Red nodded and closed his data pad as well. “My people have safely got everyone’s family your people found and have terminated or detained a dozen of the General’s soldiers or the people he had hired to hold and kill the families.”
“Good,” she said. “Now we just have to stop the General before he can launch yet another attack.”
“Any idea how?” Red said and then took the last bite of his sandwich.
She finished the last bite of her sandwich as well, enjoying the taste of it for the first time while thinking about his question. “Not a one,” she finally said.
“So we wait until we get close to his base to see what we are up against?” Red said.
“You know I hate waiting, don’t you,” she said. And she did. She hated it more than anything else.
He laughed, this time the amusement reaching his eyes. “I never would have guessed that.”
“Can’t this go any faster?” she asked, smiling at him. She knew this ship was traveling at a far faster rate than she had ever gone before. And under normal circumstances she would have been impressed.
Actually she was impressed. But that didn’t help the impatience.
He glanced down at his data pad. “Two hours and thirty-one minutes to the nebula. “Let’s head back to the control room to make sure no one is waiting for us.”
She liked that idea, and even though she felt a slight tinge of disappointment that he didn’t suggest they head to the bedroom to spend the time, she was happy he had suggested what he did.
At the moment her mind was on the mission. She had no doubt there would be more than enough time for them to be together in the future.
Depending, of course, if they both survived all this.
And at that moment, that was very much in doubt.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
THEY WERE IN THE CONTROL ROOM of Red’s ship, both working at different stations. Except for quick updates or short questions, they had worked in silence since the sandwiches that had served as their third meal of the day. And silence suited Mattie just fine.
She liked how they could do that. Red didn’t feel like he needed to keep a conversation going all the time. It made her feel like she was not only working alone, but also with great help at the same time.
She liked that feeling.
The last update she got from Sector Force Headquarters was that they were convinced all the passenger liner bombers were captured and now they were checking other ships inbound or already in orbit.
From the looks of it they had completely stopped this third attack on the Sector Force.
And that made her feel much, much better.
And hugely relieved.
But now they needed to stop the person responsible for it all before he could launch yet another attack. That monster was on the other side of this hole in the bright curtain of the nebula that they were approaching.
Red finished his last update with his people and turned to her.
“My people feel they are close to Chief Lovell’s family. They have most of the families of the bombers safe. It seems that all of the bombers were being blackmailed.”
“Good,” she said.
She glanced up at the big screen showing the nebula approaching. A nebula was nothing more than dust and debris tossed off by a past explosion of a star. But that dust and debris, while beautiful, was full of extreme radiation that would block all communications once they were in it and on the other side.
Getting this close it just looked like a massive wall of colors stretching off in all directions.
“How long do you think we’ll be in communication blackout?” she asked.
“Until we come back to this side of the nebula,” Red said. “Or move a pretty good distance off to one side of it. The radiation of that nebula curtain won’t allow anything through.”
He looked up at the monitors and she did the same thing. That was what she had figured. She didn’t like the idea of being out of touch with the Sector Force at this point, and she could tell Red didn’t much like the idea of losing contact with his people at Innocence Inc. either. But they had to go through and see what kind of forces General Jarvis had massed on the other side.
The large hole in the nebula curtain was starting to grow in size as they approached. In reality it was large enough for a normal solar system to exist inside it, but the radiation was so intense from the nebula, nothing much could even go through it. And compared to the vast size of the nebula, it looked like a small hole.
“Double-checking the shields,” he said aloud, just to keep her informed.
After a moment he nodded and glanced at her. “We’re set. We’ll be on the other side in about twenty minutes and then I’m going to slow us down and move us to one side into a radiation-free pocket so we can safely just observe the abandoned station.”
She nodded her agreement to his plan and turned back to the panel she sat in front of. It was a sensor board and she had it on extreme settings, searching for any signs of any ships. So far not one sign of anything on this side of the nebula hole.
More than likely the General never thought anyone would try going through the extreme radiation of this hole. Or had the ability to do it without dying. So he hadn’t set up any ships to guard this route.
But who knew what waited for them on the other side. And because of the radiation, they were going in basically blind.
“Here we go,” he said.
A moment later the colors of the nebula seemed to dim and everything around the ship sort of went to a dusty haze. Nebulas were always best observed at a distance because they were nothing more than dust and radiation that caused the intense colors.
Mattie watched the screens intensely. There was nothing pretty at all inside this nebula.
They sat in silence, Red watching the readings and shields and she keeping an eye out for any sign of any kind of ship.
Finally, after what seemed like an eternity to Mattie, he said, “We’re almost out.”
And then they were out.
Suddenly.
Now they were on The Emptiness side of the nebula.
“Magnification on the abandoned station coming up,” she said, her fingers moving as fast as she could over the panel. She was relieved that there were no ships at all close to their location, even though they were cloaked. Extreme radiation was known to do strange things to cloaks at times.
Red didn’t seem to be saying it had bothered the ships’ cloak, though, which was a great thing. A lucky break for them.
Suddenly, on the screen in front of her, she saw what she flat didn’t want to see. There had to be thirty ships at least docked at the abandoned space station.
She recognized most as older military types from different cultures around the second sector. And only two ships were like the one they had captured at the Bodie Station.
Plus one was a liner-sized ship, more than likely the General’s private headquarters. From what she had studied about him, the guy liked to live in luxury while others around him lived in dorms with little food.
He ruled by terror and threats and didn’t care at all about the people who did his bidding. She was going to take great pleasure in finishing him and putting him out of the Sector’s mind forever.
“Oh, oh,” was all she could say at the image of all the ships.
Her stomach twisted into a tight knot.
Red said nothing at all.
She couldn’t believe that Jarvis had managed to gather that large of a force. More than likely this fleet was larger than any planet’s forces in the region. Granted, there were always dictators and governments coming and going on planets in both sectors. And regional conflicts on planets that often sprang up.
But very few planets could afford or need large space forces.
After a few moments Mattie finally looked over at Red. He seemed to shake himself and quickly moved the ship to a safe place keeping the nebula behind them, but out of radiation problems. The shields w
ere still solidly in place, so they were cloaked and basically invisible to any form of scanning.
“Let’s get readings on all those ships,” he said and she nodded, not liking at all what she was seeing.
The two of them went quickly to work, running scans that would not be detected at all by any of the ships at the station.
Fifteen minutes later, when they had finished, she felt a lot better about what they faced.
“Compare notes,” she said and Red nodded. “Fire away.”
“Five of the older military ships are nothing but dorms for the soldiers and have been cannibalized for parts. They are never moving or fighting again.”
“Agree,” he said. “That leaves twenty-five ships that are active.”
She nodded so he went on. “A least four of the functioning older military ships don’t have any speed at all and would take almost a week to get around the nebula and back to the Bodie Station in the short direction.”
“I agree with that,” Mattie said, checking her findings as well. The trip they had just taken in a matter of hours would take those ships docked at that station a week. That helped and gave them a ton of options.
“The other twenty-one ships can make the trip in three days,” Red said. My sense is that is the General’s attack force.”
It was her turn, so she started in on the details of the small passenger liner. “From what I can tell, the liner has some decent speed and is in pretty good shape. But it has no defensive capabilities and even at its fastest it would take three days as well to make the trip around the nebula.”
“It’s no wonder this station and resort was abandoned,” Red said. “It’s just too far out.”
Mattie could nothing but agree to that.
They kept comparing notes, detail by detail. Red had found the same basic information she had, and also he had discovered the fact that almost none of the station had been rebuilt at all. The soldiers were staying on the ships for the most part.
“Did you get a reading of how many are on the ships?” Red asked, glancing over at her with a worried look on his face.
She had tried, but she hadn’t believed it and discounted it. The number she had come up with was less than three hundred.
Total.
Among all the ships.
That number was nowhere near enough to even mount any kind of attack, let alone even man most of those older ships.
“I got just under three hundred,” he said, shaking his head. “I don’t think that’s right.”
She laughed. “I got the same number and thought the same thing.”
“And only fifty people on the passenger liner as well?” Red asked.
She nodded. “Only fifty. Glad I wasn’t missing something.”
“Maybe we both are,” Red said.
So they spent the next fifteen minutes checking it all again, looking for any signs of cloaked ships, or areas of the station that might have been rebuilt to hold more people.
They came up empty. Their initial data had been correct, even though Mattie still couldn’t completely believe it. There were very, very few people in that fleet of ships.
Very few.
“So what is his plan?” she asked, trying to make some sort of sense with what they were seeing.
“First he wanted to get the Sector Force out of the way,” Red said.
“Got that,” she said. “That had to be step one for him because he would never be able to show his face again if he didn’t destroy the Sector Force, or at least send its attention elsewhere. Otherwise he would end up dead in a very short time.”
“Exactly,” Red said.
Mattie went on, trying to make sense of what they had found. “And then he clearly planned on taking over the Bodie Station to be closer to the Second Sector and be able to defend his headquarters with a station that had defensive capabilities.”
“Exactly,” Red said.
Mattie smiled at Red. “Before we scanned those ships and got the number of people there, it looked impressive, didn’t it?”
“It did,” he said, nodding. Then he stared at her for a moment before sweeping his hand up at the image of the abandoned station and the ships. “Are you saying that all those ships are just for show?”
“Exactly,” she said, now understanding what she was seeing completely. “With that many ships and control of the Bodie Station, the General might be able to take over a standing army on a planet just with the threat of attack from that fleet.”
Red laughed. “Even though most of the ships would be harmless and manned with two or three crew. They are an impressive sight.”
“Exactly,” she said, feeling a huge sense of relief.
She sat back and stared at the fake fleet on the screen. They were a long ways from getting the General contained. But at the moment, knowing he didn’t have a fleet of firepower made her feel a lot better.
And also knowing they had stopped the attack on the Sector Force.
Red sat staring at the fleet of empty ships, shaking his head, taking in her idea.
“So now what do you suggest we do?” she asked after letting him think for a few minutes.
“We stop, watch and wait,” Red said. “I’ll set alarms and recording equipment. If a ship even moves on that station, or a scanning beam gets close to us, we’ll know it.”
She nodded. “That will buy us time to decide how to mess up the rest of his plans. But don’t you think we need to report this all back to the Sector Force and your people?”
“I do,” he said, “but I would rather have hours of scans instead of just one. So better we go back through the hole after we have more data.”
That was a really good idea and she knew it. But she wanted action, wanted to sweep into that station and find the General and end all of this now. But waiting and doing more study was the right way to go about it. She knew that.
“Besides,” Red said, “we need to get some sleep.”
She smiled at him and asked, “Only sleep?”
She was tired, she now could feel it, and she had no idea how long it had been since they had gotten any real sleep. She flat didn’t want to think about that.
“And breakfast,” he said, smiling at her. “Don’t forget breakfast in five hours. That should give us more than enough data.”
“Make that five and a half hours,” she said, smiling.
“Five and a half hours it is,” he said, and started to set scanners and sensor alarms.
She watched him for a moment, then yawned and said, “I’ll be in that wonderful bed of yours.”
“I’ll be right there.”
He took too long and she was asleep before he got there.
But she did have a wonderful dream of a handsome man crawling into bed with her and cuddling against her back.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
FIVE HOURS LATER she realized that no warning alarms had gone off as Red slowly woke her by stroking her breasts and waist and back with his firm, but gentle touch. She could feel his hardness against her butt and she pressed back into him, making sure he knew she didn’t want him to stop.
He kissed her neck and then moved down slightly and eased himself inside her, filling her with a wonderful sensation of completeness.
She moaned softly and pushed back against him more with her butt while leaning forward and letting him massage her back and kiss her neck.
She was still half asleep and this felt wonderful.
Beyond wonderful.
His movements were slow, easy, slipping back and forth, one moment pressing against her, another moment almost leaving her completely.
And each time he did that she moaned and pressed back against him again, wanting him to stay inside her.
His hands moved around her and worked slowly on her breasts, gently but firmly, making sure that nothing was missed as he continued to kiss her neck and shoulders and then back to her neck.
And then his hand went down to her crotch, forcing her legs open and touch
ing her gently as he moved in and out of her.
The motion with his fingers matched his motion in and out of her and the tension just kept building and building.
His kissing on her neck became more insistent, his fingers moving faster and faster.
Finally he couldn’t hold any longer and he pushed into her hard, moving his hand as fast as he could.
And she exploded with him, letting the waves of pleasure float over her and squeeze him over and over and over.
Finally, after far too short a time, yet a time that felt like it had lasted forever, he lay back, pulling out of her.
“Wow,” was all he said as he lay on his back and tried to catch his breath.
She rolled over and cuddled under his arm and gently started rubbing his wet manhood that was slick and covered in both of their juices. She loved his smell, a musty clean smell that reminded her of flower gardens.
“If that was what you meant by breakfast,” she said, “you can serve that to me as often as you want in bed.”
Then, before he could answer her, she stroked him quickly three times, making him jerk upward slightly, and then she climbed over him and headed for the bathroom.
“Your turn to take a nap while I shower.”
“The shower is big enough for both of us,” he said.
“I remember well,” she said, laughing. “And that’s why you need to nap for ten minutes.”
He sighed and closed his eyes and she smiled at the wonderful picture of him lying there naked. He was an amazing man in so many ways, not the least of which was how he could please her and make her want more.
She stared for just a moment longer and then turned her back and closed the bathroom door.
Just safer that way if they wanted to get anything done in the next hour.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
RED WATCHED from the bed, tucked under the sheet, as Mattie came out of the bathroom completely nude and started to dress. He really, really liked watching her do just about anything. And right now he could still taste her skin on his lips and the smell of her sexual arousal on the sheets.
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