by Bobbi Ross
Without asking, big, gold and handsome wrapped his impressive arm around my waist, squeezed me close to his chest and lifted me into the air. This relationship is going nowhere good, fast. He stretched out to his full imposing height and with his free hand snapped the latch on the air vent. He hauled us both into the metal tube and I heard the grate close below us. How it remained shut with a broken latch, and us both in the air, I had no idea. Footsteps below meant I wouldn't get a chance to ask about it either.
Voices rose up to us through the grate. They were standing right under us. "The last time they were seen, they were heading down this way, Sir."
Face to chest in a tiny air vent, I held my breath. Using what little room I had, I craned my neck to try to look down to the grate but couldn't make out much more than scattered motion. Apparently the commander of this Alliance Imperial guard regiment had decided to hold forum at our feet.
Worst-case scenario, if they found us, I could always just shoot the power junction next to the air vent we were in, crushing him with our dead bodies. The commander hadn't shouted an alert so I was taking it as a good sign. He addressed his subordinates.
"The station’s central command should be scanning this area in a minute soldier. You, you and you fan out and search the area while we wait for word from HQ. Radio in if you find them or else rendezvous back here in five."
Oh good, they were coming back. I leaned my head back so I could look up at golden boy after the last of the enemy’s footfalls dissipated. The shadows in the tube absorbed most of his beautiful form except for his sparkling, hazel eyes staring right through me. Sparks of electricity trickled down my spine revving up my core. I felt his back muscles stiffen and his chest heaved a little faster. I couldn’t tell if it was from the strain of holding the both of us up, or from working hard not to tear through the thin metal of the air duct we were suspended in. Considering what he had done with the manacles, I was leaning toward the latter.
We may have avoided the guards, but the scan was an entirely different matter. I was personally working hard to keep myself from taking another deep breath of the musky, apple and summer flavor that seemed to drip off my new golden, fuzzy friend in waves and whispered to him. "This was a good idea, but the power junction may not be enough to hide us from the scan, particularly since they’re already looking for us in this area."
He nodded to me, dug in to the soft metal a little more with his left hand and pulled me tighter against his body with the other. He smiled. "Maybe this will."
A soft prickling sensation began to creep up and down my spine. The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end and my muscles began to gently contract and relax –goosebumps, like the kind you get from the breath of a lover who gently exhales on your belly, but everywhere. And I mean everywhere. I was trapped somewhere between amazement and arousal.
I looked back up to him. "Is that you?"
He merely nodded his head with a light curl of his lip. I couldn't help but close my eyes and sink back into the tingling, warm sensation, and the strength of his arm around me. When I opened my eyes I realized I was leaning my head on the silky fur of his chest. I clenched my teeth to keep from biting the nipple taunting me less than an inch away from my mouth.
Holy skeck! Here he was saving my life again. Hopefully whatever he was doing was diverting the scans, while I was busy thinking of ways to take advantage of him. Heck, where we even compatible? I let out a quick breath, causing his golden-brown nipple to harden and pull taut.
He responded with a stiff pressure that pushed against my belly from below his coiled gold belt. Yup! We certainly seemed –compatible. The vibrations he was generating stopped, and the only thing that remained was the pulsating hardness of his arousal against my stomach. Oh yeah, we were definitely compatible.
In the ultimate display of bad timing the communicator squawked in my ear. "Captain are you there?" Jaxx chirped.
I sighed. "Please, tell me you’re off the station and headed to our usual fallback rendezvous."
“Negative Captain. You know I’d never leave you behind. But I’ve got good news. The scan is complete. We were able to send some Dauniete ghost images to one of the upper decks during the last part of the scan to confuse their sensors. We are tracking major Alliance movement to that area. The coast should be clear. Come on home."
“You disregarded my explicit orders Commander. I should have you shot for that. You got me? Right after you give birth to my godchildren, of course.” I hollered and the line went quite. A few seconds later I mumbled, “Thank you, Jaxx.”
“Captain," he said as if insulted, "remember protocol."
I turned my head back again to appraise golden boy of the situation. He was already staring down at me, his hazel eyes flecked with gold, now deep and dark with hunger. Maybe this is the most action he's had all year too. I bit my lip before I spoke. "It seems like we’re free to go now. I owe you a debt of gratitude big boy."
His look intensified if that was even possible. "No, brave Terran warrior, it is I who owe you a life debt. Your actions here today have shamed me back to an honorable path. And I thank you for it."
"Um, sure...You’re welcome. Well, the least I can do is offer you a ride."
His smile stretched from ear to ear at this, and the throbbing on my belly intensified.
Down big boy!
Epilogue
Buzz! Buzz!
The man in the bed shifted uncomfortably.
Buzz! Buzz!
He cursed under his breath. He was groggy with drink and his body ached from the games earlier that evening.
Buzz! Buzz!
His temper flared and he turned toward the door of his cabin, "Cease that infernal buzzing!"
Blessedly, the infernal noise stopped. But nothing else happened. Oh yes, he'd forgotten, protocol. "Enter. Enter!"
The thick metallic door slid open letting in a cold blinding light from the hallway obscured only by the lone figure standing in the doorway. He grumbled his dissatisfaction while his eyes adjusted to the light. The man outside had enough sense to wait until he was summoned. A gesture waved him in.
A man garbed in a crisp military uniform stepped through the door. His eyes went wide as saucers for a moment, his gaze focused on the floor next to the supreme commander's bed. He caught himself and addressed the senior Novokin officer. "Sir, I'm sorry to disturb you, Sir."
He sat up, letting his cover pool at his naked waist and glowered at the younger man. "Get on with it Lieutenant, what's so important you've got to wake me at...0300 hours in the morning. I hope it is very important, for your sake."
The lieutenant swallowed hard. He stood ramrod straight, arms down at his sides and eyes forced up when he gave his report. "Sir we've had a message from the Station Chief serving on the Deep Proteus space station 5. An incident occurred, Sir. It involves information the Supreme Commander himself, you Sir had flagged."
"Well, don't be obtuse Lieutenant, what is it?"
Sweat beaded on his forehead, and a rivulet ran down a light purple cheek, which identified him as a Novokin. "Sir, apparently one of the rogue captains from the ex-Protectorate army was briefly scanned by an advertising bot, during a showdown with some slavers."
The supreme commander cracked his neck from side to side. He was getting bored with this. "Well don't keep me in suspense Lieutenant."
"Apparently Sir, the rogue Captain and several other individuals, possibly of said Captain's crew covertly entered the station, biometricly cloaked and dressed as Daunietes. They attacked the slave caravan directly, killing two Lizardian slavers, five standard space station security officers and twelve Imperial guards."
The commander yawned. "Yes yes, I get that. Who was it?"
The lieutenant’s voice cracked when he responded. "I'm sorry Sir, I’m not privy to the information. The details have been designated for your eyes only, as per your command, on quadrant 34's Novokin Alliance Independence Day, three years ago."
The s
upreme commander briefly considered demoting the lieutenant down to auxiliary crewman status. But then he would have to demote every fool he was forced to suffer under his command and soon he'd be out of a crew. Instead he chose to lash out at the man. "Why didn't you just start with that you gelk! Give me the data pad!"
The young lieutenant didn't move. "I'm sorry Sir, this was designated classified red Omega. The only copy has been forwarded directly to your data terminal."
The supreme commander slid to the edge of his bed, swinging his feet to the floor. Letting his sheet fall completely away, he smiled at the young man's embarrassment. He was as fit today as the day he first enlisted, and he didn't mind if people knew it. Actually he made sure they were aware of it.
The room was still draped in shadows, but he was careful to step over the dead Terran girl lying at the foot of his bed, her glassy eyes catching the light and staring into nothingness. He tapped a few keys on his data terminal. The face of a beautiful Terran woman and her statistics rolled across the screen. The supreme commander licked his lips and smiled.
"Lieutenant." He barked.
The young officer stepped forward. Still at attention, he purposely avoided making eye contact with his commander.
The Supreme Commander of the entire Novokin Alliance's fleet scanned the communiqué, then spoke in cool even tones that almost approached mirth. "Are the perpetrators still on the space station?”
“No Sir, they escaped,” the young lieutenant’s palms dripped and his mouth filled with cotton.
“Get me Captain Asmot. I have a traitor I want hunted down and brought back to me, alive."
Episode Two
Chapter 1
We descended the three decks down to engineering. And by we, I mean myself and my new ever present 6'8" brick wall of gold, rippling muscles that was my new shadow, Trex. Not that I was complaining. Well, maybe a little. Every chance I got actually. To everyone I met, but not inwardly.
I only met him a day ago on Deep Proteus space station 5 where Jaxx and I had struck an unfortunate deal with a less than shady character named Skeeves. That son of a sheetek, sold us out, to the Novokin Alliance no less. Who expected them so far into the outer rim? If it wasn’t for Trex, I'd be a little more than a carbon scorch mark on the station's promenade.
He was part of a slave caravan, waiting to be sold. And I was pretending to haggle with the one-eyed lizard mongrel in order to stop him from abusing a young Terran woman. Things went south, fast, when he refused to sell her to me, while making detailed threats of what he would do to the poor girl. I snapped and blasted the monster’s arm off. Ooops!
The commotion that followed my assault alerted the Novokin and station guards who were quite displeased with my negotiating tactics. As expected, plasma fire was exchanged. That’s when my golden barbarian made his brilliant entrance and saved my ass. Well truthfully, he is not exactly mine and I know nothing else about him. Except, that he’s from a different galaxy and I owe him a life debt, which I intend to pay back, in full. Still, he is an unknown on my ship, under my command. I’ll have to keep my eye on him.
Anya was waiting for us in the doorway when we arrived at engineering, languishing as if she didn't have any work to do. Did I pay her to languish? I'd be really put out by this, if I was actually paying her.
Her tall and slender form worked hard at holding the doorway in place. She was half Terran half Duskanite, and she'd been gifted with the best of both worlds. There was a delicate, almost Elven quality about her beauty. Jet black hair flowed over skin of a deep flawless mocha. At least she wasn't as tall as most Duskanites, her mother's Terran blood stunting her growth to a mere 6'2". I stood up straighter as she stepped aside and graciously ushered us into the room.
Something strange was going on because she never called me to engineering. Never. When I turned back to eye her, she had now draped herself over a consul, as if standing was too taxing on her system. Damn if she didn't look like one of those models from the fashion holo-magazines.
"Captain," she merely cocked an eye in greeting, then turned to Trex and let a predatory feline smile slide across her face. "Handsome," she purred.
Standing and spinning in one motion she cat walked toward the reaction chamber. I guess she was expecting us to follow. Handsome, huh? I bit down on the inside of my cheek, as the green snake of jealousy slithered its way out, ready to pounce. But I wasn’t even with Trex. No, I had no claim over him.
"Captain there's something I want you to take a look at." She opened the outer hatch of a long metal cylinder next to the engine’s reactor. She pulled down the three green safety latches necessary to access the chamber and then keyed in her override command. It cried a long decompressive hiss before opening. I peered in, and-.
"What am I looking at? It's empty."
She gave me an haute smile. "Exactly. Listen Captain, far be it for me to question your actions on the space station... I'm sure, I would've done the exact same thing in your shoes." She paused to give Trex a flirtatious wink. "Hey handsome, thanks for saving our Captain.”
Trex arched a single eyebrow. “Not at all, it was my pleasure.” His stoic face was in full bloom.
She gave him another small wink before turning back to me. “The real problem is, that when we fled the station in haste, we did so without replacing our fuel crystals. If you remember Captain, we took that skecky deal because we were desperate. At that point we were already recycling discarded shards. What you're looking at in there is the total sum of everything we've got left."
I frowned deeper, on top of the frown I was still sporting from her wink at Trex. "There's nothing in there. How-."
She nodded her head and then threw her index finger up. “And before you ask, Captain, fumes. That's all we’re running on."
Skeck. "So what can we do? Or better yet as my Chief Engineer, what do you suggest we do?"
"Well Captain, as your only engineer, I've been giving this a lot of thought and it comes down to one of three possibilities. Number one, give up. Surrender to the Alliance."
That earned her my patented are-you-praking-kidding-me look, as hot blood rushed to color my face. Trex’s deep, low growl mirrored my feelings exactly, but she took it in stride.
"I know, I know. You wanted options and I'm giving them to you. Number two. The Razor's way too far from a refueling site to make it on her own power. We can start at top speed, and I can maybe coax half a day out of her. The hope here being that we can eventually drift to somewhere we can refuel."
That sounded a bit dubious, but I'd bite. "And what's the likelihood of that?"
"Pretty good, eventually...I mean if we don't die of starvation or hypothermia, undoubtedly some of us would have to eat each other. A few of us might make it." She flashed me a smile full of sharp teeth. Not quite pure-blood Duskanite carnivorous sharp, but enough to make Trex growl. My big barbarian shadow was nothing if not consistent.
It was well known that her people, could go for long stretches of time without eating. As much as I liked Anya, I didn't relish the idea of starving or freezing to death, only to be stored and then reheated for her as a vid-screen dinner.
I waited, not wanting to step on my engineer’s flair for the dramatic. She took the cue. "Number three, we get it from a passing ship."
I must've looked like a confused toddler, because Trex was looking back and forth at the two of us before his gaze became somber. "But we don't have anything to trade," I pointed out, not liking at all where this conversation was headed.
"I know," she mumbled, her eyes searching the room until she found a very interesting display panel to gaze into.
“Prak the seven winds of Galinomo Valley! Chief, are you telling me that we’re about to be sitting ducks in Novokin space? Not more than spitting distance from the Deep Proteus space station 5 where just yesterday a new arrest warrant was issued for myself and the nine slaves we liberated?” I exploded, the heat in my body rising, as anger flooded my vision. “You’re tell
ing me that my only choice to save my crew is to turn us all into criminals?” I asked again, not quite believing what I was hearing.
She simply nodded.
I rubbed my forehead and pushed my hair back trying to take a breath and clear my head. Could my day get any worse?
Chapter 2
"I will not sink to praking piracy," I growled, ready to explode from the rapidly building pressure inside my skull. Made that much worse by my unintended pun.
Keeping my hands open and my movements fluid I took a step back on the mat, looking for some kind of opening in his defenses, but came up short. The man was a fortress. I sidled in low, faking a sweep to his left leg, putting me in a position to attack his unprotected midsection with an openhanded strike. He sidestepped the fake kick easily then batted off my multiple thrusts and jabs without much effort. Now he was just playing with me. We had been sparring ever since our meeting with Anya in engineering. I needed to pound something and Trex was there, a willing victim. Plus, I hadn’t made up my mind about him. Had to keep him close.
I kept attacking, with deadly accuracy and razor-sharp quips. All the while he evaded and defended quietly. The more I attacked, the easier it seemed for him. I was dripping like a Cartusian rain forest monkey and I don't think he even broke a sweat. Unfair.
“Is that all you have got Captain? Your combat technique is seriously lacking. Is this how your Protectorate taught you to fight?”
Was he mocking me? His straight face gave up nothing. There was a glint in his green, gold speckled eyes; a warning of danger maybe, or something else I couldn’t quite decipher yet. I narrowed my own eyes over pursed lips. I’m usually able to read people right away and I liked it that way. It made sense.