The Crime of Protection

by Gloria Martin

  He was now kneeling between her legs, he pulled her hips into his lap and she lay back rolling her hips in opposite motion of him, making their connections longer and more intense. She moaned again, grasping to the strange moss flooring.

  “You’re so beautiful,” Pov said, keeping a languid pace that was driving her insane. His grip on her waist was divine, but she felt like if he didn’t speed up she’d die.

  “Let me drive,” she said, leaning up and kissing him. “Lay on your back, with your knees up so I can lean on them,” she commanded. Her voice lit a fire in him, and she liked it a bit more than she expected.

  She lowered herself onto him, the naughty feeling of dirtying their suits was enough to make her face flush red. The suits were air and water proof, so it’s not like stains would show up, but it was an attractive idea. Modulating her hips back and forth while bearing down on him was incredible, it felt better than she could have hoped for. She leaned her head back and felt him unzip the top of her suit more, revealing her bra and bare chest. The bra had clasps on the front and she undid them herself, letting her breasts out, sweat beading across her chest as she continued to rub against him.

  He thumbed her left nipple, then squeezed it between his thumb and middle finger. Juniper gasped, looking at him through half lidded eyes.

  “I’m close,” she gasped out, his hips bumping back against hers. He leaned up and she met him halfway, kissing him while still rubbing in all the right places. Her breasts were now jostling quickly with her movement and he was adoring them with his warm hands. He sat up and licked her right nipple, scraping his teeth against it slightly, and that’s all it took, she was quickly coming and so hard.

  The white-out of her orgasm was blinding and seemed to go on forever, her mouth was open and she knew she was moaning but there was nothing to be done about that.

  “Fuck,” she moaned as she came down from it. The moment she did, she could feel Pov buck up against her and suddenly his crotch and the stomach of his suit were a lot warmer than they had been. He collapsed back against the ground, resting his hands on her thighs.

  “If this is what happens whenever you disappear, you should do that more often,” he joked. Juniper laughed and swung her leg over so that she could get to her pack.

  “Here, you can take care of the mess a bit with this,” she handed him a small travel pack of tissues she’d had in her bag.

  “Thanks,” he said, taking it and turning away to clean up, she smiled at the sound of his zipper as she turned around to check what else she had packed.

  ***

  Bren was pissed and panicked.

  He couldn’t walk away and go get his gun because the last time he went to the ship someone vanished, but just standing there he was useless.

  Breathing deeply, he decided to take a step back and look at what he knew. They were disappearing into the ground, this was proven by the fact that although he hadn’t said exactly what he found, Pov had shot downwards into whatever was down there and that’s when he vanished.

  He wasn’t sure if they were alive.

  He wasn’t sure if Juniper, the woman he- he stopped these thoughts in their tracks, they weren’t helping. Looking up at the suns he tried to gage how much time until nightfall came. The further sun was just flirting with the horizon, the other was still a way off from it, he had a handful of hours. He needed to stop trying to fix what was already done. He ran back to the ship. If anyone else were around he’d joke that he was at least getting his cardio for the day.

  Searching through what the ship had to offer, he didn’t see much that he could use without hurting them if he were to try to blast them out. He could dig, but he had tried to do that with his hands earlier and it wasn’t a possibility.

  They had been dragged under by whatever it was once they drew attention to themselves, he could do that also.

  Grabbing the loudest handheld speaker they had on the ship, he wired it into his system through the ports on his right wrist, so that his voice could be transmitted out of it. Grabbing a couple guns and his pack he loaded himself up with weaponry. He’d be as loud as possible to draw whatever it was out.

  Stepping out onto the planet’s surface again, he began to shout obscenities.

  “COME ON THEN, IF YOU WANT ME TOO, COME ON OUT AND HAVE A COMPLETE SET,” his voice boomed from the speaker, he had amped it up so the volume would be even louder than usual. He fired a blast gun into the sky and it boomed and echoed as it went off, mingling with his voice. “DON’T BE SHY NOW, I’M DONE WAITING,” he continued, blasting off another shot into the sky. He was sure Juniper would have a heart attack if she could see what he was doing to the ecosystem here, he didn’t care.

  He continued with the loudness, running over to where the crater was and still doing it. He wouldn’t fire into the ground, he couldn’t tell where in the soil and moss they were, but he would absolutely raise the most hell he could.

  *****

  There was something wrong.

  Pov and Juniper could hear huge amounts of noise, they were muffled a bit by the moss but still there, still booming.

  “What the hell is that?” Juniper asked, placing her hand against the moss on the wall of their enclosure. It was shaking. “We need to get out of here,” she said sternly.

  “How? It’s not like we can fire the gun, we’d cook in a small place like this,” he responded. Juniper had another idea.

  “Look, feel the dark part of the wall, notice how hard it is?” she asked, motioning for him to put his hand on it.

  “Yeah,” he said thoughtfully, realizing where she was going with this.

  “My knife didn’t do much, but if we could fashion something sharp out of this before we kill it, we might be able to cut through the wall more deeply with it,” she explained, already getting to work. She used her knife to cut a long, almost perfectly shovel shaped, pattern into the ground. Quickly working, she then lifted the tip of the thinner side of the “handle” the most she could and cut under it, freeing it from the ground. It hardened as she pulled so she had to be sure to move quickly, handing the end to Pov so he could pull it straight as she worked.

  After it was completely cut free she kept it taught, pulling it away from Pov until the entire thing was a solid navy blue. They then repeated the process, making another one quickly. She handed both of them to Pov.

  “We need to move quickly or these will be pointless, we might be able to dig ourselves out if you do the digging,” she explained. He was a cyborg, parts his body had literally been designed to move faster and be stronger.

  “Alright,” he said, leaning over to pick up her helmet and hand it to her. She slid it on and secured it, taking a moment to look at the hole the creature had made and repaired.

  “Alright,” she agreed, ready.

  He started into the wall at a 45-degree angle upward from a height they could easily climb into. The slot he basically was scraping out for them was no wider than a couple feet, no taller than five feet, it was tight and he had to crouch down to do it. She waited in the main chamber, not wanting to be smacked by all the debris that was flying out from his quick work. The debris landed hard like rocks against the soft flooring of the room.

  One of the pincushion creatures came into the room from one of their more organic tunnels and just sat there, no rippling, no reaction.

  “I’m sorry to destroy your home, but I can’t stay here any longer,” she said softly. Pov shouted down that she could come out now, he’d reached daylight and it only took him five minutes. She hollered back that she’d be right up, and then looked back at the creature sadly before hoisting herself up and through the tunnel. It was a tight and short travel, but when she finally got out she was so excited to see one of the two suns just sitting on the horizon.

  “Did you see what the noise was?” she asked Pov as he helped her out.

  “No, haven’t had a chance to look,” he said honestly, taking a gaze around. “Shit-” he said and started runnin
g. She followed his gaze and saw what had upset him. Halfway into being dragged into the ground was the ship, with Bren blasting his guns at the creatures who were trying to suck it under. He had drawn attention to himself alright, and to their vessel.

  Juniper ran with all the strength she could, her cyborg companion quickly beating her to the ship. He had whipped out his gun and was firing away at the creatures, taking out mass amounts of them while aiming to keep them away from the ship.

  “WHERE THE HELL HAVE YOU BEEN?” Bren’s voice was much louder than it needed to be and it made Juniper’s ears throb in pain. He was quickly punching in the code to open the ship and let them in. When they were almost at the ship, just twenty feet away from it, one of the pincushion creatures that was trying to drag the ship down sliced a hole through Juniper’s suit and her leg, she didn’t immediately lose oxygen, her suit was skin tight and it took a moment for the air to be able to seep out all the way- it was still working it’s hardest to supply it. However, she was bleeding heavily.

  Pov had made it to the ship, he didn’t see she’d been hurt, she was still trying to run but having trouble with her leg. Bren pushed Pov the rest of the way into the ship and then leaped out, his suit also being sliced by the creatures, but he didn’t care, it didn’t matter. He ran to her, now only fifteen feet from the ship, lifted her in his arms and ran back, quickly shutting the door behind them.

  “Pov get us the hell out of here,” she said, gasping for air as oxygen filled her lungs again, she winced in pain at her leg. Bren hurriedly carried her to the large medical bay.

  The lift off from the planet’s surface was rough, the creatures really were trying to keep them there, but when the thrust of the ships’ engines started scorching them they were finally set free, climbing into the atmosphere where any stragglers were detached immediately.

  Carefully, reverently, Bren helped Juniper remove her suit, revealing her now bruised body. He noticed a handprint on her hip but didn’t pause or mention it. He handed her a shirt out of the scrubs drawer and she thanked him, sliding it on. The bleeding wasn’t as bad as it had looked, it was a long cut, but not that deep or thick. Bren stopped the bleeding and cleaned it quietly. Applying a solvent, he then bandaged her leg with an adhesive to stop any more blood from escaping.

  “Thank you so much,” she said, turning her leg over and taking a look at his handiwork. He disconnected the speaker from his system, and finally let himself drop into a chair beside the exam table.

  “You’re going to have to limit how much you’re on that leg for today and tomorrow,” he said, still looking at her leg.

  “I can definitely do that,” she replied, glad to know it wasn’t anything serious. He still wasn’t looking her in the face. “Are you okay?” she asked, truly concerned.

  “I was just convinced I lost you,” he said, he looked up at her with those brilliant green eyes. “I don’t know what I’d do if I lost you, it’s not just the job or this bullshit mission,” he paused to gain his composure. “I don’t know how what parts of me that are alive could go on living without you,” he said plainly, he was avoiding eye contact again.

  “Oh, Bren,” she said gently, lifting his chin with her hand so that he could look her in the eyes. “I care so deeply about you also, of course I do,” she kissed him softly on the lips, her breath shuddering from how personal and pure this moment was. He kissed her back softly, taking her hand in his.

  “Why didn’t you tell me then? Why do you always act like I’m getting in the way of your work?” he asked.

  “Because you are,” she kindly laughed, she didn’t mean what she said with malice but he frowned anyways. “But maybe, I should learn that there are more things in this galaxy that are as important as this job is to me, like passion and kindness,” she explained. She stood, while he remained seated, and kissed his forehead. “We’ll figure this out,” she said softly before leaving the room.

  Bren looked down at his hands for a moment before cleaning up the room and leaving too, he needed to have a word with Pov.

  ***

  The next few days that followed Juniper didn’t leave her room that often. She’d eat, check on the ship’s progress, and that was it. In her room she wrote the most detailed report she could muster, almost a hundred pages on what the experience was like down on the planet. She sketched the creature out on her handheld device, and properly sealed away the clippings she had gotten, and the one quill she had been given by the creature. She honestly didn’t think they were trying to harm her, rather she was sure they were scientists like herself, trying to learn all they could about the invaders from space.

  When she’d finally finished documenting the mission, it had been a full week that she’d basically been avoiding her two shipmates.

  When a knock came on her door an exact week since they launched back into space, she wasn’t terribly surprised.

  “Dinner will be served on the observation deck in about an hour,” Pov said, smiling apologetically. “It’s a formal meal so I’ll be wearing my best,” he added, looking disdainfully down at his own clothing.

  “Why so fancy?” Juniper asked, curious.

  “We’re starting on a new leg of our mission, the two of us thought it would be nice to celebrate that a bit,” Pov explained without really going into detail.

  “Alright, consider this my RSVP to the event then,” she teasingly said, smiling. She expected Pov to flirt, but he didn’t and it confused her.

  “See you then,” he said, leaving her doorway and heading down the hall. She watched him, her brow furrowed in confusion.

  *****

  The two men had come to terms with what they needed to do.

  “I love her,” Pov said softly. It was the day after their mission had ended, the two men were standing in the kitchen drinking coffee, Bren was leaned against the counter.

  “I do too,” Bren admitted. Giving the words air and letting them out was the single most relieving sensation he'd ever had. He did love her, he knew it.

  “She's made it obvious that she has feelings for us too, if she kissed you like that,” Pov said softly, staring at the ground between them. He was calculating.

  “Then what? I don't want her to have to choose, that would mean one of us is pissed off for the rest of the mission,” Bren complained, taking a drink of his coffee. He loved her and he wanted her to be happy though, if she asked him to he'd set his feelings aside. He knew this.

  “Why can't we just share?” Pov asked. The angry look that Bren shot him made him flinch and explain himself. “I know she's not an item to be passed off between us, I'm not saying that, I'm just saying why make her pick? Why not just go all in together?” Pov explained.

  “I'm not gay,” Bren commented defensively.

  “It would be all about her, not us,” Pov countered. “It would be both of us in a relationship with her, we could lay the lines out for it more clearly with her if she'd have us,” he said as he looked up at Bren.

  “Do you think she'd go for it?” Bren asked concerned, he hadn't considered this before.

  “I think that she'd love it, she told me she's married to the job, so why not have the crew as well,” Pov said smiling.

  “Alright,” Bren replied. “Let's give it a go.”

  When she left her room an hour later Juniper was dressed in the best dress she owned, it was sleek black and the hem had a pattern of small ribbon-like pricks that made it look like stars and galaxies were visible up her calves and thighs. She had washed her hair and worn it down, letting her natural curl be visible throughout her mahogany locks. On her feet were her only pair of heels, making her legs look like they went forever.

  As she walked onto the observation deck she felt as beautiful as space itself.

  Pov was already seated at the table, and the way he looked at her when she walked in made her feel naked and almost feral.

  “You…” he paused his words to stand up and pull out a chair for her. “You look incredible.�
�

  Juniper smiled demurely, sitting in the seat and looking at the table setting. It was an odd one, hers in the middle and the two other seats on either side of her instead of across from her as they usually sat. Before she had time to mention it, Bren was coming out of the kitchen with a couple trays of food.

  By the time all the food was brought out, Juniper could see he’d gone overboard in the most delicious way. There were Cornish game hens, that had originally been saved for holidays, a dish of cooked mushrooms and green beans in a brown sauce, red skin mashed potatoes, a brown gravy, and tomatoes stuffed with rice and veggies. It was almost too luxurious.

  “What’s all this about?” she asked, legitimately curious.

  “Enjoy your food, we can explain that later,” Pov responded, filling her wine glass.

  “How did your report go?” Bren asked, cutting into his hen.

  “It went well, actually, looking back I realized how lucky we were to get out of there,” she stated matter-of-factly as she lifted a fork full of mashed potatoes to her lips. Her shipmates nodded in agreement.

  The meal went by really well, they were able to just talk and enjoy each other’s company in a way the three of them hadn’t since they started the mission. As Pov gathered the dishes, Bren was in the kitchen finishing setting up the dessert.

  “What is this?” she asked him again, he smiled at her and her face warmed.

  “We’ll tell you over dessert,” he answered, before taking the dishes into the kitchen.

  Dissatisfied with that answer, but happily full from dinner, Juniper settled back in her chair and tried to relax. Dessert was ice cream with real fruit on it. It looked so fresh, Juniper was surprised at this, not thinking there was any more real fruit left on the ship except for the strawberries they were growing in the hydroponics bay. The men settled into their chairs next to her, and didn’t touch their dessert yet. She looked back and forth between them expectantly.