chapter 1

"Jakara"  (working title)



Chapter I



    “So why were you with Torrin?” Keeran asked as the doors slid shut behind them.



Jakara turned to face him hands on hips. “Because I was.”



    “Why didn't you leave him?”



    “He needed me.”



    “You didn't have to stay with him.” He sighed.



    “I know.”



    “Then why?”



    “It’s very addictive you know.” Defensively she folded her arms.



    “What is?”



    “Having someone that needs you.”



Keeran paused but couldn’t help himself from asking. “...Did you love him?”





    “...Yes!”

Keeran brushed past her and walked further into the cargo bay. “Then why are you here?”



    “You kidnapped me!” Jakara exclaimed as she stamped her foot, hoping that it would show how frustrated she was at the

situation.



He spun round. “I didn't kidnap you I saved you!”



Jakara squared herself up to Keeran, staring him straight in the eye. She was almost the same height and he was considered tall. “Did I ask you to save me?”



He couldn’t keep eye contact and dropped them to the floor “No...Not in so many words.”



She stared straight at him. “How many words?”



He eyes looked everywhere except at her. “Well none exactly.”

   

    “So you just assumed that I needed saving?”



    “Well...Yes.”

   

    “Why?”



Now he paused and did look her in the eyes. “It was the way you looked at me! Plus he is a man who's well known for hurting people and is wanted in more than a dozen systems!”



Jakara blinked first, wishing she didn’t have to say these things “Did you ever see him lay a finger on me?”



Keeran shook his head in confusion he wasn’t usually wrong about his intuition (even when women were concerned) and he was sure that since they’d met that there was something more than what met the eye. “No! But that doesn’t mean he didn't.”



    “I can assure you that he never touched me that way.” She looked him in the eye again as she said this and wished that he could read her thoughts. Torrin had never touched her physically, but who would ever believe that he had never touched her with his hands, just with his mind and that machine, she shivered.



Keeran turned his head to one side and tried to see through those deep blue eyes into her brain. “That way?”

   

    “Yes.”



He could tell that she was telling the truth for maybe the first time since they had boarded the Admiral on Meltac, whilst trying to escape from Torrin and the rest of his crew. But he couldn’t figure out what her game was. “But he did touch you?”



Again Jakara looked away first. “Yes, what did you think he just liked my taste in coffee?”



    “No... I didn’t really think that far.” Keeran took a step back and felt the loss of her closeness run through his ever fibre.



Jakara felt it too, that she had lost him, but had to go through with it anyway as it could mean her life or death if what she suspected was true. “No you didn't did you? Because you didn’t want to, you wanted to think that I was the little woman who needed rescuing from the big bad monster and you being the white knight that you are, thought you were the one to do it. So what did you think would happen now? That I would be so grateful, that I’d fall in love with you and then we’d live happily ever after?”



    “Yeah well.” Keeran ran his fingers through his hair, “Something like that.”



    “It’s just a pity you didn't mention it first before you grabbed me, kidnapped me and then blew up my home and killed all of my friends.”



Keeran frowned “You call them your friends?”



    “Well I wouldn't be on the same ship with them if they weren't. I have to like the people I live and work with and I was actually quite proud to call them friends.”



Jakara turned her head away trying not to let the tears she could feel welling up inside to fall, how much longer did she have to go on like this it was killing her to have to say these things. If only she knew where he was and if he was really listening but she couldn’t risk it.



Keeran thinking she was crying for her so called friends, turned around to give her some privacy. He was so stupid, he was sure whenever they had met that she felt something for him. How could he have been so wrong and now he had used up the last of his weapon arsenal to blow up a ship for no real reason.

Serves me right for being such a silly fool, he smiled, grandma always said a tall, beautiful, brown-haired, beauty, would be the down fall of me.



Actually, Keeran thought turning back that was exactly what she said and if he remembered rightly she also said the woman had a mark or scar on her left buttock. (His grandmother was a crystal-gazer and was rarely ever wrong.)



    “What are you looking at?” Asked Jakara.



    “Sorry I was just thinking.”



    “Well stop just thinking it and helloo my face is up here!” Maybe she wasn’t losing her touch after all.

He returned his gaze to her face and shook his head as if to clear it of something. “Sorry.”



    “Captain?” A voice came over the internal communications system



Keeran lifted his head. “What is it Dalmar?”



    “I'm not sure boss but I think we may have a stowaway on board!”



Keeran straightened his body, at once on full alert. “A what and you think?”



    “Yeah well, I was just doing a systems check to see what damage we had taken and I noticed that just before we fired that last missile and the Darius exploded...”



    “Yes?”

   

    “Well, there was a power surge aboard the Darius but only for a split second and then at the same time that it disappeared a similar surge appeared on the Admiral.”



    “And you think that this surge was some kind of transferential beam?”



    “Not like any I have seen before but yes.”



    “Ok and you think this why?” Knowing Dalmar had to have more before he would dare interrupt his captain.

 

    “Because the computer is showing me unauthorised personnel in sick bay!”



Keeran started toward the door. “Why didn't you tell me this at first? Where's Neela?”



    “She's on her way there and she's mad!”

 

    “Why?”



    “She lost another finger in the fight and she doesn’t have a spare this time!”



    “Ok tell her I’m on my way and not to do anything stupid!”



    “I'll try.”



As the door slid open he felt a gentle hand on his arm.

   

    “Be careful.”



There it was that feeling again, but he spoke anyway as she had hurt his feelings with her talk of losing friends. “Why because you don't want me to kill your lover?”



Jakara lowered her eyes and let him go.



***