by Wen Spencer
"Yes, sir." Lieutenant Ulanova said.
He almost left it at that. But then he wondered where on the ship Eraphie might be. In the rush, he'd forgotten to leave orders on what part of the Svoboda she could have access to. With the bridge out, once Eraphie was on the ship, there wasn't any way to track her movements. "Who escorted her on board?"
"I did." Inozemtsev said as Ulanova read off his name.
Mikhail turned to his Red Commander. "Where did you put Eraphie Bailey?"
"In red pit, sir." Inozemtsev said.
"What? Why?"
Inozemtsev looked as confused as Mikhail felt. "She's a Red, sir."
"You bigoted idiot!" Mikhail snapped before catching himself. He was fraying at the edges if he was losing control of his temper. "No, she wasn't to be put in with the rest of the pride."
He started for the red pits with Inozemtsev trailing behind him. Hopefully Eraphie wouldn't take offense for the temporary placement. He would need to find a place for her and make her position clear with the crew. He should have thought of this before hand. The enlisted were hot bunking, and convincing them to share their bed with "one of them" might be difficult. There were officer cabins empty; their owners dead in the crash. Putting her into one of them could cause resentment, but if he shuffled the people he'd made acting officers into those cabins, it might come off as a sign that their position was permanent. As in the Svoboda was stuck in this place. Which was the lesser of evils?
The word 'evil' made him think of the replacements' previous owner.
She had sex with her Reds while they were restrained.
"Oh fuck!" Mikhail spun and caught hold of Inozemtsev's shoulder. "You put Bailey in with the veterans didn't you?"
"No. That was full. I put her with the replacements."
"You fucking idiot!" Mikhail snapped and took off running for the red pits. Oh, God, let the stupid things not decide that proper behavior with a Red was tying it up and forcing it to have sex. Bailey might be a Red and trained in combat, but she was locked in with a dozen males, all taller and more muscled than she was. Butcher had used his pride to kill Turk. Butcher organizing a gang rape was all too possible.
Mikhail dropped down to the last deck to the red pits. Eraphie's screams were audible even through the thick steel. Swearing, Mikhail punched in his override.
They had torn her clothes off and used strips of cloth to tie her arms behind her back. Butcher was trying to enter her, but even tied and pinned on her stomach, Eraphie was fighting.
"Stand down!" Mikhail shouted. "Stop it now!"
"Get him off me!" Eraphie screamed. "I told you! I wouldn't be part of a pride and no sex!"
"Butcher, stand down now!" Mikhail shouted. He knew better than trying to grapple with a Red.
"I'm top cat and she's a Red," Butcher snarled. "Humans have no say on dominance fights. She's going to do what I tell her to do if I have to beat it into her."
Mikhail pulled his side arm, placed it at Butcher's head and pulled the trigger. The gun kicked in his hand, the explosion deafening in the enclosed space. Blood and bits of brain splattered the wall and rained down on Eraphie. Butcher slumped down on top on of Eraphie. Whimpering, she squirmed out from under Butcher's body and rolled onto the floor. There she scrambled back into the corner.
"What did you do?" Eraphie echoed the cry of his childhood. "Are you insane?"
Possibly. At least she didn't call him a monster, even if that was what she probably was thinking.
Mikhail turned and all the Reds backed away from him. "Listen very closely. First off, I am the Captain, and you will obey all my orders. There is no part of this ship that is not mine to command.
"Secondly, we will be encountering other female Reds. Regardless of what your last owner said or did, what Butcher was attempting will not be tolerated. You will not treat females—part of this crew or civilian—human or adapted—in this manner.
"Lastly, I know what Butcher did to Commander Turk. I know he made the airlocks opens after we jumped. I know he killed Commander Turk, and caused the flooding that drowned the Reds in this compartment. Any Red that harms another member of the crew—and that includes the Reds—or attempts to force himself onto a female, will be punished."
He stood panting, gun aimed very carefully at the floor. They could tear him apart before he could get another shot off. The only reason he was in control was years of deep conditioning. And it seemed to be holding. He keyed open the door.
"Eraphie, get out. Go," he said as calmly as he could. Her reader was on the floor among the tattered remains of the clothing he'd given her. He snatched it up without taking his eyes off the Reds, then stepped out of the pit and locked the door behind him.
He'd killed one of his own crew. He stared down at the sidearm in his hand. He'd put it to an unarmed man's head, one of his own, and pulled the trigger. Tiny drops of blood splattered his hand past his wrist. He was nearly overwhelmed with the need to wash the blood off. Out, out, damned spot.
Eraphie was braced against the wall, far away as she could get from him in the short hallway, glaring at him through her long hair.
He put his sidearm into its holster before even trying to approach her. "I'm sorry." He held out his hands to show he wasn't armed. "I'm sorry. I—I made a mistake. I forgot to make sure that you were taken care of in the right way. I'm very sorry. Are you hurt?"
She shook her head.
"Let me untie you." He held out his hand and then realized it was covered with Butcher's blood.
She flinched but shifted slightly so he could reach her makeshift restraints. He tucked her reader under his arm as he worked at the knots. She trembled as he untied her.
"I'll get you some new clothes," he promised in what he hoped was a soothing voice. I killed one of my crew. He held out her reader once she was free. "Here, you dropped this."
The statement was so normal sounding compared to the circumstances that it seemed a ridiculous thing to say.
She was slow to take it back, but she did.
* * *
Mikhail put Eraphie in Furtsev's cabin for the time being. He gave Lieutenant Ulanova orders to find another set of clothes for Eraphie and make sure she knew how to operate the toilet and shower. Eraphie temporarily settled, Mikhail went to deal with cleaning the mess he made in Alpha Red. Sometime later, Lieutenant Ulanova caught up with him with a stack of clothes under under her arm.
"Sir." Lieutenant Ulanova held up the clothes as evidence. "I've been looking for Eraphie Bailey to do what you ordered. I can't find her."
"I put her in Furtsev's cabin for now. I need to find a place for her." Mikhail stressed that the situation wasn't permanent.
"I looked there. I also checked the other empty cabins, the galley, the sick bay, and the red pits. I don't think she's on the ship."
After the attempted gang rape and Mikhail shooting Butcher, he wouldn't be surprised if she had left. Nobody should been able to get off the ship unnoticed, but she'd shown herself quite practiced at coming and going.
Mikhail put a call through to engineering. "Tseytlin, can you check the tracking device we put in that reader? Is the reader still on the ship?" If it was, it still might not mean anything because Eraphie might have left it behind.
After a minute, Tseytlin said, "No, sir, it's not the ship. Not on the island either, sir. It's about a hundred kilometers out."
Mikhail turned to Moldavsky. "Did the Red Gold leave?"
"Yes, sir, it pulled out a few hours ago."
He'd scared Eraphie badly enough that she ran to the man she didn't trust.
"You want me to . . .?" Tseytlin didn't finish; he obviously couldn't think of what a proper response would be.
Mikhail sighed. "No. Thank you, Tseytlin, that's all."
* * *
Inozemtsev had 'I've done something wrong' written all over his face. He studied the floor instead of looking Mikhail in the eye.
"What is it, Ensign?" Mikhail asked, aware that the l
ast time he spoke with the man, he'd called him a 'fucking idiot.' Hopefully the man wasn't going to live up to that title.
"Sir, I've triple checked. There's Reds missing."
"Missing? How many?"
"Over half of them."
"Half!" Mikhail headed for red pit, aware that once again Inozemtsev trailed behind him. Fucking idiot had been dead on. How did you lose that many Reds? "How long have they been gone?"
"I'm not sure, sir. I haven't checked on them since after we removed the Red you killed."
"Did you do a headcount then?"
"Yes, twenty-nine Reds. Twenty in Beta and nine in Alpha."
"All the ones in Alpha are gone?"
"Yes. All the replacements. And ten of our veterans are missing from Beta Red."
The replacements he could see fleeing for some reasons, but the two groups weren't getting along, and the top cat was dead.
"Where did the remaining veterans say the missing Reds have gone?"
"I didn't think to ask them."
Fucking bigoted idiot!
They reached the bottom deck and he keyed open the Alpha Red. It still smelled of blood. There were no Reds inside. He had locked the door after they took Butcher's body out—hadn't he? He turned and opened the other pit.
Beta pit was nearly empty with the remaining Reds huddled together, looking scared.
"Where did they go?" Mikhail asked.
They shook their heads.
"Just one moment they were here," Smoke said. "And then they'd be gone."
"Something took them," Coffee said. "But we didn't see what it was."
"We couldn't see it," Rabbit clarified. "It was that thing we couldn't see on the hull."
Seraphim took his Reds? Eraphie had said that angels 'rescued' people. Had they seen the Reds as in danger and needing rescued? She'd implied that people were only shifted short distances by the Seraphim when they were 'saved.'
"Gear up, we're going to see if we can find them."
* * *
They couldn't find the Reds anywhere on the island. It had started to rain in sheets of gray. Waves were growing taller, crashing over the breakwater. Mikhail stared out over the seething ocean, feeling sick. None of his Reds could swim.
"Let's go back to the ship," Mikhail said.
"Captain?" Rabbit whispered. "Do we really have to go back to the pit? It might come back."
Mikhail patted the yearling on the shoulder. "We're leaving here. There's nothing here on this island for us."
15: Promises to Keep
Turk woke with Captain Bailey rubbing her toes against his stomach.
He and Captain Bailey had pulled duty on the Rosetta while the rest of the crew had shore leave. They'd spent the day gutting the crew cabins which had been damaged by a drop nut. Afterwards, they created a temporary common sleeping area on the top deck, complete with privacy barriers. Too tired to cook, they'd splurged on dinner off a passing boat; a mobile restaurant, billowing out fragment smoke and calling out its wares in singsong Japanese. Roast duck. Corn on the cob. Hot fruit pastries. And something that had a kick like vodka that she called Burn. Tired and full, they'd sprawled out in the new sleeping area to rest.
He opened his eyes and gazed up her bare legs. She lay on her back studying a reader. Almost as if she didn't realize what she was doing, she flexed her foot and caressed her toes across his abdomen.
He leaned up and rasped his tongue across her instep.
"Hey," she laughed.
Smiling, he followed her foot as she tried to move away from his mouth. He ran his tongue up the back of her calf to the hollow behind her knee. She tasted clean, warm and oh so female.
"Hey!" Her laugh deepened to a throaty groan. She reached down without looking and caught him by his collar. "Stop that."
She gave his head a slight tug to pull him away from her knee. He crawled up her, the smooth skin of her inner thighs caressing his sides as he did. Her shirt rode up, showing off the sensual dip of her belly button at the center of her flat stomach and the swell of her breasts. He wanted to lick the beads of sweat from her skin.
She had tilted her reader, though, to eye him. "What are you doing?" she asked as if it wasn't obvious.
So he continued upwards until she was totally under him. In this position, she felt smaller than before. Was this really the same woman that had dragged him out of the civ hive? Even the kinkiest of cat fanciers would be afraid of being under him, helpless, but she continued to gaze up at him as if she trusted him completely.
He found that he didn't want to betray that trust. "I think I'm trying to seduce you."
"Just think? You don't know if that's what you're doing?"
His groin kissed into her softness, and her eyes dilated with anticipation.
"I know what I am trying to do, but I don't know if I'm succeeding. Seduction usually requires a positive response to work."
She lowered her book completely to study him. "Usually."
Her eyes may have been wantonly soft, but her voice was carefully neutral. Not what one would call 'positive.'
"Believe it or not, I'm not totally sure of what I'm doing. I usually have to beat women off with a stick."
She laughed. "Oh, I believe it." She let go of his collar and slid her hand up to rest on his cheek. "You probably just need to look at a woman and she melts."
"Are you mocking me?"
"No. I'm making an observation." She turned her attention back to her reader. "You have beautiful eyes."
He wasn't sure what to do next. She hadn't pushed him off her, or told him to stop, but she was paying more attention to her reader than to him. "What are you reading?"
"I had Manny buy some children's books."
So he was less interesting to her than children's books? He shifted off her body. Why had he started this? As he wondered, Paige stretched out her foot and wriggled her toes against his thigh. Oh yes, he acted in response to her touch.
She didn't move her foot, and the tips of her toes remained a hair's-breadth from his leg. It made him aware that a moment before, they had been causally intimate, like old lovers. The loss of that closeness ached inside, and slowly turned to anger. Was she just playing with him?
"Why are you reading those books?" he growled lowly.
"They're in Russian. I thought if you ended up stuck with us, you should have someone that could speak your language."
The low burn of anger vanished. Some strange emotion he couldn't identity but suspected was love flooded through him. He leaned forward and kissed her. She made a small, startled noise that ended with low moan. The sound of it made him move over her, bringing their bodies back together.
Several minutes later, she tried to push him away, murmuring, "I shouldn't be doing this."
He resisted, nuzzling into her neck, delighting that her breath shook when he touched her. "You want it."
"Yes, I want it." She gasped as he slid down to lick the sweat from her stomach. "But you haven't said you're staying."
He kissed down her body, pulling loose the drawstring on her pants and nudging the band down so he could bury his nose into the three inches of white fabric that had tempted him so on that first day. The heady smell of her excitement flooded his senses. He wanted her under him, in proper missionary-style, watching her face as he pushed himself into her, but he restrained himself. It would come to that. It would be better to savor the experience.
"I can't do a one night stand." She whispered, but lifted her hips so he could slide off her pants. He nuzzled her soft mound, and then, hooking the fabric of her underwear with his thumb, he slid them aside.
"Turk," she murmured his name but he couldn't tell if it was in faint protest or desire.
"I'm staying," he promised.
When he put his mouth on her sex, her breath caught and came out a soft moan. "Oh, yes," she hissed. "That's so good." And after that, she only whimpered softly in delight.
When Paige released, it wasn't with the cat fanc
ier's rake of his shoulders, inflicting pain even as they took pleasure. Her hands stayed gentle on the back of his head, pressing him into her. He couldn't restrain himself any more. He surged up her body. Paige reached for him, drawing him eagerly into her and then locked her arms and legs around him. He was too close to make it last as long as he wanted. He was keenly aware of her slight body under him. He gazed into her eyes, watching the echoes of her pleasure play across her face.
Afterwards, he laid nestled into her, still conjoined to her. Her eyes dreamy with drink and sex, her breath deepening toward sleep. When her eyes finally closed, he felt sorrow seeping in. He didn't want to lose this closeness, this first taste of mutual pleasure. He was afraid that when she woke up, she'd remember he wasn't a man. Or worse, she was simply a tamer variety of cat fancier.
