“So we're taller, stronger, and at least in your case, immensely better looking,” Kelbara jokes. “Also sir.... I liked when you called me Kel. Nobody's ever done that.”
“Well, I'll reserve that just for my personal usage then, in private. But we've still got work to do,” I tell her with a smile. “You know, if you want to make dinner in time. I'm quite sure Chef will have something special ready for you if we make it on time.”
“Aye-aye, sir!”
Chapter 17
Kelbara
The mesa is desolate and windswept, with snow drifts sweeping across the flat surface as the winds carve them into rippling shapes. It's not totally snow covered, I can see a few spots where rocks or trees stick out, but the overall impression is whiteness. “Great vacation spot.”
Jensen chuckles, nodding. “I'll say. But it does have advantages.”
“Like what? Great terrain for cross country skiing if that's your thing?” I ask, shivering. The interior of the shuttle isn't cold, but just looking down on the hundreds of kilometers of icy crap down there is chilling. “I'm not into snow sports.”
“Good to know, I'll take you to Halpern Island then,” Jensen says. “Ever been there?”
“Never heard of it, actually. Where is it?”
Jensen adjusts his controls and pulls the shuttle into a hover, pausing. “Halpern Island, it's off the east coast of the main continent. It's named after the AI that ran the Tamarian colony ship. The programmer was named Dennis Halpern. I've never been there either, but according to what Mogar's told me, it's supposed to be a tropical paradise.”
“And why don't I know about this place?” I ask, curious. “I love tropical islands.”
“This one is privately owned. And Mogar doesn't let just anyone onto his private property.”
I nod, checking my sensors. “A wise decision. Sounds like a plan then. After this is all over, we can see if he'll let us take a vacation there. Okay, we're two hundred kilometers from Cassell's property, should we engage the stealth mode?”
“Engage stealth, I still want to keep us above five thousand meters unless we have cloud cover,” Jensen says, putting us into forward flight again. This is the third of five properties that Mogar was able to find, and we're getting into a routine. Still, we're not going to take it easy, Jensen's going by his own book each time, making sure we do things right. “No issue with the hover up here, and we can see a lot with those sensors. Give me full scans, enhanced as much as you can.”
I switch on my sensor package, letting the computers take care of imagery while I monitor the stealth systems. “Stealth is looking good, so far nothing on sensors.”
“Then let's approach Cassell's land. According to what Mogar sent us, there's a large building on it, I'm going to guess it's his vacation home,” Jensen says, swinging us slightly west. “I see the road underneath us, I'd like to come in from a different direction, get a different view of the area.”
“Understood. I have the data uplink established with Mogar back in the capital. He's seeing everything we're seeing,” I report, focusing on my screens. While I've got a set of shuttle controls back here, my job is to process the information that the scans are giving us, leaving Jensen to worry about piloting. It's a good setup, and one that is just as easy sitting in a row as it is sitting side by side like a normal shuttle. “I've got land vehicles to the north of us, about fifty kilometers off. Looks like four of them in convoy formation.”
“What type?” Jensen asks, adjusting his controls again slightly. We tilt a little more to parallel the road, allowing me a better view both with my eyes, but more importantly with the sensors themselves, giving them another angle to image from.
“It looks like an armored transport, two standard enclosed troop transports, and... I'd say Tauria.”
“Oh? What makes you say that?” Jensen asks curiously. “She's not the kind to just hang out in the cold like this.”
“That icy bitch? She probably finds this weather comfortable,” I grumble, glad that Mogar's data uplink doesn't include cockpit voice comments. At least, I don't think it does. “But taking a look... the computer says that's a Ogtern luxury model ground transport. Those things are expensive. Like, good sized Neyla crystal expensive.”
“Sounds like a land transport fit for a former queen,” Jensen says with a derisive laugh. “Too bad this thing doesn't have weapons.”
“Next upgrade,” I reply. “In the meantime, let's get a view on their destination, so Tauren's troops can handle things when they get here.”
“Proceeding on,” Jensen says, swinging wide again. As we get closer though, low hanging clouds start to come in, obscuring our view. “Shit.”
“I can still see some,” I reassure him, “the passive sensors are giving me some data.”
“I still want eyes on the target,” Jensen says, dropping down. “I'm going to engage the ducted fans, hold on.”
The roar of the turbine fans is muted, but still noticeable as we descend below the cloud cover. I shift around in my seat, I didn't tell Jensen yesterday but the way the vibrations come through my seat are not just a massage on my back, but I can feel the tingle between my legs too, tantalizing and arousing, even more so after last night and this morning. I went so many years without a date, or even a boyfriend, and now that Jensen's showed me even a little of how good actual sex can be, my body seems to want it constantly. Even stroking him and sucking the come out of his cock this morning was pure joy, and I want more.
I bite my lip as we drop below the clouds, doing my best to focus on my sensors as I feel my body respond to the vibrations of the fans, and my pussy starts to moisten in my pants. If this keeps up, I'm going to be practically begging Jensen to put the shuttle in hover before we even get back to the capital and fuck me right here in the back seat if he can wiggle past his head rest, I won't be able to hold back any longer. Still, I have a mission to complete, as much as my pussy is saying I've got other things to think about as well.
“Okay.... dropping below the clouds. I see the building up ahead, it's not that big though,” I report. “Can you swing around to the far side near the mesa cliffs? I'm getting readings on a lot more metal than there should be for a building the size of what I'm seeing, that's smaller than one wing of your estate.”
“It's not the size of your estate that counts....” Jensen teases, making me blush at the implication. I honestly don't know if Jensen's huge or not, but he felt perfect inside me, and that's all that matters.
“Yeah well, let's get our readings. We're coming around to the far side.... whoa.”
“You got that right, whoa,” Jensen says softly. “Even I can see it with just visuals.”
Cassell's 'vacation home' is built on the edge of the mesa, and while what's above the mesa surface is only a single story that wouldn't stick out that much to anyone approaching from the south, the northwest face of the mesa is practically sheer, and twinkling on it are numerous lights. “He's honeycombed the mesa underneath the ground level building. My sensors are saying that complex goes deep into the mesa, I'm getting dozens of rooms and hundreds of meters of tunnels and corridors carved into the rock. I don't have life signs, but there's enough space there for three or four hundred people at least, and I don't know how many vehicles.”
“Makes sense,” Jensen says in grudging admiration. “Building into the rock itself controls access, the ground is a natural shield and camouflage, and it makes running the place cheap. I bet he's got a geothermic power plant in there, this area's got enough....”
“WEAPONS LOCK!” I yell, cutting Jensen off. Jensen reacts instantly, diving towards the ground and corkscrewing. “How the stars?”
“I don't know, but I'm getting us out of here,” Jensen says, leveling out just twenty meters above the ground level. “Tell me when I can re-engage hover, these fans keep us subsonic.”
“No chance right now... Jensen, missiles fired! Evade!”
Jensen pulls up, the shuttle's inte
rnal frame actually groaning as he tries to twist. I punch at my panel, releasing countermeasures while at the same time pulling up an active communications channel. Jensen throws us into another corkscrewing spin, and I'm glad I didn't eat much for lunch. “Mogar, this is Kelbara, they're firing on us!”
“What?” Mogar says in surprise. “How?”
“Good fucking question, we've got stealth mode engaged!” I growl back. “What's not covered by your systems?”
“I.... sound. Are you in hover or ducted fans?”
“Fans,” I hiss back, trying to say more but I'm clenching my stomach muscles as hard as I can to keep my food down and to keep the g forces from blacking me out. “We can't go to hover, we're too close to the ground!”
Jensen snaps us into a crazy, twisting right bank, and I grunt again, squeezing my stomach and leg muscles like we tried a little yesterday to keep blood in my head as the inertial buffers can't handle so much sudden g-forces. Still, I can feel the grayness threatening on the edges of my vision, and I hope that Jensen won't have to do that again. “Missiles have missed!”
“Not for long,” Jensen grunts. “Two more missiles have been launched from the mesa. Mogar, do you have our data?”
“Yes, get the stars out of there!” Mogar yells, the first time I've ever heard the scholar lose his famous cool. “We have enough to launch an attack!”
“No time,” Jensen says, and I glance at the sensors. The missiles are coming, faster this time, and I hold on as Jensen throws us into a suicide dive, hoping to pull the missiles off of us by making them lose us in the ground clutter. “I could really go for ejector seats right now.”
“Yeah well, when's the last time that was needed?” I grunt as Jensen brakes, stopping us in an eye-popping maneuver that makes the fan turbines scream in protest. “That's not good if they're sonic guided!”
“Uh!” Jensen grunts, throwing us into forward motion before cutting off the fans. The sudden silence is strange, and I reach for my controls by instinct before I realize what Jensen's doing. The missiles barely miss behind us, their kinetic kill warheads slamming into the ground and sending up a spray of snow and dirt that actually rattles off the shuttle as it falls. “Missed!”
“We're going to crash,” I protest quietly. I don't know if the soundwaves are getting out of the canopy, but with us only making the noise of wind slipping over the hull of the shuttle, I don't want to add to it.
“If we slide down safely enough, then we can wait for them to think we're gone before we power up and move off,” Jensen says. “Five, six minutes at most.”
The ground comes up, and Jensen applies the grav pod landers, softening our impact but still we hit the snowy ground with some force as the grav pods fail slightly above ground. We're sliding, the ground is slightly downhill, until a sharp tearing crunch sound fills the cabin. Jensen hits his “Shit! That's not good.”
“Not it's not,” I hum. “Mogar, do you have our position?”
“We've got you down. What do your diagnostics say?”
Jensen pulls them up on his controls, cursing under his breath. “We're not going anywhere. That rock that was under the snow just tore out our fan control systems.”
“Sensors are saying movement from the mesa,” I reply, unstrapping. “Jensen, we've gotta move.”
“I'm so not dressed for this shit,” Jensen grunts, unstrapping his own harness. “Mogar, I'm going to take my hand communicator with me, and set this to self-destruct. Sorry, you're going to lose another shuttle.”
“Get yourselves to safety,” Mogar says. “We'll send troops as soon as possible.”
“Don't worry about us, we're just going to go skiing,” Jensen says with a falsely confident laugh. “See you soon, teacher.”
Jensen pops the canopy, and frigid air smacks me in the face, making me grunt in pain as we climb out. We're fighting the clock on multiple fronts right now. On one hand there's the approaching vehicles from the mesa, by my last reading I estimate we've got five or six minutes at most before they get here. On the other hand, neither Jensen or I are dressed for this kind of cold, it feels like the insides of my nostrils are getting ready to freeze already, and if we don't get to the survival kits that we have in the storage compartments fast enough, we're dead anyway.
“Help me with the panel!” Jensen yells over the howling wind. “It's stuck!”
I grab with him, planting my foot on the side of the shuttle and straining with all my might. Jensen's right next to me, pulling too, but the crash also bent the track that the storage panel slid on, jamming it only a centimeter or two open. We yank, tugging in time, but the progress is slow. “Come on!”
Finally, with a lurching pop, the panel opens, and we grab our survival kits, including the thin but vital weather ponchos. Less than a centimeter thick, they pull over our heads quickly while still insulating us at least enough that we aren't going to freeze to death. Next to it are our packs themselves, each holding survival rations, a communicator and rescue beacon. I pull mine over my shoulders and turn to Jensen, who's got his and has his powerlance out, ready. “Come on, we've got to...”
“Y'all need to drop that powerlance and put your fucking hands up,” a voice says behind us, and I turn, reaching for my lance on my thigh, but Jensen grabs me, pulling me down just as a Gauss round punches through the side of the shuttle where my chest would have been.
“Not this time, Kelbara,” he whispers. “They've got us. And I won't let you get yourself killed. Not when I've finally got you.”
I look over Jensen's shoulder at the merc with the Gauss rifle, who's got his eyes fixed on us, his gloved finger ready to fire again. “The man's right. Now, drop the fucking powerlances, and sit there until my friends show up, or else I'm going to decorate this shuttle with your brains.”
“Actually, you might want to get us a little bit away,” Jensen says, the merc giving him a questioning look. “I set this thing to self-destruct in about a minute, and there's no way to shut it off. You don't want that much shrapnel to deal with, do you?”
Chapter 18
Jensen
At least it's slightly warmer, walking through the corridors of the mesa with my hands bound behind me. After being captured, we were thrown into the back of a transport and driven to a garage at the base of the mesa before being put in a mechanical elevator and brought deeper into the base. The lights on the control panel when we get off indicate we're not on the mesa top level, but maybe halfway up the interior.
The corridors are reasonably well lit, but I can tell they've been modified from what they were originally, probably in an attempt to make sure that any slaves who tried to escape from Cassell didn't get away easily. There's twists and turns, and I think that the original rectangular, logical layout's been turned into a series of S-shapes with side rooms coming off on each point, but I'm not totally sure.
“I want to contact the royal government, I'm a Lord of Tamaria,” I say as we round the corner, the third time I've tried this. “You're committing assault on a noble. While King Tauren has shown a remarkable amount of restraint and forgiveness, assault on a noble, especially the King's brother in law, is probably punishable by at least...”
“Shut the fuck up, human,” the merc behind me says, shoving me in the back like he has each of the other times I've tried this little gambit. He's got a Gauss pistol, so far everyone I've seen since crashing have been armed with them as well as quite a few carrying rifles as well. “Only thing you're going to be contacting is my dick with your mouth.”
“Not interested,” I shoot back, trying to piss him off. Get angry, make mistakes. It's a lesson I learned long ago in gladiatorial training. The first person to lose their temper usually loses their head too. “Besides, I wouldn't want to embarrass you by showing off.”
Kelbara, who's in front of me, snickers. Half of my talk is to keep her from being scared as well as to keep her from freaking out. I know how she handles herself in a fight, but the only knowledge I have
of her being locked up tells me that she's not going to handle this on the same level I can. I have to keep her focused and calm, and a little laughter can't hurt too.
“What the fuck are you laughing about?” the talkative merc asks. “Fuckin' traitor.”
“I'm just thinking how funny it is, because he's right. He'll make you look like a little chunk of chewed bubblegum if you pull it out,” she laughs. “I know mercs, you guys are all hung like flutterflies. It's why you became mercs, to compensate.”
“Shut up, bitch,” the talkative merc grunts. “Up here, turn right.”
We're escorted to a room with bare rock walls, the only metal on the floor, and it's pretty clear what this place used to be. There's a row of tiny cages, four on each side, and the mercs push us into ones on opposite sides of each other, slamming the doors shut behind us. I turn, watching as the guards laugh before leaving the room. I watch, then look over at Kelbara, who looks as angry as I feel. “Are you okay?”
“Gimme a minute,” Kelbara says, backing up to the bars and rubbing her wrists. I follow, and find that the metal is rough enough to start to wear away the bindings, and I free my hands in about two minutes. Kelbara's free too now, and I grab the bars, reaching for her, but the space between us is too wide to let us touch.
“Kelbara....” I grunt, straining. “We'll get out of here.”
“If we don't Jensen, I need to tell you something,” Kelbara whispers, her eyes wide. She's getting lost in the fear of being behind the bars again, and she feels like she has to confess something, she won't get another chance. “I....”
“No,” I order her, my voice stern. I don't want to be, but right now I have to. “You don't say it. You want to tell me? You tell me after we get out of these cells and we get to freedom again. Until then you keep it inside and you focus on that.”
Red Planet: The Revolt (Tamarians Book 2) Page 15