Aaron, Melodee - As Darkness Falls [Flights of Fancy 3] (Siren Publishing Ménage and More)

by Melodee Aaron

  Short black hair framed her face, and her skin had the soft color of olives, perhaps from Mediterranean ancestry. Chris wondered if her eyes were actually black or just a very dark brown, but it really didn’t matter too much. They sparkled like coal caught halfway to forming diamond as she glanced around the bridge at the mass of instruments that would soon be at her disposal and control.

  Salas stepped forward to stand before his command chair and saluted. “Lieutenant Commander Rabine Salas reporting for duty, Sir.”

  Chris could see her struggling to keep the smile under control, but she wasn’t very successful. She was clearly excited to be aboard, and he really couldn’t blame her. He returned the salute and held out his hand. “Your orders, please.” She handed him the data disk she carried, and Chris dropped it into the reader in the chair arm for the formal confirmation of her transfer to Daedalus. A fast glance told him that all was in order, and he tore off the hard copy printout with her cabin and duty assignment. “Welcome aboard, Lieutenant Commander. Here are your preliminary orders. For now, get some rest and be ready for lunch with the Captain at 1130 hours. Dismissed.”

  The smile broke through fully now, and Chris didn’t think Salas even tried to hide it this time. “Thank you, Commander Harris. It’s great being aboard.” She saluted and left the bridge.

  Chris watched her as she left, her hips swaying back and forth as she walked. Yes…that is one good-looking woman. Not that it mattered too much. Sam would kill him for thinking about anyone else, most especially a woman.

  * * * *

  Crosley couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong. The hair on his neck kept trying to stand on end, and he kept looking behind him. He wondered if this was the way the ancestors of the Hargon felt when his ancestors had stalked them through the forests in the days before the Old Ones came and blessed the Hargon with weapons and machines.

  His kind hunted even today, but they no longer hunted the Hargon. Animals met their need for food, and for more than seven thousand years Crosley’s people had not preyed on the Hargon. At least that much good had come from the Old Ones, but it was precious little to offset the fact the Hargon now ruled the planet with an iron fist they tried to disguise as a benevolent empire.

  He had no reason to feel the anxiety within him because things had gone well so far. Maybe that was what bothered him—things were going too well. The spies said the Hargons had the fences fitted with alarms, yet they had found a place to cut through. The guards were conveniently elsewhere as his team moved to the building. The locks on the door had been child’s play for him to open. And no one was inside the building to prevent him from planting the explosives that would ruin the weapons and ships stored there. It was all too easy, and Crosley knew it. He set the last timer and signaled to the others.

  Leilend smiled at him as he came through the door. “All quiet out here.”

  He nodded. “Maybe too quiet. We need to get out of here.”

  “Too right.”

  The group moved off toward the hole in the fence, and Crosley used his heat-sensitive vision to look for the guards. He didn’t see any. Just as he raised his arm to stop the team’s motion, a voice spoke from behind them.

  “Halt! Don’t move!”

  As he turned, Crosley knew how this scene would play out. He didn’t like it, but that didn’t change the fact that millions of years of evolution would force his people to defend themselves at all costs. The killing would make him no better than the Hargon, but that didn’t change anything either.

  Crosley felt the change come over him, his vision and other senses sharpening to those of a killing predator, and he heard the buzzing sound that accompanied his people in their spiritual form. For reasons the science at Crosley’s disposal couldn’t explain, the sound of his warriors farther away was louder than that of those closer to him. As the twinkling lights of maddened, burning fireflies replaced the corporeal forms of his party, the guards reacted, but it was too late.

  Slugs from the projectile weapons of the security forces ripped through the air, leaving trails of blinding white heat in their wake, but the bullets passed through his people without effect. The searing glare of the light weapons carried by a few of the guards tracked wildly through the cordite-filled night air as the soldiers whirled about, seeking a solid target.

  As Crosley descended on a panic-stricken soldier, he saw the fangs that Leilend grew in response to the change plunge into the neck of a guard. The man screamed in terror and surprise, but the screech cut off suddenly as her teeth ripped the living windpipe from the man’s chest. Any further sounds the man made were lost in the screams of the other guards as they each died a death that was the stuff of legends and nightmares on a hundred planets.

  * * * *

  Rabine was bored to tears. Her first day on Daedalus was almost as bad as the nine weeks she’d spent on the transport. She had no duties today so she could take care of getting settled in her cabin, checking in with medical, and other administrative details that would make a bureaucrat all misty-eyed just thinking about the kilometers of red tape needing knots tied in it.

  The only bright spot had been her lunch with Captain Davis. Davis impressed Rabine almost from the first instant. She insisted that, at least in private, Rabine call her Elsa. She said all of her senior staff was on a first name basis, but that didn’t mean Rabine could question orders. Ever.

  Davis had the Four Cs of command: Competence, Confidence, Compassion, and Charisma. Rabine had been around long enough to know just how rare that was, and on the mission assigned to Daedalus, the Captain’s chair demanded such a combination. Maybe Elsa had one more C to go along with the others—Cordial. She was a nice woman.

  It was only 1800 hours, but Rabine had pretty much decided to go to bed. She didn’t need to report to the bridge until the afternoon watch, so she’d have a ton of time to kill in the morning, too. She sighed, resigned to ending her first full day on her new assignment alone.

  The intercom buzzed and she tapped at the answer button. “Salas.”

  “Hi, Rabine, this is Alexa.” She’d met Alexa earlier that day when she toured the science department, but the woman’s reputation preceded her. One of only a handful of the Daedalus crew who the Emperor personally asked to join the mission, Alexa Romanoff was one of the top exobiologists in the Empire. “What are you up to?”

  Rabine laughed. “I was actually thinking about going to bed.”

  “No need for that. Get dressed.”

  Puzzlement flowed through Rabine’s mind. “Why?”

  “Because we’re going out for drinks.”

  * * * *

  Logan stood looking at the carnage left by the rebel attack on the supply base. He’d warned the guards, told them to shoot first and ask questions later, before the bastards could change into the form they euphemistically called “spiritual.” He laughed out loud, a sound more like the bark of a half-scared animal than that of an amused man. Instead, the men had obviously fallen victim to compassion or some other equally silly emotion. They hesitated, maybe they tried to take Crosley prisoner, but whatever the reason, the delay had cost his men their lives. Body parts lay scattered across the ground, and some limbs still hung in the breached fence, waiting for the medics to pull the assortment of arms and legs down for identification.

  He looked away from the bloody scene and across the tarmac at the smoldering remains of the hangar. The guards should have disarmed the bombs left by Crosley and his rebels, but the bodies of the soldiers lay scattered across the buffer zone inside the fence. The explosions destroyed a large weapons cache as well as two suborbital ships Logan could ill afford to lose.

  One of the medics came up to him. “We’ve found everyone, Sir.”

  Logan nodded. “But did you find all of anyone?”

  “Sir?” The man looked nervous.

  “Never mind.” As he thought about Crosley and his kind, he watched the medics loading the bits and pieces of his security deta
il into trucks. The Ling called it their spiritual form, but Logan thought “monster form” was a much better description.

  He was objective enough to know he wasn’t above using torture when it would reach a goal, but he never abused prisoners without a good reason. Logan certainly never mutilated the bodies once done with them.

  * * * *

  Cliff tried to work out in the gym, but he’d found a pulled muscle in his neck from his last fight, so he cut the session short and decided to visit the small nightclub on Daedalus for a couple of drinks with friends. Most of Cliff's nights out were spent pursuing one skirt or another, but once in a while he enjoyed a night out with the boys, and this was shaping up to be a good one.

  Dave Meyers was already face-down on the table. He was a good kid, but he was still a kid. Not that Cliff would want to face off against Meyers when the boy had on his body armor and was fully armed, but at only nineteen, he had a lot of growing up to do. Cliff had danced a couple of times with Mary Hardy, the lead cryptographic specialist in the Intelligence Office, and while Mary wasn’t much to look at, she had boobs that just wouldn’t quit, and when slow dancing with her, her chest made a nice, soft pad between them. He’d also danced with a few of the Ensigns and Lieutenants hanging around the bar, but nothing too serious, at least no more serious than a quick squeeze of their ass or a brush of his hand over their tits. Some were pretty cute, and Cliff wondered which one—or two—he might be able to get to come back to his cabin later tonight.

  The bar was nice but small. Cliff did a tour on Boone, the Emperor’s flagship, and he couldn’t help but compare the nightclub on Daedalus to the Imperial Café on Boone. The Imperial Café would seat more than three thousand people, whereas the club here held maybe two hundred. Then again, Boone carried a complement of over twenty-five thousand while Daedalus held less than a thirtieth of that number. One thing did carry over from Boone to Daedalus—the music. When Stuart Dayton designed Boone, he wanted old music in the nightclub. Since he was Lord Admiral of the Fleet when he built Boone, he got what he wanted. Just like the Imperial Café, the club here played music that was all at least four thousand years old. It took some getting used to, but Cliff found he liked it.

  Cliff sat with his back to the door of the nightclub so he could face O’Connell. Like most Marines, Jack hated having his back to a door.

  Jack laughed. “I thought you were going to get your sorry ass kicked yesterday.” He nodded at the passed-out form of Meyers. “It’s a good thing sleeping beauty there noticed the shoulder drop.”

  Cliff nodded. “Tell me about it. For a little guy, he hit pretty hard, and I couldn’t take much more of that.”

  “I could tell you were getting addled, and…” Jack trailed off, his eyes locked on the door of the nightclub. “Who the hell is that?”

  Cliff turned to follow Jack’s gaze and saw two women coming into the bar. One was Alexa Romanoff, the ship’s resident genius. She was also like everyone’s grandma. Alexa was over three hundred years old, just a little overweight, and had snow-white hair. She pretty much adopted everyone on board. She also tended to drink like a fish.

  But the other woman made him stare. Tall and slender, she wore a jet-black jumpsuit that highlighted every curve of her body, and she had a lot of curves to highlight. He’d always been a boob man, but this woman didn’t have the huge tits that usually grabbed Cliff’s attention. Instead of bulging mounds of flesh on her chest, her breasts were perfect. His gaze tracked down her body, around the gentle curve of her waist, and over the smooth swell of her hips. Even for a tall woman, her legs were amazingly long, reaching all the way from her ass to the deck, and the jumpsuit was snug enough that the shape of her legs showed through.

  As Cliff’s stare floated back up from her feet, he remembered there must be more than a fantastic body to this beauty, and he forced his gaze up to her face. He realized too late that doing so was probably a mistake. He saw the short hair—black as pitch—surrounding her face. He’d been a sailor long enough to become a firm believer in the idea of a girl in every port, and more than a few on board, and Cliff normally didn’t mince words, especially when thinking or talking to himself about women. But somehow, he couldn’t come up with any euphemisms to describe the woman’s face. Yes, it was triangular in shape, and the black hair framed it perfectly in the way it curled around her face. All he could come up with was that her face was pretty. He thought it sounded like something a greenhorn midshipman would say about his date to an Academy dance.

  Just then, the woman turned and looked directly at him, and he saw her eyes. From his vantage point across the dimly lit dance floor, her eyes looked black as night, an ideal complement to her gorgeous hair.

  Jack reached across the table and grabbed his shoulder. “Hey! Snap out of it!”

  Cliff had to physically pull his gaze away from the woman to look at Jack. “What?” He felt more addled than in the bout yesterday.

  “Snap out of it, Cliff!” Jack nodded in the direction of the door. “She’s not all that.”

  Cliff shook his head, trying to focus. He didn’t think he had much luck, though. “I think you’re wrong.” He tossed off the remaining beer in his glass, and the liquid courage made up his mind. “I may or may not be back.” He stood and headed off to the bar where the two women had found seats.

  Chapter 2:

  Dawn

  Rabine and Alexa stopped just inside the door as their eyes adjusted to the dim lighting, and Rabine looked around the room. Several men stared at her, but she’d been in Fleet long enough to get used to the idea. Most ships had a ratio of men to women of around eight to one, and that meant the men tended to see any woman—even a mid-grade officer—as fresh meat. But she knew Daedalus was different. For some reason—or perhaps no reason other than staffing—Daedalus had a ratio of around three men for every four women. But some men still stared.

  Alexa pointed toward the bar. “There are some seats. Come on.” She led the way to the bar and ordered drinks for them both. When the drinks arrived, she clinked her glass against Rabine’s. “With you here beside me, I expect these will be the last drinks we pay for tonight.”

  Rabine laughed. “I don’t play that game.”

  “Why not? Free drinks are free drinks. All you need to do is bat your eyes a little and maybe have a couple of dances.” Alexa looked past her at the dance floor. “And here comes contestant number one.”

  Rabine turned and looked in the direction Alexa had nodded. She saw a big man in a casual Fleet uniform walking toward them. He was at least a head taller than her and had the muscles of a weightlifter. Closely trimmed blonde hair topped his head, and she could see green flashes from his eyes as he turned to dodge couples on the dance floor. His motion was smooth and fluid, more like she’d come to expect from Marines than Fleet officers, and Rabine wondered if he might be into martial arts or, perhaps, dance.

  His eyes never left hers as he walked up to them. The big man smiled, but Rabine thought he looked uncomfortable and like he had to force the smile just a little. For the first time since she’d seen him, he looked away from her and at Alexa.

  “Evening, Alexa. I’m hoping you’ll introduce me to your friend and let me buy you both a drink.”

  Alexa tapped Rabine’s shoe with hers. “Sure thing, Cliff. Lieutenant Cliff Rochester, this is Lieutenant Commander Rabine Salas, our new Senior Science Officer.” She swallowed the rest of her first drink. “Rabine, Cliff. Cliff, Rabine. I’ll order those drinks now.”

  Rabine held out her hand to the man. “Pleased to meet you, Cliff.”

  He stared at her hand for a moment before taking it in his. His hand felt warm and strong as he held hers for a few moments. “Same here.” He pulled up a stool and sat down beside her. “Rabine is an interesting name. I don’t recall knowing anyone by that name before.”

  “It’s not very common outside of New Cairo System.” She tried not to smile at his poor attempts at small talk. Most men in the service seeme
d to think they had a monopoly on playing the field. They would all be shocked at the antics of some of their female comrades.

  “That’s one place I’ve never been. I’m from Earth itself.”

  “Congratulations.” The reply came off as flippant, and she knew it. He was doing all the things the books on how to seduce women said to do. He leaned toward her slightly and only broke eye contact when he would think. He nodded a lot and smiled when she spoke. The whole pattern of his behavior irritated her for some reason. The impression Rabine had of Cliff was that, while he was good-looking, he was shallow, and she would like him a lot better as just a friend and colleague.

  Cliff stared at her for a moment, and she knew he was trying to figure out just what to say next. The gong rang four bells into the second dog watch, and a good number of the guests at the club headed for the door. He looked around the darkened room a little and then turned back to her, a small smile on his face.

  “I deserved that, and if you’ll have a quick dance with me, I’ll tell you why when we find a table.” He patted Alexa on the arm. “No offense, but I’d like to talk to Rabine for a while.”

  Alexa laughed. “None taken, but now I’ll have to buy my own drinks.”

  Cliff waved to the bartender. “Max, Alexa is on my tab tonight.”

  * * * *

  Cliff wanted to kick himself, but while dancing with Rabine that would have been a bit embarrassing, if not physically impossible. Maybe he should just leave and go to the gym and let someone pound on his head for a while. Maybe the repeated pummeling over the last twelve months was why he’d shoved his foot down his throat all the way to the hip while trying to talk to her. He’d found himself tongue-tied, and instead of trying to relax so he could talk, he fell into the habit of trying to seduce her.