Chapter 54

chapter 54

ELLE

"Cepharius!" I shouted on the 'qa, but it was too late; I felt him leaving.

I didn't know what he could possibly bring back—and we were supposed to be taking the ship batteries.

"We'll give your boyfriend a few hours," Hargrave said, gesturing for the soldiers holding Donna to release her. She was spattered in Marcus's blood and looked like she was going into shock. "Leave her here—if she gets her wits about her, she can get you out of your suit. I wouldn't want you to be tempted to try to swim," he said, with a malevolent chuckle, and then spoke to his men, who were following him on his way out. "One of you, guard outside the door."

The second it was shut, I fought against the ties I'd been bound with and shouted out for my mate on the 'qa. "Cepharius? Cepharius!" When that didn't work, I tried more quietly and aloud, "Donna?"

"Yeah, fuck," she whispered, shaking herself. "I'm here."

"Can you untie me?"

She blinked a lot, like she was trying to figure out where she was. "Sure. "

She stumbled over to the chair, slowly untied me, then helped me up. We made our way into the bathroom together. The first thing she did was turn on the shower, and then everything about her bearing and expression cleared. "We don't have much time."

"What?" I asked, as she started stripping pieces of my armor off of me.

"There's no cameras in here, and the shower will make it impossible for them to hear us—you need to tell me everything. Now."

I gawked at her. "Marcus just died," I said, still not having quite come to grips with it.

She caught my face in her hands. "Yeah, and when motherfucking Quentin Hargrave chose to tell us his actual fucking real name, we became next on the list. Get out of your suit. I'll go get you clothes."

I watched her composure change the second she opened the bathroom door, stumbling and sobbing out to my dresser, where she knocked off several items—including Cepharius's carvings—in her attempt to find me an outfit to bring back, and then did so, instantly straightening the second the door was shut.

"You're not just a cook and cable operator, are you?"

"No—and you had a little more than alien contact, eh?" she said, looking at my shoulders, which were exposed from where I'd tugged my drysuit off. I had sucker marks from Cepharius all over my body—and Donna came nearer to peer at me. "You had to be someplace pressurized for all that. And where the hell's your swimsuit?" Her eyes went wide. "You really did it, didn't you. You made it inside the ship. The both of you. And—you used that opportunity to get down?" she asked, her voice arching, beneath the shower's roar, her eyes skimming over me. "It's a wonder you have any platelets left!"

I frowned at her as I finished pulling on pants. "Platelets?" I said in an accusatory fashion, wondering if she was the other kind of doctor.

"I wasn't lying about watching Grey's . I've picked up some things." She gave me a grin, which I didn't return .

"Tell me who you really are!" I demanded, snatching my shirt from her hands.

"I can't. You're dating someone telepathic," she said, her nose wrinkling. "They'll know what you know; it's against the rules. But my only job is to keep you safe from that nonsense out there, and I'm very well compensated. I wasn't sure Marcus was a traitor till his crew arrived—but there also wasn't a way to flush him out before you managed to return and set his whole plan in motion. I'm sure if Mr. Marlow were here, he'd apologize to you for letting you meet so many of his enemies in person." She knelt to the ground, pulled out one of the screwdrivers I'd brought into my room for help with the ROVs, and began working on an access panel. "Tell me what you saw, before they come in and ask questions."

"No," I said simply. "How do I know if I can trust you? You won't even tell me your real name!"

She stopped what she was doing and looked up. "Why'd Mr. Marlow pick you?"

I stared at her.

"Because you're on your own. If someone, or some alien, more precisely, kills you, there's not as many people to care. Accidents happen, you know?" she said, answering her own question. "Haberman had three kids. You can't have people sign NDAs when they're under five. Toddlers have atrocious penmanship."

"Fuck," I whispered, as she went on in the same serious-but-somehow-also-lighthearted tone.

"And he involved the krakens this round because he'd rather not keep expending human lives, seeing as killing people and covering it up indefinitely is a hassle—but also because he knew they'd keep their mouths, or minds, shut. They're not interested in inviting any more attention to themselves, or the deep." She turned back to her job at hand.

"If he knew it was dangerous, why didn't he tell us more?" I hissed. "About what we'd be in for? Or why didn't you, for that matter? "

"Orders," she said, with a shrug. "Something-something-scientific-method—I'm just muscle, for the most part. But I think Mr. Marlow didn't want to color your perception of what you were going to see, because he did want you here for your mind. And I believe he thought sending amphibious rifles down with the last crew he might've given the aliens the wrong idea."

The truth was the aliens hadn't even noticed. "You know, I'm sure there's entire branches of the government who're better equipped to handle this!"

She gave a brisk nod, without looking back. "Possibly! Or whoever gets to alien tech first could just use it to start World War Three. So maybe you could just believe that the people who shot Marcus are the baddies?" She pried the panel off the wall with a grunt, and then gave me a look. "You're a historian, aren't you? How well does giving only one side gunpowder usually work?"

I didn't want to answer that, as she started gesturing me down, into the exceedingly narrow tunnel she'd just revealed, that appeared to contain the room's plumbing.

"Get in."

"Where are we going?"

"There's a pressurized lifeboat attached to the engine room. We're getting into it, and then ejecting out of here."

I took a step back from her at once.

"What, you don't believe me?" she asked. "Your boyfriend can come with—Hargrave's men won't be able to hurt him out in the open water. You can just telepathize with him and tell him you've escaped, easy, done."

"I can't, Donna."

"Why not?"

I crossed my arms, knowing just how insane what I was going to say next would sound. "Because the aliens need me."

We were so deep it'd take us a week to decompress safely and reach the surface. If we did that there'd be no way to bring batteries back for the beacon in time, which meant that Snout—and all his siblings on the mothership—would perish.

One of her eyebrows cocked up. "Did . . . they . . . tell you that?"

I sighed. It was now or never—my window for helpful action was closing. "Yeah," I said, and went ahead and spilled the beans.

Donna did a good job of listening, then rocked back on her heels. "An entire spaceship? Full of small furry creatures?"

"Yeah."

"Like a space SPCA?"

I groaned. Ceph was right; the 'qa was better for transmitting information. I missed its simplicity so much. "I don't think they're cats, Donna. They have too many legs."

"That's just insane—and it's been down here three thousand years? Just setting beacons off?" She was scrubbing blood off her face with a wet towel. "I bet that's how they found it, you know," she said, whirling in the small place. "They probably focused in on those periodic energy bursts."

It made sense. "Yeah, but now if I don't bring them batteries?—"

"Okay," Donna said with a sharp nod. "Plan change. You stay here."

"What?"

"I need someone behind to fake out the guards. And there's no way I'm letting you touch the habitat's batteries, no offense." She stood and grabbed me by the shoulders. "You stay behind, pretend to be freaked out, I'll go get the battery, and bring it to the dock so when your boyfriend comes back for the trade, I'll get it to him—and you'll tell him the plan," she said, tapping a meaningful finger on my temple. "Hargrave's gonna want to show you off in person to make sure your kraken complies. I'll fling it out, then he can go do what needs doing and hopefully the two of us survive."

"And you'll really help me?" I asked her, wanting, but not quite willing, to believe .

"Yeah," she said, nodding. "I know you don't watch the show—but trust me, it's what Doctor McDreamy would do. And I'm pretty damn heroic," she said, tucking into the narrow space. "Close this up, okay?" she said, and then crawled out of sight.