Warriors of Risnar 4

by Tracy St. John

  She did. She punished her pussy with him, working him so quickly she couldn’t believe they didn’t catch fire. Her juices coated his groin, rendering them slippery with eagerness as they bucked against each other. Arga moved to match her desperate thrusts, and Selena was too close to orgasm to make him behave.

  Their gasps filled the room, along with the slap-slap-slap of flesh pounding against flesh. Exciting sounds, sounds that enthralled Selena almost as much as the sight of Arga straining under her, of his tails playing with her, of her breasts bouncing in their grasp.

  A bolt of sheer delight threw her rhythm off. The feeling of coalescing deep in her womanhood made her jerk clumsily. Almost there. Almost…

  The cup-tip holding her clit vibrated. All the breath left Selena. She seized, rapture swelling, billowing—and breaking free in overwhelming undulations. It flowed in waves, reaching into her toes and fingertips.

  Arga unleashed a sustained groan. His cock jolted, filling her with warmth.

  Selena continued to rock slowly over him, prolonging the delicious spasms that tightened her around her lover, drawing every drop of passion she could win from him until the last convulsion faded. With a sigh, she stretched out over him, reaching to unstrap his wrists. When she freed him, Arga wrapped his arms around her, and they embraced as their bodies quieted.

  * * * *

  “It’s become a lot busier since we last checked,” Selena muttered.

  They’d peeked out of the Mating Center to see what their enemies were up to. No good, as it turned out. The spindly little fiends were bringing floating cart after floating cart of Risnarish supplies into the main temple.

  “They’re stripping Yitrow down to nothing,” Arga agreed. He closed the door again, his face knotted with concern.

  “It’s as if I’ve stumbled onto a movie set, where the robbers tunnel under the bank for a heist. Hey, wait a minute. That gives me an idea. Can we access the information the geological group had when everyone thought the tunnels were actually fissures?”

  “I don’t believe that information was deemed a security risk. It should still be in the system.”

  “Which Tidem took offline.”

  “Only through the armament guild’s access, but it’s probably best to stay off any terminals in Yitrow. No matter; I can access information from my CPP. I copied the records straight from the geologist Erona when she gave her last presentation to the Assembly. I thought they might be a consideration when it came to the war effort.”

  He took his portable computer device off his belt, activated it, spoke a few commands, and handed it off to Selena. She frowned over the diagrams as Arga read off the reports.

  After getting the general information, Selena mused. “These patches—this is sedimentary rock?”

  Arga doublechecked. “Yes, that’s what’s noted.”

  “That’s mostly what the drones dug into. In fact, it looks like the drones followed large sedimentary lines where they could find them. They utilized those beneath Yitrow to get in. It’s sandwiched between layers of metamorphic rock.”

  “That means something to you?”

  “Where you’ve got sedimentary rock, you’ve got your weakest points in the earth’s crust. It’s the softest rock on Earth, the easiest to bore through. Probably the same here. The drones wanted to move as fast as possible before we figured out they were coming. Look at this path, the main tunnel they dug to get here. They avoided the harder metamorphic rock base of the mountains where they could.”

  “That makes sense.”

  “It also makes the main tunnel susceptible to cave-ins, especially at the point where the three bore machines split off to emerge in the temple at once.”

  “What are you saying?” Arga narrowed his gaze at her.

  “A blast in the right place—it could bring the upper layer of metamorphic rock down into the sedimentary layer. They’d have a hell of a task digging their way out.”

  “We could cut them off from their home hive, leaving the Monsuda within it vulnerable.” His ears perked up.

  “And pick the drones here apart when reinforcements arrive from the other villages.” She grinned, imagining piles of broken robots.

  “Collapsing the tunnel. It might work.” Arga considered. “I’d only planned to do surveillance, to report our findings in hopes of launching a foolproof counterattack. It would be risky for just the two of us to do more.”

  “Foolish as hell.” She stared at the geological study. Licked her lips at the outrageous weakness that begged to be exploited. Ignored the warnings shouting in her head.

  “You want to.”

  “So do you.”

  “Dumb idea.”

  “Except if it works, those drones will be sitting ducks. They’ll have no avenue of quick retreat when the attack from our reinforcements arrives. There’s your foolproof counterattack right there.”

  “Their hive will be left without adequate protection.” Arga drew a breath. Selena watched him calculate the odds. At last he said, “We’d need the test site’s explosives to pull it off.”

  “If you wanted to do it with just one blast, sure. That’s not necessary, though.” Selena nodded to the packs they’d carried in. “Thanks to Tidem being an overachiever, I’ve got all the necessary components here for several smaller explosives. Enough to collapse that main tunnel. They just need assembly.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Selena began to put together the explosives after reviewing the information they had on the tunnels.

  “I’ll poke my head outside, have a peek at what’s going on,” Arga said after a few minutes. Sitting around watching Selena wasn’t bad in the least. He could stare at her all day, but he chafed at his own inactivity. With nothing constructive to do until she was ready, he was losing the ability to remain still.

  “Be careful. If you’re caught, this is for nothing. Not to mention, I’ll have to rescue you, which will lead me to kicking your ass for endangering yourself.”

  Arga heard her concern for him in the mock-threat. “I’ll be fine.” He grabbed the capture field emitter that had been laid out on the lobby floor with the components. If he ran into trouble, freezing drones would be far quieter than shooting them.

  He opened the door to the outside carefully, inch by inch. The parade of stolen energy containment units had hit a lull. The line that had flowed from the main avenue closest to the mating dome had disappeared.

  He checked the other direction, his ears cupped to catch any sound. He heard nothing, but he caught sight of two motionless drones standing at the nearest door to the central temple. Guards.

  Arga considered for a moment before shutting the door again. He walked past Selena, who was intent on her work. He hurried down the corridor to the rear of the dome and the door that led to the garden beyond.

  Again, he opened it only a bit, cautious. No signs of activity. He slipped out and ordered it closed and locked, able to open only to his or Selena’s command. When the obliging beep brought no drones racing his direction, Arga skulked around the dome.

  He edged its circumference until he spied the first drone guarding the temple entrance. Any farther out and he’d expose himself to the enemy. Arga scowled. He wasn’t near enough to use the capture field, not without perhaps allowing the guards to issue an alert.

  Damn. He really wanted a look inside the temple to see what was happening in there. His only chance to do that would mean locating a dartwing and flying overhead, the noise of which would alert the enemy. He’d be exposed to the drones and their scatter-shot.

  If the dartwings flew as silently as the Monsudan collection pods, he’d have a chance to sneak up on the temple without being discovered. No doubt the pods the Risnarish possessed were in use right now, evacuating those who’d escaped the Yitrow invasion. Or hopefully, bringing in warriors from Cas and Hahz.

  Might as well grow wings and fly for all the ideas I’m coming up with. Too bad my skin can’t accomplish that. Of all the times
I wished to float on air, this would have been the moment.

  Floating. That was the answer to his problems, and he had the means to make his CPP do so. But only if the Monsudan capture field device didn’t freeze electronics as it did living beings.

  Excitedly, Arga pulled his CPP off his belt. He turned it to its video record function and activated it, confirming that it was working in that mode. He laid it on the ground. Then he aimed the capture field emitter at it and turned that on.

  The CPP unit continued to operate. His idea had a chance.

  Capture fields used on Risnarish prisoners not only rendered them frozen, but were capable of floating them to where the Monsuda and drones wished them to go. Captives weren’t sent soaring through the air, only lifted to hover a foot or two above the ground. Yet Arga was able to lift his CPP high above him, until it was a tiny rectangle small enough to cover from view with his thumb.

  Excellent. If he could make the capture field pass one more test, he’d have a chance to spy on the activity within the temple.

  Keeping the emitter pointed at the floating CPP, Arga backed into the mating dome once more. He moved quickly to clear the wall partition. He re-aimed, pointing the emitter at the clear dome toward his suspended unit before it could fall to the ground. The CPP plunged a few feet, then the capture field re-engaged, stopping it in the air.

  The glass dome wasn’t an impediment to the field’s signal. Grinning fiercely, he walked down the corridor, the emitter dragging the CPP across the heavens to follow him.

  He rejoined Selena, moving quietly to keep from disturbing her as he conducted his experiment of flying the CPP over the temple’s clear dome. He had it circle the behemoth structure as far as its limits allowed, barely breathing as it soared in a half-moon circuit. Then he flew it to the rear of the mating dome, where he reclaimed it.

  He raced to the lobby noisily, waving the CPP with triumph. “I might have footage of what’s happening in the main temple.”

  Selena stood and joined him, catching his excitement. “You’ve got video footage? How did you pull that off? Never mind, you can tell me later.”

  “Let’s have a look.” He brought up a small holographic viewing screen.

  The bore machines were bigger than Selena remembered, easily accepting the many components and power modules the drones brought in via the hovering carts. “Dirty little thieves,” she scowled.

  “They’re loading all the vehicles at once,” Arga noted, staring at the three lines of carts stretching almost to the temple doors through which they were brought.

  “They bring in carts by threes, splitting them into separate lines. I’ll give them this; they’re orderly.”

  “Let’s talk about wiping them out. Still think we can pull this off?”

  Selena contemplated the scene in the temple. “Try this on for size: I set off an explosion to collapse the tunnels. At the same instant, we destroy the machines by triggering blasts from within them.”

  “Explosives inside the bore vehicles? It may be possible to sneak devices in using those carts they’re loading.”

  “That’s what I was thinking.”

  “After a few moments of consideration, Arga nodded. “Agreed. How do you want to do this?”

  “Very carefully.”

  “You don’t say.” Arga laughed, earning points. Any man who enjoyed her attempts at humor was a winner.

  Selena continued working on the explosives. She was close to completing assembly of what she needed, having put together more units than she’d initially anticipated. Plenty to unleash hell in the tunnels and bore vehicles. Adopting Tidem’s insistence on preparation, even to the point of going overboard, had served her well.

  “Now that I’ve seen the drones’ operation, I want to attach explosives to those power modules they’re loading into the bore machines. We should do it from the weakest point in their delivery chain, probably as near the outskirts of Yitrow as possible. I assume security is at its thinnest there.”

  “That’s a good thought. Bonus points for keeping us from having to access the temple itself, where we could most easily be captured.” Arga crouched down next to her, his nearness making her skin tingle.

  “Well, yeah, up to that point. I still have to get into the tunnels and find out what I’m working with down there.” Selena offered a tight smile when he grimaced. “The geo information we have only gives me a basic idea. I need to view the actual tunnels and where they converge to pick my spot.”

  “That’s not good. Not good at all. Why couldn’t we just wait for the bore machines to start their return trip? Detonate them when they’re in the tunnels, at the spot where they’ll collapse the whole thing?”

  “We can’t rely on that, not without an in-person inspection to verify the situation. You said yourself those machines are built tough, so most of the blasts might be contained within their interiors. Not to mention, the drones aren’t living creatures. They won’t sit still and cry when they’re injured, or stay behind to help a fallen comrade.”

  “You think they’ll escape and run for home.”

  “What else would they be programmed to do? If we imagine a worse scenario—”

  “You’re depressing me.”

  She patted his arm sympathetically. “This is probably why I’m not invited to even the crappiest parties. Anyhow, imagine we rely on the destruction of the bores to bring down the cave. What happens if just one of the machines doesn’t blow because of a bad signal or mechanical failure?”

  “Then it tunnels home to the hive.”

  “Bingo. The Monsuda would discover there’s a new war weapon in the Risnarish arsenal, one that could endanger their hives. They might even figure out there’s a plan in place to stop their invasion of Earth.”

  Arga scowled. He rubbed his palm over his mane, his striped brow knotted. “Maybe we shouldn’t bother.”

  “I’m not saying that. I think it’s worth the risk to make sure those drones don’t get back to their hive.”

  “But to do this right, you have to somehow sneak past all those drones. You have to go into the temple and the tunnels. I’m not enthusiastic about this plan, Selena. You’d be taking on too much danger.”

  She could have hugged him. Hell, his concern had her eager to strap him down to a naughty couch in the back of the dome and ride him all over again. The guy was definitely a keeper.

  His ears flattened. “I can’t do this for you, can I? If I found another CPP, let you watch from here while I transmit what I find, have you talk me through the setup—”

  She placed her fingers over his mouth. “Trust me, I’m not enthralled with the idea of crawling down there. I hate enclosed spaces. Ever since that cult—”

  Her hand shook violently. Arga took it, pulling it from his lips and folded it in his. “What happened to you to make you so afraid?”

  “You don’t want to know. I don’t want to tell it.” She scowled at the explosives. She’d finished putting them together and could not use their assembly to divert herself from the conversation.

  “I can’t let you go down there unless you share what’s going on in your head. Selena, I’m not sending you in when you’re this afraid. We’ll forget this mission.”

  He didn’t call her a coward. Selena knew he didn’t think of her as one either. Yet what he said stung her pride.

  I thought I was past it. Except for the claustrophobia, I was sure I’d gotten my shit together.

  “Trust me.”

  It was that plea from Arga that tipped her over. The way he gazed at her, the warmth of his readiness to shelter her.

  She sighed. “When I accused a junior leader of unprovoked sexual advances, the cult took his side of things. I was punished.”

  “How?” Arga prodded when she fell silent.

  The words fought being spoken. They lodged in her throat, and it took effort to push them out. “There was a concrete box in the middle of the complex where they stuck me to repent my sins. It was barely big
enough to turn in. The only light I had came in through tiny holes. It was insanely hot in there, and I was convinced there wasn’t adequate air, that I’d suffocate. The only relief came maybe once a week, when they’d pull me out to beat me and remind everyone of what could happen to those who went against the spiritual leaders.”

  “Every week? How long did they keep you in there?” His ears weren’t just flat, but plastered against his skull as he stared in horror.

  “Over a month. Six weeks, I think. Until I begged forgiveness and recanted my accusations. I was only a kid. Not half as tough as I’ve become. If it happened today, I’d die before giving in.”

  “Your guardians—I mean, parents? They couldn’t have supported such insanity!”

  “They were as brainwashed as the rest. When I was brought out, I’d beg them to help me. They’d beg me to admit my lies and ask for atonement.”

  Arga had apparently heard all he could stand. He grabbed her, folding her against his chest. His arms, legs, and tails wrapped around her, as if to somehow shield her from the past. Shaking all over, he uttered no sound, but his chest hitched. Selena thought he might be crying.

  She burrowed in, wondering at how he’d ended up caring for her despite his efforts not to. It buttressed her better than her own stubborn pride or sense of duty.

  As he held her, Selena came to a sudden realization. In some weird fashion, on a world galaxies from her own, she’d come home. Knowing that, she could face anything, including the task before her.

  Still, she didn’t wish to go out there, not when he held her in his arms. Not when she’d reached this stunning, incredible moment of perfection.

  Let me stay. Let me bask in this wonder I’d believed was a fairytale. It’s not fair to find out these things happen in real life, only to have it snatched away the next second.

  “Screw it. Let’s run off. Go into hiding.”

  Arga squeezed her tightly. He choked a sound that could have been a sniffle or chuckle—maybe it was both. Heaven knew, she was ready to laugh and cry all at the same moment.