Right Ascension (The Sector Fleet, Book 3)

by Nicola Claire

  And then I walked out of the restaurant and headed back to the main deck.

  We had an assault to plan. A boarding to prepare for. And from what I’d just learned, Commander Kereama’s away team were going to have their hands full once they managed to get onboard Aquila.

  My thoughts automatically went to Leo. And for the hundredth time, I tried to think of a way to protect him.

  I couldn’t stop this from happening. I couldn’t do a thing to save him from danger.

  So I chose, at that moment, to trust him. He was a capable officer.

  Just because he held my heart did not mean I had a right to deny him this moment.

  And this moment was definitely Leo’s. He alone could save us from Aquila.

  I walked toward my quarters knowing he’d be there. That thought was the thought that soothed me the most. And made it possible to be the captain I needed to be. As well as his lover.

  Forty-Six

  There Was Simply No Other Option

  Leo

  The door to the captain’s quarters opened and Sophia walked in. She looked good. Not overly exhausted. Back straight and chin up. In command of her world.

  She smiled when her eyes met mine.

  I’d never get used to that. I’d never take it for granted. Sophia Anderson showing me a side of her not many got to see. And I saw it every day. Sometimes several times a day. It was a gift I would never stop craving.

  “Hey,” I said, as she crossed the room, starting to remove her uniform jacket.

  “Hey, yourself,” she offered, slinging the jacket over a chair in the corner. She started on her undershirt.

  My body stirred.

  I looked up at her as she approached my seat. Undershirt gone. Uniform trousers hitting the gel floor at her feet. She walked the last few steps completely naked.

  Fuck me.

  “How did it go with the mayor?” I asked.

  She offered a small curve of her lips and straddled my thighs. My hands found her hips of their own accord, as Sophia reached up and pulled the hair clip from her bun, letting her hair tumble down behind her.

  She placed the clip out of reach before I could claim it. Either she knew what I’d been doing, or she just didn’t want to lose it. She reached down and gripped my hands, taking them off her hips, and wrapping them around the chair seat I was sitting on.

  “It went as well as can be expected,” she said once my hands were where she wanted them to be.

  She leaned in and kissed up my neck, nibbling on my ear.

  I leaned back and tilted my head to the side, allowing her better access. My cock strained against the confines of my trousers. Sophia didn’t rub herself against me, she just sucked on my neck, breathed hot air over my ear, and did it all while straddling me, naked.

  It was enough. Trust me. It was more than enough to make me want to beg.

  “Nowak’s security force has been sent to the brig,” she said, licking over where she’d been sucking my skin for the past few seconds.

  She admired her work for a moment and then kissed over my jaw to the other side.

  I let out a little moan of content.

  “Nikolaev confirmed he had plans to overthrow the captain,” she said a second or two later.

  “Was he in on it?” I asked, having to think hard to form a coherent sentence.

  “I didn’t pursue that line of enquiry,” she said. “Some things can never be adequately determined.”

  Meaning the mayor could easily lie about it, and we’d be none the wiser. Well, maybe wiser, just not certain.

  I moaned again when Sophia suckled on my ear, giving it a little nip.

  “I’ll know the extent of the leaseholder’s preparations, and therefore an idea of what Aquila’s leaseholder might have planned, at 0800 tomorrow,” she said.

  “Ah-huh,” I managed.

  Sophia chuckled, and then clearly satisfied that she’d reduced me to a gibbering mess, reached down and undid my trousers, freeing my aching dick.

  Without a moment’s delay, she lifted up, placed my cock head at her entrance, and then lowered herself down my shaft.

  I made an inarticulate sound that could be translated as “Fuck me that’s good” if she chose to do so.

  She laughed. And then moaned. And then started to lift herself back up off my cock, to the very tip, so very slowly, and then slammed her body back down again.

  My fingers ached as I held onto the chair seat beneath us. But that didn’t mean I wasn’t without options.

  I ducked my head as she lifted up again, and placed my lips on her nipple, sucking hard.

  Her hands went to my head, and she fisted her fingers in my hair, holding me to her. She fucked me as I sucked in time on her breast. Both of us moaning.

  Within seconds we were panting, and groaning, and muttering incoherent words that definitely had something to do with how good it was, and then sweat slicked and bodies thrumming, I came hard. Sophia followed me over the edge of that beautiful abyss, moaning low and long.

  It was so damn sexy.

  I lifted my hands as she lay her head on my shoulder, and wrapped my fingers around her waist. And then I stood up, my trousers hanging down around my knees, and somehow managed to get us into the bathroom, and turned the shower on.

  Exactly six minutes later, I had her naked, sated, soaped up and rubbed down body in our bed, and I crawled in behind her, wrapping her up in my arms.

  We lay there for a long time, just listening to each other’s breathing, neither of us ready to sleep just yet.

  “Repairs have been completed. We should have the jump point and therefore Aquila on long-range scans by lunchtime tomorrow,” she finally said.

  “Commander Kereama has advised she’ll be here at 1600 hours,” I added.

  “How many has she recommended for the boarding party?” Sophia asked, running her fingers over my arm.

  “Two,” I said.

  She stilled. And then turned in my arms to look at me.

  “Just two?”

  I shrugged. “Stealth approach, I suppose.”

  Sophia frowned at me.

  I leaned in and kissed her on her nose.

  The frown became a scowl instead.

  “Something about collateral damage,” I offered. “I didn’t press. She didn’t look like she wanted to discuss it.”

  Sophia let out a slow breath, centring herself, and then she started following the contours of my jaw and face with a finger. I watched her study her progress.

  “I don’t want to let you go,” she said.

  “I don’t want to go,” I offered.

  “This has to be done,” she said, her eyes shiny all of a sudden.

  It was enough to throw me for too long a moment. I didn’t offer a reply quickly enough.

  She blinked, and the wetness vanished.

  “You can do this,” she said.

  “Is that Captain Anderson talking,” I said. “Or Sophia, my lover?”

  “Both,” she said.

  I nodded.

  We settled down into the bed, the lights dimming further, letting us know that Corvus was paying attention to us. Not an exactly welcome thought. But the young AI had promised she wouldn’t watch us.

  We had to take our victories where we could.

  “Don’t die, Leo,” Sophia whispered just as I was drifting off to sleep.

  “I don’t plan to,” I promised.

  I held the woman I loved as we slept. I held her to my body as I held her to my heart. She’d let me go. She’d let me do this. She wouldn’t interfere because we both knew this had to be done.

  Why did such life-threatening things happen just when you realised you had the most glorious life?

  I knew why I thought. Because without that knowledge, you wouldn’t have someone to come home to. Someone to live for.

  Coming home to Sophia was all that mattered. The look on her face as she walked through the door. The quiet words over a shared supper. The deconstruct
ion of a harrowing day. The moments of shared laughter. The intimacy of making love. The ability to reach inside one another and offer comfort and support, love and understanding.

  We would do this. And we would come out the other side alive.

  There was simply no other option.

  Forty-Seven

  Roll On Tomorrow

  Sophia

  There have been times in my life where I haven’t fit in. Where I’ve been called names, I did not believe I deserved.

  And then there have been times when I have been at one with the universe, and those same names have held a different meaning. A truer meaning. One I could live with.

  I was no longer Steel Tits in the eyes of many, but as I stood in the launch bay beside Captains Jameson and Vaughan, looking at the line-up of remote-controlled shuttles Corvus had retro-fitted with lethal explosives and Commander Rey was inspecting, I felt more like steel than I had ever been before.

  We’d amassed a squadron of mosquitos we hoped would drain Aquila of his blood. Little pinpricks of discomfort that alone couldn’t do too much to the Anderson Universal vessel. But together, like the Sector One, Two and Three Fleets were now together, could do some serious damage.

  Destroying Aquila was not the outcome we wanted. But distracting Aquila with so many little annoyances might just be enough for a smaller, hopefully, less obvious annoyance, to slip in close enough to do serious injury to the AI itself.

  I glanced across the launch bay to the stealth shuttle Leo and Commander Kereama would be using. Flown by none other than our Lieutenant Sokolov.

  Our stealth vessel. Our pilot. Leo had insisted.

  The aim was to get in close enough for Commander Kereama and Leo to perform a ship to ship EVA. But unlike any extravehicular activity ever performed by our crews before, this one was designed to get both Kereama and Leo onboard Aquila by using their doctored LSUs to direct their manoeuvres in open space.

  It was risky and unprecedented, but flying a shuttle into Aquila’s launch bays would be detected. Slipping two stealth officers in through an otherwise unimportant at that moment docking portal was just doable. Just.

  Or so Leo told me.

  He had codes. He understood the systems. He could get them in undetected. Kereama, she said, was there to provide the muscle.

  I wasn’t sure Leo appreciated her take on things. Having his own muscles and such.

  Once Leo and Kereama had exited the stealth vessel, and under the cover and distraction of the drone shuttles, Sokolov would leave them, returning to Corvus; having performed his part of the mission.

  I didn’t like it. I didn’t like any of it. But I stood there beside Captains Jameson and Vaughan as if I were made of steel. I stood there and watched Commander Rey perform her final inspection. I stood there and pretended my heart wasn’t fracturing and my world wasn’t about to fall apart.

  “This sucks,” Jameson said.

  I blinked at him.

  “Do you think I want her to go off without me?” he asked.

  Vaughan chuckled. “That’s why you give them a job that requires they stay at home,” he offered.

  “Good God, listen to yourself,” Jameson scoffed. “Ever heard of women’s lib?” Vaughan laughed, his ears turning pink while he did it. “I could suggest they might need a chief engineer too, Noah,” Jameson growled. “Don’t push your luck.”

  “Nobody suggests anything to Camille, John,” Captain Vaughan replied, scratching his stubble.

  Jameson sighed. “I couldn’t hold Ana back if I tried. That’s not who she is.”

  They both looked at me.

  “Um,” was all I said.

  “You’ll learn,” they both said and then laughed.

  I shook my head and looked back at the stealth shuttle. Commander Kereama, Jameson’s Ana, was talking to Lieutenant Sokolov. Leo stood off to the side, running a hand over the sharp angles of the vessel, talking softly. I had no way to know what he was saying, but I presumed he was talking to Corvus one last time.

  I let out a slow breath of air and commanded my heart to stop thumping.

  Commander Rey walked back toward us.

  “Everything seems in order,” she said.

  “Well, of course, it is,” Corvus replied. “Duh! I do know how to retro-fit a shuttle.”

  “Don’t lie,” Commander Rey said easily. “Pavo helped you.”

  “He did no such thing! I don’t need that windbag telling me what to do.”

  “So, the romance is over?” I asked.

  “What romance?” Corvus snapped. “Captain, I wouldn’t crush on that AI if he was the last AI in the universe.”

  “I see,” I said, while the officers around me all shook their heads.

  “Besides,” Corvus added. “He’s a goody two shoes. I’ve decided I like bad boys better. I thought I told you this.”

  “You did,” I offered. “I simply pushed it from my mind.”

  Jameson snorted.

  “Who’s the lucky bad boy, then?” Vaughan asked.

  “Vela,” Corvus said with a happy sigh.

  “Oh, dear God,” Captain Vaughan muttered. “Quick, Chief, warn Vela fast.”

  “Humph,” Corvus replied.

  “There is something seriously wrong with your AI,” Jameson pointed out as Commander Kereama, Lieutenant Sokolov and Leo walked toward us.

  “There’s nothing at all wrong with our AI,” I said, my eyes all for Leo.

  “Thank you, Captain,” Corvus said.

  “You’re welcome,” I automatically replied.

  Leo stopped before me. I registered that Kereama had stopped before Jameson. Camille had already been standing in front of Vaughan and Sokolov stood off to the side, looking perplexed. If not a little nervous.

  I thought that last was for the upcoming flight.

  “We’re ready,” Kereama said. “So is Pavo.”

  “As is Vela,” Commander Rey said.

  I looked into Leo’s eyes. I couldn’t seem to look anywhere else just then.

  “I am ready, too, in case you were wondering,” Corvus said.

  “So, this is it,” Jameson offered, ignoring our AI.

  “Yep,” Kereama replied. “Oorah,” she said.

  They stared at each other, but I was barely aware. I was too busy staring at Leo.

  I could do this. I could let him go. Let him be the man he needed to be. I could do this.

  “Damn it all to hell,” Jameson said and stepped forward, reaching up to cup a hand behind Ana’s neck. He pulled her in for a lip-smacking kiss.

  We all stared. Then Captain Vaughan looked at Camille, who instantly shook her head.

  They shared a kiss a moment later. Albeit briefly.

  I looked back at Leo.

  “What do you say?” I said.

  “Ah,” he offered; flicking a glance at Sokolov, and then at the rest of the launch bay crew and security dotted about.

  “Come on,” I said in encouragement. “All the other captains are doing it.”

  He shook his head, lips twitching.

  I leaned in, grabbed hold of his LSU by the front of it, and hauled him closer. Then I kissed the breath out of him. I kissed the world away. I kissed away the worry.

  I kissed him as if I could tell him through that kiss how important he was to me. How important it was that he return.

  I kissed him longer than Jameson kissed Kereama or Vaughan kissed Camille. I kissed him until we could hear catcalls and wolf-whistles and Jameson laughing his head off.

  “Now that’s a goodbye kiss,” he said.

  I pulled back, breathless slightly. Leo looked a little dazed.

  “No,” I said, smiling at Leo as he smiled back. “That’s a promise.”

  “A promise I aim to keep,” Leo said.

  “Oh, this is so much better than the chick flick I’m watching,” Corvus announced.

  We all ignored her. It wasn’t hard. Leo stood before me, a promise in his eyes that matched mine.
/>   This wasn’t goodbye. This wasn’t even until we meet again.

  This was a promise to return to each other at the end of the day. To unwind together. To debrief. To make plans for a new day. This was a promise that nothing, not battles or politics or command of a spaceship, would get in the way.

  This was our promise, and we made it to each other, even as I watched him walk away.

  Leo, Commander Kereama, and Lieutenant Sokolov walked up the ramp onto the stealth vessel.

  Jameson turned to look at me only after the door sealed shut behind them.

  “This sucks,” he said.

  I nodded my head.

  It did suck. But Leo was mine, and I was his. And at the end of the day, we’d be together.

  “Come back to me,” I whispered.

  “Yeah,” Jameson said in heartfelt agreement.

  I closed my eyes briefly, thought of the kiss we’d just shared, and then sighed.

  Roll on tomorrow. And being back together.

  Forty-Eight

  Nothing In This Or Any Universe

  Leo

  I played with the hair clips I had slipped into my pocket earlier. Watching Sophia out of the shuttle’s window. Sokolov performed his pre-flight checks in the cockpit as Commander Kereama sat beside me in the aft of the vessel, staring out of the same portal.

  “Well, this sucks,” she said.

  I chuckled.

  “You and Captain Anderson, eh?” she asked in her kiwi accent.

  “Yeah,” I said, smiling.

  She whistled. “Good for you,” she said.

  “Yeah,” I repeated.

  I patted the pocket, the hair clips safely tucked away inside and twisted toward the front of the shuttle.

  “All good, Sokolov?” I asked.

  “Aye, sir. Pre-flight checks complete. We are go for launch. Just waiting on final clearance from Corvus.”

  “Is Aquila showing on short-range scans?” I asked.

  “Affirmative, sir,” Sokolov advised. “We’ve now entered engagement range.”