ToxicHaven (6 page)

Her nipples were already hard, tightly pebbled due to exposure to the sudden cold interior of the hold. Josias massaged them, tweaked her nipples then sucked them until she thought she’d burst.

Isan pushed her down until he filled her completely.
Oh, damn this mask.
She tried to tug at it, but Josias must have noticed and stopped her. All she could do was tug at his tights until his cock sprang free. Taking it into her hand, she stroked the smooth, hot skin, ran her fingers along the throbbing veins and rubbed the sweet-spot just beneath his sack.

Isan had her hips in a tight grip, moving her easily up and down. Assisting him in the movement, she pulled the skin back and forth of Josias’ cock in the same tempo.

Once again, she couldn’t speak, couldn’t utter her desire, her wanton lust, due to the mask covering her face. It was frustrating, but at the same time, their escape and where they were heightened her libido to the impossible.

Isan began to shudder. Haven sat down hard, not wanting him to come just yet. When she felt Josias nearing ejaculation, she stopped and squeezed his cock hard at the base.

But it only lasted a while longer. Their adrenaline was running at high speed from their dangerous escape. She sighed when Isan shuddered and exploded inside her. At almost the same time, Josias came. She quickly pointed his cock to the side so his cum spurted to the deck.

Gently, Isan pulled her tights up then wriggled his own back up to his waist. Josias fondled her breasts one more time before pulling her tunic down and sitting next to them. He groped for her hand and squeezed it tightly.

It didn’t matter that they couldn’t audibly proclaim their love. Their touch spoke a million words. She squeezed his hand and stroked Isan’s leg, then rested her head against his chest.

Josias turned off his flashlight. The first leg of their escape was behind them and she’d had wild sex, of all places in the hold of a slagship accompanied by stinking slag, she was suddenly utterly exhausted. Though the engines were loud enough to deafen someone, she drifted off.

Chapter Five

Haven awoke with a start, totally disoriented. What the hell was on her face? She reached up, intending to pull it off. A hand stopped her. Oh, right. She was in a cargo hold with two hunks and a pile of stinking shit. Eh, well, slag. But it smelled like shit. Lifting the oxygen mask for a second, she asked, “How long?”

“You’ve slept for twelve hours, doll,” Josias told her.

“Good God. I never sleep that long. I can’t believe I slept through that racket. So, twenty-four hours to go.”

Isan quickly pushed her mask back in place, but for just an instant she felt his lips on her forehead. Josias still clasped her hand and squeezed it every now then. Not being able to talk was a nuisance, but probably a good thing. Shouting above the noise of the engines would be hard on the vocal cords. Sitting quietly gave her time to think. Everything had happened so fast, it hardly seemed real—her transfer to her new room, meeting not one, but two bonding mates, and finally, their escape. Now, she was on her way to a new planet, a new life, and a very vague future.

As long as that future was with her two men, she’d be happy, no matter where she was. Her two men? Was it true what she’d read about, heard, love at first sight? Or were her feelings for the two men just primal lust? Desire? She’d really lucked out. It was like winning the lottery to have one handsome, well-built, bonding mate. She’d ended up with two. Was it luck or fate? Each time one of them touched her, she felt a stirring in her heart, her soul. How could she have developed feelings for them so quickly?

What awaited them on Anat? Turning her thoughts to a different subject, she recalled the pictures she’d seen of the planet—warm days, but very cold nights. The settlers, a colony of less than two thousand people, were forced to grow their crops in specially designed greenhouses as the produce would freeze at night.. No one wanted to live on Anat and only those with the worst credentials were sent there.

They’d started with a colony of a hundred and were slowly growing, even though quite a few had died, probably due to the slag. Many of the settlers didn’t realize what caused their diseases. They thought it was inherited from the Earth days or perhaps some alien bug they weren’t adapted to fighting. She wondered if any of the people on Anat were aware that it was the slag causing their problems. She tried to remember the origin of the ships she’d destroyed, but couldn’t recall any coming in without clearance from Anat.

How would the colonists receive them? Would they be willing to help? Would they give them clothing and supplies? The questions roiled through her mind until she went brain-dead. There was too much to think about. It was better to concentrate on nicer things, her childhood.

When they’d migrated from Earth, her father had chosen the planet Brinta, a beautiful planet with a temperate climate. Lovingly, she recalled the white pony her parents gave her on her sixth birthday. Within days, she was riding on her own all over their huge farm. She smiled at the recollection. She’d treasure her childhood memories forever.

It had taken her a long time to accept her separation from her family. Her mother was pregnant when she’d left. She wondered if she had a brother or sister out there somewhere. Determining to try and find out one day, she felt her eyelids droop again.

She thought about the parents she’d lost, her mother whom she resembled. After she was chosen for the program, she hadn’t seen either of her parents again. It was a rule. The chosen had no contact with family members until they were eighteen. When she was thirteen and inquired about her parents, they told her they’d died some years ago of a strange affliction.
Probably induced by the damn slag
, she thought bitterly.

Between dozing and thought, time passed, albeit slowly. Every now and then, one of the men looked at their timepieces using their flashlight.

“We should arrive pretty soon,” Josias said. “Good thing, too. Our tanks are near empty. It won’t be pleasant getting dumped with the slag. Be prepared to be somewhat buried,” he warned.

Isan removed his mask for a minute. “We need to move into different positions so that we fall apart. Just in case one of us is buried too deep,” he suggested.

“I agree.”

“How much of a drop do you think there will be?” Haven asked.

“I’ve never been dumped before, and neither has Isan. I don’t know,” Josias said and chuckled.

“What about the tanks?” she asked.

“They’ll just get dumped with us, but unless we can get oxygen on the planet, they’ll be useless. We have about half an hour of oxygen left,” Isan said. “We’d best get into position.”

“Is there no way to get to the back of the slag? Then at least we’d fall on top of the stuff instead of get buried by it,” Haven wondered.

“We can’t chance using that door and the walkway. It’s possibly the only one. There might not be another door further down. As you can see,” he shone his flashlight at the pile of slag. “It’s piled to the sides and to the ceiling. There’s also a thick steel automated panel the full width and height of this hold that pushes the slag out. I don’t relish getting squashed by it.”

“It was a thought. There has to be at least ten ton of it. What if they dump it all on one big heap?”

Isan answered her. “I’ve seen how they dump it. They fly very slowly and it dumps gradually over a very large area.”

A grating sound joined the loud humming of the engines and the cargo door sluggishly slid open. Haven was relieved to see a strip of light appear that slowly widened until the door was gone from sight. She was glad they’d arrived during daylight hours and not at night.

Taking off his oxygen mask, Josias warned them. “As soon as you start to slide down with the slag and you start falling, swing your body away as fast and far as you can. That’ll help to land near the outer edges of the dump rather than in the center. Haven, get closer to Isan or me, please?”

“Holy smokes, that’s a hell of a drop,” Haven shouted as she peered over the edge.

“Probably about thirty feet. I hope we make it without breaking any bones,” Isan shouted back. “Get ready. I hear the engines changing their tune so it’ll move pretty soon.”

He’d no sooner finished speaking when the slag behind them moved. Haven leaned sideways as much as she could. The door was like a giant fat slide. Isan, beside her, didn’t even make it down to the bottom as the stinking material pushed them outward. He slipped off the side almost right away. Haven took a deep breath and hoped he’d be okay. She slid to the bottom fast. Her heart thundered as she flung her body sideways as soon as she encountered emptiness. The air swooshed through her lungs as she tumbled toward the ground. She tried to straighten her body but it was hard as she gathered speed.

When she hit the ground, her breath was knocked out of her. She gagged and groaned, then gasped for air. The air whistled from her lungs until she could steady herself and take a breath. She’d fallen just to the side of the slag. Some of it had broken her fall. Gingerly, she got to her feet, shook her arms and stomped her feet. Everything seemed to be intact. No broken bones. Frantically, she looked around for Josias and Isan.

A short distance away, a hand appeared from beneath the slag. She rushed over and dropped to her knees, digging. It was Josias. He gasped and spat grey sludge from his mouth when she brushed the filthy material from his face. “That was some fall. Where’s Isan?” he asked after digging himself out and getting his breath back.

“I don’t know. He fell before me, right after the door descended, so his fall was much higher than ours.”

“Oh, my God! I hope he isn’t buried under that enormous pile.” Josias nodded toward the stinking mound.

They rushed to the mountain of slag and were about to start digging when they heard a shout to the left. Following Isan’s voice, they scrambled in that direction.

“Look, a lake,” Haven said. “It’s got some kind of crude wooden walkway built over it that leads to the slag pile. There’s wooden stairs down to the community at the foot of it.” 

They reached what looked like a cliff’s edge. The water was about three feet below the flat rock surface they had stopped on. They saw Isan swimming toward shore. He tried to climb onto the edge but kept sliding back into the water. Haven and Josias hurried to him, lay flat on their stomachs and pulled him out.

“That water’s like ice,” he said, shivering, his skin a bluish tint.

“Probably runoff from the snow on the mountains. We’d better start crossing that bridge over to the other side. Looks like that’s the only way to get to civilization. You going to be okay until we get there?” she asked Isan.

Isan looked dubious. “Yeah, I’ll be fine. Let’s get going. By the way, that water is salty as hell. Couldn’t be from the mountains, unless there’s a sea up there.”

“It must connect to an ocean somewhere,” Haven said, observing Isan. His teeth chattered and she knew he was freezing cold, but there was no way they could help him. They had no extra clothing, no warm soup, no blankets. Every few minutes, they stopped and sandwiched him between their bodies to give him some warmth. It was all they could do and it helped a bit, but also caused Haven and Josias to get wet and cold, though Haven warmed up fast again thanks to her body temp control enhancement. For the first time in her life, she was glad she had all her special abilities.

On the bridge, they had to tread with caution. Several planks were rotten. Haven wondered if the settlers even used the makeshift bridge to get to the slag dumps. “Maybe they don’t use the slag,” she commented while avoiding two broken planks. “There seems to be an awful lot of it.”

“You could be right. How could they move the material across this? It would collapse in seconds,” Josias said.

Haven glanced worriedly at Isan. His skin was blue. The cold didn’t bother her that much. One of her enhancements controlled her body temperature. Obviously, the men didn’t have that one. If they didn’t get Isan indoors soon, hypothermia would set in.

At one point, the supports that held the walkway creaked suspiciously. They hurried as fast as they could.

Once they raced down the rickety stairs, they stood on rough ground. Haven scanned their surroundings. The land was sparsely vegetated. There was a scattering of trees, their roots exposed above ground and the branches reaching down to the soil like an umbrella. Alien vegetation had never ceased to fascinate her. The settlement wasn’t too far away. They hurried across the almost barren land toward the houses. To the side of the settlement, she saw several large greenhouses. She pointed at them. “That answers one question.”

They headed for the first house that looked as if it was built by a mud-smith. The bricks were of crushed rock and clay. It didn’t surprise her. The planet’s soil was as hard as rock. Glancing at the other houses, she noticed they were all similar. They all had thatched roofs and smoke spiraled from mud-brick chimneys. She wondered where they found the materials and where they lived while they were building their homes.

When they’d reached the first house, Josias banged on the wooden door several times. It opened, finally. A man in his late forties greeted them, his face displaying surprise.

“Visitors! We haven’t had any visitors on Anat since I was a child! Welcome, strangers. Come in!”

He spoke with an accent. A woman sat at a crude wooden table. The man spoke to her in French. Haven understood, but didn’t let on. He turned back to his visitors. “I’m sorry for speaking in my native language. I asked my wife to make soup for you. You must be cold. Please, come close to the fire. My name is Pierre Blanchet, my wife’s is Danielle.” He held his hand out to Josias, then to Isan and Haven and they introduced themselves.

“I wonder if you have dry clothing we can borrow? Isan fell in the lake and the walk across the bridge was long. He is very cold,” Haven told Pierre.

“You walked on that bridge? It’s very dangerous.”

“We noticed,” Josias said.

Pierre took Isan under his wing. “I will help Isan and fetch clothing for you. Please, sit near the fire.”