Liberation's Desire Read online

  “You have to stop it!”

  Yves frowned out the windows. “I need to stop her.”

  “How will you get any answers if she’s dead?”

  “I don’t need answers.”

  Fire erupted outward, geysering from freight barrels. The atmosphere sensors blared warnings, and retardant chemicals sprayed out, coating everything crimson, as oxygen pumped out of the hangar.

  “You have to help her!”

  “She’s the reason your life is forfeit,” he said.

  “So?”

  “If she gets away, she could hurt someone you care about more than yourself.”

  “Yves!”

  He sighed and plugged in the control panel. “I don’t know why this is distressing you so much. She is one woman, and I’m not even convinced she is an actual human. You are too sympathetic for your own good.”

  His muttering continued as retardant dampened the flames, vehicles halted, and the oxygen pumps stopped.

  Below, the rogue climbed to the apex of the toppled crates and spinning machinery. Her lips bit an oxygen rebreather. Mercury released her own held breath. The woman waved at them and hopped over the top of the piles, disappearing down the dark side.

  A door slammed and shouts thundered down the hall.

  “Time to get out of here.” Yves shoved his chair beneath the open grating.

  “Maybe if we explain—”

  Lasers arced through their doorway, sizzled on the chair, and smoked both windows.

  “No time.” Yves grabbed Mercury around the waist and boosted her through the ceiling panel. He swung up behind her, dropped the grate into place with a clang, and bent the metal fixtures around it to form a seal.

  From below, hot blasts blackened the grate and scattered.

  He tugged Mercury deeper into the labyrinth.

  “Where are we going now?” she asked, heart pounding.

  “There’s another way into her hangar.”

  “And what are you going to do once you get there?” she demanded.

  He remained silent.

  She yanked her hand free. “You’re trying to kill someone! To death!”

  He sighed. “What did you think I meant when I said she needed to be stopped?”

  “I thought you wanted to have a conversation.” Mercury pinched her too-tight suit. “We don’t know why she’s put us on a Kill List. Maybe it was an accident. Maybe she can’t help it, or maybe it’s not her fault.”

  “All the more reason to stop her now, before she has the chance to ruin more lives.”

  She hugged herself. “We can’t ask her that if she’s dead.”

  “I understand.”

  His oculars unhooked in the center, slid sideways, and retracted into his face. The action revealed his sensitive, beautiful eyes. Black pupils rimmed by gentle gold and stunning ice blue.

  The memory of those eyes right before his kiss warmed her all over.

  He entreated her quietly. “My colleagues are at risk so long as she’s free. Your loved ones are at risk so long as she’s marking them for the Robotics Faction. You and I are the only ones who can protect them. I need you, Mercury.”

  The words shivered down her back.

  “I won’t help you kill anyone.”

  His tapered brows drew together in a frown. He traced the taut bones of her fingers with his thumb. “Don’t you have someone you care about? Someone you would do anything to protect?”

  Her hand went to her neck, where the medallions hung.

  Only bare skin met her touch.

  Her stomach dropped.

  She felt her neck, her collar, the torso of her flight suit. Its tightness revealed nothing.

  Her MAC medallions were gone.

  Yves’ entreaty fled, stripping away to cold efficiency. “What did you lose?”

  “My…” She felt her hips, her legs. This wasn’t possible. She couldn’t deal with the loss right now. “My bag. I had it around my shoulder.”

  “The handles ripped off during the depressurization event. It flew half way across the transit lounge. Your contact was also destroyed.”

  All of her emergency credits. Her fake identification. Everything.

  She turned. “We have to go back—”

  He caught and whirled her to face his direction again. “It’s too dangerous.”

  She refused to hear reason, turning away. “But—”

  He pressed her into the corridor walls. “Shh.”

  Voices echoed behind them. The control booth operators had pried open the grate and called for backup. They faded away, as though turning down a different corridor.

  She rested her forehead against the wall.

  Against her back, the man stood, all hard, from his shoulders down to his slender torso, from his waist to the rigid thighs brushing her derriere.

  He talked casually about death, but so did plenty of soldiers. Her uncle also carried a hardness inside him, a ruthless promise to protect his little niece and annihilate all threats.

  Yves’ breath tickled her cheek.

  She had seen a lot of men since Mares Mercury. A lot of handsome, delicious, oh-so-fantasizable men. But none of them had saved her life or smelled so intriguingly sexy.

  Or kissed her out of her mind.

  He claimed that stopping the rogue woman would save the people they both cared about. There had to be a way to stop her without causing another death.

  He moved back to let her up. “I’m sorry about your bag. But you’ll be killed if you return to the transit lounge.”

  “I know.” She scrubbed her face. “I want to help.”

  “There is a small chance we can intercept the rogue before she uncouples her ship and disappears into space. If you must throw yourself in front of squadrons of enforcers, do it at the rogue’s hangar, where your death will mean something.”

  A distant noise, like the trooping of metal feet, filled the corridor.

  His lips flattened and his eyes turned to ice. He twisted on the balls of his feet. “They know we’re here.”

  She took a deep breath. “We better get moving.”

  He took her hand, understanding that she would not fight him in his quest to reach the rogue. “Thank you.”

  But her promise only lasted until they reached the hangar. If he tried to kill someone in front of her, she needed to hear from the rogue herself why it was such a good idea.

  And why her name was on the Kill List, and why Cressida’s had been fourteen years ago.

  They navigated the narrow vents and branches off of the ventilation system, looking down through grates at offices, conveyor belts, loaders, and smashers.

  The lights abruptly blinked off.

  Emergency paint glowed. Below, the work of the belts and machinery continued, unabated. And so did Yves’ pursuit, pulling Mercury forward into darkness.

  She stumbled over something. “Hold on.”

  “We’re getting close. Hurry.”

  They raced over the grating. She banged into walls and bars; Yves hissed at her to duck or sidestep, while always tugging her faster. An odor of sour ash began to permeate the air, and the furious conveyor noises subsided to eerie, distant shrieks and coughs.

  He finally knelt over the bay holding the rogue’s ship. “I detect a large heat signature directly below us. It could be engines warming up. Look for a way down.”

  Mercury put her fingers through the mesh and strained to make anything hopeful out of the blackness. She didn’t want to fight with Yves again about the value of human life. Her wish reached her mouth. “She could be gone.”

  “If so, it’s about to get a lot hotter in here.”

  “What does that mean?”

  Abruptly, the bay flooded with light.

  The docking bay was empty. Thank goodness.

  The area around the loading belt had been cleared of machinery. In the open space, a field of robots aimed long rifles. They scoped on her.

  Yves swore.

  Mercury�
�s relief died.

  She dropped and covered her head. “Yves!”

  He yanked her ankle, flinging her back. Lasers hit the mesh and scattered; where one struck, the strut hissed and melted.

  He pulled her up and stumbled down the corridor. “Shit. Shit. Shit.”

  She gasped for breath.

  Grinding and clanging grew louder up ahead. Yves pulled her to a stop.

  The mesh floor continued to rumble.

  Uh-oh.

  Enforcers poured into the tiny corridor.

  Yves shoved her into a side passage and emerged on another crossing. Shots spattered the mesh. More robots clanged down the adjacent corridor. He dove across, carrying her. The side passage dead-ended.

  They were surrounded.

  ~*~*~*~

  Yves knew he ought to give up.

  Instead, he knelt and slammed the flooring.

  Somewhere, over the screaming metal of the laser etching machine below and the grinding of the enforcers roaring across the ceiling grates to kill them, he heard the faintest rattle of a loose screw.

  He moved to the next panel and slammed again.

  Mercury clearly didn’t understand his actions, but she did understand they were about to explode into disparate atoms.

  She pounded fruitlessly on the walls. “Help!”

  Another panel, another slam.

  Behind them, the roar of the enforcers began to separate into distinct footsteps. This was not the place to make a last stand. Unlike in the transit lounge, where he could reflect their shots into a local control transmitter, nothing useful hung here. He wasn’t an x-class. Inability to dodge bullets rendered all parts of his body vulnerable to attack. Even heating his reflective hands with sufficient hits would melt the coating and fry his bones. Then the blasts would take him apart, and he and Mercury would die.

  Next panel. Slam. Next panel.

  He ought to give up right now. His assignment ended when the rogue got away. The Faction could dig the useful data out of what would remain of his brain. He no longer needed to operate. Which meant Mercury had outlived her usefulness to him.

  But for some strange reason, he couldn’t let her die.

  Fuck it. He couldn’t find the loose panel.

  He ripped a filter cover from the wall and stuck it in the motor. The whirring fan gobbled the cover, and his arm, up to his bicep. The motor ripped his flight suit to pieces and started on his flesh. He dropped the cover. It lodged in an inner belt and jammed.

  “Yves!” Blood sprayed her face. His blood.

  He pushed her down.

  A crawlway stretched over a fast conveyor belt.

  Beneath the crawlway, packers mashed the contents of crates, crushers nailed on the lid, and etchers burned in the shipping directions. The noise deafened them.

  On the other side, a ladder led up to an armored control booth. Impervious to most bullets, the defensible position gave him full access to the station network, and he could plot how to move Mercury up several floors to a fully life-supported passenger cruiser.

  He shouted over the clamor. “Don’t fall!

  She nodded, white, and began to crawl.

  Enforcers crowded into the corridor behind him. He extricated the cover. The motor started up again, blocking their pursuers.

  The crawlway swayed with Mercury’s movements.

  Wait. Swayed?

  He turned and shouted. “Hold on!”

  She looked back at him.

  The crawlway had partially unbolted from the ceiling. The end near her dropped under her weight. She slid to the edge and shrieked.

  He dove to grab her.

  Her feet dropped over the edge.

  He grabbed her wrists.

  Her boots hung, suspended, over the conveyor belt. One of the flying crates ripped her boots away.

  The force yanked them both across the mesh. The whole crawlway swung. She kicked her bare feet, trying to keep above the deadly crates.

  He hooked a leg on the bar and used the momentum to swing her up, inches above the speeding crates, gripping her elbow and shoulder. “I’ve got you.”

  Despite her terror, she held on to him with iron determination.

  Excellent.

  The enforcers stopped at the fan behind them. The crawlway would hold their weight. The path to the control booth was clear.

  In front of him, the armored control booth door opened, and a man stepped out with a bolt gun. He aimed at Mercury’s head.

  Fuck.

  Yves threw himself in front of Mercury.

  The blast bored a hole through his left prefrontal cortex.

  A direct hit.

  Trauma sirens screamed in his brain. All functions experienced an abrupt, catastrophic shutdown.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  They were falling.

  Mercury slammed into an open crate; Yves’ body landed on top of her. Her skull smacked the junk and her teeth snapped together. Giant metal wedges pummeled the garbage, crushing her. She struggled and gasped. Scrap plastic around them rattled.

  A huge metal lid dropped on top of the crate. Darkness covered them. Sizzling sealed the lid. Screeching, humming, the steady rattling of the conveyor belt. A bump moved them off and silence suggested they had stopped.

  Scraps jutted into her bruises. She clawed to the surface and gasped precious oxygen.

  “Yves?”

  Everything shifted to the right. Junk cascaded over top of her, first one way and then the other. Weightlessness. A hard boom shuddered through the walls. They had fallen a short distance.

  She lay in the ensuing silence while crates boomed around her. A loud shriek of metal, like the closing of a ship’s door, changed to the cavernous roar of unshielded engines. Her teeth about fell out of her head. And then it dropped off and receded into the background of her situation.

  She flew on a ship, most likely. They had accelerated to glide to their final destination. She had irrevocably left Luck Station behind.

  The whole time, she clung to Yves.

  His lifeless body cooled to the same temperature as the junk jutting painfully into her. She forced tentative fingers over his firm chin and long nose, past his closed eyes and cold brow, until she found it. The ragged edge of a hole.

  Oh, no.

  She jerked her fingers away. He had been shot. She hadn’t imagined it.

  She was alone.

  Stuck in a crate, headed into the abyss, wanted dead by the universe.

  Alone.

  Mercury did something stupid.

  She started to cry.

  Fourteen years ago, she had tried so badly to save her older sister. Instead, her own body had betrayed her. She couldn’t even save herself.

  Now, lost and stranded, Mercury once again let everyone down. Let down her uncle. Let down herself.

  And the only man who had ever looked at her like a real woman—who had kissed her like she was the most delicious food he had ever tasted, who had saved her life—was dead. Lying on top of her, dead.

  Because of her.

  Even crying served no purpose. And she couldn’t make the hot tears stop. She wiped her nose on the grubby exposure suit sleeve—who could see her? She couldn’t even see herself—and keened.

  The dead man sucked in a breath and shifted.

  Her sob hissed away.

  “Where are you hurt?” His voice was soft and rough, as though waking from sleep in the middle of the night.

  “Yves!” She grabbed his flight suit and buried her face in his chest. He was alive, he was alive, he was alive. The tears spilled faster. “I thought you were dead.”

  “Depending on your definition, I still am.” He cleared his throat. “Where are we?”

  But she just cried.

  Eventually, he shifted upright, leaned his back against the crate wall, and eased an arm around her. He was warm, and his chest moved regularly, and she heard the steady thub-thub-thub of his heart. The noise of the engines had drowned it out, and certainly her own
sobbing hadn’t helped.

  When the tears dribbled to the end, she fisted her hands in his suit. Everything was fine now. He was alive.

  “Mercury.”

  His hand, heavy but gentle, rested on her head. His oculars, two rounded glass discs, gleamed in the dark.

  “There’s a drive wedge two feet below you. Dig it out.”

  She squinted at the blackness. “Why?”

  “We’re going to run out of oxygen. No, don’t breathe more rapidly.”

  “Sorry.” She held her breath.

  He laughed softly.

  She let out the breath. “What?”

  “I was thinking I would like one more kiss before we continue.”

  Her belly thrummed.

  “One more kiss?” She cleared her suddenly dry throat. “From me? Now?”

  “I need it.”

  His words startled a laugh out of her. “But I look terrible.”

  “You are mistaken. You look beautiful.”

  He was lying. He had to be.

  Yves sighed. “Suffice it to say that I don’t care what you look like. But I still need a kiss.”

  So did she. Those delicious good looks loosed wishes she couldn’t control; a kiss was the least she could give the both of them. She cupped his jaw, stroked the bristle-hardened skin, and touched his lips.

  The entire universe cracked open.

  Warmth pressed against her, and then wetness. Her tongue met his, hard and teasing and perfectly controlled, stroking with hot temptation. It was a long, slow, languorous kiss, and it left her toasty and satisfied.

  She stroked his forehead around the scar. The shot must have grazed him. She was so lucky.

  He let out his breath in a heartfelt sigh. “Can we do that again?”

  Their second kiss stretched longer, hotter, and stoked her satisfaction into a new ache.

  He gasped and let his head thump against the crate wall. “Again?”

  She giggled and obliged him. The ache melted into a hot, pounding need. When it ended, so did her control.

  She wanted to take off his flight suit and see the slender toughness she had only felt. She wanted to wiggle out of her flight suit and incinerate it. She wanted his hands on her full, aching breasts and his mouth biting into her neck.

  “Once more?” he asked.

  The edge of his voice turned raw, hot, and ragged, and so unlike the cold control she had known on Luck Station.