Page 16 of Star Cruise Captain's Story

“I hate to say it but I need to get back to the planet so I can grab a few hours of shuteye and show up on time for my shift as a guard,” Gil said. “Can one of you run me down there?”

Jake rose. “Taxi service is my job. Maeve, have you got us covered as far as the spaceport surveillance?”

She nodded. “I’ll obscure the vids—it’s an old system and prone to glitches.” She added, “Even more so now I’m here to help it along. I’ll ride in the flyer with the two of you so I can have a few more minutes with the captain.”

The meeting broke up, Red and Owen going off to have a sidebar about the explosives, which Midorri would deliver at Owen’s request. No one was sure how intelligent Midorri was but certain humans—and Maeve—communicated with her pretty effectively. Owen was proud of her and always claimed the alien pet was a lot smarter than anyone gave her credit for. Gil certainly believed it after several times Midorri had assisted in missions with her unique skills.

Maeve took his hand and they left the wardroom without further ado. Gil didn’t want to spend time talking with the others right now. He needed to stay focused on his mission to rescue Daveed and didn’t want distractions from talking about how theNebula Zephyrwas doing or anything else relating to his actual life. When they reached the flyer, Jake disappeared into the cockpit without another word and Gil and Maeve sat together toward the stern. She rested her head on his shoulder and her arm across his waist.

“I refuse to think of you making this a suicide mission,” she said. “We’re all here to help you now and I know we can save your brother and the others.”

“What you did, assembling such a great team, buying the ship, getting yourselves here in time—I know it’s what you do—organization and logistics—but I’m grateful and a little bit in awe.” He rubbed her arm, enjoying the smooth silk of her skin under his rough palm. “You doing ok, being corporeal?”

“You’re everything to me, Gil Fleming, so of course I’ve taken action. I should have come with you in the first place.”

Remembering the things he’d had to do to work his way onto Main’s team and reach the Jlonngi planet, Gil shook his head. “No, I couldn’t have infiltrated the gang if you’d been with me. Trust me on this one.”

“Honestly, I wasn’t good enough at remaining in the human form six months ago either,” she said. “I’ve been practicingevery day while you were gone. To answer your question, I’m more used to being in this form than I was. I can keep myself stable so much more reliably than I could five years ago at the wedding. Although that was a beautiful night.”

They needed to discuss their future together, if there was to be one after the rescue attempt was done, but now wasn’t the time. Forestalling him, Maeve moved onto his lap and kissed him insistently. Gil gave in to her silent enticement and spent the remaining flight time to the planet in a heavy petting session which left him aching and frustrated as he scrambled out of the flyer and headed toward the edge of the landing field at a trot. Maeve had said she could deal with erasing the footage but he figured it was best to minimize the time he was visible. Jake took the flyer straight up into the starry sky and they were gone.

Gil headed for his hotel room, intending to take a shower, grab a few winks of sleep and report to his guard duty assignment at the temple complex a few minutes early. He was anxious to hear more from Jake after the reconnaissance of the area was completed but figured it wouldn’t be until late in the next evening. He had to play his role as a bored mercenary for another two days and then he could let out all his frustrations and anger while he rescued Daveed and the others and his friends blew things up to distract the Jlonngi.

CHAPTER SEVEN

The next day…

Maeve wasn’t a fan of the hot, humid jungle through which she was currently moving. She preferred spaceships or spaceports—civilized places with proper air conditioning.I really wasn’t cut out to be a ground pounder.Chuckling because no indeed, she was meant to be a battleship for space sake, she sped to remain close to Owen and Midorri.

“Just a little farther,” he said on the subaural com as she moved abreast of him. “Jake’s taken an observation position a few hundred yards ahead. See him?”

Shooting a glance at the rise ahead, Maeve grunted. “Barely.”

“Yeah, you’re not supposed to. He’s damn good at all this recon stuff.” Owen held a large branch away from her face as she moved forward, eager to be done with the hiking. “You holding up okay?”

She gestured with disdain at the exuberant foliage through which the team was moving. “Not my favorite place to be but I’m coping.” Midorri brushed against her ankles and made acomforting sound before scampering away into the underbrush. She was obviously enjoying the unusual field trip.

Once Maeve reached the hilltop where Jake and Red were now dug in, surveying the temple complex ahead through long range viewers, she stayed low and picked her own vantage point in a hollow close to them. “I’m releasing my drones now,” she said. A flight of nearly microscopic spy devices zipped out of her now open backpack and flew off. Maeve had created them aboard theValkyrie Revengeand she was proud of their capabilities. Images flooded to her through her neural link with the tiny robos and she picked and chose which ones to forward to her team leaders. Handling this was a pleasant change from the day-to-day boredom she’d often been assailed by while acting like a human. The task barely impinged on her level of mental activity, even with so many robos feeding her a constant stream of images and data but at least the job related to what she usually did.

Jake directed her to concentrate on the area where he planned to infiltrate the complex and make their way to the prison wing when the actual assault occurred on the next day.

Maeve’s drones found an access point and five of them zipped inside. There were no images other than a sense of movement through a pitch-black space. She requested a different visual spectrum and blinked as she saw the closely fitted stones of the ancient temple, illuminated in a new wavelength now. She upgraded the images for human eyes and fed the views to Jake and Red. “It’s going to take a hell of a lot to blow this place up.”

“Not looking too good, is it?” Jake answered. “See if you can get your drones into the prison wing. There might be doors or columns or non-load bearing walls Red can blow up for us there.”

“Yeah, be a shame if I picked the wrong damn wall and brought the place down on our heads instead of the Jlonngi’s,” Red said.

Glad she’d made her drones so tiny, Maeve directed them to do as Jake requested. The deeper into the complex the robos maneuvered, the more tension and unease she felt, until finally she ordered them to pause and hover. Closing her eyes, she reached out with her mind in the same fashion as if she was trying to ‘talk’ to the Mellureans and attempted her own scan of the temple. A moment later she yelped as she was flung backward, luckily landing on a clump of soft grasses, where she lay stunned, trying to catch her breath.

Jake and Red were at her side immediately, while Owen stood guard, scanning the sky and the terrain around them with narrowed eyes, blaster at the ready. “What happened?” Jake asked, kneeling beside her and helping her sit up.

“There’s an entity,” she said, shaken and trying to gather her thoughts. Her head ached, which was a first for her and one she didn’t care for. “Ancient, angry—very angry at what’s been done to the temple devoted toitsworship. It was slumbering but all the renovations and upgrades Baxtir has made to the complex are waking it up and it’s not happy.”

“You’re saying he’s managed to piss off an ancient god?” Red and Jake exchanged glances and the former seemed to be taking the news as a good joke.

“Can we get it to help us?” Jake asked, ignoring Red’s mirth.

Maeve shook her head slowly, wary of worsening the pain in her temples. “It’s not fully awake yet. And it’s not thinking, at least not in terms you’d understand. It’s all emotions.” Seeing the gathering frown on Jake’s face, she added, “I’m not trying to be vague but humans lack the terms I need to describe what I encountered when we connected, even peripherally. And then it shrugged me off, like I was an annoying insect. I can’t stand upto it—I’d be reluctant to even attempt another communication honestly. The contact we did have left me with a headache from hell.”

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