Learning to Blush (39 page)

His grunts became louder until he actually gasped and cried out, shooting liquid heat deep into her womb. After a long moment, she felt him crawl over her to rest his sweaty forehead against the back of her neck. He kissed her shoulder and panted, “I love you.”

“You no longer seem quite as ready for battle as you did earlier,” she commented teasingly with a giggle in her throat.

He flopped wearily to the side of her and curled her into his arms, resting his giant hand across her bottom. “This bottom drove me crazy. It's going to be the end of me one of these days.”

She blushed. “You have a strange obsession with my bottom. I don't think it's healthy.”

“Me neither,” he agreed, and then grinned down at her. “It can't be helped, though. It's too perfect.”

“You said it looked good even when it was botchy and bruised,” she reminded, craning her head back.

“I like it when it's a little blotchy and bruised. I'd like it better if I was the one that got it that way last time,” he grumbled. He gave her bottom a gentle, yet strangely loud, smack and then hoisted himself off the bed. “Reminds me that there're still Frians and scum out there that need some killing done…”

Suddenly, she felt a twisting sense of dread settle in her stomach. She felt cold, and empty. She didn't know what it was, or what caused it. But the idea of Thorton walking out the door and leaving her filled her with dread—she felt like her safety net was abandoning her. She watched him splash water over his face, neck and head from the nearby sink.

She knew she was re-hatching an old issue, but she said, “Take me with you.” To keep from sounding too desperate, she added, “You owe me.”

Thorton looked over at her, raising an eyebrow.

“I gave you guys enough information to save Libii—a whole goddamned planet—and to prepare for this stupid battle!” she snapped.

Thorton pressed his fingers to his forehead. “And I'm very proud of you,” he hedged. “But that doesn't give you carte blanche with your safety. When I tell you over and over again that your safety is the number-one most important thing in the universe, I'm not joking. Just obey me in this one thing, please?” He turned away from the mirror and searched around for his trousers. “I don't want to argue with you right before I go out there. I'm trying to get my head in the game. This might be the last battle I ever fight.”

Her eyes widened.

He smirked as he jerked his legs through the legs of his pants. “I meant that in the best possible construction. This could be the end of the war.” He shook his head. “I can't believe it. Thousands of generations we've been fighting the Frians. It could all end
tonight
.” He gave a laugh. “It makes me wonder what I'm going to
do
afterwards.”

She shrugged, and then wondered what had happened. Wasn't she so happy two seconds ago?

A small voice in her mind told her,
'Obey, obey, obey
', while another one, a more desperate one, told her not to let him go without her. She couldn't be left behind by him. Not by Thorton. Not now.

Though she had already made arrangements with her brothers to keep her from sitting on the mothership, on her ass, waiting for word of Thorton's survival… But she hated disobeying Thorton. “I'm one of the best fliers of my brothers' ships! They designed it to drive like a car. A car run with a computer system that
I
designed.”

“And I told you over my dead body,” he reminded with a slow drawl.

“You did,” she admitted.

“And so case-closed. I said to let it alone or let it alone with a sore tail, didn't I?”

“Thorton—hear me out, I really just want to go with you. I'd just feel better… I just…” She just didn't want to get attached to someone and have him disappear. She knew that's what it was, she could almost say it… But she didn't.

Thorton pinched her chin and looked into her eyes. He seemed to feel it too, the change in her, the confusion, the desperation. Yet he chose to be so stubborn about his stupid decision of making her 'stay put'! “I'm going to be fine. I've been fighting Frians all my life.” He pinched her nose playfully. “If someone comes by in a couple days and tells you I didn't make it, they're dirty rotten liars. I wouldn't dream of dying when I have my fireflower to come back to.” He kissed her on the cheek.

She frowned. “You know, in some cultures, that sort of confidence is bad luck.”

He sighed and wrapped his arms around her waist. “I love you. I'll be back in time for breakfast.” He kissed her cheek again. She couldn't smile to wish him luck.

When they'd come back from the Frian planet two months ago, it seemed like they were healing up Jack just to put him in front of the firing squad. The admiralty was invested in making sure he got the boot, since he went against the orders of the Emperor and the majority of the admiralty (who could overrule his higher power) to go on the rescue mission.

Thorton presented Penny to the Emperor directly; he wouldn't go to the admiralty. They traveled to Swaraan to see the most powerful man in the universe face-to-face… And although Penny could tell that the emperor was a man who never smiled, and was very upset when Thorton and Penny went around security to bother him during his breakfast, he was still a very, very happy man when given that much information about the Frians—very time-sensitive information, at that!

The emperor had come back to the Mothership with them, convened the admiralty, and had fired them all—a smile still on his face.

If it wasn't for the large battle that was quickly impending, Penny might have considered the whole thing one big, happy ending. It wasn't time for peace yet—with new information, new technology on their hands, new plans, new codes, and a biological weapon to destroy, the ship had been a madhouse ever since!

That wasn't half of it. Thorton was now
Admiral
Thorton Hux—he, Graham, and even the human Peyton Jones, had been instated by the emperor himself. Thorton kept looking at himself in the mirror, startled over and over again when he saw a man in an Admiral's uniform looking back at him.

“Don't go without me,” she pleaded him softly. “I'm still getting used to having you. I don't want to lose you already.”

“You're not going to lose me,” he assured, smirking. “We have years and years of squabbling ahead of us.” He kissed her again in a light, playful way before he let her go and gave her a swat on her bottom, saying, “Behave yourself.”

“What trouble could I get into staying right where I am?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.

Thorton merely gave her a stern, 'Don't guilt me' look before he grabbed his jacket and headed out the door.

* * *

“Where do you think you're going?” Jack said, leaning on his cane and looking over at Ellie, who walked through the command center with her shades down.

Ellie spun around and shrugged, trying to pretend she was going nowhere. Graham certainly didn’t want her—his pregnant wife—fighting in any space-battle a Jonas-Warp away… But she found herself drawn to doing it, anyway. “What? I'm not going anywhere.”

“You only wear those ridiculous things if you think you're going to do something mind-bogglingly cool that you end up getting turned over a knee for later,” Jack reminded, pointing to the sunglasses over her eyes. “Besides, the sun's to the east.” He gestured towards the back of the ship.

Ellie grunted unhappily before she pushed her glasses back to the top of her head. “I don't get this level of distrust, Dad. Don't you have something better to do than rag on me? There's a war going on, you know.”

Jack smiled kindly. “Thanks for reminding me.” Suddenly he frowned again. “If you think for one, solitary moment that I won't take my belt to you for the slightest bit of foolishness, think again, Kiddo.”

“How can you threaten a pregnant woman like that, Jack? Shame on you—I'm carrying your first and only grandchild!” She put her hands on her hips and glared. When she did that, however, her family came up behind her, looking like a gang in a bad musical, every one of them wearing sunglasses on their faces.

Jack widened his eyes, looking like a man who was suddenly overwhelmed with a very bad feeling.

“What? It's bright in here. Besides, you're just being paranoid because of your pain meds,” Ellie said, immediately defending herself before any accusations could be thrown.

“I'm fine,” he said, dropping wearily onto the chair behind him. He was still looking quite spry for a man who nearly died three months ago. “Kitten—I worry about my girls, and so don't take too much offense to what I'm going to do.” He snapped his finger towards the guards behind him. “Guards—remove the girls and lock them in solitary for the rest of the evening.”

Penny's face contorted and she pushed her sunglasses to the top of her forehead. “That's bull! I didn't do anything—I just got here!” She was suddenly lugged over the hip of an ogre-like Swarii. “Damn it, Ellie! Damn it! Make this
thing
put me down.”

Ellie, as she was hoisted over another guard's shoulder, looked at her brother and exchanged a silent word with him. Jack couldn't decipher what it meant, so he went up and looked over at Michael. “Captain Jonas,” he said, using the too-young-to-be-a-captain boy's new title. Michael Jonas, recently instated by the emperor for his work on 'Jonas Warp' and leading the project in Ellie's absence, had actually became a
captain
, of all things!

He was the youngest in Swarii history, beating out only Jack's own son. “Do you have a flight you should be boarding about now?”

“Yes, Sir.” He looked at the direction Ellie and Penny were being carried off to. “Just came to say good-bye to my sister. And I meant to talk to you about the battle plans—”

“You put us in the back, Admiral,” Tom said frankly, hurt in his tone. “We're not going to see any action there.”

“I certainly hope not. Besides, the emperor can give you a title all he wants. I'm the one assigning the ships. You've got a small one for a reason. I don't want you thinking you can muscle in there. If there's trouble, I want you to hang back.”

“Do you also want us to grow a vagina while we're out there? Since you're treating us like women, anyway!” Tim cried. Jack gave Tim a glare that made him swallow and add, “…Sir.”

“Michael—in Swarii years, you're only eighteen. You'd be in boot camp if you grew up here. You're young. Tim and Tom are—”

“We've kicked so much ass, though! We don't need a damn car seat, Admiral. We're big boys. We've done a lot at our age. We're not Swarii. We're something else. We're not your average kids.”

Jack brushed his fingers wearily against his bandages, sighing. “Boys—I think you're all going to be admirals one day. But I really want you to take it slowly so you don't slip and fall on your asses. Now do your assignment or else I will put you all in solitary as well. You can spend the evening there with the girls. I don't care.”

Michael's face was turning as red as his hair. “After all we've done?”

“I like you, but I don't want to worry about you,” Jack admitted, his voice firm.

“Well, do us a favor and
stop
liking us!” Michael snapped.

“Watch your tone with me, boy. You're on thin ice!” the Admiral snapped.

Michael pursed his lips.

Tim, seeing the expression on Michael's face, slapped his hand over his face, sighing under his breath, “Solitary, here we come…”

* * *

“And then I told him to go and where he would be obliged to shove his orders once he got there!” Michael retold to his sister as they all sat in solitary while the battle was going on outside of the ship. His face contorted as he had to twine his arms around the bars to reach the door lock with Penny's hairpin. “It didn't go over very well,” he added.

“Jack belted him,” Tim added, still sounding quite shocked.

Penny gasped, but then she let out a single, loud laugh. “He didn't!”

“He
didn't
,” Michael snapped. “He looked like he was gonna, but it wasn't easy with the injury. He couldn't catch me before I got my ass out of dodge. I could have defended myself, sure. But against an older man with a stomach wound? Didn't seem very sporting.”

“Mike nearly wet his shorts,” Tom snickered. “Mike's no longer the biggest guy in the room, and I'm loving every solitary moment of it. Ha! The whole deal was priceless. It's almost worth missing the battle of the millennium while Mike fumbles with the damn door lock like he's a cat trying to figure out the doorknob.”

“You're an asshole,” Mike grumbled.

“Seriously, Bro,” Ellie grumbled. “Are you gonna open the door this century? Graham and Thorton are out there, and they need us.”

“It's not easy to do from this angle.”

“Then you should have stuck to the original plan and been on the other side of the door,” Ellie replied.

The door suddenly swung open. “Patience is a virtue, Brat,” he reminded Ellie tersely. He cracked his knuckles. “Alright, guys—down to business. Let's get fired up. Tim and Tom—you're on guns. Penny—you and me are on piloting and navigation. Freak—you're on engines,” he said as the group marched down through the holding cell to the ship docks. The hallways were as empty as a ghost town. Every man who could fight was out doing it.

“I think I'm the least 'freaky' of all of you. And they made you Captain? That is the all-time unfair,” Ellie grumbled as she followed closely behind Mike, lowering her sunglasses. “Alright—so I want this to be like an evening at Duke's. I wanna get in there—hit 'em hard, have fun, dance a little, then get home early.”

“Hey—I get to make the orders around here.” He looked over at Penny, who was chewing her fingernails. “What's wrong, Pen?”

“Nothing,” Penny sighed. “I don't know why you want me along. I like to think I could help—but Thorton…”

“Is a moron,” Mike finished. “Penny—you've been driving cars since you were five. You designed the damn system. This ship is like an extension of your body. You're a better driver than
I
am.”

“
Mr. Magoo
is a better driver than you,” Penny responded, her smile wavering. Her confidence was slowly beginning to build. It wasn't just Thorton and Graham out there. It was her brothers, Mike, and Ellie, and Penny
was
the best driver. “Thorton would just be pissed if he found out we're out there.”