The Colonel's Man

by Mina Carter, J. William Mitchell

  “Hang tight.” Jason dropped targets as quickly as he could, but it wasn’t going to be fast enough. Any second now he expected to feel slugs hitting his back, and hear the sounds of his companions dying. Then the sound of shots behind him made him breathe a sigh of relief. Drew had gotten his shit together and was on the case.

  “Fuck me… Scott, you gotta see this.”

  Jason dropped the last of his targets and turned. He was awestruck for a moment as he watched the woman wield Drew’s carbine like a virtuoso with a violin. Slender legs spread for balance, with that mass of dark hair swirling around her bare shoulders, she made taking down bad guys with an automatic weapon into an art form. Bodies piled on the staircase as she rained precise fire on their enemies. When she ran out of ammo, Drew tossed her a mag. She caught it in midair, deftly slipped it into the weapon and resumed firing without a pause. Jason couldn’t help himself. The unexpected display was impressive and arousing as all hell. Babes and machine guns. He was a pervert for sure.

  “Fuck…” He murmured as he took down another flanker and moved to help Drew up. “Time to move. Lady, you’re gonna have to give cover as we go.”

  “Not a problem. You okay carrying him?”

  She dropped in right next to them as if she’d been working with them for years, circling from front to back as though she knew instinctively where the next hostile was going to pop up.

  “Been carrying his sorry ass for years, so I’m good.” He grunted as he looped Drew’s arm around his neck to support him while he held his pistol in the other.

  “Fuck you, Scott.”

  “I keep telling you, mate. I’m not interested unless you wear a dress. And get a shave. Stubble rash is a bitch.”

  Their exit from the building was as quick as it was violent. Jason had gone through his pistol ammo and was now onto Drew’s. The woman on the other hand, seemed perfectly at ease with the carbine. In the end he gave up and threw her Drew’s ammo pouches.

  She handled herself well. Better than well. Cool and calm under pressure, she acted like she’d been doing this for years. Which meant he’d been wrong about her and what her background was. If she were a spy then she sure as hell wasn’t the garden variety. Leaving the warehouse behind, a last volley from the carbine dropped the few remaining pursuers.

  “We’re clear. Which way to the pickup point?”

  She ran beside them, the carbine held easily in her delicate looking hands. Every so often she would side step, sweeping the muzzle in a wide arc as she covered both front and rear. Since she had it covered, Jason didn’t bother, his concern for Drew increasing by the minute. Blood stained his entire leg, soaked into the pants and leaving a scarlet trail on the cracked concrete as they ran. No one could lose that much of the red stuff and stay healthy.

  “Just up here, they’re coming in on a hot drop,” he said, the end of his sentence cut off by the roar of the drop-shuttle’s engines as it swooped over them. It hovered at the end of the street, the gunners either side of the open load doors swiveling into position and bringing the heavy guns to bear.

  Relief flooded through him; they were nearly there. He increased his pace, shooting a tight smile to the woman as she slung the carbine over her shoulder and slid in under Drew’s other arm. Bracing his big form between them, they made a break for the shuttle.

  It was like a scene from an action movie. The one where the heroes were about to get clear but the shit hit the fan to make their escape harrowing and all the more exciting. For Jason excitement was the last thing he wanted as the city block came to life. The bad guys must have found a way around their jamming and had called for reinforcements. There were insurgents everywhere, with a couple of trucks sporting crudely mounted but very real auto-cannons rushing towards them like rabid fans at a rock concert.

  “Wow lady, these guys must have had a real hard on for you!” He shouted over the roar of the drop-shuttle’s engines which was quickly joined by the rapid blasts of fire from the door gunner covering them.

  “Yeah, they tend to get pissed when you take out their head honcho,” she yelled back as they bundled Drew up into the waiting arms of the medics. Hauling himself up into the load-bay, he held out a hand to her.

  With everyone aboard, the pilot put the power to the engines and got them the hell out of there. The sound of weapons fire and the glow of plasma bolts whizzing past the nimble craft accompanied them on their ascent into the evening sky.

  Chapter Two

  With the danger over, Jason settled into the lulling calm and complacency that came after every operation with a sigh of relief. It was a vulnerable moment for any operative as the adrenaline rush was over and nerves were just starting to calm down, but he doubted the insurgents on the planet had anything potent enough to shoot down an Alliance drop-shuttle, especially at this altitude.

  The dark blue evening sky turned black as they exited the planet’s atmosphere. The medics made short work of Drew’s wound and had him stabilized in record time. Fortunately Drew was resilient and the blood loss wasn’t as severe as they had thought. As per tradition, he knew his partner would be looking forward to a drink once they got back to base and he was released from the mercies of the medbay. For now Drew had pulled down the brim of his boonie hat over his face and drifted into a well deserved snooze.

  Jason and the woman had taken up the last row at the back which lent a modicum of privacy. Normally, he’d catch a nap on the way back, but during the ascent his beautiful subject had fallen asleep against him, and her nearness had him abandoning any thoughts of sleep.

  Instead he took the time to study her closely. Despite the ravages of her ordeal and the rescue, she was exquisite. The expression on her face was sublime and the thought of her dreaming made him irrationally envious of every thought that wasn’t revealed to him. Damn, he wished he had asked for her name. She probably would have given him a cover name but it was better than just referring to her as “lady”.

  With her head resting on his shoulder and her face almost nuzzling his neck, Jason felt his cock harden with every soft puff of her breath against his skin. Her reclined posture gave him a great view down the neckline of her tattered shirt, the fabric clinging to a set of fantastic breasts like a second skin. Despite the black lacy bra, he could see the hint of her nipples poking through the shirt.

  *

  His hands itched to tear off that ridiculous excuse for a top. Take her breasts into his hands; testing their weight, delighting in the feel of them as he rolled her luscious nipples between his fingers. He could imagine her moan of pleasure as he played with the hard, tender buds before taking them in his mouth to melt against his tongue.

  His heart rate kicked up a few beats and he set his breathing to a more controlled tempo as he looked his fill. He should feel like a dick, but she was one hell of a woman and he was only a red-blooded man. She was fucking hot, cool under pressure and knew her way around a carbine. His admiration of her skills went with his lust for her and he imagined how that sweet little body would feel clenched moist and tight around his cock as she rode him.

  Goddammit Jason, either look away or yield to it, but stop torturing yourself.

  He decided to compromise and slowly reached to wrap an arm around her waist as he held her close. He might not be able to do anything with the hard-on plaguing him for a while, but he wasn’t ready to exile himself from her presence just yet. He liked holding her close and with her body pressed against him like this, his protective instincts came into play again.

  He froze. Her side was warm, wet and sticky and he watched her tranquil face momentarily twist in an expression of pain. Alarmed he looked at his hand.

  “Shit! Medic!” He yelled out as he slid from the seat and laid her down sideways so he could get a better look at the wound. She had taken a hit to her side and blood was slowly oozing out of the small cavity. Dark purple blood.

  Damn, she wasn’t even human but she certainly looked like one. Without knowing what species
she was, treating her could get complicated. Medics swarmed around them. One ripped open a dressing package while the other was checked her vitals with his handheld scanner.

  “Keep pressure on it, Gunny,” said the medic to him as he held Jason’s hand atop the dressing and pressed hard over the wound.

  She winced again, a small cry that lanced his heart on her lips. Gritting his teeth he soothed her as he stroked the side of her face with his other hand.

  “It’s okay babe, you’re gonna be just fine.” He said to her in hushed tones before he snapped at the medic. “Tell the pilot to haul ass and inform the Mandrakion’s medbay that she’s taken a hit.”

  “Aye Gunny.” The medic who gave him the dressing scrambled off to get to the cockpit as the other medic shook his head.

  “Not good. Her pulse and BP is down and she has some internal bleeding with two bruised ribs. Dammit, why didn’t you tell us she’d been hit and taken a beating?”

  “I didn’t know, okay? She was fine when we got her!” Jason snapped.

  He replayed the entire operation in his head from the time they cut her down to them boarding the drop-shuttle and not once did he see any hint of her being in pain or injured. She must have gotten the hit when they were boarding but said nothing. Fuck, she was tough and stubborn as hell.

  “What the fuck’s going on?”

  Drew was awake, looking at the two of them with concern. Jason’s mouth settled in a grim line. “She was hit and didn’t tell us. We’re high-tailing it back to the ship as fast as we can.”

  He slammed his fist into the nearest wall, “Stupid stubborn cow!” He turned his ire to the pilots in the cockpit. “Can’t this fucking tug go any faster?”

  “Gunny, you want her staying with us then keep your calm,” the medic snapped, working on the woman’s side.

  Crap, crap, crap…why hadn’t he checked when she’d fallen asleep? Why had he just assumed? “What’s her name?” he asked as he hovered, needing to do something but not sure what.

  “Sorry, Gunny we didn’t get information on that either. Just basic medical data. They redacted half of the file they gave me.”

  Jason looked to Drew who had made it to a sitting position as he leaned against the drop-shuttle wall. His partner’s expression displayed curiosity at his own unusual behavior. He shook his head and looked down the length of the craft, into the cockpit. The massive hulk of the Mandrakion came into view and Jason felt a twinge of relief at seeing the reassuring sight of the heavy cruiser fill the screen. However, he wasn’t going to feel any better until they had safely landed and the woman had been placed in the care of medbay.

  “Okay, the bleeding has slowed, but we need to get her into medbay ASAP.” The medic looked over his shoulder and yelled to the cockpit. “John…get us med clearance for a hot landing and have a team ready.”

  Jason held on, his heart pounding as they roared toward the ship. A hot landing meant things were bad. Shit.

  “What’s her condition? Is she going to be okay?” He could understand the man’s reluctance to share that information but he had to know. “Just tell me dammit. She’s our entire mission.”

  The medic looked up, exasperation on his features. “Look mate, I don’t know. She’s out of it, injured and I have no freaking clue what species she is. The normal rules don’t apply. From the blood I’d say she’s at least part Tralaxian, so pray for that because they’re tough buggars to kill—”

  “…and Fenarian.” The quiet voice somehow reached Jason’s ears even as the drop-shuttle roared toward the bay doors. He looked down to find her amazing eyes open, her gaze locked on him. Earlier he’d checked her for concussion and found nothing, now one glance told him she was in serious shit.

  Fenarian. A race that had lost their homeworld from a freak hit by a rogue planet; the relative few that survived formed colonies within the Alliance and started to rebuild. He hadn’t met one in person but he knew all about them and their unique ability for rapid regeneration. Something to do with their cells…heck he didn’t understand it all. He was a covert operator not a biologist, but he knew enough to know that she had a better chance of surviving than they thought.

  He wanted to yell at her. Call her twenty different kinds of idiot for being stubborn and not saying anything to him or the medics. However the words that came out sounded a lot calmer than he thought. “Hey, why didn’t you say anything? You thought being tough would win you points with me?”

  Her lips quirked and she winced again, “‘S just a scratch. Medic’s just playing it up, that’s all.”

  Out of the corner of his eye he saw the guy rolling his hands and nodded. Keep her talking, he got it. He chuckled as he held her face. “If a round to the side and some cracked ribs is just a scratch for you, I kinda feel a bit of a pansy for whining about paper cuts.”

  The drop-shuttle touched down with a roar of the maneuvering engines and metallic scrapes as the runners hit the deck. The loading door was hauled open, a medteam already on standby.

  “Please…stay with me?” she begged, her hand tight around his and her eyes wide and dark. She was either terrified or about out of it.

  “I won’t leave you,” he vowed as he helped put her into a backboard, mindful of her injury, and carried her out of the transport to an awaiting gurney. They wheeled her at high speed through the corridors toward the medbay. One of the techs unwisely tried to stop Jason from following them to the trauma ward and ended up having the business end of the gunnery sergeant’s pistol in his face.

  “What have we got?” the doc in charge asked, rounding the corner and taking in the little scene with an experienced eye. “Gunny, put it up or I’ll have you remove—” He stopped as he caught sight of the woman on the bed, her hand still wrapped in Jason’s.

  “Okay, this changes things. You can keep her calm and you can stay. Give up the pistol though. If we’re taking her in, I don’t want any weaponry near her.”

  He stepped up to the gurney as a nurse relieved Jason of his pistol. Playing tug of war with it for a moment, he relented as the doc spoke again.

  “Nice to see you again, Arita. I see you’ve been in the wars. I’m just going to take a look at this side.” He flicked a glance up at Jason. “Be ready.”

  Arita? So he finally had a name. He didn’t have a chance to dwell on that as the doctor probed her wound which elicited a short cry of pain, her back nearly arching off the gurney and her hand clamping down harder on his. He looked down at her, right into her wide eyes. “Hey. Hey, it’s okay. He’s just checking your so-called scratch, but he’ll sort it all out and you’ll be just fine.”

  “Fuck, she’s going. Get the tranq—”

  The doctor didn’t get any further before her eyes went completely dark. Far from acting wounded, she moved with the power and precision Jason had seen earlier. Letting go of his hand, she pushed the doctor away with enough force to send him stumbling back through the curtain that surrounded the cubicle and vaulted from the gurney. Purple blood flowed freely down her side as she paused for a second, her movements like those of an animal seeking a way out. Panicked sounds dropped from her lips, whimpers that got under his skin and touched his heart. She sounded terrified.

  Whatever psyche that had been running her through everything earlier wasn’t there now. Now she was just a hurt and terrified woman, confused of her surroundings and not knowing who to trust. That state wasn’t a concept alien to Jason. Not all of his missions had ended in success and more than once he had to rebuild himself with whatever pieces that had been left.

  He looked haggard, worn and battle weary; hardly the image of comfort and serenity but he had to do something and he knew in his gut he was the only one who could help her now. Ordering everyone to stay back, he held out his hands to her. “Arita. Hey, it’s me. You have nothing to be afraid of okay? You’re safe here. No one’s going to hurt you. I’m not going to let them.”

  She turned toward his voice, the color of her eyes still swallowed up.<
br />
  “She’s gone into shock, it’s a Tralaxian survival trait. She’s operating on base instinct and will kill herself trying to get to safety…or what she perceives as safety in that state.” The doctor picked himself up from the floor, a hand over his side and pain in his eyes as he stayed back. Jason alone was within ten feet of her as she swayed on her feet. She wasn’t running; that was a good sign.

  “I’ve never seen her do that before,” the doctor added, drifting forward with fascination in his eyes. “She normally attacks at the slightest provocation.”

  “Then we better make sure she doesn’t feel threatened,“ Jason replied, never taking his eyes away from her.

  “Arita. You can trust me.” He said to her again softly as he knelt down, trying to appear smaller so he would seem less of a threat. “I would never do anything to hurt you.”

  He wasn’t sure what he was doing, acting on instinct himself and hoping to whatever God that was listening right now that some part of her could understand what he was saying to her.

  She paused, the leg of her already dirty cargo pants staining with purple. If he didn’t do something soon, the bleeding was going to become a big problem. And the doc’s couldn’t sort it out if they couldn’t get near her. A fact proven as the doctor took a step too close. Her head snapped around, and her fists came up to deal with the new threat. In that moment, Jason took his chance.

  He leapt and wrapped his arms around her waist to bring her down, making sure he hit the deck first and cushioned her smaller body. She gasped and started to fight hard and desperate. Flipping her to her back, he tried to pin her down. Even out of it, it was obvious she was well trained. He spent more time trying to block her hits than anything else while trying to capture her hands. She nearly got him with a knee to the groin which he prevented by spreading her thighs apart and pinning her with his weight. He stifled a groan of pleasure as her bucking hips repeatedly ground her groin against the erection in his pants. Now was not the time.