by Viola Grace
“I did. They will hit sometime in the next hour; their engines are on full, so I hope that Windy is quick with the download.”
Stitch jerked when a voice whispered in her mind, I am on it.
She looked to Tao. “Did you hear that?”
He scowled at her. “No. You should get that looked at.”
She flexed her hand and looked at the hole closing up. “It’s fine.”
“Are you sure; you look a little weird.”
“I feel fine. Is everyone stable?”
“They are.”
“Then, let’s punch it.”
She set course for home and accelerated.
The moment the ship had control, she got up and headed to the cargo hold where the wounded were being taken care of.
She knelt next to Niko and looked him over. His nanites were healing his wounds, but they would need more mass to continue the repairs.
She stroked his head and kissed his lips softly. She felt his hand touch the back of her head and hold her as the kiss grew intense.
She laughed and carefully straddled his torso. “So, you are feeling better.”
There was a small smile on his lips. “Where are we?”
“The cargo hold of the Argon. I got worried, so I grabbed the men I could, and here we are.”
“Thank goodness for your instincts. We were ambushed. The second ship was playing dead.”
“Where did your ship end up?”
“Crashed on the planet. They shook it off, and gravity took over.”
“Fuck.” She pressed her hands to his shoulders and checked for damage with slow caresses.
“If this is what you are like with the wounded, I think I am going to have to start supervising.”
He stroked her ribs and back, so his arms were working again.
“One of your legs is broken. It will have to be replaced at the base.”
He nodded. “I can feel it.”
“So, they were out for information?”
“Yes, the Alguth are an easier tissue source than we are, so they wanted to know what we did with the ones that we took.”
“What did you tell them?”
“Nothing. They were only getting started. I applaud you on your timing.”
“Major, we need help!” Aluak was holding a young man down, and he was thrashing.
The damage to the Alguth’s body was intensive. Stitch got to her feet and grabbed the nearest med kit.
The outline of the explosive device was unmistakable. “Aw, fuck.”
George was nearby, and he was coming toward her with a bomb box. Another survivor was prepping a cold tube.
“Aluak, he has a bomb inside him. Things are going to happen quickly. I am going to sedate him, remove the bomb, inject the primer nanites and he will be put into the cold tube to keep him alive.”
“A bomb?”
“Explosive device. You know.” While she worked, she prepped the injectors and tried to keep calm. The Splice had created a large incision to create the space in the man’s torso. This was not a small bomb.
“George, are you ready to flush the box as soon as I get this out?”
“Standing by, Stitch.”
As the only perfectly healthy crewman, it was her duty to do this. If Tao hadn’t been in command, she would have had him do this, but the detonation sequence of the bomb wasn’t a known quantity.
Best to get it out and launch it.
“Are you ready?”
Aluak held the young man down. Another Alguth held his feet. She grabbed the first hypo, injected him several times around the wound, grabbed the second to sedate him, and the moment his eyes fluttered closed, she used her silver hand to pull open his wound and grab the bomb.
“Coming out.” The wet, sucking sound of the bomb leaving the young man was nauseating, but she pulled it free and dropped it in the box.
The box was closed, and George ran to the disposal, dumping the bomb box with a hiss and a clank.
The moment she was free of the bomb, she grabbed two nanite primers and struck the young man with them as his body shivered and started to buck. She didn’t want to know yet what they had removed to make room for the explosive.
“Right. Cold tube.”
Aluak and the other man lifted the young man and tucked him in the tube. With bloody hands, Stitch set the controls and the racing pulse slowed to barely perceptible but stable.
George was already scanning the others, and while a few trackers were found and launched, there were no other bombs.
She returned to Niko’s side and smiled. “Did they put anything in you?”
“Just the spikes. Our nanites would break them down quickly.”
She stroked his face again, and he smiled.
“I love it when you do that.”
“Why?” She continued to touch his familiar features before placing her hands over his heartbeat, feeling the reassuring thud.
“It shows that you forgive me for taking off on you.”
“Duty called. I can let that one slide.” She chuckled. “Well, I have to get back to the command deck. I am flying this thing.”
She kissed him quickly and left him with the others lying in various conditions. All stable but few were mobile.
Hours of flight were ahead of her, but she was bringing her guys back.
The med teams signalled standby as she landed, and there was a sigh of relief.
She glanced over at Tao as she set the ship down and snickered. “You can uncover your eyes now.”
He grinned and dropped his hand as the docking rails started pulling them back into the hangar.
The moment the hangar doors closed and the area was filled with scrubbed air, the med team started streaming toward them.
She looked at Tao. “We did it.”
He grinned. “We did; now, get your ass to medical for scans.”
“Yes, Medic.”
She grabbed her remaining collection of spikes and headed down to assist in getting the wounded into the base.
If the communications from Earth Control could have shot lasers, they would have. She typed the reports out, including the Splice’s alternate tissue source in the Alguth and filled in that this was a less advanced species than humans and asked permission to assist the Alguth in their defense of their own world.
When the response came, she was sitting in recovery, chatting with the new cyborgs. Their stabilizing surgeries had been done, and more of the forty men rescued were still in line to get their work done. She had already spent time in pre-op.
The message ripped into her mind, and she gasped. “What the fuck?”
Major Carter, you are relieved of duty. The new species is on their own. We will not squander our resources on men and women not our own if there is no obvious gain.
There was more data and even more insults to the Alguth, but she got the gist of it.
She patted the knee of the man who was looking at her with concern.
“I have to go see Captain Nikolai. Excuse me.”
The men made sounds that indicated disappointment, but as charming as it was, she needed to talk to Nikolai.
He was in the secondary pre-op, waiting with his men to help them into the machine.
“Niko, do you have a moment?”
He set one of his guys into the machine, and he nodded.
“Can we go somewhere private?”
“I prefer to remain here. Styo hasn’t been in the machine before.”
She could see his point. “Well, I have been relieved of duty, and Earth Control has ordered us to expel all Alguth from our premises. They are refusing to assist them.”
“Fuck them.”
“That is my thought as well. Did you know we are sitting on a small army?”
“What?”
“More cyborgs in storage under our feet. The sublevels under our feet have about fifteen hundred wounded men who have be
en rebuilt.”
Niko’s shock was on his face and in every line of his body.
“That would be enough to outfit every ship we have. We could strike at the Splice and take out several of their mother ships.”
“What do you recommend?” She bit her lip. She had an idea.
He narrowed his eyes. “What are you thinking, Stitch?”
“Well, since Earth is safe and we are cut off from them, why not see if the Alguth will let us set up a base on their world and we can deploy from there.”
His smile was slow; he pulled her into him by virtue of a hand around her waist. “I love the way your mind works. Are you serious about the hidden army?”
“I am. I think it was the final reserve.”
“Do you know where they are?”
She grinned. “As soon as Styo is out and you are willing to go exploring, I will show you. The schematics are hidden in the system.”
He kissed her, pressing her against the wall and holding her in place with his body. She wrapped her legs around him and returned the embrace. Their kiss became heated, and he ran his hands over her battle suit. A light tapping on the interior of the machine behind them eventually brought them out of it. Styo wanted out.
George took over shepherding the cyborgs in for repair.
Stitch and Niko walked the halls with heads high and chatting neutrally. They went past the gym, past the dining hall and into the hangar. Stitch mentally chanted the authorization code, and when they made their way beneath the scaffolding and walkways, she found the access panel.
The numbers and letters took her thirty seconds to key in.
Niko didn’t rush her.
When the door opened, she dropped into the hatch, skidding down the steps by hanging onto the railing and letting gravity take her down.
Niko dropped in behind her.
She stepped away from the ladder, looking for the switch to turn on the lights, and Niko echoed her inhalation.
He wrapped his arms around her and he murmured, “There has been an army asleep under our feet the whole time.”
“I am getting a funny feeling about this.”
“What?” He pressed a kiss to her neck, and it was an effective distraction.
She turned and kissed him while stroking a hand down his chest. There was no one around to interrupt, and they were hidden in this high-security vault.
“Why, Major Carter, are you making an advance on me?”
She cupped his obvious erection. “Should I make a joke about inappropriate weaponry?”
He laughed harshly and pulled at her clothing until her pants were at mid-calf and his hand could find its way into her wet folds.
“It seems you are ready for me.” He pressed his lips to her neck.
“Just put me up against the wall and fuck me. I am really tired of giving orders.”
She had polished, cold metal at her back and he was between her thighs with only a few rough fumbles.
Stitch gasped and dug her hands into his shoulders.
Niko ran his tongue over her neck, and he thrust his hips upward, jerking her onto him. He moved a hand under her shirt and squeezed her breast as he began to hammer upward with steady beats.
The slick slide of his cock inside her increased her pleasure, and the rough handling sent her over the edge far faster than she wanted. She hissed through clenched teeth as her body wrapped around him, and he shoved into her in time to her body’s frantic clutching.
He groaned against her throat, and the sound echoed in her mind. She threaded her fingers through his hair and pulled his head up for a kiss.
His cock twitched inside her as she pulsed around him again.
“I wasn’t afraid of the Splice; I was afraid I wouldn’t see you again.”
She sighed against his lips. “I led a group of aliens and a medic after two Splice warships because you didn’t wake me to say good bye.”
He chuckled. “We are a pair.”
“Yeah, we are. I need to put my pants back on now.”
“I like being inside you; you are so tight.”
She blushed. “Right, well, you would be the authority on that.”
He grinned and bent his knees. Slowly pulling out of her as she ended on her feet and he was crouching.
“Back up a step.” She gave him a look.
“Why?”
“I don’t want to get hit in the head with your cock on the way down or up.”
He chuckled and stepped back as he tucked his relaxing erection into his trousers.
She wiggled her way into her underwear and made a face at the damp sensation as she snugged her pants onto her hips.
“That is an incredible face you are making right now.”
“Dealing with my cum and yours makes walking distinctly uncomfortable.”
“I would say I am sorry, but now, I just want to get you into a shower.”
“Well, Niko, as you are now the commanding officer again, you need to know this. Let’s go exploring.”
“I thought that was what we just did.”
She grinned and grabbed his hand, hauling him along. “That was a condensed version of greatest hits.”
He was chortling when they reached the end of the dark hall and they didn’t need the light switch.
Over a thousand deep-cold chambers were lined up in groupings that didn’t seem to have any rhyme or reason.
She left Niko and headed down, off the viewing walkway, and she headed for the back of the storage area.
“When I was with my family, there was a file about previous research into cyborgs.”
“I thought the Carters were the founders of the cyborgs.”
“Only the current generations. The ones that are just men, adaptations and nanites.”
She stopped next to one of the containers and brought up the medical file. She put her hand over her mouth and swallowed.
“What? You look like you just saw a ghost.”
She turned to stare at him. “How long has this base been here?”
“Eight years.”
She went through the modules, looking frantically for something familiar.
She pressed her forehead to the tube when she found him.
“Who is it? Your lover?”
She turned her head and smiled weakly at him. “This is my elder brother, Lexo. He was a first volunteer and one of the first generation of cyborgs. They made him into a weapon, and then, they put him away like a broken toy.”
“What was so special about the first generation? We are all built for battle.”
“They aren’t built for battles. They are weapons. Arms, legs, everything has weapons built in. Killing is their only purpose.”
Niko looked at her and then back to the man in the canister. “Well, fuck.”
She couldn’t add anything to that.
Chapter Fifteen
Sitting in the command office, Niko asked, “What do you want to do?”
“I want to ask the Alguth if they want help, and if so, I want to return their fighters to them.”
“If the Alguth want to go.”
“Right. That. I think they do.”
She finally managed to crack the roster of the men in cold sleep.
“Holy crap. The Sisters are down there as well.”
Niko looked over her shoulder. “What are the Sisters?”
“Females who volunteered to be made into medical cyborgs. They were also given programming that went a little wrong.”
“What was it?”
“The women were programmed as sexual companions to all comers, so to speak.”
“It sounds a little rough but not horrible.”
“Their program got them to feel pleasure all the time, any touch, any sensation, it all got them off.”
Niko frowned. “Your voice says it isn’t a good thing.”
“Put someone who feels pleasure at every stimuli into a co
mbat situation, and then, what do you have when the fight is over?”
“Oh, shit.”
“Yeah, it was a short project and why women weren’t supposed to be on the front lines.” She gave him a dark glance. “The women in the basement are sexy and exceptionally dangerous. If we do wake up that army, we have to do it one at a time.”
“So, what do we do next?” Niko’s knee was touching her own.
“First thing is to ask the Alguth if they want to go home. I can fly them. “
“Right. Like I will let that happen.”
She poked him in the chest. “You are not the boss of me. You read the memo. I am a mascot only.”
He grabbed her finger and sucked it into his mouth, swirling his tongue around it.
She shivered and felt her eyes droop heavily. Her hair was still damp from her shower, and she slowly pulled her finger out of his mouth. “Don’t tease. This is serious.”
“It wasn’t a tease. It was an invitation.”
She raised her brows and climbed into his lap. “Well, in that case, who do you want to talk to first? The men or the Alguth?”
“I think that we should get everyone together. This isn’t something that I want to get into if everyone isn’t on board.”
She stroked his neck, and he looked down at her. In a high falsetto, she said, “You are so smart.”
“You are one second away from being dumped off my lap.”
She laughed and got to her feet. “Everybody needs to be included. Even me.”
He grinned and got to his feet, calling for a base-wide meeting to be held in medical in half an hour. Attendance was mandatory.
So, Stitch, you are really doing this.
Why the fuck can I hear you, Windy?
The communication nanites went straight to your brain. Plenty of room in there.
Funny. And weird. So, what do you want?
If you can get a new base on Alguth, you won’t be alone. Earth Command has cut us off. We need a place to go, and it looks like the Alguth need defending. If they are interested, we can swing by and help grab your sleeping cargo.
I am going to have to engage in politics, and we all know that it isn’t my forte.
If you want a place on Alguth, Alphy will be only too happy to step into the breach.
Tell her to do whatever it is that she can to gain us a site on Alguth. We will go there, bodies ready and weapons hot.
