But even if there hadn’t been work left to do, he wouldn’t have dared truly touch her. What if he had misunderstood her? It wouldn’t have been the first time. Why, oh why, couldn’t people use the literal definitions of words to avoid confusion? She could say, “Gregor, I wish to have coitus with you,” and he would be happy to oblige. Well, perhaps that would not be advisable, not when he was supposed to objectively judge her piloting merit to determine whether she possessed the acceptable knowledge and skills to work for Mandrake Company. A relationship would not be appropriate, even if she wanted one.
Val was standing silently while his thoughts raced around a track at a hundred miles an hour, watching him and rubbing his arm gently with her thumb. What had she been saying? Did she expect an answer?
“How long?” he asked.
“What?”
“How long did it take you to figure out I’m not an ass?” Gregor regarded the hand stroking his arm and wished he could rip off the suit so these layers of material were not between them. He also wished he weren’t holding the helmet with his other arm, so he might reach over and touch a wisp of her hair. It looked soft, inviting. Why was he always holding something when they were close like this? It was interminable.
“Oh. A while.” Val smiled again. “Not until the bar fight. That was when it occurred to me that you weren’t intentionally being an arrogant prick to me. You talk to everyone like that, and I don’t think you even realize you’re irritating people. Until they take a swing at you.”
Her words were not as precise as he would have preferred, but he had heard “arrogant prick” often enough to grasp what it meant, beyond the literal definition, which was undeniably confusing when used to refer to a person. “That is a truth,” he said. “Perhaps that explains why you so clearly disliked me when you were a cadet at the academy. You found me arrogant, yes?”
“And patronizing. And condescending. And someone who thought I was an idiot…” Val lowered her hand to her side. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to analyze your character flaws; it’s not as if I don’t have many of my own. I just wanted you to feel better… to not be upset by Summers’s dismissal.”
Gregor did not wish to talk about Summers. He wished to continue talking to her. About this. About them. He believed she was closer to understanding him, and that filled him with all manner of hope. But why had she removed her hand? Whether it was appropriate or not, he didn’t want her to stop touching him.
“I did not think you were an idiot. You were very tenacious with your studies. I approved of that.”
Val snorted. “Yeah? Then why did you keep trying to get me to drop out of the military academy and sign up for a civilian flight program? I could tell you didn’t think I’d be able to pass.”
Gregor remembered the two conversations they’d had during which they had discussed that scenario, but they had been such brief exchanges of words that he was surprised she remembered them and hadn’t simply dismissed them if they weren’t applicable to her at the time. “I did not think you would fail,” he said. “I suggested the civilian force because there had been rumors coming from high-ranking officers about Grenavine.”
She grew utterly still. “What?”
“They were just rumors then, but because of my own assessment of GalCon’s historical precedent—the destruction of Spero over a similar rebellion—I believed it likely that unpleasant action would be taken. I did not believe you would find it acceptable to serve in a military that would harm your home world.”
Seconds passed with Val not moving an inch. Only her eyes shifted back and forth slightly as she examined his face. Did she not believe him? He rarely saw a point in lying and did not have any skill at it.
“I could not share those behind-the-curtain details with a cadet,” Gregor added, “especially when so much was based on my own speculation at that point, but I assure you my suggestions were rooted only in the belief that you, as a Grenavinian, might find a non-military career more suitable.”
“So you were concerned about me back then? I thought you were speaking down to me because you didn’t think I deserved to be there. But you were… trying to help me?”
“I wished to help, yes. I was pleased that you were there. If not for the rumors, I would not have suggested you leave.” Indeed, making that suggestion had been hard to do. He had wanted her to stay, not simply in the military but at the academy, so that he could continue to see her from time to time. A foolish notion since she had never demonstrated that she possessed any feelings or attraction for him. Nonetheless, it had been difficult to tell her she might find a civilian career a better match.
“You were pleased,” she whispered, still looking into his eyes. With most people, he did not care for eye contact, finding it a discomfiting experience, but he met her gaze, wanting her to find… whatever she wished there.
Val put her hand on his forearm again, and he let himself feel hope that she had found whatever she sought, that she might go back to rubbing his arm. Instead, she walked up the ramp, tugging him after her.
Puzzled, he let her lead him. There must be something inside she needed to show him. But as soon as they were inside the relative privacy of the shuttle, she surprised him by planting both hands against his chest and pushing him back against the hull. Before he could ask what she was doing, or wonder if he had angered her somehow, she stepped close, her chest pressing against his, and her hands coming up to the sides of his head. Her eyes were no longer stunned, but fiery and intense, and he started to realize—to hope—she was about to kiss him. A heartbeat later, her lips touched his.
* * *
Val heard Gregor’s helmet clunk to the deck, but she was barely aware of it, barely aware of anything other than wanting to kiss him, to brand him with her lips in a way that he would never forget. In a way that she would never forget. She’d stunned him, she knew, but she couldn’t make herself back away to explain. An intense hunger scorched her from the inside out as she pressed against his long, hard torso, tasting him with her tongue, feeling him with the rest of her body. He cared about her; he had always cared about her. She had been too immature to understand, too worried about herself to see his feelings behind his awkward stiffness.
When Gregor returned her kiss, parting his lips and caressing her tongue with his, her heart swelled, rewarded with the realization that however much she might have startled him, he was enjoying himself now. Maybe he had always wanted to enjoy himself with her. Was that possible? She dug her fingers into the back of his neck and kissed him harder, thrusting her tongue into his mouth, wanting more than teasing probes.
He hesitated for a moment, and she feared she had turned him off with her aggressiveness. She ought to tamp it down, to back off; just because she’d had a realization that made her hotter than a sun going supernova, that didn’t mean he was there. But he recovered and lifted a hand to the side of her head, running his fingers greedily through her hair and kissing her back with an intensity that almost made her dizzy. Her heart pounded, and heat spiraled through her body.
His other arm came around her waist, his strong hand finding her back and sliding down to her butt, gripping her, pulling her closer. She groaned and rocked into him, wanting his every contour pressed against her. The hard bulge against her stomach incensed her, and she rose on her tiptoes, almost climbing him in her eagerness to feel him against the hot moistness gathering at her core. She wanted to feel him in her core. He pushed into her, grinding against her, his breaths heavy and fast. He wanted it too.
They just needed to get him out of that suit. If he wasn’t flying, he didn’t need it. She reached for the fastener at his collar.
A clank came from the foot of the ramp.
Val jumped away from Gregor, feeling like a teenager caught vandalizing the toys at the park. Admiral Summers stood down there, his customary sneer even deeper than usual. The other man was with him, and he dropped his atlases as he stared up at them. The men looked like they had been passing by and
nothing more, but Val wanted to crawl under one of the seats and hide from the admiral’s condescending gaze. If he had thought mercenaries were inept imbeciles before, this surely wouldn’t improve his opinion.
“It looks like you’re going to get that job you’re trying out for,” Summers told her, his tone as dry as a charred piece of hull blasted off during a laser fight.
Val groped for a clever response, but he walked out of sight before she could come up with anything. She should have forgotten cleverness and told the sanctimonious bastard to screw himself. If she’d had anything at hand, she might have thrown it at a wall, but that was hardly professional, so maybe it was just as well that everything in the shuttle was bolted down.
She wanted to look at Gregor, but she was ashamed that she had tackled him so in a place that wasn’t nearly as private as she had thought it would be. That damned admiral was more ambulatory than a sprinter at the Galactic Games. But it was her fault. She should have waited, come to him tonight, or… after she was hired, damn it, so it couldn’t possibly seem that she was using him to try to get the job. After the admiral’s words, how could he be thinking anything else? That urge to kiss him—to do more than kiss him—had been nothing more than a gut reaction, a surge of feelings that had overwhelmed her. She snorted to herself. More like a surge of lust.
She finally looked at him, wondering where they stood now.
Gregor didn’t seem to notice; he was staring at the deck, breathing heavily, trying to gather himself maybe. Another time, she would have been glad she could have that effect on him, but she was too busy wishing he would give her a hint of his thoughts.
He finally straightened, though he avoided her eyes—he looked out at the stone hangar wall beyond the ramp. “Cadet Calendula,” he said, his voice stiff, and she slumped. Yes, he was distancing himself from her, from what had happened. “We should return to—”
A voice on a speaker interrupted him. “Zimmerman to Command. Command, do you read?” The pilot sounded breathless, harried. The distant whine of laser fire punctuated her words.
Surprised the audio was coming in for anyone to hear, Val walked out on the ramp. Commander Anstrider jogged out of a tunnel not ten meters away. The admiral and the atlas-carrying man had already been there, waiting for her perhaps. She raised a finger to them and pulled out a comm unit. “I’m here. Go on, Theresa.”
The response didn’t come over the speaker, so Val couldn’t hear it, but Anstrider’s weathered face grew grimmer. “I understand. I’ll see what we can muster.” She lowered her hand and faced Summers. “Admiral, you originally trained as a pilot, didn’t you? Any chance you want to go up there?” Anstrider noticed Val standing on the ramp, and Gregor had come out by that point too. She held up a wait-there finger toward them.
“I’ll go,” Summers said. “Is it dark out there, now? This may actually be the time for your geologist to take his team out and slip away.” He pointed at the nervous man clutching the atlases. Val had a hard time imagining him leading anything, except perhaps a panel of science-trivia enthusiasts.
“You already have a working tectonic bomb?” Anstrider asked the geologist.
“Bomb?” Val whispered to Gregor, wondering if he knew more than she.
“It sounds like they’re hoping to cause an earthquake,” he said.
“We have a prototype,” the geologist said. “Engineer Marion Meister helped put it together, and I’ve located a likely fault. If we can get to it.” He glanced at Summers.
“If we can strike them hard in their homeland, they’ll think twice about harassing us for a while,” the admiral said, “but we’re running out of time. The team can refine it en route, as long as we can get them away safely. If their ship is attacked… Let’s just say that we don’t need that bomb going off over our own continent.”
The face of the already-pale geologist grew a few shades lighter.
“Whatever you think is best, Admiral,” Anstrider said. “In the meantime—” her gaze shifted toward Val and Gregor again, “—I hear you two like to fly.”
A muscle flexed in the admiral’s jaw, but he didn’t object this time. He actually seemed more subdued around Anstrider than he had been when he first walked out of the shuttle. Maybe she had laid into him and let him know this was her command. Val hoped so.
“We are prepared, ma’am,” Gregor said.
“There are three fighters left. We’d appreciate any assistance you could give us. Especially if a team needs to sneak away while you’re out there.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Gregor didn’t have a large emotional range for his voice, at least not insofar as Val had noticed, but he sounded subtly delighted at this request.
She tried to muster a similar feeling. This was what she had wanted. Yeah, so why were some of those tectonic bombs going off in her gut right now?
10
The winged fighter rattled as it made its way through the tunnel toward an exit on the side of the mountain. Not encouraging. If it rattled when it was cruising at 600 miles an hour… Ducking and weaving to avoid enemy fire, that might be understandable—if still alarming—but this? Val imagined herself shooting out of the side of the mountain and plummeting into ice and rocks a thousand feet below.
She kept herself from complaining on the comm, but only because there weren’t any lights flashing on the dash. And because Gregor was in the jet in front of her and Admiral Summers was coming behind her. She didn’t want to give the old man a reason to test his weapons on her. He had already damaged her enough with his wit.
The tunnel widened. They were getting close to the end, where it would spit them out onto the steep slope of the mountain. This was the only runway they had.
Gregor’s fighter picked up speed, its thrusters flaring orange in the dim tunnel, and he took off with a roar that made the walls tremble almost as much as the bombs that dropped from above. Those, at least, had subsided since the first squadron had gone out. Even so, Val expected to find the outside of their mountain more crater-laden than an asteroid.
Between one blink and the next, the flare of Gregor’s burning fuel disappeared. He had to be out of the tunnel. Since night had fallen, Val had a hard time seeing the exit, but the onboard sensors told her it was there and that the way was clear.
She took a deep breath and accelerated. The stone tunnel walls blurred past. The rattle intensified, making her wish she was wearing a corset under her flight suit—anything to keep her boobs from jiggling like they were in a blender. Then she reached the exit, shooting out like a torpedo, and the ride smoothed out. Despite her fears, the old craft didn’t drop out of the sky. It sailed into the air, faithfully responding to the helm’s commands. A panorama of black sky and white stars spread out overhead, with the blues and greens of the Anyaro Nebula above the white peaks to the north. The mountains framed the sky on all sides, and Val might have paused to admire the view, but the HUD on the clear canopy bubble was already lighting up with warnings. Enemies in close proximity.
She located the friendly green blip that represented Gregor’s craft and flew up to join him, settling in behind his starboard wing. The admiral hadn’t said a word to them, so she wouldn’t assume he would fly with them. They would have to be a squadron of two until they got close enough to link up with the rest of the defenders. Of course, neither she nor Gregor had experience flying with them, so it might be better to stay out of their way. With an intra-planetary defense force, there was no guarantee they used any of the same formations or squadron battle tactics espoused by the military.
“Commander Thatcher and Cadet Calendula, Charlie One and Two, reporting to Squad Leader Zimmerman,” Gregor spoke over the comm.
Val was happy to let him do the talking. She was concentrating on staying on his wing, watching the dozen-odd displays flickering across the canopy in front of her, and trying not to let the crimson and orange lasers streaking through the night sky above them worry her. Just because she and Gregor were flying toward those laser
s…
Val grimaced, her hands already damp with sweat in her gloves. She hadn’t engaged with the enemy yet, and she was already as nervous as a first-year cadet. She was already starting to miss the days of quiet and boredom in the freighter lanes.
“Hope you’ll appreciate this one day, Yarrow,” she muttered, as if her brother could hear her from his jail cell across the system.
“Ready, Val?” Gregor asked. It was a private message, not one that went out to all of the fighters.
It probably pleased her more than it should that he used her first name. Maybe it meant he wasn’t upset with her over her… impulsiveness. And the fact that the admiral had witnessed her impulsiveness. “Yes, sir. Ready.”
“Good. Follow my lead. Looks like the admiral has gone to clear the way for his team to escape. Since he didn’t ask for our assistance, we’ll help the main squadron. We’ll fly a basic Terino Tandem. Pick off the strays. If a more appealing target presents itself, we’ll consider it.”
“Yes, sir.”
Val followed him above the mountain peaks. A big bombing barge came into view, along with another of those cloaked ships. It didn’t show up on her sensors, but its dark form was visible against the night sky. The Malbakians were already targeting the bomber, and Gregor veered to the side, aiming for four enemy planes escorting the bigger craft. Scarred and charred, the Orenkan fighters weren’t exactly pristine, but they were at least twenty years more recent than what Val’s side was flying.
Mandrake Company- The Complete Series Page 41
