by Lisa Lace
Maybe a few weeks ago, she would have used the opportunity to escape. But things were different now. She’d promised she would help, and she meant it. No one should be able to get away with what the Greli did. She hadn’t lied when she’d told Resek she wanted them defeated, or at least pushed back to their own planet so that the Wescra could live in peace.
When she realized she was worrying, that set off a whole new concern. She’d agreed to work with Resek, but she shouldn’t be softening toward him. This was a business deal. She’d help him do the right thing and get rid of the Greli, then he’d take her home. That’s all there was to it. She had no reason to worry, no need to stare into the darkness, searching for any sign of movement.
“What are you doing here?”
Leanne jerked awake, her neck aching uncomfortably. It took her a few moments to remember where she was. She must have fallen asleep at the window, which was now fogged from her breath on the glass.
“Sorry, I fell asleep.” She answered without thinking as she rubbed her neck. It took a moment for her mind to catch up. She saw Resek standing before her, looking tired but unharmed.
“Resek!” She resisted the insane urge to fling her arms around him. “You’re back.”
He nodded. “You should be sleeping in bed. You’ll just be stiff tomorrow if you sleep that way.”
She wished practical Resek would go away and sometimes-almost-loving Resek would say hello, but there was nothing she could do about that.
“You’re right, I’ll go lie down. How did it go today?”
“I will tell you tomorrow. For now, we both need sleep.”
Leanne couldn’t deny that. She yawned as she went off to her room. She fell into bed and was asleep at once.
The next morning, Resek filled her in.
“The rumors were true.” There was a glint of excitement in his eyes that Leanne found infectious. “The Greli Commander is here, and if we can kill him, it’ll strike a huge blow against their forces. He’s an excellent leader and strategist. His death would be very good for our side.”
“So what are you going to do?”
“We’re going after him.”
It took a minute for the meaning of his words to sink in. “We’re going after him? As in I’m coming as well?”
“Don’t look so surprised. You’ve been training hard for weeks now.”
Leanne grinned broadly. Sure, going on a mission to kill a man wasn’t exactly going to be fun, but she was sick and tired of sitting back and letting everyone else do the fighting. She wanted to contribute, to know that when Resek took her home, she’d truly helped.
“When do we leave?”
“The day after tomorrow.”
“Shouldn’t we leave as soon as possible? I mean, whatever information you have about his location may not stay valid for long. He could move.”
“Correct, but I’m not leaving until you’re fully prepared.”
“Come on, Resek, you said yourself I’ve been training hard! I’m ready for this!”
He smiled at her outraged expression. “You are. The next two days will be a different kind of training. We’re going by pod, and I want you to be able to fly it, in case anything goes wrong.”
“Oh.” That made sense and Leanne’s annoyance faltered. “I thought we couldn’t use pods, though? Can’t the Greli detectors find them and blow them up?”
“They can, which is why we won’t be going in a Wescra pod. We’ll be taking a Greli one. That’s what my men are doing for the next two days while I teach you to fly – finding a way to steal one of the Greli transporters.”
Leanne had so many questions, she didn’t know which one to ask first. She couldn’t decide if she was more nervous or excited for her first real mission, barring that disaster of a first day before she’d had any training.
“How will training me before we get the actual ship help?”
“Greli and Wescra ships are very similar. We used to share knowledge and technology before the war started, and designs haven’t changed much since then. There will be a few adjustments, but for the most part, you can learn what you need to from a Wescra ship.”
Leanne remembered another thing from the Denoli TV series. Of course, she knew by now that the show wasn’t exactly accurate. “Don’t ships have auto-pilot?”
“Yes, of course, but if we’re caught, one of the first things the Greli will do is disable the auto-pilot function. Besides, we’ll probably be flying manually anyway. Their sensors have a display of all the auto-piloted ships in the area, so if we go manual, we’ll have a greater chance of slipping by undetected.”
The more Leanne thought about it, the more about this plan she realized could go wrong. “What if they do find out that we’re not Greli?”
“Then we’ll need to abandon ship quickly because they will likely set off the auto-destruct.”
That didn’t sound good. “Are you so sure taking a Greli pod is a good idea?”
“The only other option is walking, and it’ll take us days to get to the location that way. As you said, their Commander could move.”
Leanne didn’t like it, but she didn’t make any further protest. Resek was right; killing the Commander would be a great blow. She saw how much the Wescra soldiers relied on Resek. They’d be lost without his leadership. If the Greli were at all similar, they had to do everything they could to take out the Commander.
“Come. I have a pod outside. I will show you the basics of flying.”
To Leanne’s relief, Resek directed her to the passenger seat and launched the pod himself. Once they were in the air, he started showing her how to use the controls. The basic movement was easy enough. There was a stick that she could move around to direct the ship. The rest of it wasn’t so easy.
Once she had the movement down, she and Resek swapped places, and he started showing her some of the ship’s other functions.
The seats in the pod had them sitting very close together. Leanne had to concentrate to keep her mind on flying. She couldn’t help leaning a little to the side on the pretense of looking at the other side of the control board. Their arms touched. She smiled for a moment before once more trying to focus.
“Shields up here. These are the basic shields, but if they’re using the cannon guns, you’ll need to up the intensity of the shields like this.”
He pointed at yet another lever.
“How do I know how much to up the shields?”
“You’ll need to judge it on how powerful their weapons are. The stronger the shields are, the more energy it takes from the pod. So you want to keep them as low as possible while still repelling any shots.”
From shields, he moved to weapons, then to basic systems like oxygen and gravity.
“You shouldn’t need the gravity simulator in such a small pod. But if for some reason you need to flip the pod upside down, maybe in a defensive maneuver, it comes in handy.”
Learning to fly wasn’t nearly as tiring as fighting, but Leanne felt like her head was going to explode with the information. It reminded her of learning to drive, except she got months of practice driving before she was set loose in the world. She knew she’d only have to fly the pod herself in an emergency, but she didn’t like setting off while she still felt so unsure.”
“If you wish, we can delay another day to give you more practice.”
Leanne was surprised but shook her head. “It’s ok. You’re right. We need to leave as soon as possible.”
When they finally retired for the day, Leanne was fairly confident that she could fly the pod without crashing it. She couldn’t say much more than that, but hopefully, nothing more than that would be needed.
During supper, Resek revealed another part of the plan. One that she liked considerably more than the possibility of having to fly the pod herself.
“The Commander will be well protected, and highly competent in combat. This is going to be a difficult mission. We’ll need to be together every night, so that we may g
ain strength to fight.”
Leanne didn’t think humans gained strength from sex the way Wescra did, but she didn’t mention that. She wasn’t going to complain and was already getting excited at the thought, more excited than she should be.
“Well, we’d better get on that,” she said, trying to keep her voice neutral. “This is an important mission, after all.”
She hid her smile when Resek got up at once. She followed him to his bedroom, wondering if they’d sleep in the same bed when on the mission. It was a high probability. Comfort wouldn’t be anyone’s priority, so they’d likely have to share space. She could get used to that.
Resek pulled her clothes off, leaving them in a pile on the floor. By now, Leanne had learned how to get his stupid military uniform off, and that soon joined her own things at the foot of the bed.
She went to lie down on the bed, but Resek surprised her by pulling her into his huge bathroom. Leanne tensed with excitement as he turned on the shower.
“I would like you to wash me.”
Resek had already showered, but Leanne wasn’t complaining. They stood together under the warm spray, so close that their noses were almost touching. She reached for the soap, trying to hide her desire and be as cool as Resek was.
She started with his chest, spreading the strangely sticky Wescra soap all over, feeling his muscles beneath her hands. Her palms brushed his nipples as she attentively washed his chest, and his eyes closed for a moment. Leanne could feel his cock between them, already hard and pressing into her stomach.
She longed to reach down, but she wanted to savor this experience. “Turn around.” She whispered the request, and to her surprise, Resek complied.
She ran her soapy hands up and down his back, admiring his ass while she did. She pressed herself flush against him and moved her hands down, squeezing his tight ass. Resek remained perfectly still, but she could tell from his harsh breathing that he was far from unaffected.
Her own desire was throbbing through her, and she resisted the urge to bring a finger to her clit. She turned Resek around again, and this time, took his cock in her slippery hand. The hot water flowing over them had soon steamed up the shower, and Leanne blinked the moisture away, wanting to see what she was doing.
Resek’s cock felt hard and strong in her hand. He gripped her shoulders as she rubbed its length, soon forgetting all about washing and just focusing on how turned on she was. Leanne moaned and brought her mouth up to meet his.
Resek kissed her deeply, his hands on her neck and back, holding her close. Leanne gasped and clung to him, her legs suddenly wobbly. She needed him inside her, now. Resek, it seemed, had other ideas.
Leanne was shocked when he knelt down. Knelt down! She’d never imagined Resek kneeling, but now he was. She forgot her surprise the next moment.
He pressed his mouth to her clit. Leanne cried out and fell back against the shower wall for support. Resek’s tongue moved in perfect circles, just the way he knew drove her wild. Leanne’s fingers twisted in his hair, guiding him, her legs shaking.
Resek’s hands held her ass, pulling her close to him. She couldn’t take this. She knew she was about to come and tried to pull his head away, but Resek was determined. He kept licking her as she wailed, the orgasm ripping through her. Her legs collapsed, but Leanne didn’t care. All she cared about was that he followed her down, squeezing every drop of pleasure out of her.
A few moments later, Leanne came to herself, on the shower floor, with an amused Resek looking down at her.
“I can see why you like to be lying down.” He was smiling at her. Leanne couldn’t help blushing, but she was too loopy with pleasure to care.
Resek offered her a hand and pulled her up in the small space. His cock was still rock hard, raring to go. Leanne reached a hand down and stroked it again. The noise Resek made went straight to her clit. She thought about doing this every night for the foreseeable future and kissed him.
Resek’s hands roamed over her breasts, fingering her nipples. Leanne could feel her body responding, waking up and starting to demand another orgasm. Resek didn’t disappoint her.
He lifted her bodily and lowered her down onto his cock.
The feeling of the different angle combined with the constant hot water made Leanne gasp. She wrapped her legs around him, and Resek supported her, helping her bounce up and down. It was tiring, but so, so good. He seemed to have no trouble with her weight, and by his jerky movements, he was moments away from coming.
It was so good, Leanne never wanted it to end, but she was rapidly falling over the edge. She gripped Resek tighter, trying to get closer, to pull him further into her. He grunted loudly and snapped her hips up and down. She could feel him coming inside her, and she was so close to reaching her release for the second time.
She pushed a hand down between them. Her fingers had barely brushed her clit when she was coming too. She cried out his name, grateful for Resek’s strong arms holding her up, because she was sure she’d have collapsed embarrassingly again otherwise.
They were finally still, their foreheads resting against each other, panting. Resek slowly lowered her, waiting until he was sure she had her feet underneath her before letting go. All thoughts of washing were gone. Leanne just wanted to lie down and relish the afterglow of the orgasms.
Resek seemed to have the same idea because he turned the water off and pulled two fluffy towels from a rack on the wall. Leanne quickly dried herself and headed to Resek’s bed. She didn’t want to go back to her own room. Resek made no comment as she curled up next to him, her eyes already drooping.
Just before she drifted off, Leanne asked him, “Am I ready for this? For tomorrow?”
Resek’s answer followed her into sleep, giving her confidence and strength for what was to come. “I wouldn’t take you if you weren’t.”
Chapter Twelve
Despite Resek’s confidence in her, Leanne was nervous the next day. She hadn’t been out in the field since that disastrous first day, at least not as a fighter. She kept going through everything she’d learned in her head, but that did little to quell her worry.
She was surprised – and a little alarmed – that it was just the two of them.
“What about your men? Why isn’t anyone coming with us?”
“I thought about it, but in the end, I decided we need to keep this as small as possible. Just you and me. More men may make a better fighting force, but it’ll be easier to slip past defenses with just us. The Commander will be in a compound with many other soldiers. We can’t break in by force, it’s too well guarded. That leaves us with stealth.”
Leanne understood his reasoning, but still wished they had someone else along. The thought of Resek having no one but her as backup if things went wrong was terrifying. Sure, she’d trained for a few weeks, and even done well. But that didn’t change the fact that she was just a girl who worked in a bookstore and had never fought a battle in her life.
If Resek sensed her doubts, he didn’t say anything, so Leanne was left to stew in silence. Fortunately, that didn’t last long. Resek reminded her to pay attention to the pod and learn the differences. Two of his men had dropped it off that morning. Though at first sight it looked completely different to the Wescra pod, watching Resek fly it, she realized that a lot of the commands were identical, simply having different looking controls.
“Watch this screen, here.” Resek pointed it out to her. “Do you remember what it’s for?”
“That senses other ships in the area.”
“Good. I’m taking us on the least obtrusive route possible, but you should watch that just in case. If any of the other ships take an interest in us, let me know.”
Resek’s eyes were fixed on a screen showing the terrain in front of them. They couldn’t fly through the trees with the pod, but they were sticking close to the forest edge, where they hopefully wouldn’t be as noticeable.
“There’s a ship!” Leanne couldn’t keep a strain of panic out of h
er voice. What were they going to do?
“Is it coming toward us?” Resek's voice was calm.
Leanne shook her head, not realizing that Resek couldn’t see her, not while he was keeping his eyes on the road, so to speak.
“Leanne?”
“No, it’s not coming toward us. It’s going kind of diagonally, away from us and to the left.”
“That’s the way to the closest Greli base. They can’t fly their pods in our territory any more than we can fly ours in theirs; we both have the means to knock pods out of the sky. They are probably just moving resources, or something similar. You only need to worry if they start coming toward us, or if they hail us over the coms.”
“What do we do if that happens?”
Resek smiled grimly. “We fly very fast.”
That didn’t exactly make Leanne feel any better.
The day somehow managed to go both quickly and slowly. On the one hand, it got boring pretty fast, staring at the monitor for other ships. Leanne had never liked traveling, and this was no exception. On the other hand, despite getting used to the trip after a while, Leanne was still tense, waiting for something bad to happen.
“Why are you so calm?” she demanded of Resek. “You said this was going to be a dangerous mission.”
“It is. There’s no point in using all your energy worrying. If something goes wrong, being worn down from fear isn’t going to help you deal with the situation.”
Leanne gaped at him. Was this some Wescra thing, being able to turn fear on and off at will? It was certainly a skill she could use, but it wasn’t as easy as Resek made it sound.
To her surprise, they made it to their temporary base without any mishaps. They set up camp about an hour’s walk from the Greli base. Resek had told her they wouldn’t be able to take the pod any closer without someone checking in on the coms.
Their pod was too small to have sleeping quarters, but Resek had come prepared. He set a metal ball on the ground, and out of nowhere, a tent appeared.
Leanne gasped in delight. “That’s amazing!”
She knew enough about Wescra technology by now to work out what was going on. The tent was a hologram but made solid by force fields. It would certainly protect them better than any fabric tent would have. When she and Resek crawled inside, exhausted from the day’s travel, there was a low bed waiting for them.
