Thick underbrush full of thorny plants scraped across my armor. Supply cache locations were secret and the bunkers themselves were hidden, so there was not a clean path to follow. The bunker was only five hundred meters from the ship in a straight line, but we ended up walking nearly double that because of the steep ravines and underbrush.
This particular bunker was set into the side of a hill. The door was under a small overhang and obscured by camouflage netting and natural plants. Even knowing it was there, my eyes would’ve skipped over it without the helpful icon from my smart glasses.
I swiped my chip over the reader and also input a six-digit code. The door unlocked and I pulled it open with cold fingers. Our entrance would not be reported to House von Hasenberg. If I had used the alternate code, it would appear to work exactly the same, but it would send a silent emergency request back to the House—useful in case someone was forced to open the door against their will.
The lights came on, revealing the first of five rooms. All of our bunkers were laid out similarly, and all von Hasenberg family members regularly trained on simulations to ensure we’d know exactly what to do in an emergency. When time mattered, you didn’t want to get lost in your own damn bunker.
We were standing in the main supply room. It spanned the entire width of the bunker and was filled with cabinets and shelves. A short hallway in the middle of the back wall led to a mess hall, bathroom, and war room on the left, and a large bunk room on the right. Each bunker could comfortably support up to fifty people and could be pushed to support twice that if necessary.
Ying looked around with interest. This was likely the first time she’d personally seen the inside of a von Hasenberg supply cache. She caught me watching her and grinned. “I’ll keep it to myself, cross my heart—even the parts our spies got wrong.” Her exaggerated wink made me chuckle. She continued, “Our caches are similar, except you enter in a hallway that runs the whole length of the bunker. It means fewer people can hold it against attack.”
“It also makes it easier for someone to prop the door open and shoot anyone trying to escape. Like fish in a barrel.”
Ying waved me off. “That’s why we have the secret exit, of course.”
I pretended to write in an imaginary notebook. “Note to self . . .” We both grinned at the ridiculousness and then broke into laughter. It was good to remember how to laugh even when things were terrible.
Looking around, I realized I probably should’ve made a list of high-priority items. “We’ll have to limit what we take to what we can carry because I don’t think the sleds will make it through the brush. We can each wear a suit of powered combat armor, but we’ll have to carry a spare for Cira. I’d rather not make two trips if we can avoid it, so let’s get moving. Feel free to dig through anything in here.”
Ying and Aoife headed off to look for supplies, but Alex stuck close to me. Once we were alone, he murmured, “Have you been trained to fight at full strength? Do you know what you are capable of?” When I slanted a sharp glance at him, he held up his hands. “Whatever you tell me goes no further. I swear it.”
Alex was incredibly observant. He’d noticed I could see in the dark, and when I’d attacked him, he had to have noticed how hard I hit. By answering his questions I wasn’t really giving him anything he hadn’t already guessed—or so I told myself. “Briefly. And I mostly know my limits thanks to my own experiments.”
He ran a hand down his face. “They really didn’t tell you what they did to you?”
I dodged the question by asking one of my own. “Were you sick as a child, too?”
He cursed under his breath. “Were you sick before or after the treatment?”
“Before.” I’d been sick for as long as I could remember. The treatment had cured me.
A furious look crossed his face before he smoothed it away. “Were you weak, tired all the time, and in constant pain?”
I couldn’t stop the shock from showing on my face, which was answer enough. I didn’t like where this was going. The list hit close to home, but there were many illnesses that had those symptoms; it didn’t mean anything. I brought the conversation back to the relevant point. “It’s been a while, but I know how to fight if I have to.”
Alex looked like he wanted to argue, but instead he nodded curtly. “Aoife is going to keep an eye on Ying until Cira is healed, so you’re stuck with me.”
“I think you mean that you’re stuck with me. Try to keep up.” I smiled to take any unintentional sting out of the words.
He leaned in, expression intent. “I like being stuck with you.”
I flushed and wished once again that we’d met in different circumstances. If only Bianca had introduced us sooner, we could’ve gone on a date like a normal couple instead of racing across the universe, hunted by a crime syndicate.
I could’ve peeled him out of that tight shirt and mapped his abs. With my lips.
I jerked my gaze away from his chest and back to the supplies surrounding us. Now was not the time, no matter how much I wished it was. I cleared my throat. “We should find the armor first, then decide how much we can carry and what we might need.”
“What kind of supplies do you have in here?”
“A bit of everything. Weapons, armor, and packaged food and water in case the synthesizers go down. It’s a space designed to hole up or resupply a platoon well enough to take back whatever was taken. We have heavy weapons and explosives in addition to the standard blasters and blast rifles. Armor-wise, there should be a dozen or more suits of powered combat armor.”
“Artillery?”
“Only portable mortars and lightweight rocketry. Maybe a drone or two. Everything had to break down small enough to fit through the door. We have a few larger caches, but they’re closer to Serenity, and we’re more likely to get caught if we try to get to one.”
“We’ll make do. Let’s see the combat armor.”
Powered combat armor protected better than the ballistic armor I currently had on, but not as well as a fully mechanized combat suit. It was a lightweight compromise, powered enough to assist with moving the armor’s extra weight, but not nearly as much as mechanized suits, which made soldiers superhumanly strong.
Alex and I each picked armor in the closest generic size, but generic armor didn’t fit nearly as well as the custom armor I’d left in House von Hasenberg’s armory. In the future, assuming I survived this little expedition, I would get another suit made and store it on Chaos.
After trying it on to ensure I’d chosen the size correctly, I stripped off the pieces and carefully arranged them together off to the side. Beside me, Alex did the same.
“Do you heal faster than normal?” he asked quietly.
I blinked at the unexpected question and automatically deflected. “Of course. I have the best nanos money can buy, and they are renewed every year.”
He turned to me with a frown. “You know what I mean.”
Desire was easy, but trust was so, so difficult. If I kept handing him pieces of me, he would have enough to destroy me completely. I met his eyes. “I have exceptional natural healing,” I said. “Must be my excellent von Hasenberg genes.”
He didn’t need a map to read between the lines. “Good.”
When he didn’t press further, I nodded and led him deeper into the shelves. “Is there anything in particular you would like, besides artillery?”
“Explosives,” he said immediately.
The shelves were not labeled, and while the organization followed a pattern, it wasn’t one easy to discern if you didn’t already know it. So when I found Ying and Aoife digging through crates of explosives, I raised an eyebrow. “How lucky that you found the explosives so quickly,” I commented drily.
Ying grinned and mimed locking her lips closed. Having a best friend who was also a member of a rival High House was an interesting experience sometimes. Never mind that I could do exactly the same thing in any House Yamado supply cache.
We sorted through the supplies and filled two crates with grenades, rockets, and malleable blocks of explosives. By the time we were done, we had enough explosive power to level a small civilian complex—or put a sizable dent in a military building.
Ying and Aoife went to get their armor situated while Alex and I continued hunting for supplies. Sadly, we didn’t find any prototype shields, one of the things I’d been hoping to obtain. My cuff would have to be it, but it only protected me and one extra person if they were standing very close.
Alex and I filled two more crates with weapons and electronics, then picked up a small drone. With Cira’s armor, we’d each be hauling back two full crates. It wouldn’t exactly be pleasant, but we should be able to make it in one trip.
I was tempted to grab more, but Chaos’s cargo hold was tiny. Six crates—plus the one I’d taken to Andromeda—would fill it up. And if we couldn’t succeed with the supplies in these crates, then more supplies weren’t really going to help.
Alex and I stacked everything by the entry door, then went to put on our armor. Both Ying and Aoife were already suited up. The smallest armor fit Ying reasonably well. Aoife was in the medium armor and her extra height made the fit a little better than mine.
We suited up and headed out. Ying got the two lightest crates because she was the smallest—and as far as I knew, she didn’t have any extra strength. I tried to pass Aoife one of my lighter crates, but she just laughed at me and hoisted both of hers with no apparent effort.
Alex had rigged up a harness and strapped a crate to his back, so he was the only person with a free hand for a weapon. We all had rifles slung across our backs, but it would take a few seconds to drop our burdens and swing them around. Having someone who could provide covering fire for those seconds was a good idea—one should always hope for the best and plan for the worst.
I’d stowed my smart glasses because the helmet’s display worked the same way. We left the bunker and I followed the directions on my display. I’d left Chaos in a passive monitoring mode, but with instructions to contact me if any vehicles were detected within fifty kilometers. Cira had also been given a com and instructions to contact us if anything went wrong. Neither of those things had happened, but the forest felt different from inside combat armor.
I moved a little faster.
The return to the ship was uneventful, which only served to make me more anxious. We stowed the crates and stripped off our armor in silence. I wasn’t the only one feeling uneasy.
“Flight time to the backup command center is about four hours because we’ll have to stay low and slow to remain off the sensors and out of cannon range. Eat, sleep, read, do whatever. I’ll let you know when we’re about an hour out.”
Ying nodded. She knew where we were headed. “I’m going to talk to Cira, see if she wants to move out of the medbay.”
“Let me know if you need help.”
“Thanks. I’ll see how she feels,” Ying said as she left.
Aoife looked at Alex and then sighed dramatically. “I suppose since you’re busy, I’ll go offer my services as a pack mule in case Cira’s leg is still bothering her.” She pinned me with a hard stare. “Let me know if anything changes during our flight.”
“I will.” After she left, I turned to Alex. “And you? What are you busy doing?”
His slow grin was all heat and temptation. “Being stuck with you.”
“I have to fly the ship.” If I sounded disappointed, one could hardly blame me.
Alex stalked closer, his presence intense and focused. He leaned in until his cheek brushed mine and whispered in my ear, “I’m happy to watch.”
His low voice stroked over my skin and I shivered. The searing desire that I’d been trying to ignore came roaring back. I took a shaky breath and held on to my control by the slenderest of threads. I wanted nothing more than to bury my hand in his hair, lick into his mouth, and spend the next four hours exploring his body.
But duty called.
“I have to get us in the air.” He started to pull back, but I wrapped a hand around his upper arm, lightly holding him in place, and tipped my head up to whisper, “Then we’ll see what happens.” I pressed a fleeting kiss to his lips, then ducked away and beat a hasty retreat to the flight deck.
In another decade or two I might cool off enough so that I wouldn’t spontaneously combust.
Maybe.
ALEX DIDN’T JOIN ME ON THE FLIGHT DECK UNTIL CHAOS was already in the air. When he appeared, I checked our course and kept an eye out for any other ships or drones in the vicinity, despite the fact that the ship was already doing the same thing.
He slid into the second console and spun the chair around until he faced me. I glanced at him out of the corner of my eye. He sprawled in the chair, a picture of lazy confidence, but heat lurked in his eyes, in the slight curve of his mouth.
I did not mind eyes on me, and indeed, my whole persona was designed to draw attention, but none of them had made me as restless as Alex’s quiet gaze. I fought the urge to squirm, to pace, to go over there and finish what we’d started.
There was no way I could stand four hours of this—there was not enough meditation in the ’verse.
Alex stood and offered me a hand. “You look like you’re about to jump out of your skin. Let’s burn off some energy.”
I slid my hand into his, but froze when I processed the second sentence. I met his gaze with wide eyes. Had he just propositioned me?
He pulled me to my feet and chuckled, a delicious rumble that I wanted to feel pressed against me. “Not that way. I thought we’d try some training. Have you ever fought anyone as fast as you?”
I glanced away uneasily. It was one thing to obliquely acknowledge that I was different, but another thing entirely to prove it true. I’d been keeping this secret for so long that I wasn’t sure I could share it. If I could have, I would have shared it with my siblings ages ago.
Alex touched my arm, pulling my attention back to him. “You are safe with me. I’ll never force you to do something you don’t want. What would you like to do instead? I play a mean game of rummy.”
That pulled a reluctant grin from me. “I’ll have you know I’m the family rummy champion three years running.”
“Really?”
I laughed. “No, not really. But I do play a decent game of poker. None of my siblings expects the innocent baby of the family to lie and cheat like a fiend, even though they’re the ones who taught me how.”
Alex shook his head sadly. “Rookie move, giving away your strategy like that. Now I know to watch your hands.”
I met his eyes. “If you weren’t sick as a child, how did you end up like me?”
“I volunteered,” he said quietly, old pain in his voice. “I can’t tell you more than that.”
I knew about keeping secrets to protect others, so I didn’t press, even though I was desperately curious. That knowledge was enough to make me ask, “Will you pull your punches?”
“If you will. You hit like a freighter.”
“And you won’t tell anyone?”
“No, I won’t tell anyone. Not even if you turn purple and sprout five antennae.”
I was too anxious to do more than huff out a half-laugh. And that anxiety ramped up higher when Alex stepped back and dropped into a ready stance. The flight deck didn’t have a lot of extra room, but if we tried to go anywhere else, I’d lose my nerve for sure.
I moved away from the captain’s console and mirrored Alex’s stance, except I kept my hands open. Alex nodded and uncurled his fists. I’d learned that even pulled punches could hurt. Taps were less likely to cause damage.
Alex watched me but didn’t move. He expected me to attack first. I darted in, not as fast as I could, to tap him on his right arm. Before I could connect, he dodged, fast, and tapped my right arm.
He grinned at me and fell back into a ready stance. “You’re going to have to do better than that, princess.”
I feinted right then came in left. He blocked both blows, but rather than falling back, I pressed forward. I was moving faster, but still not at full speed.
Alex blocked two blows with one arm and used the other to cover a yawn. “Wake me up when you decide to try.”
“Baiting me isn’t going to work. I’m the youngest of six. I’ve heard it all.”
“If you say so, princess.”
The term sounded more like an endearment than antagonism. Still, if he wanted a challenge, I’d give him a challenge. Without any warning, I sped up. I landed two taps before he caught up. “Awake now?”
“I’m getting there.” He dodged and deflected two more quick hits. “Damn, you are fast.”
“I’m getting there,” I parroted with a smile. But Alex was no slouch, either. I’d never fought anyone who could keep up with my speed and I hadn’t realized just how much I’d been holding back. It was exhilarating to push myself and find him always there, dodging and blocking. I had to actually work to land hits.
I laughed with the pure joy of it.
And then he changed the game and went on the offensive. He landed a trio of quick taps before I danced out of reach. I’d never defended myself against someone who was as fast as me.
Not only as fast as me, but also better trained than me.
I’d had self-defense tutors, but I’d been sick when I was young. Everyone took it easy on me, and my siblings were quick to rush to my defense and help me on the sly. I’d only passed my training trials because of their help.
Then everything had changed right before I’d turned thirteen. I was suddenly strong, and fast, and healthy, and it was amazing. I threw myself into training, fighting harder, practicing longer. I’d felt unstoppable. I could still picture Father’s face, glowing with pride, when I’d snapped my training partner’s arm.
I faltered in remembered horror, and Alex dropped back with a concerned look.
I refocused and tried to forget the snap of breaking bone that haunted my memory. I put Alex on the defensive with a flurry of quick taps. I’d spent so long learning to be slow, and careful, and gentle that it almost felt like a betrayal to use my full speed and strength.
After I’d decided that I wouldn’t be Father’s pet assassin, I’d been beaten bloody more times than I could count. A few times, only my extreme healing ability had saved my life. But I’d been stubborn even then. The harder Father had pressed, the weaker I’d gotten, until he’d finally given up in disgust.
Would I have chosen a different path if I’d known there were others like me? My siblings loved me, I knew that, but my secrets kept me isolated. Honestly, it was probably for the best that I hadn’t known because I would’ve done almost anything to have a family of people who understood. And Father would have ruthlessly exploited that weakness.
Alex broke through my guard and proved once again exactly how lacking my training had been. It usually wasn’t a problem, because I was faster than anyone I fought.
Except Alex.
And he was used to fighting a fast sparring partner, which begged the question: who? Aoife was a skilled shot, but she hadn’t shown any other signs that she might be more than she appeared to be. Was she hiding, too?
Alex tapped me again, a light touch on my hip accompanied by a grin. “Am I boring you?”
“You’ve trained against someone fast. Are there more people like us?”
His face showed his conflict and he pulled back. I stopped attacking and waited. Finally, he shook his head. “I can’t tell you.” He met my eyes solidly, as if willing me to understand.
And I did.
He wasn’t telling me no, which was as good as a yes. There were more of us! I couldn’t help the smile that lit up my face. I wanted to interrogate him, but I sealed my lips against the questions. I could respect someone keeping a secret for others. Alex relaxed and nodded, very slightly.
I dropped back into a ready stance. “What am I doing wrong and how do I fix it?”
Alex spent the next hour correcting my stances and offering advice for how to be more effective at hand-to-hand combat. He showed me how to use my speed and strength against someone like him and against the normal opponents I would usually face. I learned more in an hour than I had in years of training.
I was hot and sweaty and incredibly grateful. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. Would you like to grab some lunch?”
My stomach rumbled, not for the first time, and I grinned, then gestured for him to precede me out of the flight deck. “My stomach agrees with that plan. Lead the way.”