Chapter 8
Mak, Shuttle 2, The Colony Moon
“Marz, you read?” Gwen sat next to me, in the co-pilot’s seat, her hands moving so quickly over the control panel they were nearly a blur. She was in her element. Fast. Deadly.
Beautiful. It was a wonder she’d been grounded, for she was an incredible asset to any mission. An amazing Coalition fighter, and a pilot, which I hadn’t known about. To think she had to bargain with the governor to be able to use her expertise was a shame.
Her scent lingered on my skin and it made my cock grow hard. Again. I did not wish to bathe for days so I could hold on to that last connection to her once I left.
“We’re here,” Marz copied. “We’re on foot. Ten minutes to first coordinates.”
“Copy that. We’re heading out in five. Radio checks every ten.”
“Ten minutes. Mark.” Marz sounded calm, which was good. I needed to make sure this mission went according to plan, that Gwen and the two Prillon warriors wandering around out there in the moon’s fog returned to the planet’s surface alive. I might be leaving Gwen behind after this, but while she was with me, I’d ensure her safety.
“Mark.” Gwen checked the display on her wrist and looked up, those dark eyes looking at me, but laser-focused on the mission. “Ready?”
Nodding, I looked back out the cockpit display and set our small shuttle down gently, the landing struts taking the weight with a soft groan.
“I will protect you, Gwen, and then I must leave. I can’t go back to the Colony.”
“I know.” She unbuckled and climbed out of her seat to stand, for once, taller than me. She lifted her hands to my face, leaned down and kissed me gently on the lips. Her touch was soft, feminine. It was the lightest touch she’d ever given me, and it rocked me to my core, especially now, knowing her sheer strength. “It’s okay, Makarios of Kronos. You don’t belong here. I understand that.”
She offered me a small smile.
I arched my brow. “Was that a good-bye kiss?”
“Never.” She grinned now, giving me another kiss, this one much harder. Faster. And with quite a bit of tongue. My cock stirred, liking this. “You’re mine ‘til you’re dead, right? That’s a long time, Mak. Anything can happen.”
She moved away, out of reach, before I could argue. I didn’t like her words, and if we’d been in my quarters back on the Colony, she’d have been over my knee for it. She was fast, and the seat harness kept me in place when I tried to go after her.
Fuck.
By the time I got the buckles undone, she was in the ready area, helmet on, armed to the teeth with ion blasters, a larger rifle, a line of grenades attached to her belt and a very wicked looking knife strapped to her thigh. A small pack rested on her back, and I knew the Prillon, Vance, would carry an identical bag filled to the top with explosives.
Enough to take out a much larger ship than the small shuttle we’d flown up to the moon’s surface. Enough to take out a Hive communications array and dozens of Scouts or Drones. And my Gwen right along with them.
I wanted to tease her, to lighten the mood, but that proved impossible. Odds were, she would need all of the explosives, the weapons. We knew the Hive were out there. And we were stupid enough to be going out into that swirling fog to find them.
“Report.” That was Governor Rone’s voice coming through the helmet speakers, loud and clear.
“We’re exiting the shuttle now. We’ll arrive at the first mark in”—Gwen checked the navigation display in her helmet. I saw the objective clearly in my own after I put it on, but I had no desire to talk to Maxim Rone, the uptight Prillon who’d kept me a pseudo-prisoner on the Colony for far too long. He might have been governor, but that didn’t mean I had to like him—“about five minutes.”
“We’re listening, Lieutenant, tracking both teams,” he stated, making sure we knew she was being watched. One fuck up on Gwen’s part and I had no doubt he’d yank her back to base and ground her again.
“Figured you would.”
I raised a brow at her flippant tone, but she just smiled at me through her helmet and hit the control switch that lowered the ramp to the ground. A dense, swirling gray mist enveloped us both, wrapping around us like coils. Instantly, visibility went to just a couple of steps in any direction.
Right away, I was on alert. Not as a fighter, for I wasn’t one. Never had been. But as a mate. It might be a new thing, but the protective instincts I felt for Gwen were fierce.
I grabbed her by the arm as she took her first step toward the ground, not hard, just hard enough to get her attention. “Stay where I can see you,” I ordered.
My female tilted her head up at me and smiled. It wasn’t a sweet smile. “Check your in-helmet display, Mak. You can track me all over this rock. And you might like being bossy in the sack, but here, in this fucking fog, I’m in charge.”
Fuck, she was right. I was only here to keep her safe, not run the mission. So I did as she asked, already knowing what I would find. I could, indeed, see a small dot indicating her position relative to mine. Captain Marz and the Prillon Vance showed up on the monitoring display as well. In red, the areas we’d mapped out for ReCon were bright targets laid out over a grid between the two shuttle landing sites.
I didn’t care. Blips of color weren’t enough.