by F. E. Arliss
Chloe nodded at him, unable to find her voice right then. She gestured that she’d follow him and managed to make her legs carry her from the room behind Leo’s broad back. Keeping her eyes on him helped her focus to move her legs. Though she felt like she was striding through molasses, Chloe was able to keep pace with the team as they cleared the decks with sophisticated explosives sniffers, moving downward towards Eight Deck. “What ever happened to using dogs?” she asked. “They’re so much nicer than equipment.”
Leo glanced back at her sharply. “Stay focused, Lieutenant!” he barked, as Chloe realized that she had been getting a little shocky. Reaching into her pocket, she ripped open a small-sized Snickers bar and shoved the whole thing in her mouth. “Good for shock,” she mumbled to him, deftly returning his own words to her from previous situations back on him. This was followed by her lopsided, chocolate filled grin. He nodded at her with a faint smile of approval and continued on without stopping.
“What’s he want Katyia for? asked Chloe, after she finished chewing the gooey substance.
“I’d be guessing, but I’d bet as a food barter with the Arachnians. Doesn’t want them eating him when he picks up his payment,” Leo said with a bitter snort.
What seemed like an eternity later, they rounded a bend, and took a tube downwards to Eight Deck. Everything had been cleared to that point and they found Katyia sitting on a bench glaring somberly at a trussed and tied Ensign Clayton.
“Report!” the Colonel snarled at the two soldiers standing guard.
Katyia spoke up before they could. “This little piece of walrus turd tried to kidnap me!” she exploded. “Then I hand him his nuts on tray,” she launched herself from the bench and kicked Clayton squarely in the vicinity of said nuts.
“Whoa, whoa there, warrior princess,” Chloe blocked Katyia with her body and dragged her back to the bench using a soothing voice. “I’m so proud of you, girl!” Chloe giggled, high-fiving Katyia. They both laughed raucously as Clayton started screaming, “She assaulted me!” in a high warbling voice.
“Like you didn’t assault me, walrus waste!” Katyia yelled back, as Chloe restrained her once more.
The Colonel scowled at Chloe. “Please take Corpsman Rustalov back to her quarters, Lieutenant Sedgewick,” Leo growled. “Get a move on. Two of the ordinance squad will accompany you back and clear a path,” he said motioning for two of the soldiers who’d brought them down to get started and scowling at Chloe. She winked at him as she and Katyia turned to follow along behind them. Katyia tossed one last scathing glance over her shoulder, flicking Ensign Clayton the bird, before turning back to follow the ordinance officers.
Chapter 20
Whys and Wherefores
It took seven hours for the rest of the station to be searched and cleared of explosives. It seemed that Ensign Clayton had done a pretty ‘bang up’ job, as Chloe later described it to her Corpsmen, of rigging the station. As terrifying as it had all felt, they were all limp with relief afterwards. Chloe slept for hours afterwards wrapped in a sort of comatose lullaby by the steady hum of normality in the ship's systems.
After a series of shifts that allowed the entire station to be briefed on the incident, it turned out that Ensign Clayton had been raised on one of the out-most mining rigs on the edge of Orbit Guard space. There had been few women on the post and most were either dried up miner’s wives, drained by the hard life, or prostitutes. His mother, a prostitute, used him as her personal slave, slapping him and kicking him whenever he displeased her. She sold him to a trading ship as a cabin steward when he was eleven years old.
In Clayton's early life, since his mother slept until early afternoon, he’d attended school in the mornings a block from the bar where she worked. In the afternoons, he’d helped load ore at the refinery down the street. Clayton had hated the back-breaking work and worked hard at the chance to learn to read and write, believing it would enable him to escape his mother at some point. In truth, it later set him up to be sold to the trader. Crew had to be able to read and write if they were to be of any use on a spaceship. Especially, the crew of the Crow, who dabbled occasionally in legal trade, but most frequently found their jobs on the darknet, an ethernet sub-routine for black market trade, that could only be accessed from select points of entry by highly sophisticated criminal elements. It was like an Amazon for the unsavory denizens of space.
At the age of seventeen he’d escaped the trader on one of the larger stations, gotten a free ride as a deckhand on one of the ships returning to Earth, and had signed up for Orbit Guard from there. He’d been a shoo in when he’d told them he’d been born in space and had learned how to handle ordinance on the mining outpost. The rest of his history he simply made up using the falsified papers he’d had as a crewman aboard the Crow. It was a testament to the quality of the forgeries that the recruiting officer at Orbit Guard didn’t question them. Then again, Clayton had used these fakes all his adult life in order to board various stations as a crewman from the Crow. They had to be good.
He’d hated women ever since he could remember. His mother and the women on the mining outpost had never showed him a moment's kindness. His mother, being a selfish woman who felt burdened by his presence, and the mining wives hating him for having a mother that lured their husbands in to spend their hard-earned credits, had made his young life a living hell. At thirteen, he’d learned from the trader that the mining colony had been wiped out by Arachnians. Instead of filling him with loss or dread, he’d felt satisfied. It was what that place deserved. He’d gotten nothing there but pain, misery and hard labor.
He’d been surfing the darknet on one of his old Crow usernames when they’d posted the price of information for intel on Orbit Guard Frontier Station. The sum had made his eyes water and his nose run. He’d contacted them immediately. Never in his life had he imagined that he’d be able to make enough money to buy an island in a warm ocean and live out his days free of labor, women, or orders from others. It was like a dream come true.
At his court martial he didn’t even try to hide his disdain for the Guard or for the women he’d sold out. The only time the sneer fell from his face was when his verdict was handed down. He was to have his memory wiped of all information pertinent to Orbit Guard and Earth. He was then to be jettisoned in a self-burning pod towards the mining colony he’d been born on.
“Wow! Harsh! Chloe thought when she heard the sentence. She still couldn’t bring herself to feel terribly sorry for him. The worst part of that whole sentence was that since they were wiping his mind of information about the Guard and Earth, all he’d remember was his own miserable history on the mining asteroid. The sentence was a hard irony.
Chloe didn’t blame the Orbit Guard courts. The frontier was something she liked. She’d found a home here. Her Corpsmen were a funny, stalwart group of women she was proud to be in Command of. It had only been a year since she’d signed up for Orbit Guard and she hadn’t talked to her family and she didn’t miss them. Strangely, she hoped they were fine. But didn’t really feel any drive to find out one way or the other.
From Leo she discovered that they were sending another contingent of women to the Frontier Station. Chloe was elated. She’d been among the first women on the Frontier. Now it was becoming more commonplace. The Colonel also told her that she was being promoted to Captain, and that Katyia Rustalov would become a Lieutenant. Though he added that Katyia would have to improve her anger management skills. As an officer, she couldn’t kick bound prisoners in the gonads anymore.
Among those selected to come to the station was another counselor with the designation of Lieutenant. At first Chloe had been surprised and a little worried. Then the Colonel had given her a roster for her training. She was to train in communications for battle and deployment. It was a forward assignment that kept her towards the rear of the front action. She’d always be accompanying her Corpsmen on forward deployments. This meant she really was going to have to train harder in the gym! At her
first day of training a large sign greeted her upon entrance. “Please Lord, if I live through this, I promise to work out harder!” read the huge orange banner above the weight station. “Ha, ha, jackasses, very funny!” she sassed the grinning soldiers waiting to start her training. Major Donji, being her commanding officer now, said, “I'll allow that comment to pass this time Captain. But once and only once. Is that clear?” he asked with a fleeting wink across his somber visage.
“Sir, yes sir!” Chloe exclaimed with determination in her heart, and headed towards the weight rack.
Chapter 21
Issued
Chloe slunk into their cabin a mess of sweaty hair and quivering limbs. “How did the first day of combat training go?” Leo asked smiling slightly at her disheveled appearance.
Chloe didn’t answer. She just glared at him and hurled herself into the shower room. She’d come to love that damned port-a-john cubicle. Chloe could hear him chuckling as she slammed the door.
Ten minutes later, feeling a lot more civilized, Chloe stepped out of the shower room to a scent of roast beef. Leo stood beside the table, a bottle of wine in his hand. A paper rose centered on the table and beside it, food was set out in a beautiful display. “I’m proud of you, Chloe,” he said blushing. “I’m hoping that you will consider making our relationship a permanent one.” Red stained the tops of his ears and even his pale scars seemed to pulsate with tension.
Chloe looked at him with love in her eyes. “I thought it was already permanent,” she said cheekily, looking at him through her lashes. “I’m definitely your fiance for the Orbit Guard and for real.I think,” she said. “Didn’t we decide that about six months ago?” she asked.
Leo shuffled toward her, carefully setting the bottle on the table. “I know that a lot of soldiers don’t marry because of the dangers of our lives. I want to marry you,” he said staring into her eyes. “Will you marry me?”, he asked.
Chloe stared back at him. “Of course, I’ll marry you, Leo. I’m so lucky to have found you. You don’t stifle me, try to control me...well, outside of your command position anyway...and you let me fulfill my life in the way I see fit. I love you. Yes, I’ll marry you, on one condition,” Chloe stated with all seriousness in her voice.
“What condition?” Leo asked in a shocked voice, the blood rushing in his ears.
“Don’t try to control me. Don’t try to keep me safe by denying me the right to use my abilities. Let me do what I can and be happy and supportive of me in that. I’ll do the same for you,” Chloe quietly.
“I agree,” Leo said solemnly. “That feisty part of you is something that I love. I will pledge to never squash that. Never squash any part of you. You have my word,” he murmured. “I couldn’t have found a better partner if the Guard had issued you for me. Though, I guess in a way, they did,” he chuckled.
“In that case, shall we eat?” Chloe asked. “I’m starved! Then you can massage my legs. They’re killin’ me,” she moaned, flopping into one of the chairs at the table. Leo followed with a grin on his face. He knew this would be the rest of his life. Never a dull moment.
Turn the page for a preview of the next book in the Orbit Guard Romance Series.
Preview of
Orbit Guard Attached
Book 2 in the Orbit Guard Romance Series
Katyia Rustalov wants out of Moscow! She’s worked hard to escape her home town in Northwest Russia, where all the men smell like fish, machine grease, or are too drunk to see her for more than just a pretty face and a long set of shapely legs. In Moscow to train as a nurse, she finds things no better. Even working in a large, private hospital has her fighting off obnoxious men who think she’s for sale because it is her duty to care for them. Then there are the jealous wives and girlfriends, certain their men are eyeing her as their next conquest, they make her life a living hell.
Disgusted and in search of the respect she craves, Katyia signs a two-year contract to join Orbit Guard Command as one of the first woman medics in space. After her first forward mission and a harrowing hostage situation, she finds herself drawn to the enigmatic Major Donji. Could there really be such a thing as a trustworthy man?
