn't stop touching her. She didn't want to break the magic of their silence with something as meaningless as words.

So Zoya laid her head over his heart and simply listened.

 

“You should eat something.”

“I'm not hungry.”

Since Stark could understand the sentiment, he didn't press the point. She'd slept at least, curled up and breathing softly next to him. The feeling inside his chest hadn't gone away—that feeling of warmth and tenderness, and just an edge of something painful.

He didn't have time to assuage his feelings, not with the battle near.

And yet he didn't want to move. Zoya sat on his lap, looking out into space, her hair loose and fragrant around her shoulders, her expression somberly serene. Even the gray color of her uniform couldn't dull the flush still blooming on her cheeks. Now wasn't the time to dwell on him putting it there.

“We've got about an hour.”

“You better go.” Soft, whispered words. “Since I'm not flying this one, I figured I'll stay on the command post. Talk to my guys.”

He didn't want to talk about logistics. Instead Stark brushed a kiss over her mouth, lingering for a long moment, capturing her taste.

“Galen.” It was the first time she'd said his name. “We're going to kick ass.” She pasted on a cocky smile.

He couldn't help but grin back. “You bet on it.”

He couldn't understand that huge, warm feeling bursting inside him whenever he looked at her, touched her, hell, even thought of her. For now, he simply shot her back another grin before opening the hatch of his quarters and entering reality.

“Status.”

Inside his comm implant, he heard Dex snort. “What was that phrase? We're ass-deep in cherry blossoms.”

Stark snorted in return while accessing the report of remaining personnel. “I don't see any crossed-out numbers.”

“There aren't any.”

Now he paused. “I see.” He didn't care that his voice trembled. None of his crew had left their posts. They would all fight together.

“I'll need a direct feed to the engines. Can you rig something up?”

“I'll see what I can do.”

About ten minutes till the outer fringe of the blockade. One of the hologrids showed passing scraps of ships and wasted fuel containers that were no longer a priority for cleanup.

The blockade had been set up to keep the Murks from pressing deeper into human space. With the thinning supplies personnel, cleanup of war debris was now a waste of fuel. And as the Murks fought to gain territory, the debris field grew.

“Steady so far.” The comm chief nodded at the central grid where green and red lines formed an intricate pattern. “Couple of patrol fights, feelers from both sides by the looks of it.”

Stark felt a quick tug as the engines moved Victory away from some of the faster-traveling debris.

“Time till final position?”

“Under thirty minutes.” Hahn frowned at the holoboard and raised a hand to her temple as if making sure she heard the incoming correctly.

“Commander, Tunga class vessel on intercept. They are demanding access.”

She changed the central grid to display a rapidly approaching two-man vessel. After a full scan of the ship, Stark enhanced the display to see the curving insignia on its side. CR. Central Research.

He had a good idea why it shuffled to keep up with them. “Pretend we're deaf, and outrun it.” He used his wrist unit to punch in a command, keeping the comm audio only.

“You sold me out.” A small laugh tried to bubble up from somewhere inside him.

“Fucking shit.” Without a visual presence, the general sounded his age. “I don't want you going through with it. If CR scoops you up for a few months, it's a damned good way out.”

“I don't have time to donate fluids for science.” Stark heard his father snort. “And Zoya threatened to blow up any medical device approaching her.” He sobered up. “We're soldiers. This is what we signed up for.”

“Soldiers, my ass.” Tired, frustrated tone. “You're my son . Forgive me if I don't want you to explode your fucking ship.”

Stark didn't know whether to laugh or pretend to be pissed. He chose the latter. Easier that way. “This is a private matter between Scott and I. As such, neither of us cleared you to report it.”

A change in tactics. He could almost hear his father straightening his spine. “Per protocol, you'll both submit to testing of your DNA. If a match is confirmed, you will be cleared for Central Research. I have approved it.” Desperation under the rapid-fire words.

“Our course will continue as scheduled.”

“Damnit—”

“Good fight, Father.”

“Fuck it all to hell.” The general sighed again cleared his throat. “Good fight.”

As he switched off the comm, Stark caught Hahn's amused glare. “They're threatening to charge us with obstruction of priority research.” Her fingers mimicked air quotes. “They didn't buy that we've 'gone deaf.'”

Snorting, Stark switched to the comm from the CR vessel.

“I repeat. We request to board immediately.”

No visual, just a clipped, irate female voice.

“Acknowledged, CR. We're having difficulties with our systems. Hold.”

“The fuck are they doing here?” Dex handed him a clear, flexible tube, his gaze locked on the hologrid.

“My father had a change of heart.”

Dex looked as if he couldn't tear his gaze away from the CR vessel. “Less than a minute for whatever's in there to hit the fuel ducts. Should give you a time cushion to get us nice and close.”

A comm grid lit up white, then faded. “Incoming. They're gearing up to play.”

Stark plugged a call into his wrist unit, saw Zoya's face on the holodisplay. “Hey.”

“Hey, yourself.” She looked composed, save for those wild gold eyes.

“Central Research wants to take you back to Earth.”

Her eyes widened for a second, then shone with a by fierce light. “I bet they do. Tell them to go to hell.”

Stark hadn't expected her to say anything different, but something loosened in his throat. He wouldn't let her die. No one would die today if he could help it.

“Movement across all sectors.” Hahn enhanced two grids to show a breaking-up pattern of red.

“CR vessel, you are too close to the blockade. Victory can't guarantee your safety.”

The audio output let out a low chuckle, and Dex's eyes went huge before the sub-commander visibly forced himself to calm.

“You got it your way, Victory. Good fight.”

The central holo showed the vessel backing away. Dex stared at it as if he saw a ghost.

“You all right?”

“Up to my ass in cherry blossoms.”

Stark nodded and plugged in an outgoing to all Victory's comm relays. “We're joining the fight. I thank each and every one of you for choosing to remain here.” Zoya walked into the command post, the wilting yellow bloom stuck in her bound hair, her face both fragile and stubborn.

“I want to stress that we fight first, and we kick every Murk ass we can get. We aren't in this to die. But if we do, we'll take a good number of those bastards with us.”

He looked at Zoya and noted the pale skin of her face. “You need your meds?”

“I…ah… They fuck with the neutrinos.” She gave a nervous shrug.

He spared a moment to take her hand in his. “You'll monitor the flight crew.”

She managed a slow, gorgeous smile. “Yes, sir.”

The net of green dots on the hologrid opened up larger as Victory moved in closer. Small flashes indicated single shots, energy masses outlining heavier ships. Green for humans, red for Murks.

“This is battle cruiser Victory.” He met Zoya's gold gaze. “We're in position.”

“Glad you could join the party, Victory.” The fleet admiral's voice was mixed with static. “Good fight.”

“Good fight, Admiral.” The grid flashed a dark red.

Hahn raised a finger. “Sabres ready.” The grid redrew itself, red dots weaving between green lines.

Stark felt his pulse starting to pound. “Launch the birds.”

“Poll, Navarette, Techeon, keep the squads spread. Watch for friendly fire.” Zoya's voice stayed calm, her hands steady as she gripped the central comm. Stark glimpsed her narrowed eyes as they both studied the rapidly changing hologrid.

“Just keep your fingers off the trigger.” Poll's voice, distorted by the noise of engines, came through with static on the comm.

Three large masses of energy rapidly approached the green dots of the Sabres.

“Heavy hitters on intercept.” Zoya enlarged them on the grid. “Spread out if you can.”

“Cannon controls are set.” Stark leaned over the comm and plugged in coordinates. “Sabres, go low on my mark. Two. Mark.” He heard the whine of fuel, then saw the grid flash in a rapid succession of white light. The green dots became lines as Sabres joined their fire, spitting single shots at the smoldering Murk baseship ahead.

“Some heavy hitters,” Stark muttered as Zoya threw him a blank look. “They're as wiped out as we are.”

“Heavy damage at Sector Delta.” The comm chief switched her hologrids to show a flashing chaos of red. “We lost two…make it three battle cruisers.”

“Not many fighters out,” Poll shouted. “Mostly the heavy shit.”

“Target small areas. Cannons, exhausts.” Zoya threw him a questioning look. For now, Stark ignored it.

“Poll, see if your boys can light us up some targets.”

“Yes, sir, Commander.” More flashes on the grid, green lights mixing with red.

The grid displayed a stab of orange just as Victory was violently shoved off course amid the acrid smell of smoke and screech of metal.

“Direct hit!” Dex jumped over a smoking station to where Hahn was lying on the floor.

She shook him off and wiped the blood spilling at the corner of her mouth. “Bastards scratched our ass. Just off the cannon.”

“They got close enough.” Stark returned fire, three single shots that found their mark. The grid showed a lit-up Murk baseship before the hologrids went white again.

“Enemy fighters coming in.” Zoya leaned over the comm.

“I see them,” Poll shouted over the sounds of his engines whining. “Bastards closing—”

More noise. The grid flashed white again. Three greens lit up bright and then winked out.

“Squad four, regroup.” Navarette's voice, calm mixed with an edge of grief.

Zoya just beat a fist over the comm, her eyes huge, her lips pale.

Another flash of heat, another vicious shove. Then Stark could see the target on the grid—three large ships forming a barrier around something small and somehow delicate.

“Dex, you're cannon.” He couldn't take his eyes off the small ship on the hologrid. “Victory to fleet admiral. We're going to need cover.”

Victory, I didn't give a go.”

“Now or never, Admiral.”

He could see the target formation backing away slowly, still in position around their charge.

He caught Zoya's gaze and sent her a quick fierce grin even as his heart pounded double.

“Sabres, we're plotting our final course. Watch for friendly fire.” The silence on the command post lasted a short second before a new burst of activity shattered it to pieces.

“Engines are go.”

“Cannon board go.”

“Comms go.”

Zoya reached for his hand.

Stark gripped her palm and took in a breath of the smoky, acrid odor composed of burning stations and human blood. “Dex, you'll have to compensate our course. Aim at the small ship in the middle.”

He didn't get an answer, but out of the corner of his eye, he saw Dex nod.

He lifted Zoya's hand and punched in a series of commands into the Central Comm unit. “This is Commander Stark of battle cruiser Victory. This ship contains a massive weapon which we'll detonate unless there is an immediate cease-fire.”

“What the hell are you doing?”

He gripped Zoya's trembling hand and brushed his lips over her knuckles. “This is the battle cruiser Victory. Our weapon will produce a massive localized explosion. We're set on a collision course unless you respond.”

Except for sparks and quiet groans of injured humans, the command post was awash in silence.

His heart pounded so hard, Stark wondered if the Murks could hear it over the comm frequencies. “This is the battle cruiser Victory. We're prepared to die and take your people with us unless there's an immediate cease-fire.”

The grid flashed orange-white. He heard a scream of engines as Victory was shoved forward and to the side.

“Damage to Secondary Comm. Backup on line.” Dex wiped a palm over his scars. “Return fire?”

Stark shook his head. “Time index?”

“Forty-five seconds till mark.”

Zoya took out a slim pen laser. Stark's pulse roared inside his ears as he eased the laser from her shaking hand. Those gold eyes remained huge but steady.

“This is the battle cruiser Victory.” Stark turned the laser on, the slim red line delicate and sharp and deadly. “We will deploy all weapons unless—”

The shrill shriek of the comm nearly had him shoving his hands over his ears. “Vekran of Murak.” A mechanical and low computerized voice.

The hologrid shifted and rebuilt itself to show a humanoid, its body inside a heavy exoskeleton, its thin limbs and reptile-looking head twitching in a coordinated rhythm. Every grid on every comm station replicated the image, showing similar-looking aliens gathering in the background behind the speaker, studying the humans with the same awed fear as the humans studied them.

Vekran let out high-pitched shrieks that the comm garbled up before spitting out a translation. “Agree cease-fire.”

“Relay this to the fleet. Hit every comm relay you can get your hands on.” Stark kept his voice soft, his eyes on the Murk.

“On it.” Dex kept his voice whisper-soft.

Zoya's hand was trembling in his. “We greet you. Vekran of Murak.”

A second passed before a high-pitched trio of shrieks was relayed to the alien. Those flat eyes closed halfway, a thin limb reached out toward her in the holo-output. “Honor. To greet.”

* * *

“There're still plenty who'll oppose the cease-fire.” Bone-tired, Zoya stood next to Stark inside his quarters, their hands clasped, both of them looking out the small window. Starboard of Victory, the dark gray triangle of the alien ships was joined by three midsize carriers from Central Diplomacy. “Probably on the Murk side as well.” She leaned her head on his wide shoulder. Hopefully there would be no new marks on his arms after tonight. “What made you think of it?”

He shrugged. “Blind luck. And suddenly acquiring a bloodmate.”

She snorted. “That does tend to fuck up plans.”

He brushed his palm over her hair. “It's not just hormones. Started out that way but didn't stay there.”

She should've been surprised he'd said this. Somehow she wasn't. “Same with me.”

His steel blue eyes remained somber. “That being the case, I have a proposition. After this business with the talks, we take a leave.” He lifted his brows. “It is prescribed by protocol.”

“About that.” She took a steadying breath. “I've heard things. I don't want Central Research monitoring us 'breeding.' When”—she coughed—“if it ever comes to that, we do it on our time. They want to confirm a DNA match, fine. But nothing beyond that.”

With a swift movement, Stark snatched the clasp that bound her hair and watched the silky strands fall down her back. “I agree. But I still say we take that leave.”

Heat stirred again. Zoya tilted her head and looked up at him. “The talks will last awhile. You think we'll stick around that long?”

“I'm sticking around.” He brushed her lips with his and then said something Zoya couldn't quite hear.

“What was that?”

He sighed. “I said, I love you, Zoya Scott. Or would you like your earpiece?”

The warmth that flooded her nearly spilled out as tears. Unable to contain the joy inside her chest, she crushed her mouth to his, wrapping both arms around his neck. Clung for a second, savoring the moment, before she brought her lips closer to his ear.

I love you too , she mouthed just before he lifted her up high and carried her to bed.

Fiona Jayde

 

Fiona Jayde is a space pilot, a ninth degree black belt in three styles of martial arts, a computer hacker, a mountain climber, a jazz singer, a weight lifter, a superspy with a talent for languages, and an evil genius. All in her own head.

In life, she is an author of kickass, action packed, steamy romances, and possesses a brown belt in Tae Kwon Do and blue belt in Aikido. She's also a web developer, scared to death of heights, loves jazz piano, can bench-press about 20 pounds—with effort, speaks English and Russian fluently, and when not plotting murder and mayhem enjoys steamy romance novels, sexy spy thrillers, murky mysteries and movies where things frequently blow up.

She can be contacted through her website at www.fionajayde.com