Learning to Blush (38 page)

“Thorton…” Penny put her hand on Thorton’s arm. “I love you. But you have to trust me in this. You know how crippling that plague was the last time, and I have my own planet to save. Please help me.”

Thorton pursed his lips together and then shook his head. When he snapped his head up, though, he had his game-face on. “Let’s go. Graham, you’re coming, too. Call your father. We’re gonna need all the help we can get.”

* * *

“That’s exactly what I was talking about!” Thorton snapped as he and Graham battened down the main door to the control center. Getting in there hadn't been easy, and getting out alive was going to be a miracle. “God knows how many we have outside that door, Graham! We can’t hold the door closed forever!” He looked over at Penny, who was now typing as quickly as she could. Mike was looking over her shoulder.

“This reminds me of that scene in Jurassic Park,” Mike noted to Tim.

“Mike!” Thorton snapped, pulling heavy furniture towards the door to shove in front of it. The twins were trying to create small blockades around Penny to block her from any blaster fire. “You’re not on a break! Penny—move it! We’re about to host some pretty crazy company!”

“I’m almost there! I need more time!” Penny gritted, finding it rather difficult to concentrate with her heart beating as quickly as it was. The ruckus on the other side of the door wasn’t helping, either.

“I’m so hung-over,” said a voice right by her ear.

She snapped her head to the side and saw that Ellie, who had been leaned against the wall with an oxygen mask on, trying to counter-effect the drugs she’d been given, was now standing next to her and rubbing her temples. “Ellie!” Penny cried excitedly. “You okay?”

“Keep working,” Graham demanded, making Penny look back at the monitor in front of her. He bent towards Ellie. “Eleanor? Do you remember what happened?”

Ellie’s eyes rolled tiredly around. “Graham—I have such a headache…” she replied.

Graham decided that she hadn’t remembered, or at least didn’t yet. He leaned down to the floor and put the oxygen mask back over her nose. “Hold this over your mouth, Honey, and take deep breaths. You’ll feel better. No matter what you see, no matter what you hear, I want you to stay exactly where you are.”

“What’s… What’s with the eye-patch?” Ellie said, reaching for his face.

Graham grabbed her hand and put it onto her breathing mask to hold it in place for herself. “Breathe in deep.” He petted his large hand over her head. “Tim,” he said, mostly because Tim was close by. “Keep an eye on my wife for me,” he demanded, and then moved toward the front to continue to help Thorton barricade the door.

Penny’s hands were flying across the foreign keys in front of her. She was trying to picture herself back at home in front of her 52-inch screen, surrounded by her stuffed animals and cans of Ginger Ale. Not trying to get the information she needed out of an alien database, within an alien fortress, with a whole scaly-alien army outside with itchy trigger-fingers.

It became that much harder to work once the Frians on the outside of the door had finally broken past the barricade, and were now blasting the door down. Now she had to ignore a battle—an actual
battle
, complete with shooting coming from all over the place, red flashing lights, shouting, hollering, booming.

The Frians were all over the place, and there were only a small handful of them fighting back. Still, Graham and Thorton didn’t miss their shots often, and were able to keep the Frians advance down to a crawl.

They heard the large air-vent overhead open, and Penny looked up. Jack and Peyton dropped in from the ceiling. “Good!” Peyton cried, dropping to his feet and powering up his gun. “You saved some for us! Let’s make this fast—there are a whole flock of very fluttery women waiting for us on the ship!”

Even with the extra numbers, which were greatly appreciated, the room was filled with chaos and noise.

New reinforcements broke through the door, led by a shiny-vested Jazeel himself, who raised his gun, pointed it at Tim, and fired.

BOOM! “Arrgh!” Tim screamed from right next to her, his hand gripping across his torso before he dropped to the ground.

Penny froze. “Timmy!”

“Keep working!” Tom demanded of her, taking in the look of his brother on the ground, bleeding profusely. With more difficulty than ever, she turned back towards the monitor.

Finally; she had what she needed. Now, she just had to save it to a disk. She held her breath, staring at the screen as a blue bar lit up the screen, illustrating how much of the massive amount of data she was saving onto a Frian data disk.

Suddenly, just the way Jack and Peyton had dropped in, special Frian soldiers dropped down by her and settled on their feet.

Penny’s mouth dropped open, and then she squinted.

Thorton jumped over three pieces of furniture to step in front of her. “Not today, Lizard. Not today…” Thorton hissed as he brought up his guns. Penny didn’t even know what Thorton meant by that. Just listening in, it seemed like the men had to say something strange or cliché every few minutes as if it was some sort of side-game.

Thorton kept his guns up when the Frian soldier dropped dead to the floor. “How we doing, Babygirl?” he asked her.

Penny turned back to the monitor and then yanked the data disk from the system consol. “I got what I need on the attack,” Penny assured.

“Good. Let’s get you and Kitten out of here…” He turned and only saw Ellie’s oxygen mask on the ground, but no Ellie. “Oh, for crying out loud!”

They scanned the room and saw Ellie wandering right through the middle of the battle, looking like a lost puppy, confused by her surroundings. She looked up and saw Jack fighting in front of her looking like she was sure she was walking through an imagined scene in a dream.

A Frian was suddenly right next to her; his gun raised a foot from her head. “No!” they both screamed.

Jack suddenly looked and snatched Ellie to the other side of his body, covering her like a living shield, just as the Frian was firing.

BOOM.

“No!” Thorton screamed. “Jack!”

Jack clutched his torso and crumpled go the ground.

Now, Thorton was angry. VERY angry.

Penny slumped to the floor, her hands over her head, watching what was in front of her—a blood and gore mess. It was strangely difficult to feel sorry for the Frians, maybe because they were so much like actual lizards, but she was quite amazed by how quickly the boys were beginning to mow them down, using Jack as their rallying cry.

Soon, the blasting quieted, and then it became nothing at all.

Until Penny heard a ‘click’.

Jazeel was right next to her, the only Frian left in the palace, a device in his other hand. Graham and Thorton froze immediately, knee-deep in the mass of bodies around them. “The proud Swarii—once so high and mighty, just like your stupid ancestors. How low you’ve stooped, breeding with monkeys that grew on some space-rock unsuitable for our habitation.”

“Look—you can aim that at me,” Thorton advised nervously, stepping towards him. Graham and Thorton’s body was frozen as they watched Jazeel hold up a bomb in his hand and begin to program it. Jazeel raised his hand to show an inactive bomb. “I plan to kill all of you. Wait your turn. I said once that your kind would never kill me.”

There was a red flash, and Penny dropped out of the way of Jazeel’s blaster as he lurched forward to hit the ground. Mike was standing right behind him. “Well, you were seven-eighths right, you bastard,” Mike told him, yanking the only half-way programmed bomb out of the body’s hand.

Thorton stepped forward, letting out a breath. “Mike… I owe you… For Penny—you saved…”

“How's THAT for point-and-shoot, Boss?” Mike said cockily, tossing Thorton the bomb like it was a softball. Thorton caught it clumsily in his hands, and then looked like he was very relieved to have caught it. “Let’s get the hell out of here. I need a shower.” He looked around. “…Where’s Tim?”

Tom suddenly dropped his gun and moved a Frian’s body out of the way so he could find Tim. “Tim! Tim buddy?” Tim wasn’t moving. “Tim! Tim!” Tom cried, and listened to his heart. “Tim, no… No!” Tom wondered what he should do: how could he resuscitate his brother? He couldn't die!

Tim suddenly groaned, showing that he was awake before Tom could begin CPR. “Don’t even
think
about kissing me,” he murmured weakly.

Tom paused, frowned, and then smiled. “Yeah, you wish.”

Penny let out a breath of air, and the others rolled their eyes to rush to Jack’s side and began to check his vitals. Ellie was on the floor next to him, holding Jack’s hand.

“We need to get him back to the ship,” Ellie said weakly.

“Don’t bother…” Jack sighed. “I’m not going to make it… I just want to say… How proud of you I am. Of both of you. My sons.”

Graham swallowed heavily.

Thorton froze and then narrowed his eyebrows. “Jack, cut it out. I’m not going to let you die of a stomach wound like you’re some little girl or something.”

Jack narrowed his eyes. “Stop ruining my death, you ungrateful little bastard.”

“Thorton,” Graham said, trying to intervene in this scene, which should have been sad, but quickly formed a negative edge. “He just called you Son. Isn’t that what you wanted since you were five? He’s trying to make amends…”

“And he says it once and then he
dies
? What a jip. No way. I’m not taking that consolation prize. Jack, I’ve already lost one father in my life, so I’ll be damned if I let you leave this party early.”

Jack sighed. “I’m not going to make it, Son. You’re a good boy, but you can’t save everyone.”

Thorton took off his jacket to be able to put some pressure against Jack’s stomach. “You’re always telling me what I can and cannot do, Admiral, and I’m not gonna take it anymore.” He looked towards Mike. “Run ahead and get the ship started. We’re leaving.
Now
.” He turned towards the crowd around Tim. “Beast—you and Tom get that joker on his feet and back to the ship, pronto. We’re leaving in five.”

Graham helped Thorton lay his father on a gurney. Thorton looked up and saw a smirk on his face. “What?” he asked as he and Graham carried Jack out. “What are you grinning at?”

“You,” Graham replied, then watched as Penny walked quietly and proudly behind Thorton, gazing at her husband like he was in control of the sun, moon, and stars.

“Me?” Thorton echoed, confused. “Why?”

“You’re finally a leader.” Graham gave sort of a proud grin at his cousin, who smirked proudly back at him. “I can still kick your ass, though.”

“Only if I let you out of charity, Captain,” Thorton replied.

“Ah, no,” Ellie groaned to Penny, rubbing her hands tiredly against her eyes. “We’re not five-minutes removed from a life-or-death situation and already they’re about to measure their dicks.” She looked around and saw Penny quickly look down at the small disk in her hand. “What’s that?”

“You know how you said our ships were gonna help win the war?” Penny asked her.

“Yeah…”

“Well, that database was full of everything. Stuff not even the Fledge could get ahold of. I have codes, communication cyphers, I have battle plans, weapon plans, ship plans…” Penny gave a wry chuckle. “Your ships might
help
win the war… But this little thing is gonna
guarantee
it.” She waved the disk proudly through the air.

They trudged back to the ship where Tim was immediately met and catered to by what could only be described as a large flock of harem girls, all of whom were quickly aware that Tim was a soldier, was attractive, and had been injured fighting the Frians.

Tom shook his head and watched as two girls fed Tim water from a single cup. Tim looked like he was in heaven. “That lucky rat-bastard,” Tom said. “He shot me, worried me, I had to carry him all the way to the ship… and now he’s surrounded by a sea of
breasts
… So, so many breasts…” He shook his head as he stared at the women with a mixture awe and disappointment.

Mike laughed and patted his shoulder. “Nice guys finish last. Now let’s burn some rubber. I want to see the admiralty crap themselves when they see us come back so soon. The admiral living to tell the tale might also be good.”

Tom gave a laugh and pulled down his sun glasses. “Sounds good to me, Red Leader.”

“Do you think we’ll ever get tired of making Star Wars references?”

Tom shook his head. “Nope.”

“Just wonderin’. Punch it, Chewie.” And with that, the ship flew right out of Frian airspace with a burst of light and some very loud screams from a very large group of women.

Chapter Sixteen

“Say it again.” Thorton had his fist holding on tightly to Penny's red ponytail and was pulling it so her nose pointed up to the air.

She had never been taken from behind before, but she liked it much more than she thought she would. Somehow, it seemed more animalistic, more savage. She loved the feel of his hips pounding up against her bottom. “I love you,” she said. She'd been saying it over and over again that night, and the more she said it, the easier it had become for her to say. Of course, in this position, she wanted to say whatever Thorton wanted to hear. He was dominating her, and as he did so, she found herself loving him even more.

He had been fantastic, powerful, and he had saved her in the nick of time again. Maybe he always would, no matter what ever happened to her. He was her safety net; her hand to hold. He was also a pain in the ass, was always on her nerves, never said the right thing, and was bossy to boot. But he would never, ever let her down. He would brave any danger for her.

That's what she wanted to believe, anyway—more than anything, she wanted to believe he was someone to rely upon.

“Put your head down,” he instructed, letting go of her hair and pressing her shoulders to the mattress before he placed that free hand on her hips. He was now using her hips like handle bars as he thrust hard and deep into her. He was obviously getting down to business; which was great because she'd already come three times and was exhausted. His thrusts were quick and violent now, but somehow she felt powerful, too. She felt the passion he had for her. It was like the first time they'd made love, sans audience. It was the same raw, uncontrollable lust, the same desperate drive.