by Mike Smith
“I’m just testing a theory. You see, I’ve the strangest recollection of you doing this to me. But surely that cannot be, you wouldn’t take advantage of a person like that, would you?”
Alex flinched. Unsure if it was an instinctive reaction to her touch, or words.
“So I thought it would be best to put theory to practice,” Jessica continued on unhurriedly. “A comparison if you will. To see if my memory matches reality.” With that she rose up on her knees until she was looking down at him, achingly slowly she lowered her head until her lips were almost touching his. “You’ve got no objection, have you?” she breathed.
Alex didn’t know what to say, his senses were overloaded, she seemed to be all encompassing, his defences crumbling against her combined assault. She moved closer, until he could feel the heat coming off her body. Then all remaining thought fled his mind as her lips touched his, and he instinctively opened his mouth, permitting her access. One kiss, then another. A quick brush of her tongue that left him rigid and painful. He moaned and arched into her before he could stop himself. His hand instinctively tightened around her as he thrust against her, and he moaned again. His heart had begun to pound in his chest and his groin was a giant ache. He was going to need a long, cold bath.
“Seems I was wrong.”
His heart was hammering so hard it took him a minute to process what she’d just said. “What?” he gasped in shock. But she was already pushing away from him, leaving him alone, bereft and hard as a rock on the couch.
“My memory was nothing like that. Obviously I was wrong, my fault.” With a wicked smile she swept from the room.
“Wait,” Alex called after her. “What do you mean, nothing like that? Better? Worse?” But she’d already left, leaving nothing behind but his indignation.
*****
Alex set down the axe, wiping the perspiration from his forehead. It was turning out to be an incredibly hot and humid day. Conditions far from ideal to be chopping down trees, but he was left with very little choice. His fortune had walked out of the door, along with Corporal Rifkin, and he’d been depending on those funds to pay for the repairs to his estate. Therefore, as the repairs were obviously not going to happen by themselves, he had decided to do it the old fashioned way, by hand.
But when he’d first considered this approach, he hadn’t been expecting to do the task with such an archaic tool as an axe. He hurt in places that he had not known even existed…
“You’re not going to finish this today, if you keep stopping like this,” a deceptively sweet voice called out from behind.
Alex shut his eyes resignedly. When he’d considered this course of action, he also hadn’t envisaged any spectators. “You’re more than welcome to give a helping hand? Isn’t it you who is always reminding everyone of your superior strength?”
“You would dare even ask such a thing, of a Lady?” the voice replied with mock horror.
“My father always says that hard manual labour is no place for a woman,” a much younger, shrill, voice added helpfully. The eldest son of the tenant farmer, whose roof was in much need of repair had magnanimously volunteered his help. So far this had mostly consisted of advice, most of it unhelpful.
“Obviously it’s no place for your father, either. Otherwise he would be here, helping me,” Alex groused.
The smirk on Jessica’s face clearly showed that she had overheard him, but the boy obviously hadn’t, as he continued on undaunted.
“My father says that the only place for a woman is in the kitchen—”
“Not surprising considering how much he likes her apple pies,” Alex commented.
“—and giving birth.”
“Lucky for you,” Alex said. “As he passed out during the birth of your last brother, and he wasn’t even in the room at the time. I take it he only mentions these things out of earshot of your mother?” he enquired.
“Oh yes,” the boy replied with an earnest expression. “Otherwise mother would box his ears, just like she does with us.”
“Sensible woman,” Alex nodded with a straight face. “Anyway, take it from me, women are far more useful than for just cooking and child rearing.”
“They are?” the boy sounded doubtful, obviously sorely lacking for sisters in the family.
“Why Lord Greystone,” Jessica interrupted, laughter dancing in her eyes. “What other possible use could we be?”
Approaching the pair, hidden by the tall grass and reclining against a tree, Alex stared down at them, before offering Jessica his hand. She hesitated for a moment, but obviously her curiosity piqued, she finally took his hand and he hauled her to her feet, pulling her close.
“I can think of a few things, like where we left off this morning,” he breathed into her ear, making her flush.
“I think not, you stink,” she pushed him away.
“It’s called sweat. The result of hard, honest, manual labour. You should give it a try sometime.”
“Chopping down trees seems a bit barbaric to me.” She glanced at the blade still buried in the ground. “I think that’s more a job for someone who has at least one Y chromosome, anyway I thought you said you could handle it.”
“Sure, I can handle it,” Alex smirked, “but you want to leave the poor boy with the impression that cooking and cleaning is all women can do?”
“I don’t think that whacking it,” she eyed the tree warily, “With a sharp stick is going to do much to improve his opinion.”
“I agree, so why don’t you instead put on a real demonstration for him?”
“Like what?”
“He’s an adolescent teenager, how do you think?”
“Strip, and run around naked?”
“Perhaps later, when we’re alone,” Alex smiled broadly, “but here, now? Use my pistol. Teenagers and ray guns? It’s in their DNA.”
“You want me to shoot holes in it?” she asked dubiously. “I doubt it’s going to be much use for a roof then, surely it’ll leak.”
“You asked me once how I shot you, yet you were unharmed, remember?”
“I remember.”
“Well, here is the secret known to none but I—it’s not a gun at all.”
“Of course it is,” Jessica looked at him as if he was a few marbles short of a full set. “It’s got a muzzle, barrel, breech and a grip. I think, aim, then shoot and it goes bang, well, metaphorically speaking at least.”
“No, it just looks like a gun and can function like a gun, so naturally everybody just assumes it is one.”
“Well, what is it then?”
“A miniaturised, portable, self-contained fusion reactor with focusing crystals; all controlled via a neurological interface.”
“What?”
“Okay, so Professor Alcubierre usually left it up to others to think up names for his inventions. Just goes to show you can’t be a genius at everything. It can do anything that you ask of it or, more to the point, anything that you can think of.” At the confused expression on her face, he added, “Perhaps a demonstration is in order.” Taking her by the shoulders he turned her round until she was facing the tree. “Take out the pistol and then close your eyes,” he ordered.
“How can I shoot anything, with my eyes closed?” she complained, but followed his instructions, nonetheless.
“Good,” he praised. “Now, picture the tree in your head. Imagine what sort of beam you would need to cut through it. The beam would need to be focused, intense and continuous like a sharp blade. Can you picture it in your mind?”
“Yes, but now what?”
“Now hold that thought and open your eyes.”
Her eyes fluttered open and she glanced at the tree. Still standing there, broad, tall and unharmed. “Nothing happened,” she complained.
Smiling enigmatically, Alex leaned forward, while ensuring that he remained firmly behind her and breathed softly in her ear, so quietly that it was barely a whisper.
“Now.”
*****
&nb
sp; Now?
Jessica’s nose twitched in bewilderment. Now what? But as soon as the thought had crossed her mind the pistol came alive in her hands, just like a thousand times before, when she’d ordered it to shoot or fire. As the weapon came to life, so did her comprehension, that from the very beginning it hadn’t been the words that had been important, but the intent.
A mental trigger release.
But unlike in the past the weapon did not fall dormant, for it was functioning just as she had imagined. Continuously, focused and intense. She found that as long as she kept the thought, in the forefront of her mind, it continued unimpeded, yet if she let her mind wander, the beam began to wither and die. A cough from behind reminded her that she still had a task to complete and, tightly focusing her thoughts, the beam grew more intense until it was pencil thin, a fusion knife that could literally cut through anything. Waving the beam across the breadth of the tree trunk, it sliced cleanly all the way through the tree.
A few seconds to do what would have taken Alex hours.
When certain that she’d cut the entire way through, she dismissed the thought from her mind and once again the weapon fell still.
“Well? What do you think?” she asked, turning to face Alex with a smile, proud of her accomplishment.
“I think that you’ve gained an admirer for life,” he replied dryly, motioning with his head in the direction of the farmer’s boy, who had risen to his feet and was staring at her, mouth agape, an expression of childlike wonder on his face. “I guess that means I’ll have to compete for your affections from now on, although I think he’s a little young for you…”
“Uh, Lord Greystone,” the boy called out.
“Why? Jealous?” Jessica laughed, ignoring him.
“Lady Hadley?”
“Not at all,” Alex replied mesmerised, staring into her eyes, still glowing with elation. “A little bit of hero worship never hurt anyone, however what with your ego—”
“Look out!” the warning was shouted out, followed immediately after by a horrifying crack.
Jessica didn’t even have a chance to react, before she was abruptly thrown aside, moments before the massive tree came crashing down on the spot where she had been standing only a split second before. Shaking her head to clear the shock, she rose to her knees, astonished to see nothing but leaves and branches blocking her vision. She wondered if Alex could have chosen a smaller tree for his demonstration.
Alex.
She couldn’t see him, but he had been standing right beside her. She frantically started pushing branches and leaves aside, trying to reach the spot where they’d just been standing. A moan of pain caused her to momentarily pause and another groan had her moving in the direction of the sound. Clearing away a pile of twigs and leaves she was relieved to discover Alex’s prostrate form. Falling down beside him, she started to check him for any sign of injury.
“Timber,” Alex uttered, dazed. “Full marks for effort, but room for improvement with the execution and direction.”
“I thought that you were dead,” Jessica exclaimed, pounding on his chest in relief.
“How come you’re always on top of me, whenever I awake?”
“Lord Greystone, Lady Hadley,” a high pitched voice called out, accompanied right after by a face, beaming down at them. “That was so cool. Are you going to do it again?”
*****
“Right, now that you’ve finally graced us with your presence, Murdoch. We can get this planning meeting underway.”
“Sorry sir,” Murdoch replied without the slightest hint of remorse. “I got lost twice on the way, this house is crazy, ya got, like what. A hundred rooms?”
“Fortunately, no,” Alex replied unperturbed, long used to his exaggerations. “Only thirty-nine.”
“Quite a bachelor pad you’ve got here, Colonel,” Templeton nodded approvingly. “Must have set you back quite a bit.”
“Like you wouldn’t believe,” Alex agreed morosely.
“Will Lady Hadley be joining us tonight?” Templeton asked eagerly. Ever since he’d discovered that she was an heiress, likely to inherit a vast fortune, he’d been frequently seeking out her company. He was less a social climber, more a social mountaineer.
“Sadly no,” Alex shook his head. “What with us discussing her kidnapping, ransom—”
“Finder’s fee,” Abercrombie automatically corrected.
“Anyway,” Alex continued on, ignoring him. “She’s busy planning the Harvest Festival celebrations.”
“I thought that you said you totally forbid any sort of celebration? That if you caught her even thinking about it, you would lock her up and mail her back to her family, a single DNA strand at a time,” Sanderson said confused.
“Exactly,” Alex agreed. “Which is why she is currently taking a leading role in planning and organising everything, keeping her fully occupied and not pondering what the hell we’re all conspiring about in my study.”
“Good plan, Colonel,” Baracoa insisted.
“Stop sucking up Baracoa, we all got dismissed, remember? Hence no further promotions will be forthcoming. Now, if you gentleman, and I use the term loosely, don’t mind, I would like to get this meeting finished before Jessica starts wondering exactly where we’ve all disappeared to.”
“I have a question before we start, Colonel,” Sanderson interrupted, raising his hand.
“Yes,” Alex said, between clenched teeth.
“What’s the local sheriff doing here?”
“Representing the interests of Lady Hadley,” came the unruffled response from the back of the room.
“Well, that’s obvious,” Sanderson grumbled. “But shouldn’t you be doing that by arresting us all, and then freeing Lady Hadley from her, um, odious planning duties?”
“Look at it this way,” Abercrombie said. “We’re all here to plan the most fortuitous way for Lady Hadley to return her family, right?”
“Well, right after we get the ransom—finder’s fee,” Sanderson corrected after a glare from Abercrombie.
“In which case my intention nicely coincides with yours. Namely the safe return of Lady Hadley to her family, collection of any finder’s fee and our safe return,” said Abercrombie.
“Great,” Alex rolled his eyes. “Now that we’ve got that out of the way, let’s continue with the planning. For obvious reasons the actual exchange isn’t going to take place here. Capella and Osiris are also out—”
“On account that you’re wanted dead or alive, but preferably dead, on both those planets,” Murdoch added helpfully.
“—which is why it will take place on Elysium Fields.” At the blank looks from around the table, Alex sighed. “A Nova class space station, five miles long with a mass of two and a half million tons, located approximately two light years from the Deneb System.”
“Never heard of it,” Baracoa stated.
“Well, now you have,” Alex said, dropping his data pad onto the desk. “As you can see from the schematics there are only a limited number of docking points. The rest of the hull consists of between eight to twelve metres of armoured hull plating—”
“Sorry Colonel, but I can’t see. Could you lean that way a bit,” Templeton motioned.
“Here, let me enlargen this,” Alex said, tapping on the device.
With a startled oath the occupants of the room stumbled back as a massive three-dimensional image of the station appeared, hovering several inches above the desk. It was almost six feet long, half that in width and occupied most of the space in the room.
“Whoa,” Sanderson exclaimed waving his hand through the projection, observing it ripple from his touch, “my one doesn’t do that.”
“It’s the newest model, a prototype if you will,” Alex said dryly. “Now, if everybody can see clearly?”
With an affirmative nod from all the men, Alex proceeded to detail the plan, frequently adjusting the controls on the pad to pan left and right, occasionally enlarging a specific section.
>
“At the moment there is only our team, what happens if Lord Hadley turns up with reinforcements?” Murdoch enquired.
“It’ll be a stipulation of the exchange that Lord Hadley comes alone, or at least with a small entourage, as High-Lords rarely travel alone. From everything I’ve heard of Lord Hadley, he’s honest in his dealings and is unlikely to risk the life of his eldest daughter by ignoring the conditions of the exchange,” Alex stated.
“And what about High-Lord Stanton?” Sanderson asked. “Surely by now he must know what has happened to his fiancée. I doubt that he will stand idly by and watch, as soon as it’s confirmed that she’s safe, he’ll descend on the station with a battle fleet. He won’t care who is innocent or guilty, but just slaughter everyone.”
“We’ll be giving as little advanced notice of the location of the exchange as possible, hence he will not have time to marshal his forces, and he will simply have to bring whatever ships he has available.”
“That’s a big if,” Sanderson said concerned. “I wouldn’t put it past Stanton to turn up in person and break any promises Hadley might have made; he’s as slippery as an eel and I would trust a serpent over him, any day.”
“Indeed,” Alex agreed, “High-Lord Stanton is nothing if not predictable. I would be most disappointed if he didn’t at least try and renege on any agreement. After all, if he isn’t going to play by the rules, then neither do we. If Lady Hadley, his fiancée, isn’t enough to draw him outside of his protective shell, then I’m sure the opportunity to do away with me most definitely will.”
“You expect High-Lord Stanton to be there, in person?” asked a shocked Templeton.
“Of course,” Alex shrugged. “I held his predecessor in high regard, and while he lived I couldn’t inflict on him the agony of losing his only son. However, he is long dead now and Stanton has been the cause of too much misery and suffering. I plan on completing the job that I left unfinished, but this time I won’t hesitate—I’ll decapitate him. I’ve been told it’s the only way to deal with a snake, you cut off its head.”
