Cold Victory Read online

  Cold Victory

  Fiona Jayde

  Cold Victory

  Copyright © February 2010 by Fiona Jayde

  All rights reserved. This copy is intended for the purchaser of this e-book ONLY. No part of this e-book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without prior written permission from Loose Id LLC. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author's rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  eISBN 978-1-60737-518-0

  Editor: Jana J. Hanson

  Cover Artist: Anne Cain

  Printed in the United States of America

  Published by

  Loose Id LLC

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  San Francisco CA 94142-5960

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  This e-book is a work of fiction. While reference might be made to actual historical events or existing locations, the names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Warning

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  Chapter One

  They lined up in two perfect parallels on the main launch deck, rook pilots eager for war. Stark wondered how many of them would end up dead in the first few hours at the front lines.

  Beside him, his second-in-command surveyed the puffed-up chests and military stances, matching faces to their data files. “Barely out of the academy.”

  Stark counted fifty. Fifty potential tattooed dots over his upper arm. “I'll ask again about time for drills.”

  Dex spared him a glance. “They'll need it.”

  The standard gray rook uniforms reflected in the cold, dull shine of the deck floor, while the rooks themselves looked infinitely miniscule next to the combat birds linked with fuel-data wirings to the port stations in the walls.

  “You're aboard the battle cruiser Victory.” Already Stark could pick up on their bearings: the ones closest to him were the squad leads; the ones with grins stretched on their faces were fresh graduates. The redhead wearing civilian black was a concern who would be dealt with later. She hadn't bothered to hide a conviction for stealing supplies when filing her background. And yet Stark didn't have any choice but to accept her assignment to his ship.

  “We'll return to the blockade when we complete the resupply and upgrades.” His voice echoed over the metal-infused plaster. “We don't have the luxury of time, but I expect you'll make the most of it.”

  Beyond the human line, a barrier of energy and steel kept them from being sucked into the vacuum. Sometimes Stark wondered how the cold emptiness of space would feel without the barrier of air, gravity, and steel.

  “There are three things I'll expect from each of you.” He walked between the razor-sharp lines of the rooks, nearly smelling their excitement. “Focus. Discipline. Control.” He stopped before the redhead and took in the stubborn oval of her face, the empty gaze staring ahead at nothing.

  “Your name, rook.”

  She pressed her lips together, as if not thrilled to be here. At least in that, they were both in agreement. He didn't want a convict on his ship.

  “Scott, Zoya. Sir.” She didn't tear her gaze away from the nothing at which she stared.

  “Your orders?” He had no interest in her name or her assignment signoff. Stark simply wanted to establish that her connections had no meaning on his ship.

  Still refusing to look at him, Scott, Zoya handed him a slim gray data unit. And when their fingers briefly touched, the shock rippling through his blood nearly knocked him backward. Confusion mixed with heat. Arousal followed, swift and vicious, pouring through his body like a primal scream.

  He fought for focus, for a single breath, while she maintained the same distant expression, her gaze trained on a spot behind him.

  “You'll follow standard protocol aboard this ship.” He knew his voice had dropped, was furious that he couldn't control it. Images of skin and sweat and tangled limbs flashed through his mind as his pulse shuddered with accelerated rhythm.

  She looked at him now, those exotic amber eyes empty of feeling. “My apologies, Commander. I've been on civ div far too long.”

  Heat wouldn't let him breathe. Despite himself, Stark engaged his ocular implant, watching the waves of red surrounding her form, her body temp spiking, her blood vessels pumping overtime. If not for the pink, delicate flush over her face, she showed no outward appearance of being affected by the same beast that clawed at him.

  “You're dismissed.” He didn't know what the hell had happened, couldn't understand why an impersonal touch charged him with a sexual awareness he had no business feeling. He simply knew he had to put her out of his reach. “I suggest you find a standard uniform.”

  “Yes, sir.” Empty, smooth voice. A touch of sarcasm. Nothing that warranted another deep, unwanted spike of lust.

  She stepped back from the rooks, her body slim and strong in a black jumpsuit, her lips pressed into a thin line. For a swift second, Stark wondered what her mouth would look like when she screamed in orgasm.

  “Pazlov's Pet.” The mutter pierced the heated image in his brain just as Stark's communication implant beeped an incoming.

  “Problem?” Still processing rooks, Dex tilted his head in question, the trio of scars splitting his left cheek and eyebrow a dark contrast against pale skin.

  Stark shook his head, then turned to the squad lead who'd spoken.

  “Did you say something? Officer?”

  Three stars on the rook's collar indicated Triple Ace status. Fifteen virtual kills. Maybe this guy would last more than thirty seconds in real-time war with real Murk pilots on his ass.

  “No, sir.” Clipped voice, tall military stance of someone used to milking regulations. A quick scan into the ocular confirmed him to be Squad Lead Gerald Poll.

  “That is unfortunate.” The implant also showed the red, pulsing shape of Zoya Scott walking toward the hangar doors, her head held high, her posture stiff and solid. To his surprise, the dark red braid of her hair hung all the way down to her lower back.

  Stark forced himself to not picture his fingers combing through that rain of red. “If you have things to say, Officer Poll, you say them in the open. Otherwise, you'll keep your hangar shut.”

  The squad lead clenched his jaw, kept his hands stiffly at his sides. He had the smarts to remain silent.

  “Get situated.” The strange heat of arousal still rippled through Stark's blood, milder now, but still enough for him to clench his jaw against it. He forced back anger that would only spin him further from control. “All rooks, dismissed.”

  They filed out, rows of men and women clad in gray suits with oblong gear bags slung over their shoulders. Stark felt their curiosity and apprehension, their darting glances as he passed by. They trusted him to lead them into battle. And he didn't even want to learn their names.

  When they cleared the deck, flight crews in orange jumpsuits resumed their swarm over the birds. Silence was now replaced with fusion drivers and the sm
ell of burned plaster. The resupply was well ahead of schedule. They could return to the blockade in a few hours.

  Dex caught up with him at the wide hangar doors.

  “You have to be so damned efficient?”

  His second-in-command lifted a scarred eyebrow. “I'll see if I can screw us up some time.”

  “They'll need it.” Stark still had no idea what the hell had happened with the redhead. At least that sudden flash of arousal had eased enough for him to force her image out of his mind. Dark red hair coursing through his fingers. Strong and smooth limbs straining under his touch. Hell. “It got so bad, we're recruiting convicts.”

  “Pilot's a pilot.” Dex plugged something into his wrist unit, rubbed a finger over his temple as more data came in. “Your stats went flyshit. If I didn't know better, I'd say you popped a stick.”

  Anger stirred once again, then was ruthlessly stomped out. “Surveying a superior without cause is against protocol.”

  “Yeah. Brig me.” Dex paused for a short second. “Her temp spiked same as yours.”

  “I'm thrilled.” Outside the launch deck, the corridor curved into a smooth tube of dull, dark gray, with dark flexible conduits twisting along circular walls. The pattern reminded him of red hair twisted into a long braid he was determined not to think about touching.

  “They call her Pazlov's Pet.”

  Stark frowned at the splashes of yellow on the wiring. Reused conduit patches weren't holding up as well as he'd been told to expect.

  Following his gaze, Dex forwarded a holoimage of the patch to the repair chief. “I'm surprised they don't call her his plaything.”

  The implication stirred an unpleasant feeling which Stark didn't want to deal with.

  Dex plugged more commands into his wrist unit, then listened to something with a frown. “Another leak at Comm Processing.” He pulled up a schematic on his wrist hologrid and cursed. “We keep using this plaster, the Murks won't have much of an opposition left.”

  He snapped off a command for the comm chief, then met Stark's eyes over the hologrid. “Maybe she'll decide she'd rather live on a labor colony than deal with you.” A grin. “Easier all around.”

  “True.” And yet Stark couldn't keep himself from picturing that stubborn, delicate face and empty amber eyes as he walked through cold tubes of gray scarred with patches of yellow.

  His quarters offered him a comfortable silence and a stingy square window for a premier view. Looking out into space, he entertained the thought of contacting Tactical to have her reassigned. She was a convict; she didn't belong in the military; she sure as hell wouldn't be trusted by the other rooks…

  The communication would be useless. With the shortage of personnel, he was lucky he'd gotten a full squad of pilots. And the only one with real-time skills was a rogue convicted of pilfering supplies.

  His data indicated Admiral Pazlov had used his influence to get her released from the labor camps, probably because they were both Primus survivors. And on the launch deck, Stark had given the rooks nonverbal permission to give her hell.

  Example through leadership. Well, shit.

  Stripping off the top half of his uniform, Stark focused on the plastic replicas of three Japanese swords. Steel and any of its compounds had long been used to fortify cheaper materials like plaster, but the elegant shapes of the swords had always brought him the calm serenity that was supposed to come before a battle.

  He focused on them now as he accessed communications, the graceful, lethal lengths reflecting sparks of light as his father's holographic image came into view.

  Neither of them bothered with hellos. “A full squadron of pilots.” In exchange for Victory's experienced pilots shuffled throughout the fleet. “I should be grateful.”

  “You should be.” Tactical General Stark regarded him with cool steel-colored eyes. “If you're after more training, you can go to hell. I busted ass getting a full squad as it was.”

  The war had not been going well. Tactical was already short on pilots, and staffing battle cruisers was becoming an issue similar to that of rationing supplies.

  “They won't survive without more training.”

  “Most of them won't survive.” Calmly voiced fact. “They know the risks. And we need numbers.” The general steepled his fingers together. “You shouldn't let the dead weigh on your shoulders. They make their sacrifices. So should you.”

  He'd heard that before. “Don't dwell on those who passed.”

  If the general heard the bite of sarcasm, he ignored it. “Exactly.”

  Stark wondered how his father would react if he saw the neat rows of red ink tattooed on his son's upper arms and shoulders. One dot for every life. One dot for every crewman lost under his command.

  “You have the forty-eight hours earmarked for resupply. That should be more than enough time for training.” The general leaned forward. “We need Victory at the blockade. We're at a turning point.”

  “Yes, sir.” Stark nodded sharply and turned his father's image off.

  The hell of it, the general was right. There was no room for feelings, no time to honeymoon the crew. There would be those who would survive. There would be those who'd die in a swift, fiery second. For some, dying at war was just a means to end survivor's guilt.

  Unbidden, he flashed back to Zoya Scott's empty eyes. A Primus survivor, one of the few remains of a colony termed unrecoverable and left to its own fate. The first great battle in a war where the only things known of the enemy was their hate for humans and their name.

  * * *

  The sonic shower stall offered her privacy. She had enough strength to turn on the cleansing ionizer to keep curious onlookers at bay.

  Her back pressed to a cool, hard wall, Zoya clutched her knees with trembling fingers and let the shudders spear through. Her muscles clenching into tight and painful knots, she focused straight ahead and forced herself to drag in oxygen.

  A few seconds more. The syringes with stabilizers were somewhere on the bottom of her pack. She hadn't thought she'd need them. Lucky for her, Pazlov insisted she keep a stash of orals close at hand. Zoya hated knowing he'd been right.

  She rarely felt the need to take one stabilizer, much less the two she'd shoved into her mouth as soon she was out of view. Sitting on the floor, unable to fight the convulsions, Zoya couldn't remember the last time a situation pierced through the cold numbness of her mind enough to spike her adrenaline.

  Since anger helped, she focused on Commander Galen Stark, the epitome of fucking military, whose low rich voice and steel merciless eyes sent her hormones straight into overdrive. As sweat beaded on her face, immediately whisked away by the ion pulse, Zoya clenched her teeth and thought back to the sudden, overwhelming heat when their fingers brushed.

  The spike and crash of the resulting adrenaline left her a lovely parting gift, something Pazlov's scientists hadn't had time to correct. Before, during testing, nothing seemed to have warranted an adrenal reaction. As shudders lanced through her bones, Zoya had no idea what had changed.

  When she was certain she could stand, she walked out of the shower and used her thumbprint to access a ration of water to splash on her face. The liquid cold felt good against her lips. She took a good, long gulp so that she wouldn't waste it.

  A fucking perfect way to start a tour of duty, Zoya thought, and figured it was time to face the rooks.

  The pilots' racks were stacked three high. She thanked the stars that she had been assigned one on the bottom. At this point, she didn't have the strength to climb.

  She didn't have much to unpack: a couple of uniforms, tankshirts, a few loose unisuits for working out. Although she never wore her sister's necklace, she hung it on the small hook in her locker meant for such things.

  “Scott. Zoya Scott.”

  One of the squad leads loomed behind her. “Check your damned volume. You got a comm from your friend Pazlov.”

  He kept looking at her as she reached for her ear communicator.

>   “Admiral.” She could picture him, the droopy jowls, the clear, pale blue eyes.

  “Zoya.” His voice was slightly fuzzy in the ear comm. Since implants rendered the thing obsolete, nobody bothered to improve the quality of sound. “You're settled in?”

  “I am.”

  The squad lead still loomed over her, his hands over his hips. He had identified himself as Poll on the transport to Victory. A trio of silver stars pinned to his collar signified him to be a Triple Ace. His attitude and curled upper lip complemented that status.

  “Difficulties?” Pazlov said in her ear.

  “As we've anticipated.” She gave Triple Ace a thin, razor-edged smile. “Our friendship was questioned once again.”

  “The crew's reaction to your past won't matter in the long run.”

  “No, sir.” She wouldn't think about why. She found it easiest not to think about it.

  Triple Ace kept watching her, his gaze hard on her face. At least he had enough respect for Pazlov's rank not to interrupt her end of the conversation.

  “It's the only way left to end this war.” Pazlov had said the same thing when he'd contacted her after the mockery the military called a trial.

  “I understand, Admiral.”

  “I'll contact you again when there's a change in our position. For now, you'll continue as one of their pilots.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  She made a move to pull the piece out of her ear when Triple Ace got in her face.

  “You'll remain at attention when addressed by a superior.” His barked words made the other rooks turn their heads.

  Technically, they still weren't on duty. Technically, she didn't give a fuck about his superiority or his rank. Except she didn't need a confrontation, couldn't afford calling attention to herself.

  “They say Pazlov is stuck on top of wheels.” Poll kept his tone loud to ensure the widest audience. “Is that correct?”

  Hoping he'd grow disinterested, Zoya kept her stance, her body at attention, her hands by her sides. “General Pazlov is paraplegic after the failed battle at Primus colony.”