Audacity (Warner's World Book 5) (6 page)

Kali raced over to him and leapt at him from several paces. He had to drop his gear in order to catch her. She planted a big kiss on his lips. He kissed her back on the lips but knew that this was not the place to do what he really wanted. He lowered her feet to the floor. “Now that’s what I call a welcome” he said.

She pecked at his cheek one more time. “You ain’t seen nothing yet!” she exclaimed. Their antics were attracting some attention from the others trying to exit the hangar space. “Come on. I’ve got a room” she whispered in his ear.

Buster laughed. “You don’t waste time do you?”

“Is the iron hot?” she asked cheekily.

“Could be. Lead the way Kali. I’m all yours.”

“Not so quick” called out WO2 Emilio Shavez who had arrived late but just in time to collar his former team mate. “The OC (Officer Commanding) wants a word with you Buster.” Emilio moved a step closer and gave Buster a solid pat on the back.  “Welcome back mate. Come on there will be plenty of time for what you have on your mind later tonight. Right now, though you love birds are going to have to hold your fire.”

Kali gave Emilio a filthy look.

Buster put out his arms, palms up, as if to say ‘what can I do?’ Kali was deflated. “What’s your room number?” he asked Kali.

Kali perked up. “Twenty nine.”

“I won’t be long.”

“You better not be. I’m hungry enough as it is” and she gave him a wink.

The flight marshal ushered them out the hangar doors, where Emilio led Buster to the right and Kali went left. After a few paces she turned to look back and caught sight of Buster also looking back to her. “Twenty nine” she called out.

“Twenty nine” he replied with a smile.

Two hours later Buster tossed his kit in his cabin on C deck, which held the living quarters for the senior non-commissioned officers (SNCOs). It was his old cabin and it brought back a sense of familiarity even if it had only been four months ago that the ship was commissioned.

It took him fifteen minutes to stow his gear. He was keen to finish. He had other things on his mind. He made his way down to D deck where the other ranks (ORs) were housed.

He didn’t need to read the room numbers to know where room 29 was. Kali was standing in the doorway in her tank top and a pair of tight shorts that were definitely not regulation issue. She was leaning with her back against the door jam. Her left knee was bent and foot raised and pressed against the door jam. Her face lit up as she caught sight of him. She lowered her left foot to the floor as he approached her. She cast an eye over his uniform. “This official?” she asked.

He shook his head and smiled. She waved him in. He did as he was bid. The door shut behind him. He turned and asked “where’s your roommate?”

“Unavoidably detained” answered Kali.

“That’s convenient” commented Buster with a smile.

“It is, isn’t it?” Kali pulled off her tank top and threw it against the wall. Her honey brown breasts were barely contained by the bra.

Buster began undoing his buttons on his shirt but his eyes were focussed squarely ahead of him.

Kali smiled and shook her head and then took a pace towards him. “You were a lot quicker last time” she teased as she pulled up his shirt over his head.

“If I remember correctly neither of us got this far” and he took her in his arms. Their eyes locked and Buster felt this surge of desire. He kissed her on the lips. Her lips opened immediately and her tongue beckoned his in. He came up for air and once again their eyes locked.

Kali felt him undoing her bra while she wrestled with his trousers. She beat him hands down and when his trousers dropped around his ankles, she smiled at him gently. “Let me” she said and she had it off in no time. As her breasts were liberated she registered his excitement and licked her lips.

He cupped her right breast and she kissed him pushing her tongue into his mouth. She withdrew from the kiss and pulled on his underpants.

“Wait” he said and sat down on the end of the bed and began taking off his boots.

Kali began laughing lightly. “There’s a sight you don’t see every day.” She dropped her shorts and nickers in the one motion.

“And there’s another” he came back. With a degree of effort he managed to heave off the final boot. As he did so, she pushed his shoulders back and he fell willingly back onto the bed.

She mounted him and leaned over allowing her breasts to rub against his chest. She could tell from his eyes that he was really enjoying it. She leant a little further forward and rubbed her nipples over his eyes. She heard him sigh and then felt his hands grasp her buttocks. She found herself smiling so hard. She was overwhelmed by the feeling of joy in giving joy to her lover. She raised her hips a little and then came down for the piece de resistance.

Chapter 11. Resolute over Chelora 0145, 2 August

Emilio woke with a start. He may have been dreaming but he knew that the scream he just heard was not part of it, or the thump on the wall. He gathered his thoughts. ‘Buster’ he announced to himself, for on the other side of the adjoining wall was Buster’s cabin.

Emilio stayed dead quiet like he would out on a night ambush. He steadied his own breathing and craned to hear. But he heard no further noise. He thought about knocking on Buster’s door but in the end decided not to. He lay back down and sleep claimed him.

Chapter 12. Maelstrom over Chelora 0930, 3 August

The renaming ceremony had just finished and the IRS Mailon was now the FFS Maelstrom. Rihan was still in command, at least for the next week till the new commander arrived. She was escorting the Admiral around and introducing him to the ship’s crew when her watch officer hailed.

“Maam we have a message in from the Phantom. I think you need to see this straight away.”

“Right. I’m coming.” Rihan excused herself and a few minutes later was reading the message sent over a day ago from deep within rogan space. They were not expecting any comms. The protocol was supposed to be zero emissions.

She read the report of the gravitational anomaly with some curiosity but this turned to alarm with the assessment about a PME device. Unlike Aubrey, Rihan knew only too well the history around the PME project. It had been the case study on ethics in her final year at the academy. The more she read the more questions she had. One thing was for sure, if it was a PME device then they were looking down the barrel of a new terror.

“How long before they finish installing the rogan comms on the Kiev?” she asked her comms officer.

“Another day Maam.”

“All right I’ll grab the Admiral while he’s here.” Rihan caught up with the Admiral on F deck where his big fame looked decidedly cramped navigating the engineering facility. “Sir you need to see this.”

Phil nodded. “Well thanks lieutenant that was most informative” he said to the rogan engineering officer. Phil sighed with relief once he got back into the larger hallway. “Thank you” he said to Rihan “I’m not built for that space that’s for sure. So what have you got for me.”

Rihan briefed him as they made their way back up to A deck. Phil was grateful to sit down in a chair in the command centre. He read the message himself and sat back pondering. Rihan waited patiently while he pontificated.

“There could be another explanation” he said finally. He looked into Rihan’s eyes and felt like she was slicing and dicing through his last statement. “You don’t buy it do you?” Rihan shook her head. “It’s hard enough preventing our leaders launching retaliatory nuclear strikes without this” added Phil. “I was counting on that four month reprieve. Once the chief minister hears about this she will demand we launch those strikes now.”

“The Council will wait for news from Aubrey’s mission. I’m sure of it.”

“I’m not. In any event her mission was always a long shot. The short run is the liberation of the sleth home worlds. That shows real progress with a much higher probability of success. If we can succeed there I’m sure I can get the Council to pull that directive. But I need those four months Rihan.”

“What, are you just going to ignore this?”

“No. We need to check it out and pronto. And until we can confirm it we’ll hold off bothering the Council about it.” Phil looked to see Rihan’s expression which said “really?” Phil shrugged his shoulders. “Well it works for me. We need to buy time. Now who can we get to check out this anomaly?” Phil looked directly at Rihan.

“We both know there’s only one ship here with a drive fast enough to go that far into rogan space and report back in a reasonable time and has a stealth capability to remain undetected.”

“Yes and I’ve committed it to a high priority recce.” Phil pondered. “We could send your ship.”

“The Mailon…” stated Rihan.

“The Maelstrom, Commander” interjected Phil.

“Yes the Maelstrom. It could get there in time but would be vulnerable without escorts. No stealth, a crew of questionable allegiance and no escorts to enforce that allegiance or protect the ship from hostile intent. Not a good choice Sir. Besides, you promised.”

“Yeah, yeah I know” said a frustrated Phil. “Why is everything so dammed difficult?”

“I’m sorry” said Rihan with a shrug of her shoulders. “So what do you plan to do?”

“Delay the recon, what else?”

Rihan nodded.

Chapter 13. Kiev over Chelora 1315, 3 August

“So what do you think?” asked Chief Lisa Oxmore, the senior comms technician aboard the carrier Kiev. But the rogan she was asking wasn’t paying attention. Sgt Peena Kraal, a comms technician from what used to be the Mailon, was staring away, his mind obviously elsewhere. “Kraal” Lisa called louder.

It had the desired effect, snapping Kraal out of his train of thought. He turned to focus on the diagram on the screen in front of Lisa. “Yes that will work” he replied.

Lisa gave him an annoyed look and a slight shake of her head but Kraal ignored it. He was playing for time anyway. This could take another week for all he was concerned. What mattered to him was getting the opportunity to send a signal to his controller at the Internal Security Service (ISS). They had to know that Imperial Admiral (IAdm) Meeka Sallusam had deserted his command and murdered his chief of staff in the process. They also had to know that a Federation Fleet was massing over Chelora.

‘But how to get out that signal?’ thought Peena. So far he had been under constant supervision during this upgrade to the Kiev’s communications that would allow it to send and receive comms using the rogan advanced comms technology. The main benefit of this was the ability to communicate while in warp.

Peena was a veteran agent of the ISS. He had been in deep undercover embedded in Sallusam’s staff where he could keep a close eye on him. Sallusam’s political ambitions were well known and that alone marked him for close scrutiny. Now he could add to that Sallusam’s incompetence, cowardice and treachery. These had to be reported and soon.

Peena counted himself lucky to be still alive. In some small part he owed the Imperial Admiral his life for only his departure brought about the surrender of the Mailon. He also took advantage of siding with the turncoats after Cmdr Draag and then that traitor Captain Mutas lured them to side with the enemy. He was now not quite trusted by the humans but at least tagged as a possible ally. It had worked well so far. He was now on their flagship and if only he got the chance he would get his signal away.

“OK Peena I’ve set the terminal emulator here” advised Lisa. “I’m going next door to hook it up. When I tell you, activate the switch. OK?”

Peena’s face was a study in nondescript. He nodded.

“Good. But wait till I call right?”

Again Peena nodded. As soon as she had left the room, he withdrew the transparent card from the lining of his sleeve, inserted it into the pass key slot, selected the right file from the display which now fired up and hit send. It was gone in a flash. He withdrew his card and powered down. A satisfied smile appeared on his face.

“All right now Peena” called out Lisa from the other side of the wall.

“Of course” replied Peena.

In the Kiev’s command centre the watch officer was alerted to an unauthorised transmission. He examined the log, identified the source of the transmission, noted the narrow band focussed broadcast vector and then realised it was from the new rogan comms terminal. “Probably just a test” he said to himself out loud. ‘Best check though’ he thought.

He hailed the comms officer 1
^st
Lt Ruby Bornstein. “Ruby did you just run a test transmission?”

The ruffled brunette extracted herself from out of the hardware chassis, so she could reply. “Not yet we haven’t” she replied.

“Well your new toy just sent out a transmission. I got alerted and the log here says so.”

“Really?” Ruby was perplexed. “We haven’t even activated the system fully. I can’t see how it could have been this system. Double check.”

“Already done that.”

Ruby’s brain was working overtime now trying to solve the puzzle. “How big is the data package?” she asked.

“Very small. There’s no copy kept on the automatic backup.”

“There wouldn’t be. We haven’t configured that yet. Do we have a destination vector?”

“Yep and you’re not going to like it. It’s into rogan space.”

“Yeah but it could be a diagnostic that fired once we made a connection here. I wouldn’t worry about it.”

“Should we alert the Captain?”

“Nah, just log it as a diagnostic glitch and leave it at that.”

“If you say so.”

“I do.”

Chapter 14. Resolute over Chelora 0200 4 August

Buster’s body was in his bed in his cabin on C deck but his subconscious was back in Assam on Beta Phi. He was racing into the outer office of the Interstellar Business Manager of the Grist and Morgan Trading Bank. He ran into the back of Jade Moon, the Alliance agent, her pistol in her left hand directly over the shattered face of Bane’s henchman McShane.

And then it happened, the loud explosion of Bane’s grenade, thrown from the adjoining office. Jade’s body reeling from the blast forced him back and down. He felt the searing pain as the shrapnel ripped into his thigh. That was when he screamed. That was when he slammed his right arm into the wall desperate to halt his fall.