Hierax: Star Guardians, Book 4 Read online

  “Can anybody besides the computer in my helmet hear me?” Indi asked, though she suspected she was cut off from the ship and everyone else again.

  Nobody answered.

  “How did I know?” she muttered.

  “The room temperature has reached 7 degrees Fahrenheit,” her helmet announced, the display flashing once.

  “Sounds like a balmy, warm temperature to me,” Indi said, reaching for the fastener for her left gauntlet.

  It thunked softly, another verification that there was atmosphere in the room, and she removed it. Extremely brisk air kissed her skin, and she hesitated. Balmy, it was not. But she had to check Hierax, so she tugged her other gauntlet off.

  “The temperature is continuing to rise,” the computer said.

  “Good, because this isn’t exactly swimsuit weather. After ten years of living in Phoenix, I put on a sweater if it dips below eighty, you know.”

  The computer did not deign to answer.

  Indi slid her bare hands over Hierax’s armor, though she didn’t know if she would be able to detect the leak now. If the air pressure was the same on both sides, none would be rushing out.

  “Ah, there you are,” she said, feeling a slight warm draft against her chilled fingers.

  The armor covering his left thigh held a visible indentation. She pressed her palm over it.

  “All right, Hierax, I’ve fixed your leak. All we have to do is walk back to the ship with my hand on your leg.”

  “The captain… doesn’t approve of… public displays of affection,” Hierax rasped, his voice weak and barely audible. The words came out slightly slurred.

  Indi, relieved he was talking at all, almost let go of his leg to peer through his faceplate. That wouldn’t do. She kept her palm pressed against it.

  “I wasn’t going to hold your leg affectionately,” she said.

  “No? My leg is disappointed.”

  “Can you feel it? Can you feel everything? I don’t know how to take your armor off and check you for injuries. I also don’t know how to seal this leak. I carried you to this room, but if we leave, there’s no atmosphere out in the corridor. And we’re seventy feet underground, at least.”

  “I remember that part,” he said, a wince in his voice. “Gods, my ribs hurt. And my head. My helmet isn’t cracked, is it?”

  “I don’t think so. I can see a big dent in the side, though.”

  “Some high-tech gear we’ve got, eh? It can deflect weapons fire and shrapnel, but… getting hit by a rock can do you in.”

  “It was more of a boulder. A lot of boulders. Actually, I’d say the equivalent of a small building fell on you.”

  “An eventuality that happens more often than you would think. I’m going to add serious reinforcements when I get back on the ship.”

  “Help me help you get there. What can I do besides hold this leak in your leg piece? I’m at a loss here.”

  He tilted his chin toward his chest, as much as the armor would allow. “Oh? You seem to be doing all right. Did you say you carried me?”

  “It was faster than dragging you.”

  “I’ve never been carried by a woman before.”

  “Is that a problem for your masculine ego?” Indi asked, glad his words were coming out more clearly now.

  “Nah, but I wish I’d been awake for it. It’s been a long time since I got to drape myself all over a woman.”

  “Because women aren’t interested in you or because you’re too busy playing with your tools in engineering?”

  He was handsome and fit, despite clear geek tendencies. Indi didn’t believe for a second that he didn’t get hit on whenever he went to a bar, or whatever the galactic equivalent of one was. She could believe that some of the women that hit on him might walk away once he started talking about his tools and how brilliant he was, but surely, some of them would stick around to use him for his body.

  “Well, women don’t come to engineering, you see. And that’s my place. It has all my things in it.”

  “You don’t leave even when you get vacations?”

  “No, there are always projects that need completing. And I’d much rather work on them than go out onto grimy space stations or planets full of strangers bumping me and asking stupid questions. Are you really a Star Guardian? How many bad guys have you killed? How many pushups can you do? People are completely insipid, Indi.”

  “If that’s your pickup line, I’m beginning to see why you don’t get to drape yourself over women that often.”

  “You don’t agree?” He almost sounded mournful. “I thought—you also seem like someone who would loathe social conventions and interacting with strangers.”

  “Loathe is a strong word. I confess I’d usually rather stay home and read a book or play on the computer than go out amongst strangers. And I’m completely out of my element sailing around in a spaceship full of hulking Star Guardians.”

  “Ah.” Now, he sounded contented. Even pleased by her answer. “They do hulk.”

  “You hulk too.”

  “I do not. Especially now.” He hissed and lifted a hand to his ribs, though the gesture couldn’t have soothed him with his armor in the way. “Could you do me a favor and find a painkiller? There should be some nanobots in the medkit too. I’ll program them if you get them out.”

  “Er, love to. Where is this medkit?”

  “I’ve got one—probably smashed by those boulders. There’s one in your hip compartment too.”

  She found the spot, flipping open a panel to show a tiny carrying compartment in the armor. She pulled out a slender rectangular case built to fit into the spot.

  “Medkit?” Indi eyed it dubiously. “Hierax, this is smaller than a deck of cards.”

  “Didn’t say it was an extensive kit.”

  “Is there anything in it that could fix the leak in your leg armor? Because I’m still holding it, and I don’t think I can jab you with an injector one-handedly.”

  “Repair kit on the other hip.” He sucked in a pained breath, his fingers flexing.

  Indi felt bad about asking him questions when it hurt him to talk.

  “Hand it to me, and I’ll get a patch out while you find my drugs.”

  “Pushy, pushy.” She pulled out the repair kit, which wasn’t any bigger than the medkit, and pressed it into his hand.

  He thumbed it open while she one-handedly opened and explored the contents of the medkit.

  “This is going to be difficult,” Hierax said.

  “Modifying a patch to seal your leak?”

  “No, sitting up to reach the leak.”

  “Why don’t you hand it to me, and I’ll do it?” She set down the medkit and held out her hand.

  “I was hoping you were going to give me drugs.”

  “I can do both. I’m a versatile woman.”

  He placed his hand in hers, but instead of handing her anything, he used her to pull himself up. Behind his faceplate, his face contorted in pain, his lips peeling back from his teeth.

  “Hierax,” she protested. She would have punched him if she’d had a hand free.

  “All repairs get fixed by the engineer.”

  He was panting from the brief, painful exertion. He hadn’t panted before when they’d been sprinting through the ruined city. She couldn’t imagine how much pain he was in.

  “Your gauntlets are off?” he asked, glancing at her hands as he leaned over the dent in his armor. “Oh, I see. Huh, I think this is the first room that’s been heated. Was it like that before we got here?”

  “No, it’s been gradually warming up from frigid to icy cold to frosty.” She flexed her fingers, thinking of sticking them back in the gauntlets since the armor created a fully self-sufficient and surprisingly comfortable environment, if one could get past the claustrophobia. But the degrees continued to rise, and the space had grown tolerable.

  “So, something is keeping an eye on us and creating an environment suitable for humans,” Hierax said, pulling off his own g
auntlets. “Is it the same something that sent those drones to shoot at us?” He looked toward the door. “What happened to them?”

  “Your captain sent a team of men to come help us.”

  “I remember that.”

  “They were almost to us, and the drones all veered to attack them. The last I heard, they were falling back.”

  “And I assume we’ve lost our signal again?” Hierax’s gaze shifted toward the high ceiling. “Falcon 8, anyone read me?” he asked, presumably activating the group channel. After a moment, he shook his head. “Nothing.”

  “We’ll have to climb back out.”

  “Oh, that’s going to be fun.” He seemed to notice his satchel lying on the floor next to him for the first time. “You brought my tools?” He sounded positively delighted.

  “Of course,” she said, though she hadn’t considered them one way or another—they’d simply been attached to him by the strap and hadn’t fallen off when she’d carried him.

  “Thank you.”

  He wrapped his arms around her in a hug, surprising her—she knew his ribs were hurting. It was an awkward hug, too, with their chests and arms clunking together.

  “Sometime, we’ll have to try that without armor,” Indi said.

  He lowered his arms. “I don’t hug people that often.”

  “So I have to bring you some tools to prompt the urge?”

  “That would work.”

  He smiled at her, and a feeling of warmth suffused her. It had nothing to do with the temperature of the room. Funny how the dried blood didn’t detract from his looks. Though she itched to wash his face.

  His eyes shifted to the side as he read his helmet display. “I don’t think it’s wise to strip naked when there are drones around, but the nanobots should be injected close to my injuries so they don’t have to roam my blood stream, looking for work for twenty minutes. The emergency stuff isn’t as smart as what the doc has in sickbay.” He waved her hand away from his thigh and pressed the seal he’d prepared over the dent in his armor.

  “If you get naked, does that mean I have to protect you if evil robots rush in the door?”

  “You don’t have to, but I’d appreciate it if you at least stood in front of me.” With the patch applied, he tapped the fasteners on his helmet and lifted it from his head.

  She gave him a sympathetic grimace when she saw the dried blood on his chin and cheek again. But it was the big bump on his temple that he touched gingerly. He took the medkit from her, loaded an ampule of pain medicine into an injector, and pressed it to the side of his neck. It hissed softly. He set it down and reached for a small device. The nanobot programmer and injector?

  “There’s a stunner in my satchel,” he said, glancing toward the door. “I doubt it’ll do anything against drones, but you could try. Maybe you’d get lucky. Or maybe if something else comes in, the stunner would short circuit it.”

  Indi pulled out the weapon. Even if it didn’t sound that useful, she was glad it wasn’t a gun—or bow—since she didn’t have any experience with either. Somehow this seemed less intimidating to use than something that fired bullets—or energy bolts.

  “If the other team comes in, don’t shoot them,” Hierax said, his eyes focused on a holographic display that had popped out of the device. “Actually, do shoot them. They’re terribly late.”

  Indi hoped the others had overcome the drones and were looking for her and Hierax now.

  “All right, I need to get the top half of myself naked.” Hierax set down the device. An injector tip had popped out one end. “Well, not naked. Just armor-less.”

  “Can I help?” Just because she had struggled to dress herself in her armor without help didn’t mean she couldn’t be useful. She took off her helmet and set it to the side. “You look like you’re in pain,” she added when his expression grew a touch indignant, as if to suggest that the mighty engineering chief didn’t need help. Ever. With anything. Certainly not with undressing.

  “I can handle it. I’m feeling much better now that I’m drugged.”

  He reached for one of the fasteners near the built-in utility belt, not quite hiding a wince.

  She rolled her eyes at his independence and unfolded a thin cloth from the medkit. It had an antiseptic smell and reminded her of a sanitary wipe. That seemed promising.

  Hierax’s armor came loose, and he gasped as he shrugged it off. He shoved it aside with a grunt, then collapsed back on the floor in his tank top. Sweat beaded his forehead.

  “For a brilliant engineer, you’re a bit of an obtuse idiot,” Indi said, unable to hide her exasperation. He should have let her help him with that.

  “You’re not the first woman to call me an idiot. Though obtuse isn’t the typical adjective. Obnoxious. Pompous. Conceited. Fucking.”

  Indi blinked. “I take it the person who used that last adjective wasn’t as educated as the others.”

  “Actually, she was an admiral with three advanced degrees. She was just pissed at me at the time because I was late for a, uh, meeting for the third time. I’d been distracted by new parts arriving. And there was so much to do in engineering. If she’d truly wanted to talk, she should have come to engineering. What is the point of paying for food in city establishments when you have food on your own ship?”

  It slowly dawned on Indi that “meeting” probably meant date, and that he was likely talking about a romantic relationship and not some misunderstanding he’d had with a superior officer. He definitely wouldn’t be the type to show up at a woman’s doorstep with flowers and chocolate before sweeping her off for a night on the town.

  Of course, Jace had been that type, at least early in their relationship when he’d treated her to movies and restaurants, but later, he’d changed drastically, paying for nothing, not wanting to go anywhere together, and wanting her to support him. Maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad thing to date someone who didn’t pretend to be anything other than what he was. Not that she was going to date some engineer from another planet. How could that work out?

  “Sorry, I talk too much under the influence of antiponos,” Hierax said, pushing a hand through his hair. “And about dumb things. Here’s the nanobot injector. If you want to help, you can stab me with it.”

  He handed the device to her, then gingerly pulled up his tank top, revealing skin already turning black and blue. He also revealed thick, firm pecs and a rack of abs that could have starred on the cover of any fitness magazine.

  Indi had never gone for the muscle guys at the gym, if only because they never had anything in common with her, but she could easily imagine herself leaning down and kissing that taut flesh, running her tongue along the defined contours…

  A hot tingle went through her, tightening between her legs.

  This time, Indi rolled her eyes at herself. He had broken ribs and needed medical help, not tongue slobber on his abs.

  “Do I just press it here?” She touched him lightly on the abs. “Next to the bruises?”

  “Yeah, best guess. There’s no real medical scanner in the kit. Here.” He took her hand, his fingers warm and gentle as he moved it a few inches.

  Her fingertips dragged across his skin, and gooseflesh rose on his chest. Just a physiological reaction, she told herself. Not a sign that he had kissing or licking on his mind too.

  “I think that’s about where the breaks are,” he said, adjusting her hand so that her palm lay over his bruises.

  He watched her face, holding his hand atop hers longer than necessary. Or maybe that was her imagination. He let go, resting his arms to either side. Those arms, full of thick ropy muscle, were just as appealing as his chest.

  The Star Guardian tattoo, a fire falcon ship flying into a wormhole gate, claimed its typical spot on one forearm. It seemed to fit him even though he was clean cut without any other tats. At least that she could see. She caught herself glancing toward his waist and legs, that half of him hidden by the armor.

  “You can fondle me all you want af
ter you insert the nanobots,” he said dryly, and she realized her fingers had been roaming—stroking—while she contemplated him.

  She jerked her hand away, blushing. “Sorry.”

  She fiddled with the nanobot injector, certain her cheeks were flaming. With her dark skin, blushes didn’t usually show up, but her cheeks blazed with heat now, so she wouldn’t count on that. Maybe she should have left her helmet on so he couldn’t see her face.

  Avoiding his eyes by paying close attention to his bruises, she rested the device against his skin. “Is there a button to push?”

  The device must have sensed that its time had come, because it injected the nanobots on its own with a hiss of air. Hierax winced, but quickly smoothed his features.

  Indi tucked the device back into the kit. They ought to be ready to go at a second’s notice and not have gear strewn all over the place, though she still wanted to wash his face. As soon as her cheeks cooled down and she could meet his eyes.

  “All right,” Hierax said and took her hand.

  “Hm?”

  He grinned and laid her palm on his abdomen, on the opposite side from the bruises. “Fondling is acceptable now.”

  “Acceptable?”

  “Encouraged?”

  She met his eyes and found him grinning. Boyishly. He had to be thirty, thirty-five, but he could definitely do a good boyish grin. An appealing boyish grin.

  Even though she didn’t feel certain of herself—was he joking or did he truly want her to stroke his chest?—she found herself wanting to do exactly what he suggested. But should she? They needed to get out of here and back to his ship before something else happened. She shouldn’t be groping him in some alien pumping room. And besides, he’d admitted to feeling a bit weird because of the drugs—overly garrulous, at the least. Would he later object to the fact that she’d been pawing him up? She couldn’t imagine that most guys would object, but he wasn’t typical.

  “I can’t imagine that would feel good when you’re injured,” she said, though the weight of his hand atop hers felt nice. Comfortable.

  It had been almost a year since her divorce, and she hadn’t dated anyone since then. Since she and Jace had been fighting for much of the last year of her marriage, it had been even longer since she’d had sex. She enjoyed the feel of Hierax holding her hand, of having him banter with her. And maybe it was even a little sexy that he could solve those silly math riddles. It wasn’t as if the ones she’d been giving him were easy, especially without pencil and paper.