Aberrant

Chapter 43

Jinx glared at the sterile white bulkhead across from her and hissed out an oath. She was more frigging brain damaged than she realised. Either that or Kaplan had used mind control in the shower, along with fistfuls of hygiene gel.

Her plans for the morning had been simple: one last 'hurrah', slicked up against Kaplan; a final cup of the Silver Dawn's superior coffee; then a shuttle back to the surface.

How the hell had she ended up with her next to naked arse perched on a diagnostic bed, Channing logging freshly drawn blood samples a few metres away?

Swallowing the bile in her throat, Jinx picked at the gauzy medical onesie clinging to her skin. The examination room, like the high-security ward outside it, gleamed. Pale bulkheads and sleek tech. That would've been enough to make sweat bead down her spine, but shadows moved beyond the frosted plex door: Sun and an equally lethal-looking, dark-bearded soldier, Natano.

Kaplan had posted them outside before heading off to his own med check and meetings. Both wore headsets like his.

Rha Si.

The ward was full of them: patients, staff, and visitors. Walking in earlier with Kaplan had been ... interesting. The whine in her skull had risen with each unfriendly eye contact. Sun and Natano weren't outside just to keep her from bolting.

Aberrant. She understood the term better now. The Rha Si saw her as a threat. Or at the very least, they resented the fact they couldn't search her mind. One of their own was missing, taken by the alien enemy they'd been created to combat.

And that enemy seemed again intent on major bloodshed.

Before Kaplan had left for his appointments, his friend Atlas had stopped by with an update. Teams on board the Bullhead had found tech consistent with the missing Rha Si's vessel, along with the personal effects and ID pips of hundreds of other Coalition citizens. People taken from Tirus 7 and multiple small ships.

One survivor had been found, but even he, after miraculously surviving twenty-four hours in a hive larder, had almost been lost during the past sleep cycle. His luck had only held because one of Atlas' team had been keeping a 'psionic eye' on him. At the first sign of respiratory distress, help had been dispatched.

Jinx closed her eyes, memories of the barge returning: the stench of death and rot. She couldn't imagine what that man and so many others had gone through, not and keep her slippery grip on sanity. Fear for her missing friends rose. Atlas' grim report replayed in her skull, along with recall of his frag-cut face. Flicking her lashes back up, she eyed the shadows beyond the door.

She was starting to appreciate the role the Rha Si played in protecting the Coalition.

But she was far from ready to join a fan club.

Across the room, Channing checked the labels on the blood she'd taken. The third time she'd done so. As if she didn't trust her eyes. Her mind. Audio buds sat in her ears, filling her skull with music. Thrash rock, because apparently it was difficult to tune out—think past. She'd also chosen the diagnostic room furthest from the main ward area and closest to the exit.

Kaplan hadn't had to explain to the doctor what had happened to her on her last shift; the woman had been smart enough to figure it out herself.

Jinx exhaled. Both she and the doc needed to ditch their intrusive company. Which meant they needed this medical shit done sometime this century.

"Channing." Jinx waited for the woman's head to jerk up. "Quit second-guessing yourself. I checked the lab-request codes myself. They're for a drug screen and general health analysis only. Nothing that'll give the bastards a convenient excuse to lock me up."