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the empress. Time to jump up and kick somebody’s ass.
    Except jumping up was stil impossible, no matter how pissed off she got. But her hand moved up and down, executing a slow, trembling wave at her side. Progress, but not enough, damn it.
    Jessica waggled her fingers, found that wasn’t too hard. She walked them up her thigh, straining to lift her stil heavy, stil stupid arm. She wanted to cheer when she managed to get her palm on the top of her thigh.
    I am out of here. Just give me another couple of minutes.
    She made her hand creep up her body, feeling the slick cloth that encased her with the back of her hand. Was it just draped, or was this similar to the body bags used back on Earth? She strained to lift her arm so she could feel it better. The arm obeyed her for a split second, then drooped and flopped down by her side again, putting her right back where she’d started.
    MOTHERFUCKER!
    Jessica hissed air when she wanted to scream. As rage consumed her once more, she brought her entire arm up and slapped at the cover. It moved al around her, shifting beneath her neck. Body bag then, not just a drape.
    She flailed both arms, using the burst of anger to search for the closure. A smal familiar sound like a purring rip rewarded her efforts, letting her know the bag was sealed with a fabric hook-and eye closure. Her arms fel limp then, exhausted from her efforts. Bringing al the things that made her mad to the forefront of her mind couldn’t revive them this time. She had to rest.
    Jessica fretted as the minutes ticked by, but she made herself count to 60 ten times. Then she ralied herself for another attempt. This time her arms and hands responded without needing her to go into an al-out rage; grim determination seemed to work just fine. She was stil terribly weak, but she made herself move.
    Her fingertips skittered over the bag lying on her chest, seeking to find the seam closure. The coarse edge greeted her touch, and she wormed her fingers between the joining pieces of fabric. Slowly she forced an opening until her fingers broke through to the outside of the bag. Jessica huffed a voiceless version of a cheer. She pushed her hand farther out until her hand had completely escaped the slick fabric prison that held her.
    She tried to slide her arm up towards her face, wanting desperately to breathe air outside the body bag, the air of the living. Her strength failed again, and with an inward curse, Jessica forced herself to count off five minutes. At the end of that period, she tried again, and the seam holding the bag closed parted.
    She weakly pushed the bag open with both arms, emerging from her cocoon of blackness to … more blackness. Wel of course, she was closed up in a vault in the morgue. No light for a corpse to read a good book by.
    But she’d broken through one barrier to her freedom, and Jessica couldn’t help but twitch her reluctantly responding lips into a smile. Now on to the next obstacle.
    She slid her arms to reach beyond her head and found the closed hatch sealing her in the vault. Her hands wandered over the cold, slick surface, finding only smooth metal. Jessica hoped for a latch that would open the vault from the inside, but search as she would, she found no way to escape the confines. Hadn’t anyone ever accidently locked themselves in one of these? Surely there was some failsafe in case it happened! But if there was, she couldn’t locate it.

    Jessica tried to think past the claustrophobic terror creeping up on the edges. Her temper wasn’t going to free her this time. She’d have to come up with another plan to get out of this mess.

    * * * *
Clajak prowled the hastily assembled command center, looking at every vid, absorbing every tidbit of useless information that came in. His inability to find his mate was driving him crazy. It was the second time someone had tried to snatch Jessica from him, and he was considering either keeping her locked in the clan’s quarters or chaining her