Slave World 2 - The Ties That Bind (28 page)

I stood and snatched the suit out of her hands, and everything else fell to the deck in a cluttering mess.

“How do you know? I’m alive now, Alex said so. I don’t want to die!”

“Because you’re not going to freeze to death, and you don’t need air, that’s why.”

“How do you know?”

“Damn tail,” I cursed nervously, fighting to stuff it down the constricting ass of the suit. “Look, if it will make you feel better then put one on, but you don’t need it.”

“I already told you, that’s the only suit!”

“There has to be more; enough for a full complement plus a few extras. Go look again.”

“I took everything that was in there. It’s empty, there is no more!”

She said that was everything? No way; those emergency lockers are fully stocked.

I was almost done suiting up, adding the final touches, but paused, looking about at the scattered gear at Cherise’s feet. There should have been more gear than that in the locker, a lot more, and something told me that was important, but…

“
Warning, emergency main power start sequence now in standby
.”

Five minutes to impact.

“Cherise, listen to me; you’re not going to die. Everything will be fine, trust me, all right? Just sit down in the other seat and strap yourself in.

“
Warning, emergency main power restart sequence now in standby
.”

Four minutes until impact.

I took my seat and buckled my crash harness, stopping just short of activating the suit controls. Cherise gingerly took her place beside me with a rebreather, holding the tangle of harness straps in her hands, at a loss. I didn’t have time for this; I didn’t have time for anything.

I fumbled with the straps of her harness, tying them in a series of simple knots across her torso, and slipped the rebreather over her face; it wasn’t even turned on, but it still gave her a sliver of hollow comfort.

“
Warning, emergency main power restart sequence now in standby
.”

Three minutes.

I reached up and my index and middle finger hovered over the buttons.

“Margo? I’m afraid.”

Cherise held her hand out to me, and I couldn’t help but take it.

“We’ll be fine, promise.”

She smiled back, and I pushed both the buttons simultaneously.

A harsh jolt passed through the shuttle and the lights went out. Everything died, and I was consumed in darkness. Cherise was screaming and the artificial gravity vanished. We were dead in space.

I put the rebreather to my face, and tried to stay calm, counting backwards from ten slowly. The air quickly turned chilly, having already dropped fifteen degree’s with the life support gone.

The temperature continued to drop as I counted; the sweat beading on my face began to freeze.

…3…2…1.

I hit the main power switch on the command counsel, and the emergency lighting came on. In the dim lighting I saw Cherise’s face; I had never seen such stark terror before, and just realized how painful her grip on my hand had become.

“C’mon dammit,” I whispered nervously while the ship’s computer and controls began the agonizingly slow process of rebooting.

It worked! The main lighting flickered to life and I tore my hand free of Cherise’s grip, as system after system came back on line, most entering a diagnostic stage. I went for a restart on the main drive, and the slew of warnings came in so quickly that they all blended together in one long, unbelievable nightmare.

“Warning, main drive failure. Over heating detected in the power core. Field instability of fusion coils 1, 3 and 5. Containment field breach detected; sealing engineering at this time. Power core will reach critical mass in 30 seconds.”

I’d fried the whole goddamn main drive power core by killing the power like that.

Two minutes until impact.

“Shit!”

I ejected the shuttle’s power core by pure instinct; I didn’t have a choice in the matter, unless I wanted to be the center of a 1000-kiloton fusion detonation.

“Margo, what’s wrong? Is everything okay?”

A multitude of warnings continued to fly my way amid a new proximity alarm. I didn’t bother to look at any of them; there really wasn’t much point, and I hit the acknowledge button bathing the cockpit silence. The last thing I did was turn the cockpit view screen off; I didn’t want Cherise to see it coming.

“No, nothing’s wrong, nothing at all.” Cherise smiled back at me, and took my hand again. “Don’t you worry about a thing; I’ll have us on the ground in a few minutes.” I even took the dead stick in my hand, as if I was actually flying.

“I knew you could do it, Margo! I just knew it!”

“Yeah, I guess I did.”

I barely noticed several light bumps pass through the shuttle’s hull; we must be starting to enter the upper atmosphere about now. Looks like I’m making a real habit out of dying, aren’t I? At least it will be quick and painless this time.

I couldn’t help but laugh at my own grim humor, and Cherise followed suit not understanding my reason behind it. She was so excited, talking a million miles an hour, but I wasn’t listening. The ride was starting to get rough now, while I stared straight ahead at the controls without seeing them. Thirty seconds to impact.

Something caught my eye on the navigation screen and I blinked, not really believing it. According to the artificial horizon we were maneuvering and our air speed was decreasing; 300 kilometers per hour and slowing; elevation 10,400 meters and dropping. This is impossible, the sensors I’d been ignoring indicated we had a rider; another ship attached to the top of the hull, guiding us in.

“What the…”

I activated the view screen and the cockpit was bathed in light. Cherise squeaked in surprise and covered her eyes with her hands, while the visor on my helmet went reflective. I could barely see the overhanging nose of the ship attached to the shuttle’s hull as we passed through a large bank of fluffy cotton-ball clouds that gradually revealed the tree-covered landscape below. In the distance I saw what appeared to be a small city nestled among the wooded hills with a river running close by.

“This is unbelievable, how in the world…”

“It’s pretty, isn’t it? This is where Alex was taking us! I can’t wait to land; he said we’d find friends here, others like me.”

Cherise had no idea what was going on, that we had been saved from certain death at the last possible moment by an unknown ship, piloted by what or whom? All I could see in my future was the ongoing insanity that had consumed Alex; a city full of deranged AI. Out of the frying pan and into the fire…

“Where have you taken me, Alex?”

“We’re home, Margo, that’s where! We’ll be safe now, you’ll see.”

Safe? I think I could do without that kind of safety.

Sandy followed the landing grid beacon while the lush tropical forest and scattering of multi-million credit homes passed leisurely beneath the shuttle. There was a speed limit over residential areas, especially concerning the wealthy.

She’d never seen anything like quiet like Paradise Falls before, and it stood in stark contrast to the desolate brutality of Hadean II where she’d grown up. It was seeing sights like this that reminded her why she hated the rich and over privileged; it was because of people like this that her life had taken the route it had. It reminded her why she hated her stint in Fleet, while being used as nothing more than an expendable tool to fight their wars of greedy expansionism. The old hate that had seethed beneath the surface for so long, waning recently because of James, suddenly flared back to life with a vengeance. It reminded her all over again why she hated Nathan Burke and his family.

Through random breaks in the thick tree cover she saw an old fashion, beautifully maintained eighteen-hole golf course. Just the land used to build something like that would cost millions more than a regular anti grav course that the “common” people used. Then one of the homes caught her eye – it was enormous, covering a large tract of overly landscaped terrain. Massive fountains were scattered around the grounds spraying hundreds of feet into the air and bathed in ever changing, iridescent colors from the laser lights reflecting through them. A large pool filled with nude and scantily clad people, many of them waving up at the shuttle as they passed, set her teeth to grinding. It was nothing but blatant over indulgence to the point of criminality, she thought bitterly. There were places she’d been where people would kill for a single liter of unrationed drinking water.

“It’s beautiful, James,” she breathed awe struck, while simultaneously filled with disgust.

“We have time to take a bit of a vacation. You heard the Colonel, we’ll be here for maybe a week before the ship arrives,” Wroth chimed in merrily from the seat next to her.

“I’ve ever taken a real vacation before, but what about this ship he’s getting? I missed that part of the briefing. I’m supposed to pilot it, right?”

“If you weren’t always screwing around in the Head, you would know the answer to that. What the hell were you doing in there for so long, putting on makeup or something? I was about ready to write you off as MIA.”

“I don’t wear makeup you old warthog. I had to clean my...” Sandy shut her mouth and stared straight ahead, avoiding Wroth’s inquisitive gaze. “Nothing. Forget about it, it’s personal.”

“You were cleaning your…” Wroth playfully drew the words out, trying to get her to complete the sentence.

“I had to clean my panties,” Sandy hissed under her breath looking quickly over her shoulder to see if Burke were nearby.

“Still? I know I shoot some pretty impressive loads, but damn.”

“Oh please… I’m still bleeding and it’s gotten worse. I think you must have knocked something loose the last time. You just had to hear me say it, didn’t you?”

“Never trust anything that bleeds for five days and doesn’t die, I’ve always said, but for you I’ll make an exception.”

“You have to be the most crude, chauvinistic excuse for—”

“Hey, I have an idea, how about I hook you up with a James Wroth quick-patch?”

“Okay, I’ll bite. What’s a James Wroth quick-patch?”

“Well, first I give that juicy little peach of yours a baby smooth shave, then I get some bonding tape from the maintenance locker. Slap a couple of strips between your legs, and you’re good to go. How’s that sound, no more cleaning out stained panties?”

“Banding tape and a shave? Damn, you’re warped. Would you just tell me about the ship, and stop screwing around for a change.”

“You can be such a sour puss at times, and I like mine sweet and tangy – no more tongue for you until you decide to be nice.”

Sandy took an exaggerated breath and gave James a sidelong glance, biting her lip to keep from laughing. Of course, he was grinning from ear to ear like a mentally disturbed hyena, with the hinting bulge of his hard-on in his lap. He wouldn’t be the man she was falling for otherwise.

It was hard to focus on the question at hand, while imagining him between her legs again, and she was all soaped up and wet, completely exposed, and under his gentle control. One wrong move… one slip of the hand… She’d never considered letting anyone shave such a sensitive area until now. It would be something new and exciting if nothing else, and afterwards… She could feel the heat of his breath on her inner thighs, the slow relentless flick of his tongue on her tender clit and inner lips, before it delved deep inside her.

Sandy shifted restlessly in her seat, shivering in remembrance of the last time, and the amazing orgasm that had left her shaken and breathless. The man truly was skilled in the art of oral sex, and had no qualms about a bit of blood.

“So are you going to tell me what kind of ship we’re getting?”

“A model F Infiltrator. Damned if I know how, though.”

“A what? James, that’s a Fleet naval ship! I don’t have the qualifications to pilot something like that; they’re technological nightmares in addition to being classified. If he’s gotten a hold of one it has to be illegally, and I don’t want any part of that. How did he, by the way?”

“I asked him the exact same thing, and you know what he told me?”

“What?”

“Don’t ask.”

“What kind of an answer is that? Look, I’m not going to jail for the rest of my life for him and that’s exactly what’s going to happen if we’re caught.” Sandy leaned closer in desperation, lowering her voice, taking his hand in hers. “We don’t have to do this, we can leave, Burke even said so. Let’s take the money we’ve got and cut our losses while we can, just the two of us. We can-”

Wroth’s expression could only be described as scowling disgust, as he slowly worked his hand from Sandy’s tight-fingered grip. He spoke, barely above a whisper, but the hard note of vehemence came across clear as day.

“Let me tell you something, Snake. This might come as a bit of a shock, but I’m not in this for the money. Nathan Burke has been my closest friend for a lot of years, and in our line of work that’s a hard thing to come by. I’m sure as hell not about to leave him high and dry when the going gets tough. Don’t force me into making a choice in this.”