Dealers' Choice - Susan Hayes Page 0,52

didn’t move before they got there. If they’d tracked the right shuttle. If Chance’s projections were right. If. If. If.

He paced the length of the ship, too wound up to sit still for long. Ward was doing the same thing, and they’d pass each other somewhere around the midpoint every five minutes or so. It would have been funny if the situation wasn’t so dire.

Thoughts of Xori filled his head. Was she alright? Was she hurt? Afraid? His thoughts chased after each other in obsessive circles. He was so caught up in them that the first time he heard her voice, he thought it was just his mind playing tricks on him.

The second time he heard her, he wasn’t so sure. She spoke his name, as calmly as if she had just walked up behind him. For one brief moment, he felt her presence, a subtle disturbance in the air, a hint of her scent. He whirled around, but the corridor was empty.

He checked his onboard systems, but they hadn’t detected anything. No sound. No one else around. As real as it felt, it had to have been in his head, but had felt so real.

“This is no time to start losing your damned mind,” he muttered to himself, then turned and went back to pacing.

When he crossed paths with Ward this time, a door opened and all three Trello brothers piled into the hall, blocking their path. “You two are wearing a hole in Tianna’s very expensive new carpet,” Blade pointed out.

Ward growled. It was a wordless sound thick with frustration.

Lance grinned and growled back.

Ward blinked, then shook his head and barked out a grudging laugh. “You’re a lunatic.”

“I thought that was common knowledge,” Lance replied.

Dirk sighed and looked at Vic with an expression that said ‘and this is what I have to deal with all day,’ as clearly as if he’d spoken the words out loud.

He nodded back, and something uncoiled a little deep in his chest. “Tell me about it.”

“Instead of pacing, you two want to go over the plan again?” Dirk jerked his head toward the door they’d come out of. “Tink told us to use this place as a command center.”

“Talking about it is the next best thing to actually doing it,” Blade chimed in.

“Yeah. We should go over it again,” Vic agreed.

“When are we going to tell the Nova Force team about the change in plans?” Blade asked as they all filed inside.

“We figure thirty seconds before we implement it should be about right. Give them a small window to yell at us before we ignore them and do it, anyway. That way, it looks like they at least tried to stop us,” Ward said, dropping into one of the couches that lined one wall. It was more a lounge than a meeting room, but there was a table with a built-in data display that would work for working out the details. Not that they had many.

Officially, they were here to back up Commander Dax Rossi and his team. At least, that was the agreement they’d made with Colonel Archer. The thing was, the Faerie Queene was fast. Even using only her standard engines, she’d been gradually pulling ahead of Rossi’s ship since they’d left the station. By the time they got to Xori, they’d have ten minutes to put their plan in motion before the other ship could catch them.

Vic was pretty sure the Malora’s crew was expecting them to go their own way. Nothing had been said aloud, but Lt. Caldwell, the Nova Force medic, and coincidentally, Alyson’s older brother, had quietly given Ward a scanner for detecting the chips the Grays were fond of. He’d also given them a device he promised could temporarily block any attempts to trigger the explosive. The thought of Xori being alone out there with a fraxxing micro-explosive in her body made him want to scream and rail at the universe. It was also the reason they weren’t trying to put any more distance between them and the Malora. If she did have one of the chips, there was no way they’d be able to remove it themselves. For that, they’d need Caldwell and a military-grade med-bay.

Vic picked a seat near Ward, and they all started talking through the plan from the beginning. As they talked, his brother sent him a private message. “We’re going to get her back.”

“Yes, we will.” They had to, because he couldn’t imagine a future for them that didn’t include her.

Chapter