Three Worlds 01 - Seduce Me In Dreams (28 page)

It was Bronse‟s acts of uncanny tenderness and thoughtfulness that told her she was more than a bed partner to him. He watched, sensed, and acted, always considering her best interests.

She was confident that she was first in his mind at all times because he proved it with incessant consistency.

She did look on herself with criticism though. She shouldn‟t have lost her temper with Kith to the point of violence. She was a much better person than that. She simply did not like herself much when she lost control. Violence should always be used with complete control of thought and total lack of raw emotions, she felt. It was a concept that she believed Bronse epitomized. Even when he had been emotionally distraught over her captivity and the violence that had been done to her, he had never used it as an excuse to get out of hand and commit uncontrolled mayhem. He was trained to think with his head and not his heart. It was a quality she found commendable in situations like this.

After Bronse had consulted with Justice, he drifted back down the line again and walked beside Ravenna. They broke through the brush, and he occasionally took her hand to help her over a rock or a fallen tree, but he kept his attention and his rifle trained before him. Everyone was silent as they moved toward the pasture that they were looking for.

They broke into it all of a sudden. It was not flat—it was rough and littered with fallen trees—but it was just big enough to suit Bronse‟s needs.

“That‟s going to be one tight squeeze,” Lasher mused as he surveyed the area.

“And a bumpy landing,” Ender remarked.

“But both are doable,” Justice said confidently, whipping out her remote pilot pad and seating herself on a boulder at the edge of the glade.

“Okay, Lasher, Ender, cut a perimeter around the glade twice. I don‟t want any surprises today.”

“No more dances with Hutha lions?”

“Exactly,” Bronse said grimly. “Domino, Kith, take these.” He held out two pistols to them. “Do not fire unless you‟re staring an enemy in the eye. You got me?”

“What, no guns for the girls?” Justice asked with a smirk. But what looked like chauvinism to her was just keen thinking to him. Rave and the females under her care would not resort to violence if it could be avoided, and if someone came up on them, it would no longer be a matter of avoidance. Despite Rave‟s statements of confidence, he didn‟t see that she had it in her to do what was necessary. These females had been raised with a different sort of deference than Justice had been.

Bronse saw Kith‟s surprise that he had been handed a loaded weapon and trusted to use it. Kith
should
look that way. Given a decent choice, Bronse would have done neither. But he needed to reconnoiter behind them and see how close the enemy was, how many there were, and if he could learn their intentions. So, leaving Justice to maintain order until Lasher and Ender returned from scouting out the perimeter, he moved to backtrack their progress.

“Wait.” Ravenna made the command softly, but there was power in her grip as she clasped Bronse‟s biceps and pulled him to a halt. “I know you do not have to answer to me, but I would feel better if you told me where you were going.”

He hesitated long enough to give the request serious thought. She was as much a part of this mission as any of them now. But he couldn‟t escape the urge he had to protect her from the starker truths of their situation.

“Bronse, I have a family at stake here,” she reminded him.

“Of course. You‟re right. I‟m sorry. I‟m scouting back to see how far behind us our pursuit is.”

“Alone?”

“One man traveling fast and silent. Trust me, this is my job. I‟ll go out only as far as I need to and will be back before the ship lands. I need to reassure myself that they are far enough behind and that we‟re protected long enough.”

“Okay. I understand. I‟m sorry to sound as though I‟m questioning you.”

“It‟s okay.” He smiled, giving her cheek a sweep with a single finger. “Stay with the girls. I‟ll be right back.”

Ravenna reached up suddenly, flinging herself against him as she wrapped her left hand around his neck and laid her right on his heart. She dragged him down for a deep, desperate kiss that she refused to relinquish until she was satisfied. She stepped back at last, wiping her finger over her moist lips and meeting his eyes. She saw him narrowing his thoughtful periwinkle gaze on her, and she flushed.

“We‟re going to talk about that later,” he chided her. He turned and ran into the woodlands.

Feeling at ease, despite his warning, Ravenna returned to the others.

Bronse gritted his teeth at what he saw. The enemy was much closer than comfort would allow. He should have sent Ender to recon, but he was the faster runner. Ender would have strung out some nice tricks for this bunch to run into. And it was a bunch. Fifty strong and far too well armed for mere Nomaads in a backwater world. Ravenna had seen them loud and clear in her sleeping vision. Bronse could also tell that their rambunctious attitude was that of soldiers who had had a recent victory, and a lot of fun pulling it off. Their morale was sky-high.

The village.

He couldn‟t let himself worry about the villagers. Hopefully the warned servants had been able to get some villagers to safety, but he doubted it would have been very many. There was nothing his crew could have done to help them. They would all be prisoners by now, or worse if they had tried to defend the indefensible.

Bronse slunk out of range of contact and then ran light and silent back to the makeshift landing field.

“Justice, we‟re out of time!” he shouted as he ran into the glen.

“Two minutes tops, Commander.”

“Make it thirty seconds. The minute they hear the ship fly overhead, they‟ll be after us.”

“Coming in now, sir.”

They could hear the scream of the ship‟s engines as she brought it in fast and heavy.

Bronse and the men pulled the kids to their feet and corralled them together. Ender and Lasher kept their eyes on the forest where Bronse had come from.

Justice landed the ship in the bracken with a loud and awkward thunk. They didn‟t wait for Jet to open the bay doors before they went running for it. Bronse hauled Ophelia off her feet, and Lasher grabbed Devan, tossing the girls aboard before the ramp had even touched down.

They all raced on board, and Justice threw herself into her seat. The ramp was closing when the whine of laser fire could be heard. Bronse shoved everyone deeper into the ship.

“Now, Justice, now!”

She yanked and banked so hard that the gravity plating couldn‟t compensate, and they all went flying over the deck, save Bronse, who grabbed onto his seat.

Then they were up and away.

Bronse threw himself into his seat, gripping the armrests tightly and staring hard at the forward screen until they were safely out of the atmosphere. With no sign of any kind of pursuit, he finally exhaled and sat back, taking the time to visually check on the passengers. The lot of them had picked themselves up and were huddled together, clinging to one another the way only family would do. In the center of it all was Ravenna, and all of her attention was fixed on his face as she held her flock close.

“All right, we‟re safe now,” she said softly to them.

It was like casting a spell to animate them. As she touched a hand of comfort to each of them, they began to draw away from her, their confidence in her statement quite the thing to behold. Ravenna had grown up just as sheltered as they had, but she didn‟t look the least bit frightened of the things she was seeing and doing. Quite the opposite, in fact. She looked strong and secure and very much like a true leader.

Bronse stood up and walked over to her, helping Devan to her feet as he did so. He then stood barely a foot away from Rave and found himself staring into her rich topaz eyes. He suddenly reached out to ring her neck with one hand, and then he pulled her up to the hard fall of his mouth against hers. He kissed her as if he had nothing else to worry about, as if it wasn‟t highly inappropriate behavior for the commander of the crew, and as if he was not interested in stopping. Finally he broke away for a breath.

“You‟re right,” he said fiercely. “You‟re safe now.”

The promise made in that single statement was clear. She was safe, and as long as he was alive in this universe, she was going to stay that way. He would see to it personally, no matter what.

It was so strange to think he‟d known her for barely a day. And yet she‟d had such a tremendous impact on him. On everything. He had no idea what the future held for any of them, but he did know that he was not going to let her go.

“Justice, stay at the stick,” Bronse instructed. “You‟re not to leave that seat unless something blows you out of it. Ender, find these kids some quarters. It‟s going to be a while before we get anywhere, and I want them out from underfoot. Lasher, you and I have to start talking about what our reports will say.”

Lasher gave him the same grim nod that the others did. He took up a position at Bronse‟s elbow and watched as Ender herded the Chosen Ones deeper into the ship.

“You know there are only six cabins on this thing,” said Lasher.

“It‟ll be tight, but it‟ll be enough,” said Bronse. “Surely the crew won‟t mind sharing their quarters.”

“Some of us less than others,” Masin said with a smirk. Sitting with her back to them, Justice muffled a snort of laughter, but not well enough.

“Can we talk about the mission, please?” Bronse said sternly. He shifted with discomfort in his chair. It wasn‟t that he minded being the butt of the occasional joke, but he was feeling bad enough that it was over his own questionable behavior. He wished he could somehow excuse it or explain it, but the truth was that he was just as baffled by it as his crew was.

“As I see it, the mission is over,” Lasher said. “It‟s what will happen when we go in for debriefing that I‟m sweating.”

“Me too,” Bronse said honestly. “I have to confess I‟m at a loss here. We clearly know who we can‟t trust; we know he isn‟t afraid to be blatant in his attempts to get rid of me; and we know that as soon as we check in and debrief, he has the power to send us right back out, again and again, until we finally come up dead or die later from sheer exhaustion.” Bronse rubbed wearily at his eyes. “To compound the problem, I have to figure out what to do about Rave and the others. She‟s actually talking about letting them be turned over to IM, but until I know that the corruption we‟ve seen begins and ends with JuJuren, I‟m really leery about the idea. She doesn‟t understand … anything.”

“First of all, you can‟t get paranoid just because someone‟s out to get you,” Lasher advised, speaking lightly but making it clear how seriously he was actually taking it. “Caution is warranted, but you‟ve made your life in the IM just as I have. This is a good outfit. A strong one.

One corrupt bastard is not going to ruin it for me, and the same should go for you.”

“I just wish I knew what the hell it is that I know or did to earn JuJuren‟s sweet attentions. It would help me make some sense out of this, and I really need it to make sense.”

“Men like JuJuren don‟t have to make sense. They just have to be stopped. Why don‟t you focus on that?”

Bronse tapped his fingers on the armrest of his chair, drumming them steadily as he thought. “I think I have an idea. But I‟m going to need a crew briefing before I take any action.

We do this like we do everything, as a whole. As a team. I‟m not going to stretch our necks any further until we agree on a game plan.”

“Fine. We‟ll brief in twenty minutes. I‟ll let Jet and Ender know. As to the problem of our Chosen Ones, let‟s start with them getting physicals and inoculations, so wherever they end up going, they don‟t drop dead of the Tarian flu or something like that.”

“Good idea.” Bronse frowned. “Twenty minutes,” he said. “Right here. I don‟t want Justice out of that chair.”

“Feeling antsy?” Lasher queried, his tone flat serious.

“I don‟t think I‟ll stop feeling antsy until I get this all set straight.”

Ravenna waited until Ender left to go to his meeting with the others, then she called her Chosen Ones around her, bringing the boys and the girls together in one of the cabins they‟d been assigned to. There weren‟t enough bunks for them, even with them split by sex between this and another cabin, but that was the least of her worries for the moment. Right now, she had to make some hard choices, and needed all of the Chosen Ones on the same page that she was on.

“I‟ve been forced to think very quickly about what we should do from here,” she began, walking a winding path among them as she spoke. “I know I can see the future, but even I can‟t predict the long-term outcomes of the choices we are going to be making. So I have to do what I feel is best for us all. But I have never made a unilateral decision for you unless I was absolutely forced to, so I need to talk to you all about this.”

“What are you thinking, Rave?” Domino asked, as blunt as he always was. “And don‟t coddle us.”

Ravenna looked at young Devan and Ophelia and wished she could coddle them. They were too young to be making such dramatic choices in their lives. They ought to have been cherished and protected from this until they were ready.