“You wish to go up in combat on your own? I would be too busy fighting to observe you to see if you need assistance.”
“I would like to show you that I don’t need assistance.” Val tamped down her pride and kept herself from arguing further on her own behalf. In truth… he was right. With her limited combat experience, it would be more responsible of her to go up in a controllable situation or in a craft that had an auxiliary helm so a more experienced pilot could take over. Getting herself killed out there wouldn’t help her get the job. She grimaced, waiting for him to point out the recklessness of her suggestion.
“I see. You wish to prove yourself in battle. Yes, I understand this desire well. I will tell Pilot Zimmerman.”
Val sank against the doorjamb, some of the tension ebbing from her shoulders. “Thank you.”
“Please also look at the shuttle. Defending the base is important, but our priority must be regaining flight capability for the craft.”
“I know. I will.”
Gregor took a step, but paused to look into her eyes for a few seconds, then placed a hand on her shoulder. “Good.”
When he walked off, Val was somewhat bemused, wondering what that had been for. An attempt to share some sense of camaraderie with her? To let her know they were in this together and they would do their best to find a way out of the situation? With him, who could guess?
She gave her bed a wistful look, then headed off to hunt for diagnostic equipment. Or maybe, given the sophistication she had witnessed in this place so far, a monkey wrench.
Chapter 9
Gregor walked into the hangar with a helmet under his arm and wearing a flight suit he had been told had belonged to a dead man. An inevitable part of war. He wondered if it was cosmically inconsiderate of him to begrudge that the previous owner had been narrow in the shoulders and small in the crotch. Fortunately, he wouldn’t be walking much in the suit, only sitting harnessed in a cockpit. A cockpit in a flyer that wouldn’t be pressurized and in which he would feel every g of force during the high-speed turns. It had been a while since he had flown such a craft, but he had undergone g-tolerance training in the last year and was confident in his ability to maneuver and fight up there for an extended period of time.
Several men and women in pilots’ uniforms were gathered around the fighters, and he headed over to join them. Admiral Summers must have finished his meeting, because he was standing nearby with a short slender man who was clutching a tablet and a couple of old-fashioned atlases. He was gesticulating as he spoke to the admiral, and he dropped the books twice in the minute it took Gregor to walk across the hangar.
Squadron Leader Zimmerman jogged out of a tunnel and headed for the group, as well. Admiral Summers stepped into her path, lifting a hand to stop her. She frowned but halted. “Sir?”
Gregor couldn’t hear the admiral’s words, but Zimmerman glanced in his direction. A feeling he didn’t experience often formed in the pit of his stomach. Dread. Was Summers saying something about him? Something derogatory? From another person, that notion wouldn’t have disturbed Gregor at all, but he wanted… he wasn’t sure. For some reason Summers’s opinion mattered.
Zimmerman seemed to be arguing now, her hand gestures abrupt as she pointed to the fighters and then to Gregor. The admiral shook his head and walked away, snapping his fingers for the small man with the books to follow.
Zimmerman scowled after him, then walked over to Gregor. “Thank you for suiting up and being ready to fly with us, but Admiral Summers doesn’t want you going up with my squadron.”
Gregor stared at the admiral’s back, more puzzled than angry. “Why not?”
It must have something to do with the flight down. Even though he had gotten the admiral here in one piece, it hadn’t been the smoothest ride. Early in the flight, Summers had complimented his flying acumen, but once they had reached the mountains, Gregor had nearly lost the shuttle and all of their lives when that cloaked ship had appeared out of nowhere. Was Summers deeming him unfit to help, based on that?
Zimmerman’s lips twisted. “You’re a mercenary.”
“Yes, but that has always been the case. My company was hired to work with you, and your people are clearly understaffed.”
“He said you were communicating with your ship a short while ago and that he found it unsettling that your captain wishes to pull out.”
Gregor didn’t know what to say to this disclosure that one of Summers’s people had been eavesdropping on his conversation. Gregor hadn’t said anything derogatory, but the captain had expressed his disbelief that Summers would be able to turn things around. Could that have gotten the admiral’s hackles up?
“This is true,” Gregor said, “because Mandrake Company has done what it was paid to do. However, my comrade and I are unable to leave until a team comes down to repair the shuttle. We can be of assistance in the meantime.” He pointed toward the ceiling overhead. Not many minutes had passed since the last bomb dropped. “It is in our interest to defend the base, which contains ourselves and our shuttle, until we may depart.” There. That was a logical argument, the only kind he liked to make. It would not make sense to object to it.
“Yes, I told him as much, but he’s justifying his decision by saying that, because you’re a mercenary, you could easily be bought by the enemy and cause trouble for us up there. With your skills, a lot of trouble.”
Gregor wished he were better at reading people’s expressions. Zimmerman appeared irked, but he was not certain whether it was at this new possibility the admiral had schemed up or at the admiral himself. “I have not spoken with your enemy.” If someone was monitoring his communications, that would be apparent. Unless the Malbakians had spies on the base, it was illogical to suppose he could have been hired in the hour that he had been here.
“I believe you, and I think—” Zimmerman glanced toward Summers, who had sat down at a desk against the wall and was going over those atlases, and lowered her voice. “I think it’s idiocy. I looked you up; I know who you are. I want you up there, trust me. And the base commander—everyone on the council—looked up Mandrake Company before choosing you. We know you’re not the type of people who accept one contract, then jump sides at the end or when things are looking bad.”
“That is correct.”
“Nonetheless, I have to defer to Admiral Summers in this.” Her mouth twisted again—an expression of displeasure, that much Gregor knew. “In all things. He’s our last hope here. We’re all holding our breath, hoping he’ll pull magic out of his ass.”
A rumble started overhead, great exhaust fans in the ceiling being powered up. The fighters would take off soon.
Zimmerman glanced up. “I’ll talk to the commander about this. Maybe you can come with us next time.” She patted Gregor on the arm, then jogged over to join her squadron.
As the men and women climbed into the cockpits and the ground crew finished checking the fighters, Gregor walked across the hangar to the Mandrake Company shuttle. There was little else he could do. He knew his face was wistful—and maybe a little hurt—as he gazed over his shoulder at the first fighter rolling toward the tunnel that led outside, but he couldn’t find the energy to muster a more stoic facade. As he had already acknowledged, the admiral’s lack of faith in him stung, more than it should have. He should simply accept it as a fact of life he had learned ago: few people operated logically and pragmatically. But he had expected more from a legend. And he couldn’t help but wonder if there was a way that he could prove himself dependable.
No, it didn’t matter. This wasn’t his war. He would help Val with the shuttle assessment instead.
Gregor was surprised to find her standing at the top of the ramp, a tablet in hand and a toolbox at her feet, looking in his direction. Something about the concerned expression on her face made his gut knot up in a tangle of emotions: embarrassment that she had witnessed his forlorn gaze, pleasure that she cared enough to feel concern for him, and a hard-to-describe sense of l
onging that so often arose when she was nearby. It was more than lust; it was a desire that went beyond physical need—though he admitted that was there too. The feeling had been particularly intense of late, since that kiss in the freezer. No, even before then. At some point during this mission together, Val had stopped looking at him like a mutant and had started looking at him like a human being. One who maybe even mattered to her. And it made him want her more.
“He’s an ass,” Val said by way of greeting.
Gregor paused at the base of the ramp, surprised by her bluntness. “Admiral Summers is a brilliant tactician and has saved many military units from certain doom.”
“So he’s a brilliant ass.” Val scowled across the hangar at the admiral. “It’s not as if you can’t be one without the other. Lots of smart people think they’re better than everyone else. Some are better at not showing it than others, because they don’t want to be ostracized, but maybe when you get into a position with that much power, you stop caring if the people around you figure out how you really feel.”
Warmth kindled behind Gregor’s cheeks. Logically, he knew she was talking about Summers, but might she not mean some of those words for him, as well? “Some smart people may not believe themselves better than their peers but simply struggle to understand them and fit into their world. A history of failed social encounters can numb a person to the possibility of anything other than a life of ostracized isolation.” Gregor realized he was quoting something one of the army counselors had said to him once and felt foolish. He wasn’t even trying to defend Admiral Summers at that point. He didn’t have any idea about the man’s past or history of social encounters. All he wanted was for Val to know that he didn’t think he was superior to anyone. Especially her. He willed her to understand that.
She was looking at him now, instead of at the admiral. She set her tablet down on the toolbox and stepped off the ramp in front of him. “You’re not an ass, Gregor.” She smiled up at him and laid a hand on his forearm. “I admit it took me a while to figure that out.”
Strange, but he seemed to feel the heat of her hand even through the heavy material of the flight suit. His imagination most likely, but that didn’t stop him from wishing she would touch more of him. Her words from the hallway flooded back into his mind, her suggestion that they could share a bed to stay warm. He had almost missed her meaning there, but then it had smacked him like water splashed on the face. He hadn’t been able to do anything but stare back and forth from Val to the bed, wondering over and over if he had understood her correctly, that she wanted to have intercourse with him. Images had flashed through his mind of himself pulling her into the bedroom, slamming the door shut, and carrying her to the bed so that they could experience a joyous and vigorous union together.
But even if there hadn’t been work left to do, he wouldn’t have dared truly touch her. What if he had misunderstood her? It wouldn’t have been the first time. Why, oh why, couldn’t people use the literal definitions of words to avoid confusion? She could say, “Gregor, I wish to have coitus with you,” and he would be happy to oblige. Well, perhaps that would not be advisable, not when he was supposed to objectively judge her piloting merit to determine whether she possessed the acceptable knowledge and skills to work for Mandrake Company. A relationship would not be appropriate, even if she wanted one.
Val was standing silently while his thoughts raced around a track at a hundred miles an hour, watching him and rubbing his arm gently with her thumb. What had she been saying? Did she expect an answer?
“How long?” he asked.
“What?”
“How long did it take you to figure out I’m not an ass?” Gregor regarded the hand stroking his arm and wished he could rip off the suit so these layers of material were not between them. He also wished he weren’t holding the helmet with his other arm, so he might reach over and touch a wisp of her hair. It looked soft, inviting. Why was he always holding something when they were close like this? It was interminable.
“Oh. A while.” Val smiled again. “Not until the bar fight. That was when it occurred to me that you weren’t intentionally being an arrogant prick to me. You talk to everyone like that, and I don’t think you even realize you’re irritating people. Until they take a swing at you.”
Her words were not as precise as he would have preferred, but he had heard “arrogant prick” often enough to grasp what it meant, beyond the literal definition, which was undeniably confusing when used to refer to a person. “That is a truth,” he said. “Perhaps that explains why you so clearly disliked me when you were a cadet at the academy. You found me arrogant, yes?”
“And patronizing. And condescending. And someone who thought I was an idiot…” Val lowered her hand to her side. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to analyze your character flaws; it’s not as if I don’t have many of my own. I just wanted you to feel better… to not be upset by Summers’s dismissal.”
Gregor did not wish to talk about Summers. He wished to continue talking to her. About this. About them. He believed she was closer to understanding him, and that filled him with all manner of hope. But why had she removed her hand? Whether it was appropriate or not, he didn’t want her to stop touching him.
“I did not think you were an idiot. You were very tenacious with your studies. I approved of that.”
Val snorted. “Yeah? Then why did you keep trying to get me to drop out of the military academy and sign up for a civilian flight program? I could tell you didn’t think I’d be able to pass.”
Gregor remembered the two conversations they’d had during which they had discussed that scenario, but they had been such brief exchanges of words that he was surprised she remembered them and hadn’t simply dismissed them if they weren’t applicable to her at the time. “I did not think you would fail,” he said. “I suggested the civilian force because there had been rumors coming from high-ranking officers about Grenavine.”
She grew utterly still. “What?”
“They were just rumors then, but because of my own assessment of GalCon’s historical precedent—the destruction of Spero over a similar rebellion—I believed it likely that unpleasant action would be taken. I did not believe you would find it acceptable to serve in a military that would harm your home world.”
Seconds passed with Val not moving an inch. Only her eyes shifted back and forth slightly as she examined his face. Did she not believe him? He rarely saw a point in lying and did not have any skill at it.
“I could not share those behind-the-curtain details with a cadet,” Gregor added, “especially when so much was based on my own speculation at that point, but I assure you my suggestions were rooted only in the belief that you, as a Grenavinian, might find a non-military career more suitable.”
“So you were concerned about me back then? I thought you were speaking down to me because you didn’t think I deserved to be there. But you were… trying to help me?”
“I wished to help, yes. I was pleased that you were there. If not for the rumors, I would not have suggested you leave.” Indeed, making that suggestion had been hard to do. He had wanted her to stay, not simply in the military but at the academy, so that he could continue to see her from time to time. A foolish notion since she had never demonstrated that she possessed any feelings or attraction for him. Nonetheless, it had been difficult to tell her she might find a civilian career a better match.
“You were pleased,” she whispered, still looking into his eyes. With most people, he did not care for eye contact, finding it a discomfiting experience, but he met her gaze, wanting her to find… whatever she wished there.
Val put her hand on his forearm again, and he let himself feel hope that she had found whatever she sought, that she might go back to rubbing his arm. Instead, she walked up the ramp, tugging him after her.
Puzzled, he let her lead him. There must be something inside she needed to show him. But as soon as they were inside the relative privacy of the shuttle, she surprised him by plant
ing both hands against his chest and pushing him back against the hull. Before he could ask what she was doing, or wonder if he had angered her somehow, she stepped close, her chest pressing against his, and her hands coming up to the sides of his head. Her eyes were no longer stunned, but fiery and intense, and he started to realize—to hope—she was about to kiss him. A heartbeat later, her lips touched his.
* * *
Val heard Gregor’s helmet clunk to the deck, but she was barely aware of it, barely aware of anything other than wanting to kiss him, to brand him with her lips in a way that he would never forget. In a way that she would never forget. She’d stunned him, she knew, but she couldn’t make herself back away to explain. An intense hunger scorched her from the inside out as she pressed against his long, hard torso, tasting him with her tongue, feeling him with the rest of her body. He cared about her; he had always cared about her. She had been too immature to understand, too worried about herself to see his feelings behind his awkward stiffness.
When Gregor returned her kiss, parting his lips and caressing her tongue with his, her heart swelled, rewarded with the realization that however much she might have startled him, he was enjoying himself now. Maybe he had always wanted to enjoy himself with her. Was that possible? She dug her fingers into the back of his neck and kissed him harder, thrusting her tongue into his mouth, wanting more than teasing probes.
He hesitated for a moment, and she feared she had turned him off with her aggressiveness. She ought to tamp it down, to back off; just because she’d had a realization that made her hotter than a sun going supernova didn’t mean he was there too. But he recovered and lifted a hand to the side of her head, running his fingers greedily through her hair and kissing her back with an intensity that almost made her dizzy. Her heart pounded, and heat spiraled through her body.
Trial and Temptation (Mandrake Company) Page 13