Her back was bowed with the force of the first erotic explosion when Nako yanked her free of the ceiling tether. He threw her to the bed and tore open the crotch of his uniform. Without a pause, he fell on top of her, shoving his swollen cocks inside with cruel ruthlessness. He rutted, snarling like an animal as his groin pounded against her in desperation. Glorying in the mingled soreness and bliss, Piper orgasmed again, biting Nako on the shoulder and drawing blood as she did so.
And still he pounded against her, bruising her delightfully, making her come twice more. Piper verged on the edge of a swoon when Nako howled. He poured his hot seed into her, filling her with his passion until he collapsed heavily on her, gasping.
Nako rolled over, carrying Piper with him so that she blanketed his heaving bulk. Sweaty, breathless, they lay twitching for a long time.
Piper throbbed all over. She’d never ached so badly, except when Dr. Wari’det had turned on her collar to punish her. She had the notion that her movements for the next couple of days would be excruciating.
Nako shifted. Worry came through as he asked, “Are you all right? How do you feel?”
“Amazing.” Piper lifted so she could look him in the face, though every inch of her protested it. So much suffering. So much wonderful, cleansing pain.
Piper beamed at Nako, earning a relieved chuckle from the scarred brute. He was indeed her angel, the agent of her deliverance.
“Thank you.” The words came straight from her heart.
Chapter 14
Over the com link, Piras sounded irritable as hell. “I believe a full day’s wait has been more than generous. The asshole is not going to respond to our message.”
“I agree with you wholeheartedly, Admiral.” Nako eyed the large vid hovering at the front of the bridge. The Basma’s fleet junked up what would have been a lovely view of Laro Station and the space surrounding it. Piras’s phased ships had been drifting among the enemy, staring at them for the last twenty-seven hours.
If it was keeping to the timetable Piper had given them, the death ship would have left the Bi’isil lab station by then. It was on its way. Only a few days stood between it and the Kalquorian Empire’s demise.
Driving off a stab of panic, Nako focused on the immediate issue. “You’ve pinpointed the Basma’s location?”
He could almost hear Kila’s fierce snarl as the captain answered. “To the very office he occupies on the destroyer marked DD-702.”
“My compliments to you, Admiral and Captain. The phased team you planted on the captured destroyer did a fine job.”
Piras again: “Actually, the credit belongs to my Matara. She’s got a gift for engineering miniature spybots, which the team was able to plant on a couple of key crewmembers. Not only did the destroyer’s commanding officer report to Maf, but he did so in person. The spybot transferred itself from the officer to Maf.”
“The mechanism sits unnoticed and transmitting everywhere the bastard goes on his ship.” Kila was downright gleeful.
Nako shot an impressed look to Terig. His Nobek did not return it, his expression displaying mild outrage. The captain could guess why. “Your Matara is with you? On your raider?”
“An Earther we discovered working against the Holy Leader. With the new Kalquorian clanning laws erasing the need for the males to be together a year, we can officially call her our lifemate.”
Essentially, Piras had brought his Matara on a dangerous mission for the same reason Piper was on Nako’s raider. It had been unavoidable. Terig appeared slightly mollified by the information.
Clanned after only a few months. Piper’s lovely face popped into Nako’s head, and he tried to dismiss the notion immediately. Although, the memory of how she felt in his arms made it damned hard to think about what he should concentrate on at the moment…
He cleared his throat. “How soon do you wish us to be ready to move?”
“In twenty minutes. Kila will send you all the details of our strategy. Bring ten of your best warriors.”
“Understood. We’ll be prepared and mobilized.”
As soon as Atar verified the com channel was closed, Terig burst out with, “They have a woman with them.”
“We also have a female on board our raider.”
“But it’s their mate.”
“You heard how that came to be. I suppose there was no choice but to keep her close, though it puts her in harm’s way. Not to mention that’s a valuable skill she possesses. Miniature spybots are almost as useful as the ability to phase.”
“I suppose.” Terig remained stormy.
“I rather enjoy having a woman around.”
Nako’s teasing got through. A smile tugged at his Nobek’s lips, which he fought off. “I don’t like that she’s in danger. Piper has suffered more than her fair share.”
Nako had revealed Piper’s sad story to his clanmates. Terig and Ulof recognized the kind of pain she’d endured, the propensity to heap self-blame with little hope of forgiveness. There was a sense of protectiveness among the clan for Piper, a need to keep her from any further harm.
She needed a clan. One that understood the kind of hell she’d been through. We could make life good for her, as we have for each other.
Nako knew better than to follow that line of thinking. Piper as his clan’s Matara was impossible for so many reasons. Chief among those was his intention to not return to the fleet, even if they’d have him. The reasons he’d become an exile had not evaporated with this mission to save Kalquor.
With a stab of disappointment, Nako told Terig, “Hopefully, we can live long enough to find Piper a better life. She can start anew once this is over.”
Yes, it was better to send her away once this business with the death ship was done. Nako did his best to ignore the throb of disappointment. No matter how things turned out, his time with Piper would be short.
* * * *
Over an hour later, Nako had to give Dramok Maf grudging credit. The traitor didn’t so much as flinch when the boarding party of forty warriors, led by Piras himself, dephased in the destroyer’s ready room.
Maf’s companions reacted with plenty of terror. The two Dramok male assistants—they wore no uniforms, so Nako assumed they weren’t members of the crew—gasped and crouched behind Maf’s desk, where they flanked the lead turncoat’s misshapen, seated body.
A woman, who stood a little apart from the group, did not cringe. She drew a blaster with a shout. Fortunately, Piras materialized behind her and yanked the weapon from her grasp.
“Matara Feyom, what a surprise. Last I heard, you were under house arrest on Kalquor. How did you end up here?”
She snarled, turning her striking features bestial and forever ruining any notion of beauty as far as Nako was concerned. “The Basma has agents everywhere, poised to return Kalquor to greatness. It was easy to escape the loyalist fools to join my leader.”
Nako briefly wondered how Terig felt about Maf keeping a female on his destroyer before settling his full attention on the Dramok.
Maf, the leader of the revolt, was as physically unimposing as a man could be. Born with an incurable condition that left joints, tendons, and muscles twisted and painful, his torso and limbs canted at odd angles in the hoverchair he occupied. He looked like some talented but cruel artist’s rendering of a man as a windswept tree. Yet his face was pleasantly attractive, he possessed charisma that had made him a celebrated politician, and the mind trapped in the torture chamber of his frame was shrewd. Brilliant, even.
Too bad he’d turned all that intelligence to evil. It kept Nako from feeling a stab of sympathy for Maf’s disabilities.
The traitor smiled darkly at Piras. “I wondered how long it would take before you visited me, Admiral. I was told of your impressive appearance by the survivors of the destroyer you captured. It helps explain what happened to the Holy Leader during the battle for Haven Colony.”
“For someone so anti-Earther, you forge odd alliances, Maf.” Piras’s tone was clip
ped. He ground his teeth together, resembling a zibger debating whether or not to take a bite out of his prey.
“Browning Copeland was nothing more than a means to an end. You spared me the need to deal with him myself. My congratulations on life after death, by the way.”
“It was no easy thing.”
“And not liable to be repeated twice.” Feyom’s glare said she hoped to be the one to finish Piras.
Maf waved her off, though his expression was soft with affection. Love, perhaps. “The helmsman you left in charge of the destroyer was sure you hoped to draw me out to kill me.”
“Is that why you ignored my message?”
“No. I was sure you’d come for me, and I was correct. That you’ve come with such an impressive group of fighters when you could have simply popped in, murdered me, and escaped without any fuss says there is something to that message you sent. Bi’is is about to take advantage of our divided empire?”
“Advantage?” Piras turned purple with his repressed rage. “They’re about to destroy it, thanks to you opening the door.”
“The door you gave me. I did thank you for handing me Laro, didn’t I?” Maf’s grin deepened at the admiral’s furious glare. “The life of a spy is filled with nefarious deals, Piras. Deals that no doubt make it hard to sleep at night. You do look a little peaked.”
The other man seethed, but he didn’t give Maf any further ammunition to deride him with. “Captain Nako, the reports.”
Nako coughed, the mustiness of Maf’s office making his throat prickle. He loaded Piper’s stolen files into Maf’s computer. He recited the Earthling’s story, using the records to prove all her assertions.
It was obvious he made an impression on the traitor. Over the next hour, while Nako spoke and Maf read the relevant information, the Basma’s demeanor grew colder, deadlier. By the time he’d been brought up to speed, Maf appeared as fierce as any Nobek on the brink of fighting. His distorted body trembled with the force of his fury.
“After all these centuries, we finally have the proof Bi’is was responsible for that damned virus. I never had any doubt about it, but securing the evidence was impossible.”
“They’re also the cause of the disappearance of the Lost Colonists of Ramaso,” Nako reminded him.
Maf rolled his eyes. “If you’re hoping to change my mind on the Earther contagion of our proud heritage, forget it. Perhaps our ancient ancestry is in common, but the Earthers developed into a foreign—and lesser—civilization. Especially since Bi’is committed who knows how many alterations to the pure genetic strain?”
Bigoted fanatic. Nako had the sudden urge to smash his fist in the treacherous bastard’s face. “An Earther risked death to gather and bring us this information. To help the empire.”
“She did it to save her own skin. Probably hoping for a rich clan to provide her with a fine home and pretty things,” Feyom sneered. The train of her sapphire gown swished as she crossed the room to drape herself upon the red leather lounger. “Has she spread her legs for you in hopes of such an offer, Captain? Admiral?”
Nako wanted to give the bitch the beating Piper had begged for, one that would leave Feyom bloody and crying for mercy. Even though she was a woman. “Matara Piper has more honor in a strand of hair than you have in your whole body. I’ve heard the stories about you, Feyom. How none of your sons were sired by any of your clanmates. You even bore this traitor a child, didn’t you?” He bared his fangs at Maf.
Piras and Maf shouted at the same instant. “Enough!”
Into the seething silence that followed, Piras attempted to put the meeting on more productive footing. “We have something bigger than heritage to worry with here.”
Shooting Nako a final black glare, Maf regained his composure. “Agreed. This death ship heading for the empire must be destroyed.”
“Not destroyed. Stopped. The women on that transport are innocents, forced into this situation by Bi’is.” Kila sounded mild compared to the rest of them, almost bored. His erstwhile sneer held nothing but contempt for Maf and Feyom, however.
Piras’s tone quieted as well, as if taking a cue from his clanmate. “The Earthers don’t deserve to die any more than we can let Bi’is finish Kalquor.”
“Don’t be stupid. A hundred diseased Earther women versus our entire civilization? There is no contest.” Maf returned their scorn with interest.
“What are you going to do, Maf? Charge in there with your little fleet, half of which isn’t fully manned? How many of your ships suffer from poor maintenance? Low supplies?”
“We can defeat seven squadrons of hunter-killers.”
“Like hell you can. Even if it were possible, they’ll call in reinforcements the instant you cross into Bi’is space. You can’t fight their whole damned kingdom.”
“We have the numbers to fend off you Imperial dogs, don’t we? Kalquor hasn’t exactly stampeded here to take Laro back.”
“Only because Bi’is is backing you up. Until now, since they’ve decided to finish you first,” Kila scoffed.
“I have every intention of dealing with Bi’is once and for all when we win this war.”
“You couldn’t keep Haven or the shipping lanes against the Imperial Fleet. You sure as hell can’t take on Bi’is. Without your ships and men, Kalquor can’t win against them either. They’ll finish us if we don’t band together.” That Piras hated the necessity of working with Maf was not in doubt. He spat the words out like poison.
Maf glared. “Share the phase technology with me. With that, I can get rid of the Bi’isil fleet.”
“Then turn around and finish off Kalquor? Not happening.”
“Then fuck you and the empire.” The traitor sat back, his upper lip curled in a defiant snarl.
“So ends the Basma’s revolution to lead us to a final, lasting glory.” Piras’s laugh was nasty and over quickly. He leaned across Maf’s desk, shoving aside the two computers between them, not hiding his loathing for the other man. “Wasn’t this war about protecting Kalquor’s honor? Our legacy? Instead, we’ll die out because you’d rather be in bed with those who have striven to destroy us for centuries!”
He shoved back and paced, gesticulating violently. “Your pride is more important to you than avenging the wrongs done against Kalquorians. Let this day be noted as when our race disappeared from history. If fate is kind, we’ll be remembered in a tiny footnote that will read, ‘the Kalquorian Empire fell into extinction because it failed to unite.’ That’ll be our heritage. And a fitting epitaph, since you, the great divider, will be the death of us all.”
The admiral halted and glared at Maf. They glowered at each other for several seconds, while the rest remained silent.
Nako’s dislike for Piras, for his hand in the fall of Laro and the deaths of good fighters, disappeared in the wake of his fiery speech. Given the man’s passion for saving the empire, Nako could at last appreciate the cold equations Piras had been forced to make to strip Maf of victory. The empire was everything to Piras. He’d offer his life—his very soul—to protect it.
I’m not sure I could have made the sacrifices he has. The sacrifices he must continue to offer. It must be costing him everything he is to not jump over that desk and snap Maf’s crooked neck.
Perhaps Maf came to a similar conclusion. He grudgingly spoke. “We need a plan. My latest reports on the Imperial Fleet say it remains in place to defend the travel lanes to Galactic Council space, though I’ve called all my forces here.”
“We’ve got seven more days at the most until the death ship arrives at the border, assuming they’re flying at standard speed for a Bi’isil transport of that size. The closer we allow them to get, the less probable Bi’is will send in a major attack force to buttress them right away.” Piras was placid, with no sign of his earlier passion.
“I don’t want them any closer than two days’ flight.”
“That leaves us maybe five days to alert the Imperial vessels patrolling your outer defenses, as wel
l as any others that can reach the sector in time.”
“Let me see if I understand what you’re thinking. You’re hoping we can engage the squadrons protecting the death ship, knock them out or hold them off, without Bi’isil reinforcements able to respond before the nearest portion of the Imperial Fleet bolsters our side?”
“As well as contain the death ship. We’ll separate it from the hunter-killers and keep it from reaching Laro or any inhabited area of Kalquor until we figure out what to do with the female victims.”
Feyom flicked her hand dismissively. “It’s a waste of effort and resources to concern ourselves with those Earthers. Who’s to say the Bi’isils on the death ship won’t kill them when it becomes clear we won’t let their plan move forward?”
Maf darted a glance at her. “One step at a time, my dear. You may be correct, and the Bi’isils will solve the problem for us.” He returned his attention to the admiral. “This has to be played carefully, Piras. If the Bi’isils detect spacecraft loyal to the Imperial fleet joining us, they’ll realize we suspect their treachery.”
“Which is why I’ll take my raider into Imperial-held space and contact them out of Bi’is’s detection range. As a distraction, we can make it look as if there is a skirmish between a small Imperial force and your border guards. That would allow the rest to get within range to confront the Bi’is at the most opportune moment.”
Maf took a full three minutes to consider. Feyom and his aides fidgeted, but he wouldn’t be rushed. Finally, he nodded his agreement. “I leave the strategy to you, then. I’ll meet with my officers and prepare our forces for defense. The commander of my fleet is the captain of this destroyer. You’ll coordinate with him.”
Nako saw Maf was not happy about the situation, but the agreement to work together rang true. A lot more genuine than any warmhearted reception could have been. If he’d acted like Piras’s best buddy, I’d suspect the worst.
Alien Outcast Page 15