Read Damaged (Planet Alpha) for Free Online

stripped out the bunks and put in a soft mattress on the floor. It wasn’t a warship; it was a courier vessel. That was fine with her. She didn’t need anything bigger. She dealt in information, not weaponry. She plopped down into the pilot’s chair.
    “I have the coordinates,” Reiyn said, sitting in the astrogator’s seat. The seat’s upholstery was frayed around the edges, like everything else on the ship, but it functioned well enough. The floors were worn metal, the walls were scratched and dented in places, and the computer system was outdated, but everything worked. More or less.
    Cori glanced at Reiyn, then waved a hand at the display. He looked intently at the screen, then tapped at it as if he knew exactly how to work the controls. When the ship’s computer plotted a course, she rubbed her chin. Clearly not his first rodeo, she thought, both irritated and intrigued. He double-checked the display, and then leaned back in the chair.
    “So, we’re not going to talk about what happened?” she asked sharply, watching him look everywhere but at her.
    “There is nothing to discuss,” he replied, closing his eyes.
    Cori took a deep breath and calmly initiated the sequence for liftoff. “Of course,” she murmured, suppressing the hurt that threatened to overwhelm her. It was just sex. Nothing more, nothing less. Less than nothing. She stared at the side of his head, wondering what the hell he was thinking. His expression gave nothing away. He could be a statue, for all he showed.
    Not that it matters, she told herself. It was just sex. Right.
     

Chapter Four
     
    Kyuk stared out the viewport. He was nearly out of oxygen. He could initiate cryo-sleep, but the procedure was quite dangerous. Statistically, his chance of survival was only fifty percent. No one had managed to perfect the technique for bringing people up out of the induced coma-like state. Of course, your chances of survival without cryo-sleep are approximately zero, he mused. He had no food or water left. No way to power the pod. He closed his eyes, wishing he’d just stayed on his ship when it exploded.
    A few minutes later, he had the cryo tubing out and attached to his arms. This was going to hurt. When he pushed the button, the automatic needles pricked his skin. Cold liquid seeped into his veins on one side while his blood flowed out the other, into the cryo storage unit. As darkness closed over him, his last thought was of Reiyn.
    ****
    “We are approaching the coordinates,” Reiyn said.
    Cori jerked in her chair, waking out of the doze she’d fallen into shortly after takeoff. They’d left in late afternoon and she’d been exhausted, but hadn’t been willing to leave Reiyn alone on the bridge. Of course, now she had a damn crick in her neck. She rubbed the sleep from her eyes wearily. “How far?”
    “Ten minutes.” He tapped the display, enlarging the route and setting it to overlay the larger star-system map on her screen.
    “Where the hell are we?” she asked, rolling her shoulders to loosen the muscles. She didn’t recognize the pattern, and she thought she knew all the systems close to Earth.
    Reiyn glanced at her, his expression shuttered.
    She frowned. “Fine, don’t tell me. Even though this is my ship.”
    He pursed his lips for a moment, then relented. “We are close to Xyran. Two systems over, in Quadrant Four.”
    Cori sat straight up in the chair, adrenaline pushing through her like a tsunami. “Are you crazy?”
    “I would have purchased your ship. You would be safe on Earth.”
    She laughed. “Earth isn’t safe.” She tilted her head at the display. “This is worse, though. Please tell me you know who we’re rescuing.”
    He sighed. “No, I do not. But the signal is a priority pulse from one of our best pilots. No one has ever met him.”
    “If no one’s met him, how does he rescue people?”
    Reiyn swiveled his chair to face her. “From what they say, he wears armor from head to toe.”
    “Armor.