C j barry unearthed 04, p.1
C. J. Barry - Unearthed 04, page 1
UNMASKED
C.J. BARRY
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CAUGHT!
He spun her around and pushed her toward the bed. She fell face-first and rolled onto her back a split second before his entire weight landed on top of her, pinning her arms beneath him.
“Bastard!” she yelled, trying to throw him off her by arching her body.
“Are you almost done?” The aggravated voice was a low, deep growl.
“Never.” She clenched her teeth and closed her eyes to the pain that hammered inside her head. His weight pressed her into the bed. She felt trapped and helplessboth of which pissed her off to no end. No, she wasn’t done yet. He might have the advantage right now, but he had no idea who he was dealing with.
She opened her eyes and came face to face with her captor’s quicksilver gaze. Recognition clicked in, and her sudden inhale was involuntary, an error the pirate noted immediately.
“You,” she hissed.
“Nice to see you again too.”
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CRITICS RAVE FOR C. J. BARRY!
UNLEASHED
“Action, adventure, and a love that transcends galaxies abound in this thrilling novel by up-and-coming author C. J. Barry. Full of witty dialogue and one hysterically funny heroine, Unleashed is a rollicking tale that hits on many levels…there is never a dull moment!” Romance Reviews Today
“Humor adds zip to this grand adventure tale…exciting and spellbinding.” Romantic Times
“C. J. Barry provides readers with a wild, fun science fiction romance that will make true believers out of those who naysay E.T…. exhilarating.” Midwest Book Review
“I bow at C. J. Barry’s feet. She is able to revisit the same world, give it a twist and make it entirely new…she creates full, multi-dimensional characters who make the book a blast.” ScribesWorld Reviews
UNRAVELED
“Ms. Barry’s storytelling immediately draws readers into this futuristic world, with deftly woven plots, and twists in each chapter…. Another winner from up-and-coming author C. J. Barry, Unraveled is sure to capture the attention of all!” Romance Reviews Today
“Delightful…loaded with action and plenty of sizzling romance…C. J. Barry [is] destined to be a superstar.” Midwest Book Review
UNEARTHED
“A hot new futuristic voice has landed and her name is C. J. Barry. This interstellar roller-coaster ride blends just the right amount of action, adventure, passion and humor. A smashing debut.” RT BOOKclub
“C. J. Barry provides an exhilarating science fiction romance that readers from both genres will enjoy…. Loaded with action, plenty of humor and romance…fans will savor this delightful novel.” Midwest Book Review
“Unearthed is a fast-paced futuristic adventure story…a very entertaining romance.” Writers Write
P.E.A.R.L. Award-winner (Best Science Fiction) Holt Medallion finalist
(Paranormal/Time Travel/Futuristic) ‘“PRISM Award-winner (Best Futuristic) *Romantic Times pick for Best Futuristic Romance of the Year (2003)
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Other Leisure books by C. J. Barry:
UNCHAINED
UNLEASHED
UNRAVELED
UNEARTHED
UNMASKED
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This book is dedicated to the Purple Pens: Chris Fletcher, Molly Herwood, Lisa Hilleren, and Carol Lombardo. For the friendship, laughs, and love of words.
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LOVE SPELLŽ June 2005 Published by Dorchester Publishing Co., Inc. 200 Madison Avenue New York, NY 10016
If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.” Copyright Š 2005 by C. J. Barry
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law.
ISBN 0-505-52574-7
The name “Love Spell” and its logo are trademarks of Dorchester Publishing Co., Inc.
Printed in the United States of America.
Visit us on the web at www.dorchesterpub. com.
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I’d like to thank my editor, Chris Keeslar, and everyone at Dorchester Publishing; my fearless agent Roberta Brown; the CNY Romance Writers; my dedicated critique partners Patti, Joyce, and Stephanie; the Romance Writers of America; the Lollies, and every one of my loyal readers.
Special thanks to Lisa Hilleren for her amazing powers of critiquing, and Robin D. Owens for her generosity.
And as always, I am grateful to my wonderful family: Ed, Rachel and Ryan.
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Chapter One
“Engine core meltdown in thirty-two minutes,” the ship’s computer said in a synthesized female voice.
“Words every captain wants to hear first thing in the morning,” Torrie muttered. Lying on her back, she yanked open the panel door above her. The primary circuits flashed furiously inside the cabinet. No wonder it wasn’t responding: the entire system was overloaded. She’d never be able to circumvent the problem from here.
Swinging out from under the engine banks, she hit the deck running. As she sped through the empty corridors of her dying ship, she pressed her personal comm unit. “Howser, where are you?”
Her first mate responded. “In the shuttle bay, loading the crew into the transport ship. When are you getting here?”
“I’m not.” Torrie leapt onto the third rung of the gangway ladder and climbed to the upper level.
“What? The ship is going to blow up in”
“Thirty minutes, I know,” she finished, pulling herself up to the main deck. She ran past the flashing alarm lights toward the bridge. “You take the crew and get the hell out of here.”
“If you’re staying, so am I,” Howser replied. “Your brother didn’t put me on your maiden voyage to skip out when things got bad.”
Torrie jumped through the bridge hatchway. “And Carmon didn’t make you captain on this freighter, either. So get your ass in that ship and take care of my crew, or I’ll jettison the lot of you whether you’re inside or out. And don’t even think about staying behind. I already sealed the air lock.”
“Dammit, Torrie.”
She shimmied into the command chair. “You better move before you lose the force-field barrier. I don’t need to tell you what happens to an unprotected body in deep space.”
She punched up the systems, but they responded sluggishly. For some unknown reason, the engine core temperature was still rising steadily into the red zone, and nothing she’d tried so far could stop its slow march to detonation.
“We are launched,” Howser said over her comm. The shuttle bay holocam confirmed that the small transport carrying Howser and the rest of her five-man crew was pulling away from Ventura2. She closed the shuttle bay doors in case Howser decided to play hero.
“Jump to hyperspace now. I want you as far away as possible.”
He grumbled something that she didn’t quite catch and probably didn’t want to hear anyway, but her scanners verified the transport’s jump out of visual, and out of danger if she failed. Then she remembered something and glanced around the bridge. “Do you have Nod with you?”
“Yes, of course,” Howser griped. “He’s flying around here, asking everyone if he can help. Really, can we reprogram him? Doesn’t he have another line?”
Despite the dire situation, Torrie smiled. “If we ever get out of this mess, I’ll try again.” Then she added a heartfelt ‘Thank you, Howser.”
“Don’t thank me. I’m the one who’s going to have to tell your mother and the rest of the family that you went down with the ship for no good reason.”
The lights on the bridge flickered off, leaving only the control console lit. Wonderful. Torrie decided not to tell Howser.
“I don’t plan on letting my ship explode. There has to be a way to cool the core.” She tried manual shutdown of the engine drives, but they wouldn’t obey. She tried rerouting all activity through the primary channel so she could cram a shutdown command through the secondary systems. No go.
Frustrated, she repeated an earlier order, hoping it would get through this time. “Computer, Priority One command: Shut down engines immediately.”
“Unable to comply,” it responded, as it had to all her previous requests.
She banged on the console. “Why the hell not?”
“Last command unclear. Please rephrase question.”
Torrie gritted her teeth. “Computer,” she began with all the self-control she could muster, “why can’t you comply to Priority One shutdown?”
“All previous commands are in wait queue.”
“Then move my commands up in the queue,” she told it.
“Unable to comply.”
Torrie mimicked the computer’s patent response. “Computer, if you can’t multitask, I’m changing you to a male.” She pushed a tangle of hair out of her face and hit her comm. This doesn’t make sense, Howser. It’s like they are all overloading at once. The more I try to clear a channel, the more locked out they become.”
“We did get that strong energy surge right before the circuits went crazy,” Howser noted.
“Core meltdown in twenty-three minutes,” the computer recited.
“Computer, you can shut up now.”
Torrie leaned forward and worked the controls again, trying everything her years of practicing in emergency simulation exercises had taught her. Systems were freezing up, leaving her with fewer and fewer options. In the back of her mind, she began to wonder if maybe Howser was right. If she couldn’t find a way to gain control of the core, she’d be vaporized with the rest of the ship.
“All systems are now offline. Onboard computer shutdown imminent,” the computer said.
Torrie watched helplessly as the entire control panel went dark, plunging her into the pitch-black of the deep space surrounding her. Outside of the panoramic viewport, a billion stars pierced the endless universe. The silence was painful.
“Damn.”
“What happened?” Howser asked.
Torrie closed her eyes and accepted her fate. “We’re dead.”
“That’s it, I’m coming back for you.”
“You know it’s too dangerous to drop out of hyperspace prematurely. Besides, I have no power. I can’t open the shuttle bay door.”
“What about the manual air locks? You could put a suit on and get out”
“And then what?” she interrupted. “I couldn’t get far enough away from the ship to make a difference. And even if by some miracle I could, you don’t have an air lock on the transport to bring me aboard.”
“We could hail a nearby ship,” Howser pressed.
“You know there isn’t another ship in the vicinity. And even if you found one, do you want to inform them we’re going to blow into a billion pieces shortly?”
For once, Howser was silent. He knew she was right. She rubbed her arms, her tank top offering little protection as the bridge grew markedly colder. She should grab a jacket, but what was the point? How long did she have? Twenty minutes? Not much time to tie up one’s life.
“I guess you were right after all,” she admitted. “This wasn’t one of my better ideas.”
It took a few moments before he replied, and he sounded choked up. “I’m going to stay with you until the end, Torrie.”
She smiled sadly. She knew he would, too. Howser had always been there for her, teaching her, encouraging her. He’d worked for her family’s merchant shipping business for as long as she could remember. His confidence in her abilities was one of the reasons Carmon had let her have her own runa run she’d fought for her entire life and finally won. And now lost.
She stared into the stars, and her heart ached in her chest. This is where she belonged: among the vastness of space, free to spread her wings and fly. Her family called her the wild one, but she knew exactly where she was going. Even if the journey ended up killing her.
She pushed fear aside, blocking it from her mind. She wasn’t going to spend the last minutes of her life feeling sorry for herself. If she had a choice onhow to die, this would be itquick, painlessly and with her ship.
Howser interrupted her thoughts. “You can record a message over the comm, and I’ll deliver it to whoever you want.”
She swallowed. “Good idea.” She should leave her family a message. Torrie gathered her thick, disheveled hair in her hands and began to braid it blindly, trying to decide what to say to her mother. After watching Torrie’s father die just a few short months ago, Nevica Masters would be devastated by another loss, especially that of her only daughter.
Torrie recalled their last conversation, and her final agreement with her mother. If this run doesn’t work out, I promise I’ll stay on Dun Gali and help run the business. She’d never once expected that she wouldn’t succeed. Well, at least she wouldn’t be stuck in the office for the rest of her life. Or worse, married to some money-hungry man her family thought would keep her safe and dormant and out of trouble.
And she wouldn’t have to listen to six older brothers gloating that they were right all these yearsshe couldn’t handle her own run. She preferred death to that.
Her fingers stilled in hair that felt heavy. Hope flickered. She stood up in the silence of her lifeless ship, and took a few tentative steps around the bridge.
“Howser, if we power-out, shouldn’t the artificial grav be down, too?”
“Well, yes.”
“It’s not. And the stabilizers are still functioning. Otherwise, I’d be listing by now.” She moved around the bridge, blindly accessing anything she could gether hands on. “Something’s not right. Computer, are you there?”
No response.
Howser asked, “Can you tell if the core is still roasting?”
“No. None of the monitors are functioning.” She stared at a pinprick of light on the wall panel in front of her. “But we have juice somewhere.”
“Auxiliary?” Howser asked.
“If auxiliary were on, I’d still have computer access. It should be the last system to go.”
A slight movement outside her viewport caught her attention. She looked up and concentrated on the spot where she thought she’d seen it. Nothing but black, black and more black. That’s when she noticed the billions of. stars were gone. A shadow passed in front of her. A ship.
Impossible. Her scans would have picked up a vessel this close.
‘Tor” Howser’s message was cut off in a blast of static through her comm. “… Nod detects … activity near” More static. Torrie turned down the volume. The transmission wasn’t getting through: someone was blocking it.
The ship’s consoles suddenly came to life. Torrie reached out and accessed the closest one.
“Systems locked out,” the computer said, startling her. When had the computer come back up?
“Locked out by who?” Torrie asked.
No response.
“Security override. Voice confirmation: Torrie Masters,” she told the computer.
“Invalid access.”
“I’m definitely changing you to a male,” Torrie muttered, and checked the ship’s stats. The engine core temp was within the normal range. In fact, allher systems were normal. They just were no longer under her control.
She knelt under the main console and started loosening the fasteners on the panel. If she couldn’t get in the easy way …
“Shuttle-bay door activated,” the computer announced.
Torrie raised her head over the console, and watched in disbelief as the shuttle bay holocam showed a midsized ship entering and setting down. It wasn’t Howser.
“Pirates,” she whispered in loathing. It all made sensethe power surge, the mysterious systems malfunctions and the false core burn. They set it up so the crew would have no choice but to abandon ship. Then they’d steal the ship, register it under a new ID, and sell it for whatever they could get.
Her family had lost hundreds of freighters to ruthless pirates. But they wouldn’t lose this one. No way. The pirates might have taken control of her systems, but there was no way she was giving up her ship to a band of cowards and thieves without a fight. She turned and sprinted down the main corridor. They’d head for the bridge first, and there were only two routesthe access ramp to the cargo bays and the gangway ladder she’d just come up from the engines. Unfortunately, they were located at opposite ends of the freighter. She could cover one, but not both.
As Torrie approached the gangway hatch, she drew her twin pistols and slowed, silencing her footsteps. After a few seconds, she detected no sounds or movement on the ladder below. They must be coming up the back ramp.
She moved stealthily toward the rear of the freighter and heard voices. At the top of the long ramp, she pressed against the wall and listened over her pounding heart. There were two voices, maybe threeall male and moving closer. She’d fire the first round over their heads. Hopefully, they’d believe the ship was manned and ready to be defended, and they’d leave. If not, she’d shoot to kill. She’d heard her brothers’ stories. Pirates could be vicious and bloodthirsty with their victims, and she had no intention of becoming their day’s entertainment.
She raised her pistols and drew a deep breath. Then she rolled around the corner and unloaded a barrage of laserfire over three shocked men’s heads. They shouted and scattered for the cover of the ramp’s structural ribs.
