by Cher Hollis
He walked to the end of the alcove, facing towards the inside circular space of the flight deck. Looking over several parts of the wreckage, he silently inventoried what needed to be done first. It looked as if the most damage had come from the collapsed false ceiling. The heavy fabricated material had smashed and torn the more delicate components of the Miner’s various operating systems.
Bo could see the only piece of equipment that hadn’t been totally damaged was the pilotage. Then he realized it was his body that must have shielded it from damage. His eyes followed a straight line from the pilotage, moving up ten paces toward the view from the forward portal.
Part of that view was Cassie.
She was sitting on a wide ledge in front of the right rectangular portal. She had her back to him and he could see her knees were drawn up to her chest as she held a blue blanket wrapped around her. He was relieved. Quietly, he moved around the debris, until he was behind her solitary spot. He looked over the richness of her ebony hair and the way it fell around her shoulders into soft curls against her back.
“Morning,” he said quietly, inching behind her, before she could think to move.
Bo brought his arms around Cassie from behind and pulled one long leg up beside her.
She sighed and settled back against his chest. “Good morning, Bo.”
“Your head okay? No double vision?” he asked.
She shook her head. “The med-unit did its job,” she murmured. “I saw your arm was fused,” she said, sounding distracted.
He felt better having her close and knowing her injury was recovering, as he asked, “Thoughtful?”
He could see her smile as she looked up at him, while she scooted back more into the circle of his arms. “I’ve been trying to figure out how that alien ship got here, and I’m positive it must be alien,” she said.
“It is.” He agreed, but with an edge in his voice. “It’s the same kind of ship that destroyed my squadron.”
“Oh, Bo,” she said with a frown. Then she blew him away. “I checked the MADAR navigational readings and the last coordinates put this Miner at only eleven thousand light years from Earth.”
Bo tensed with some shock. He’d expected after seeing the alien ship they had to be far, far out in The Way.
“Can’t be right, Cassie. That alien ship can’t be that close to Earth. We were drugged and lost time. Or the MADAR has been broken in the collision.”
“I thought of that,” she said. “But there are good reasons to think the MADAR readings are right. First, I’ve worked on MADAR navigational systems and it isn’t possible to bump the readings forward or backward. The system doesn’t function that way. Besides, this Miner still utilizes outdated nuclear propulsion. I checked.” Her breath brushed under his chin as she looked up at him. “I know, you know, how long it would take us to reach The Way with that type of propulsion. You would have a healthy beard by now, and we’d both be suffering from radical dehydration, if we’d been unconscious that long.”
Bo was starting to see Cassie would make a good tactical soldier.
“Baby, you’re right. I just expected we were in The Way. It leaves us with more than the mystery of why that alien ship is so close to our galaxy, because it’s going to be nearly impossible for anyone to find us. Not that they’d have any idea where to start looking.”
“Where in the world could Simon have been taking us?” Cassie asked. “If it was to that alien ship, and the two ships were set to meet, then why didn’t it move out of the way before the two vessels crashed?”
Bo shook his head, hoping like hell the aliens on that ship were dead and not trying to find a way onto the Miner, because the crash didn’t look damaging enough, unless it had hit their life support.
“Maybe the bastards stalled and couldn’t move,” he muttered. “Nothing else makes sense.”
“I asked Simon if he was taking me to my father,” Cassie said; with an added shiver he felt. “He got extremely angry and said my father had nothing to do with it.”
That made Bo wonder why the hell De La Fluenta’s daughter was being shipped out to a military carrier stationed in The Way, to be used as a damn go between or ransom to her father to stop the alien attacks.
Bo knew militaries and he knew war, and so he knew they damn well didn’t know exactly what was going on. They were covering all possible angles, like throwing darts blindly.
So he told Cassie, “One of the kidnappers said a Variant was leading the aliens attack. Crazy as it sounds, he believes it.” Bo turned his gaze toward the alien ship, half crumbled by the crash. “But he didn’t know or wouldn’t say the man’s name.”
Cassie made a surprised sound.
“None of it makes any sense,” she said, with a slow shake of her head. “It’s so frustrating to have such important information withheld, especially when it concerns my life or death. I know Lt. Colonel Black knew more, but refused to tell me. He knew things I deserved to know, because I’m acting as the government’s pawn, even as much as I’m afraid to do it.”
Bo tensed at Cassie’s statement. He realized that he stood on the edge of a critical decision; one he’d been avoiding because of the status Code Three “Unfriendly” that Cassie had been assigned. That code demanded, as a military officer, that he speak no further with Cassie on military critical subjects.
He also knew he’d already crossed the line and said too much.
He stalled on reacting to her charges, and she must have felt it. Her insight amazed him, when she turned partially around, still in the shelter of his arms.
She sounded anxious. “Don’t say anything more, Bo. I should have realized I’m putting you in a really compromising situation.” Her gaze searched his. “Consider the subject closed.”
Bo decided a man could drown in the brownness of Cassie’s eyes. His breath came sharply and he shook his head as if he could physically jar the chains holding him back. He believed that Cassie was innocent, caught between treacherous men with ultimate power that could destroy her without a thought.
Still, he hesitated—he didn’t take lightly the sworn oath to his country and the military, to obey those directives given to him. Cassie continued her turn between his legs, rising to her knees to face him, as if she sensed his inner struggle. The blanket she’d held fell to the bench when she reached her hands to the sides of his face.
“You’ve saved my life, Bo, and I know if I’m threatened again you will be there. That’s so much more than I could have hoped for when I was forced to do this.”
Abruptly Bo started talking, before more reasons could stop him. “You are classified as a Code Three Unfriendly, Cassie. Code Four is the highest threat designation.”
Cassie had a right to know that much—to be aware of her possible enemies.
Bo watched Cassie’s expressive eyes widen in surprise while her hands fell from his face as she kneeled back. She wasn’t aware of how provocative she looked kneeling before him. The thin undershirt she had on was playing hide and seek against her tawny skin, and his gaze rested on one of the straps. It had fallen down her shoulder and it laid suspended between dressed and undressed.
“What does that mean, Bo?” she asked in a hushed voice.
He lifted his hand to take hold of the strap, feeling the creamy texture of her skin beneath his knuckles.
“It’s the code for possible enemy spy. And Lt. Colonel Black gave you that status,” he said.
His voice sounded unusually calm as he thought the entire time he was going to pull the strap back up over Cassie’s shoulder. But at the last second, he lowered his hand, taking the strap with it.
With genetically enhanced senses, one of razor-sharp sight, he could clearly see the side of Cassie’s breast tremble as he slowly peeled the edge of the strap down past her dusky embroidered nipple, to expose the round perfection of her breast.
“I don’t believe it,” he said, and he hooked his hands under her arms and drew her toward him.
The rose
bud in the middle of her nipple drew taut before his tongue reached out to caress it, while Cassie’s hands caught in the short hair at the base of his skull. Then she clutched him closer.
He bit softly, and she arched her back with a sweet, heated moan. His lips closed over her taut nipple and he could feel the fire in his blood, which had his other hand pulling down, until the whole undershirt fell to Cassie’s waist as she kneeled before him.
Her head fell back, while his thumb persuaded her other nipple to lance into a jutted point. He sensed her body trembling with arousal, her increased heartbeat, and heating flesh.
He had found Ela Cassandra!
Vytor could perceive there were seven entities aboard the disabled human vessel. He thought it curious that the Esa Kalic be so far from where he knew the galactic battle was taking place. Even more curious was the fact all four Esa warriors on board the Kalic were dead. Vytor perceived their deaths had nothing to do with the collision. They had ended their own essence.
The humans aboard the other vessel were all male, except the one Vytor knew was Ela Cassandra.
When Vytor’s mind touched hers and the male she was with, Vytor immediately realized that they were engaged in mating!
An uncontrollable excitement lashed through his matrix.
Its abrupt nature caused him to hover in confusion amidst the confines of his vessel.
“Two willing human partners, my calculations, and a Makkars essence, then we could definitely create the first step; a combined new life form of Makkar and human.”
Those words Ramon had spoken to Vytor nearly a quarter-cycle ago came back to him like a supernova. His matrix flashed in blinding, explosive displays, while he tried to grasp the divine intervention that was happening. His excitement consumed the boundaries of normal display, and then it tottered over the edge of his fragile hold on sanity.
He realized that he had stumbled on the solution to all his ambitions. Finally, he understood that he did not need Ramon.
This was his defining moment.
This was the exact moment, which carried forward the idea that had hovered on the edges of his newly independent mind. The concept that he’d ultimately known was there, even though he’d been unable to quite grasp it.
But his personal ambitions, and a dream he’d had, combined into one solid hope. Its momentum carried him into an emotionally, mad spiral.
“I do not need Ramon’s science or calculations! The identical preternatural energy exists in humans as it does in my race. I have only to shape it to my desire!” Vytor shouted.
It had been proven during the successful bonding with Ramon. All Makkars had felt the kindred energy in humans.
So with crazed abandon toward his new purpose, Vytor swept forward, bringing his vessel alongside the human ship. Then he began withdrawing parts of his matrix from the structure of his ship. Gathering himself into smaller portions, until he created a bond with the outer shell of the human ship.
Then he simply slipped through, gaining entry into the human vessel.
Bo felt the Miner jostle as if bumped by some outside entity. It stopped him cold and he released the tender flesh from his mouth.
“What was that?” Cassie asked anxiously, while her long dark hair fell around his face from where she looked down at him.
Bo put his hands around Cassie’s bare waist, and then he had her standing on the deck a second later.
“Might be the ship settling,” he said, even though his Variant heightened senses told him it was more. He started to walk toward the entryway, as quickly over his shoulder he said, “There’s an IP under the cushions in the alcove, Cassie. Get it and stay here. I’ll go check.”
“But Bo—” Cassie said in alarm.
“Do as I tell you, Cassie,” he commanded sharply. Then he jogged swiftly to the alcove, even jumping over debris in his way.
Once there, Bo grabbed up the IR and sprinted out of the entryway without a backward glance. He took the bumping motion to be a potential ship trying to dock with the Miner. If that was true, he had no time to waste, not even time to explain to Cassie.
When he hit the corridor, he upped his game and launched into hyper-fast motion, a gift of being a Variant. In seconds, he’d reached the stepladder leading to the lower level.
All of a sudden, out of nowhere, a burning flash of heat ripped through his skull, centering in his temple.
It was so unexpected and had such blinding intensity; it doubled him over and stopped his hyper-speed flat. The IR, he would never let go of, fell from his hands and banged onto the deck.
Bo groaned harshly through the astonishing, burning pressure attacking and multiplying inside his skull.
Something had seized hold of him. It was so overpowering, the force of it dropped him to his knees.
Lust.
It was pounding, savage, and primitive lust. It snaked through him so powerfully; an animalistic snarl tore from his throat. The demands of the unbelievable and senseless lust were insatiable as it ate its way through every inch of his body like an uncontrolled wild fire.
Then a brilliant green light flashed in the beginnings of a strobe, blinding his sight as it infiltrated him. The material of his clothes felt like pinpricks of pain along his charged green skin. Making him tear and rip away his pants, then hurl his boots down the corridor, until he stood naked with his muscles taut and straining.
The pressure in his skull was building into a pounding crescendo.
Then a name reverberated through the strobing greenness.
“Ela Cassandra!”
Another guttural and animalistic sound tore from deep inside him.
Then he stalked back toward the flight deck.
Cassie watched Bo’s retreating back, until he was gone from her line of sight. Then she shook out of her frozen stance and reached down to grab the undershirt at her feet, quickly pulling it on. She knew there had to be a potential threat to make Bo act so fast. So she practically ran through the wreckage to the alcove.
She had her back turned to the entryway as she searched under the cushions on the bench Bo had slept on. She heard a metal scraping sound, which had to be the IP, and she realized it must have fallen behind the bench seat.
“Darn,” she said under her breath.
She had to kneel on the bench to reach behind it. There was a narrow space between the bench and the wall, where she couldn’t see. Using her fingers to search, she stretched forward, finally feeling the metal of the IP with her fingertips.
“There you are,” she said with relief.
She’d barely gotten her hand around the barrel, when all at once a sharp, bright green light filled the alcove.
Suddenly, she found it difficult to breathe, and then her mind felt strangely dazed.
She’d thought Bo had gone, and she wondered dazedly, if he could have returned so soon, because she was certain someone was behind her. A strange prickly sensation rushed through her, making her back off the bench to stand.
Straightaway, she lost her balance and wobbled on her feet, with Bo’s name hovering on her lips.
Out of the brilliant green light, strong hands reached around her from behind and grabbed the neckline of her undershirt. Massively disorientated, Cassie didn’t understand what was happening, but then her shirt tore away, leaving her only in her panties.
Gasping at the rough attack, she fell back and hit the heat of a strong muscular body.
“Bo!” she exclaimed.
The green effervescence seemed as if it was trying to ooze into her pores and take control of her, as she disjointedly thought something was very wrong. But those jumbled thoughts flew away as she heard Bo’s demanding voice in her ear.
“Take it off.”
His voice was low and harsh, and he grabbed her hair from behind. She felt him nip her nape. The sting somewhat lifted the unusually incoherent state she felt and she whimpered, struggling to say “no” against the green wash holding her back. But she couldn’t move as Bo’s
muscled arm reached around her and his hand lowered to grab the front of her panties.
“I said take it off,” his voice pounded.
His hand jerked and the delicate material tore free from between her thighs.
Cassie staggered as the heat of Bo’s naked body moved against hers, his strength pulling her down on her knees. It seemed as if her voice, mind, and body were separate as she struggled against the green brilliance to tell him to stop.
But his hands began molding her breasts, rubbing them under his palms with increasing frenzy, which made her feel confused arousal as he dominated her.
“Bo, please,” she cried, barely managing to get the plea out, even as her head fell back to his shoulder with supernatural surrender. Bo nipped her neck, while his other hand pressed between her thighs. The pressure of it pushed her back onto his hard length.
“Bend,” he growled.
Alarm spread through her disjointed mind as Bo’s powerful body pushed and bent her onto her hands and knees.
“Not like this!” she cried, while the strength of his body shrouded her, and her panic grew stronger, fighting back the green arousal.
“Spread your legs,” Bo demanded from above her.
Cassie’s panic broke free from the lustful urges of the green energy, as she cried, “Bo, don’t! Not like this.”
She’d panted each word as she tried to struggle out from under him, but he was too strong. He grabbed her hair from behind and pulled her head back, while his knees pressed her thighs open. He was too powerful to stop, and she felt him ominously settle behind her.
Vytor perceived he was losing his Talis hold over the humans. He tried to ply more Talis into Ela Cassandra’s mind, but it was not working on her as it did on the male.
Vytor wondered at the male’s struggle to mate the female. The male seemed to be fighting it. This made no sense to Vytor, but he could not force the male beyond his basic nature.
“Or could I?” Vytor asked, as he became intensely frantic at being so close to attaining his ultimate goal, but then on the verge of losing it.
