He rolled back and held up what appeared to be a rectangular piece of fabric. “Cleanse-cloth.”

“That’s for cleaning weapons.”

She felt his smile. “Works on people too. I’ve done tests.”

Of course he had. And she certainly appreciated his thoroughness when he dipped the cleanse-cloth between her legs. The fabric was cool, moist, and it felt like the next incarnation of ecstasy as he slowly, sensuously stroked her with it. She thought she might feel embarrassed to have someone tend to her personal hygiene, but the way Nils touched her destroyed awkwardness and left only pleasure.

“Give me…one of those…cloths.” She wanted to perform the same service for him.

He shook his head. “Another time. Right now, I’ll go nova unless I taste you.”

The cleanse-cloth disappeared. And was replaced by Nils’s lips.

She pressed a hand over her mouth, trying to stifle her moan. But she found herself unable to stop the wild, hoarse sounds that broke from her. She couldn’t hold herself in. Nils devastated her.

He didn’t lick at her pussy, nor press kisses there, as other men might. No, he ate at her, using his whole mouth—his lips and his tongue—to devour her. Drinking, nibbling. Feasting on her. He took her clit between his lips and sucked. He lapped at her, greedy and delicate, as if she was the most delicious thing he had ever tasted. The tip of his tongue circled and dipped into her opening, firming to enter her. He fucked her in savage reverence with his mouth. Over her own furiously muffled cries, she heard groans of pleasure deep in his chest.

Her hips rose, and he pinned her down, commanding as he adored her. With her free hand, she clutched a slat of the platform, her grip tight enough to make her hand ache. She didn’t care. She was the center of the universe, all heat and pleasure.

Release tore through her. An explosion of sensation that left her a charred husk, shuddering and breathless.

But not utterly spent. Even as the last tremors shook her, she recovered enough strength to pull him up for a deep, open kiss, tasting their flavors intermingled.

“Now it’s my turn to take the controls,” she growled.

He smiled against her mouth. “Ma’am, yes, ma’am.”

“On your back.”

He did so. It took some negotiating, with their uniforms tangled around their legs, but she had skills as a pilot, and maneuvered herself to straddle him. She felt more than saw the intensity of his gaze as he stared up at her, his hands on her hips, his whole body taut with need.

“If anything interrupts us now,” she breathed, “I’m going to lose my mind.”

“Nothing can stop us.”

“Better not.” She pressed her hands against the hot contours of his chest. “I want you. So much.” She’d never known need like this, that drove away all thought. All boundaries.

“You’re so beautiful,” he said, hoarse.

“It’s too dark to see.”

“In the darkness or the light, you’re beautiful.”

She squeezed her eyes shut, her heart too full and aching. The demands of her body wouldn’t let her retreat, however. She angled herself to precisely where she needed to be, and then sank down, taking him inside her.

The sensation… It engulfed her. She couldn’t hold in her sounds of pleasure as he filled her. He made feral noises, deep, masculine growls that traveled in waves through her body. They both kept still, as if stunned into immobility by the wonder of him within her, the feeling of their bodies intimately joined. Immobility couldn’t last, though. Not when an even greater pleasure arose as they moved.

He was thick and hot within her, and as she lifted up and moved down, radiating pleasure suffused her. At first, she moved with slow deliberation, savoring each slide of him. Her pace soon quickened, and he bent up, thrusting into her with deep, full strokes. She lost herself in sensation, freed from expectation, knowing she could be entirely herself with him.

She bent over him and rode him hard, just as he drove up with an unrelenting strength, and she could see enough to watch his head thrown back, the column of his neck and underside of his jaw, as his mouth opened on rough exhalations of pleasure.

Her orgasm stole thought, and seemed to obliterate the confines of her body. She felt herself everywhere, in every thing, in herself, in Nils, in the living jungle, and the sky overhead and the stars and planets scattered throughout. And as she expanded outward to encompass everything, he joined her, groaning out in release.

How much time passed, she couldn’t measure. There was only before making love with Nils, and after, and she found herself at some point carefully dressed, tucked against his side. They lay together on their platform, looking up at the star-filled sky.

She had a brief, panicked desire to grab him by the hand and drag him back to the Phantom. They could find a tiny, barely inhabited world and make a home for themselves there, hiding from PRAXIS, from the 8th Wing. Alone and alive.

But she pushed that desire aside. It was a fantasy, a dream that could never happen, for even if they could somehow evade the 8th Wing and PRAXIS, neither she nor Nils could turn their backs on duty.

Chapter Ten

On an elevated ridge, Nils and Celene took up a position. Each trained silmät scopes toward a point to the east.

Marek’s compound. It perched at the edge of the jungle, three of its sides surrounded by dense forest, and the fourth side facing the seething ocean.

Even from a distance of a geomile, it was evident that the waves would destroy any vessel foolish enough to brave them. Dark shapes of creatures also lurked beneath the surface of the water, large creatures who formed massive shadows under the waves. One of the sea-dwelling beasts breached, snapping up a low-flying animal, and Nils cursed to see numerous rows of jagged teeth gleaming in the beast’s mouth.

“Rules out a water approach.”

A thick perimeter wall enclosed the compound, with plasma wire atop the wall. No one could breach the wall, and if one attempted to scale it, the wire grid would reduce them to atoms. Should someone be lucky enough to get past the outer fortifications, he or she would find themselves amidst a series of buildings. A large main structure, surrounded by two smaller outbuildings.

At one corner of the compound was a landing pad. A medium-sized cruiser already occupied a spot there.

“Place looks deserted,” Celene noted. “No guards patrolling. But his ship is there.”

“Robotic sentries.” As Nils spoke, three mechanized sentinels traversed the compound, their blaster-mounted turrets continuously sweeping back and forth. “Marek’s paranoid. He already didn’t like working closely with others in Engineering. Makes sense that he’d create a haven free of all people.”

“Except himself.”

He nodded grimly. With a suspicious, intelligent mind behind the design of the compound’s security, it would make his and Celene’s objective that much more difficult. Cracking the defense systems would take all of his skill and focus. But getting inside was merely the first step. Once he and Celene did manage to get in, they would have to contend with the sentries. And Marek, himself.

Yet with only a few geomiles separating Nils from the traitor, he knew that turning back wasn’t an option. Marek had betrayed the 8th Wing, had almost cost Celene her life and freedom. For that, the traitor must be punished.

“Did you bring the holographic projector?” Celene asked.

Lowering his silmät scope, he pulled the device in question from his pack. He and Celene had discussed their plan before leaving the Phantom, with him making the necessary adjustments to their equipment. The implement would project the hologram of two Black Wraith ships, making it appear as if the ships approached the compound. Careful calibration ensured that, for a few minutes at least, the signatures of the projected ships would appear real to other sensors, presenting enough of a perceived threat to distract Marek. Nils and Celene would breach the perimeter during the distraction. Once inside, they would find the Black Wraith disruptor device and destroy it.

As he set up the projector, he fought to keep his attention solely on the task. His mind kept drifting back to last night, the all too brief pleasure they had shared. They had slept in shifts, and all he had wanted to do was lay beside her, sleep with her in his arms. But he’d had to stay awake and vigilant for his shift, and had kept himself alert with running scenarios about the mission.

If he and Celene survived, if they made it back to base, would they have more nights like the one they shared? Or had it been a one-time event, never to be repeated? Would she even want to be seen with him?

A scene played out in his mind, clear as a high-def vid: him, walking down a corridor on base, seeing Celene with her Black Wraith buddies coming toward him. Pretending he didn’t exist. Her gaze never meeting his.

Could NerdWorks and an ace fighter pilot really make it? He wasn’t sure, and she hadn’t said anything about what might come after the mission.

Damn it, don’t think about that now. Just get the gear set up. Then survive the next thirty minutes.

“Might want to delay the projector,” she said. “Another distraction has arrived.”

He glanced up and cursed. A PRAXIS clipper appeared on the horizon, and seemed to be heading straight toward Marek’s compound.

“The hells…?” Nils turned his scope up to the PRAXIS ship. “This planet’s a lot more popular than I’d thought. Or Marek serves a really nice cup of kahve.”

“It’s not kahve that brings PRAXIS here.” Celene growled. “The bastard’s going to sell the disruptor to them.” Which was precisely what the 8th Wing feared.

He and Celene shared a look. “Lucky we showed up when we did. We can prevent the sale.”

“Yes, but it also means the timing of this operation has accelerated. We’ve got to get into the compound and destroy the disruptor before PRAXIS can get its hands on it.”

Immediately, he and Celene jumped to their feet. After securing their packs and checking their weapons, they jogged down the rise, and began pushing hard through the jungle, toward the compound.

“Marek will drop some of the shields to permit PRAXIS to land,” he noted, shouldering aside several hanging vines. “We won’t need the holographic projector.”

She remained stone-faced, the look he now knew well. Her battle mask, behind which she retreated to get herself in the proper mindset for combat. It had nothing to do with him. Taking his cues from her, he forced icy calm to thread through his body and mind. He could think only of achieving success, and not dwell on what may or may not happen afterward. Doubt had no place on a mission. Particularly one with stakes this high.

They kept a brutal pace, sliding through the jungle at top speed. By the time they reached the base of the perimeter wall, he felt certain he had lost ten pounds in sweat alone. Keeping back to the shelter of the forest, they eyed the wall. It stood approximately ten meters high, and the plasma wire continued up for three additional meters, its fatal beams crackling with red energy.

“We move quickly.” She nodded toward the sky, where the PRAXIS clipper hovered above the compound. Its thrusters rotated in preparation for landing. “Now.”

She and Nils slipped to the base of the wall. He stuck a palm-sized device on the barricade, and punched in a numeric sequence. Tiny lights within blinked. A low hum sounded. And then a narrow section of the plasma wire directly above sputtered out.

They didn’t have time to linger. The PRAXIS thrusters roared, kicking up dust, as the ship slowly lowered for landing.

She shot a grappling hook from a handheld apparatus. Her aim was good, and the hook lodged itself at the top of the wall. She tugged on the attached line, ensuring its security. Satisfied, she grabbed hold of the rope.

Fluid and lethal, she began to climb. He took a breath, rubbed his palms on his thighs to dry his hands, and then he, too, began his ascent.


Celene knew herself in battle. She’d been on enough missions, in the midst of danger. Readiness settled over her like cation armor, protecting her, allowing her to see precisely what she must, directing her thoughts. It wasn’t autopilot, for she controlled herself, but she saw the flight plan laid out before her. Following that plan was the only thing required.