11. Maddie
11
MADDIE
T hrough the viewport, I watched the Avir disappear into the distance, and didn’t cry. An achievement to be proud of, I thought, staring into the bleak vastness of space, trying to wrangle the pieces of my shattered heart together.
Gazing at the void didn’t help, so I turned away. My back pressed to the airlock’s inner door, I sank down and hugged my knees. Down the corridor, dead men toiled without rest or pause. Once, the conduit arced enough energy through a shambler to fry its hardsuit, filling the air with the stink of burned plastic. Another dragged the smoking remains aside and took its place, work continuing without pause. Impressive in a macabre way, and in my shocked state, I think I could have watched them work for hours if I’d had the chance.
Long before that, my suit comm pinged and pulled me back from the horror show. With a frown, I read the message—an alert from the Magpie, broadcast at extreme range. Someone had triggered the airlock’s emergency access, and the ship diverted power to comms to make sure I knew.
Still staring at that, I nearly jumped out of my skin as another alert appeared. Then another, and another. Each announcing a system being activated, power being rerouted to the engines. Thrusters fired harder than I’d ever dared to push them, and the connection quality improved . The Magpie was getting closer.
“What the actual fuck?” I muttered. A fair question, so I opened a channel to the Magpie’s cockpit and repeated it, louder.
“Do not worry,” Kahdrex answered, unhelpful as ever. “All part of the plan.”
I wanted to strangle him, and at the same time, his gravelly growl lit up my soul. I tried to resist, but the moment he spoke, I’d lost that battle.
Anima Numenon’s hundred-voice chorus joined us. “What are you doing, Kahdrex? Please return to your original course before I am forced to use active defensive measures.”
His snarled reply was succinct and to the point. “Go fuck yourself.”
“Ah, I see. A pity , I had hoped for better from you.”
She didn’t sound in the least concerned, but then, she was an AI. If an emotion got in the way, she’d switch it off. I wished I had that option—competing feelings pulled me in different directions, and I wanted to curl into a ball and cry.
I didn’t have time for that. Anima might not have sounded worried, but she responded with overwhelming force. Numenon’s guns opened fire, the hull creaking and shuddering under the strain. She pulled all available power to the weapons; lights dimmed and flickered, gravity rippled, the zombies working on the conduit froze, and a stink of burning plastic filled the air.
The Numenon was a shadow of the ship it had once been, but it was still a battleship. A glancing hit from any of its guns would destroy the Magpie .
Whatever Kahdrex was up to, his plan was half-assed at best, and he’d need help to pull it off. So I took a deep breath, swallowed my feelings, and stood up. On the comm channel, Kahdrex growled a litany of what had to be swearwords in a language I didn’t know. Glad to hear he was alive, I tried not to think about how long he’d stay that way.
Long enough, I promised myself, then staggered as the decking jumped under my feet. Explosions rocked the Numenon as blaster cannons, rushed into service after centuries lying dormant, overloaded. A terrible waste of Anima’s precious resources.
She had to be desperate to take that risk, which meant she’d try other desperate tactics. A clatter behind me turned my attention back to the ship and I saw what she’d try next. The shamblers working on the power conduit had dropped their tools and now turned in eerie unison to advance on me. On the comm, Anima spoke again, her chorus of voices fraying. “If you persist, I will remove the prize you seek to recover. Our deal c-can still stand if you turn back now.”
Yeah, okay, that’s another reason to fuck her up, I thought. A smile crept onto my face, despite the advancing dead men—if Anima Numenon said Kahdrex was coming to rescue me, who was I to argue? I still had to survive long enough for him to reach me, which wouldn’t be easy.
My grin spread wider. I refused to let Kahdrex be the only one with a stupid plan today.
I raised my multi-tool, switching it to cutting torch mode. The tip hissed as it heated white hot, but the two hardsuits didn’t even pause their advance. Fighting wouldn’t go well for me.
I threw the tool, sending it past them to drop into the open conduit. The superheated blade clipped through an oxygen line, and then things happened very fast.
On the scale of the Numenon , the resulting explosion was trivial. In the docking chamber, it seemed to light the air on fire. Lightning arced out, frying one hardsuit, and acrid smoke filled the air before my helmet snapped shut.
The automatic fire suppression routines kicked in, popping the airlock doors open behind me. Just as I’d planned, the sudden rush of air into vacuum flung me into space like a doll shot from a cannon, and the fire snuffed out for lack of oxygen. You’d better be doing what I think you are, Kahdrex.
My emergency beacon activated, the first time it had ever seen use. Operating alone, there’d been no point to it, and for the first time, I was glad I’d never gotten around to disconnecting it.
The Numenon filled my vision, too big to comprehend. The twisted armor plates and the burned-out holes still made it look like a wreck, but the deadly lines of light stuttering out into the void showed it was a wreck with teeth.
My heads-up display started flashing, suit sensors detecting danger. Two spaceships approached at reckless speed, the Avir aimed at the largest gap in the Numenon’s armor and accelerating hard. I looked away just before the impact, and still the flash of light nearly blinded me. Blinking away tears, I noticed that the Numenon’s guns had stopped firing. Anima, if she still functioned, had more important problems to deal with now.
And then the Magpie, decelerating toward me, turning as it came, the cargo hold open like a monstrous mouth to swallow me whole. I smiled and let it take me.
“That was stupidly dangerous,” Kahdrex said, standing over me. His glare made me shiver, the ferocity of his words setting my heart on fire. He couldn’t quite hide his smile. “You could have died.”
“Yeah,” I shot back. “Who’d take a chance like that?”
I lay, every inch of me aching and battered, on a heap of everything soft aboard the Magpie. Kahdrex had piled it all against the back wall of the cargo bay to give me a soft landing. Even with cushioning, the impact hurt, but nothing could get the grin off my face.
Kahdrex sank down into a crouch at my side, grin wide enough to match mine. Dark eyes sparkled as he looked at me with such intensity that it should have burned my suit off. I bit my lip, the thought making me tingle all over.
“ I had a plan.” Confident and poised, he reached for the fastenings of my pressure suit. I swallowed as he slid the helmet from my head and slowly ran his fingers down my cheek, my neck, to the collar of my suit.
“Your plan would have killed us both if I hadn’t— mph!” He interrupted my argument by kissing me, and it was impossible to deny that it was a better use of our mouths. He brought his hand down my body, unclipping fastenings as he went. Peeling the pressure suit off me, inch by damnable inch, the anticipation driving me wild.
One clip after another sprang open until he reached my belt and removed it. The skintight pressure suit hung open from the throat right down to my waist.
Now he gasped, looking down along my body with awe-struck eyes. He broke our kiss to whisper in my ear. “Undress, beloved.”
I half-chuckled, half-groaned, and undid the top fastening on his suit. His hands tensed on my body and a shudder ran through him. “I meant undress yourself, be— mph!”
Giggling into the kiss, I peeled his suit off, too. Not the most efficient way to undress, but I couldn’t imagine a more enjoyable one. By the time we were both naked, we ached with mutual desire. Kahdrex shivered as I teased his cock, running my fingers up and down over the bumps and ridges.
His turn to get impatient.
My turn to drive him wild.
I kissed my way down his chest, the strange texture of his skin a delight to my lips and tongue. Down, across his stomach, further, to kiss and lick at his engorged cock.
That was more than he could bear. With a roar that echoed through the cargo hold, he grabbed me and threw me back onto the tangled nest of blankets and clothes, leaving me gasping and helpless as he pounced. He had my wrists in his grip, pinned to the bedding, before I realized what was happening. His teeth caught my neck, biting hard enough to make me cry out.
His cock pressed to my damp folds and thrummed . I bucked, squirming wildly, but apparently my turn was over. I was in his power, his captured prey. I’d never wanted anything more.
Lifting his mouth from my neck, he looked at me. We were both panting, both eager—no, desperate.
“You need this,” he growled, words hitting reverberating in my chest. “Say it.”
I licked my lips, nodding. “ We need this.”
As I finished speaking, he thrust. Hard. Deep. His throbbing cock vibrated as he entered me with rough abandon, his eyes shining with passionate love as he fucked me.
The vibrations sent me over the edge again and again as he pounded me, and I wrapped myself around him, howling wordlessly. Each orgasm was more powerful than the last. Each time, I was sure I could take no more.
And each time, I was wrong. Kahdrex wrung more and more pleasure from me, the world melting around us as he filled me. My throat raw from shouting and screaming, I fell silent, burying my head in his shoulder and biting down hard.
He bit back, and the sensation sent me into the wildest orgasm yet, the world dissolving into white light. We were all that existed, all that mattered, like we’d slid out of time and space into a pocket realm of pleasure and love.
I looked him in the eyes, feeling his cock swelling inside me. Feeling him, the tension and the power of him, the need that mirrored my own.
“I need you,” I whispered, and he exploded inside me. We convulsed together and tumbled over the edge into incredible ecstasy.
Kahdrex held me, carefully and gently, as I returned to myself. The tenderness in his touch and his gaze made me tear up. How long had our stupid pride held us apart?
“What’s wrong?” His voice was gentle but firm, and he wiped a tear from my eye. “Did I hurt you?”
I shook my head. “No, silly, I’m just thinking about all the time we wasted.”
“Hm.” He frowned and gave me a gentle squeeze. I’d never felt as safe as I did in his arms, nor as loved. “Beloved, the past is the road we walked to become the people we are now. I would not change a thing, for fear I’d spoil this moment.”
“Not even the Avir?” I knew how much he’d loved his ship, but he chuckled and shook his head.
“ Avir died a hero’s death. I’ll honor her, and I’ll miss her, but not enough to risk this.”
“You may change your tune when you’ve had a look at the Magpie, ” I warned him, snuggling in close. My eyes drifted shut as I nuzzled against my mate’s chest. After the day I’d had, that didn’t surprise me. Kahdrex’s words seemed to arrive from far, far away.
“Then we will need to upgrade. I demand a ship with a bunk large enough to share, and one that isn’t haunted.”
It took me a moment, then I snorted a laugh on the very edge of sleep. Oh god, I forgot I had Halloween decorations up.