“Yeah,” I say softly, my mind other places. We go into my shelter, where Kelbara stretches, smiling as she looks at my narrow bed. “What?”
“Just thinking that I wish we could set up a double bed in here. While I loved that time we made love in my shelter, the beds around here are nowhere near wide enough for sleeping together.”
Kelbara stretches again, her shoulders popping and she grunts in pleasure as they do. “Mmmm, I'm so going to need a trip to a spa after we get Tauria. I'm stiff already, and gravpod HALO ops suck big time.”
“Kelbara, about the drop,” I start, taking a deep breath, “I was thinking that it would be better if you stayed with the support groups, or maybe in the Lancer headquarters, a liaison between us and the Lancers.”
Kelbara drops her arms, turning around and looking at me in total surprise. “You think.... are you nuts, Jensen?”
“I'm just saying, you have great organizational skills and this is the first coordinated operation between us and the Lancers. And we can't practice this without tipping off Tauria, so being a liaison is important and...”
“Fuck no, sir!” Kelbara says, stepping closer. “I can see what you're doing, and I won't obey that order!”
“And what am I doing?” I ask, keeping my voice low. “Trying to increase the odds of mission success?”
“If you were doing it for that, I'd suck it down and report to the Lancers tomorrow to start coordinating with them,” Kelbara says, her voice just as low but just as intense. “But that's not why. Heaven and stars Jensen, I'm the second-best leader in the Rangers for a reason, and I'm the baddest bitch in the unit! You know it too. You're trying to get me off the battlefield, though, and I know why. You don't want me hurt.”
“And if I don't?” I ask, seizing her shoulders. “It's not that greedy to want you to fucking live through this, is it? We're expecting thirty to sixty percent casualties even if we are successful. But you and I both know that Tauren's got a backup plan for this, a tactical Q-missile to that estate if we can't get the job done. I didn't tell the Rangers, because if Tauren unleashes it they're all dead anyway. I don't want you dead!”
My fingers are digging into Kelbara's shoulders hard enough that I can feel my fingernails want to pierce her skin, but she doesn't flinch, and instead reaches up with her right hand and caresses my face, her eyes soft. “And I love you for it, Jensen. I love you, and regardless if we're waiting for after this operation or not, in my heart now you've been my husband for months. The first time I put one of those pink pills of Mogar's in my mouth, I was your wife in my heart and soul.”
“I've felt the same for you as well,” I reply, touching my forehead to hers. “I don't need a ceremony, you're my wife. Forever. And I want you to live through this.”
“Realize something, though, Jensen,” Kelbara whispers, her thumb stroking my cheek, “without you, it doesn't matter. If I'm going to die, I can't think of any death more right, nobler than dying next to my husband, a powerlance in my hand, trying to protect our family. So, you can't keep me off this op, Jensen. My place is at your side, your Lady to my Lord.”
My fingers tighten for a moment, and I want to push her away, to tell her that she's wrong, that at nineteen she doesn't have the experience to understand all the ramifications of what she's saying. But I can't, because everything she says pierces me into my soul, shaking me and making my hands relax. Instead of pushing her away, I pull her to me, holding on to her tightly. “I... my place is next to you, my love.”
Kelbara raises her head and kisses my jawline, her fingers running through my hair and pulling me down to her. I turn my mouth to hers, kissing her tenderly, stroking her back and reaching out with my tongue, tasting her lips. Kelbara deepens our kiss before stepping back, taking a deep breath.
“Take me to bed, Jensen. Make love with me, help me keep the fears and demons away,” she says, reaching for the closure on my tunic. “Tomorrow morning I can be your detached Sub-Commander, but tonight... I want to be your wife.”
I pull her close again, kissing her deeply, lifting her in my arms. Somehow, we make it to my bed, ditching our powerlances and clothes along the way to stretch out on my bed, her skin warm and spicy, her sighs music to my ears, her body as beautiful as her soul. I lose myself in her, I don't know who does what, all I know is that when it's over both of our cheeks are wet, but there's no sadness anywhere in our hearts.
* * *
“You know, I was serious last night when I said that I want a freakin' double bed in here after this op,” Kelbara gripes good-naturedly as she pulls on her trousers. We did end up sleeping in my bed together all night in between bouts of making love, waking up slightly stiff but I'm totally satisfied. “I woke up with my butt pressed against the side wall of the shelter, and that's not very well insulated. I think my right butt cheek's still frozen.”
“If you want I can warm it up,” I joke, pulling on my right boot. “You know I have lots of ways to do that.”
“Mmmm.... but that's for a few days from now,” Kelbara says, smiling sadly. “I think tonight it might be best if we refrain from sex. Not saying time together, but... well, we never seem to have quickies since Cassell's fortress.”
I laugh, nodding. “Yes well, when my wife is as much an athlete as I am, we tend to have the strength and stamina to enjoy each other a lot. I don't plan on changing that... but we're not going to need a double bed.”
“Why?” Kelbara asks, buckling her belt before pulling on her tunic. “And don't start any bullshit about me not being allowed to work with you once we get legally married, either. We both know other than last night you and I have been totally professional in front of the Rangers. And I'm sure they know we're... well, having sex pretty often.”
“I'm sure of that. But what I meant was, after this war is over... I'm not staying with the Rangers,” I admit. “I already talked it over with Tauren when we started the unit, and I want to focus on things other than war for a while. Kel, I've spent nearly every day since I turned twenty years old focused on violence in some way or another. Even before then, I started martial arts, and despite all the bullshit that the teachers talk about with inner peace and trying to avoid fighting, the fact is violence has been part of my life for too long. After this, barring any emergencies, it's time for this gladiator to retire and turn my attention to building instead of destroying.”
Kelbara thinks, then nods. “I can't say I've done it for as long as you have, but I can agree with that. So long as we focus on building the right things. Like our family, including us trying the pills again.”
“And taking care of Olivia. She's never going to be our genetic daughter... but she'll be raised like one of our own children,” I add. “Kel, I'm not saying I'm putting up my sword forever, you know.”
“Neither am I,” Kelbara says as she cinches her holsters on. “Our family will always need shields. But there's more to life than standing in the line waiting for the next war to come along. So, what happens to the Rangers?”
“Tauren will probably keep them around, they serve a purpose, but that's a decision for him to make. For now, though, let's make sure as many Rangers as possible survive and get our hands on Tauria.”
Kelbara slides her powerlance into her holster, and her eyes are gleaming in anticipation. “And this time, we get to actually shoot her. With plasma, at least.”
Chapter 24
Kelbara
The shuttle is quiet, more than it has ever been before in an operation, but most of that is probably my helmet. In a HALO drop, we leave the giant transport stealth shuttle in the middle stratosphere, where temperatures are far below freezing and there's little oxygen to breathe. To make sure that we survive and don't end up impacting the ground as a bunch of non-breathing icicles, we're wearing thermal suits as well as full atmospheric helmets. They're useful and convenient, because we don't have to use specialized bottled oxygen or other strange mixes, and they're packed with a ton of useful features that we can us
e throughout the upcoming battle. On the bad side, we can't wear our normal armor, we'd tumble out of control from the air resistance and it shows up like a flashing light on radar. Instead, we wear lighter, sleeker armor that isn't as protective, but a lot stealthier. Still, I miss my beetle shell, knowing what's coming up.
“Two minutes to drop zone,” the pilot quietly says over our comm circuit in our ears, and I look down the line of Rangers, another thing unique about this drop. We've never gone into combat in two shuttles of fifty before, but this is an old-school mass drop, a frontal assault at first. I stand up, watching as the other Rangers turn their heads to me. I touch my thighs, checking on my two powerlances, then my waist where the gravpod harness control belt attaches, although I'm getting a wedgie already from the rest of the setup, then lift my feet for the ankle pods, and finally check my wrists.
“Remember your training, check your computers. Your grav pods should start kicking in at a thousand meters, but if they don't, control your fall. Nobody is lawn darting this one,” I call out over the group channel. “I'll see you on the ground.”
“I'll be waiting for you,” Jensen, who's in the other shuttle, says quietly in my ear on our private circuit, and I take a half second to smile to myself. He's busy with his own shuttle and his forty-nine Rangers under his command, but it touches me to know he's still listening in on me, making sure I'm okay.
“I love you,” I whisper back, and I hear Jensen's hum of appreciation. The shuttle comes to a stop, and I know we're on station, hovering twenty-five thousand meters above Patpa while we... wait. The minutes drag on, but we can't slack off when the green light comes we've got to move in seconds.
“We've got a signal,” the pilot says, and the back of the shuttle opens, revealing the blue of the surface below, while on the horizon the blackness of space beckons. Castor and Pollux are both visible, the twin moons beautiful in their austere majesty. At this point, if anyone's suit fails, they have ten seconds to get to safety before the altitude and lack of oxygen gets them. “You want it, Sub-Commander?”
“Silent on my display,” I reply, thankful for another advantage of our helmets. With a built-in heads up display, the helmet also gives me lots of information at the touch of a button, including my GPS location and our target. Now, though, the upper right of my vision becomes a small video image, and I see the interior of Imogen's estate. I see Imogen step around to a small podium and a green light flashes in my display.
“Sticks one and two, drop!” Jensen calls, and I turn, bringing the Rangers up with my hands.
“Follow me!” I call, diving out of the shuttle. A human-like body in Tamaria's gravity, in a head down dive, will achieve an average vertical velocity of seventy meters per second through the atmosphere until the grav pods start to minimize our relative mass and we sprawl out into a belly down position, increasing air drag and slowing us more. It's both the most exhilarating and frightening five minutes of my life. Around me I can see the bodies of the other Rangers near me, we poured out of the shuttle quickly.
In my helmet display, I see Imogen messing with a flexi in front of the camera, talking silently although I have no time for listening to his bullshit. I could turn off the video with my wrist control, but it's not interrupting my work right now, so I tuck my body as tightly as possible, more interested in the altimeter ticking off on my lower right visual, below Imogen and his rambling face. What started off being measured in kilometers switches to meters as we cross the ten-thousand-meter threshold, the numbers whizzing too fast to track except for the thousands and hundreds. At two thousand meters, I cross my arms, my thumb on the grav pod activation stud if my computer doesn't kick in, but at a thousand I feel the tug of the pods on my body and I roll out, going belly down and spread eagled. The city's rushing up and I have eighteen seconds exactly to steer myself to make sure I land without injury.
Imogen's estate dominates the western edge of the city, and I steer using my hands and arms like a diver in water with the slight webbing of my suit's gloves, aiming for as close to the interior gardens as I can.
The grav pods pull harder, trying desperately to overcome the momentum built up by nineteen thousand meters of free fall, and my torso groans as the straps over my shoulders and between my legs dig in harder and harder. I can hear muffled grunts in my ears as the Rangers around me feel the same strain and call out into their helmets, a mass comm circuit kicking in immediately when the grav pods activated. It gives us a chance to communicate with each other at least.
I see the first people below me touch down, some of Jensen's shuttle were out the door before my crew dropped, but I'm right behind, tucking my feet up and rolling as I hit the ground, pulling my powerlance and hitting the release catch on my harness. The impact is still hard, I landed on flagstones instead of the nice soft desert sands we'd practiced on, but I don't have time to feel pain even as it rolls across my back, the light insulation of my drop suit not helping all that much. Instead of complaining I raise my lance, firing as a Rebel Lancer comes out of the door of the estate, his own powerlance ready to fire. He's hit and drops, at least for the moment neutralized. “Stick two, report!”
My squad leaders, we've divided into five squads this time, quickly reply, and I evaluate the situation. Per the maps on my display, we're near the kitchens, although some of my stick is scattered all over the fucking place due to suits that partially malfunctioned or steering went out of control. As it is, six Rangers didn't survive the drop I can see, and at least another eight are blown too far out of position to be useful in this fight. Fourteen out of my fifty already out of the fight, and we're not even in the fucking building yet.
“Squads one, two and four, assault the kitchen, squads three five go around to the dining room!” I call, switching over to Jensen's private channel. “Stick two fixing the back.”
“We're going right in the front door, see you in the middle,” Jensen says, and I can hear the smile in his voice, the gladiator's out again. I don't have time to worry about Jensen though as another Rebel Lancer fires and I avoid it more by luck than anything else, firing back and hitting his lance hand. Before he can do anything, I close the distance and knee him in the face, his nose shattering in a satisfying crunch before he drops back, and I move on, firing the whole time.
The fight is both monotonous and hyperactive, with Rangers charging hard through doors, windows, and down the corridors, firing repeatedly. It looks almost manic, but each shot must be aimed, plasma shots are slower than Gauss rounds and can be avoided, while Gauss rounds can't.
I can't pay attention as Rangers go down, their bodies ripped apart by the millimeter-wide Gauss rounds that still impart devastating energies to their targets as they mushroom on impact. The only way to survive it to fire faster and more accurately than the Rebels, and to keep moving, always keep moving.
My helmet display becomes my guide as I move through the hallways, pressing on the central room where Tauria's now started to talk. She's doing a pretty good job of trying to stay calm on the video despite the attack she must be aware of, or maybe she's drugged up again, not that it matters.
What matters right this moment is the line of four Rebel Lancers blocking the door, a suicide squad ready to hold us back or die trying. I dive out, firing quickly as the Rangers behind me fire as well, and somehow I'm still alive when I come to my feet again. I kick the door and it blows back, Tauria looking over in shock as my Rangers follow me while a moment later the door on the other side bursts open and Jensen comes in the other side.
“What is this?” Tauria screeches, and I pull my helmet off, I don't need it anymore.
“Tauria, by the authority of the crown of Tamaria, you're under arrest!” I call, raising my powerlance. Imogen, who's standing next to her tries to step in between us and raise a lance of his own, but I shoot him, stunning him to the ground as I close. Jensen comes from the other side as Tauria retreats, running towards a back door.
“Kel, with me! Follow her!” J
ensen says, and he and I sprint down the short hallway.
Tauria's trying to get away again, I can sense it. Tryion tried to tell us everything he knew, but still, in looking over the blueprints of Imogen's estate, the gaps in the structure were too big to be anything more than a honeycomb of secret passages that even he doesn't know about. The sorts of secret passages that Tauria's used before to get away, but we won't let it happen this time.
Jensen's a step in front of me as we hit the door, but behind us, I can hear the Rangers start firing again, the Rebel Lancers must be trying desperately to rescue their chosen monarch. We turn left, then right, coming out into a tiny courtyard where I see Tauria a few meters again, trying to push on the wall, desperate. “Where is it?”
“It's over Tauria,” Jensen says, the two of us raising our powerlances. “Surrender, I don't want to hurt you.”
Tauria turns, her eyes filled with madness and she starts laughing, manic. “Hurt me? You fucking human, you tore my life from me! I know what you want to do. I know it! Rape the queen, make me your fuck puppet! I know it! But it's not going to happen!”
Tauria's hand goes to the sleeve of her dress and she pulls a dagger, and I realize she's going to try and stab herself in the throat, but before she can we fire, Jensen's round hits her hand while I hit her in the chest, sending her staggering back into the wall to collapse on the grass. A moment later, a secret door opens on the wall, revealing what Tauria was looking for, and the ridiculousness makes me start laughing. Jensen looks over, a smile on his face as well. I point, snickering more. “I guess she found the button.”
“Come on, let's end this war,” Jensen says, going over to Tauria's body and picking it up. I follow him back through the tunnels, where we find Tauria's assumed throne room in shambles, but the camera operator still standing, two Rangers by his side, a slew of Rebel Lancers stunned on the ground.
Red Planet: The Rebel War (Tamarians Book 3) Page 21
