Maryam

Maryam Page 19

by Tracy St. John

  “Hatch, close and lock. Ac­ti­vate emer­gency con­tain­ment field.”

  The hatch slid closed, rum­bling re­luc­tantly at the end due to the dam­age it had taken. How­ever, it clicked in the locked po­si­tion. A slight shim­mer an­nounced the con­tain­ment field’s pres­ence, but Maryam doubted its abil­ity to keep them safe.

  “How long will this keep them out if they come back too soon?” she asked.

  “Long enough, I hope,” was Pana’s less-than-re­as­sur­ing re­ply. “Vid up, full ex­te­rior view.”

  The sides and ceil­ing of the shut­tle cabin dis­ap­peared, giv­ing a win­dow to the out­side im­peded only by the cock­pit. De­spite her aware­ness of the ves­sel’s ca­pa­bil­ity to of­fer a panoramic ob­ser­va­tion of their sur­round­ings, Maryam gasped in sur­prise. She couldn’t help but feel ex­posed.

  Au­dio was part of the vid ex­pe­ri­ence, let­ting them hear the spo­radic blaster fire in the dis­tance. It abruptly be­came more rapid and louder.

  “Here they come.”

  Kels erupted from the for­est, shoot­ing over his shoul­der with­out aim­ing. He ran straight for the shut­tle.

  “Field, dis­en­gage. Hatch, open!” Pana’s shout made Maryam cover her ears.

  Kels put on a burst of speed, blur­ring as the com­plain­ing hatch ratch­eted wide. Be­fore Maryam could draw a full breath, the Dramok was in­side, yelling for the field to se­cure.

  Yelling Earth­ers bounded out of the tree­line. They fired at the shut­tle, their ex­pres­sions fu­ri­ous. How­ever, the sounds com­ing from the woods op­po­site where the squad in­vaded the clear­ing were what claimed Maryam’s at­ten­tion.

  Odd croaks sang from the trees. Maryam cried out as Der­gan tore into view from that di­rec­tion—with the long-furred beasts from the night be­fore hard on his heels.

  They sped across the clear­ing, rhi­noc­eros-size crea­tures shrouded by thick, mat­ted fur that rip­pled in the wind of their pas­sage. Their hair wasn’t a sin­gle shade, but patch­work growths of white, brown, and black. They were cal­ico an­i­mals which ran on not four, but at least eight legs that drummed the ground in the man­ner of cen­tipedes. Though the lengthy strands of­ten swung to hide saucer-sized gray eyes, they came on with­out pause, riv­eted on the flee­ing Nobek run­ning for the shut­tle. Fang-filled mouths snapped vo­ra­ciously, as if an­tic­i­pat­ing the mo­ment they would bite him in half.

  He ran faster, no more than a smudge when he flew through the hatch­way, its field de­ac­ti­vated less than a sec­ond be­fore by Kels. As Der­gan bounced against the in­vis­i­ble side of the shut­tle, Kels or­dered the field on. The hatch closed and locked.

  The beasts fal­tered only an in­stant be­fore swerv­ing to­ward the group of Earth­ers. Their ap­pear­ance had hap­pened so swiftly, the squad was still ap­proach­ing, be­lat­edly be­com­ing aware of the new dan­ger. The squad skid­ded to a halt, the men’s jaws drop­ping in stunned hor­ror. They fired im­me­di­ately.

  What­ever the crea­tures’ fur hid, it wasn’t mere skin like that of a hu­man. It wasn’t un­til the fore­most of the beasts lunged barely a yard from the squad that the per­cus­sion blasters con­cen­trat­ing on it man­aged to kill it. The hu­mans had no op­por­tu­nity to cel­e­brate their suc­cess. Too many beasts bore down on them for the sol­diers to con­tinue to fight. They turned tail and ran into the for­est, fol­lowed by the ma­jor­ity of the beasts.

  A few of the mot­tled an­i­mals re­mained in the clear­ing, sniff­ing cu­ri­ously at the shut­tle and jerk­ing when the con­tain­ment field flared gold light. Throaty croaks rose, whether in com­mu­ni­ca­tion or com­plaint, Maryam had no idea. They shuf­fled about, nos­ing the aban­doned be­long­ings of the squad, now scat­tered all over the clear­ing. A back­pack was chewed and spat out, it and its con­tents shred­ded.

  “I’m im­pressed with our new body­guards.” Maryam said, try­ing to be ca­sual though she was sure her eyes were bug­ging out of her head.

  “Quite in­tim­i­dat­ing,” Pana agreed.

  “Kels, you need to look at these read­ings.” Der­gan had al­ready dis­missed their furry sen­tries. He stood in the cock­pit, bend­ing over the in­stru­men­ta­tion. Kels hur­ried to him to peer over his shoul­der.

  “The squad must have alerted the ships they found us here. They’re head­ing back at full speed.”

  “They pos­si­bly dis­cov­ered the other shut­tles and the de­stroyer’s crew as well. Who knows how well the oth­ers fared against them? I es­ti­mate it’ll be an hour be­fore they drop into or­bit.”

  “In­clud­ing that bat­tle­cruiser. The moon will be crawl­ing with Earth­ers.”

  Der­gan shook his head, his gaze wor­ried. “We need an­other place to hide.”

  Chap­ter Sev­en­teen

  Der­gan pi­loted the shut­tle from the vast spread of woods. He kept as low as pos­si­ble. When they crossed a vast ex­panse of wa­ter—an ocean, Maryam guessed—she ex­pected the waves to crash in­side the cabin, the walls of which were still in vid mode.

  When land ap­peared nearly an hour later, it was swathed in tan­gled jun­gle growth that made the hairy beasts’ for­est look man­i­cured in com­par­i­son. Af­ter an ex­tra twenty min­utes of flight, Der­gan set them down in over­grown ru­ins.

  “An old colony set­tle­ment be­fore they changed this moon to a pre­serve,” Kels guessed, peer­ing at the vine-swathed gird­ers and col­laps­ing outer shells.

  “If we con­fig­ure the shut­tle’s con­tain­ment field to re­flect, all but deep scans will bounce off. It’ll ap­pear as an­other aban­doned for­ma­tion to the Earth­ers’ in­stru­ments,” Der­gan said.

  Af­ter pok­ing their heads out for a few mo­ments, all but the Nobek headed back into the shut­tle. Though it was just hot enough to be un­pleas­ant, the hu­mid­ity was bru­tal out­doors, so heavy that it was dif­fi­cult to breathe. Adding to the dis­com­fort was the odor of rot, like veg­eta­bles gone bad.

  Der­gan set out prox­im­ity sen­sors, which would sig­nal if troops ap­proached. Then he came in, drip­ping with sweat. He dashed into the small shower at the back of the craft.

  When he re­turned, wear­ing the other form­suit he’d brought, the group set­tled in. Pana and Maryam oc­cu­pied a bench, and the other two sat fac­ing them. Kels at­tempted to look at ease.

  “Noth­ing to do but wait for res­cue or death now.” He gri­maced at his at­tempt at a joke.

  “Does any­one have a deck of cards?” Maryam had to ex­plain the joke. The men chuck­led when they got it.

  She noted their warm gazes when they looked at her. Not sex­ual; but with a kind­ness that spoke of true af­fec­tion. She thought of all they’d been through to­gether in such a short time. Each mo­ment shone with its own im­por­tance. Even lock­ing horns with Kels, as she had so of­ten, had a fuzzy am­bi­ence to it.

  Mere in­fat­u­a­tion. Yet the no­tion of mere made her feel­ings far too in­signif­i­cant. Was it turn­ing into some­thing more? Was that pos­si­ble?

  She de­tected a slight move­ment in her belly and froze, wait­ing to see if it would hap­pen again. It didn’t, but her thoughts went to Briel’s child—Kels, Der­gan, and Pana’s child. Maryam con­sid­ered the re­spon­si­bil­ity she had to­ward that soon-to-be baby, and a pro­tec­tive in­stinct rose in her. She wanted to be there for him, be­yond his birth. How could she let him go af­ter­ward, when she car­ried and nur­tured him with her body?

  She eyed the fa­thers again. Kind and car­ing Pana. Pro­tec­tive Der­gan. Com­mand­ing Kels, enough of a man to ad­mit when he’d gone hor­ri­bly off course. A ready-made fam­ily, for the right woman. Was she that woman? How com­pat­i­ble were they?

  Her head ready to burst from all the ques­tions it shouted, she ven­tured, “Do women have the op­por­tu­nity to be­come doc­tors on Kalquor?”
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  “Oh, ab­so­lutely. There aren’t many of our women left, but those who wish to pur­sue such a ca­reer do so, along with any other oc­cu­pa­tion. My mother is a sci­en­tist.” Pana beamed with pride.

  “Would Earther women—those who join your clans—could they study to be­come doc­tors?”

  Kels’s ex­pres­sion was un­read­able as he re­garded her. “Earther Mataras are to be ac­corded the same op­por­tu­ni­ties as any Kalquo­rian woman. Are you re­con­sid­er­ing my friend’s clan?”

  Be­fore she could cen­sor her­self, she plunged in. “Not when I have so much in­vested in yours.”

  There was an in­stant of stunned si­lence. Then Pana and Der­gan’s faces lit. Maryam held her hands up be­fore they could get too ex­cited, though she was pleased that they found the sug­ges­tion agree­able.

  Kels kept that same in­de­ci­pher­able coun­te­nance, not giv­ing any hint as to his feel­ings. Typ­i­cal, con­trary Kels.

  “This isn’t a pro­posal that I join your clan. It’s too soon af­ter Briel’s death. For an­other thing, I don’t know you well yet. But it’s ob­vi­ous I can’t re­turn to the life I had. I’ll be in dan­ger even within the bor­ders of the Ga­lac­tic Coun­cil.”

  “That’s true,” Pana agreed, fight­ing to ap­pear im­pas­sive and not quite pulling it off. “You’ll give us a chance to win you?”

  “When you’re not kid­nap­ping women, you’re pretty good guys. I’m will­ing to think about it while we wait for this lit­tle fel­low to be born.” She smiled at him, be­cause it was bet­ter than glanc­ing at Kels and won­der­ing what was hap­pen­ing in his head.

  “We have sev­eral months be­fore our son ar­rives to re­deem our­selves.” Der­gan couldn’t be both­ered to hide his smile. “I look for­ward to the op­por­tu­nity.”

  “As do I. Thank you, Maryam.” Pana gripped the legs of his pants, as if to keep him­self from grab­bing her in an em­brace.

  At last, she moved her gaze to Kels. He’d fi­nally al­lowed emo­tion to show. Con­fused con­cern creased his brow. Maryam had seen chil­dren look the way he did, when they des­per­ately wanted a toy sit­ting on a store shelf and knew they couldn’t have it.

  “You’re wor­ried about your re­la­tion­ship with your friend. If that’s your pri­or­ity, I un­der­stand, Kels. I’m not a sure thing, maybe not worth los­ing Se­bist over.”

  Kels started. “He’s a brother to me. I’ve known him longer than my clan­mates, and we’ve been through a lot to­gether.” He paused, started to talk a cou­ple times, and fi­nally man­aged, “As far as your worth—it’s hard not to dare all I hold dear to dis­cover what we could be to­gether.”

  Maryam’s heart leapt at his ad­mis­sion. She had it bad for the guy, no mat­ter how lit­tle sense it made. Putting aside the im­me­di­ate urge to ex­am­ine why she was so in­vested in Kels, she asked, “Do we ex­plore it or not? I’m putting the ball in your court.”

  Kels hes­i­tated again. He glanced at his clan­mates, who gazed back with open hope. Their ob­vi­ous de­sire de­cided him.

  “How do we be­gin?”

  The urge to shout with vic­tory nearly over­whelmed her. In­stead, Maryam jumped to her feet and crossed to him, plop­ping down on his lap and wrap­ping her arms around his neck. She kissed the smile that had taken own­er­ship of his lips.

  “Like this?”

  “That’s a start. What else?”

  She squirmed on the abrupt erec­tion press­ing against her bot­tom. “I’m get­ting a few ideas.”

  His eyes dark­ened. “Pana, flat­ten that seat over there. I have a few ideas of my own.”

  Sec­onds later, Maryam was bent over the lev­eled bench, her skirt and panties pud­dled at her an­kles. Kels had her pinned to the padded seat­ing, his hand spread be­tween her shoul­der blades as he worked two thick fin­gers in and out of her wom­an­hood. His thumb traced con­stant cir­cles around her ea­ger clit, mak­ing her squall and beat her fists against the cush­ions.

  “I like the way you think, my Dramok. It re­minds me of why I agreed to clan with you.” Der­gan’s voice was nearly lost in a growl.

  “It’s a gor­geous pussy to watch as it gets wet, isn’t it? So plump when she’s ex­cited. Look how fast her clit swells. Speak­ing of swelling, why don’t you re­lease your cocks, Pana? I’d hate for you to hurt your­self.”

  “Good idea. I’d rather not put holes in my pants.”

  “Es­pe­cially when there are even bet­ter holes for you. Let me ready this other one, and you can go first. Der­gan, keep her clit happy, would you?”

  “Gladly.”

  Kels turned his at­ten­tion to Maryam’s tighter en­trance, shov­ing a slick fin­ger deep in­side. Mean­while, Der­gan traced her sen­si­tive nether lips, wet­ting the cal­loused tips of his fin­gers be­fore slowly, gen­tly stroking the shaft of her clit. She shouted as a strong spasm seized her.

  At that in­stant, Kels pushed a sec­ond fin­ger in her rear. The ache added to the ex­ul­tant plea­sure, and Maryam’s eyes rolled. She stopped pound­ing the seat with her fists and clawed it in­stead.

  Kels pumped in and out, scis­sor­ing his fin­gers as he did so, forc­ing her to stretch. “Loosen up, woman. You’re about to have Pana’s thick pri­mary in this hole, so best to sur­ren­der to us now. Sub­mit.”

  In her mind, she al­ready had. That fan­tasy of be­ing over­whelmed and forced to con­cede to their de­mands had her in its thrall yet again. Maryam forced all the ten­sion she could from her mus­cles, re­lin­quish­ing to their greater power.

  “That’s it. She’s nearly primed for you, my Imdiko. No fight left in her.”

  “Not when she wants it so much.” Der­gan’s voice was rougher than ever. Maryam couldn’t help but twitch as he rubbed her sen­si­tive flesh with slow, steady strokes. “See how wet she is? How her clit has emerged? Her body begs to be fucked in any way we see fit.”

  “I’m glad to ac­cept her sur­ren­der and bury my­self in her warmth.” Pana sounded breath­less.

  Kels pulled free, though he kept his palm planted on her back, trap­ping her on top of the bench. “She is yours. We’ll watch you en­joy her in an­tic­i­pa­tion of tak­ing our turns when you’re done.”

  Der­gan re­leased her clit, his wet fin­gers grasp­ing her thigh and pulling it, spread­ing her open. Pana be­trayed his ea­ger­ness by be­ing right there less than a sec­ond later, his sex nudg­ing her ass. He pressed, stretch­ing her for in­va­sion.

  The tip of his sec­ondary teased a path into her pussy. Maryam groaned at the pres­sure on both en­trances, driv­ing into her. Der­gan’s fin­ger and thumb re­turned to her clit, dis­tract­ing her from the grow­ing de­mand on her to ac­cept the dual in­va­sion. Ex­cite­ment coursed through her, shiv­ers of ela­tion chas­ing one af­ter an­other.

  Pana thrust. In an un­hur­ried but steady shove, he buried him­self fully within her. A thun­der­clap of hurt re­sounded, in­stantly re­solv­ing into heady rap­ture that threat­ened to spill her straight into or­gasm. A star­tled grunt es­caped Maryam, all she could voice in the sud­den shock of the tak­ing.

  Then a stream of whim­pers slipped be­tween her clenched teeth as Der­gan con­tin­ued to tease her avid clit while the moan­ing Pana rubbed her but­tocks, some­times grasp­ing hard, mark­ing her. The near-cli­max re­ceded, but only enough to make her aware of how full she was, how in­cred­i­bly, achingly full of flesh.

  “Claimed,” Kels whis­pered in her ear, his tone gloat­ing. “Your ser­vice to us is just be­gin­ning.”

  Maryam shiv­ered in an­tic­i­pa­tion of be­ing sub­servient to their de­mands. She hoped they would be ex­act­ing mas­ters.

  She didn’t have long to find out. Kels spoke again, this time or­der­ing Pana. “Fuck her. Let us see you take all you wish from her.”

  Pana’s breath caught. He slid back, slowly emp­ty­ing her
un­til only the tips of his sexes re­mained in­side. Then he drove in once more, steal­ing her breath, his groin crack­ing against her ass with force.

  His rhythm was de­mand­ing, pound­ing into her, abrad­ing the most sen­si­tive in­ner por­tion of her so that a vi­o­lent roil­ing stole all co­her­ent thought. Der­gan still stroked her clit, but slowly so that she more keenly felt the swollen girths slid­ing through her flesh.

  “Look at her ass and pussy yield to those cocks,” Kels gasped. “Lis­ten to her moan. Fuck her, Pana. Force her to come for you.”

  He and Der­gan were watch­ing the de­li­cious de­base­ment. Know­ing they saw the Imdiko’s dark, veined flesh cor­rupt­ing hers brought greater aware­ness of what was hap­pen­ing. A surge of ex­cite­ment brought her more fully alive. Deep within, she tight­ened, ready­ing for det­o­na­tion.

  “You can’t deny us, Maryam. You will come.”

  Vi­o­lent plea­sure was un­furl­ing, al­ready break­ing loose. Then it was on her, rip­ping free, spasms tear­ing from her in steady con­vul­sions. They con­tin­ued as Der­gan rubbed her clit with in­creas­ing de­mand, as Pana lunged, as Kels whis­pered deca­dent de­mands in her ear.

  At last, the Imdiko’s rhythm fal­tered. He drove in one last time. His groan was drawn out, go­ing on for sev­eral sec­onds as his shafts jerked. Warmth filled Maryam’s ass as he re­leased.

  They re­mained like that for sev­eral min­utes, their shat­tered gasps fill­ing the air. With a sigh, Pana eased out. A bench creaked as he dropped on it.

  “Now you, my Nobek. Claim your help­less cap­tive.”

  Kels’s words shouldn’t have brought Maryam’s senses alive again, not so soon af­ter in­cred­i­ble cli­max. Yet fresh wet­ness es­caped her sex at the bald dec­la­ra­tion, and her sex spasmed at Der­gan’s an­swer­ing snarl.

 

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