Zia and the Captain 1 (Love Amongst the Stars)

Zia and the Captain

Volume One

First published 2017

Copyright © Susan Bella Ikin 2017

No parts of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the copyright owner.

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. Under no circumstances may any part of this book be photocopied for resale.

This is a work of fiction. Any similarity between the characters and situations within its pages and places or persons, living or dead, is unintentional and co-incidental.

One

She woke up with her heart pounding.  Was someone in her house, or had she had a nightmare?  She lay in bed, frozen in fear, listening intently.  It could have been a nightmare, she had been tossing and turning, unable to sleep properly.  Had she fallen asleep without realizing it, and was even now having a bad dream?

It had been a hot day, and although her work as a public prosecutor was undertaken in an air conditioned office, with only the occasional dash out to court, it had been a sticky ride home on the train, jammed up against other hot, smelly people, and her house was hot.  After a quick microwave dinner, she tried to read some of the documents about the new case she had been assigned that day, but unable to concentrate, she gave up, had a cool shower, and went to bed early, hoping for a good night’s sleep so that she could get an early start the next day.

But sleep had been elusive, and when she woke up suddenly, it didn’t feel like she had been asleep for very long.  She wanted to turn her head to look at the clock to work out what time it was, but was reluctant to move in case there really was someone near.  If there was someone in the house, or worse, in her room, she wanted to pretend that she was still asleep until she could formulate a plan.  Under normal circumstances she was calm and logical, but this situation was anything but normal.  Her heartbeat was thundering in her ears and she was having trouble breathing, she knew she wasn’t far from being in a panic.

She decided to try to pretend to be asleep, and roll from her back to her side, facing the side of the bed and the door, so that she could jump out of bed if she needed to.  So she made a slight muttering noise, trying to sound like she imagined she would sound if she was really sleeping, and started to roll over.  Then, her worst fears were realized, as she became aware that there was someone in the room with her.

In the weak light coming in through the gap in the curtains, she saw a shadow move, and then, horrified, she saw a glint of metal as if a knife was being raised up in the air and the blade had caught the light.

Suddenly there was a blinding bright light, was this what death was like? 

She had a momentary sensation of a hard pressure on her chest, and a searing pain, and then felt a vague sensation that there were people in the room with her and her killer.  Then there was nothing.

For the captain, although he had perfected the art of presenting a calm, stoic façade, inside he was frantic with worry.  The accident, or whatever it was,  that had brought them here had been bad enough, now a crewman had gone missing after apparently sabotaging vital security systems that were supposed to prevent anyone leaving without authorization.  He had been under surveillance for a few days as his behaviour had been noted as unusual, so as soon as it was noticed that he was missing, security had reviewed the data on his computer and it had become apparent that he had to be apprehended immediately.  Unfortunately, he had also disabled his tracking device, so it had taken time to locate him, and the captain was afraid that they would not be in time.  When he saw the scene from the woman’s bedroom, he was afraid that they were too late.

She came to, confused.  Had she been dreaming?  That couldn't be - normally in her dreams she didn't have any physical sensations, but she had definitely felt pain in that one.  She became aware that she wasn't in her own bedroom, and looked around, thinking that she must have gone mad.  She appeared to be in a bland, almost sterile, room.  There weren’t any windows.  This was not her bedroom.  She heard a ‘ping’ behind her, and moved her head, seeing a computer screen on the wall behind the bed.  Then she realized that the bed she was lying on seemed to be like a hospital bed.  It was only single sized, and had that hard, institutional feel.  Was she in a hospital ward?  She felt her chest, and was surprised to not feel any dressings.  In fact, there was very little sensation at all, if she had truly been stabbed, where was the pain from the wound?  She turned her head to the side and looked around.  It didn’t look like any hospital ward she had ever been in.  Where was the little cupboard for her belongings?  Where was the drip, and the heart rate monitor?  Where was the television that was normally attached to the wall in front of the bed where the patient could watch it?  Where on earth was she?

She gently pushed back the sheet from her legs and swung her legs to the side, sitting up as she did.  She paused as she felt a very slight discomfort in her chest, but continued as it was not all that painful.  She thought she must have been unconscious for a long time to have healed so well.  While having that thought, she realized that meant that she obviously wasn’t dead, so now she had a lot more questions that needed answering.  She was pretty sure that an intruder had stabbed her in the chest, so how had she survived?  Why hadn’t he continued until she was dead? Where did he go?  How was she found?  Maybe he had thought she was dead and left, and then when she didn't turn up at work the next day her colleagues had raised the alarm?  That seemed plausible.  But who was this intruder?  Why had he picked her?

She stood slowly and waited until she was sure that she was steady on her feet before trying a step.  Reassuringly, she didn’t fall over.  She felt around her back and realized that the outfit she was wearing was not one of those embarrassing ones without a back, so that was something else about this hospital room that didn’t seem right.  She was actually wearing some sort of track suit.  She looked around at the bed that she had just got out of, and couldn't see a bedpan.  She took hold of the waistband of the pants, pulled them away from her body and looked down.  No, no catheter appeared to be attached.  This was getting stranger and stranger.  Since getting out of bed didn’t seem to have set off any alarms and no-one appeared to be coming, she pulled the zip of the top down slightly and looked down.  There, on her left side, very near to where she thought her heart would be, was a small scar.  She zipped back up again.  Clearly for her body to have healed so well, she must have been out for a long time, so how did the hospital take care of her bodily functions?  She hadn’t been attached to a drip for nutrition and hydration, and with neither a bedpan or catheter in evidence, how had she received food and water, and how had her bodily wastes been taken care of? 

More than curious now, she looked toward the opening in the wall that appeared to be the doorway and moved slowly towards it, leaning against the wall as she felt a little disoriented.  She leaned around the corner and peered into the next room and was amazed at what she saw.

At a desk, with his back to her was a fair haired man.  Because of the high back of his chair she couldn’t see what he was wearing, but it certainly wasn’t a white doctor’s coat.  He was working at a computer screen, or at least she thought he was working, it actually looked more like he was playing a video game.  Instead of a keyboard, he was swiping the screen and the next thing she knew, he was speaking to the computer.  Perhaps he had a voice operated word processing program , she thought.  She looked along the wall from where she was standing and saw another opening, so assumed it led through to another room similar to the one she was in.  On the left was a closed door, and on the right was a glass wall, it looked like there was another room on the other side of the glass wall.  Directly in front of the desk, and a few paces ahead, was what looked like a sliding door.  As she stood there, wondering whether to speak up or not, feeling very disoriented and trying to make sense of what she had seen so far, without warning the door in front of the desk opened, and a man walked through.  He saw her standing there, and she drew in a breath in shock.  The man was so beautiful that he took her breath away – tall, dark and handsome was too insipid to describe him, but the most striking feature about him was his amazing golden eyes, which were fixed on her.

The man sitting at the desk spun around and saw her standing there.  He smiled and pushed his chair back, grabbing something from the desk and approaching her.  He seemed pleasant enough, but she felt there was something just not right about where she was and she started backing up in fear.  She reached behind herself for the doorknob so that she could shut the door and shut the men out of her room, but there wasn’t a door.  She scooted around behind the bed and held out her hands, trembling.

She tried to speak in her courtroom voice, clear and confident, but was shocked to hear her voice sound wobbly and breathless:

Please, tell me where I am.  I’ve never seen a hospital like this, and neither of you look like doctors.  Can you tell me what happened, and give me a phone so I can call a friend to come and get me?

The two men looked at each other.  Something unspoken seemed to pass between them, and it did not make her feel any less afraid.  She passed a shaky hand over her forehead.  Perhaps she wasn’t as well as she had thought, or maybe she was correct, and there was something not right about where she found herself.  The action drew the attention of the man who had previously been sitting down and he took a slow step towards her, stopping only when she took another step backwards.  He spoke gently and slowly.

You’ve had a serious injury and this is the first time you’ve been awake.  I’d like to examine you, if that’s alright with you.  I promise I won’t hurt you, but you don’t look well and I’m a bit worried that you might have overtaxed yourself.  Look – all I need to do is to take some readings of your vital signs with this – and he held up a little gadget about the size of a mobile phone – it’s not invasive, no needles or anything, see? – and he turned it around so she could see all sides of it, and it did not seem to have any needles or anything else protruding from it. 

She regarded him for a few seconds, trying to decide whether he looked harmless or not, but was still having difficulty processing everything that had happened since she woke up to find someone in her room.  She decided that he did appear safe, but it would be prudent to proceed with some caution.

Hold out your other hand, she said, pointing to the hand that wasn’t holding the gadget.

He held up the hand to show her that there was nothing in it, so she nodded to indicate that he could approach, but qualified it with:

As soon as you’ve examined me, I want some answers.  Who attacked me and why am I here?  Where are my clothes and when can I go home?

The man looked to the other, taller man, who had been silent this whole time and nodded at him as he spoke.

As soon as I am done here, you can deal with those questions, Captain.

Her head turned to look at the taller man, shocked at his title, and she didn’t really pay attention to what the other man was doing.  She stared at the tall man, who continued to regard her quietly.  Captain of what?  Suddenly it began to make sense to her.  This must be a military operation of some sort, that was why everything was so unfamiliar.  Well, she could wait.  The man that she had decided must be some sort of doctor had finished already, he must have only waved that little gadget over her and she had felt nothing, and she had only been inattentive for a few seconds.  He moved towards the computer and he put the gadget into some sort of dock, it appeared that it was to download whatever data he had extracted from her.  He withdrew the gadget, and held it while he looked at the big screen over the bed.  She still didn't understand how that data could have been extracted without any physical contact, but if this was a military operation, who would know what technology they had?  Obviously the military had been developing new technology that they had not shared with the wider medical profession, which wasn't good, but wasn’t unexpected either.  The three of them waited for the results, no-one speaking.  Her brain was spinning, trying to work out why she was involved with the military.  She tried to recall details of the cases she had worked on recently, and couldn’t make any connections.  This must have something to do with her attacker.  Maybe when she knew his identity, this would be clearer. 

The doctor reviewed the information on the screen and turned to her.

"Well, it all looks good.  Your stress levels are up though, but that’s to be expected in the circumstances.  I would prefer you to get back into bed