The Commander's Slave Page 8

  The words hung in Asha’s mind while she worked on till evening. Dusk had began to fall before Daurent came for her, and she followed him on unsteady feet.

  “It’s a lovely evening,” she commented.

  Daurent snorted. “You won’t say that after a month.” He didn’t explain further.

  They stopped outside what looked to Asha to be a cargo bay door, and he knocked twice.

  There was a creaking as the door slid open, manually, and Tangus stood there.

  With a nod, Daurent walked off into the night, leaving her at the commander’s doorstep.

  “Come in.”

  * * * *

  Tangus couldn’t stay another moment. If he did, he would have either taken her in front of the doctor or wrung her slender neck. He needed distance, and fast.

  Stalking off, he tracked down his adjutant. He knew he was overworking the young officer. Nobody deserved the chore of constant duty, not until they were captain of a ship at least, but Daurent was tireless, smart ... and reminded him of his favorite nephew. Now dead. His sister. Dead. His parents. Dead. His world. Dead.

  He gritted his teeth and continued walking, chasing down Daurent in the second of their four crop fields.

  “Progress?”

  Daurent looked up from a chaotic schematic. “We’ve planted the six species, arranged semi-randomly as agreed. Astronomy points out that it does look vaguely natural, but we won’t get the same kind of yield as from monoculture fields.”

  There wasn’t much need for an Astronomy section on the moon, so they had been reclassified as Xeno-Agriculture. They took to the change with acceptance. Mostly.

  “It’ll do.”

  “This is really pushing the envelope, commander. With so little light available on this moon, and every ‘night’ lasting almost two days, it may take a while before we even get our first crop.”

  “I thought you told me eight months back on the Strike.”

  Daurent grinned. “Creative license.”

  “Hmm. Well, I may hold you to that. Speaking of which, are all the ships still concealed?”

  “Sunk to the bottom of the lagoon.”

  “The Strike?”

  “This afternoon.”

  Silence.

  “We retrieved the escape pod,” Tangus commented.

  “Ah. And how is Asha?”

  “She survived.”

  “Have you told her why you did it?”

  “No.”

  They fell into silence again, watching the breeze ruffle the wild grass.

  “I’ll leave you to it,” Tangus finally declared.

  He took a walking tour of the camp, evaluating what had already been done, and what was still left to do. Four fields of crops. A half-finished dam to complement the natural lake that supplied them with fresh water. Barracks for four thousand men with basic medical facilities and a serviceable canteen. Low but acceptable energy supply through use of geothermals.

  But what about a future? And what about Asha?

  It hadn’t taken them long to figure out what had happened after the battle with the Lasc Prein scout ship. At first, they had discounted the premature ejection of the pod, until discussions with a conscious--and contrite--Tomben had dictated otherwise. They had tracked the pod and tractored it within two hours.

  But Tangus thought long and hard about his next actions. If he brought Asha back on the ship, she might somehow engineer another escape attempt. He didn’t know how, but she had managed fairly well with the first one, and he could tell she was intelligent and resourceful, as well as beautiful. It was a lethal combination.

  But perhaps if he left her in the pod and tractored it back to the moon with them...? Where could she go with such rudimentary navigation and steering controls? According to their calculations, they would reach their base in a little over two and a half days. Maybe she’d learn a lesson about impulsive actions. And he’d get some much-needed distance from the pull of her body.

  So that’s what he did. It was only when he saw her again that he realized she could destroy his fragile self-discipline with little more than an unsuspecting look.

  He growled as he stalked through the forest. He needed to do something about that.

  * * * *

  “Come in.”

  It was a cargo bay, she realized. At the far end, a window had been cut out of the metal and shuttered with clear-panels and wood. Along one side ran a bench, now loaded with instruments and books in neat piles. On the other side was a wide bunk bed, the equivalent of the one on the Strike, and taking up some floor space was something she recognized as a circular escape hatch, reworked into a low table and flanked by two chairs. There was food laid out on it.

  Illumination came from a monitor on the bench and a low-light lamp on the floor next to the bed.

  “Please sit.”

  There was so much to discuss, Asha did not know where to begin. Her knees buckled as she sank into the upholstery.

  Tangus helped himself to some food. “I hadn’t thought our uniforms would look so good on you,” he remarked.

  The illumination cast his face in shadow so Asha couldn’t see the accompanying expression. The light from the small lamp was a distracting glare in her eyes.

  “You’re wondering how you landed here,” he continued. “Was it a coincidence? No.”

  “You were monitoring me?”

  “For such valuable cargo, we were doing much more than that.”

  Understanding dawned, firing sparks of indignation in her amber eyes. “You kept me trapped in that … that prison for four whole days?”

  “It was barely more than two days.”

  “I could have suffocated!”

  “You didn’t.”

  His calmness infuriated her. “I could have ....” She searched for words to give meat to her argument. Starved to death? No, she had had more than enough ration bars. Died of thirst? No, she had plenty of water, as well. He had already told her she had enough oxygen to breathe.

  But the way he sat there, immovable, while he told her of yet another way he had subdued her threw her into fury. Without thinking, she got out of her chair and lunged at him, taking him by surprise. But only for a moment.

  With an oath, he threw her onto the bed and followed, pinning her body beneath his.

  “How could you?” She tried to free her hands, but he had them both in one firm grasp.

  “I own you,” he growled.

  He had meant it only to teach her a lesson, to prove that she was incapable of physically overpowering him. But the writhing of her body beneath his, and the defiance in her face, kicked his desire into full gear. Then he remembered the features of the trousers she wore and his cock hardened instantly.

  Asha felt him and her eyes widened, but before she could do a thing he was biting her breast through the material of her shirt, the sharp nips catching at her nipple and pebbling it. She cried out and, ashamed of herself even as she did it, wantonly thrust it into his face.

  Roughly, he kneed her legs apart and reached down to unzip the crotch seam of her pants. As she panted, he inserted one, then two fingers, their roughness catching against the smoothness of her passage. She covered him with her wetness, and when he held her eyes and deliberately licked her off his fingers, she went into a frenzy.

  “Please, Tangus,” she pleaded. “Now. Please.”

  He shifted, then he was inside her, his hot length thrusting deep and arousing her.

  Oh, he felt so good! Asha undulated her hips, goading him to pump into her mercilessly. This was sheer animal sex at its rawest, the physical mating of two beings consumed with lust with no room for reason.

  Just as she came, he covered her mouth with his, so she screamed her release into him as his tongue plundered hers. Then he shuddered his orgasm, the shocks rippling through his body before he collapsed sideways on the bed and pulled her into a supine position above him.

  “You will always be mine,” he told her after his breathing returned
to normal.

  Asha, too, was recovering from the madness that had consumed her.

  “Even when I’m bearing the child of another Seti?” she asked bitterly and flinched as his hands tightened convulsively on her body. But she had to continue. “That’s why you bought me, to be a breeding animal for the Seti race. Have you changed your mind now?”

  “Is that why you ran? Because you didn’t want to be with another man?”

  “I ….” Asha couldn’t lie.

  Tangus felt his own iron will weaken in the face of her silent admission. “I can’t put my own needs ahead of my men, Asha,” he told her gently, stroking her hair. She could still smell her muskiness on his fingers. “We cannot disappear. I swore that on the day the Seti world was destroyed.”

  “Then where do we go from here?”

  He hesitated. “The doctor says he hasn’t finished his tests yet. Maybe if we find our species are too incompatible ....”

  “But what if we are compatible?” Asha levered herself off him so she could look him in the face. “What if your species and my species are compatible? Will you still sacrifice me to your grand plan then?”

  The set expression on his face gave her the answer.

  * * * *

  How much longer did she have?

  That was Asha’s first thought when she woke up. She thought it would be morning, but the lamp was still on and there was no light streaking through the crude wooden shutters of the room’s window. But there were larger questions on her mind.

  They couldn’t go on like this. Once the compatibility issue was settled, then the rest of Asha’s life was settled, as well. If she could successfully mate with the Seti then she would be put to work bearing the next generation of Seti hybrids so their race wouldn’t die out. If she couldn’t, then perhaps there could be a future with Tangus, but only a short-lived one. Because, of course, Tangus would also want a child, a genetic descendant, and if she couldn’t give him one, then he would be forced to go to someone who could. Either way, Asha faced disaster, whether in a handful of days or a handful of years. And, truth be told, she found it impossible to imagine life without him.

  In their brief time together, and despite his best efforts, she had managed to see into the core of him, and she could weep for the waste of it all. Here was a man who could have easily been the linchpin of a progressive society, and he and eight thousand of his kind were instead being hunted like prey.

  She turned her head and watched him sleep.

  What if she became pregnant by him? After all, it didn’t take a test to somehow certify her fertility. What if she was compatible and pregnant? Wouldn’t that buy her some time? Maybe it was a rationalization because she had fallen in love with him, but Asha knew she had to try everything to stay with him.

  While asleep, Tangus appeared years younger, his characteristic frown disappearing into the smoothness of his forehead. Without those dark blazing eyes open, he also seemed more approachable, and she could imagine him with a smile on his face, a contrast to his normal waking expression.

  How could she give any of this up?

  Slowly, she slipped out of bed and untied the bandage that was binding her hair, then she shed her clothing and used the bandage to wrap it around her wrists. Of course she could turn out of the twists easily but the illusion was still served.

  On her knees, she approached the narrow end of the bed and pulled down the thin blanket that had covered them, easing onto the mattress and reaching down into his open pants to pull out his sleeping penis.

  He awoke when her hot wet mouth enveloped him. Above her, she could hear him groan and reach for her. Obligingly, she straightened her arms and heard his intake of breath as he saw her captive wrists.

  He opened his legs and stroked her arms while she licked him, quickly growing hard and taut in her mouth. She sucked at him, pulling while she lifted her head, then plunged him into the back of her throat. Suck, pull, plunge. Suck, pull, plunge. When she lifted her head again, she let his penis leave her mouth completely, smiling as she saw a bead of masculine lubrication form at the top of his engorged head.

  She bent down once more, this time rubbing her cheek against his length, flicking her tongue against the thick vein on his underside and following it all the way down to where the shaft met the hairy skin of his testicles.

  Tangus couldn’t stand it any longer. He moved to a sitting position on the bed, back against the wall, kicking off his trousers and holding her wrists to his chest while he encouraged her exploration.

  Asha returned to his shaft, licking then sucking his balls into her mouth, massaging them with her tongue before reluctantly pulling away. But Tangus wasn’t passive himself. Despite the waves of warmth that thrummed through him, he moved his feet in between her thighs and spread her open. Asha moaned and moved back to his bobbing penis, tensing her tongue to velvet rigidity while continuing to flick at his tender flesh, up and down.

  But Tangus, Asha found out, could tolerate such teasing for only a little while. With one hand, he grabbed a handful of her hair and thrust himself into her mouth, and she felt the stiffness of his head rubbing against the softness of her throat. He would come very soon, she knew, but she didn’t want him like this.

  With a last suck, she pulled away and crawled on top of the bed, lowering herself onto him, her female lubrication slick and aromatic. Tangus moved his hands to her body, clasping her chest and rubbing her nipples with his thumbs while he drove into her. In wild abandon, her hair flew in time to his thrusts, and her neck arched backwards, presenting the perfection of her body to him. The thought was enough to send him over the edge, convulsing as he shot his essence into her, slowing only when the last spasm had consumed him and left him satiated.

  “That was, unexpected,” he finally said, nuzzling her ear. She was still astride him, her bound hands around his neck.

  “I ... missed you,” she breathed.

  An almost-chuckle emerged from his throat, the first she had ever heard from him.

  “In that case, I’ll have to lock you in an escape pod more often.”

  They stayed close, not saying a word, for a few more minutes before Tangus set her to one side to walk to what she thought was a cupboard of some sort but was actually a tiny bathroom. When he was done, he gestured for her to do the same, and her heart almost broke when she emerged and found her clothes, neatly folded, next to the door. That such a small gesture could affect her so deeply indicated how hard she had fallen for the man.

  He gestured to the meal of the night before, the majority of which was still untouched. “If you don’t mind leftovers, we have a policy here of not wasting anything.”

  “Of course.” She sat down and helped herself to some cold meat.

  “We’ll have to come up with some quarters for you.”

  “I thought ….” Asha stopped, deliberately slowing her voice. “I thought I could stay here.”

  “Here? To be labeled the commander’s whore?”

  He was testing her, she knew. She looked into his face, her expression earnest.

  “Whatever words some men may use are just those. Words. I believe I’ve suffered more up to this point.”

  He nodded. “Point taken.” But he still kept watching her as she nibbled on some food.

  “Maybe I can also help,” she added.

  “Help? How?”

  “I spent the afternoon with Doctor Zehnda yesterday, and I liked it. Perhaps I could train as his assistant.”

  “That’s a possibility.”

  “Can you tell me more about your plans?” she asked suddenly. “You have me, but I’m only one female. What comes next?”

  She had to know more about what he was thinking but could tell she hit a sore point by the way his lips--those lips that had suckled and pleasured her breasts--tightened.

  “We’re still in survival mode,” he finally said. “Still on the run and hiding. Everything we do, even on this moon, is done in as clandestine a fashion as po
ssible.” He chewed a piece of bread. “My next move is to find a more secure place to settle, but that may take years. Maybe if we could find a planet that would lease us part of their land, or an important Fusion member that would sponsor an enquiry, that would help. But the nearest embassy world--Adduce--is a month’s travel away, and I can’t think of any planet that would give land to a bunch of stateless mercenaries.”

  “So you’ve got to think farther ahead?”

  “That’s right. I have to be prepared for the fact that it may not even be my generation that finds a supporter. Which is why it’s so important that we survive.” His eyes were bleak. “It’s our fault. We thought that gaining Fusion membership was the answer to our dreams and neglected forming more local alliances. But the Seti home world was at the edge of the sector, and it made us an easy target.”

  Asha rose and went to him, kneeling and laying her hand on his. “You can’t blame yourself, Tangus. After all, it was your entire planet that made those decisions, not just you.”

  He looked down at her hand, mesmerized, then, with a frown, shook it off and stood.

  “I have work to do,” he told her brusquely, unwilling to accept her gentleness, her sympathy. “You can help Doctor Zehnda. But I’ll expect you back here at the end of the day.”

  Reaching for his jacket, he bunched it in his hand and left his quarters.

  * * * *

  “Commander--Tangus, you can’t be serious!”

  It was three days after Asha had landed on the moon in the escape pod, and Tangus was ostensibly conferring with Daurent on the progress in getting the detection/cloaking net operational. Like any good leader, Daurent had delegated the task to his engineering team, but he was still conversant with the successes--and failures--they had encountered.

  But the discussion had another purpose, and Tangus waited until the other soldiers left before broaching the subject in the confines of the Operations Room.

  “I mean, I like Asha but ….”

  “She would make somebody a good mate,” Tangus pointed out.

  Daurent spluttered. “With respect, commander, I don’t see why it has to be me! Why can’t it be you?”