Sky Hunter (3 page)

She ducked through a row of planes waiting
for their service and then scaled an elevated catwalk. The heavy
tread of several pairs of boots on metal stairs made it clear that
she was not the only one taking this shortcut. Ahead of her another
catwalk met the one she was using and she saw a ground combat squad
ambling toward her. The shadowless glare of the overhead lights
revealed five Centauri and three Human soldiers, likely just now
returning from one of the Rim towns for downtime. One of them
grabbed another’s arm as if to shove him over the low railing and
into the repair pits below. The others laughed raucously when he
pulled the smaller man back just in time, earning a barrage of
insults involving his dubious parentage.

Nova smiled to herself but kept walking,
hoping to reach the doors at the far end of the walkway before one
of these louts decided to give her a fright, too. But she had most
definitely used up her allotment of good luck for the day. The men
reached the intersection before she did and there were a few elbow
nudges when they discovered her walking toward them. Most of them
nodded to her, the two sergeants among them saluted casually, and
they kept walking.

All but three. Nova groaned inwardly when
they stopped to wait for her approach. Base grunts, from the looks
of them. Shaved heads, sweat-stained shirts and ill-used fatigues.
Neckless blocks of muscle designed for close combat of which,
judging by the mass of scars covering one of the soldiers’ neck and
arm, they had seen plenty.

“
Lieutenant,” the towering Centauri
greeted her. The two Humans with him casually stepped into the
middle of the walkway.

“
Evening,” she said with a glance over
the railing. There was no one down there now. The other soldiers
had neared the doors and did not look back. Nova continued her
brisk pace as if the two Humans were not in her way. They had
little choice but to step aside or risk colliding with her. As she
passed, she felt a large hand on her rump, tightening to squeeze
her almost painfully. She whirled around to glare at the
man.

“
You got a problem, soldier?” she said
angrily.

He grinned and raised his hands in mocking
defense. “No harm intended. Just hard to pass up such a nice ass,
is all. Not many of those around here.”

She scowled at him. “Who’s your CO?”

The men stared at her for a moment before
laughing in unison. “Got a complaint, do you?” the Centauri said.
“Complain about this.” He grabbed her upper arm to draw her close
but he did not pursue the matter when she pushed away from him.

“
I don’t think she likes you,” his
Human companion said.

“
I don’t think I like any of you,” she
said. “I don’t suggest you try that again.”

The easy grin on the Centauri’s face
disappeared. “Or what?” He gripped her arm again only to find her
pistol jammed under his nose. He froze when he heard the quiet
whine of the charge in the sudden silence.

“
Don’t be looking for trouble, girl,”
the scarred Lieutenant said after a stunned moment.

“
Back,” she said evenly to the Centauri
who obeyed her command. “I am looking for dinner, not to entertain
a bunch of Rhuwac-brained grunts.”

A door below them screeched on its metal
track and some sort of cart trundled into the space. Nova took that
startled moment to turn and rush toward the door into the main
base, not quite willing to give the men the satisfaction of seeing
her run, but not wasting any time reaching the more populated
hallways beyond.

* * *

Finally!
Nova thought when, an hour
later, she returned to her small room. After a visit to the floor’s
decon station for a clean-up and a hurried stop for dinner she was
ready to fall into her cot. Her quarters, like those of the other
junior officers, offered little in the way of luxury or comfort but
luckily, as the only female pilot on this small base, she had no
roommate.

“
Yes, yes, time for bed,” she said to a
picture of a grush cat someone had sketched for her after hearing
that she had never owned a pet. An Air Command military base on one
planet or another was all she had ever known as home and neither
the lack of amenities nor pets had ever bothered her. An army brat
from birth, the frugal soldier’s accommodations were all the homey
comforts she needed.

She slipped into a robe and took a few
moments to comb her thick mane of copper hair, more than ready for
sleep.

A knock on her door forced a tired groan from
her lips. “I’m asleep. Go away!”

“
It’s Captain Beryl, Lieutenant. A
word, please.”

She frowned and went to the door to open it
for the officer. “Is there an emergency, sir?” she asked, surprised
when the man stepped into her room without invitation. He was not
her commanding officer and his late-night visit was certainly out
of the ordinary. She had seen him on the base many times; his prime
function was to oversee the movement of troops between the home
base and their various combat missions into the Rim towns. Like his
men, he was a hulking, scarred tank, distinguishable from them only
by his insignia.

He looked around the room before turning to
her. “I hear you met some of my boys today,” he said.

Her brow furrowed. “Yes, they were definitely
behaving like boys. It’s a shame, seeing how two of them were
officers.”

He nodded. “The ones you assaulted.”

“
What?” she exclaimed. Had she heard
that wrong?

“
You drew your gun on one of my men.
What were you thinking?”

“
Look, Captain,” she said, feeling
anger rise to where it would soon cause her to say something
unbecoming an officer. She pointed at the door to show him out.
“Take your grievances to my CO. It’s late and this is not the time
for this conversation. Or the place.”

“
Last time I checked I’m the one who
says what it’s time for,” he said. “You pilots seem to think that
rank and file doesn’t matter out here. Well it does, Lieutenant. On
this mission your fucking arrogance will get you killed. So stand
at attention when addressing a superior.”

Reluctantly, Nova complied.

“
That’s better,” he said. “You’re new
here, Whiteside. You don’t know how this base is run. Pissing off
those men can be a very dangerous way to spend your time
here.”

Nova said nothing. Beryl wasn’t here to get
her side of the story.

He turned in the small space and perched on
the edge of her storage cabinet. “This place is hard on a man,” he
said. “Long deployments, hot weather, crap food, snipers, fucking
rebels using every trick never taught in basic training.”

She wondered if she was expected to
sympathize with him at this point. He looked like he’d never had a
comfortable tour of duty in his life. Why was he complaining to
her?

“
So the boys have to cut loose once in
a while. You know there aren’t a lot of women on the base. A man
gets tired of the Bellac whores here. Getting your ass grabbed once
in a while isn’t exactly worth shooting people over.”

“
If you value discipline so much you
should be instilling that into your men. I’m not here for their
amusement.”

“
You don’t get it, do you, Whiteside?”
His eyes had settled on her chest and seemed content to stay there.
“If you can’t handle that sort of prank you should not have come
here. You could have taken another assignment instead of front
line. So now you’re going to have to fit in.”

“
This is outrageous!” she hissed. “I’m
an Air Command officer. Your men were out of line.”

“
I know,” he said and rose to his full
height. “I can make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

“
Good,” she said. “No apologies needed.
Just tell them to stay out of my way.”

He took a step closer to her. She flinched
when he raised a massive hand to cup her chin. “They will stay away
from you if they knew you were... under my personal
protection.”

She blinked, not sure if she understood what
he was proposing. “What?”

His hand came to rest on her shoulder. “No
one will touch you again as long as you show me a little
appreciation for that.”

Nova laughed harshly. “You’re out of your
mind. Get out of my room.”

A terrible darkness moved over his already
severe features. Before she could react he tore her loosely tied
robe open and reached around her to pin her arms behind her back.
She gasped when he forced her bare chest to press against his.
“Then how about I show you what you can expect from my boys,” he
growled.

She struggled to escape his grip, overwhelmed
by his size and strength.

“
Go ahead, yell. Digger’s in the
hallway. Just don’t think he’ll be rescuing you if he comes in
here.”

She snapped her head forward and sunk her
teeth into the skin of his jaw.

He reeled back, releasing her to clutch his
face, checking for blood. “Little bitch!” He grabbed her arm when
she turned to run to the door. Nova suddenly found herself airborne
when he flung her across the room, over her bunk, to careen into
the wall. A sickening bolt of pain shot through her shoulder when
she crashed to the floor.

Beryl lurched over her bunk to haul her up
again. “Looks like you popped a joint there, Whiteside,” he said
and pushed her down onto the bed.

Nova struggled weakly, fighting an urge to
either throw up or faint, aware of little more than the pain from
her dislocated shoulder. She stared in disbelief when he reached
down to unbuckle his fatigues. She had to get out of here, get away
from this monster now clutching her legs.

“
Could have done this friendly.” The
captain leaned over her when she tried to roll away. He pressed one
hand over her mouth and the other onto the grotesque lump
distending her shoulder. She screamed into his hand until, almost
gratefully, she passed out.

* * *

She was alone now. Alone with pain that
flared up the moment she stirred on her bed. She groaned loudly and
then pinched her lips tight when, little by little, she shifted her
body until she finally sat on the edge of her bed.

Nova looked around her room as if her
assailant might still be lurking in one of its corners. How long
has she been unconscious?

Painfully, she pushed herself off the bed and
fought a wave of dizziness before she could see again. It seemed to
take forever to pull on a pair of loose-fitting trousers and fasten
her robe. Tears of pain and anger spilled over her face and she
wiped at them away, annoyed with herself to have fallen into
Beryl’s trap. This wasn’t the academy and this wasn’t Targon. She
had already seen enough here to realize the difference between the
stringently ruled airfields where she had trained and worked and
this backwater outpost. She had hoped to learn much during a tour
under rougher conditions but this lesson was not one she had
prepared for.

There was no one in the night-silent hall
when she moved toward the stairs. The base clinic was a below the
pilots’ floor and she was glad when no one met her on the way down
there. Her knees felt unsteady, her long hair was a tangle and her
face a puffy mess. She was not surprised when a medic rushed toward
her, looking alarmed, when she walked into the med center.

“
What the hell happened to you?” he
exclaimed.

She pulled back before he could take her arm.
“Get Doctor Soren.”

“
She’s asleep. Come in here.” He put
his hand on her back to guide her into an examination
room.

“
Touch me and I will break your nose,”
she growled.

The medic looked at her quizzically for a
long moment before nodding. “I see. Wait here.”

Nova sat on the edge of the exam table,
cradling her useless arm and wondered how she had stooped from
being hailed as a most promising junior officer among her peers to
this. There was no part of her body that didn’t ache and her mind
continued to throw up images of Beryl’s contorted face hovering
above her. She stood up and paced, almost glad when her shoulder
began to throb more excruciatingly to chase those images from her
mind.

At last, the female medic Nova had asked for
arrived, obviously just pulled from her bed to attend to Nova. She
was still running her fingers through her tousled hair when she
entered the room. Like many Bellacs, she used brilliant dyes to
decorate the naturally white strands.

“
Are you going to tell me who did this
or will I wait for the DNA results to find out for myself?” she
greeted Nova while she prepared a hefty dosage of
painkiller.

“
Captain Beryl,” Nova said into the
plastic cup held to her face. She inhaled deeply and soon felt the
pain in her shoulder subsiding. A languid, rubbery feeling surged
through her body and she suspected something more than painkiller
in the dose she was receiving.

“
Beryl himself, huh?” Soren began to
manipulate Nova’s arm. “This okay?”

“
Yes, just do it,” Nova
said.

There was no sudden jolt, just some careful
handling of her arm and then her shoulder joint slid back into its
accustomed place. The remaining pain stopped nearly at once.

“
Hold it like this. Better?” Soren
asked, looking into Nova’s ashen face. “Shall we take a look at the
works?”

Nova nodded. “Are you going to report this to
Major Trakkas right away?”

Soren tilted her head. “The post commander?
Are you sure?”