Pirates of the Dark Nebula (Hearts in Orbit Book 2) Read online

  Despite hours in the shooting ranges of Triton 3, she’d never pointed the weapon at a live target before. There’d never been a need in her overprotected life.

  Scuttling behind the antigrav generator housing gave her a clear view of the front hatch as she knelt behind the unit. It wasn’t much cover, but it was the best she could do under the circumstances.

  In any case, the first person through that hatch was going down.

  Rik led the ten-man pirate assault team through the corridors of The Starboard Mist. Keying in the commands to extend a boarding ramp toward the star cruiser’s front hatch, he motioned his team to stand down.

  “If I’m not back in ten minutes, bust through that door. I’m going to see if I can sneak in through the maintenance hatch, maybe take her by surprise. She’ll probably be expecting us, and I don’t want any losses this time.”

  Gods, this could all go so badly.

  He jumped from the platform to the docking bay floor below. “And remember, we want her alive. Check your blaster settings. Anyone who screws this up, gets spaced. Understand?”

  Heads nodded.

  Idiots. Not a one of them actually checked their blaster settings.

  Rik’s gaze swept the underside of the ship. No visible armaments. But that didn’t mean the ship was safe to pass under. She could well be tracking him, waiting to line up a shot from a blaster concealed under the wing. This star cruiser design was completely customizable.

  Getting to the maintenance hatch on the other side of the craft could easily be the death of him. He pulled the Jimmy Box from his belt pouch as he moved and hit the microswitch to activate the unit. He’d need to work fast.

  A nextgen system hacking device, the Jimmy Box held technology theoretically only available to the galactic marshals. Government regulation required all newer tech to be filtered through the marshals first, to give them the upper hand when the devices became widespread. He’d salivated when the agent had dropped the small device into his palm.

  To Rik’s knowledge there wasn’t a device available to the general public that could hack a securely sealed maintenance hatch on a ship like this. Not that the dunderheads on the ramp behind him would know that. They all thought he was some kind of technological genius.

  Then again, until two hours ago, he didn’t think the new theories on ship cloaking and tractor beams had even been prototyped yet.

  And by all that’s holy, they’re in the hands of a group of back-water pirates first.

  Embedded three years, moving up in the shadowy ranks of the Brotherhood of the Dark Nebula, Rik carefully guarded his identity. Keeping his cover among the Brotherhood meant walking a razors edge.

  Breaking into a citizen’s private vehicle without a warrant. Aiding and abetting a kidnapping. Employing forbidden technologies in the commission of a crime. His list of infringements continued to grow. Loyalty to the Brotherhood of the Dark Nebula demanded nothing less.

  But his job demanded so much more.

  “Do what you have to do, to move up in that organization,” his superiors had commanded. “We need to find the head of the snake in order to wipe out the Brotherhood entirely.” Licensed to maim, kidnap, steal . . . even kill if need be, Rik had been dumped into a rickety old star cruiser and sent off to the Dark Nebulan sector with little more than a “Good luck.”

  But the mission was necessary. There were untold millions of desperate spacers that could be recruited into the pirate’s ranks. Taking them out of a planet, even a system, did little to extinguish the threat. The marshals needed to know who was pulling the strings at the top. A dark confederation of powerful criminals known as the shadow council.

  Rik had risen ruthlessly through the ranks, and he’d already identified a few on the shadow council. But each infraction, each crime he’d committed along the way felt like a black mark against his soul. Until slowly, the unthinkable became the norm. He’d learned to turn a blind eye on the pirate’s atrocities, with little more than a twinge of remorse.

  I didn’t used to be like this. After three years, the job had changed him.

  But he was close . . . so very close to discovering the full membership of the pirates’ shadow council. Another few months . . .

  And now this.

  Orders had come in a coded message. The information Doctor Luna Callista holds cannot fall into the hands of the Brotherhood.

  Fiery faculae. How was he to do that and keep his cover? He was not about to throw away years of work for some squint who couldn’t keep herself in her lab. Couldn’t the galactic marshals have protected her?

  What was a valuable asset like this doing roaming the galactic rim anyway?

  Every molecule in his body hummed with irritation. Frack. I don’t have time for this shit. Attaching the Jimmy box to the side of the access panel, he hit the switch.

  The door hissed open.

  Rik took a cautious step forward, his orders clear. Protect this woman at all costs.

  Luna braced herself, suspecting the blast. The forward hatch blew inward with an explosion that rocked her craft. She caught her balance and leveled her blaster at the now open doorway.

  Come on in you bastards. I’ve got a nice hot welcome ready.

  As the dust settled, a figure appeared in the opening, but before she could fire, rough hands clamped around her wrist and across her mouth.

  Frack! Someone had managed to sneak up behind her.

  How?

  “Don’t scream, don’t fight me, and for the love of the gods, don’t fire that blaster.” The whispered commands sent a chill through her gut. She was pulled up, slamming her back into rock hard chest muscles, then dragged deeper into the shadows. “Doctor Callista, you have to do exactly as I say.”

  He knew who she was.

  Helpless in his grasp, she could only nod as her heart thumped hard against her chest.

  He released her wrist, but kept his hand across her mouth. “Holster your blaster.”

  Frack! What was she to do? She’d be helpless. Not good . . . not fracken good.

  “Rik, you here?” The gruff voice came from beyond the forward hatchway.

  “Yeah,” the man holding her answered in rich, deep mellow tones. “No sign of her back here. Check the forward sections and the flight deck.” He pulled her further back toward the storage compartment and the airlock.

  There was a hot, sexy quality to the man’s voice that set her girly parts quivering. Whoa. She holstered her blaster as he’d ordered. He hadn’t sold her out, so he’d earned a small measure of trust. Okay ‘Rik,’ now what?

  He spun her around and she came face-to-face with . . . Wow!

  The shaggy mop of chestnut hair topped a face that had holovision star quality. The bold lines of his rugged jaw boasted a sexy mat of stubble. The firm lips, pursed hard, looked delectably kissable. But it was the golden brown eyes that drew her. His intense stare seemed to bore through her like a phason beam.

  “You have to trust me.” His whispered plea held a hint of warning.

  She gasped in a deep breath. “Who are you?”

  He shook his head. “No time for that.”

  Grabbing her hand, he pulled her toward the airlock. Her spacewalk suit hung there on the wall and he took it down, thrusting it at her. “Put this on.”

  She cocked her head in question. Typical. The sexiest man I’ve seen in years wants me to put more clothing on.

  She opened the heavy suit and climbed in, then secured the bulky helmet over her head.

  Heavy boots pounded the titanium decking of the storage compartment outside the airlock as she finished the final fastener.

  What was he planning? They were in a sealed docking bay with gravity and atmosphere outside. Certainly he didn’t plan to push her out the airlock.
/>   Grabbing her by the shoulders he lifted her up, reattaching the spacewalk suit to its wall hanger. “Go limp and don’t move.”

  Ah, he does have a plan. She relaxed her limbs so the suit would hang naturally, as if empty. The reflective surface of the helmet visor kept anyone from seeing her face while still allowing her to see out.

  A rough looking brute stepped into the airlock chamber. “There’s no sign of her anywhere onboard, Rik.”

  “Damn it.” The frustration in Rik’s voice sounded real. The man was a good actor. “The airlock appears to have been recently used. She must have had a lifepod and ejected during the EMP.”

  “She’s a smart one, this broad, eh? Why’s she so special?” The brute had a gap tooth, and spoke with a slight lisp.

  Rik shrugged. “She knows something the council wants to find out, from what I hear. Send the boys back to their barracks, then meet me on the bridge. Captain Planemo is not going to be happy.”

  What the hell did she know? The only thing she’d been working on the past six months was . . . Oh gods.

  Chapter 2

  At the workstation in his cabin below decks, Rik scanned the streaming data from the captured PTL-85. He’d use this excuse to delay the inevitable meeting with his Captain.

  Onwin will not be pleased. Not that that mattered. Rik allowed himself a smile. This mishap could well mean the end of the incompetent pirate captain. But would he be able to take advantage of the situation?

  Tightness crept up his neck. The woman was now his major focus. The rest of his mission had to be put on hold. Would he be able to protect Doctor Callista here?

  The tension in his shoulders eased when the readouts started appearing. At least these idiots wouldn’t get their hands on any valuable files from the ship’s server. Luna Callista had her security locked down properly.

  Smart and sexy as hell.

  A vision of long auburn hair spread across his bed sheets and gorgeous green eyes staring into his, flashed through his mind. His cock stirred with interest, and his jaw clenched. Gods, this is all I need.

  When word came down that the Brotherhood was looking to capture yet another scientist for their top secret project, Rik sent a coded message back to headquarters. Hell, he’d imagined Doctor Luna Callista would be some mousy, stiff, squint in a lab coat.

  Missed that by a couple of light years

  When he’d spun her around in the airlock, those gorgeous green eyes almost melted him. He couldn’t recall a woman he’d describe as both cute and beautiful at the same time, yet Luna was all that . . . and more. Delicate features framed in blazing auburn curls. Full ruby lips that cried out to be tasted.

  His groin tightened. Stop it. This is no time to go all fluffy over a dame.

  There was more to this woman than just pretty packaging, even if it was a package he was lusting to unwrap. Her presence put him in a real bind.

  What the hell do I do now?

  If he took her and ran, he’d be giving up months of undercover work and potentially important evidence against the Brotherhood of the Dark Nebula. His cover would be blown, and it would take years to embed another agent. And he was close to discovering who was pulling the strings of this faction of the organization from the top. He could feel it.

  Plus, he didn’t have a ship, and his next contact with the galactic marshals wasn’t due for a week. So how the heck am I going to get her out of the system anyway?

  Hide her here? Within the Brotherhood? Was that even possible? Every pirate with any connections was looking for her.

  At least they don’t have a visual. No picture had been circulated with the orders to capture Luna Callista. The pirates wouldn’t know what she looked like.

  Still there was no safe here, where every friend looks for a profitable excuse to put a knife in your back. It’d been hard enough to keep himself alive the past three years.

  He sighed. The difficulty of this mission just went supernova.

  “You blew it, Mazar.” The feminine voice startled him from his reverie.

  Kristin Devenport leaned against the doorframe of his cabin, delight dancing in her eyes. “The Captain’s pissed.”

  What the frack? I locked that door.

  The sleek lines of the sexy pirate held no allure. Rik knew that under that vulnerable looking feminine facade lurked the heart of a monster, and the sly manipulative powers of a Cormian mind cobra. The little thief must have gotten her grubby hands on a master key. He’d been so intent on his thoughts he hadn’t heard the hatch open.

  You’re slipping, old man. Rik bit his lip. A mistake like this could cost a life. Either her life or mine. At the moment, strangling the little snake didn’t seem like such a bad idea.

  He barked a laugh. “I blew it? If you’d been at your scanning station, instead of supervising mine, you might have picked up on that escaping lifepod. If the Captain’s pissed at anyone, it should be you.”

  He swung in his seat, raising an eyebrow and giving Kristin the look. He knew she’d try and dump the blame on him, but she wasn’t getting off that easy.

  His manipulation of the data made it appear that was exactly how Luna Callista escaped them. Yeah, he was pretty sure he could pin this on Kristin and their lazy excuse of a Captain wouldn’t lift a finger to double check anything. Kristin’s exploitation of the idiot bordered on the obscene, but Rik had data to back up his claim.

  Payback’s a bitch, bitch!

  Worry flashed in her eyes for only a moment before seduction simmered to the surface. “Rik. We don’t have to be enemies.”

  His gaze traveled down, then back up along Kristin’s sleek lines. Skin tight tarsk leather leggings accented every line of her long, shapely legs, and the low cut burgundy blouse offered and expansive view of cleavage designed to melt any man’s will. Yeah, a body made for sin. The face of an angel.

  And a soul blacker than the Morathian tar sands.

  “We could be so good . . . together.” Her purr sent a shiver up his spine.

  There it was. The invitation that would leave most men licking her boots. Rik wasn’t even tempted. “You’re not my type.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “Fuck, Rik, I can be any type you want. It’s not that you’ve been all that choosy anyway. I’ve seen the whores you bring home from Astron’s Wolfbeat. Give me a chance and I’ll melt your socks.”

  Not in this lifetime!

  But Kristin’s comment did elicit an idea. Maybe I can hide Luna in plain sight.

  Rik shook his head. “I have a girl friend.” Gods, would Kristin buy that after he’d spent so much time building up his reputation as a ladies’ man?

  “You? Mister different-girl-every-week?” Kristin went wide-eyed, then narrowed her gaze. “Not possible.”

  Yeah, well, that was by design, but it didn’t help him now.

  He shrugged. “Maybe I finally found the right one.”

  It didn’t matter what Kristin Devenport believed. She stood in the way of his promotion within the Brotherhood. She wanted all the same things he did, but for all the wrong reasons. Too smart and too sly to be useful, she’d have to be pushed aside or eliminated at some point anyway. Now was as good a time as any.

  “So, what are we doing today?” Luna talked to herself, still dangling from the wall of the airlock. “Oh, just hanging around.”

  That sexy pirate . . . or whatever he was, hadn’t told her to stay put, but he hadn’t told her she could get out of the spacewalk suit either. There hadn’t been time for any communication.

  She’d been hiding here for over an hour and hadn’t heard or seen a soul since Rik and that other pirate had left the airlock.

  She sighed. How the hell did I get in this fix?

  Only hours ago she’d left the beautiful planet Blarm where she’d been vi
siting her sister Phoebe and her new little niece, Tapeete. Despite the sterile scentless air in the spacesuit, Luna’s nose recalled the freshness of the planet’s atmosphere and the scent of newborn.

  The slow, spotty Galaxynet connections on Blarm meant disconnection from the constant ruckus of the coreworlds. As she’d hoped, the general peace and serenity of the planet inspired her to delve deeper than she ever had into the mechanics of asteroid field chaos theory. With the air so clean and fresh, the twin suns so brilliant in the deep azure skies, she’d felt inspired to extend her stay an extra month.

  Phoebe seemed more than happy to spend the extra time with her. They’d found lots of common ground, and a new bonding replaced most of the sibling rivalry of their youth.

  Luna sighed as jealously prickled the back of her neck. She’s such a lucky little shit, though.

  Married to a hunky diplomat with wealth and power, living on a pristine planet surrounded by the cutest creatures in the galaxy, and now having the most wonderful, perfect little child. To Luna, Phoebe’s life seemed idyllic.

  I should have stayed longer.

  As long as she guarded her thoughts, the Blarmlings were a delight. But the silver-furred, purple-eyed bipeds had no qualms about reading a person’s mind and revealing what they found there. No personal boundaries, whatsoever. But you could depend on complete honesty when dealing with Blarmlings.