Alien Fighter's Baby (Captured Science Fiction Romance) (14 page)

S
tarling
bit her lip through another pain. The pains were getting closer together, lasting longer, but with all the hard jostling of the Zach, it was hard to keep track. They were definitely coming faster, though. Only they were also evading Grubs, so she didn’t dare say anything through another hard jerk of the vehicle beneath her.

A gasp escaped her.

“Starling?” Bran asked, and his voice sounded tight and intense. “I know it’s rough,” he said. “Hold on.”

Starling made a sound of agreement as she clutched her cramping belly and tried to hold on with her other hand. The straps across her were another agony.

“Boss man, I think we have issues,” Cobalt said from up front.

Starling whipped her gaze to him shaking her head, sure that he’d seen she was in labor. But his head was down and he was quickly moving his fingers over a screen he had pulled out that was part of the front dashboard.

“Grubs all over the valley, so that one you killed maybe got a message off. We are twenty clicks from the next mountain range and valley beyond that. Where we need to be.”

“Invisibility shield seems to be holding,” Bran said tightly.

Starling panted through the pain, relieved Cobalt had issues other than her having a baby at a time like it was. No way. She would clamp her thighs together. She’d hold the baby in if she had to.

“And your lady is in labor,” Cobalt snapped.

Starling jerked her gaze to his, and she saw that he was looking back at her.

Bran thundered, “What?”

“It’s okay,” Starling cried. “I’m sure it must be false labor. It’s too soon.”

The entire vehicle jolted to a halt, and threw her with a cry of pain into the horrible straps. But then Bran was there with his hand stroking her damp temple, while he popped the straps open.

“Hold on,” Bran muttered, as he crouched in front of her with his other hand on her pregnant belly.

“They’ll catch us,” she whispered.

But another pain gripped her, and it was more serious than they had been. She reached for Bran’s shoulder to clutch.

“Short, panted breaths, baby,” Bran ordered. “Do it with me. Come on. That’s right.”

Starling heard a door on the Zach open, and then Cobalt’s hard voice. “Going to recon.”

“Report back,” Bran ordered, then to her he said, “You should have told me, Starling. I’m going to lay you out once this one passes.”

“No!” she exclaimed. “We can’t stop.”

“We have to. Now quiet,” he said, and the pain made her thoughts scatter.

An hour later, Bran heard the weapon fire just beyond a wall of vegetation at the rear of the vehicle. Through his mic, he knew Cobalt was trying to keep the Grubs from the Zach, and best-case scenario, he was trying to draw them away.

“Is that Cobalt firing?” Starling cried, just before she started panting again.

Bran was behind her, holding her in his lap as she faced the rear. And he really needed to be at the back of the Zach, where the baby would be coming.

“He’s drawing them off,” Bran said, praying it was true, as another flash of light lit up the darkening skies beyond the vegetation.

What a FUBAR, he thought. The damn Grubs could not have his woman or his baby. The med-pack AI that hovered over Starling was listing instructions. Its readouts said that while she was technically not to term yet, the cybertron DNA was faster at gestating.

They’d missed that little tidbit in all the research and tests they’d looked at for Starling’s pregnancy. Once Starling heard it, though, she was less frantic about the baby being early.

An explosive boom rocked the vehicle, and Starling screamed, as he held her tightly from behind. Over the loud, lingering noise, he shouted, “That wasn’t us, sweetheart. But close.”

“Bran, we can’t let them have the baby,” she said.

“No damn way, Starling. They will never get our kid. Now breathe.”

He would have taken the pain for Starling if he could, and he was a heel for being glad that labor lasted hours, even days, because they needed that damn time to shake the Grubs from pinpointing the Zach. The fighting grew intense outside the vehicle; sometimes it was nearly on top of them. So close that Bran had his weapon out as he held Starling through her labor pains, which were arriving every two minutes.

But when he was certain he was going to have to leave Starling to defend them, the fighting started to move away from their location. He’d fought, cussed, and thought Cobalt was a pain in the ass for years, but the man was one badass trained soldier. Bran would take Cobalt in a bet against the Grubs any day. As long as the invisibility shield held, they might make it, and it did much better in the darkness.

“Bran,” Starling panted. “I really like the name Wran Star Hayes.”

“Jesus, Starling, I love you,” Bran said tightly, while she continued to pant hard. “That’s a good name for my son.”

An hour later, when the pains were a minute and a half apart, the driver’s-side door on the Zach popped open. Cobalt jumped in looking as if he’d been in the middle of a war.

“If we go slow and quietly, I think we can get out of this hot zone. Hold on to your babe,” Cobalt said.

They had been updating each other, so Cobalt knew Starling was in true labor—he even knew how far apart her pains were and how long Bran thought they had. Bran knew Cobalt had fought the Grubs and pushed them miles from the Zach’s location, then he’d sprinted back so they had a chance to slip away.

The Grubs couldn’t pinpoint them, and most of that was Cobalt’s effort. Starling screamed before the vehicle moved, and Bran braced her as another hard, long cramp gripped her.

“Hell,” Cobalt said as he looked back.

“Go, go,” Bran ordered. “The pain has been making her scream the last half-hour.”

“Hold on, Starling,” Cobalt said harshly. He looked at Bran. “You can do this.”

Bran nodded tightly as Cobalt looked forward and the Zach started to move. After that, it was a blur of motion and labor pains as Bran tried to keep Starling stable, while urging her to breathe short bursts through the pain. It seemed like days, but was only hours before Cobalt pulled them out of the valley.

Then they got extremely lucky when, in the dark, Cobalt found a cavern on the far side of the mountain range from the valley they had just escaped. As soon as he pulled deep enough into it, he turned on all of the vehicle’s lights, and Bran got a good look at Starling.

“Baby,” Bran said.

She was drenched in sweat and red-faced, with tears streaming down her face. But the pain gave her no respite as another wave hit, and she cried out hoarsely.

“It’s wet,” Cobalt said, as he half crawled back to Bran and handed him a wet cloth. Bran put it right to Starling’s temple at the same time he flipped the med-pack AI on.

“Can you get the back open, Cobalt? I need to find a way to get down there, but keep her braced at the same time.”

“Got it,” Cobalt answered, above Starling’s cries. “I’ll open it and we will switch places.”

The med-pack AI said everything was normal, even though Bran thought it couldn’t be, and Cobalt looked as if he agreed. But when Bran ran it again as he crouched near Starling’s bent-up legs, the AI asked if the patient wanted an epidural or natural birth.

“Shot,” Starling screeched, as Cobalt kept her back braced in a half-sitting position.

Bran punched in the shot. He agreed, because he wasn’t certain he could stand more of her being ripped apart. Starling was racked with pains another twenty minutes before the drugs finally kicked in, and then she collapsed into a half-faint against Cobalt, while Bran checked her dilation.

“Nearly full dilation,” Bran said tightly.

He and Cobalt worked feverishly through the rest of the morning into afternoon, until suddenly the sharp cry of a baby was heard.

“Jesus,” Bran said, at a loss for words, as he laid his son on Starling’s belly, while she cried.

“Big boy,” Cobalt said, sounding proud.

Two hours later, they had Starling and his son Wran sleeping comfortably in a cocoon of retiring bags in the back of the Zach, when he and Cobalt sat down on a boulder, each with a bottle of water, both looking as if they’d come from a month-long campaign against the enemy.

“That puts shit in perspective,” Cobalt said. “Damn.”

Bran nodded wearily. “Intense,” he said.

They looked at each other, and Cobalt raised his fist so Bran raised his, and they fist-bumped.

“Good job, dad,” Cobalt said.

“Thanks, man. You saved us.”

Cobalt shrugged as they dropped their hands. “You ever know your dad?” Cobalt asked.

Bran shook his head. “Nope.”

“Me either,” Cobalt said, looking over at Starling and Wran.

A
month later
, Starling picked up Wran, and then she dropped him into Cobalt’s lap as she went by him.

“Are you looking at that Grub screen again?” she asked, as she tickled Wran’s chin, while Wran looked up cross-eyed at Cobalt.

Cobalt one-armed Wran as he set the alien device aside, but not before Starling had seen that same picture she’d caught him looking at before. It was of a pretty, dark-haired woman.

Cobalt looked down at Wran and made baby noises, which always made Starling smile—that two hard-nosed soldiers like Bran and Cobalt could get so soft for a baby.

“You know, Star, I think there are others like you, and she is one of them, and still imprisoned by them,” Cobalt said, just as she was pouring some tea. It startled her into looking up at him.

“Really?” she asked.

He shrugged as he let Wran suck on his little finger and bounced him a bit. “Your picture is in there. Her picture is in there.”

“That’s so terrible, I wouldn’t wish it on anyone,” Starling said. She set her tea aside, forgotten, and came to sit beside Cobalt. “Do you think she’s here somewhere on the planet?”

Cobalt looked from Wran to her and nodded. “Yeah, I do.”

Starling looked out the cavern entrance. After the day Wran was born, they’d traveled a week before Bran and Cobalt said it was far enough away from where the Grubs nearly found them to find another base camp. It had taken them another week to find the cavern they were in, which wasn’t as big as their old one.

The new cavern didn’t have an open tunnel to the other side, which Bran hadn’t really liked, because he’d said it could get them trapped. But it did have water, so they’d decided to try it, mainly because Bran thought his team member might show up soon.

Bran was out hunting that day, while Cobalt took up guard duty by her and Wran. She had become friends with Cobalt and knew that she owed him her and her baby’s lives.

“When Bran found me, I was on one of their ships,” she told him.

“Didn’t know that,” Cobalt said. “Was it a planet-side ship or space-faring vessel?”

“I don’t know,” she said, as she tickled Wran’s feet. “But it’s so horrible to think they might have other women.”

Cobalt looked intense. “Yeah.”

That night, Starling told Bran what she and Cobalt had talked about. By then, Bran was staying in the bio-h with her and Wran. He was good at getting up at night with Wran, who slept in a small makeshift baby bed that Bran had made.

“Don’t know what the Grubs are doing, but my guess is they are studying us. What Cobalt thinks about there being more women makes sense, and I agree there could be more of them on this planet.”

Starling snuggled into him. With the baby and Cobalt around, they never had time to make love, and it was bittersweet sleeping in his arms, because she wanted him so much. She didn’t know what their future held, because she thought Bran believed he would have to leave them, if his teammate showed up to rescue them.

“If Wisetech comes, will you tell him?” she asked.

Bran stroked her back. “This is the part you don’t understand, sweetheart. Alpha-Force command and even further up and down the ranks won’t care about a few lost women to the enemy. They think they have higher priorities.”

She made a disgusted sound. “There might be other soldiers capture too. They’d care about them.”

“Maybe,” Bran said, then kissed her temple. “If they’re Alpha-Force, yeah, they don’t let us get away, as they put too much time and money into us, but if it was regular forces, I’m certain they wouldn’t expend the effort.”

“What ever happen to never leave a man behind?” she said.

“Long gone, sweetheart,” he said, and he sounded angry.

She took his hand and pressed their fingers together in the dark. “I know you’d stay with us if you could, and that means everything, Bran.”

“Man, I want you.” His voice sounded harsh.

“Let me scoot under the covers for you,” she offered, and started to lower in the bed.

“No.” He stopped her with his warm hands, bringing her back up. “Both of us or not at all.”

Tears she didn’t let fall made her eyes feel hot. How could she go on without him? He had told her that he planned to find her and Wran a place, and he had enough credits to get them a living space, plus he’d continue to send more. That was noble, and she’d learned to expect something like that from him, but she was too greedy, because she wanted him, not his credits.

“If we’re quiet,” she whispered, pulling him over her. “Cover my mouth if I make too much noise.”

They went slowly, and he did have to cover her mouth. The slowness built the intensity to a burn that flamed long and hot. Afterward, she lay against his puffing chest, rubbing his belly, as they caught their breath.

“Bran, do you think you could settle down if you were free, or would it be hard after all the intensity you’re used to living with?” she asked.

He cupped her breast, stroking the side of it gently. “Easy. I could easily give it all up to be with you and Wran. Never think otherwise.”

“I won’t think otherwise, Bran. I’ll always know,” she whispered, and they kissed deeply.

* * *

T
hree weeks later
, the signal Bran had been waiting for, and trying so hard to believe in so he could get his woman and child safe, came in the middle of the night. Instantly, his eyes opened and his heart began to pound, even though he’d been in a deep sleep. He dreaded it as much as he hoped for it, because it meant his time with Starling would soon be over. What a cruel world it was to give her to him, then take her away.

Shaking his morose thoughts aside, Bran quickly rose and went to the beacon he’d found that Wisetech had left in the Zach. Bran had gone through the vehicle to take out all other tracking devices, but he’d trusted Wisetech enough to know the man wouldn’t give him a beacon that could be tracked by anyone but Wisetech.

“He actually came back.” Cobalt’s rough voice came out of the darkness.

Bran didn’t turn around as he looked at the signal, and he hesitated to activate his return signal so Wisetech could find them. But over his shoulder, he said, “This is it.”

Bran felt Cobalt’s hand on his shoulder, and for a second he had a vision of Cobalt trying to stop him. “Hold up for a sec. I want to talk to you.”

Months ago, Bran would have pushed the button, not trusting Cobalt. But not any longer, so he eased his hand back and turned. He knew Cobalt had different cybertron eyes than he had. Cobalt’s had gamma sight, multiple sight, which was seeing all directions at once, and scanner sight. So he knew Cobalt had seen his hesitation, even in the dark, but the man didn’t mention it.

“I’m not going back,” Cobalt said, lowering his hand, which Bran watched turn into a fist at Cobalt’s side.

Bran was shocked, but didn’t let it show. “Explain,” he ordered.

Cobalt ran a hard hand through his long hair. “I’m going after the other women.”

Bran had seen Cobalt looking at the alien device, and in particular looking at the black-haired woman. “If you leave now or if you find them or find her, there is no going back after this. You get that?” Bran said.

“I get it,” Cobalt said. “I’ve been thinking about nothing else. I hacked MIA status before I left. I know you did too.”

“Yes, if I could just be certain they don’t come after proof of that, my life would be majorly easier,” Bran said.

“I hear you, brother,” Cobalt said. “We’ll find a way. I will, after I find her. You will maybe before then, and you can tell me.”

“I’ll go you one better,” Bran said. “When I have to go back, I’ll report you killed in action, not retrievable.”

“Hell, man,” Cobalt said, and Bran heard the emotion in his voice.

“You can be a real dick, Cobalt,” Bran said. “But I guess I like hard-nosed assholes.”

Cobalt cut off a hard chuckle, and they clasped hands, shaking on their deal and surprising friendship.

Ten minutes later, Bran looked down at Starling, while he held Wran to his shoulder.

“He didn’t say goodbye?” she asked, after he’d explained Cobalt was gone.

Bran patted his son’s back as he shrugged. “He said you’d understand.”

Starling did a cute thing she did a lot when she was trying to figure something out, and that was pull her top teeth on her bottom lip. It did the same thing it always did to him: made him want to kiss her. How was he going to go on without her? But he pushed that aside.

He’d do anything so she and Wran survived. He’d try to take down the entire Alpha-Force. Impossible, but he would try. What he needed to do felt harder, and that was leave her.

“He went to find her,” she said.

Bran nodded. He’d realized after Cobalt had made his decision and left that he should be letting Starling make her own decisions too. That was why he’d woken her. If they were going to call Wisetech to them, she needed to be a part of that.

Wran grabbed his ear and pinched it, which made Bran look down into his son’s swirling silver eyes. The med-pack AI had said Wran exhibited slightly accelerated growth along with enhanced sight, hearing, brain function, and physical agility. That was thanks to the cybertron DNA that was a part of him. Besides that, and that was enough, their son was pronounced normal. They’d both been relieved, but curious as to what Wran’s enhancements would evolve into over time.

A time Bran would not be around to see. But Starling had tearfully promised to send him pictures and updates on their boy. Bran cleared his throat of emotion.

“So if you press the flashing button on that homing signal, Wisetech will be able to track it and find us,” he said, tilting his head toward the device she held.

Starling moved closer to him and leaned against him. “Just push it,” she muttered. She raised her finger toward it, but looked directly at Wran, who grabbed her nose. “We are doing this for you, Wran,” she said firmly. Then she pressed it.