Burning Love [Flights of Fancy 1] (Siren Publishing Menage Amour) (8 page)

Spence collapsed on top of her, his softening dick slipping from her pussy to slap against her thigh. When he tried to move from atop her, Star hugged him, not caring that his mass made it hard to breath. She wanted to touch him with as much of her body as she could, to feel his warmth against her skin.

Star didn't know how long they lay on the sofa in each others arms, sometimes kissing, sometimes talking quietly, usually just staring at each other, but at some point, they fell asleep. Her dreams were different that night. She rarely remembered her dreams, but the ones that came to her after making love with Spence felt safe and warm. She knew he would protect her when she needed protection, even if she didn't know she needed it. 

More than a century as a Marine built certain reactions, and the chirp of his communicator brought Spence instantly awake. He reached for the communicator, still attached to his uniform where it lie piled on the floor, and fell off the sofa. He grabbed the device from his shirt and pressed the answer button.

"This better be good."

There was a long pause before Debi Harvey's voice came through. "Major?"

"Yes, Ensign."

"Is Star OK? She doesn't answer."

He looked up from the floor at Star. She slept soundly, a soft smile on her beautiful face. The sight of her nude body on the couch made his cock stiffen a bit.

"She's fantastic. What's up?"

Again, Harvey hesitated a moment. "Just some more things I think you two should know about."

He never considered himself a romantic, but it seemed just plain wrong to spend the morning after making love all night to the most wonderful, fascinating woman he'd ever known trying to figure out if a bunch of aliens were going to kill them all. Then again, other than the making love all night part, the situation wasn't even remotely romantic. The fact was that it was their job.

He sighed. "Give us about forty-five minutes."

* * * *

Confusing images of DNA swam on the display of Debi's data recorder and mixed in Star's head with the wonderful erotic images of Spence from the night they shared on the sofa. She shook her head trying to make things fall into place.

Debi tapped the screen. "These plants aren't old enough to have evolved here to the point they have."

"I don't understand." Spence rubbed his eyes. "What do you mean they aren't old enough? How old can a plant be?"

"No, not the individual plants, Major." Debi took a deep breath. "I mean the species isn't old enough. There are a lot of variables we don't understand about this world yet, but genetic mutations happen at a predictable rate. In other words, we can look at the DNA and tell how old a species is based on the mutations."

Star caught the detail part. "What's this about variables you don't understand?"

"Sometimes, certain conditions can change the mutation rate. Things like background radiation and a few others." Debi grinned. "But it doesn't matter. Enough radiation to make mutations happen fast enough to see a species this young would kill all carbon-based life here."

Spence stopped with his coffee halfway to his mouth. "Eh?"

"Yeah. This plant species is only about two hundred years old."

Star stared at the screen for a moment. "But you said there are variables that could change that."

"There are. By as much as a factor of five." Debi tapped her finger against the screen as she spoke. "Best case, this species is only a thousand years old."

Spence shrugged. "So what? It just recently evolved."

Debi shook her head. "It's one of the oldest I've found so far. And there's evidence of artificial manipulation of the DNA."

"You mean it was made?" Star remembered the artificial device in the brain of the Hendri males.

"Exactly. Genetically engineered. We have the technology to do it, but from what I've seen, the Hendri don't." Debi smiled again. "These people don't even have tri-v."

"Have you advised the ship about this information?" Star had a bad feeling.

"No, I tried to send my data uplink just before I came over here, but there was too much interference."

Spence tapped his communicator. "
Daedalus
, this is Major Spencer." A soft hissing came from the receiver. "
Daedalus
, this is the landing party, acknowledge." Again only quiet noise.

Spence tried calling each of the other landing party members, but no reply came. He grabbed his armor as he ran to the bedroom. "You two stay here. No one leaves and no one comes in who isn't human."

He stepped from the bedroom as he fastened the last of the straps. Star touched his arm. "What's going on?"

He smiled, but she could tell he forced it. "I don't know. Probably nothing, just the energy field, but I'm going to find the others and bring them all here. Then we'll get to the landing craft and get out of here." He took her shoulders in his hands as he stared into her eyes. "No arguments, OK?"

"None from me." She didn't like the fear she felt welling up inside of her, but Spence's presence and calm command made her feel better.

"That's good." His smile looked a little less faked. "I'll be back soon." He kissed her deeply before turning and trotting out the door and down the hall.

Debi nodded her head. "Oh. Now I understand."

* * * *

Spence tried to get a handle on things as he ran the corridors of the capital building on his way to find the others. He tried their rooms, and found them all empty. He hoped they were in the dining room.

He tried his communicator as he jogged, but no one answered, not from the landing party or the ship. The sensors in his helmet gave him no alarming information from his surroundings, but that offered little consolation. Every instinct in him, built and sharpened by 130 years of combat experience, screamed that things were coming apart at the seams and there was nothing he could do to stop it.

He nearly kicked the door of the dining room from its hinges as he burst in, and four armed Marines dropped into defensive postures.

Sergeant Kyle pointed his weapon at the ceiling. "Major! What are you doing?"

"Is everyone accounted for?"

"Yes, Sir. Everyone is here other than you, Lieutenant Hawking, and Ensign Harvey."

"They're back at my suite." Spence thought for a moment. "We can't contact the ship or each other, and I don't know why. Let's get everyone back to my suite, and we'll go from there."

Kyle nodded. "Aye, aye." He turned to the other Marines. "Saddle up, people. We move out now." The other Marines herded the small group of diplomats and scientists toward the door.

Spence considered. "Sergeant, I want all targets verified, but go hot. The use of deadly force is authorized." He swallowed. "Authorization code delta-five-niner-bravo."

"Understood, Major." He turned to the others. "Lock and load, you grunts! Verify all targets, but kill 'em if you have to!"

"Oohrah!"

The small group moved into the halls, heading for Spence's suite, the Marines watching in all directions at once.

Moving slowly through the corridors, they were almost halfway there when Corporal Douglas came up beside Spence. "Sir, I can't get the ship, but I have the communicators working for us here on the surface."

"Good work. What's the problem?"

"There's a jamming field. I can't tell from where, though."

Spence nodded, and he wasn't at all surprised.

The team rounded the corner and Spence saw the door to his suite was ajar. Using hand signals, he flagged the Marines, and they instantly flattened against the walls, all eyes on the cracked door. The sergeant signaled two of the privates, and they edged down the hall, one moving in darting steps as the other covered him. When they reached the door, they took up positions on either side, weapons trained on the opening as the rest of the team moved forward.

When everyone was ready, Spence stepped out and kicked the door open. The five Marines swarmed inside like angry hornets, weapons searching for a target. The room was empty, but several chairs lie overturned, as was the table at the end of the couch.

A soft moaning made all the warriors spin to face the bedroom, and a weak voice called out.

"Major?" It was Debi Harvey.

Spence rushed to the room and found her leaning against the foot of the bed, blood from a gash above her left eye covering her face. "Medic!"

The other Marines came in and searched the room as the corpsman tended to the wounded woman. The medic smiled. "She's OK, just a cut and a little dazed is all."

Spence asked the inevitable question. "Debi, where's Star?"

She wiped at her face with the cloth the medic gave her. "They took her."

"Who?"

"I think they were Rangor." Debi suddenly smiled. "And I scanned them." She held up her data recorder.

Spence shook his head. He didn't care about scans, only getting to Star. "Where were they taking her? Did they say?"

"No, but this is important." She played with her scanner for a moment. "Major, the only difference in the Hendri and the Rangor is that thing in their brain." She smiled again. "They are the same species."

He still didn't care. "Can she be moved?" The medic nodded his affirmation. "Sergeant!"

Kyle came to stand beside him. "Sir."

"Get these people to the landing craft, and try to contact
Daedalus
. Wait for us if you feel safe doing so, but get these people to the ship. Is that clear?"

"Us, Sir?"

"Yes. I'm going after Star."

"I'll come with you, Major."

"Negative, Sergeant. You get these people to the ship."

"Yes, Sir."

"If anyone or anything not me or Star approaches you, kill it."

"Understood, Major."

* * * *

The wail of the alarms still rang in her ears even though Elsa gave the order to silence them. At some point, the violent buffeting of
Daedalus
damaged the control circuits, and the computers couldn't send the commands to stop the racket. The fail-safe systems decided it was better to let them scream.

The tactical officer worked furiously at her console. "Deflectors holding at 61%. Harbison Field at red."

The Harbison Field worked not by absorbing or deflecting energy, but by moving it around. As energy of any kind poured into the Field, the generators converted it into heat, and the heat was then pumped to cooler places where it radiated away safely to space. If the Field couldn't radiate the energy, the heat was stored in the Field generators. Some point inside the generator would get hotter and hotter.

But something attacked
Daedalus
now by pouring heat into the field from all directions at once. There was no place to get rid of the energy, so the generators stored it deep in their complex workings. As the energy stored built to ever higher levels, the Field changed color. Starting the same as the blackness of cold space, the Field would change colors, moving up through the visible spectrum through red, to yellow, to blue, to violet. When it reached white, the Field would fail, releasing all the stored energy at once, both outwards, away from the ship, and inwards. When a Harbison Field failed, ships died a burning, flaming death at temperatures far hotter than any star.

"Time to Field overload?"

"Two hours, forty-two minutes, Captain."

Elsa turned to the science officer. "Any luck?"

"No, Ma'am. I can't get through the interference to scan the planet."

Else nodded as she looked to the communications officer. "What about contact?"

"Still no response to our hails on any frequency, Captain."

The ship rocked again as the Field tried to radiate energy and the pulse acted like a thruster. The artificial gravity reacted and compensated.

Commander Harris looked up from his damage control console. "Do you want my recommendation?"

"No." Elsa took a deep breath as she glanced at the status board. Half the board showed red or yellow lights, the telltale signs that her ship was slowly dying. "Helm, prepare to leave orbit in two hours, thirty-five minutes. Full impulse power in any direction you care to pick, as long as it's away from this planet."

The helmsman hesitated before she plotted her course. "Aye, aye."

* * * *

Star's head hurt. At least she thought it did. The blow the intruder gave her when she resisted had rattled her teeth, and she felt some surprise at being able to feel anything at all, lucky that she wasn't dead. When she opened her eyes, the light pained her head even worse, but she kept them open.

She was lying on a bench or cot in a small room.
No
, she thought,
a small cell.
The door was closed and heavy. Sunlight flooded the cell through a tiny barred window. A small table with three chairs sat in the center of the room, and when she managed to move her head enough to look around, another cot hung suspended from another wall.

And Krell lay crumpled on the cot.

She struggled to her feet, stumbling to the other cot, and knelt beside it.

"Krell? Can you hear me?" She shook his shoulder gently.

The touch of his skin startled her because he felt cool. For the first time, she noticed that the room was also cool, maybe twenty-five degrees or so. She wondered if he might be dead.

She didn't know much about Hendri anatomy, but she felt around on his neck. Debi said the Hendri were similar to humans, so there must be large arteries running to the brain. Star felt a rapid, faint pulsing of blood under her fingers, but she didn't know what that might mean other than his heart still worked.

Star rolled him to his back on the cot, and Krell stirred slightly, his eyes flickering a few times before they opened. His expression looked confused for a moment as he came fully awake, but he finally smiled a little.

"Are you hurt, Star?"