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DEEDECK DESIGN
Chapter 13
Moira pressed her hands against the blank metal, aghast at the swift brutality of the disaster. Then she whipped her head around. One pilot was leaning against the wall next to her, his eyes wild in his dark face as he stared at a display of the outer chamber. The other pilot stood hunched over the controls, making gasping sounds of distress as her hands ran futilely over the panels.
“We have to get them out of there!” Moira shouted, but neither pilot responded. She grabbed at the man next to her just as he sagged against the display with a groan. She dug her nails into him on a spike of fear, trying to pull him away so she could see what was happening. If Jax and Connie had been sucked out into space, there was nothing she could do. But if there were injuries, she needed to be in the other chamber.
“Move!” she snarled, then gasped when the door slid open. Jackson Coltier stepped in, hard face grim and eyes glittering with dark fury. Moira thought her legs were going to fold under her with the strength of her relief. “Jax,” she gasped and reached for him instinctively.
He pulled her close without hesitation, holding her hard with a curse growled through clenched teeth. Moira pressed her forehead against his solid chest, feeling dizzy and strange. His heart was beating hard against her palms, and she was astonished at the surge of gratitude she felt. He was alive and whole.
“Connie?” she whispered.
“Here, ma’am,” he answered quietly at her side.
She raised her head with another gasp of relief, pulling free enough of Coltier’s tight hold to reach for Connie. He took her hand, his hard face gentling into an almost smile. She held his big fingers tightly and took a deep breath, trying to restore her composure. “Injuries?” she asked in as clinical a tone as she could manage under the circumstances. Coltier was still holding her loosely, and his touch was starting to disturb her in a wide variety of ways. She kept her eyes on Connie.
“We’re fine,” Coltier answered.
“Your arm—”
“Just bruised.”
She flicked him a stern glance and backed out of his arms. “So you’re a doctor now? Someone get my med kit. I need to scan you two.”
Coltier gave her a lopsided smile that made her heart jump and heat bloom in her belly. “First thing’s first,” he murmured, expression cooling and hardening as he turned to the pilots. “Explain what just happened.”
“There was an override,” the male pilot said in a low, shaky voice. “An override for the main systems and the backups and even the fail safes. The airlock just started to disengage, and no matter what we tried, it just wouldn’t respond. It wouldn’t respond…” He ran a trembling hand over his sweating face as he leaned against the wall.
The female pilot, seated now at the controls, made a sound in her throat and whispered, “If you hadn’t moved so fast, you’d all be dead. I’ve never heard of an airlock system failing so badly—”
“It wasn’t an accident,” Coltier said in a voice like hot steel. “It was attempted murder. You have anything to do with it?”
The woman jerked back, eyes widening until the whites showed all the way around her irises. “Murder? Wh-what—?”
“Someone is trying to kill me,” Moira interrupted in as calm a voice as she could muster. “Can you check for a foreign program? Something that would trigger an override?”
The woman goggled at her for a moment, then gulped and turned to the controls, fingers flying over the displays with reassuring competence. “Void’s Night,” she gasped, hands freezing and body hunching as if someone had punched her. “Wh-who would do such a thing?”
Coltier pulled the com unit from his pocket and flipped it open. “Besh, report.”
“Sir, the station’s secure. Are you—?”
“No casualties. The programmer struck again. Get Kreel on the airlock. We have to get Dr. Bannen the hell out of here.”
“Understood.”
Coltier pocketed the unit and pinned the pilots with his piercing gaze. “Move this boat.”
“B-but we have to call this in,” the female pilot protested, her expression aghast. “The authorities—”
“Trust me, they’ll know about it soon enough. Right now, I’m trying to get her away from a killer. If I find out it’s one of you two, I’ll jettison you into space. Get flying.” He turned his head to stare at the unmoving male pilot. “Now.”
They moved with the jerky speed of fear, strapping into the pilot’s seats. As they powered up the ship, Coltier touched the small of Moira’s back and urged her into the outer chamber with Connie on their heels.
She eyed the hatch with distrust and a residual twist of terror. “The seal is good?” she asked, edging closer to Coltier without realizing it.
“That hatch is built like a tank. Nothing wrong with it,” he muttered, flexing his right arm with a sour glance at the offending portal.
The motion reminded her of her medical responsibilities. “All right, let’s look at that arm. Connie, could you find me the med kit?” She paused, looking Connie over with a creased brow. “How are you feeling? Any odd sensations in your chest or extremities?”
“No, ma’am, I’m fine. I’ll get your kit.” He clumped off into the interior of the ship, leaving Moira alone with Coltier.
His expression darkened as he studied her, and he shoved his hands in his pockets with a grim thinning of his mouth. “Damn it, Moira, that was too close.”
“I know,” she murmured and was startled by a full body shudder. Wrapping her arms around herself in a futile attempt to comfort, she shook her head. “I just—I just don’t understand why. Why in the Void’s name would anyone want to kill me?”
“We’ll find out,” he said in a low voice, reaching out to grasp her upper arm gently, his thumb making soothing passes over her chilled skin. “It’ll be over soon.”
She nodded, turning her face away as tears stung her eyes. His touch was warm and dangerously compelling, promising comfort and safety. The urge to step back into his arms nearly overwhelmed her, but she fought it with the worrisome knowledge that comfort was only part of what she was looking for in his arms.
“Prepare for departure,” the female pilot’s voice rang throughout the ship.
Coltier merely reached up for a bracing hook, but Moira pulled out of his clasp and sank into a security net along the wall. They pulled away from the station with barely a jounce, and Moira peeled herself out of the net just as Connie returned with a case in one meaty fist.
Moira took it from him with a quiet thank you and opened the kit, removing a scanner and turning to Coltier with her best professional face. “Hold still, please.”
That ghost of a smile flickered across his mouth again, but she ignored it, focusing on her diagnostic scan as she held the small machine in front of him, and then passed it down his left arm. Systemically he was fine, with only some residual adrenaline to mark the experience, but the arm had some deep muscle bruising. No fractures, though. She retrieved the micro injector from her kit and filled it with a dose of pain killer and nanytes.
Coltier caught her wrist in a firm hold as she approached him. “What is it?”
She stared at him in disgust. “A lethal dose of narcotics with a convulsant thrown in just for fun. What else?”
“Hmm. That does sound like fun,” he responded with a quirk of his lips and let her go.
She grabbed his wrist with a disgruntled mutter and pushed up his sleeve enough to inject the material into a muscle. Then she scooped the nanyte processor from her kit and told the little machines to decrease the swelling and remove hematoma elements from the injured area.
Then she turned to Connie and gave him a scan. She smiled at him when the scanner beeped the all clear. “On the other hand, you get off easy.”
“But I was looking forward to convulsing, ma’am,” he said in his implacable voice.
She grinned and patted him on his arm. “Maybe next time, tiger. And you’ve saved my life twice now. I think you can drop the ma’am and start calling me Moira.”
“Yes, ma’am,” he responded, his eyes cutting quickly to Coltier.
“Thanks for the patch up, Doc,” Coltier said as he flexed his arm, his tone a little too casual. Moira glanced at him curiously, but his face was unreadable. “Keep an eye on her, Connie. I’ve got a few questions for the crew.”
“Don’t question too hard,” Moira cautioned with a cynical lift of her eyebrow. “Unless you know how to fly this thing.”
“Happens I do, but I’ll be gentle.” He flashed his teeth in a hard grin that had more threat than humor in it before turning toward the control chamber.
“Yipes,” she muttered and looked up at Connie. He was staring over her head with a studiously bland expression, though she would swear there was a twinkle of humor in his eyes. “How does he know how to pilot?”
“Took a tour in Patrol, ma’am.”
Ex-military. She should have known. “That explains a few things. Is that where he met you?”
“Spot on, ma’am,” he said, eyes crinkling at the edges. “I was his gunner.”
“Of course you were,” she said with arch look that almost made him smile. “I’m grateful for your training, though,” she added, putting a hand on his arm. “Without it I’d be dead. Thank you for saving my life.”
He shrugged and shifted on his big feet, slanting a glance at the door to the control chamber. “Just doing my job, ma’am.”
“Speaking of jobs…” She sighed. “Let’s find a corner where I can park my rear and get to work.”
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