Shadow Hunters Read Online Free PDF Page A

integrated into the navigation system. He—”
    —sticks it in there, a tiny little thing, easy to miss if you didn’t know what you were looking for and if you didn’t know the bastard’s little trick of—
    “Hey!” Rosemary’s voice cracked like a whip, and the anger that rolled off her was a one-two punch. Jake blinked. She was out from under the console and jabbing a finger in his face so fast he’d barely seen her move. “Get the
hell
out of my head! Don’t you dare do that again without asking me. Do you understand?”
    She was angry out of all proportion to what she was thinking, but Jake knew that wasn’t the point. She had very recently been through a profound experience that she was still trying to integrate. And besides, although he was getting used to the idea of his thoughts being known by another as they popped into his mind, Jake well remembered the outrage he himself had felt when it started to happen.
    The color was high in her cheeks, and her blue eyes sparkled. Jake winced. “Sorry,” he said. “I just was anxious to know what had happened and I didn’t even think about it. It won’t happen again.”
    That is not a safe promise to make, Jacob,
came Zamara’s warning voice.
There may be a time when we need to violate it.
    She’s proven herself amply, in my opinion. You’re so used to doing this casually, as part of who you are. For humans, it’s much more an invasion of privacy.
    Rosemary does have difficulty trusting others,
Zamara agreed.
    That’s the understatement of the year.
    Rosemary searched his gaze and then nodded. She took a deep breath, composed herself, and returned to her task. “This is an old trick of Ethan’s. He integrates the tracking device completely into the navigation system, so that every adjustment and every coordinate goes right back to the source. You don’t just know where this ship is, you know where it’s been. It’s also impossible to remove.”
    Jake blanched, and he felt Zamara’s concern as well. “What does that mean?”
    “It means we need to get an entirely new nav system.”
    He stared at her. “How are we going to do that? We’re on the run in case you haven’t noticed.”
    “I have a good idea where we can start looking safely. But first, I want to have a look at the damage. I’ll suit up and check it out. You and Zamara … don’t touch anything.”
    She scooted out from under the console and got lithely to her feet. Purposefully, she strode toward the locker and began to suit up for a space walk.
    She is deliberately withholding information. She will not tell us where she intends to go.
    Let her cool off,
Jake replied to Zamara.
She’s mad, and I don’t blame her a bit. That was a stupid thing to do. I guess that bump on the head rattled me more than I thought.
    If an alien consciousness inside one’s mind could sigh, Zamara did.
When this is all taken care of and the vessel is repaired, our destination must be Aiur.
    Jake thought about the homeworld of the protoss. Lush, verdant, tropical. Rich with vegetation and animal life, dotted with heart-stoppingly gorgeous relics of the xel’naga in their strange, twining, mysterious beauty. He smiled softly.
    Rosemary, now encased in a suit that would enable her to move around in the cold darkness of space, threw him a glance and scowled a little. “See that light?” She pointed to the console. He looked where she indicated and saw a small button, currently dark. He nodded. “Once I get outside and the doors seal shut again, it’s going to turn green. It’ll stay green the whole time I’m out there. If it turns red and an alarm starts sounding, I’m in trouble. At that point I will give you permission to read my mind so that you can get me safely back inside. Got that?”
    “Yes,” he said. He understood what she was saying. She was putting her life in his hands.
    “Okay then.” She moved to the back of the cabin and touched a button. A door irised open and she stepped