Chapter Six
The wailing of the military transporter’s warning siren woke Anna from her nap. She bolted upright on the mattress and found her clothes neatly folded on the berth near her feet.
She scrambled into her uniform and darted out of the captain’s quarters to the bridge. Kojo was in the pilot’s seat, flipping controls and giving curt orders to his subordinates on the ground through the comm channel as he turned the transporter around and headed back toward the airlock.
She stood in a corner quietly watching out the visor, as it appeared that a war had erupted in the landing dock of Kojo’s home sector. Her mouth fell open as she saw masked terrorists shoot lasers at the armed soldiers on the docks. How had the terrorists gotten hold of lasers? Only the military were issued firearms.
And how had the terrorists known she was coming here? Were they targeting Kojo because they’d learned he was one of Anna’s new mates? She shuddered at the thought of putting the three men in danger because of their connection to her.
Vadim’s brusque commands came over the comm channel, interrupting Anna’s thoughts. “Kojo, get this ship out of here.”
“Aye, sir,” Kojo barked back and pulled hard on the throttle.
The sudden acceleration threw Anna off balance, and she stumbled, falling to her knees.
“Anna?” Kojo’s head snapped around in her direction. “You okay?”
“Fine. I’m fine.” She got to her feet and sat in the co-pilot’s chair, trying to minimize any distractions for him as he looked to have plenty to deal with already.
The fighting on the ground hadn’t abated and looked to be intensifying. She couldn’t believe the Open Air Society had this many followers who were willing to act so radically. Never in Profortuna’s history had violence broken out on such a large scale, affecting more than one Quadrant. Partially, that was due to the fact that only domestic security forces and the military carried firearms. It was illegal for civilians to possess lasers, so who had supplied the terrorists?
“Vadim, I hope you’ve got this covered,” Kojo said over the ship’s comm channel.
Her fingers curled around the armrests of the co-pilot’s chair as she stared out the visor at the blockade between their ship and the opening of the airlock. Two civilian airbuses hovered nose to nose with their broadsides blocking the exit of the landing dock.
“Oh, shiitake,” she cursed under her breath.
Kojo was taking them directly at the buses without slowing.
She closed her eyes, too afraid to watch the impending impact and face their certain deaths. At the blast of a large explosion, her eyelids flew open, and she gaped openmouthed at the empty place where the two buses had just been. The burning corpses of the airbuses lay shattered on the ground to the left and right of the airlock entrance. She scanned the ground quickly as they passed over the wreckage, hoping the buses had been empty.
During her brief look, she didn’t see any bodies. Her breath rushed out, and her head grew dizzy.
Kojo’s big hand shoved her head down between her legs as he kept his other hand on the ship’s controls. “Hang with me, Anna. We’re almost clear.”
She stayed flopped over, staring at her feet even after her brain normalized. It seemed safer than watching the action through the visor. She wasn’t accustomed to any sort of violence. Their Earth ancestors had been obsessed with violence in their media and for entertainment purposes. It was something that had been banned and censored out of Profortuna’s media, though, from the quick look she’d gotten of the warfare on the landing docks, the military was still comfortable with performing a violent job. They looked well organized and prepared to deal with the attack from the terrorists.
Anna felt the drop in her gut that indicated the transporter had taken off for a higher altitude. After a few ticks of the chronometer, the airship leveled out, and Kojo squeezed her shoulder. “It’s okay, Anna. We’re safe.”
Slowly, she lifted her head and sat against the backrest of the chair. She turned to stare at Kojo. He looked completely comfortable in his own skin as he tapped the control panel, checking on the status of the transporter.
His gaze flicked in her direction a few times as he worked. Finally, he finished with the ship’s controls and turned to give her his full attention. He dragged the back of his fingers lightly down her cheek, and she realized he was wiping away tears that she hadn’t known were there.
“Hey, it’s going to be okay,” he reassured her in a soft tone. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”
“Wh-where is Vadim?”
A strange look crossed Kojo’s face, but he cleared it before he spoke. “He’s on the armaments deck.”
“I’m here, now,” Vadim spoke from behind them.
Anna twisted around in her seat. Her first mate appeared unharmed. His uniform was slightly wrinkled, but other than that, he looked exactly as he had when she’d first met him.
Oh, stars, was that just this past evening? She glanced at the chronometer on her wrist. It was now an early predawn hour, and she felt the full impact of only getting a few ticks of sleep in the captain’s quarters. Her limbs felt heavy, her eyes were burning, and an ache had settled into the base of her skull.
“Where are we going now?” she asked.
Vadim spoke directly to Kojo. “Set our course for Fourth Quadrant, sector forty.”
“What’s there?” she asked.
“My military base,” Vadim answered.
That made sense. They’d tried both Marco’s and Kojo’s home sectors. Now, they were going to Vadim’s, but she worried. “Is it going to be any safer at your place than it was at Marco’s and Kojo’s?”
He turned his icy blue stare on her. “Fourth Quadrant is the securest one on the planet. If there were terrorist cells there, I would know, and they would be destroyed immediately.”
“Then why didn’t we go there first?” she asked.
His eyes narrowed as he gazed down on her. “Because,” he spoke slowly, “I had hoped to keep you near your lab.”
Anna’s heart softened a little at his words. He wanted her to be near familiar things. He understood how important her work was to her.
“I wanted to draw the terrorists out, to see what we were dealing with,” he continued, and the little ember of warmth in her chest instantly turned to cold ashes.
“You wanted to use me as bait?” Anna’s voice rose.
“No. I wanted to be near to observe their methods,” he answered dispassionately. Then he seemingly dismissed her as he turned to Kojo.
She was left speechless as she wondered where the man who had taken her as first mate had gone. She’d actually believed he cared about her, especially after their mating when he’d treated her so reverently in the bathing tub. Then she remembered how he’d quickly snapped back into General mode when the attack had started.
She hated how easy it was for him to ignore her because she was finding it increasingly difficult to ignore him. His steadiness in stressful situations was reassuring, and his physical presence—all two meters and more of him—surprisingly aroused her. But she hated his uncommunicativeness. He brushed her off so effortlessly when he thought she was inconsequential to the task at hand.
“Send an encoded message to Marco with our new course,” Vadim ordered.
“Aye, sir,” Kojo responded crisply.
Anna couldn’t tell whether Kojo resented the General’s superior position or not, or if he was just used to taking orders. She felt lost in this strange new military world with two of her three mates. How much worse would it be once Marco joined them?
Her stomach clenched at the thought that the third man might not be able to join them. “Do you think Marco’s okay?” she asked Kojo, choosing to ignore Vadim, giving him some of his treatment right back.
After tapping in his message, Kojo turned to look at her. “He’s highly skilled. He’ll be fine.” His words were short and clipped.
Anna raised a hand to the back of her neck to rub away the growing tension in her muscles as her headache worsened.
“Anna,” Kojo’s voice softened, “go back to the captain’s quarters and sleep. We won’t be at Fourth Quadrant until late evening.”
“It’s that far?” she asked surprised. She’d never been to that side of the planet, but she hadn’t thought it took so long to fly there.
“We’re taking an indirect route to minimize being followed,” Kojo explained. “Now, go lie down and rest.”
Sleeping sounded like a great idea, but her body actually wanted something else even more. “Um,” she hesitated, “do you think I could get a nutrishake first? I didn’t get any dinner last night.”
After a brief, awkward silence that made Anna wish she’d just gone to bed hungry, Vadim spoke. “Follow me.” He turned on his heel and left the bridge.
She hurried after him so he wouldn’t get too far ahead of her on his long legs. The narrow hallways of this transporter threw off her navigational senses. She didn’t want to get separated from her escort and get lost in the maze of the ship’s corridors.
In the small interior room used as the mess hall, Vadim spared no movements as he mixed a packet of dry shake in a bottle of water. His face seemed to soften as he handed Anna the nutrishake.
“Thank you.” She took her meal from him.
“Please accept my apologies for not attending to your needs,” he responded with a touch of remorse in his tone.
“Not a problem. You’ve been a little preoccupied,” she offered before drinking half the bottle in one swig. She swore she saw the muscles twitch at the corners of his mouth.
“You drink like a man twice your size, but you are so little.”
“I’m not little.” She stood taller to challenge him. “You’re a giant.”
“I’m average where I come from.”
Her eyes widened. “They’re all as big as you in Fourth Quadrant?”
His shoulders lifted slightly. “Mostly.” He gestured with his hand at her shake. “Now, drink. You need sleep.”
She finished the shake and tossed the bottle down the recycling chute. “What about you?”
His icy stare seemed to burn hot at her words. “I will not have you again until Marco claims his position as third mate.”
Her knees nearly gave out as she realized how he’d interpreted her words. Overwhelmed with myriad emotions—fear, exhaustion, concern for Marco, and maybe even the beginnings of lust—she tripped over her reply. “I-I…w-we… You m-mean during my mating cycle?”
He reached his hand out and cupped her chin. Bending down, he placed a firm kiss on her mouth. “I mean I will have you whenever I want you.” He spoke in a low tone, his words brushing across her lips, raising her body temperature several degrees.
“Oh,” was her only reply as coherent thought fled her brain. She stared mutely as he straightened to his full height. Wouldn’t Bella be amazed that Anna had finally fallen speechless?
Oh, stars, what had happened to her best friend during the attacks?
Vadim pointed toward the door of the mess hall. “Now, you sleep.”
“Wait.” She grabbed his hand. “Can you do something for me?”
“What is it, mate?” His tone held less command and more concern this time.
“Can you please find out about my friend? Bella, daughter of Clive, Edward and Trey, mates of Georgiana. She’s a mathematician. I need to know that she’s okay, that the terrorists didn’t target her too.” Suddenly, Anna’s heart beat frantically with fear that something horrible had happened to her best friend.
Vadim laid a hand on Anna’s shoulder and squeezed lightly. “I will obtain the intel for you.”
His touch, along with his words, worked some sort of miracle in her system, stabilizing her racing emotions. She let out a breath, relieved to have him so willing to help her and so capable. “Thank you, Vadim.”
She followed him out of the mess hall and back through the maze of corridors to the bridge.
“Did you get her fed?” Kojo greeted them.
“What’s the report?” Vadim answered with his own question.
“No movement within two hundred kilometers,” Kojo replied, then turned to Anna. “Ready for bed?”
Shaking her head, she looked at her first mate. “Vadim said he could help me get information about my friend back in First Quadrant.”
The General took the seat in front of the communications console, and Anna’s mind flashed back to her and Kojo occupying that same chair. Warmth lit her body from the inside out as she imagined sitting on Vadim’s lap as Kojo knelt before her, licking between her legs as Vadim had done to her back in Marco’s quarters. She’d never felt such a rush of pleasure, and the climax had been unbelievable. She wanted to experience that kind of orgasm again.
Vadim’s voice broke through her fantasy as he reached someone at Command in First Quadrant. “General Vadim calling.”
“Message receiving, General. This is Major Thomas. What can I do for you, sir?”
Vadim gave the Major an order to find intel on Bella and instructed the man to treat the investigation and all communications as top secret, which reminded Anna that they still didn’t know how the terrorists had figured out they were on their way to Second Quadrant. At least, she didn’t know how they’d found her. Maybe Vadim and Kojo knew, but weren’t sharing the information with her.