Chapter Three

The whole ship lurched sideways, hurling Alex out of her chair.

El Cazador screamed under the strain, and the lights flashed and went out. They spun out of control, and Alex was tossed onto the floor like a doll. Someone landed on top of her, and the air whooshed from her lungs. She gripped on to whoever it was as the ship rolled, and this time she fell, presumably hitting the ceiling only to be flung to the floor again as El Cazador righted herself.

“Shit.” The word sounded close. Alex thought it was Jon, but in the darkness, she couldn’t be sure.

She lay still, waiting for the next hit. It never came. After a minute, the lights flickered back on. Except for people littering the floor, the bridge appeared in good shape.

Searching around, she found Jon a few feet to her left. He was sitting up, rubbing his head. Her gaze clung to him for a moment, taking in the naked chest, then down the length of his arm. The claws were gone—his hand had returned to normal.

For one horrible moment earlier, she’d been sure Rico was going to kill him. Or Jon was going to kill Rico. Either outcome wouldn’t have been good. She’d actually jumped to her feet, unsure what she could do, but ready to launch herself between them. They’d probably have torn her to pieces… She needed a gun.

Luckily, Skylar had decided it was time to intervene, and she did have a weapon. Alex had slunk back down into her seat.

Now, Tannis stood up, brushed herself off, and scowled. “That was no freaking warning shot.”

Alex brightened a little at the words. Her immediate thought had been that the Church had come back for her. But as the captain said—that was no warning shot. Whoever had hit them had meant business. Maybe it was nothing to do with her.

Rico picked himself up off the floor again. “If that’s the goddamn Church again, this time I’m blowing them out of the sky.”

He flung himself down in the pilot’s seat, smashed his fist on the console in front of him, and the monitor flickered into life. A huge star cruiser filled the screen.

“That’s no Church vessel.”

Alex scrambled to her feet and brushed herself off. She was bruised but nothing worse. She edged around Skylar and peered over Rico’s shoulder at the ship on the monitor. It was huge; she’d never seen anything like it.

“No, it’s not,” Skylar said. “That’s a Collective Star Cruiser, and I’m betting it’s chock full of Corps.”

“How sweet,” Tannis muttered. “Your friends came to say hello.”

Rico frowned. “That shot sounded more like good-bye to me.”

“They must want him bad,” Skylar said, nodding at Jon.

“Yeah, he’s a real popular guy,” Rico replied. “How the hell did they find us so fast?”

“Maybe he’s bugged,” Skylar said.

“Jesus. Why the hell didn’t we think of that?” Tannis leaned across and pressed the comm link. “Janey, you okay? Well, get down here and bring a scanner with you.” She turned back to Rico. “What’s the damage?”

“She’s holding for the moment, but another hit like that, and we’ll have problems.”

“Well, let’s see if we can persuade them not to. Skylar, can you talk to them?” Tannis asked.

Skylar nodded and closed her eyes, her face clearing of expression. A minute later, she blinked. “They’re not interested in talking.”

“That’s not good news,” Tannis muttered.

“Well, the next bit’s even better. They’ve given me five minutes to get off the ship, then they plan on blowing you into little pieces.”

“Will they go ahead even if you stay on board?” Tannis asked.

“Oh, yeah. They made that very clear. But they did promise to resurrect me.”

“They can do that?”

“As long as there’s DNA left.”

“Maybe you’d better go,” Rico said quietly.

Alex’s eyes flashed from Rico to Skylar. Would she go?

“No way,” Skylar snapped. “So you’d better be thinking of a way to get us out of here. And in the next five minutes.”

“How am I supposed to think when you just shot me?”

“So your brain’s in your ass now is it? Figures.”

“Ha-ha. What if we hand him over?” Rico asked, nodding to where Jon lounged against the wall, arms folded. Jon had wiped the blood from his face but it was still smeared across his broad chest. Rico’s question didn’t appear to bother him in the least.

Alex held her breath as she waited for Skylar to answer and only released it when she shook her head.

“No deal. They’re not interested. They want you all dead.”

“Any clue why?”

“They’re not saying. Maybe they don’t even know. I’m guessing the order is coming from up high. Aiden Ross was a founding member—if not a popular one. It might just be in reparation for Jonny over there killing him.”

“But why kill us? We didn’t assassinate Ross.”

“I said it might be. But I don’t think so. My guess is Jonny knows something they don’t want out. And they probably suspect he’s already told us.”

They swung around to stare at the werewolf.

“The name’s Jon, not Jonny. And it was a job. I was paid to kill some guy. I know fuck-all else.”

Janey appeared in the doorway, with Daisy close behind her. “What’s happening?”

“We’re being attacked by the Collective and are going to be blown into pieces in five minutes.”

“Four now.”

“Wow,” Janey said. She didn’t appear particularly disturbed. Alex had never seen Janey less than totally poised, hair and makeup perfect. Janey had red hair like Alex—but that was their only similarity.

Janey lifted the scanner in her hand and waved it. “What do you want scanned?”

“Him.” Tannis pointed at Jon, and Janey turned to stare.

“Double wow,” she murmured. Alex watched with narrowed eyes as Janey sauntered over in her high heels, hips swaying. No one would ever mistake Janey for a boy.

“What am I looking for?” she asked, running the scanner over his bare chest.

“Anything that could be used to track us. And take your time. We have four minutes, after all.”

“Three.”

Beep. Beep. Beep.

“Got it,” Janey said. “Turn around and drop your pants.”

He looked at her for a moment. “Just don’t ask me to bend over, because I’m not going to do it.”

Alex told herself she should look away, but somehow her eyes stayed glued as he undid the button and turned around. He dropped his pants and leaned his arms against the wall in front of him. His skin was smooth and golden, his ass firm above long, muscular legs.

“Nice butt,” someone said.

“Nice legs.”

“Knife.” Janey held out a hand. Crouching down behind him, she ran her slender, scarlet-tipped fingers over his skin. Skylar drew a slim dagger from the weapons belt at her waist and handed it over.

“This might sting a little,” Janey murmured.

His muscles tensed visibly, but he didn’t say a word as she sliced open the skin of his left buttock and probed. After only a second, the tracker popped out, small, about the size of Alex’s little fingertip. Janey picked it up and straightened.

“Get rid of it,” Tannis said.

Janey dropped it to the floor and crushed it with her shoe as Jon pulled up his pants and turned around.

“So what’s the plan?” Tannis asked Rico. “You do have a plan, don’t you?”

“Actually, I do.”

“Well, sooner might be better than later. Are you going to share?”

“I saw this maneuver in a movie once. A long time ago.”

“A movie?”

“An old Earth thing. Anyway, this was one of my favorites, and I’ve always wanted to try it. Strap yourselves in everybody.”

Alex hurried to the nearest seat and fastened the safety harness, while everyone else did the same.

“So, the plan?” Tannis asked.

“Wait and see.”

“Well, don’t make me wait too long.”

“I just need to check…Okay, hold on tight everyone.” He hit the boosters and El Cazador shot forward, straight toward the star cruiser, her blasters blazing shots at the giant ship.

“What the fuck?” Tannis yelled.

The speed pushed Alex back into her seat, and she closed her eyes, waiting for the crash. Instead, they slowed dramatically, the ship spun on her tail, and they stopped.

She opened one eye and peered through her lashes. Everyone still sat still in their seats as though waiting for something to happen.

“Where are we?” Tannis asked.

“We’ve landed on the back of the Star Cruiser,” Skylar said, and Alex heard the wonder in her voice.

Rico grinned. “We’re out of their visual monitors, and their systems won’t pick us up amidst their own internal feedback. Or at least that’s the theory. It should look like we vanished.”

They all sat in silence.

“That’s the five minutes up,” Tannis murmured. “And we’re still here. So what do we do now? They’ll pick us up as soon as we make a move.”

“Well, in the movie, they waited until the rubbish was released into space and then just floated away.”

“What rubbish?” Tannis asked.

“Yeah, well. This movie was made a long time ago, and there was a lot of rubbish back then.”

“So we sit here for the rest of our lives.” Tannis raised one brow.

“Hey, you’re alive, aren’t you? Quit moaning. I’ll think of something. We need to give them time to run some checks first anyway.”

They all fell silent. Tannis paced the bridge. Skylar took the seat next to Rico, who was gazing at the monitor, deep in thought. Alex pulled her feet onto her chair, rested her head on her knees, and watched them all. She’d come to care for them so much over the past three months. Tannis who had taken her in when she was starving, Skylar who had befriended her, and even Janey when Alex managed to get over the massive inferiority complex the other woman induced. The thought of going back to the Church, never seeing them again, made her chest ache. She still had to tell them who she was, and she only hoped they wouldn’t hate her for lying to them.

After a few minutes, Tannis paused her pacing, and her glance darted between Jon and Rico. “So, while we’re waiting, tell us, where do werewolves come from? For that matter, where do vampires come from?”

Rico grinned. “Straight from Hell, darling.”

“Really?”

“No, not really. I’m not even sure Hell exists. The truth is no one really knows where we come from, or at least no one I know of, and if they ever did, the information was probably lost when the Earth died.”

Tannis frowned. “That’s another thing. How did you get out here? How did you escape the Earth? I read that there wasn’t room on the ships for everyone and most people were left behind to die. So how did you lot”—she waved a hand to encompass Rico and Jon—“manage to get a place?”

Alex knew Rico was old. Skylar had told her he’d lived over fifteen hundred years—she couldn’t imagine being around that long. He’d actually lived on Earth. He must have been there when the Chosen Ones made their exodus nearly a thousand years ago.

Rico settled back in his chair. “Do you know how the planets in the Trakis system got their names?”

“Weren’t they called after the spaceships that took the people from Earth?” Janey offered.

“That’s right. Twenty-four ships, each carrying ten thousand humans—The Chosen Ones. They were picked by lottery, though the whole thing was pretty much rigged. Anyway, me and a few acquaintances decided we weren’t willing to rely on a one in fifty thousand chance, besides which, I think they forgot to enter us in the lottery. So we took things into our own hands.”

“Acquaintances?” Skylar asked. “You mean more vampires?”

“Some, but other things as well—you might say we came together for a common cause. Vampires”—he nodded at Jon—“werewolves, and a few others you probably wouldn’t want to meet on a dark night.”

“So what did you do?”

“Most of the people were to be kept in cryo, except for a small crew to run the ship. So we made one of the captains an offer he didn’t want to refuse.”

“What? What could you offer someone when the world was about to end?”

“We offered him life. In exchange for dumping half his load of ‘Chosen Ones’ and replacing them with our people, I gave him immortality.”

Tannis frowned as she thought about it, then her expression cleared. “Shit—you turned the guy into a vampire—wow.”

“I did, and here we are.”

“Yeah, but for how much longer?” she asked, waving a hand at the monitor. “You got any idea how to get us out of this yet?”

“Actually, I might have,” Skylar said and switched on the monitor so it filled with the huge silver hull of the star cruiser. She clicked between views, studying the layout. “There.” She pointed at the screen. “Can you shift us so we’re up against that blaster shield?”

“Sure,” Rico replied.

El Cazador inched forward until the screen showed them snug up against a huge projection.

“Hey, clever. You’re going to create some rubbish. Why didn’t I think of that?”

Skylar slanted him a quick grin. “Just be ready to go.”

She fiddled with the console settings, then punched on the blasters. This close they couldn’t miss, striking where the hull joined the shield. Alex tightened her fingers on the seat as a shudder ran through the ship.

“Hopefully, they’ll think it’s damage from the earlier shooting. One more should do it.” Skylar hit the guns a second time, and the great sheet of metal broke free.

“Go!” she shouted to Rico.

He punched the controls, and El Cazador peeled away. They drifted slowly, keeping pace with the debris. Alex clenched her teeth, waiting for some reaction to the blast, for the space cruiser to come after them, but gradually it grew smaller and smaller in the monitors.

When the vessel was no more than a speck on the screen, Skylar moved to stand behind Rico. “Are they following?”

“No, I think we’re clear.” He gripped her around the waist and pulled her onto his lap. “You’re a genius.”

“So are you.”

“Jesus, this is gross.” Jon’s disgusted tones sounded from nearby, and she turned toward him. He was staring at Skylar and the vampire, his lip curled in an expression of revulsion.

“Too freaking right it’s gross,” Tannis snapped. “Skip it, you two. We have work to do.” Tannis ran her gaze over Jon. “And can someone find him some clothes that fit—he’s a little distracting like that.”

Alex leaped up. The thought of Jon distracting Tannis made her feel distinctly edgy. “I’ll go.”

“No. You stay,” Skylar said. She scrambled to her feet and brushed herself off. “You’ve got something to tell everyone, remember? Janey can go.”

Alex scowled. “I was going to come back.”

“Yes, but when? Just get it over with, kid.”