“Too bad.” He smacked her ass. “You’ll love it.”
The wide head of his cock stabbed at her entrance, as his fingers gripped her cheeks. She breathed deeply, aroused beyond belief, curious to know how it would feel to have such a huge cock filling her ass.
He pushed forward and the tip went in. “Ah, yeah.”
“Oh! Yes!” It burned slightly, but felt so incredibly exciting at the same time.
“More!”
He growled and pushed the head of his cock all the way in. When she gasped, his fingers tightened on her cheeks almost painfully.
She pushed her ass back against him. “All of it!”
“Fuck!” He grabbed her hips and plunged his shaft as deep as he could get it.
Jaeda screamed and grabbed the sheet in her fists.
He fucked her hard and fast. Grunting. Groaning. He wrapped one arm around her waist, then reached under her and rubbed her clit.
She thrashed and cried out as she came. She couldn’t stop coming and lost count of the orgasms.
He pushed her down flat on the bed as he came in her ass. “Oh, hell yes! Damn!
You’re incredible.” He jerked against her several times then collapsed on top of her.
She breathed heavily and her heart was beating so fast she thought it would come out of her chest. Too bad none of this was real. She had actually begun to resent her waking hours—the hours that took him away from her for far too long.
She turned her head and licked his ear until he groaned. His cock grew hard inside her once again and she sighed in delight.
Yes. Her perfect match.
An alarm chirped, bouncing off the walls and penetrating Jaeda’s brain like a bug she couldn’t smack the life out of or swat away.
She cracked open one eye at the irritating sound. “Shit.” A facility alarm. She reluctantly opened her other eye, hating to leave her sexy dream man. But she knew he’d be waiting for her when she returned, or so she hoped, which gave her a sense of expectation far greater than anything she’d experienced in a long time. In fact, the intensity she felt for that man, a figment of her imagination, frightened her a little. And fascinated her a lot. Not many things in life frightened or fascinated her.
Maybe she should take some time off. She’d been majorly overworked lately and was in need of a long-overdue vacation. Then she could sleep all day if she wanted. And indulge in a real fucking frenzy with my well-endowed hunk. She couldn’t help but smile at the tantalizing thought, wondering if he’d be with her now for eternity. If not, she would greatly miss him once he was gone. Her smile faded. Better not to think of that.
She glanced at the clock on the wall. The red digital numbers blinked nauseatingly at her. She needed to eat but her evening shift was approaching. She’d have to settle for an energy bar at her station…again. As the warning still sounded through the speaker system, she yawned in disinterest.
“Damn techs,” she whispered in aggravation and pushed herself up to sit on the side of her cot. She stretched languidly, in no hurry to report, even though she was in charge of the tracking facility and was required to code in a status file for each alert.
It couldn’t be that important. If it was serious, her crew would contact her directly or issue a higher alert. She’d code the status within the hour, more than soon enough for the low-grade alarm.
Normally, she wouldn’t take her duties so lightly but the tracking crew lived for alerts and issued one at the drop of a hat. Just a few days ago, they’d thought a message was being received from deep space. It turned out to be a test signal from their own sub-Atlantic sister facility.
Not a mistake of incompetence exactly but more a mistake of over eagerness and not staying current on scheduled tests. With one additional check, they could have distinguished the true source. Instead, they’d issued an alert and then gone through the standard checklist system, causing much more chaos than was necessary. Not to mention a ton of paperwork and database updates for her.
She stood and pulled on her navy-colored jumpsuit uniform and black boots. She tied her long black hair back into a ponytail and strolled out into the corridor. She’d long forgone wearing make-up. She didn’t have the time or inclination to bother.
People rushed back and forth, to and from their stations. In spite of too many alerts, she always enjoyed the energy and enthusiasm at the facility. It kept things interesting.
She passed a control panel, stopped and backtracked. Damn. She’d forgotten to check for any current staff bulletins from their above-ground comm facility. She should have done so from her quarters but her mind had been elsewhere. She needed to get her thoughts off her sexy mystery man and on to her job. Easier said than done, given one was much more interesting at the moment than the other. Standing at the panel, she scrolled through the various screens. Nothing new. Good.
The chirping alarm abruptly stopped. “Thank you,” she whispered, grateful for the respite. Why they felt the need to run an alert signal for so long was beyond her understanding. Unfortunately, that was one of the things she had no say about, regardless of how much she’d complained.
Unexpectedly, the sound reemitted but changed to a shriek this time. Everyone stopped in their tracks and looked toward the speakers, including Jaeda. That was a Priority Alarm. The first issued since she’d been on the project. Her stomach clenched.
“Get going, people!” she ordered as she trotted toward the elevator. “This better not be some sort of facility test,” she mumbled. If so, it was unscheduled and that would piss her off because she was supposed to be informed of all such tests.
No announcement followed the alarm, which meant it had to have been generated automatically by the system. Not a test. They’d gotten an unauthorized or unlogged hit from deep space. Her heart rate sped up.
She punched a button on the wall, her nerves going from nonexistent to on edge in a matter of seconds. A moment later an elevator door slid open. Kirk Logan, one of her few true friends at the facility and a co-worker—the supervisor next in charge after her—stood inside.
“What the fuck is going on?” he asked. “That’s a priority.”
“Hell if I know.” She rushed inside, slapped the close button and pressed the level that would take them to the deepest and most secure part of the facility. She clicked on the intercom. “This is Spargo, report.”
“I’ve tried that. It’s still not working.”
She slapped the grating. “Piece of crap! Why can’t they get anything down here fixed?” The elevator comm system had been inoperable for weeks now. Just one thing on a list longer than her arm that needed fixing, upgrading or total replacement.
“Too many budget cuts.”
The standard government line, which she’d grown weary of hearing long ago. “I hate politics. Correction—politicians.” They always seemed to be swimming in more wealth than they needed or knew what to do with. There was plenty of money to be spent, in her opinion. It’s just that the wrong people had their hands on it.
“Hard to get funding for a nonexistent operation and facility.”
“Nonexistent, my ass. They’re cheap fuckers is all.” And that was being kind. They thought they were invincible, which was the problem. Otherwise, they’d put their funds where they should before disaster struck, rather than after.
Kirk chuckled. “You do have a way with words, boss.”
“Little good it does,” she mumbled, wishing the higher-ups would listen more closely to her words. That’s why she was here, after all. To track and to advise.
Maybe they’d made a mistake. Or she had. Maybe she never should have taken on this project. Too many of the decision-makers here seemed more interested in her breasts than in her brains anyhow. Irritating to say the least, especially since she understood the seriousness of this project. If she hadn’t been specifically chosen…
It seemed like forever before the elevator door finally slid open. The ding announ
cing their arrival immediately put her back into work mode. She and Kirk rushed out and into the tracking center. They both headed in different directions.
Jaeda came up on a group of men and women, huddled around the main tracking monitor and hardware system. “Fill me in. What’s going on?”
“We’ve got a K-blip in deep space.”
She frowned, suddenly confused. “That can’t be all it is.” She’d thought they had received a confirmed threat. A simple K-blip wouldn’t trigger a priority alert. K-Blips were quite common, even at long range, and came mostly from known entities. Or if not, they were generally at such a distance that they did not pose a threat or cause for concern. Something more had to be going on. The computer wouldn’t have issued the alert otherwise. “Why’d the computer key in a high-level alert on it?”
“The object is tracking beyond the normal satellite orbits and space paths. It’s not a logged known asteroid or other natural mass. It appears on a direct path and metallic in nature.”
“Metallic?” The urgency in his voice and further details piqued her interest. “No comm signal has accompanied it?” Which would indicate the blip had originated from a known civilization or friendly entity and not someone who could prove to be an enemy.
“None,” Kirk called out. “Not that the probes are picking up.”
“Something from one of the space agencies then? Ours or from one of our alien contacts who’s running a secret project we don’t know about yet?” Secret space projects were common—secret from the general population and other agencies. However, their facility had always been informed of such projects in the past because of the advanced tracking equipment and communications abilities of the center. Other than continental shuttle launches, satellite auto-repair robots, space missile tests and the normal alien supply ship route activity, all should be quiet out there right now from the intel she had.
“How secret can it be? There’s no way we wouldn’t pick up on this thing. It’s huge.
We would have been informed by the brass. There!” A technician pointed to the screen as the signal once more registered on the tracker.
That didn’t look like a K-blip to her. Her eyes narrowed as she stared at the screen.
“It’s definitely large.”
“Large? It’s gigantic,” Kirk responded again from across the room. “Getting specifics now.”
“Are you sure it’s metallic, not natural?” she asked, trying to figure out the computer’s reasoning for its classification of the object.
“It’s definitely not a natural formation from what I’ve compiled so far. It’s either metallic or something of a similar grade. It’s on a direct, plotted course,” another tech chimed in.
“That’s the second time you’ve said direct, people. We don’t know that yet. I’ll need verification from the computer in my hand. Get me coordinates and a trajectory.” It sure looked like a programmed line of direction from the history she was reviewing but she wasn’t about to jump to conclusions. Yet. “Let’s make absolutely certain. Who else will be picking this up?”
“Nobody at this distance,” Kirk said. “But if it keeps up current speed and the projected course—I’m approximating from what data we do have—the space agencies will begin tracking within ninety-six hours or so.”
This underground facility was the most sophisticated on Earth, with advanced technology. Highly protected and constructed using secret alien technology. Nobody picked up deep-space tracking before they did. Not even their sister facilities. “Okay.
Transfer the data to my station.” She rushed over and sat down in front of her computer screen. To her it didn’t appear as a single object. It almost looked like two clusters of—
Shit! Her heart rate kicked up at least three more notches. She automatically slipped on her communication headphones. She keyed in a few commands and began studying the data, frantically making notes as she went along.
“Damn it!” Kirk shouted from his station. “Boost power. Now!”
Her head snapped up.
“We’ve lost the signal. It vanished in a snap, like someone flipped an off switch.”
He punched several control pads, a grim look on his face.
She checked her own panel. Yep. Definitely gone. “Did you save what we already received?”
“Did you really need to ask me that? Transferring the remaining data to your station now.”
“Check all tracking programs for any malfunction,” she ordered. “I want a full system diagnostic. We need this verified. Keep monitoring in case it reappears. Pull resources from our other facilities if necessary. This stays with us until we’re certain that we were tracking something real and not some computer-generated ghost.”
She saved what data they had from her station and transferred a copy of the file to the network set up in her personal quarters, so she could work on the file after hours.
Even from what little they’d gathered, she knew the computer would be able to track the object or objects’ ultimate destination, provided it maintained course. And its arrival time, provided it maintained speed.
Trying to figure out where the signal could have originated from, she tapped her chin. If it was a targeted project, then the signal had been cloaked to disappear like that.
Which meant really bad news. A purposeful act to disguise an approach. And if it was headed for Earth…
She had cautioned everyone not to ignore the signs. The brass had rejected their intelligence, her theories and what others in the field knew and had warned was the inevitable. Alien invasion.
Why they even kept her around if they weren’t going to listen to her, she didn’t know. Why they kept this facility operational, she didn’t know. Just to see it coming? To wait until it was too late, then pretend surprise with the public? In this case, she prayed they were right and she was the one off base.
While she waited for answers, her stress level maximized and remained high. It wouldn’t ease off until she knew for certain what they were dealing with. And maybe not even then.
“Come on, come on,” she muttered, tapping the computer screen, eager to find out as much information about what they’d tracked as possible. The computer was working on the calculations. Too damn slowly for her satisfaction. She did not like the look of this.
Another alarm sounded. A deep comm alarm. Only the crew in this room was privy to that particular warning. She flipped a switch to check the comm channels. What the hell was going on today?
“Jaeda?” Kirk called out. “I’ve got it on DPCM Frequency 135.”
“What is it?” she asked as she switched over. “Is it coming from the blip?”
“No, but it’s definitely an incoming message. Computer is identifying—bingo! As I suspected, given the long-range frequency. It’s ACE.”
Finally. They’d been out of contact for far too long. Her comm feed crackled, then nothing. Damn it. Her panel was down. Fucking equipment. She clicked on her headphones. “Save it, transfer the stream to me, I’m silent again, and patch me in to General Adair.” A coincidence that ACE was transmitting at the same time they’d picked up this large cluster? Doubtful.
Chapter Five
Nav-Control Ship FSMF-36, Deep Space
Frost turned from the navigational panel when she heard the clunk of boots headed her way. Rave. She was approaching with a confident stride and a serious look.
Rave acted too secure in her position, as if she knew secrets no one else did. Frost fingered the controller dangling from the chain around her neck, making certain it still hung there, knowing the little device would secure her future. She wanted Rave out and Kam in. Soon. Having a strong male by her side would make victory all the sweeter. A male she had complete control over. A male who would turn on his own love, family and people to serve her. In bed and out. Yes. Sweet revenge.
“Daegal’s fighters are now cloaked,” Rave informed her. “I’ve cloaked our ships in response. Daegal
is overly cautious, cloaking sooner than necessary. Earth’s equipment is not sophisticated enough to track us this far out.”
Frost took close heed of her words. “Maybe he suspects someone is following him.”
“I doubt it. He would have engaged in evasive maneuvers. The probe I sent out didn’t register any major space displacement.”
“Can we still mirror his ships or will we need to stay farther back and move into a new space lane to avoid detection?” She knew how to navigate many types of ships but some of the specifics of cloaking were still new to her because the ability had only recently been added to her vessels.
“As long as we continue receiving coordinates from our contact, we can safely maintain our present position.”
“The coordinates shouldn’t be a problem.” As soon as the words left her mouth, a stab of doubt pricked at her. Over the years, she’d learned caution was her friend.
Luckily she was prepared.
She knew how to think fast on her feet when she needed to. She knew Daegal’s destination. She just needed to stay a safe distance away to avoid detection, which was why she needed to know his coordinates at all times.
She didn’t want to trigger a collision alarm. Though it was a common occurrence between cloaked ships, Daegal might fire weapons instead of simply adjusting his course, as was standard procedure. Especially if he checked on their identity—again standard procedure—and suspected her ships were part of an “unfriendly” fleet.
They should simply look like supply vessels to anyone who accessed their official log. She’d ordered all their regular fleet markings removed and entered a false identity and destination into the USLM system, an automated universal monitoring station for space traffic. But Daegal wasn’t a man easily fooled.
She did have a backup plan if everything suddenly blew up in her face. Her ships were heavily armed. She was prepared to sacrifice whomever or whatever she had to in order to survive.
“How is the upgrade progressing?” Rave asked, motioning toward the remote control device around her neck.
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