“Crew quarters.”
“Everyone is secure?”
“Affirmative.”
“Good,” Jared growled. “The captain does not want you to be bouncing around the ship knocking holes in the bulkhead when we jump.”
Closing the com, he stalked back to his seat.
Chloe felt her face heating with discomfort since the comment instantly reminded her that she’d made a similar comment to Jared and Kane when they were headed to Thagorous. She shifted uncomfortably and began to study a flaw in the fabric on the knee of her flight suit.
“All cyborgs secure, captain,” Jared reported in a clipped voice when he had buckled his restraints once more. “The other cyborgs are identified as Lucien CS91701,Sebastian CS66676, Thor CS667821, and Damon PD00534.”
Chloe was tempted, briefly, to inform him that she wasn’t deaf, but she decided against it. She cleared her throat, searching for something to say besides ‘good’ and then frowned as she repeated the names and serial numbers of the other cyborgs. “They didn’t make very many pleasure droids, did they?”
She heard Kane grinding his teeth.
“They did notdesignatemany cyborgs as pleasure droids,” Jared said with emphasis. “Most were shipped to the iceberg known as Xeno-12 and many are there still since they froze to death. No doubt pleasure droid Damon isextremelyexperienced in utilizing his programming now since he was one of the earliest fucking models.”
Chloe gaped at him. Before she could think of any sort of response, however, she felt the floor beneath her feet begin to vibrate. Instantly diverted by the indication that the hyper drive had been engaged, she gripped the armrests, closed her eyes, and tried not to think about the fact that the entire ship and everything in it was about to be vaporized and shot across two galaxies.
She supposed it said a lot for her focus on reaching Damon that she didn’t even flinch at trying three hyper-jumps in succession when she’d never even experienced but a handful before in her entire life. On the other hand, the fact that shewasn’tused to it but knew it to be commonplace with most long-range spacecraft had probably been a factor in her dismissal of the hazards.
It was a little harder to close her mind to the possibility for disaster this time, which also probably had to do with Damon. She didn’t like to think she’d risked so much to rescue him and might end up disassembling him all over half the universe herself.
She also didn’t want tobecomevapor.
Since that was her last thought before blackout, it was her first when she became aware again and she did a quick visual check to make sure all parts that she could see were there and in the right place. Breathing a shaky sigh of relief, she grabbed weakly at her restraints to throw off her harness. Rising on wobbly legs, she headed toward the console to check their position and order the computer to run a systems check. Her main focus, however, was on the little blip she’d seen behind them just before the jump.
Marking the time, she divided her attention between watching the screen and studying the star charts, peripherally aware that Jared and Kane had removed their restraints and settled in the docking pilot and navigator’s seats.
She’d had a half formed plan when she went after Damon of settling somewhere and setting up a land-based operation—half formed because she’d never given it enough thought to settle on any particular planet. Few of the planets they’d visited in the time since she’d been with her father had any appeal. Of course, she hadn’t actually seen that much of any of them. As often as not, they’d merely found a dealer in salvage and dropped their load before returning to space even though they generally hit some port at least twice a year, Earth standard.Shehadn’t gone to the surface, at any rate, not until her father had finally tumbled to the fact that she was a grown woman. After that, she’d been invited to join the rest of the crew in visiting bars and brothels, but she hadn’t found it nearly as amusing as the men seemed to and mostly she’d stayed on board while they caroused.
Thagorous was certainly out of the question now, although when she’d first conceived the notion she’d considered it—because Damon was there. In point of fact, considering the situation she was facing now, none of the planets on the well-beaten track were a good idea.
The frontier would be much safer in one respect—the arm of the law barely reached and it was an area where pretty much anybody on the run could at least slow down. That wasn’t exactly a point in favor of settling on such a world, though. She wasn’t of the same ilk as the majority of the criminals that settled in such places and she wasn’t confident that she would thrive in such a place.
Not that she didn’t think she could take care of herself! Her father had seen to it that she could handle herself as well as the other crewmembers. She actually wanted to focus on the girly stuff for a change, though, make a real home like the one she’d had before her mother died. She was thinking about taking in a couple of stray rug rats to cuddle and nurture, and the frontier was no place for anyone that was family-minded.
She supposed she should at least inform Damon of what she had in mind, but she didn’t see that that was absolutely necessary. He was hers now. She hadn’t actually figured on buying him—this time around—but she had. She didn’t see that it would make any difference to him whether he was called upon to fuck one woman or dozens. He could adjust. That was why they had AI!
She didn’t realize her mind had strayed to other things until a flash of light on her screen diverted her back to her watch. For several moments, she stared at it in disbelief, then she checked the clock.
“They followed us,” she said a little hollowly.
Jared and Kane, she discovered, had already noticed. Their expressions were grim.
“Computer! Raise the shielding and prepare for a another jump,” Jared said in a clipped voice.
Chloe blinked at him in surprise.
“Confirmation, Captain Chloe?” the computer asked.
After staring at Jared for a long moment, she confirmed. “We’re going to jump again?”
“I think we will see, first, what it is our shadow has in mind,” he said grimly, moving to the seat in front of the com-link. “This is the Salvager Omega-3 requesting that the craft in quadrant seven-niner-voyager-two identify and state your intentions.”
Chapter Five
