Smith's Monthly #5 Read online

  She hadn’t been thinking that way at all.

  “So what happens,” she said, “if one of those battle ships was in motion and we came up behind it and hit it with a really small bomb, not enough to blow it out of space, but enough to make it seem like it suddenly had engine problems.”

  Red looked puzzled. “You think the General would just keep moving forward with his plan even though he lost a few ships along the way?”

  “I do,” she said. “And those ships would just be left floating dead and we could come back and get the crews later.”

  “Or the general’s people would come back and get the crews,” he said.

  She agreed. “That’s more likely at first, since he has so few people. And if he didn’t think the problem was an attack, but just mechanical. We at least would be rounding them all up on fewer and fewer ships this way.”

  He smiled and finished the last bite of his sandwich. “I think I’ve got the exact weapon for this as well. No explosion, just an invisible beam that would melt an engine down to slag given enough time. It could freeze it up something solid in a very short amount of time.”

  “You have laser weapons on this ship?” she asked, clearly surprised that he hadn’t mentioned them as a weapon when she asked.

  “Not normally used as a weapon,” he said. “They are mounted in the nose area in case this ship runs into something it has to cut through. I used them once to take apart a large asteroid that was headed for a planet and no one there even knew it was coming.”

  She shook her head. Of course he would do that. And chances are until that moment no one even knew he had done it. Typical of him she was starting to see.”

  “Industrial lasers take a ton of energy and are usually bright red,” she said. “Won’t the general or his people see it?”

  “I can turn off the color, no problem,” Red said. “But you are right, they use a ton of energy and we’re going to have to use it sparingly and give the energy supplies time to recharge or otherwise risk losing our cloak.”

  “As slow as those ships will be moving, we have the time,” she said, smiling at Red. “And taking our time will make it look like more normal breakdowns. I think it just might work to knock out a bunch of those ships.”

  “So how do we get General Jarvis isolated in one ship?” he asked.

  “Let’s knock down the number of ships he has to pick from first, see how many we can take out of the equation, and figure that out later,” she said.

  “Perfect,” he said. “It seems we have a plan.”

  “Right now let’s tell our organizations what we learned from Chief Lovell,” she said, “Maybe, just maybe, instead of letting him get close to the station, some of the surrounding systems can mount a greeting party when he comes around the edge of that nebula with whatever ships he will have left after we’re finished with him.”

  “Oh, I like how you think,” he said, smiling at her with that wonderful smile of his.

  He picked up their plates and empty glasses and turned to put them in the clearer.

  She stared at his butt again. “Have I ever told you that I like how your butt looks?”

  He looked back at her and shook his head, giving her that smile that seemed to melt parts inside her that should never be melted. At least in front of anyone else.

  “Later,” he said. “I have a hunch we’re going to have some time.”

  “I sure hope so,” she said, wanting to go over and grab his ass right there. Instead, knowing they had work to do first to set this all up, she stood and turned toward the doorway of the galley.

  “Yeah, me too,” he said as she headed back for the control room.

  How could he make her so hot when they had so much to do?

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  RED JOINED HER only a few minutes after she reached the control room. She was just getting hooked up to Sector Force Headquarters again. And once again Scipio greeted her.

  Mattie told her of the plan to go back to the other side of the nebula and slowly take apart the General’s fleet as it moved around the nebula and toward Bodie Station and Resort.

  “We will have agents waiting in ships on this side,” Scipio said, nodding at Mattie’s request for help to block any chance the General’s ships reach Bodie Station.

  “Red will have as much help that Innocence Inc. can gather as well,” Mattie said.

  “Good,” her boss said. “Our organizations have worked well so far on this crisis, I see no reason to not continue until this is finished.”

  “And maybe beyond,” Mattie said.

  Scipio nodded. “And possibly beyond.”

  With that the communication link was cut.

  Mattie glanced over at Red who was nodding. “There is no reason why Innocence Inc. and the Sector Force could not work together into the future. I like that idea.”

  “Clearly my boss is not adverse to it either,” Mattie said.

  “Are you?” Red asked, giving her a serious look.

  “As long as I get to stare at that butt of yours, not in the slightest,” she said, smiling.

  “It must be these pants,” he said. “I’m going to have to wear them more.”

  “Please,” she said. And they both laughed.

  When was the last time a man made her laugh so much? She couldn’t remember any time, actually.

  Red turned back to his board to contact his people at Innocence Inc. and tell them to coordinate with the Sector Force. She listened until he ended his communication with the fact that he would be out of contact until this was pretty much over.

  That’s when Mattie realized exactly what he had just said and it made her stomach twist, not from fear, but from the sheer weight of what they were going to try.

  The two of them were going up against a fleet of ships and over three hundred crew. And even though they had the best ship and the fastest ship and best weapons, those kinds of odds did not bode well for their success.

  And if they were killed on the other side of the nebula, in The Emptiness, no one would ever know.

  That’s why she was very glad that the Sector Force and Red’s people were going to have a fleet meeting the General’s ships. Even if she and Red failed, the General would soon be dead.

  One way or another.

  “Ready to head back to the other side?” Red asked, turning to face her.

  “As ready as ever,” she said.

  The two of them turned back to their boards and in thirty minutes they were inside the nebula for the third time.

  And twenty minutes later they were out on the other side.

  And all the General’s ships were still at the abandoned station.

  None of them had moved in the slightest.

  And there were no ships even close to where they had come out, so Red again moved them over to a radiation-free place close to the nebula and made sure the cloak and screens were still up and set perfectly.

  She had taken scans of the ships again. They matched almost exactly the scans from before. People had moved around inside the ships, but nothing else had changed at all.

  “Any signs of them getting ready to move?” Red asked her.

  “Not that I can see,” she said.

  “That worry you?” Red asked, clearly slightly worried himself.

  She shook her head. “He would have waited a day or so after the attacks on the Sector Force to start out.”

  “How would he know if they succeeded or not?” Red asked, looking puzzled.

  She sat back and thought for a moment. “He would have his ways. More than likely a relay station a distance on either side of the nebula curtain.”

  “Of course,” Red said, going back to his board. “I should have thought of that. You want to see if we can find that relay station before he gets the news?”

  “I don’t think we need to,” she said. “And if he doesn’t get the news, that might panic him even more.”

  “How is that?”

  She tried to put
herself into the thinking of someone like General Jarvis. “If he discovers they didn’t succeed, he’s going to make a dash for Bodie Station. If they did succeed, he’s going to do the same thing.”

  Red stopped and thought for a moment, then nodded his agreement. “I see what you are thinking. At this point he has no choice, his hand has been played.”

  “Completely,” Mattie said. “He either has to run deep into the emptiness with that liner to try to escape or try to hole up at Bodie Station, which can be defended.”

  “I would bet on Bodie Station,” Red said, nodding.

  “And try to take out the Sector Force later,” she said. “But we’re not going to give him that chance.”

  “Exactly,” Red said. Then he smiled. “Besides, Chief Lovell is so angry, he would blow that entire fleet out of space before it even had a chance of getting close.”

  Mattie laughed. “But I want us to do it first.”

  “With pleasure,” Red said.

  Mattie couldn’t agree more to that.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  IT TOOK RED TWO HOURS of calibrating the cutting laser and then making sure everything was working as programmed. He finally turned from his board when Mattie said, “Incoming ship.”

  Red watched as her fingers flew over the board in front of her, bringing up the magnification of the ship coming in from the far side of the nebula. It seemed to be going at its top speed and was a similar make and design of the one captured at Bodie Station.

  “At that speed it will take the ship a full twenty-three hours to get to the station,” Mattie said. “But it doesn’t seem to be aiming for the station exactly.”

  “What do you think?” Red asked. “Is that the message relay ship?”

  Mattie nodded, still focused on the readings she was getting in front of her. “More than likely.”

  “And it’s going to meet the fleet at a future point,” Red said.

  Red turned back to his board and brought up an image of the nebula and the locations of the General’s fleet and Bodie Station on the other side of the nebula.

  He drew a red dotted line around the far edge of the nebula to show the most likely and shortest safe path the General’s fleet would take.

  Mattie overlapped the image of the path of the incoming ship and its speed.

  The two lines intersected perfectly.

  “In twenty hours the ship will join the fleet at that location,” Mattie said, nodding.

  “So now we know approximately when the fleet is leaving the station,” Red said. He did the quick calculations. “The fleet will be leaving the abandoned station in ten to twelve hours.”

  Mattie nodded. “How long will it take us to get in behind the fleet near the old station?”

  “Two hours from here at a safe speed,” Red said. “So we got eight hours to wait before we can move. Seven might be better to give us time to move in behind the fleet slowly.”

  “So we get to fight in seven hours,” she said, nodding. “Finally.”

  With that he had to agree. He wasn’t any better at waiting than Mattie was.

  She glanced over at him, her eyes twinkling and a half smile on her face.

  “Got any ideas what we should do in the next seven hours?” she asked.

  He loved that look in her eyes, that promise of a very, very good time to come.

  “I think we need to get some sleep, get some food, and make love for at least an hour.”

  “In that order?” she asked.

  He laughed. “Not necessarily.”

  “Good,” she said, reaching for his hand as she stood. “I’ll be in bed. Double check everything here, but don’t be too long. Otherwise I’m going to start without you.”

  Her chuckle as she left the control room clearly must have been in response to the stunned look on his face and the idea of her starting without him and his imagination that went wild thinking about that idea alone.

  It took him only one minute to make sure the alarms were set and the shields were up and the cloak was still working.

  Then somehow he managed to not run down the corridor.

  But only barely.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  MATTIE GOT TO THE BEDROOM ahead of him and had her clothes off and was crawling into bed when he arrived.

  She kicked the covers back and just lay there naked, watching him undress and enjoying the feeling of being exposed to him. Plus she loved watching him, far more than she wanted to admit. And now she was starting to feel like she had known him for a very long time, even though it hadn’t been long at all, less than a few days.

  He got his clothes off and joined her, pulling her into his arms and kissing her.

  They stayed like that, just kissing, laying with their bodies touching all the way along. She kept her breasts pushed against his chest and she could feel his excitement.

  Then slowly she pushed him onto his back and started kissing his neck and working her way down his body, kissing every solid muscle in his stomach, working her tongue through his pubic hair, and then taking the tip of him in her mouth, flicking him with her tongue until he squirmed back and forth.

  Then suddenly he sat up, took her waist, turned her around and put her on top of him so that he could kiss her crotch at the same time.

  It would not have surprised her in the slightest if sparks shot off her body and lit up the room as his tongue found her and worked back and forth against the lips of her crotch.

  She pushed back against him, then eased away, then pushed back toward those wonderful feelings.

  She kept him in her mouth, her hand moving up and down on him slowly as she enjoyed every touch of his tongue against her.

  Finally, she couldn’t take it anymore and she pushed back hard against his mouth and he picked up his pace with his tongue and lips and full mouth.

  She pushed back against his face harder and harder and then came in a shuddering, earth-shaking way that made her entire body go limp on top of him.

  He eased her over carefully so that she was lying on her back, her eyes closed as she tried to catch her breath.

  Then he turned around and before she knew it, he was inside her, his body over her, his weight supported on his arms, his crotch pressing down against hers.

  And he moved in and out, the slickness of her last orgasm making his motion easy and smooth.

  She wrapped her arms around him and pulled herself up against him, pressing into him.

  And as she did he moved faster and faster and she came again, this time with him.

  She let go after a long and wonderful moment and dropped back on the bed.

  She could feel the last of his release easing and he shuddered once and then eased down so that he could lie beside her.

  She moaned in disappointment as he slipped out of her.

  “Don’t worry,” he whispered, softly, as if he didn’t have enough air yet to talk fully. “It will be back.”

  “Soon?” she asked, not wanting it to stop, not wanting anything of this wonderful moment to stop.

  “Soon,” he said, pulling her tight.

  And with that they both drifted off to sleep.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  MATTIE AWOKE to the smell of something wonderful cooking. A light smell of garlic and fresh bread combined with something she couldn’t identify, but that made her mouth water.

  Around her the sheets were messed up and she had wrapped herself in one of the light blankets. Red was gone and she flat didn’t remember him getting up and leaving. But his wonderful musky smell was still lingering with the smell of their passion.

  Somehow he had gotten out of bed, got dressed, and made it to the kitchen and started cooking without waking her.

  She shook her head and lay back and stared at the ceiling. How had she come to trust one person so much in such a short time? How was that even possible?

  Before Red, she never would have allowed anyone to move around her like he must have done without her being awake
and aware. She flat didn’t trust anyone enough for that to happen. Yet here she was, making love to this man she hardly knew, sleeping soundly around him like she had known him for years.

  She had no doubt that such actions were chances she shouldn’t be taking because in reality, she didn’t know him. Yet with Red, it felt so right.

  She was taking chances with him she never thought she would be able to take with anyone. Or want to, for that matter.

  And they were chances she flat wanted to take.

  Suddenly like a ghost, Red appeared at the doorway of the bedroom. He had on the same clothes as earlier. Black slacks, light shirt, and running-type shoes. His long, dark hair was still wet, so clearly he had also taken a shower without disturbing her.

  “Fifteen minutes until dinner,” he said, giving her that smile that seemed to melt her every worry about him. “Grab a shower and get ready. We need to be moving in just over an hour.”

  “Anything changed?” she asked, stretching without showing Red any of her skin. No point in getting either of them started again at this point.

  “Nothing,” he said. “I just checked.”

  And then he smiled again. “My alarms would have plastered us against the ceiling as soundly as we were sleeping if something had changed. Thank heavens they didn’t go off.”

  “Good sex can do that,” she said, smiling back at him.

  “Good sex, hell. That was great sex. Now get showered and come get some food.”

  With one more smile he turned and headed back toward the galley.

  He was right, it had been great sex.

  Every time so far.

  And from the smells filling the room, it was about to be great food. Now only one thing that would make all this perfect: Putting General Jarvis down for good like a rabid dog.

  And that was next on the schedule. That made her smile as well.

  She untangled herself from the sheets and headed for the huge shower. Twelve minutes later she joined Red in the galley, dressed in the same clothes she had put on earlier.