Andromeda Rising: Chapter Five
Sep. 6th, 2008 11:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
amberfocus
Title: Andromeda Rising
Series: Jack's Path (compatible with Time Eternal)
Character/Pairings: Jack Harkness/Andromeda Harper, Ten/Rose, Cassi Tyler Harper/Daniel Harper, Dare Tyler/Martha Jones Tyler, Marsden Tyler, Teganna Tyler, Xanderius Tyler, Rafael Harper, Devora Tyler
Genre: Romance, Action/Adventure, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Implied Horror (non-graphic)
Summary: When Andromeda Harper, granddaughter of the Doctor and Rose runs away after a fight with her mother Cassioepia she encounters a mysterious older man named Jack Harkness who rescues her from danger. He falls head over heels in love with her and offers to show her the universe. She accepts but there's only one problem, she's lied about her age. Make that two problems. They're also being tracked by a group of vicious, cannibalistic, Orion Pack Hunters whose prince is set on having Andromeda for his own and perhaps killing her. Can her family track her down in time to save her? Can Captain Jack keep her safe? And what will happen when Jack discovers Andromeda's been lying to him from the start? Takes place during Jack's missing two years.
1A: http://amberfocus.livejournal.com/47060.h
1B: http://amberfocus.livejournal.com/47125.h
2: http://amberfocus.livejournal.com/72189.h
3: http://amberfocus.livejournal.com/73018.h
4. http://amberfocus.livejournal.com/101704.html
Link to Family Tree: http://amberfocus.livejournal.com/81617.h
Chapter Five: Tracking
“Well? Did you discover anything useful?” Cassi Harper’s foot tapped impatiently while she looked from one young face to the other, her arms crossed defensively across her chest.
“Yeah, we did,” Marsden Tyler said exchanging a glance with his young aunt Tegan. “And you’re not going to like it.”
“Just tell us,” Daniel said gently.
“Well, it’s like this, Danny,” Tegan said not looking at her sister’s face, “Andromeda was in Holy the night she disappeared. But…” She trailed off, looking desperately at her nephew.
“There was an Orion hunting pack there that night. All week, really. And the bartender Anna, the one who was injured the same night as Dromee disappeared, she was on that night, and she said she was pretty sure the alpha…well, he’d scented on Andromeda. She also said a man stepped in to protect her and that she left later that night with the same man. He was quite a bit older than Andromeda. She put him at 30 or so.”
All color drained from Cassi’s face and she turned into her husband. Daniel’s arms hastily enfolded his wife. “She’s alive, though,” said Tegan desperate to comfort her sister. “I can still feel her in my head.”
“I can’t,” sobbed Cassi. “She’s shut the door between us.”
That surprised neither Mars nor Tegan. “Well, what did you expect?” Mars said in exasperation.
At a perfunctory knock on Philia’s door, Tegan strode to answer it. “Dare, Martha, come in,” she said motioning her eldest brother and his wife into the console room.
“Cassi, a woman fitting Andromeda’s description purchased a ticket on the Orion Cutlass Megaliner the night she disappeared. The purchase officer had been bribed with a quite large sum of credits to keep his mouth shut. That’s why we weren’t getting anywhere before. I got him talking,” Dare said darkly. “Seems young Prince Acheron’s been running a little wild with his pack in the entire Denebian system.”
Martha picked up the story. “The boarding operator was also bribed by the alpha. But she did board the ship.” Martha looked away from Cassi’s hopeful eyes. “So did the pack.” She sighed. “But…when she boarded the ship, there was a man in her company. They seemed rather…affectionate to the boarding operator.”
“Wonderful,” said Cassi sarcastically pulling herself together. “So she’s either run off with an older man or she’s been scented by an Orion hunter, or if we’re really lucky, both.”
“That about sums it up,” said Dare. He’d never pulled punches with his sister and he wasn’t about to now. “The good news is the Orion Cutlass is scheduled to drop out of hyperspace later today. It’ll be docking at Danzibar late in the afternoon tomorrow. That gives us thirty-seven hours.”
Cassi looked up at the ceiling doing rapid calculations in her head. “Even if we leave right now, we’ll be in the Vortex for forty hours. She could disappear onto Danzibar and we’d never be the wiser.”
“The cruise she booked goes all the way to Boeotia in Orion,” said Martha. “Even if she disembarks for a few days on the planet, she’ll return to the ship for the remainder of the cruise. We’ll find her.”
“All right,” said Cassi. “Who’s coming with us?”
“I will,” said Mars glancing at his parents. He didn’t technically need their permission, he had his own ship for goodness sake, but it was a habit of a lifetime. Martha gave him an approving smile.
“Tegan?” Cassi said.
“I’ll go check with Mum and Dad.” Cassi’s younger sister darted from the ship.
“Dare? Martha?”
“I’ll come,” said Dare. “Martha can’t.”
“What? Why not?” Cassi asked, looking hurt.
“She’s approaching week seven of a new pregnancy,” said Dare. “That’s when she lost the last two during Vortex travel. We’re not taking any chances.” Dare’s arm tightened protectively around his wife. “Besides, someone needs to look after Devora. And Xan, if Mum and Dad decide to come with us. Though I don’t think they will. Dad’s been muttering about interfering with the timey whiminess of the universe ever since Dromee ran off.”
“Oh, I hate when he does that!” Cassi said in exasperation. “It means he knows something and he’s not sharing.”
Tegan burst back through the doors, a carry pack looped over one shoulder. “They said I could come!” She was excited but then she frowned. “Dad says good luck, but that he and Mum can’t interfere or it’ll skew the timelines. Sorry, sis.”
Cassi sighed, then nodded, accepting the inevitable. “Martha, do you think you can look after Rafe? Or will it be too much? I can ask Mum.”
“I’m fine to watch him,” she said. “I just have to stay out of the Vortex for the next three weeks, that’s all.”
Cassi nodded. “Thank you. And Martha? Dare?”
“Yes?” they responded in unison.
“Congratulations.” She hugged her sister-in-law and brother, then just as quickly stepped away. “Daniel, go wake up Rafe. Let’s get him packed and off with Martha so we can go.”
The little crew bustled into action, Tegan beginning to type in the calculations necessary to send Cassi’s TARDIS to Danzibar and Mars running out to attach his ship to Cassi's so they could travel together. He returned after Cassi and Daniel went to pack up Rafe, just in time to see Dare and Martha go off to one side and begin giving each other a tender, loving good-bye kiss.
After a minute and a half Mars said, “You two are starting to get embarrassing.”
His parents broke apart with silly grins on their faces. “Watch it, Mister,” Martha told her son. “Just remember one day you’re going to find the right girl and you’re going to want to make out, even in front of your parents.”
Mars made gagging noises behind his hand and Tegan burst into wild giggles. “You think they’re bad? Mum and Dad once forgot Xan and I had just gotten home from a visit with Grandma Jackie. They forgot they weren’t still alone on the ship and I thought they were going to have at it right on the console.”
Marsden’s gagging noises got louder. When Dare and Martha looked at each other guiltily, as if complicit in some very similar actions, Tegan almost fell to the floor she was laughing so hard. “I so don’t want to know any of this,” Mars muttered, distracting himself by checking over Tegan's calculations.
Finally he went over to his parents and kissed his mum and hugged her good-bye, smiling down at her. “Take care of yourself and,” his hand hovered over her belly for a moment and he got a look of concentration on his face, “my new little brother.”
Cassi and Daniel emerged with a petulant looking Rafe. Usually he was very mild-mannered but when awoken from a deep sleep he could be a right terror. “Right then, Rafe, go easy on Martha. She’s pregnant,” Daniel said.
Rafe glared at his father for a moment but when he looked back at his aunt he gave her a soft smile and said, “That’s great.” He slipped his hand into Martha’s, his other one clutching his bag. Martha and he departed and Cassi and Dare moved to double check the calculations the children had entered into the computer. A moment later they took flight.
The sense of foreboding had only deepened and Andromeda had refused to leave Jack’s ship for the remainder of hyperspace travel. He’d brought food back twice, the second time frowning as he saw a young man skulking in the corridor outside his cargo compartment. “Can I help you?” Jack said striding forward, his voice anything but welcoming.
The man stiffened and turned, going into a partial crouch. His nose wrinkled as he scented the air. “I’ve lost something,” the man grated out.
“Well, I can guarantee you it’s not in my cargo compartment.” Jack strode rapidly forward until his body was between the door and the other man. The other man slunk backwards, his eyes glittering. There was something vaguely familiar about him, though Jack wasn’t sure exactly what. Someone he’d seen before, someone on the periphery of his vision. Not someone he’d talked to before, but definitely someone he’d seen. Of course, it was a big ship. He could have seen the man anywhere.
“What have you lost?” Jack asked.
The man didn’t answer him, instead looking over his shoulder. Jack heard what sounded like a guttural bark and the man in front of him shuddered. Then without another word to Jack, he turned and loped down the corridor. Jack watched him until he was out of sight. Then he slapped his hand against the palm reader and hurriedly went inside.
Andromeda was where he’d left her, watching a holonovel on his cube reader. When he entered the room she looked up at him and smiled. It made him dizzy sometimes just to look at her and when she smiled like that… He just wanted to hold her, touch her, stroke her skin. He shook it off, the pull of the pheromones, and put the food down on the table.
“It smells good,” she said moving to see what he’d purchased. As she neared him he realized that the food was not the only thing that smelled good. She did, too. Without realizing it he had come up behind her, his arms encircling her waist, his chest pressed against her back. He inhaled deeply at the scent of honeysuckle and wild blackberries.
When she tilted her head his mouth came down on the bare patch of neck she exposed. His lips moved along it, his tongue coming out to taste the deliciousness of her skin. Her breathing began to pick up and he knew his own was increasing. His hands began to rise from her waist and suddenly she turned around, her arms creeping up to his neck and her lips offered to him.
When his mouth greeted hers, her lips fell open, giving him silent permission to take what he wanted. Slowly, so slowly, he stroked his tongue against hers and when she gave a strangled moan and pushed her hips into his it was all he could do to not push her backwards onto the table. Instead he held his control firmly in place, allowing his tongue to creep up under her upper lip and sweep across her gums, just above her teeth, before falling back down to slide against her tongue again. He wanted her so much, felt how much as he hardened against her stomach.
He tore himself away from her, breathing harder than he thought it possible to breathe without being in the middle of a shag.
“Why--?” Andromeda broke off, her voice two octaves higher than it should have been. She coughed. “Why did you stop, Jack? Why do you keep stopping?” She looked somewhat hurt.
“Because you’re not ready to do what I want to do every time I kiss you,” he said bluntly. He moved around to the other side of the table and unpacked the food boxes, focusing his mind on the mind-numblingly boring ten page list of rules and regulations necessary to import a pet of any sort onto the planet Hypaetia, until his breathing calmed and his ardor began to fade. He was extremely grateful at the moment for his eidetic memory.
Andromeda looked down at the table and felt a slow blush creep across her face. The kiss had been amazing, bringing up feelings and desires in her that were getting harder to resist the more time she spent in the man’s presence. She knew he was right, she wasn’t ready to be with a man she’d only known for eleven days, even if it was this man. No matter how deeply she felt for him already.
And his physical presence did overwhelm her, especially when he held her. She had been very much aware of his arousal, a little embarrassed that she had invoked that in him, and extremely curious as to what her first experience with him would be like. She wanted him just as badly as he wanted her. She could tell that from the emotions that were emanating from him, though she’d been careful to stay out of his mind since she’d realized she could enter it.
She was playing with fire and she knew it, but at the same time she wanted desperately to be burned, her skin seared by his kisses, by his caresses, by his... She groaned out loud and was met by his amused expression. “How do you get your mind off it?” she asked him meekly.
“Think of the most boring thing you can think of until it goes away,” he said softly, his eyes twinkling.
Andromeda smiled as her mind went promptly to the history of the Gallifreyan senate that her grandfather had made her memorize when she was thirteen. As her heart rate returned to normal and her desire eased, she blew out a deep breath and then looked up at him with a grin. “Thank you,” she told him. “So what’s to eat?”
“Wow, that was fast,” Jack said. “What did you think about?”
“The political body and how it functioned on my grandfather’s home planet,” she told him. “I had to learn it backwards and forwards when I was thirteen before he’d give me pilot lessons on his ship. Never thought they’d come in useful for anything,” she said with a cheeky grin. “But now I’m glad I know them.”
She poked about in the open boxes of food frowning in concentration while Jack grabbed a couple of plates from the galley. “Oh!” she exclaimed. “Sandovalian?”
Jack laughed. “Exactly. Wonderful stuff. You’ve been to Sandoval?” He piled food on his plate, watching as she did the same.
“Went once with my grandparents when my mum gave birth to my little brother. We spent a week spelunking in the caves of the Ornatate Crevasse and then a day playing with Tirawlian cubs. Amazing place, Sandoval.”
“Playing with Tirawlian cubs? How did you swing that? I thought they were extremely protective of their herds,” Jack said.
“Special dispensation. Gran and Granddad and a friend of theirs saved a herd from extinction once and ever since then, they’ve had an open invitation to visit with any herd on any shield planet. Amazing people, my grandparents,” she said.
“Sounds like it.” They tucked into the food while Andromeda relayed stories from her time on Sandoval.
“So what about you?” Andromeda asked suddenly realizing she’d been monopolizing the conversation. “Have you been there?”
“I’ve gone there with lovers in the past,” he said straight-forwardly meeting her eyes. “But we tended to stick to the resort district, the beaches and clubs.
“Oh,” said Andromeda. She looked away then back into his eyes. “You’ve had a lot of lovers, haven’t you?” she asked.
“I’m not going to lie to you, Andromeda,” he said. “I’m thirty-three and I’ve been sexually active since I was fourteen. And I like sex. A lot. So yes, I’ve had a lot of lovers. And not one of them has ever left my bed unsatisfied.” His eyes burned into hers and though his words seemed arrogant she didn’t believe there was anything but truth in what he said. “But I’ve never formed an attachment to any of them. And I’ve never wanted someone more than I want you.” His hand settled on hers across the table.
“Really, I’ve always been a shag first, ask questions later sort of guy. This is the first time in my life I’ve asked the questions before the shagging.” He hesitated before adding, “Assuming there’s going to be some.”
“Oh, yes!” she said so hastily and enthusiastically that she blushed again and looked down. His hand rose to her chin and he turned her eyes back to look at him.
“That’s good to know,” he said his sensual grin rippling across his face.
She didn’t even realize at first that she was speaking out loud when she said, “The senate in its simplest form was first assembled when the great Ras--.” She broke off. “Sorry,” she said sheepishly.
Jack threw his head back and laughed. “So not a problem,” he grinned at her. He didn’t tell her that he’d moved on from the import rules and regulations of Hypaetia, to the building codes of the planet’s Hu’al province.
“Did you find anything of use, Procyon?” Acheron asked as his second in command returned from exploring the corridors. Procyon was his lead dog though he’d never be an alpha in his own right. He was best at following orders. It was his alacrity and success rate that kept him in his position.
“I scented her near cargo bay fifteen. And saw the captain there. I think he’s keeping her inside,” Procyon said his posture low as he looked up at his alpha.
“Is he aware of our presence?”
“Of the pack, no. I didn’t smell recognition on him. Though…” Procyon was thoughtful for a moment. “He did speak to me. Definitely wanted to run me off. Don’t think he knows what I am though. But he’s protecting something in that cargo bay and since there’s no sign of the girl anywhere on the ship, I think she’s there. It’s palm print locked. Getting her out won’t be easy.”
“They’ll have to come out sometime. We dock in Danzibar tomorrow and I’m sure they’ll make planetfall. We can make our move after they do.”
Satisfied with this solution, Acheron dismissed his lead and curled up on his bed. His eyes surveyed the rest of his pack, watched as Procyon shoved his way into the center of it and curled his body into the middle. He had a plan. And soon he’d have the girl. The look of the jackal had never been as strong about him as it was in that moment.
Ch. 6: http://amberfocus.livejournal.com/137843.html
