A Plain Jane Book One

  Chapter 10

  Jane

  She felt… she felt horrible. She’d never felt like this before, it was….

  She saw Lucas kneel down beside her, his face coming into view, his expression displaying genuine and obvious concern.

  “Jane? Jane? Are you okay?” he asked quickly, his voice snapping but his tone hardly angry, only anxious.

  She didn’t answer as a wave of nausea rolled over her. She’d never felt like this. In fact, she’d hardly ever felt sick in her entire life. She’d been lucky in that respect; she’d never been injured, she’d never come down with some kind of space virus, and she’d hardly ever had a runny nose. But now… now….

  “I…” she managed.

  “Oh god, you’re okay. Prack, you’re okay.” Lucas looked relieved, and he closed his eyes and shook his head, his mouth pressing up into a confused smile. Then he opened his eyes again, and he looked down at Jane warily.

  “I’m going to throw up,” she realized.

  Lucas blinked. Before he could do anything, Jane twisted to the side and threw up all over the command chair. Then she clapped a hand over her mouth and one over her stomach, and she bent forward.

  “Right,” Lucas said as he slowly stood. “Computer…” he began.

  “Decontamination equipment in storage cell one,” the computer replied.

  Lucas nodded, thrust his bottom lip forward, and blew a blast of air up against the short edges of his fringe. “Right. Didn’t think I would be cleaning up puke tonight,” he mumbled as he started to walk back toward the other end of the cruiser. Before he did, he turned and faced her. “Will you be okay?”

  She was aware that her eyebrows were shifting up and down, her cheeks puffing in and out, her chin wobbling. She kept on swallowing. “I’ve never thrown up before,” she managed.

  Lucas’ eyebrows descended, and he looked confused. “Okay,” he replied.

  “There is a funny taste in my mouth,” she added.

  “I’ll bet there is. I’ll get you some water. Are you okay? Do you need some help to sit up?” The look of concern on his face… it honestly did seem to be real.

  Jane was aware that she was looking up at him, confusion pressing down on her eyebrows, her lips pulling out into a line. Could it be that the media had been wrong? Or maybe that she’d been wrong? Despite what she liked to believe, Lucas Stone was turning out to be almost kind. Or was it some kind of act? Would he go out back and suddenly bring out a registration form for his Fan Club? Or demand that she give an exclusive interview to some news crew telling them how fabulous he was?

  Lucas was watching her, and he started to pale. “You need to throw up again?”

  She patted her lips then shook her head.

  “Just wait here,” he said as he walked back out from the bridge.

  Which left her alone. Alone with her thoughts. Jane had a lot of thoughts right now, because she had a lot to think about. Never before in her entire life had so much happened to her in such a short time. In fact, even in her various fantasies, she’d never faced so much danger, so much action, and so much… awkwardness.

  She swallowed again, trying to ignore the horribly acidic taste in her mouth, and she pulled herself up off the floor and onto the remaining chair – the chair that wasn’t covered in puke. She sat there, feeling sick and sorry for herself until Lucas came back into the room. He handed her a glass of water and then set about cleaning up the mess.

  When Lucas was finished, he sat down on the command chair and swiveled to face her.

  Jane had never seen an expression like the one he now wore, and she had no idea what it meant. His eyes were narrowed as if they were pressed with concern, yet one corner of his lip was curled in a half smile.

  “Well, that was… different.” He brushed his hand over his chin.

  This confused Jane, and she frowned back at him. “I don’t understand.”

  Lucas gave a short and uncontrollable laugh. “Okay. Well, what I meant was, well,” he stuttered and automatically put a hand up to touch the back of his head. This time it didn’t bounce off his armor, and he patted his hair down with no trouble. “That was different,” he ended up repeating.

  “What usually happens?” Jane asked plainly.

  Lucas laughed again, but it was somewhere between mirth and awkwardness. “Usually….” He opened his mouth and closed it again. “I don’t know what I’m saying,” he answered, laughing.

  Jane gave him a quizzical look. “I’ve never been into space before,” she pointed out again.

  “And you’ve never thrown up before,” Lucas said as he turned back to the computer console and typed something into one of the panels, “but you seem to have a natural talent for it.”

  Jane’s eyebrows danced around, her expression shifting between irritation and confusion. She wasn’t sure what to make of that comment.

  Lucas turned back to her, and the awkwardness and mirth were gone from his expression. “Do you have any idea what just happened?”

  Jane’s gaze darted down to her hands, and she moved her fingers around, lacing them through each other. She shook her head.

  “I didn’t think you would,” Lucas sighed. “Now I’m on a ship with you, leaving the Earth’s atmosphere, running from a creature that wiped out the Parans,” he appeared to be speaking to himself, “and neither of us has any idea what’s going on. Well, at least this beats the Dean’s party.”

  “But you like parties,” Jane noted weakly. “I read it in one of the fan supplements that Mandy gets. She’s a card-carrying member of your Fan Club. She’s always talking about you.” A part of her was aware how innocent and stupid she sounded right now. But that part was weak considering she’d just had her body controlled, had run around like a super soldier on stimulants, and had thrown up all over a reconnaissance spaceship.

  Once again one side of Lucas’ mouth started to curl up, and his lips darted around until he couldn’t stop it anymore and the other side of his mouth snapped up into a grin. “Sorry?”

  “I read it,” Jane said plainly, aware of the fact she was tired and that she should seriously be putting more thought into what she was saying. “Lucas Stone likes to go to parties. It said you also like to go walking,” she started counting on her fingers, “cooking in the traditional old-style human manner, and going…” she trailed off for a moment as she tried to remember the exact phrase, “for long walks on the beach with a special person,” she finished, nodding to herself in satisfaction that she’d managed to remember all the details.

  If Lucas had been trying not to laugh before, it was nothing compared to the titanic struggle that now twisted across his face. His lips wobbled, and he closed his eyes for a second. “Going for long walks on the beach with a special person?” he repeated, shaking through a laugh.

  Jane realized how idiotic she’d sounded, and she crossed her arms. Her body still burnt with fatigue, but she was happy to waste energy on the move. “Well, I don’t know. It was written in your fan supplement.”

  Lucas laughed out loud. “I think you’ll find there is a lot of junk written in those things. If I did half the things they said I do, I would be superhuman.” He shook his head and turned back to the panel, fingers darting across it as he no doubt checked that their flight plan was still operational.

  Jane kept her arms crossed in front of her. She wanted to repeat to him that the fan supplement had clearly said that he liked going to parties. If that was wrong, then… well, everything she knew about Lucas Stone was probably wrong too. The only information she had on the man, other than the brief interactions she’d had with him, was what she’d learned off Mandy and the news. And what she’d learned from those sources was the primary reason Jane had grown to hate the man so much. After all, the impression she had was that Lucas Stone was larger than life, and not larger than life in a good way – in a way that made everybody else feel small, normal, ordinary, and plain.

  “You are pretty strange,” Lucas said,
still chuckling as he turned back to face her. “No, I really don’t like parties. They bore the hell out of me.” He was still smiling, and his nose had crumpled, his eyes narrowing as his cheeks puffed up against them. He apparently thought this was hilarious. “Now, what else was there? Something to do with walking? Well, to be honest, I actually do like walking. But I just don’t get the time. The last time I went on a hike…” he trailed off and looked up to his left, “I was transported away when I was only probably a hundred meters from the top of the mountain.” He shrugged his shoulders. “There was an incident I had to deal with. But I will tell you one thing, I do prefer old-style cooking. It’s got a certain charm to it. As for long walks on the beach with someone special—” He chuckled.

  Jane found herself growing ever more defensive, and if she crossed her arms any tighter in front of her chest, she would probably suffocate herself. She was aware she was looking at him darkly.

  He waved a hand at her. “Sorry, you probably don’t need this. Ignore me; I’m tired,” he said as he brushed a hand over his cheek and nose. “But it doesn’t look as if I’ll be getting any rest anytime soon,” he mumbled to himself. “I really wish I could sleep while I was awake like you.”

  Jane watched him warily and let her arms uncross a little. “Where are we going?” she asked.

  Lucas looked back at her, and the mirth was gone from his expression. “We’re currently heading to the Central Shipyards. From there…” he trailed off. “I have no idea.”

  Jane swallowed hard, and she started to play with her hands. “Are they going to take me and put me on a prison planet?” she asked quietly.

  “Jane, of course they…” Lucas trailed off again. He seemed to trail off a lot. He seemed to start off knowing what he wanted to do or say and then change his mind halfway through. It was odd, and it was also something that hadn’t been written about in his fan supplements.

  “You don’t know,” Jane replied carefully. “I just broke… I just shot… I just did…” she found herself trailing off too. She was too confused to make sense of what she had and hadn’t done. The only two things she could be sure of were both equally horrible: she hadn’t been in control of her body, and that white eyeless creature wanted her dead.

  Fear gripped her gut as she thought about it, an ice-cold sensation spreading through her chest. She shivered and rubbed at her arms and throat, trying to coax the warmth back.

  Lucas noticed the move and flicked something on the panel in front of him. “I can increase the heat if you’re cold.”

  Jane was aware that her teeth were now chattering.

  “It might be the after-effects of the drug,” he noted as his eyes darted over the holographic image that suddenly appeared over the panel in front of him. “You should probably try to get some rest. You can go into one of the dormitory rooms—”

  Jane shook her head suddenly, and she was surprised at how quick and vehement the move was.

  “Or you can stay here,” Lucas said, blinking back his shock, but his voice was still even and careful.

  She nodded.

  Silence stretched between them. She wanted to ask him what would happen next, what would happen to her, and what had really happened in the research lab. Yet she wasn’t sure whether he knew the answers. Plus, she didn’t want to make a fool of herself anymore and come up with any other snippets from Mandy’s fan supplements about the great Lucas Stone. So she just sat there, rubbing her arms and staring out of the view screen at the front of the cruiser.

  After a while, Lucas noticed what she was doing, and out of the corner of her eye, she could see the confused but interested look on his face.

  “Is that… is that how you sleep?” Lucas asked after a pause.

  “I don’t know,” she replied.

  That same expression of puzzlement and mirth crumpled his brow again. “How can you not know?” His voice was high with controlled exasperation. “I mean—”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Jane interrupted defensively. “Different species have different sleeping habits, and some of them don’t sleep at all. I learned that in school, and that was what the doctor told me at the Galactic Force,” she said plainly. Once again, as she said it, she realized how thoroughly innocent and stupid it sounded. She was repeating a fact she’d learned in school to a man who had access to the combined Galactic Database.

  Lucas looked uncomfortable. “Yes, of course.” He started to frown. “But what species are you?”

  Jane wouldn’t look at him.

  “I never asked the doctor, and she never told me,” Lucas shrugged his shoulders, but his expression was still pressed with interest, “and it wasn’t on your file.”

  She felt uncomfortable, and the sensation went beyond the situation, if that made any sense. It was the same intense reaction she’d had toward Research Lab Two. “I don’t know,” she snapped at him. “There are many, many refugees in this Galaxy, many drifters. Not every species has the same kind of family history as a human.”

  Lucas looked shocked. “I’m sorry,” he managed.

  She realized her reaction had been vehement and was completely at odds with her usual character.

  She closed her eyes for a moment and then opened them again. That buzzing was back. The same odd white noise that had filled her mind when the assassin robot had attacked her.

  He was still looking at her with that same confused interest, but where it had been sharper before, now there was a different kind of edge to it. He looked determined, and determined in a way that Jane had no real experience with.

  “So you don’t have any idea whatsoever what race you’re from?” Lucas tried again.

  “I don’t want to talk about this,” Jane snapped.

  Once again Lucas blinked in surprise, but once again the surprise quickly shifted down into interest. He even stuck his head forward a bit, and though there were a good two meters between them, Jane was suddenly aware of how close he was. “So you have no idea whatsoever what kind of race you’re from?” he repeated the same question.

  “I don’t want to talk about this,” Jane practically shouted now.

  Lucas no longer looked surprised, and he didn’t look as if Jane had just shouted at him with the kind of viciousness that was light years away from her usual character.

  “So you have no idea—” Lucas started again.

  She snapped up to her feet. “I don’t want to talk about this,” she now screamed.

  Lucas didn’t seem concerned at her move or at her tone. He appeared to be looking at her, or, more accurately, through her. He narrowed his gaze as if he were trying to read something that was far off and hard to see.

  “Right, you have no idea what race you’re from—” he began again, tone easy.

  “Lucas—” Jane screamed. She wound on her foot, readying to storm out of the room.

  “You don’t know where you’re from, but you do have an implant.” Lucas leaned back, a startled expression smoothing his brow.

  Jane stopped.

  She felt cold.

  “I’m not surprised Miranda didn’t pick it up… I have never seen technology like that. The computer only just noticed it.”

  Jane turned to note that Lucas was staring at her, his eyes darting to and fro, his expression one of extreme interest.

  “Maybe it only became visible after the effects of the drug, or maybe after whatever the hell just happened to you down on Earth.” His voice was soft, his words stuttering as he apparently paid far more attention to staring at her. He sat back further in his chair. “Wow, and I thought my armor was sophisticated. I have never seen an implant like that.”

  Jane still felt cold. Though her head was screaming at her to turn around and walk the hell out of the room and never talk to him ever again, she somehow overrode the feeling and managed to clamp her feet to the ground and stand there, facing him.

  “I’m just going to try something,” his voice was low. “Jane, what species—”

  “Sto
p it!” she bellowed at him.

  “Wow,” was his only response. His face lit up with surprise and interest. “Prack, that thing is linked almost perfectly with your brain. I’ve never seen an implant with so—”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Jane found herself snapping, and again she had to fight the urge to storm off on him.

  “It must have been the drug… or maybe it overtaxed itself.” Lucas’ eyes were narrowed. “That must be it. The implant,” he pointed right at her, “that would have been responsible for the speed, the agility. Wow,” he repeated.

  Jane felt her expression grow sallow, her lips slowly parting as she seemed to lose all control of her jaw.

  She couldn’t deny that she had an overwhelming urge to get the hell out of there or to just scream at Lucas until he shut up, but the urge… she could fight it.

  “It wouldn’t have had to output like that before.” He kept shaking his head. “Getting you out of danger like that, it had to override all the messages coming from your brain and even control your body. It must have run itself dry.” Lucas crossed his arms and leaned right back in his chair. He finally stopped looking at whatever picture his bio-armor was displaying to his brain and flicked up his gaze to her face. “What are you?”

  Jane took a step back.

  “It’s okay. I don’t—”

  Jane shook her head shakily.

  Lucas put his hands up slowly. “It’s okay, Jane.”

  The urge to run was now getting stronger and stronger.

  Lucas narrowed his eyes again, and they shifted out of focus as no doubt his onboard computer started to display him telemetry and readings again.

  He snapped his head forward and stood up. “Prack, it’s regenerating. It’s fast.” His mouth was open, his words almost slurred as it was clear his attention was taken up by what he was seeing.

  She felt cold again, but she still managed to stand there. It took everything she had, but a big part of her wanted to know what Lucas was talking about. He seemed to be so adamant, so intrigued by it….

  “It must be the effects of the drug too, maybe it blocked it somehow,” he noted, eyebrows pressed low over his eyes.

  Jane turned around and walked out the door. Something else was in control of her limbs again, and she was too tired to fight it, too confused, too overcome. Her normal life, after all, had just taken a sharp and surprising twist.

  …

  Lucas Stone

  Lucas let her go as he doubted he could stop her. Not without sedating her or tying her down somehow. That implant appeared to have measurable control over not only her body but her moods as well.

  He hadn’t been lying when he’d said he’d never seen technology like it. While he did have an implant that functioned in somewhat the same manner, it wasn’t nearly as sophisticated, and it didn’t have nearly as much control over his body. His armor was there to assist him, to allow quick and direct uplink to computers, to allow augmentation of his abilities and senses. Jane’s implant, on the other hand… he had no idea what it did, but he could guess. It appeared to be programmed to get her out of trouble. And not just that – it seemed to have the ability to stop her from ever seeking out trouble in the first place. It had incredible evasion capabilities. After all, he could remember the strange conversation he’d had with Jane in the corridor that morning, where she’d replied to his questions about why an assassin robot would be sent after her with the adamant response that she was normal and those kinds of things do not happen to normal people.

  It had to be an evasion tactic. And the way she’d reacted when questioned on what species she was, that was just the icing on the cake. That implant was obviously programmed not just to keep her safe but to prevent her from finding out what species she was from.

  But why?

  Lucas sat there, his head resting back against the chair behind him, his eyes staring at the ceiling as he tried to process everything.

  What kind of person had an implant like that? One more sophisticated than any technology he’d ever seen? An implant that was bizarrely programmed to stop her from ever doing anything dangerous, from ever putting her head out, from ever finding out what race she was from, and that obviously had provisions to take control of her body should she ever actually find herself in danger.

  What kind of person had an implant like that? Not an admin officer.

  Perhaps the Paran Artifact was right, and Specimen 14 really was after Jane, because Jane really was… well, special. Important somehow. Important in a way that Lucas had no idea of yet, but which he would now use every resource he had to figure out. In other words, he would set this as a priority.

  He used the onboard scanner to check that Jane was okay and that she wasn’t running off to the hangar bay door and trying to smash it open to jump out into space. She was, in fact, entrenched in one of the dormitory rooms, huddled up in the corner quietly. Though he wanted to go to her and check that she was okay, he fought the urge. The implant would just kick in again, he was sure of it.

  Was she Paran? It was the only possibility that made any sense. She’d managed to activate the Paran Artifact. He’d handled it himself, and not once had the black box turned into a great big robot.

  There was only one problem – no one really knew what a Paran looked like. They’d always been a stupendously paranoid race and had never revealed their true identity to the rest of the Galaxy. Whenever a Paran had traveled outside of their empire, they’d all undergone extensive genetic surgery to mimic whatever race they went to live with or visit.

  Lucas leaned forward and shook his head, laughing to himself.

  He was trying to piece together little snippets of probably inaccurate information about an ancient race when he had a database about them loaded into his armor.

  When the Paran Artifact had uploaded it, there’d been no time to go through it. What, with the pressing fact that Specimen 14 had broken out of its containment field and had actually melted the floor to get to Jane.

  Now Lucas had the time. It would probably be an hour or so until they reached the Central Shipyards. While he knew Jane was safe, the best way for him to spend that time was finding out exactly who she was and why she was so integral to all of this. So Lucas rested his head back again, tried to get comfortable, crossed his arms in front of him, and closed his eyes. He opened his mind to the onboard computer of his armor, and he tried to access the database.

  At first, it was hard, almost painful. Then it would work but in confusing bursts. He would get rushes of disparate information flashing before his mind. Pictures, words, symbols. The words and symbols were in the Paran language, and he had to wait for the computer to translate them.

  Lucas clutched a hand to his head and tried to squeeze his eyes closed tighter as he fought harder to get the information he needed.

  The database was clearly having problems integrating with the rest of the knowledge in his armor. And he couldn’t forget that the Paran Artifact had somehow managed to alter his armor, upgrading it to upload the database in the first place.

  “Come on,” he mumbled to himself through gritted teeth. “Show me what I need to know.”

  The more he tried to find out about the Parans, the more images of the Darq appeared before his mind. He would see buildings that were on the Paran worlds destroyed in seconds. The Darq would rush them, starting off with their white forms and then melding and shifting their bodies until they were dark shadows that destroyed whatever lay in their path. They were like a horrible swarm, a relentless storm.

  Lucas opened his eyes, his breath heavy as he tried to process the horrible images. Then he gritted his teeth and closed his eyes again, forcing his mind forward. “Come on, come on,” he said through clenched teeth. “Show me what you know.”

  Yet the more he tried to find out about the Parans, the more he found out about the Darq. He saw image after image of the destruction of the Paran worlds. He saw whole cities fall within hours.

&n
bsp; Eventually, reluctantly, he gave up, and he opened his eyes.

  Jane was standing on the other side of the room looking at him warily.

  He blinked heavily as he tried to shift through the pain that was clenching at his skull. He leaned forward. “Are you okay?” he said in a shaky voice.

  Jane nodded.

  “We should be arriving at the Central Shipyards in another 10 minutes or so.”

  “There’s something in my head, isn’t there?” Jane blurted out, but her voice wasn’t angry, and there wasn’t a touch of the vehemence that there’d been before. In fact, her expression was exactly the kind of expression he would expect to see on Jane. She looked concerned, awkward, uneasy, but still… well, still cute. Still Jane.

  He nodded uneasily, keeping his eyes on her at all times. He didn’t want to make the wrong move and cause the implant to kick into gear again. He was almost certain that if he started to question what race she was from or heaven forbid whether she was normal or plain, Jane would turn on her heel, scream at him, and run out of the room. Or maybe the implant would decide that it’d had enough and cause her to outright attack him. And he really didn’t want that. So he just looked at her carefully and waited for her to make the next move.

  “I’m not normal, am I?” she asked through a stuttering sigh.

  Lucas had to try hard, really hard not to laugh. He wasn’t amused because he thought she was stupid. It was just the sheer innocence in her voice, as though she’d been asleep during the last hour’s terrifying events.

  He didn’t answer; he kept waiting for her to make the next move.

  She sighed again. “I don’t know what to do.” She looked over at him, fixing her large and expressive hazel eyes right on his.

  He sat up straighter; he was pretty sure that Jane was now looking to him for a solution. Or something like that. Though he couldn’t say for sure that her expression was pleading, he still got the distinct impression that she didn’t have anywhere else to turn, but that she’d turned to him nonetheless.

  “There will be scientists, doctors at the Central Shipyards. We will be able to…” he trailed off. Prack it, he kept trailing off at the moment. It was as if he couldn’t form a full damn sentence anymore. As if he’d gone back to preschool, and he’d forgotten how to carry on a conversation. Jane probably thought he was going mad. If, in fact, she had enough attention left over to spare on something as frivolous as his sanity right now. Still, Lucas was aware of how stupid he sounded, and it irritated the hell out of him.

  “But what, then?” she asked carefully.

  Then we get that implant out of your head, Lucas said to himself. There was no way he would say it out loud, though. He was sure that if he threatened the implant, it would go bananas and take control of the ship, lunging Jane’s body toward the console and setting her fingers to work as it hacked everything in sight. Still, that’s what he was planning to do, even if he wasn’t going to admit it to her.

  He could appreciate the point of the implant; without it, she would have been a ready and soft target for Specimen 14. But he seriously didn’t think its insidious effects on her were worth it. Her actions, her mood, the way she thought about herself were all being controlled by the implant. The more Lucas thought about it, the more it disgusted him. It seemed to be a parasite that was hooked up to her brain. And parasites were not nice.

  He leaned forward in his chair, clapped his hands together softly, and looked up at her. “We will find a solution,” he said simply, though he didn’t dare articulate what he thought the problem was.

  “What about… that strange robot down at the Galactic Force Main Campus?” she managed to force her words out, but they were slow and stuttering. Lucas didn’t know whether she was having a hard time fighting against the implant or if she was just understandably tired.

  “You mean the Paran Artifact?” Lucas asked, realizing that she honestly had no idea what it had been. She’d simply broken into the laboratory, activated it, and let it protect her.

  The second he mentioned the word Paran was the second she started to frown. Though the expression was obvious, it didn’t last long. Eventually, she closed her eyes and opened them again. Although she still looked irritated, it just reminded him of the way she usually looked around him.

  A mild level of irritation that, to be honest, Lucas wasn’t used to seeing in people, especially not women, not while they were looking at him, anyway. Nonetheless, a mild look of irritation that Miranda would probably say was healthy for him to be on the receiving end of.

  While the expression remained on Jane’s face, she appeared to loosen up. “What about… that…” she trailed off.

  Lucas didn’t need her to say it. He knew exactly what she was talking about. She was talking about Specimen 14, the Darq. She may not have the vocabulary to describe it or even have the slightest idea of what it was, but he could see in the fear marching across her face that she knew at least one thing: it was deadly, and it had been after her.

  “Look,” Lucas felt uncomfortable, incredibly uncomfortable. There wasn’t anything he could say to Jane to make her believe that she was okay, because, in all honesty, he doubted she was. Too much was happening and there weren’t any certainties. Nothing was concrete enough for him to know what to do next, let alone to know how to solve this problem. “We will go to the Central Shipyards, and then from there—”

  “We will see what happens next?” Jane suggested, her voice light.

  He shrugged, offering a wan smile in agreement. It was probably the best way to sum up their current plan. They would just have to wait to see what would happen next.

  The computer behind him started to beep, and he turned to see the view on the main screen: they were starting to zero in on the Central Shipyards.

  The Central Shipyards were out near Jupiter, taking advantage of the powerful gravity of the planet. Ordinarily, you had to schedule weeks beforehand if you intended to visit them. They were one of the most sophisticated shipbuilding docks in the entire quadrant. They were a hub of scientific activity and technological advancement. And, considering the number of secrets they held, they weren’t exactly the kind of place you could drop in on while on a cruise through the star system. You had to have clearance, and your clearance had to be checked by people with higher clearance. Yet Lucas had just set course and bombed his way toward them without heed for the usual procedures.

  Now he was starting to get the messages – the angry beeping ones – that told him to either turn around or come up with a damn good reason as to why he was ignoring the standard operating procedure.

  “Prack.” Lucas turned toward the panel and started to type something quickly. Eventually getting frustrated with that method, he simply docked his hand right into the center of the panel and let his armor do all the work.

  Jane slowly walked up to him and sat in the navigator’s chair. “You swear too much,” she mumbled.

  Though Lucas was concentrating on relaying a message to the Shipyards – one that would tell them in no uncertain terms that they were to let him in, and that they were not to ask questions – he looked to the side at Jane, his eyebrows dropping low, his lips sucking in as he smiled automatically. “They didn’t talk about that in the fan supplements, did they?”

  She shook her head.

  His smile doubled. “Well, I have a lot to swear about.”

  She flicked her gaze over to him.

  He shrugged his shoulders in reply.

  She shook her head.

  It was a simple and painfully cute interaction, and while Lucas should be paying attention to relaying his urgent message, he couldn’t help but chuckle to himself. “I think you will find there is a lot about me that the fan supplements got wrong.”

  “Your favorite meal isn’t beef stew?” Jane asked.

  Lucas snorted. “No.”

  “Your favorite color isn’t blue?”

  “Actually, it is, but I have to say, I’m not the kind of guy wh
o defines himself by what his favorite color is.” He kept shaking his head and chuckling.

  “You aren’t dating Marie Cooper, daughter of Senator Cooper?” Jane asked, her tone artificially even.

  Lucas finally turned to Jane, but it wasn’t because of the question; it was because he remembered something. Marie. Prack she’d been in Research Lab Two. Prack, prack, prack, with all that had happened, he’d forgotten about it. He’d left her there. And what about Alex? He’d been in Basement Level One when Specimen 14 had….

  Jane watched his expression carefully as she probably noted how sallow his skin had become and how he suddenly yanked his hand free from the dock.

  “I hope…. Dammit, I can’t believe I didn’t check up on them.” He closed his eyes and shook his head bitterly.

  Her mouth gently dropped open. “It’s my fault,” she responded immediately. “You didn’t have to come. I did this to myself… what I did…” she trailed off. It wasn’t the first time she’d trailed off after trying to make sense of what she’d done down on the planet. Lucas didn’t wonder whether it had something to do with the implant. Maybe it was blocking her from remembering it. Perhaps it accurately reasoned that if she paid enough attention to the fact something had taken over her body, she would try to figure out what the implant was and try to get rid of it.

  … But what about Marie and Alex?

  Lucas suddenly slammed his hand back on the panel and docked his glove. “No, you listen to me,” he said sharply as he activated the audio, “this is a priority mission. You get me clearance. I’m not waiting out here in space for the bureaucracy to make their mind up.”

  Jane blinked with obvious surprise.

  Maybe that was another thing his fan supplements had missed – but Lucas did have a temper. Of course he did. He was under so much pressure nearly every day of every week. It was up to him to solve the most nuanced and hardest of situations. When people got in the way, when damn bureaucracy stood before him and tried to tell him that stupid infrastructure or money was more important than people’s lives, then yes, he got angry.

  Only when the flight operator on the Central Shipyards mumbled that he would see what he could do, did Lucas un-dock his hand and lean back in his chair, closing his eyes and shaking his head bitterly.

  “Why don’t you send a message?” Jane asked, voice quiet. “If you are worried about Marie Cooper and your friend Alex Wong, then you should send a message. It would get there instantly. You are still within the solar system communication network.”

  Lucas knew he was still within the solar system communication network, and he also knew something more. He knew that Specimen 14, the Darq, had skills and capabilities that were far beyond anything he’d ever dealt with. And when you were dealing with something that powerful, you had to be careful about how much information you put out there. Simply put, he couldn’t risk making contact with Earth, because it could give away their location to the Darq. No, he had to maintain a full communication blackout. For the time being that meant not knowing what had happened to his friends.

  “I’m… sure they are…” she tried, but she stopped.

  He knew that she wanted to say she was sure they were okay, but he also knew she doubted it. The Darq was an enemy unlike any the Galactic Force had ever seen.

  …. So why was it after her?

  Just who was Jane?

  In another moment there was a beep, and Lucas could see that the Central Shipyards had disabled their dampening field.

  “It’s about time,” he snapped.

  “Maybe they’ll know what happened on Earth,” Jane tried. “Or maybe it will be easy for them to find out.” Her voice was kind and soft, and Lucas got the impression he was hearing the real Jane, momentarily unaffected by her implant.

  There seemed to be many shades to her, and none of them were plain.

  As soon as the ship started to approach the Central Shipyards, Lucas had to give up control of the navigation system to the station’s computer, and he stood up from his chair, arching his back. Then he looked down at Jane. He hesitated. What would happen next? He was almost certain that the Central Shipyards would have had some kind of communication with the Galactic Force by now, even if they’d only been notified that there was a security breach without knowing the full story. If they’d been alerted in full, and now knew exactly who Jane was and what she’d done, then… what exactly was he going to face outside? The combined force of the Central Shipyards security team? He wanted to tell Jane that it would all be okay, but he had no idea whether it would be.

  He gestured with his head to the back of the ship. “Come on.”

  She followed his gesture, but she didn’t immediately stand up. She simply sat there and latched a hand onto the end of her ponytail, twisting it through her fingers. It was the same move that she’d done in the corridor earlier that day.

  After watching her and waiting for her to move, he did something on impulse: he held out his hand to her.

  She looked at it, then looked up at his eyes, and then just stood up on her own.

  Lucas let his hand drop to his side, an awkward smile kinking his lips. He started to walk toward the other end of the ship. There was a slight shake as it made contact with the large magnetic docking clamp that came up from underneath and connected to the belly of the ship, locking it into place and pulling it toward the station’s primary hangar bay.

  There was a view panel just next to Jane, and he noted with interest that she craned her head to have a look at it. He reminded himself with a smile that this was her first time in space, and being her first time in space, she would never have seen Central Shipyards, let alone been in a spaceship as it had been manually moved around by a giant magnetic clamp. She looked fascinated, still craning her head to the side, her eyes wide.

  Once the ship docked, the hangar door opened.

  Lucas steeled himself, he stiffened up, he straightened his back, and even though he shouldn’t, he formed his hands into fists. These were his friends, his allies, but he still had no idea what they would do to Jane.

  And he cared, Lucas actually cared what they did to her. He’d promised himself to find out who she was, what was after her, and to help her. He hadn’t made the promise to her face – he’d made it to himself – but that was good enough for him.