Blue Galaxy (8 page)

“That’s not how it works. It’s not who is chosen. It’s who can survive the others.”

“What do you mean?”

“Seven attempts on my life—all orchestrated by my siblings.”

Javan sucked in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “How many people have
you
killed?”

“Too many.” She slipped out of the restraints and stretched. “I have no desire to rule the galaxy. I can kill if I need to, but I have no stomach for mass murder, genocide or any of my father’s other hobbies.”

“Why me? You still haven’t told me.”

Sola perched in his lap. “I’ve told you too much already. A wife should be able to keep some secrets from her husband, after all.”

Javan laughed mirthlessly but absently stroked her hair.

She looked into his eyes, no mischief left. “Take me to bed, Javan. We don’t have much time together. We need to find a safe place to hide you.”

“Before your father comes looking for me?”

“He’ll send one of my siblings after us both. It’ll be safer if we split up. I’m the one they’ll focus on.”

“No, we should stick together.”

Sola sighed. “Please don’t be difficult about this.”

“Oh, so I’ve served my purpose, have I? You’re married, you’re pregnant and now I’m—”

“Expendable.”

“What about the child?”

“Hidden. Brought up by people who I can trust. One anonymous baby in a galaxy of billions.”

He stroked a stray lock from her face. “It doesn’t have to be like that.”

“Javan, I’m supposed to kill you. I don’t want to.”

“Can’t do it, huh?”

“I could do it. I just—” she touched his cheek, “—don’t want to.”

He tried to smile but knew it came out crooked.

“Because you love me?”

“Please. I’m incapable.”

“I don’t believe that.”

She shrugged. “Come on, husband. Let’s go to your cabin one last time. Then we’ll find a safe place for you.”

He picked her up and strode to the cabin, where he placed her gently on the bunk. She closed her eyes, her bottom lip trembling. Before he could decide whether to make love to her or just hold her, the laser hit him right between the eyes.

From far away, a voice said, “Come on. Drink.”

The burning fire of brandy trickled down his throat. He spluttered and opened his eyes. Sola stood over him, looking down with concern.

“Dammit, Sola. You shot me!”

“I had it set to stun. You’ll just have a little headache.”

It felt like his head had been crushed with a boulder. “A
little
headache?” He tried to make sure his head was still attached, but his limbs were heavy, his head out of reach. “Dammit, why have you tied me up?”

“It’s just until we find a safe planet to settle you on. I was thinking an agricultural planet might suit. Somewhere sleepy, where nothing ever happens and there’s plenty to eat. I had a feeling you’d resist, so I restrained you.”

“Damn right I’ll resist. I’m a spacer! Have been since I was fifteen years old. There’s no way I’m going to allow you to dump me in some dead corner of the galaxy while you take off into God knows what danger with my child inside you.”

“I knew you’d be this way. That’s why I’m not giving you any choice.” She sat next to him. “What do you mean you’ve been a spacer since you were fifteen? You didn’t join the military until you were eighteen.”

He rested his throbbing head on her lap. “Oh, finally something you don’t know about me, huh?”

She stroked his hair, running cool fingers over his burning forehead.

“I was one of the test pilots for the slingshot launch system,” Javan mumbled.

“When you were fifteen?”

“They rounded up a bunch of street kids who wouldn’t be missed if something happened to them.”

“Like what?”

“What do you mean like what? Do you know how many people died getting the quirks in the slingshot launch worked out? Not a very pleasant death either: getting ripped apart by G-force, brain imploding, burned alive trying to break atmo.”

Her fingers were soothing, almost letting him forget the terror of those launches.

“There was nothing in your file about this. According to your official record, you joined the military at eighteen after scoring off the charts on the entrance exam.”

“My father died at sea when I was nine. My mother and I were starving, so we went to Athens. She found work in one of the munitions factories. One day she went to work, and I never saw her again. I survived by begging and stealing. Six years later I woke up in a military prison. The very next day I was strapped into an autoship and launched.” Sola’s fingers kept working, drawing out words he’d never spoken before. “After three years I’d learned so much about the launch process that they allowed me to test. I rose through the ranks. There were a lot of opportunities for that during the war. I made captain just in time for the Battle of Lunar Base.”

“Decorated for valor, then allied with one of the most powerful Blue families via marriage to Morna McKenzie. It was glorious accomplishment for the son of a fisherman, Javan.” She dropped her fingers to his abdomen. “But then…your downfall. You were thrown out of the military. That’s where your file ends. And then fifteen years of smuggling and drinking? What happened, Javan?”

He sighed. “I’d been saving my military pay for years. Morna took everything except for a small private account. I bought the
Kypris
at auction. There’s nothing else to tell.”

“There must be more to it than that.” She unbuttoned his shirt. “Tell me the rest. Please.”

It was the whispered
please
that convinced him to tell her everything. It would be such a relief. “Do you know what I did at the Battle of Lunar Base?”

“You delivered the first decisive victory in the war against the rebels. You saved Earth from getting nuked. You saved us all.”

“It wasn’t quite like that.”

She propped her head on her hand. “Tell me.”

He dragged his gaze away from hers. “About two dozen major cities were allied to the rebels, but Lunar Base was their headquarters. Their leaders were there. I knew it wasn’t enough to just have dogfights with their fighter ships. I gave the order to bomb the base.”

She kissed his cheek gently.

“When we entered the base, there’d been so many breaches that we had to suit up. When we got to the interior of the base, that’s when we realized.”

“Realized what?”

The words came out in a rush. “The rebels were dead. So were all the civilians. We didn’t know they had their families with them. We weren’t told. Women, children—all dead and floating around. Infants. Gallons of blood, in individual droplets…just floating around.” He grimaced and fell silent.

Sola waited, her fingers working patiently. “It was war, Javan. Terrible things happen in war.”

He shrugged her off and closed his eyes. “When I gave the order to bomb the base…I knew it would destroy us. When their nukes went off, we’d all be wiped out or die slowly from radiation sickness. I ordered it anyway. I had to save Earth. But there
were
no nukes. We were lied to. The rebels were never a threat to Earth—just to your father. I murdered those people for nothing. I’m not a hero. I’m a murderer.”

Sola grabbed his shoulders and forced him to look at her. “You were manipulated by my father like so many before you, like so many after you. It changes nothing. You went on a suicide mission. You thought you were saving Earth and everybody on it.”

He pushed her away. “When I got back to Earth, I accepted the hero’s welcome, I allowed the marriage, but when I was ordered to wipe out the civilian population of New York City, I couldn’t do it. Only some of the people were allied to the rebels, but your father didn’t care. He took advantage of the rebellion to carry out genocide. He wanted Earth’s population under control. He could have built colony ships, but mass murder was easier, cheaper. I…I couldn’t do it. Eventually they found someone more capable than me.”

“Destin Grady.”

He nodded. “I would not be his pawn. But Grady—he had no qualms. He did what your father required.”

“Why did my father let you live? He made you a Blue. You made him look a fool.”

Javan allowed himself a bitter smile. “He told his men to take me back where I’d been found and kill me. They dumped me out in the middle of the Aegean. Not a very good way to kill someone who could swim before he could walk. I swam for… I don’t know. It felt like days. I made my way back to Athens, bought this tub. You know the rest. But what does it matter? He won’t let me live this time.”

“And that’s why we have to find you a safe place. A nice place, I promise, with beautiful water for you to swim in.” She unzipped his flight pants.

“Are you going to at least untie me before you have sex with me?”

“No. I’m not.”

“Why are you supposed to kill me? Why is that part of the plan? In fact, what is your plan? Take over from your father? Rule the galaxy?”

“Not quite. Unseat my father, yes. Rule the galaxy? No. Kill you? No, I won’t do it. Although you know too much now.”

“Why can’t you kill me?” He moved his bound wrists and trailed his fingers up her leg.

“Something you did for me once. When I was looking through the files to find someone who might be suitable for this job, I saw your face. I just said ‘him—I want him.’ I’d always assumed my father had had you killed. I was so happy to discover you were alive.”

“What did I do for you? I don’t even remember you from back then.”

Limbs trembling, Sola turned onto her back to allow his hands to wander over her body. She closed her eyes. “When I cried at your wedding—showing emotion wasn’t allowed.”

“Were you punished?”

“I was sent for training years earlier than I should have been. Years, oh years, of training. They starved me and beat me. They trained me in weapons, sex, espionage, torture—everything. And they kept testing me until I tested the way they wanted.”

“And how was that?”

“Until I tested psychopathological.”

“What do you mean? Until you were a psychopath?”

“Correct.”

“So did you cheat on the test?”

“Only a little, Javan. Please remember that.”

He kissed her stomach. “And what was it I did for you?”

“I wanted to fail and I wanted to die, just so they would stop torturing me, just so they would leave me alone. Your face would come to me in my worst moments. You gave me strength to keep going. Because I knew if I wanted to be like you, I’d have to endure it.”

“Be like me?” He flicked open the front of her gossamer gown.

She arched toward him, toward his fingers, toward his mouth. “I wanted to be a hero. I still do. I have to destroy my father.”

He took her face in his hands, straining the straps that bound his wrists. “I’m not a hero.”

“Yes, you are. You stood up to the dictator. You showed us it could be done. You
are
a hero.”

Her mouth closed on his, and as always, he was lost as the waves of desire and emotion built within him. He was in love with her. She was his wife. She carried his child. But what
was
she? She was barely human, emotionally, psychologically and biologically. But what was he to do? He loved her, and nothing could change that.

But he would have to handle her carefully, to test her as she’d once been tested, and this time there would be no cheating. It involved love and trust. And she had to pass; otherwise they were in the kind of trouble that couldn’t be fixed but could only be suffered. And dammit, he was through with suffering.

He longed to hear her call his name, to cry out that she loved him, so he bent to the task, kissing her breast, nipping at the tender skin of her neck. “Are you going to untie me?” he murmured huskily.

“No,” she moaned, quivering under his mouth and hands.

“You’ll have to eventually. You need me to fly the ship.”

“Oh, Javan.” With a sudden movement, she twisted on top of him and released his straining cock. She lowered slowly, inch by inch, enveloping him in moist heat. “When will you learn to stop underestimating me?”

It was quite some time before he was capable of giving her an answer.

She was right. He had underestimated her—again. Her voice came over the intercom.

“Focus, Javan. We’re going to jump.”

He had a moment of panic wondering if she’d put in the correct coordinates. She started to count down, and without even trying, he focused on a wish, a desire to have him and Sola and the coming baby somewhere safe, somewhere he could protect them.

They jumped.

He recovered almost immediately, relieved to find they hadn’t jumped through a gas giant or become embedded in a rock planet. As suspected, she soon came rushing in to check on him. She undid most of the straps, and he let his head loll back while she called his name anxiously. He almost had her. If only his mouth hadn’t curved into a smile.

“You bastard!” She punched his chest—hard.

He sat up, smirking. “You can’t deny me a little revenge.”

“What did I do?” She held her hands upward, her face pure innocence except for the wicked smile.

“I need to take a pressure shower. After those terrible, disgusting things you did to me—” his cock gave a longing twitch, “—I feel the need to clean myself up. You’re gonna have to untie me, my lady.”

After a flurry of tying and untying and tying again, he found himself on his tiptoes with his arms above his head as he dangled from the bulkhead. “I still can’t get to the shower.”

“No, but you do look quite magnificent.” She ran her hands up and down his tensed body. “You’re even more beautiful now than when you were twenty-two.” She touched a mottled scar on his thigh. “Where did you get this?”

“One of my first launches. There was a fire in the cockpit.”

She kissed the scar and continued. “What about this one?” She traced a thin red scar on his shoulder.

“A Brazilian whore.” He smiled at the memory; Sola scowled.

His smile broadened. “She tried to rob me when she thought she’d exhausted me. You’d have liked her.”

Her scowl deepened. “This one?” She fingered a jagged scar on his chest.