Paladin of Shadows 2 - Kildar

by John Ringo

  "Yeah, but we still need to negotiate," Mike said with a sigh. "I don't know that . . . experienced as you are, you were in the hareem. The rules are different on the outside. For example, what about being whipped in front of people you don't know very well? A scene as they call it. Or play 'sold' to another man? Have you ever been butt-plugged and then put in a submissive position and auctioned off?"

  "No," Anastasia said, breathlessly. "But it sounds terribly exciting!"

  "Oh, good God," Mike said, flipping up the seat arm. "I need a blowjob and I need one now."

  "Yes, master," Anastasia said, leaning over and unzipping him. With her teeth.

  Mike leaned the seat back and closed his eyes as she began to slowly lick his member like a lollipop to be savored. After a moment he snorted.

  "Master?" Anastasia asked, lifting off of him.

  "Never mind," Mike said, slapping her lightly on the back of the head. "Get back to work."

  The snort was for the situation. He was in a private jet being blown by a fucking expert. One that looked like she should be making a million a year as a supermodel. It had been a long damned route to this moment.

  And Anastasia was an expert. She'd started by licking him and pumping him to get him fully engorged then taken him in her mouth, slowly stroking at first. Despite not using her hands, it was one of the best blowjobs he'd ever gotten. She had tremendous suction and her lips pressed around his dick as firmly as fingers. As she continued she sped up, stroking up and down so far that he could feel his dick entering the back of her throat. She alternated with taking him all the way down, right into the throat, and swallowing so that the muscles sucked his head down her throat.

  She sped up slowly, finally going into a long continuous stroke at high speed that had him right on the edge of bursting. At which point he realized he'd forgotten to negotiate one thing before starting. On the other hand, to hell with it; she was a harem slave. With that thought he started pumping in her mouth.

  Anastasia caught it all, choking a bit at first and then sucking him dry.

  "Was that good, master?" she asked, straightening up and tucking him away.

  "You can do that any time you'd like," Mike said.

  "Good," the girl said. "I like giving blowjobs. Otryad did not like them that much but he would let me give them since I enjoyed it. That is why I tried to learn to give them well, so he would enjoy them also."

  "You're great," Mike said, leaning back in the seat. "Very, very good, and I say that as a guy who has gotten a fair number of them in his life."

  "Is there any wine?" Anastasia asked, cautiously. "I like the taste of cum, but the aftertaste is . . . not so good."

  "In the back," Mike said, thumbing over his shoulder. "There's a wine cooler with white and a rack with red."

  "Would you like a glass?" Anastasia asked, getting up and looking to the rear of the plane.

  "No thanks, I'm a beer drinker," Mike said. "On second thought, see if they have a Johannesburg Riesling. I could do with a glass."

  "Then you will go to sleep, yes?" Anastasia asked, walking back to the gallery area.

  "I could sleep," Mike admitted. "It's been a long day."

  * * *

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  As it turned out, Anastasia slept. Mike reclined both of the seats and the girl had snuggled down next to him, arms held vertically over her breasts so her hands were folded under her chin, pushed in hard against his side and in a few minutes was fast asleep. It had been a long, tough day for her too, Mike figured. Torn away from the only home she'd known since she was twelve, flying for the first time, possibly being with the first man other than Otryad that she'd ever had sex with. She seemed comfortable, though, content. She wasn't having bad dreams, at least.

  She was so fucking beautiful, it made Mike angry to think about her life. He knew that he had a blind spot when it came to beautiful women. Plenty of them, even in the West, had lousy lives. But a creature as visually perfect as Anastasia would have been able to write her own ticket in the States. Instead, she'd been sent off to be a harem slave. And she considered herself lucky, with reason. The whole developing world was awash with girls like Anastasia, ranging from her situation to the girls in the Alerrso brothel.

  Without the economy and culture to support equality, women came out a distant second in the war of the sexes. Even the "lucky" ones who found husbands had lives of unremitting toil, popping out one baby after another until their bodies were worn out. The rest filled the brothels of the developing countries. The luckiest ones were the girls near Western military bases; the worst actions of the Western troops, by and large, were the norm in other cultures. American troops mostly just wanted to get it stuck in or sucked off. The few of them that were into pain paid for the privilege instead of thinking of it as a right.

  But even those didn't have much of a life. After they got old and worn, at all of twenty or so, they'd be shipped off to lower quality brothels, slipping down the ladder rung by rung. The bottom of the barrel were places around the Mediterranean waterfront, especially Istanbul. Trying to find a good looking whore in Istanbul was like looking for gold in a tarpit.

  Mike wasn't sure how long this gig in Georgia was going to last, but he knew damned well that none of his girls were ever going to wind up in a whorehouse in Istanbul. Not even Katya, although she deserved it.

  Mike got up carefully at a chime from the sat phone, trying not to disturb Anastasia. She muttered but stayed in place.

  "Jenkins," he said, putting in the earphone.

  "Mr. Jenkins, this is Lieutenant Timmons," the duty officer said. "There will be a Georgian military helicopter at the airport in Tbilisi at two AM."

  "Thanks, Lieutenant," Mike said. "Not looking a gift horse in the mouth, it has room for two and some luggage?"

  "It's a Blackhawk converted for distinguished persons transport," the lieutenant replied. "Plenty of room."

  "Great," Mike said. "Thanks for the help. Hope the rest of your duty goes well."

  "All I have to do is stay awake," the lieutenant said, chuckling.

  "What duty officer stays awake?" Mike asked. "That's what enlisted men are for."

  "Ones that work at embassies," Timmons said, somewhat bitterly. "It's not like regular SDO work. And guys on duty at SOCOM and the Pentagon for that matter. Norad, Cheyenne . . ."

  "Got the point," Mike said, smiling. "Well, come on out for a beer and some steak some time; I owe you that at least."

  "Will do, sir," Timmons said. "Two AM."

  "Works," Mike replied, "Have a good night."

  Mike covered Anastasia with a blanket, then pulled out a copy of the training schedule. Since he wouldn't be staying over in Tbilisi, he'd be back for equipment issue. That was a two-day affair with basic uniform and field gear issue being in the morning and weapons issue the next day. Normally troops would get their weapons and then rack them. In normal militaries they'd spend a few months learning to clean the damned things and field strip them before they ever got to shoot them.

  With the Keldara, Mike was taking another tack. They'd be issued on Friday right at the range. The only pretraining they'd get was on safety and aiming. Then they'd zero in the weapons. After that would be the class on stripping, cleaning and reassembly. One reason for that was that they were bound to mess up the cleaning. That meant nice dirty weapons to rag on them about come Monday and regular training. A weekend with a little grime here and there wasn't going to ruin the guns. Hell, knowing the way that the Keldara did things, the weapons were probably going to be spotless.

  Mike might or might not do a demonstration for the range day. The Keldara were only going to be firing on a twenty-five meter range for zero. The time to do that was when they did the full Basic Rifle Marksmanship class later in the training cycle. They were taking the Marine approach to that one, training them on marksmanship on the Known Distance range, then going to pop-up targets.

  Marksmanship and combat engagement were two different m
indsets, but the one was important to support the other. Training on pure marksmanship meant that the soldier was actually paying attention to the target. The two problems with that were he then tended to see the target as a human and not just a target and he tended to take too long in engagement. With the latter, he was paying attention to his shooting rather than the fact he was in a combat engagement. With the former he ended up more stressed by taking a human life. Training to simply engage pop-up targets and consider the shapes that the soldier engaged as nothing more than those tended to reduce both problems.

  He put the training schedule away when he began to yawn and curled up next to Anastasia. He had to admit there were worse ways to fly.

  * * *

  "Mr. Jenkins?"

  Mike had woken up the moment the cockpit door opened and now opened his eyes, to look at the copilot. He'd assumed the pilot was on his way to the rear for a drink so he hadn't bothered before, just tracked his movements by sound.

  "Yeah?" Mike asked, shifting upwards. Anastasia was still out like a light so he gently lowered her down so her head rested on his thigh.

  "We got an in-flight advisory that we're suppose to taxi to the military side of the Tbilisi airport and await a Follow-Me," the copilot said, quietly. "Captain Hardesty thought you should know."

  "Thanks," Mike said. "I should have told you guys I was picking up a helicopter for the rest of the trip. That's all it's about."

  "Okay," the copilot said, nodding. "We'd . . . wondered."

  "No great adventures on this trip," Mike said, grinning. "Maybe some other time. How long?"

  "We'll be beginning our descent in about a half an hour. Be on the ground in about an hour."

  "I'd better wake Anastasia up," Mike said, nodding. "Thanks for the heads up."

  Mike looked at the girl on his lap after the pilot had gone and decided to let her sleep a little longer. She looked worn out by the day and flying in the chopper was probably going to unnerve her a good bit.

  As it turned out, the power down and dropping feeling woke her up instantly.

  "Are we okay?" she asked, sitting up hurriedly and wiping her eyes.

  "Fine," Mike said. "We're on descent to Tbilisi airport. There's a helicopter waiting for us there."

  "Okay," the girl said, her eyes wide as the plane bumped through some turbulence.

  "That's normal, too," Mike said. "Pockets of thicker or denser air cause the plane to go up and down a bit." Mike thought there must be a front in the area since the plane lurched again. "Lean over here," he said, sliding sideways and putting his arm around her. "It'll be okay."

  Mike leaned over and looked out the window and was surprised to see that the air was clear. You got clear air turbulence from time to time, but rarely this severe.

  "Captain?" he said, keying the intercom. "Are we following someone down?"

  "Spot on, sir," the copilot answered. "We're behind an Airbus. I think we're probably too close, frankly, but nothing we can't handle. And this is where Tbilisi control wants us to be."

  "Back off a bit if you can do it discreetly," Mike said. "The ride is getting a little rough.

  "When a plane passes through it disturbs the air," Mike continued to Anastasia. "It settles out pretty quickly, normally, but if you're close to other aircraft it makes this happen; the plane goes up and down."

  "Will it make us crash?" Anastasia asked.

  "Not hardly," Mike replied. "These business jets are built very tough and very maneuverable. And Hardesty is a great pilot. This is not a problem."

  "Okay," the girl said, sighing. "It's all new."

  "And a bit scary," Mike said. "More than just the flight. You'll be okay, I promise."

  Hardesty greased the landing and was careful on the braking, obviously keeping in mind his junior passenger. Tbilisi airport had been built to support Soviet bombers during the Cold War and it had plenty of runway for an easy brake. About halfway down the runway he took a right, instead of the normal left to the terminal, and followed a series of turns to stop not more than seventy meters from a Blackhawk with its rotor already turning.

  "This is your stop, sir," the copilot said, coming into the main cabin.

  "Up we get, dear," Mike said to Anastasia.

  The luggage was secured in an underside compartment with a door behind the left wing. As the copilot opened the door, a Georgian lieutenant gestured for an enlisted man to help.

  Between the three of them, the copilot, Mike and the Georgian soldier, it only took one trip for the bags. Mike, frankly, could have humped them all himself, but he wasn't about to get in the way of the dance. He ended up with just his briefcase and personal bag.

  He led Anastasia over to the helicopter and started to strap her into one of the comfortable chairs in the center of the chopper's cargo bay, but she pointed to one of the jump seats.

  "I would like to look out, if I may," she said, diffidently.

  "Sit wherever you'd like," Mike said, leading her over to the seat and strapping her in. Unlike the passenger seats, the jump seat had a four-point restraint system and when hooked up it hiked her skirt all the way up to the top of her stockings. She discreetly pulled it back down on the sides, but there wasn't any way to cover up the inner thigh.

  "Perhaps I should . . ." she said, waving at the regular passenger seats which had normal "airline" seatbelts.

  "I like the view just fine," Mike replied, picking up a headset and putting it on her and then following with one for himself. "Pilot?" he asked in Georgian.

  "Yes, Kildar," the pilot replied. "Are you ready for us to take off?"

  "At your leisure," Mike replied. "Thanks for the ride."

  "It is an honor, Kildar," the pilot said.

  The rotors increased in speed and Mike looked out to see if they'd form a halo. Sometimes, when the dust was just right, static discharge would form on the rotors. It would slide down to the edge of them, like little lightning bolts, and the effect would look exactly like a silver halo on the ends of the rotors. Not this time, alas. Anastasia would have liked it. However, it was also a sign of increased rotor wear, so he thought he should be thankful.

  "Are you okay?" he asked as the bird lifted into the air. There was an intercom control on his seat panel and he'd switched it so that he was only talking to the girl.

  "Fine," Anastasia squeaked, nervously. But she leaned forward and watched as they lifted. "This is beautiful. I had thought I'd be afraid, but I am only a little. This is very interesting to watch."

  The bird spiraled up to about two thousand feet above ground level and then headed southeast towards the valley of the Keldara. The moon was only a quarter, but once they got away from the city lights and their eyes adjusted, it lit up the landscape like day.

  "This is so beautiful," Anastasia whispered. "There are so many trees. I'd forgotten how much I like trees. It must be very green in the day."

  "It is at the moment," Mike said, looking out for himself. "The trees are just coming out in their leaves and it's greening up nicely. The tops of the mountains, though, reach above the tree line. Some of them are snow-covered year round."

  "Where I came from there were many trees," the girl said, quietly. "But no mountains."

  "Lots of mountains in Georgia," Mike said. He'd noticed that the helicopter was on a continuous fair climb, even after the upward spiral, but as it approached the mountains it turned south into another spiral, fighting for altitude.

  "We are going very high," Anastasia said, breathing deeply in incipient panic.

  "High mountains," Mike pointed out. "We'll be fine. These things are rated for ten thousand feet with a load of troops. This is easy flying."

  As they headed into the mountains, below the peaks, the helicopter began to buffet in the crosswinds and Anastasia squeaked and closed her eyes.

  "This I don't like," the girl said. "I think I am getting a little sick."

  "Try opening your eyes," Mike said, rummaging around in the seats until he found an airsic
k bag. The package was paper with a plastic bag on the inside, which he extracted and handed across to the girl. "If you have to go, go in that."

  They crossed through a saddle, with tree-covered slopes on both sides that seemed close enough the rotors should have hit the branches, then started to descend, banking through a series of turns as the helicopter followed the complex angles of the valleys. The crosswinds had settled down, though, and while the chopper was banking, it wasn't going up and down so much. With the change of motion, Anastasia seemed to get over her sickness, sitting with the bag in her hand but a rapt expression on her face as the chopper banked past the hills. At one point it practically stood on its left side, letting her get a close look at the ground below and leaving her hanging in her straps.

  "This is fun," she said in surprise as the chopper leveled back out.

  "That it is," Mike admitted. "I really need to get one for a dozen different reasons."

  "You can buy a helicopter?" Anastasia asked.

  "Well, a Blackhawk would be a little out of my range," Mike admitted. "They're damned expensive. Good birds, but overpriced. The Czechs sell a Hind variant for executive transport and medical evac that's only about six hundred grand. And there's something like ninety percent parts compatibility with regular Hind-Ds. And Hinds are all over the place. The only reason the Georgians have these Blackhawks is the U.S. government gave them five and support the parts."

  As he finished, the Blackhawk banked one more time into the valley of the Keldara and Mike realized he'd forgotten to get anyone to lay out an LZ.

  "Pilot," he said, switching back to the general intercom, "I forgot to tell anyone I was coming so there's no LZ laid out. You want to hang up here while I call or go in on an unmarked?"

  "I'd prefer marked," the pilot admitted.

  "Okay," Mike said, pulling out his sat phone. "We'll probably go in on my lawn, then."