Sahvin's Mate

by Clarissa Lake

  That was enough time for a violent contingent of inmates to arrive intent on being evacuated, i.e., escaping prison. That they would try to force us to take them off planet was reason enough reason to deny them passage.

  Had they been slaves instead of prisoners, we would likely have taken some of them, but they came in like thugs bent on taking over and not refugees trying to escape unjust prosecution.

  There were hundreds of them and only sixty of us. We had nowhere to go, so we had to stand our ground and fight. Our advantage was the armor suits and superior weapons. The thugs were supposed to only have knives and crossbows, but a few had armor piercing guns.

  I took a hit on my left shoulder blade. Even though I knew the nanites would fix it, the pain was searing. What was worse was that the impact sent me past the big rock where I was going to take cover. I went over a small drop to a steep hill covered with loose shale and nothing to grab to stop my descent of about forty meters until I came to an abrupt stop against another rock. My injured shoulder took the brunt of the impact, and the pain was so excruciating I passed out.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  NORA

  It was so hard to walk up that shuttle ramp and leave Sahvin behind. I didn’t dare look back, or I wouldn’t go at all, and I didn’t want him to see my tears. Once inside the shuttle I brushed them away and forced back the sob that was stuck in my throat. This was the best way I could help the brigade and Sahvin.

  As I took my seat on the shuttle with Harper, Scarlet, and Zoe, they looked as anguished as I felt.

  “Okay, ladies,” Harper said. “We can do this. There is no sense getting all glum about being sent to the Kurellis while they are doing their jobs. It’s not like we can go down there and help.”

  “They’re going to make it,” Scarlet said. “They might come back a little worse for wear, but they will come back. Zared took a direct hit with an armor piercing round on Breskaa. It just pierced his armor, but it stopped before it did major damage.”

  “Yes, and you took a direct hit on Tegliar Station,” Zoe, said and those nanite things fixed you up.”

  “I know,” I said. “Seals, Rangers and Special Forces rolled into one. But raiding a prison planet. That just seems so outrageously foolhardy.”

  “They are just the ones who can pull it off,” Harper asserted.

  “I have to believe that, because I can’t let myself think otherwise,” I sighed.

  Momentarily, the shuttle hatch closed with a whoosh and lurched just slightly as it lifted off the deck and slowly left the bay. We could see the planet below before we turned for toward the Kurellis in high orbit. It looked a lot like Earth but with smaller continents that looked like big islands in with vast ocean space between them.

  While I was possible for the inmates to travel between them, it seemed unlikely because they didn’t have reliable transportation. From what Sahvin told me, the inmates were divided among the continents, supposedly depending on their crimes. But each continent was run by gangs except for the slaves’ island.

  About two hours after we arrived on the Kurellis, the first shuttle came. We were better organized and had more help registering our new rescues than at Tegliar station. We had four check-in teams and four teams to guide the incoming to their quarters or sickbay as needed.

  The slave compound was not a labor camp as Breskaa. But we didn’t know how well they had been cared for. Those from the prison were probably in worse shape. Although the Sargus Empire made regular supply drops on the all the continents, they were not likely distributed evenly among the inmates.

  I couldn’t imagine what life must be like in a lawless anarchy. I sure didn’t want to find out.

  Unlike the Breskaa mission, we didn’t have a feed on the communication among the ground teams. But we did get updates on what was happening in space. It got a little scary for a while because two Sargan battle cruisers showed up out of nowhere it seemed. One apparently was hovering on the back side of Julconi’s single moon and the other behind a smaller planet closer to the Julconi sun.

  They had come for the Kurellis which we stole. One ship wasn’t nearly enough in reparations for what they did to Farseek and the Uatu people. They didn’t attack the Kurellis, though because they wanted the massive passenger freighter intact. They went after the Dreadnaughts guarding it. That’s why our men sent us to the Kurellis to keep us safe. The Sargan’s were outnumbered and outgunned.

  The Dreadnaughts were more heavily armed and armored. The mercenaries offered to let them leave unharmed if they would allow them to retrieve their people. Their answer was to fire on the dreads. So, the dreads took them out before they had a chance to send reinforcements down to the planet.

  Even though the teams took the slave island by surprise, they met more massive resistance than they had hoped. They sustained some serious but not life-threatening injuries and no fatalities before they were able to get control of the facility.

  We heard that the teams on the primary prison continent where Sahvin’s team was working had met armed resistance. So far there were no reports of casualties. I knew nothing until much later. It’s probably a good thing because I would never have been able to finish my job. The Farseek Mercenaries had planned for around 4500, and we took on closer to 6000 combined from the slave island and the prison.

  That brought the Kurellis population up to about 9700. After sixteen hours, we needed a break. I was so tired by the time I fell into my bunk, I had little time to pine for Sahvin before I fell into an exhausted sleep whispering, “Sahvin, you have to be all right. You have to.”

  The next morning the last of the rescues arrived. The shuttles had been transporting through the night, eight hours longer than was planned. The most prominent worry was that more Sargan warships would come before we got out of the Julconi system. The Empire had far more resources than we did.

  Farseek Dreadnaughts could handle a few at a time, but if they came en masse, the odds were not as good. As soon as the last shuttle was locked into our shuttle bay, the Kurellis jumped out of the system to rendezvous with four of the dreads three days later. The other dreads would go on to scout the other systems where our intel said more of the Uatu people had been taken.

  We still had space for another thousand people, and each of the dreads could make room for at least a hundred people. Our dread still had the bunks installed in the cargo bay. They decided to keep them there indefinitely.

  Even though we had pulled out of the Julconi system, there were still a couple hundred people left to process in the morning. Harper accosted me when I got to my workstation.

  “You will never guess what happened,” she told me in a conspiratorial whisper.

  “What?”

  “Zoe found her man!” Harper gushed. “He was a Uatu thrown into the prison colony for trying to start an uprising.”

  “Is she okay with it?” I asked. “Is he somatu?”

  “That’s what he told her when she checked him in. He looked like hell, tired, dirty, dressed in rags, I could see that he would clean up gorgeous just like all the other Uatu.”

  “How is that going to work? We have to go back to Dread One in a couple days. We’re all recruits.”

  “Zoe’s not ready to commit, but Argen Trametu is a Farseek warrior. So he can declare solmatu and come to our ship to court her.” Harper explained. “I’m sure he will, he looked totally smitten when he discovered her.”

  “Does Zoe at least find him attractive and likable?” I wondered.

  “She’s not saying, but she did look interested when they were talking. They were going meet for a meal in the mess hall after we finish here. This group is all of them.”

  “Good, I’m still tired,” I sighed. “Have all the landing teams gotten picked up? Have you heard anything.”

  “Zared said they were still rounding everyone up from the prison colony. His team went to the island,” Harper said. “Don’t worry, Nora, they won’t leave anyone behind. Anyway, there are no reports o
f fatalities. Sahvin will be back before long.”

  “Not until we rendezvous now,” I murmured.

  “I know, Nora. I miss Zared just as much as you miss Sahvin.”

  I nodded. “Just a few more days, and we have plenty to do.”

  “We sure do, so let’s get to it,” Harper said. “These people have been up all night. “We need to get them logged and into quarters so they can get some rest.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  SAHVIN

  “Hey, Kazza! Lieutenant Kazza, please respond,” Dexel Flatu’s urgent request came through my helmet com. “Kazza, are you, all right?”

  I groaned in reply. “Not exactly. I got hit… Fell off the plateau.”

  “Where?”

  “The east face near the trail. Hit a rock. I can feel the nanites working… will try to get up,” I groaned. I was leaning against the rock, laying on my injured shoulder. Any movement made me want to scream in pain. But I had to move.

  I stayed still for half a minute and just breathed waiting for the pain to recede. Then I pushed off the rock and rolled on to my back. “Fuuuck!” I yelled. “Damn that hurts!”

  On my back, I was laying on an angle against the hill. I bent my left leg so I could push off with my foot and turn to I could use my uninjured arm to get up off the ground. It was a struggle, with a lot of pain, but once I got my feet under me, I could use the augmentations of the suit to stand.

  I locked the left arm of the suit to immobilize my arm and left shoulder, then I looked around for my ion rifle. An inmate who found that could do a lot of damage with it. I saw it by the rock, bent down to pick it up, and slung it over my right shoulder. I flexed a thigh muscle to get the suit moving and started walking up the steep trail back to the plateau.

  “Hey, Dexel! Is anyone else hurt or worse?” I asked.

  “Jegtu took a minor hit in his butt. Apparently only a couple of those criminals had armor-piercing weapons,” he said. “We took ‘em out and collected the weapons. We captured one, and he told us they were trying to steal the shuttle to get off this purgatory.”

  “Then they would be dead anyway. There are no other habitable worlds in this system, and the shuttles don’t have the range to go interstellar,” I muttered as I trudged up the hill putting one foot in front of the other thanks to the suit. Otherwise, it was all I could do to stay on my feet. It was hard to breathe, and I felt nauseous, but I was getting off this miserable planet and back to meomee.

  “I told the guy, we probably would have taken them with us had they asked instead of attacking us,” Dexel went on. “We took a whole bunch of people who weren’t on our list. Most of these people are political prisoners of the Empire.”

  “What was he in for?” I asked.

  “He was a member of a resistance movement and actively recruiting antigovernment conspirators.”

  “What did you do with him?” I asked.

  “We cuffed him and sat him down by a rock…Figured we’d let him loose just before we lift off, but we had you and Jegtu to locate first.”

  “Did he shoot anybody?” I asked.

  “Wouldn’t matter if he did, the pistol he had would not have pierced our suits.”

  I walked several steps while I thought about it. Finally, I said, “Check him for weapons. If he’s clean, put him on the shuttle with the others. If he causes any trouble, tell him we’ll leave him someplace worse than this.”

  “Okay, Lieutenant. Will do,” said Dexel.

  I was the last person to get to the shuttle for their final trip up from Julconi. Command sent the Kurellis ahead to the rendezvous in case the Sargans sent more battlecruisers after us. Our passengers would be bunking on Dread One in the cargo bay until we could rendezvous with the passenger freighter to exchange our personnel. These rescues would go onto the Kurellis.

  As I got on the shuttle, I receded my helmet and heard something hit the deck. I looked down and saw it was the shell that pierced my armor. It was initially about five centimeters long, but it had been compressed as it partially penetrated my armor and my shoulder blade. My suit stopped it from doing significant damage, but it nicked my lung. Had the armor not stopped it, it was on a trajectory toward my heart.

  Dexel told me later that Commander Maktu had a similar experience on Breskaa, only it had been close to his kidney and renal artery.

  I was still in pain when we reached the Dreadnaught, but it was much more tolerable by then. The nanites were progressing with the tissue repairs, and the suit had injected me with painkillers and stimulants. My condition had improved enough, so I didn’t have to report to sickbay. Even the damage to my suit was repaired.

  There was no predicting the ambush at the plateau. We absolutely did not expect them to have armor piercers. None of the Farseek Brigade had ever been on a mission like the one to Julconi. I figured I was lucky to get out no worse.

  It was a learning experience for all of us. I suspected that we would only be able to make a few more rescues before we had filled our ships to capacity. I estimated we had no more than about six months before we would have to head to Farseek with the people we had rescued.

  More prominent on my mind then was getting to the rendezvous and back with my Nora. Would I do it again? Hell yes!

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  NORA

  I have mixed feelings about not knowing Sahvin had been hurt until after I returned to Dread One. It could have been so much worse had he not been wearing the combat armor. Even if I had known, there was nothing I could have done. His suit took care of him.

  When we made the rendezvous point, we still had to wait hours until Dread One made it because we left the Julconi system before them. We were still pretty busy, or I would have been too antsy to sit still. Sahvin and I had not been apart more than a few hours, and I ached for him to my core…And I missed him.

  While we waited, the fabulous four as we---Harper, Scarlet, Zoe and I --- called ourselves when we were silly, met with groups of the refugees in the largest conference room. We answered their questions and helped them locate their relatives among the earlier rescues and the crews of the ten dreadnaughts. That information was readily referenced through our AI tablets connected to the AI’s of the dreads and the Kurellis.

  The raid on the slave compound had frightened some of them because they didn’t know what was happening. They thought the compound was being attacked as their homes had been attacked on Farseek. Commander Maktu had people go into each barracks as they got control to let them know it was a rescue, not an attack.

  We had to inform them about the Consortium’s financing the rebuilding of homes for them and reestablishing some of the infrastructure that was destroyed---primarily communications. The most prominent question was how would they live after they got into their homes. Many would go back to farming and others would raise vegetables and livestock to feed their families. The new homes being build were self-powered and not dependent on a central power grid.

  Meanwhile, the mercenaries had collected anything they thought their people might need to make a new start on their homeworld. By the time they got back to their world, it would be spring, time for planting. It would keep them busy as they got settled in. They would still need time to readjust. Time to remember what life had been before the Sargus Empire had destroyed their world.

  Sahvin and I would settle there one day where we hoped to make a family together.

  Hours later we were finally on the shuttle back to Dread One. My whole body was on alert, hoping Sahvin wanted me as much I wanted him. I wouldn’t have known it for the chaste kiss he gave me when I got off the shuttle. But all our men were there, and Zoe brought hers with her. The landing bay was filled with people, and none of the others greeted their mates any differently.

  But we didn’t linger there. Sahvin took my hand and quickly led me from the landing bay with my bag. Things changed the instant our cabin door closed behind us. He pulled me into his arms and kissed me ardently.

  Pressin
g me against the closed door, he only stopped kissing me long enough to pull my tunic shirt off over my head and then his own. In less than a minute, we were both naked.

  Sahvin gripped my wrists and held them against the door over my head, lifting me up so my breasts were even with his pecks and he pressed them against mine. He claimed my mouth in a dominating passionate kiss. I lifted up my legs and wrapped them around his hips. A moment later his hard cock was at my entrance, and he was claiming me with both his cock and his tongue.

  I could only moan in deep satisfaction as I gave myself into the exquisite pleasure I knew he would give me. For a moment he broke our long passionate kiss and just held me there, looking into my eyes with a fierce, feline passion that took my breath away. My inner walls clenched around his cock. “Sahvin! I am yours, and you are mine. Fuck me hard; I missed you so much!” I whispered.

  A faint smile curved his full mouth, “I am yours, and you are mine. I missed you too, my Nora.”

  Then his mouth was on mine and his tongue staking claim to the inside of mine as it tangled sensually with mine. Our passion was raw and fevered as though we had been parted for weeks instead of days. Still holding my wrists against the wall, he pressed hard against me, squeezing my breasts with their taut, pebbled nipples against his hard muscles. He took a few slow thrusts in and out driving his cock into me hard with each inward thrust. I whimpered and moaned in delight each time he did. It didn’t take much of that to make me come the first time.

  When that happened, Sahvin released my wrists and cupped my buttocks cushioning my back as he drove his cock into me as far as possible while I contracted rhythmically around it. I clung to his shoulders, moaning against his mouth with shudder after shudder, savoring his possession. Mine! My meomee!