Amity Series: #3 - Tempest
Kris Me
Amity Series:
#3 - Tempest
By: Kris Me
- Introduction:
The wizards of Amity were a long way from achieving their goals. Storm had found two of his wizards and three of his apprentices but still had two sets to go. He had decided a trip to Orient was in his crystal ball. He hoped to find one of them there.
Penny and Kale had to help Alexus claim his apprentice's box and sort out a little plague. While David also had to find the two wizards missing from his sextet and tame the continent of Federation while he was at it.
And just to mix things up, some kids were coming to visit.
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Copyright:
Copyright © 2016 Kris Me - All rights are reserved
This story is the work of Kris Me. Before you copy more than one page or ten percent of the content, you must contact me as per the Copyright Act 1968, Australia.
First Published by Storiesonline World Literature Company: 15/11/2016 as Amity: 3. Tempest.
Last updated: 09/06/2021.
The book cover was designed in Microsoft Paint 3D using art that is my own, copyright-free or covered by creative commons license for commercial use from https://pixabay.com/ or https://pexels.com
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Declaration:
~~ Adult Themes ~~
This book is part of an erotica science fiction series. It is NOT recommended for people under the legal age to access such stories, depending on the reader's country of origin.
The books may contain what some people consider vulgar language, references to religious icons, violence, coercion, murder, and-or rape scenes.
Some scenes may describe intimate heterosexual, bisexual, gay and-or group sexual activities. If you are homophobic, you may find some scenes in this series of books distasteful. In most cases, these scenes are integral parts of the story.
Some of the books include imaginary races capable of changing their gender and/or form into other animals. Copulation, while the characters are in their alternate animal forms, may be described.
This book DOES NOT contain descriptions of bestiality or coitus between persons closely related by blood.
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Editing:
If you find any of my assumptions fabricated, I would like to remind you this is a fictional story, and I have probably taken liberties with reality, as you know it. The humanoids in this story are not based on anyone I know or have read about.
Australian based dictionaries were used for reference, and Grammarly was used as part of the editing suite. The story was written in Microsoft Word.
If you find grammatical or spelling errors, they are not the fault of my editor or proofreaders who did try to fix my work. However, I do tend to fiddle around after the fact, so all errors are my own.
If my Australian colloquialisms or terms need clarification, or you just wish to correspond, I'm more than happy to answer your emails. You can send them to:
kris.me2@inorbit.com
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The Wiki:
https://keltria.fandom.com/wiki/
The Wiki contains information about the Keltrian people, wizards, magical items, colloquialisms and adapted words that have been created for this universe. Maps, character lists and other information that may relate to this book could be found.
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This is the third book:
It is best to read the books in sequence. Some references to events or information about a character place or event might not be explained in full if mentioned or introduced in a previous book.
The Amity Series is part of the Keltrian Universe. Chronologically, this story starts before Delta but finishes around the same time. It can be read as a separate entity to the Delta series since it centres around a different planet and solar system.
However, there are links to events and characters who first appear in Delta. If you have read those books, you will have better foreknowledge if some information isn't repeated in this book.
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Acknowledgements:
Special thanks to Anna Dapter, PapaKilo14, Town Car and Johnny Sinclair, who did try to decipher my dyslexic scribbles in the original posting.
Thanks to all of the readers who have pointed out I do make mistakes and have helped me fix them. And extra thanks go to Lazeez for his support.
I hope you enjoy the story.
Kris Me
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List of books:
Amity: #1 - Storm
Amity: #2 - Coercion
Amity: #3 - Tempest
Amity: #4 - Herders
Amity: #5 - The Herd
Amity: #6 - Calamity
Amity: #7 - Cataclysm
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Part A – Raina
- Chapter 1
Raina was pissed off.
This was the screwiest mission she had been on so far. Her mate, Murphy, was alive and well and still fucking with her life.
'Gods, I hope Dana is being good for Arthur and Grace. She is a lively kid and too smart for her own good sometimes. At least she liked the paint set I bought her,' Raina thought.
Booom... Booom...
'That was the signal,' she decided.
'Fuck! I hope I can fly this bloody thing,' she thought as she ducked low and zigzagged between the searchlights.
When she got to the hanger, she eased against the wall, breathing slowly to keep the noise down. She slid along the wall and cautiously looked around the corner. Her view was partially blocked by a low section of the wall being rolled out away from the centre of the hole in jagged edges.
The metal must have been more corroded than they had assumed. The wall had opened up like a shot-up tin can. Spots of metal still glowed, and smoke drifted into the icy air. The cold air was cooling the metal fast, causing it to crackle.
Raina flicked her eyes around and spotted DT and KJ in their positions on either side of the front of the building. She couldn't hear anyone screaming or calling out to stop them. She checked again for hidden cameras but couldn't see any.
Raina inched down the wall to the hole and stopped when she heard metal scraping on metal. She listened intently as she crouched down, and aimed her weapon in the direction of the noise. She watched as Ben inched carefully around the edge of the jagged metal on the other side of the hole.
Into her throat-mike, she whispered, "Bang, bang, you're dead."
Ben nearly shit himself and jerked around. "Fuck, Raina!" he cussed back softly, making her grin and chuckle to herself.
She checked back around and waved her handgun towards the hole, offering to let him go first. Ben got down on his hands and knees. He looked through cautiously and then wiggled his long frame into the faint light coming from the hole like a mouse into a hole in a wall. He was cautious of the still-hot metal and jagged edges.
Raina appreciated the view of watching his sexy arse and muscular thighs wiggling past her as she waited. She flicked her eyes away, checking around again, but it was still eerily quiet. The wind had dropped off, and the treeless white landscape lay still as if it was sleeping.
The emptiness worried her more than anything else did. If what they were looking for was inside the hanger, she would have thought that the owners would have had better security. But the silence said differently. Perhaps it was a red herring, and the information was false.
It wouldn't have been the first time. When they had gotten here, all they had found was the small plane hangar at the end of a very short disused runway, just like the Intel said. Snow lazily drifted across the airstrip and road in the odd, light gusts of wind.
It was friggin cold, and Raina shivered as the next gust of wind smacked against her. Lights mounted on the hanger flicked back and forth over the ground surrounding the building in random patterns. It bothered her that the lights were active when there didn't appear to be any other security at all.
"Clear," Ben said into her earpiece.
Raina eased around the jagged metal and wiggled through the hole. On the other side, she stood to find old, mercury-vapour, high-bay lights hung crookedly from the ceiling. At least two-thirds of them were out, and the rest showed the bulbs hadn't been changed in a very long time. The fluorescent coating of some had broken away, giving the odd, sharp blue/white glow.
Looking around her revealed that the rest of the hanger was empty. It had been entirely cleared out of anything man-made. The snow had managed to seep in through small holes eaten into the walls and the roof. Patches of ice lay scattered over the floor. In many places, the floor was as slick as an ice rink.
The walls, on close inspection, were showing their age. Raina hoped the building didn't fall down on them. She walked carefully over to Ben. He looked at her, and he shrugged. Both were feeling that this was a bust and that they would be going home empty-handed.
Ben relayed his findings to DT and KJ and directed them to pull in closer. The boys answered and told them that there was still no movement outside. The satellite feed didn't indicate anything within twenty klicks of them, and they were coming in because it was friggin cold.
"We are here, so we might as well check the place out," Raina said to Ben.
They made their way to the office area down the back. The short spikes in their boots cracking the thin coating of ice over the puddles. They moved slowly and carefully, mindful of slipping and falling. Raina checked her minder.
She read: 2:32 am, 04-05-2057.
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The data file that the team had, said that this hanger had been here for close on a hundred and thirty years.
They had to use the explosives because the walls were made of two layers of 5mm thick stainless steel separated by a 100mm square box steel frame. The big sliding doors for the hanger, and even the personnel door, had been welded shut.
The Russians had even welded the hinged side and the top. Ben had found a big enough hole in the sidewall about a metre off the ground and dropped the explosives in it. When it blew the sidewall, it had peeled the two layers apart like paper poked with a pencil.
Raina considered that since it was supposed to be stainless steel, it was poorly made material.
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They were near the town of Iultin, Eastern Russia.
It had been abandoned just before the turn of the twentieth century. It was a mining town in the middle of nowhere. This hanger was located in a small valley on the opposite side of the mountain that had been mined for tin.
The team had been dropped off in Chariot, Alaska, two days before. The Mark VI ATC (Air and Terrain Craft) they had been given was about the size of a wide twelve-seater mini-bus with the ends of the cab section rounded off and the front and back sections curved down from the roof.
It had been developed as an infiltration vehicle, and it was capable of travelling at 300 km/h and up to a height of 500m. At lower altitudes, the linger operated by using four fans that provide the lift and travel. It could skim along at 120 km/h up to a height of 30m.
However, it didn't have the same restrictions as the commercial lingers. And luckily for them, most governments wouldn't let the lingers go public, even though people wanted them.
The exceptions on theirs' was the short fold-away wings and the small, fuelled booster engines that were mounted on the underside to provide the extra height and speed that was restricted by the weight it carried. The tinting of armoured windows and windshields made it hard to see the number of occupants.
Only the Australian Military owned them, and theirs was a new prototype. It could be landed and driven like a car, but this was the last resort and mostly a parking feature. Specialised buffers and the design of the blades were used to muffle the noise of the fans. The fans were tilted down in front for thrust and up for braking.
It was a hell of a lot quieter than a helicopter. The ATC was big enough to seat six people with their gear. For this mission, it only had four occupants. It had behaved well enough when flying across the Bering Strait. Then the team had hit a little snowstorm when they were still some 50km from their destination.
It wasn't up to blizzard standards, even if it felt like it to the occupants. The booster engines didn't like sucking in the ice crystals, and Raina had to start nursing them. The ice pelted the ATC like gravel, and Raina wasn't surprised the engines didn't appreciate the weather.
She had dropped their altitude and speed to try to keep them going, but the engines were not happy campers, and at still 20km out, she'd had to shut them down. She then had to keep the ATC at close to the 30m height and drop the speed to 50km/h in order to see anything and not run into outcrops before the storm had finally moved off.
Raina had found if she dropped down to the preferred 10m mark, it kicked up the fresh, fluffy snow and further blinded them and their sensors. The terrain wasn't helping either.
The mountains caused updraughts and open pockets of air that tossed them around even at 30m from the ground. The slopes and moving snow also made it difficult, as it upset the ground-finder and proximity sensors.
'These ATCs needed some serious adjustments made to them,' Rain had decided as she man-handled the beast.
They had hoped to land closer to the hanger. However, when they dropped near to the ground, the snow plumes from the fresh snow would let anyone watching see them. So, they had ended up three klicks out and parked in a side valley.
Raina had nosed the ship under the best overhang she could find to help hide the residual heat signature that would be easier to pick up now the ATC wasn't moving. The reflectors only hide so much.
At this time of year, they had about eighteen hours of daylight to play with. Nearly half of the day was gone when they had landed. They then had to hike to within sight of the hanger.
The fresh, powdered snow had them swearing and sweating as they struggled through the drifts. A soft breeze teased them the whole way and upped the chill factor. It was just as well they were dressed for the conditions.
DT and KJ had walked down the road a klick, set up motion sensors and then come back. They still didn't wish to approach the hanger in daylight and had to wait until after midnight for it to be dark enough to move. They had eight hours to kill.
Their spy satellite hadn't tracked any activity here for more than two weeks. The last recorded vehicle hadn't hung around for long. The men did a cursory look around, had a pee and then headed back to the nearest town.
So far, HQ hadn't discerned any pattern to the visits in the three months it had reportedly been under observation. It had been more than a month between the last visit and the previous one.
The team elected to camp close enough for any vehicle movement to wake them, as the sounds carried a long way in the treeless landscape. They pitched the small tents behind a snowdrift. DT and KJ shared one, and Raina got to share the other tent with Ben.
The tents weren't real big, considering none of them could be called petite.
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- Chapter 2
Raina had ended up taller than her mother at 188cm.
Ben was just under the 2m mark. Their shorter friends Darren Topple - DT and Kori Johnson - KJ, topped in closer to 185cm.
Darren was leaner, darker-haired and was dark beige in skin colour. Kori was a little bulkier, paler and had a lighter shade of brunette hair. They were good-looking, clean-shaven boys that women found approachable.
However, neither of them were guys you'd want to pick a fight with. They were both very proficient in unarmed and armed combat. They had been mates since they met as recruits and were close to twenty-three years of age.
Raina had cut her hair short, and the wisps of dark copper framed her face. She wouldn't be considered a classical beauty, but most men looked at least twice. Her sensual lips and sky-blue eyes caught their attention, and the rest of the body was no hardship to look at either.
Ben was mid-beige and a touch lighter than DT. With an interesting combination of Australian Aboriginal, Irish, English, Scottish and American Indian heritage in his background. His hair was also dark brown with red highlights. It had soft waves that framed his squarish jaw and prominent cheekbones. It sat just above his shoulder blades. Longer hair was back in fashion for blokes.
Raina considered him a hunk.
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The frigid air frosted the teams' breaths as they worked.
They were wearing thin, form-fitting flight suits designed for space that kept them reasonably warm in the chilly air. They had swapped the flight helmets for the special cold weather helmets designed for this mission.
The pull-down visors were fitted with a lot of the features that commercial Peepers had for watching videos and interacting with data files. Theirs, however, had a few extra features for tracking through hostile terrains, like zoom-able cameras with infra-red sensing and map tracking.
Their peepers weren't, however, currently linked to the standard satellites, as that would make them too easy to track by the locals. This was a stealth mission, after all. The team didn't actually work for the Australian Military. Well, not officially anyway.
If they were caught, they were on their own. They would claim to be tourists that had gotten lost. The suits they wore were available, after a fashion, and if you had the money. Their Ids, when checked, would indicate they were Mr and Mrs Brown from Melbourne, Australia, and their two best friends.
The stamps and locations of their travels showed that they liked extreme holidays, in that they often went to out of the way places to hike, climb cliffs and go caving. Their data would indicate they had flown into Egvekinot to the south. Not that anyone would remember them. The cover was thin, but the plan was to not get caught.
The lovely weather, even in May, was still bloody cold as they loaded their packs into the tents. They scooped snow over the edges of the dappled grey and white tents that were designed to make them blend into the landscape and then crawled in.
A few hours of shuteye were welcome.
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Raina was still wondering why she had agreed to this mission.
She hadn't worked with Ben for two years. She had made sure she wasn't alone with him on the last mission. The bloke flicked her lust meter into the red on sight. Raina had just been the pilot on that sortie. It had been a simple, drop and pick-up mission for her.
The toughest part was fighting the desire to be alone with Ben. The tension between them was still thick, and the last look he had given her wasn't a happy one. They had a bit of history, and it wasn't all good.
The flight to get to the airfield had been just as tense, and the couple had barely spoken, letting DT and KJ control the conversation. Raina suspected that her guilty conscience didn't help.
Ben and Raina settled into the tent. When Ben had wrapped around her and pulled the extra-large space blankets over them to conserve body heat and keep warm, she had tensed up.
"Shit! Raina, are you ever going to forgive me?" he growled at her.
She wished it were that easy. She had a three-year-old bundle of gorgeous energy at home to remind her of their first mission together. She'd need a calculator to count the number of times she had wanted to blurt out her secret on the flight here.
She also knew it wasn't his fault alone. She had spread her legs willingly enough at the time. To her knowledge, he didn't know about the consequences. She had damn near lost her job after that little surprise. She had considered termination, but she just couldn't do it.
With the fertility level of men being so small these days, the fact she had fallen to him at all was a miracle in itself. She may never have another kid, nor might he.
Her mate, Murphy, must have been chuckling in his beer that night, the prick.
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At just sixteen, Raina had gotten into the Australian Space Force – the ASF.
It was a relatively new arm of the military. They were taking in younger recruits in the last years of high school because they apparently adapted better to the challenging programmes. Raina's mother, Annette, wasn't happy, but her stepfather, Frank Walsh, had encouraged her to join.
The recruits were educated and gained skills they could use once they left the Military. Raina wanted to fly, and this was her opportunity to do so. She had been fascinated with speed, flight, and space all her life, so signing up was no hardship for her.
She suspected the reasons that Frank was supporting her were centred on removing her from his son's orbit. Arthur was his son from a previous marriage. He was six years older than Raina was and had become fascinated with her of late.
Raina had finally stopped growing upwards and had begun to develop all the right curves in all the right places, and Arthur had noticed. He was as tall as she was, and he had felt her up more than once on this trip home from college on the pretext of giving her brotherly cuddles.
Raina didn't think it was because he had a thing for younger girls. It was just that she didn't look like one, being so tall. They had gotten on well enough when she was growing up, and he hadn't shown interest in a sexual way until this last time when he had come home for her sixteenth birthday.
She wasn't genetically related to him, even if they had grown up together. However, they did share a nine-year-old sister. So, his interest did have a little weirdness about it to Raina. The other thing as far as Raina was concerned was that she just didn't fancy him, even if he was a nice bloke.
Frank had seen Arthur kissing her. It was supposed to be a birthday kiss, but Arthur hadn't been kissing her in a brotherly manner. He's slipped the tongue in and had explored. One hand had roamed while he kissed her and held her to his body.
Raina had wiggled out of his embrace and pushed him away before it got any hotter or heavier. Other parts of his anatomy that he had pressed against her had warned her that he wanted more than just kisses. She had laughed it off and told him it was the last lip kiss that he would be getting from her.
She had enjoyed the birthday all the same. Her favourite gift was the ear stud that her Aunt Adina had put in her ear. It had a ruby that she had dug up and cut herself. Her mum hadn't been pleased with this either, but Raina had loved it. She had never met this aunt before.
She lived in Brisbane, and for some reason, she said that she was just popping in because she knew it was her sweet sixteenth birthday. She wasn't staying, as she had to catch a flight to go to another birthday party.
She was a larger than life character, in more ways than one and pulled all who came near her into her orbit. Annette had commented that the woman was about a hundred years out of date, as hippies were from a different era.
All Raina had learnt about her aunt was that she had married her mother's older brother, who was called Al Ubobo and that her maiden name was James. She had a son who was two years older than she was and two daughters, both younger than her, but she hadn't met those cousins yet.
Raina never took the stud off, mostly because it didn't want to come off. Where her aunt had put it, was why the doctors hadn't removed it when she turned up for basic training.
The Doctor looked at it and said he'd have to cut it off. He decided that, as it didn't affect her wearing any of the devices that they would have her wear, it might as well stay. Raina was pleased that he hadn't touched it.
She had breezed through the six-month course they ran as Basic Training with flying colours. The instructors had put them through some extensive schooling. They tested them on all sorts of data and communication systems, vehicles and weapons to see what they could do and where they would use them.
Half the recruits were women, and while a lot of the girls played around, Raina hadn't been interested. She developed a reputation as an Ice Princess, and while this made some of the blokes try harder, they eventually gave up. There were enough girls around who did play nice.
The fact she could outrun most of them, and she was rarely put down on the mats in unarmed combat training, also ensured they looked for easier prey. While she didn't remove herself from the company of her fellow recruits, she did tend to prefer her own company.
For her second half-year, she had been moved to pilot and navigation training. By the end of six months, they couldn't find anything that she couldn't fly to where they wanted her to take it, or land it successfully.
Some of the others said she was an adrenaline junky and mentioned that she rode her antique motorbike as fast and hard as she pushed her flying machines. Not many were brave enough to get on the back of the bike with her a second time, but they'd get in any aircraft she flew.
Her skills had her recruited to a Special Forces Unit halfway through her second year. It was hush-hush, and as far as letters home went, she was flying military shuttles. She was actually flying prototypes that were used for special missions.
She'd been with the unit for six months when she flew her first mission with Ben's team. She tended to draw a lot of tricky forays where reconnaissance was required first, so she had been shuffled around between different teams and had mostly been just their pilot for the mission.
She was to fly Ben's team of five to an undisclosed location. All she knew was that the team was looking for military artefacts. Her mate, Murphy (from Murphy's Law), had accompanied her on this trip too.
She and Ben had been the only ones who made it home. They had to bail when they came under fire, and the craft took a missile hit while they had been escaping. The local militants had taken exception to them being in the area, and Raina had barely gotten Ben and his mortally wounded Captain out of there.
The other three members had been shot and killed when trying to access a cavern system that the militants had taken a fancy to. She had stayed with the craft and was supposed to be monitoring for movement in the area.
The team wasn't meant to be there more than a couple of hours, as it was a reconnaissance mission, so she was to hang around. The militants, however, had already moved into a side system in the caverns. They had come to investigate when they heard noises.
Ben and Captain Nathan had been lucky to get out at all. When she heard them screaming over the coms, Raina had shifted the craft as close as possible to their exit point to get them out. The screams and gunfire had chilled Raina, but she knew she couldn't leave.
She was the only way for them to get out of the area if they made it out of the cavern. It was a bastard of a machine to keep hovering, and Raina was straining muscles she didn't know she had to keep it where she wanted it.
Ben and the Captain hadn't entered the cavern system as far as the other three. The team had been cut down by automatic fire before either of them could respond. They'd had to shoot their way out and then run like hell.
When Ben and the Captain had barrelled out of the cave, Raina had the doors open ready. She dipped low enough to let them roll in, and she took off when the Captain ordered her to, saying the others were dead. Ben had held the Captain while he died.
The Captain had caught two bullets in his back as they entered the craft. One of the shots had gone under his vest when he went to roll in. It hit a rib, sliced through a lung and lodged in the sidewall of his heart. He had bled to death in minutes.
The fact that Raina started to zigzag all over the place was not appreciated by Ben at the time. In his grief, fear and anger, he had bawled her out for not doing her job. He wouldn't listen to her explanation that the militants were already in the cave.
The militants then shot a dozen rockets at her, and she couldn't avoid them all. The craft had zero ammunition on board as it was supposed to be a stealth ship. Somehow, Raina managed to nurse the wounded craft over a secure border. When the second engine blew, they had to bail.
She later learned the militants had been planning a military coup. The team's presence had severely disrupted their agenda, and their shooting at the 'copter had alerted the local authorities to their existence.
They also didn't succeed in their coup, and that country had been a lot more stable since.
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- Chapter 3
Ben also recalled his first mission with Raina as they lay in the tent in Russia.
He couldn't believe his luck after they bailed. His parachute was blown into a tall stand of trees that he couldn't avoid. He ended hung up 3m from the ground after he had slammed into one of them. He had managed to knock himself silly and bend the release clip enough to jam it when he did.
To Ben's amazement, when Raina found him a couple of minutes later, she had shimmied up the tree. She then cut him down. She had been careful to split the silk, so it didn't let go in a rush. He had landed without breaking anything. He did have a bruised ego and a headache for his troubles.
They then spent two days walking to the nearest village. That had been a fun trip, not. Ben wanted to go one way, and Raina told him the closest and safest help was in another direction. He was relying on old maps and GPS. Most of the villagers here weren't on any map. These people still moved with the herds on their traditional land.
The militants were known to ignore borders, and the villagers preferred to keep their distance. They were more than happy to be left alone. Hence, Raina was working from the map in her head from when she had passed over the area.
After Ben had almost walked them off a cliff, Raina had given him a dirty look and told him, either follow her or goes his own way. It took Ben about ten minutes to realise she wasn't coming back, and it took him an hour to catch up with her. He fumed and cussed the whole time about obstinate little upstarts and women in general.
Raina had left him a clear enough trail, and by the time he caught up with her, she was camped beside the very creek they had been looking for. She had slung the length of silk she had kept from his chute and its ropes from a branch back to the trunk of an enormous old tree.
She was swinging slowly in the hammock, waiting for him. When he went to plonk on the ground, she tut-tutted him and pointed to the ant's nest.
"They hurt," she told him.
She had flipped out of her hammock as if she had done it a hundred times before and relieved him of his pack. She pulled out the hammock she had made for him and an extra length of rope that she slung over another branch. She hauled up his pack and started putting his hammock up, and told him to find more firewood.
He was starting to work out that this girl had serious bush skills that were far superior to his and gave up bucking her. After that, Ben followed and did what Raina told him to do. She had him in the village by the following afternoon.
The best part of the whole walk, as far as he was concerned, was watching her arse and long legs. He noticed she was always alert. She was more likely to call a halt to let him rest. She'd pick at leaves, berries and flowers as she walked and sniffed them before discarding them, eating them or handing them to him.
Ben never saw her use a compass, her GPS or a map. Raina just seemed to know where she was going. She'd point out things of interest, and he found he was becoming more aware of what was around him by her doing so.
He wasn't as big on being in the bush, but nothing seemed to faze her. She didn't even bitch about the bugs. When they got to the village, they had to wait another two nights before they could be extracted.
The villagers assumed that she was his wife and that they were lost tourists. They had put them together in a small hut that was basically a frame covered with a tarpaulin and had woven grasses for three walls and half of the front wall.
Raina had been standoffish with Ben since he had blown up at her. While she had kept her distance and answered any question he asked, she had volunteered little about herself. She was an enigma to Ben. It hadn't stopped him from looking at and fantasying about her. He was sure that she had dropped some appreciative glances his way too.
He had finally found something he could do, as he was able to communicate with the villagers. Languages, fortunately, was one of his gifts. He learned that they weren't entirely cut off from the wider world.
He was amused to find they had a satellite dish and portable solar panels so they could access the internet and recharge their peepers. The Chief told him they might not like living in the major cities, but they weren't stupid. Ben had been able to recharge his peeper and call in their location.
Then he had screwed up. He had unintentionally gotten drunk with the locals the second night while trying to be polite. He didn't realise the potency of the local brew until it hit him like a hammer. He had been brooding about the fucked-up mission and the fact that Raina was driving him crazy.
He had thought she was hot the first time he had dropped eyes on her and her cute little smile. He loved long legs, as she had them in spades. The sexy arse and long, lithe body had certainly flipped switches in his head and groin.
When he had staggered into the hut and found her asleep in just her knickers and a singlet, he had crawled into her bed with her. Ben only had fleeting recollections of the rest of that night.
He had woken up with a thumping head, a tongue thicker than his mouth, and with Raina curled up beside him wrapped around her makeshift pillow. The stink of sweat, cum, and blood assailed his nostrils.
When he pulled the thin cover off her and saw the bare sexy arse and then the smear of dried blood and cum on her thigh, he had been mortified. He vaguely remembered cuddling around her, and then later, somehow, he had rolled onto her and silenced her protests with his mouth, and he forced himself into her tightness.
The words hot, tight and delicious seemed to reverberate in his head. A memory of long legs being wrapped tightly around his hips and her little grunts as he thrust into her had his cock hard as a post.
He was utterly disgusted with himself.
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Raina had different memories of that night.
When Ben had crawled in with her, he had made sweet love to her. He had apologised for being a bastard and cuddled her. When she had rolled over in his arms, he had kissed her, and she had been powerless to say no.
When she responded to his kisses and let his hands roam over her body, he had gently pulled her on top of him and let her have her wicked way with him. He had been very gentle with her and let her lead and do to him what she wished.
Raina wasn't a stranger to masturbation, but the male body was new territory. She had him groaning and moaning while she got him undressed and explored him. He had liked her licking, kissing and exploring him.
She had seen enough cocks in the open showers when a recruit, to know he was very nicely endowed. When she had climbed on him, he had been thick, hard and throbbing. She had to work to get him into her tightness despite her being wet and willing.
He had stretched her far further than she had been before, and the sting of her hymen giving way to give him full access was a tiny price to pay for the joy he brought her.
When Ben woke her later, the memory he remembered the most, he had little trouble getting her to spread her legs and letting him into her wetness again. Raina had enjoyed every inch of him, and he had made sure she organised with him.
She liked the way he had explored her body and made her breasts and cunnie burn for his touch, sucks and licks. The fact she'd had the hots for him since she had first laid eyes on him was also in his favour.
She loved his thick wavy hair and lovely brown and blue eyes. They were unusual as they had a brown outer ring with a dark blue inner iris. It wasn't until you got close did you realise that they weren't entirely brown.
Ben was well built for his height but not overly bulky. He had the sexiest arse, and when he lay his little half-smile on you, it was enough to make a girl's panties wet. She had been surprised at the deep attraction she felt for him when they first met.
Raina had shivered the first time his eyes racked her body, and he had given her that sexy smile he had perfected. She had enjoyed him watching her arse when he was walking behind her on the trail. She had observed him adjusting himself a couple of times after she had been close to him for some reason.
Ben kinda overreacted on seeing the blood on her thigh and the foetal posture. He stammered out a sorry and got out of the bed as fast as he could. If his brain hadn't still been swimming in the aftereffects of the brew that he had drunk, he might have handled the situation differently.
However, his disgust with himself for brutally taking her and his intense desire to fuck her again was warring in his head. He avoided her for the rest of the morning, trying to reconcile the facts as he saw them, his flashes of memory and his desires.
Raina was left wondering what the hell she had done wrong, with her recollections being different to his. She ended up pissed at him because of his rejection of her. The rescue team found one very pissed-off woman and one tight-lipped man.
It had also been Ben's first mission as the second officer. It had been an unmitigated disaster as far as he was concerned and had him contemplating his future. He was still pissed that the Intel hadn't told them of the militants being in the area.
The grief of losing his Captain and his team and the feelings of being powerless to help them was still raw. Getting drunk and raping Raina, was to his mind, just inexcusable. He fully expected her to be pissed at him, and to keep her distance, so he didn't question why she was.
When Raina found out she was pregnant at her medical before her next mission, she expected to be tossed out. However, her commander was of a different opinion. She was the best bloody pilot they had ever had, and he didn't want to lose her from the unit.
The only grey marks on her record were from her trying to fix the glitches in the crafts herself, especial if they broke down on her away from the base. So, he sent her to college to study Aviation Programming and Mechanics.
She wasn't even eighteen, and he felt that her spending a year to eighteen months in the real world would do her some good. He was able to send her home to Cairns, to their new Military Academy.
Raina was able to live off-base with her family and her baby while she attended the Academy.
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- Chapter 4
For Raina, it had been a bitter-sweet eighteen months at the Academy.
She loved being at college, and she learned a lot more about how her aircraft were made and programmed. She had found her input from what she had flown was making its way to the designers.
She loved her daughter, whom she had called Dana and suffered through the death of her mother, who had a run-in with a kangaroo one night coming back down the range from the Atherton Tablelands to Cairns in her old van.
Annette had only been fifty, and it was a shock to Raina, her half-sister Anne and Frank. Arthur had gotten married the year before, and he became the family's rock. Grace, his wife, had been fantastic, and her soft, gentle way had won them all over.
Frank was devastated, and Raina believed if it weren't for Arthur and Grace moving back in with them, things would have been a lot worse. When Raina had to go back to her unit, there was no argument as to where Dana was going to be staying.
Arthur told her that Anne and Dana kept his father going, and he and Grace loved her daughter as if she was their own. He also confided to Raina that he doubted they would ever have their own kids the natural way.
His sperm count was very low, and they suspected Grace might have difficulties carrying a child. She believed she had already miscarried once, and the doctors weren't hopeful for either of them producing another.
With a heavy heart, Raina had gone back to work. She was contemplating if she should stay away and let Dana have a regular life with Arthur and Grace. Dana had spent more time in their care while she was at the Academy as it was.
Raina hadn't breastfed her as she couldn't take her to the Academy with her. She wondered if this affected her bond with Dana. She often felt more the loving aunt and that Dana was more Grace's child than her own.
She'd had her on a Friday night and was back at the Academy on Monday. She knew part of her problem was that she loved her job. At only nineteen, she wasn't really ready to settle down, as much as she loved her daughter.
She would have to think of her options for the future.
------
It was six months after Raina got back to her unit that she drew her next mission with Ben.
If anything, she thought he was even hotter. He was only four years older than she was, and like her, he now held a more mature look. He was still cool with her and gave her a lot of broody looks. Raina had no idea what she had done to piss him off.
Her lack of practical knowledge of how relationships worked didn't help her. Raina had heard that there was a betting book going for who could get through Lieutenant Ben Vella's calm exterior. The girls wanted to find out if he was as well-hung as the other guys had hinted.
Being an officer now, Ben didn't shower with the grunts anymore. Raina had grinned and could have told them, but she didn't. The other rumour was that he was still getting over the death of his girlfriend on a mission two years before. That was why he didn't get fresh with the women on his team or even in the office.
Raina had often wondered if this was the reason why he had been so upset at finding himself in bed with her, only days after Justine had died. She hadn't thought they were that into each other. Justine had flirted with all the men and had a reputation for being free with her favours. Raina was beginning to think it was just her bad luck.
At least on their second mission, she didn't lose the team. When they flew into the area the unit planned to search, Raina had gotten an awful feeling and aborted the landing. Ben was pissed and asked her what the fuck she was doing?
She said she got a lousy readout when she went to land and shifted to the secondary location. When Ben and the team investigated the first area, the team found it wasn't stable ground but a peat bog. On their maps, it was supposed to be solid ground.
However, they had recent torrential rains in the area, which had re-filled the dry bog. The craft would have sunk if Raina had landed on it. The team couldn't even walk in the area.
At the debriefing, Raina had apologised for not landing the team where they wanted, so that they had to walk an extra five klicks. She would understand if they wanted a different pilot. Tony, one of the team, told her about the bog and that he was bloody glad she had picked somewhere else to drop them.
Ben managed to collar her after the debriefing and dragged her off to an empty room. He had paced up and down several times and then said, "I'm sorry I didn't apologise for what happened on the last mission."
Raina had looked at him but said nothing.
"Shit!" he cursed. "Look, Raina, I know being drunk is no excuse for raping you, but I don't really remember doing it. I've never forced myself on a woman before and... Fuck!" he expelled, rubbing his hand through his hair and rushed on.
"I didn't even thank you for saving my worthless arse. I took my failure to complete the mission out on you. If we hadn't had you on this one, we would have been fucked again. You're an amazing pilot, and that's twice you've saved my sorry arse."
"I promise not to get drunk when you're around, as I don't want to take advantage of you again. But I do want you on my team," Ben got out.
She looked at him, stunned. He didn't remember the most amazing night of her life, and now, he was telling her that he hadn't wanted her, that she had been just someone to fuck!
"Bastard," she said and stalked away.
------
Now it was eighteen months later.
Raina had laughed at DT when he complained about getting the Russian gig. He said his Abo's blood didn't like the cold. Their old team leader had broken an ankle on their last mission, and they were getting a new one for this mission.
Raina and the boys had been a team for twelve months now, and she was fond of them. When Raina had learned that Ben was the replacement team leader, she had offered to keep DT warm. He moved his head in the negative and declined.
Telling her the King and Queen of Ice could share a tent. At least KJ didn't mind a cuddle to get warm. KJ warned him to keep his cold hands and feet to himself, as he'd be doing the spooning from behind.
KJ had then wiggled his eyebrows suggestively at DT and cracked them up.
------
Raina now found herself curled up in Ben's arms again.
She wanted to cry at the injustice. Ben's were still the only arms she wanted to be in and had been. Even after she had Dana, she hadn't been the least bit interested in any of the other men that she met. She kept comparing them to Ben, and they just kept coming up short.
Something about him drew her like a moth to a flame. He made her heart race when no other man had. She'd get flushed and flustered from just being near him. Even his rejection of her and the time that had passed didn't diminish her desire for him.
Raina woke to darkness and Ben wiggling around behind her. She felt his cock slid between her butt-cheeks a couple of times before he moved away.
"Fuck, I knew this was a bad idea. Damn woman, you're like a furnace," he grumbled.
Raina couldn't help herself, "Is that why you keep poking me with that icicle? Are you trying to get it to thaw?"
She deliberately snuggled back into his cock and rubbed her arse on him. She had enjoyed him rubbing her very much. He groaned, and to her surprise, he pulled her closer and humped it into her.
"There is only one place he wants to thaw out in, and if you don't behave, I might let him," Ben growled.
"I thought you didn't wish to take advantage of me," she quipped.
"I'm not drunk, and I know exactly what I want to do you if you'd let me. But I promised not to force you, Raina. It has to be your choice," he told her.
He gently kissed her behind the ear, making her shiver all over, and he groaned again as she rubbed against him as she did. She giggled as he pulled his hips back, and his arse hit the tent. He made it shake, and the snow slid off, revealing that it wasn't entirely dark.
Ben looked at his minder and grunted. He slapped her arse. "Come on, sweet cheeks, we have work to do. But this conversation is not over, not by a long way," he said as he caressed her arse and squeezed it gently. The desire to push his cock between those cheeks had him even harder, if that was possible.
Raina wiggled under his hand and then moved away. She rolled onto her knees and started folding the blankets and stuffing them into the packs. Ben looked at her a couple of times. He was wondering if the strange dreams were from his memories or just wet dreams.
When he woke to find his cock sliding between her butt cheeks, he'd been dreaming of her riding him. He'd had a lot of wet dreams about this woman. In the near four years since that disastrous night, she had only gotten better to look at, as far as he was concerned.
She had filled out and lost the gawkiness that tall women seem to suffer from, just like tall blokes like him. She had a new softness about her, and the tits were more significant. To be honest, he found her new, more feminine look even more desirable.
He was tickled that she hadn't told him to piss off. Perhaps he hadn't burnt that bridge after all. He sure hoped not. He may only be twenty-five, but he felt she was important to him, that his future was tied to hers. He had taken this mission just so he could see if he could work things out with her.
She had been haunting his dreams lately, so he had jumped at the chance when he was offered this mission. During the trip across the strait, he had been so tongue-tied, and she hadn't helped. She didn't ignore him, but she had made sure nothing personal was said between them.
He'd felt a strong attraction to Raina from the first time he had been introduced to her. He didn't do anything because he had been screwing Justine at the time. Things hadn't been serious between them, and Justine had already put in for a transfer to a different branch.
He had felt cut-up about her death as much as he did about the rest of his team but not because he loved her. He had let the rumours of his standoffishness due to her death perpetuate. It stopped the other girls bugging him for sex.
The only time he felt a genuine desire for a woman was if Raina was around. He wondered if he was perverted. The one woman he had taken by force was the only one he wanted. It was weird, but he felt that he had a claim on her, that she was his.
Ben had given up getting drunk and only had a single drink to be sociable. When he had woken up beside Raina, and he realised he'd raped her, he had been mortified that he had so little self-control when drunk.
The fact Justine had only been dead for three days, and he had fucked the teenage pilot, didn't sit well with him either, no matter how much he fancied her. Being drunk at the time was no excuse as far as he was concerned.
He often wished he knew what the hell those villagers had given him, as he had never been so off his face, before or since. Certainly not to the extent that he couldn't remember what he had been doing.
Ben believed his dad had taught him better manners than that. His mother had died not long after he was born, and then his father had moved him back to Australia when he was still in nappies.
His grandfather, Nathan Vella, had been born in Western Australia, but his dad, Peter Vella, and his Uncle Paul had been born in Arizona. His father had moved Ben back to Perth when his company had sent them there. So that's where he had grown up and lived until he joined the ASF.
Putting the memories aside, Ben helped Raina pull down the tent. They had a quick meal using the self-heat MREs they had and policed the area to remove any evidence of them having been there.
Since it was just after two am, they decided to move out.
-------------------------------------------
- Chapter 5
Back in the present, Ben stood beside Raina, looking at the ice puddles on the bare floor inside the empty hanger.
DT and KJ had joined them a few minutes later. They decided to head down the back to the office area. It didn't take them long to ascertain that it, too, was totally empty. The previous occupants hadn't left the furniture or even their rubbish. It was as if nothing had ever been in here.
They wandered around for about ten minutes, and Ben was just about to call it a bust when Raina called him over.
"What do you think? These rooms don't match. This room is a metre shorter than the others are. I believe there is a hidden passage behind this wall," she said excitedly.
Raina walked along the back wall and stopped near the corner.
"Here, these two panels are shorter than the rest. There is no reason for them being so," she said aloud thoughtfully.
She started banging on the two panels, she must have hit the hidden switch, and the corner panel folded back against the wall with a thump.
She pulled her backpack off, removed a climbing piton then jammed it under the panel, so it stayed open. She wiggled her eyebrows at Ben, turned her torch on and headed down the poorly lit stairs. Ben sighed and followed.
He had the feeling that he hadn't been wearing the pants since the start of this mission. He was sent as the muscle, like her boys. They both had the same rank, but to her credit, Raina had become a bit of a legend. She had a knack for getting her people home, even if they lost the craft or came under fire.
His friend Tony had been on another mission with her, and they had lost all communications when the ship fried itself, and she walked them out.
Tony had told him that it was as if she had the map in her head. She had mad bush skills as well. Raina told them what not to eat and what they could and found water for them. She had patched up their wounds and found them shelter each night. Four days later, they were standing on a road and flagging down a truck.
Ben knew that Raina had done the same thing when she walked him to the village. She never hesitated as to where they were going. She flew the same way. She didn't seem to rely on the computer so much as she just knew where she wanted to go and how to get there.
He had noticed KJ and DT never questioned her decisions, and he was aware that the three of them had been a team for over a year. When he had been briefed on taking over this team, her previous team leader had told him straight out to trust Raina and jump or duck whenever she said so.
So down the stairs they went, and down and down and down.
-------
At the bottom of the stairs, Raina said, "If you average 3m a flight of stairs, then we're under the ground by a good 36m."
Raina pushed open the door. Again, she jammed a pinion under the door. They found themselves in a sort of control room. Several waist-high curved control panels were arrayed around the area.
Ancient, tiny CRT screens, pen reader machines, analogue meters and lots of switches and indication lamp sockets from the 1950s and 1960s were mounted on them. The controllers could sit behind the panels and see through the thick glass petition that separated them from the bunker on the other side.
One section of the control panel had a long, wide board screwed to the top. A multi-socketed power board from the 1990s was screwed onto it.
"Laptops?" questioned Raina. "Looks like they had a couple of goes at doing whatever they were doing down here."
"Why would they leave the power on if they have sealed it up?" Ben asked the others.
Raina shrugged, "Well, they had an old wind generator on the hanger, so I guess there was no point turning it off. It didn't cost anything to leave it on, and it still operated the automated searchlights, so it looks like someone cares."
"Also, those generators, if not locked down, are less likely to be a problem if they have something to feed power to. Those welds were still fresh in comparison. I wonder why they sealed the place up now?"
They looked for the entrance into the hanger and pushed through a side door. This time Ben supplied the pinion. He suspected that Raina didn't like the escape route blocked off. He could see sense in her precaution. DJ grinned at Ben, and he and KJ followed Raina into the cavernous area.
They must have tripped a sensor when the door opened, and the lights started coming on along the walls and the ceiling. They stood there as the bulbs warmed up and got brighter. The shadow in the middle of the room took form.
"Holy crap! That's my ship," Raina said in awe.
Ben and the boys just stared open-mouthed. In the five years that he had been looking for UFOs, he had never honestly expected to find one. He was gobsmacked. The outside of the ship was black. It seemed to absorb rather than reflect light.
When you rubbed your fingers across the skin, it was silky smooth and looked like your fingers were sinking into the skin, but it felt firm and slick. It was strange and beautiful all in one. They estimated it was 36m long—about 22m at the widest, near the front third and 15m high.
Ben thought of a tadpole, admittedly a bloody big tadpole. It curved over the top and down to the short tail. It rounded down the sides, but there was a shallower curve underneath.
Low, on either side and closer to the front of the craft at its broadest, was a port for the engine's exhaust that he had a feeling rotated. The body curved in behind it to provide better functionality.
A third engine was under the tail. The tail end tipped up into the air a little like on a plane. It didn't have wheels but sat on what Ben could only think of as two wide half metre high, convex runnels that were moulded into the ship's body.
They spent some time walking around the ship, admiring its sleek beauty and just touching it in awe.
"So, my clever little pilot, how do we get the bloody thing out of here?" Ben asked.
"That button on the wall should open the roof doors," she said, pointing to a set of buttons on the wall.
He frowned. "The floor was cement," Ben said.
"Oh, ye of little faith," Raina tutted, and the boys sniggered.
Ben was getting the impression that if Raina said it could be done, they totally believed her.
"Okay then, how do you get into it?" he came back, folding his arms across his chest.
Ben hadn't observed an entrance anywhere, and he had looked for one.
Raina gave him a breathtaking smirk that went straight to his groin. She walked up to the side of the craft just past the engine port and touched the ship.
"Open, my Black Beauty," she said.
Ben heard a soft pop, and the side of the ship moved. He realised that the doors formed an 'H' pattern when the top 2.2m wide, 1m long section slid up and out to create a short cover. The lower 3.2m long segment folded down to form the ramp. Two side doors, 1m wide and 4.2m high, moved out from the ship and then slid to either side to create a 4.2m square opening.
The inner floor was 50cm higher than the underside of the ship, so he determined that the runners it sat on were about that high too. Light flooded out of the white interior of the cargo area. Raina bowed and waved her arm past her body to bid that he enter the hold before her, so Ben did.
He soon learned that the storage space was quite ample once inside. He estimated it was about 12m square and 8m high, and it wasn't empty. About twenty-four, 4m cubed containers, six on both sides and in two levels high, lined the front half of the bay.
Between them was an open area, and at that end was a 3m square column that appeared to be a lift entrance. Ben turned when he heard the outer doors close. Raina walked past him and into the elevator when the doors slid back for her.
Ben and the boys followed. The doors closed, and Raina waited until a light over the doors changed from red to green and then selected the top button.
"Hey!" Ben said. "How do we know it's safe to enter in there?"
"Because Zarka said it was. See the light changed to green. This lift acts as the air and pressure lock," she informed him.
"Who is Zarka?" he asked, perplexed.
"The ship," Raina stated as the lift moved.
"Of course, she is," answered Ben. "Hi Zarka, thank you for letting us aboard," he said, being smart.
"You're welcome, Ben. I've been waiting a long time for you people," a female voice replied.
Ben swallowed as the hairs on the back of his neck prickled. Raina chuckled and patted his arm. DT and KJ looked at each other. Raina wasn't worried, so they didn't worry.
"My delightful cousin, I believe your presence here has been noticed. It may be the time for us to leave, yes?" Zarka said.
"I get to drive, right?" Raina asked the air.
"Yes, that is, after all, your speciality. I landed on auto-pilot, but I am supposed to have a crew," Zarka told her visitors.
Doors on both sides of the lift opened, and Raina turned and stepped out of the elevator and walked into the helm.
"Raina, how can you know where everything is?" Ben asked as he followed her.
The boys took the other side to check out the ship. They thought this was seriously marv. Weird shit happened around Raina all the time. They just put this experience on the top of the list of wonders.
Raina pulled her soft helmet off, "The gem in my ear stud. Apparently, it's not an ordinary gem, and Zarka was able to mentally contact me once we were inside the bunker because I'm wearing it."
"It was a bit strange hearing a voice in my head, but I'm getting used to it. She says it's easier if she can talk to us, but we weren't on the ship. That's your seat, co-pilot," she told him as she took hers and waited as the screens rose so she could check out how to fly the ship.
Ben looked around. He determined the helm was in the top third of the front of the ship. There were four seats in the centre of the room, separated by about 1.5m and set in a gentle convex curve so each person could easily see the other three.
Another four chairs were set, two on either side of the lift entrance, for passengers or other crew, he surmised. The seats reminded him of dental chairs, but they were a lot plusher, and the feet and leg section folded down to let you up.
The four middle seats each had two posts beside them. When they rose up, the two long, wide, convex and thin touch screens swivelled around in front of you and tilted so you could use them and still see out.
The nose of the ship was a massive viewing area that was 2m high. The windshield wrapped around the nose for about 10m. The two sides were then squared off with what Ben assumed were electrical cabinets, as they had panels that he suspected were doors.
Ben looked forward and gulped at the sight of the ten-armed men, who had entered the bunker. The men were spreading out and looking for them.
Raina looked at him and grinned, "We're safe, as they can't get in," she said.
Ben watched as the 1m high by 1.5m wide screens slid down in each top corner of the windshield and showed the soldiers behind the ship and to its sides. They could hear the men talking, thanks to Zarka turning on some of the external mikes that she apparently had.
"They aren't here. We must have missed them," one of the men said in Russian.
Zarka offered a translation, but Raina and Ben understood the men.
"There are tracks in, but I didn't see any going out. They must still be here. Why else did they leave the doors open?" the older officer replied.
"Well, where are they? In the ship? No one has gotten into that thing in all the bloody years they have tried," the first man said in disgust.
"Well, the Intel stated that they were coming for it, and it looks like they have been here. We must have just missed them, or they're hiding. Send the men to search for how they got here. They must not have had any more luck than us," the other officer replied.
The first officer saluted and left. They could hear him calling to the soldiers to set up the searches. The older man looked up at the ship.
"One day, I'll find a gifted item, and I will learn your secrets," he said to the vessel peevishly.
They watched him turn, and he walked back to the door the others had already used. He bent down and pulled the pinion from under the door.
He looked at it and then closed the door behind himself.
-------------------------------------------
- Chapter 6
Ben turned to Raina.
"Robert Watson said that he believed that we had a mole. That bloke has some mad skills for a pimply teenager."
"Well, do we wait them out or leave?" she said.
"I agree that they don't think they can get in here. So, we're safe enough for now. The thing is, can we get Zarka out of here?" he said.
"Oh yes, I could have left any time I wished. But that wasn't my mission," Zarka replied.
"So, we wait. I need some time to learn these systems anyway. How about you rustle up some food?" Raina said to Ben over her shoulder. "Zarka says she has the ship stocked up for us."
He looked at Raina. She had already turned away and was totally absorbed in the screens. The fact she was trying to work out how to fly a craft no man had ever flown before didn't seem to faze her in the least.
So, Ben decided to find the boys and explore. It wasn't as if it was every day of the week that he was invited aboard an alien spacecraft. The thought of a cup of coffee and food sounded like a good idea too. He walked through the lift to the other side and stopped to look in amazement at what he found.
The men discovered upon the first inspection that Zarka was very well equipped for a crew of eight. She had four large bedrooms with huge beds in them, and each had an ensuite. One was either side of the lift exit, and the other two were towards the back of the ship, separated by their ensuites.
DT and KJ decided on the two by the lifts. They dropped their packs on the beds and checked out the amenities. The showers looked strange, but they decided they'd check them out in more detail later.
Beside their rooms and down one side were rooms for dry stores. They were filled with all sorts of stuff and an incredible amount of food, including cereals, condiments, packaged and tinned. Not all of it had Russian writing on it, either. When one of the boys commented, Zarka also mentioned that half the containers below had more food.
On one side of the central area was a room that was a cross between a laboratory and a workshop. A food preparation area sat beside it. Between these rooms and the back bedrooms were a large area that had and a dining area for eight on the back and the large recreational room that they had walked into first.
The public areas were done in pale, pastel colours. The furniture was made of light-coloured woods and chrome with dark caramels, earthy browns, and black materials. The seating was plush and very comfortable.
When KJ stopped to look at one of the dozen potted plants that were around the open areas, he realised they were tomato and capsicum bushes. One of the larger planters even had a variety of herbs growing in it. He also noticed a shelf that had jars of different sprouts. They were going to eat healthy, at least.
Ben picked the rear room on the right and dumped Raina's backpack in the room on the left. He was amazed by how spacious the rooms were. The beds were high, long and wide.
Beside the ensuite was a walk-in cupboard with a row of different size drawers and open cubicles. Under the hanging space was a shoe rack. He decided to change since they had time to kill.
"Ben," Zarka's voice said.
"Yes, Zarka?" he replied as he stripped down to his jocks. He was going to have to stop looking around for her when she spoke, he decided, although it was disconcerting.
"Before you reveal all, in case modesty is an issue, you will find a panel on the wall nearest your room where you may order fresh clothing better suited for the conditions in the ship," she informed him.
"Thanks, Zarka," Ben said.
He couldn't help himself and had to go look. He soon found himself standing in front of a screen being scanned. He watched the green light travel over his body and then saw a picture of himself in the nude, form on one side of the screen. It slowly rotated so he could see all of his body.
He smiled at the image. He wasn't particularly body conscious, but he decided he wasn't a bad looking bloke. He had filled out a little in the last couple of years and lost the dorky beanpole look. His muscles were well defined but not bulky. No one would pick him as a typical nerd.
He accessed the selection screen and found a large variety of clothing to choose from. He called up 'Casual Wear' and happily selected a black singlet and a pair of short-legged, loose, comfortable shorts, clean jocks and a slip-on variety of soft-soled boat shoes.
"Zarka, some of this stuff is the latest fashions back home; how can it be in your system?" he had to ask.
He was also wondering how she could have gotten clothing in his size in storage.
"Oh, that's easy. I updated the system as soon as you entered the bunker. I spend a lot of my time cruising your internet. I've even ordered replacement items and stock every so often," she happily told him.
He thought about this as he was told to take his items from the collection hopper. He found them folded inside and removed them. They smelled fresh and new but had no tags on them.
He had to ask, "How can you know my size to have this stuff in storage?"
"It's a recycling and replication unit. As long as I have the basic elements to make them in the system and the pattern of the item, I can make just about anything to the size required. Just dump your dirty washing back in the hopper and press the recycle button," she told him.
As he walked back to his room, he thought about something that she had said that perplexed him.
"Zarka, how do you get the items you ordered if you're locked in here?" he asked.
She gave a very sexy laugh and answered, "Well, the body of the ship is locked in here, but I'm not."
He worried this statement around in his head as he started the shower. He had worked out how the touch panel worked in a few seconds. He stripped off his jocks and got in.
"You're not?" he asked rhetorically.
"No," she answered blithely.
Ben pondered this statement. If Ben had a fault, it was that he tended to think everything to death. He worked out how to use the soap dispenser, and he was happily applying it to his groin when he felt a presence near him. He turned to see a chick leaning against the outer shower wall that gave Raina a run for her money.
"Oh shit!" he said, as he stood there taking in the vision of Zarka as the hot water did nothing to calm his sudden erection, and his balls tightened in his hand.
She was wearing a tiny pair of tight denim shorts that cut low on her hips and high on her thighs. The pale green, thin-strapped, half singlet top sat over her lovely braless tits. It was just begging Ben to peek under it.
Her creamy, pale skin shone with health and vitality, and he mentally got stuck on the fact she had no belly button on her barely curved abdomen. His eyes dropped back down her beautiful long shapely legs and finally came back to her attractive face.
Zarka giggled and looked slowly down his length and finally back to his face and said, "Well? Do I look good for a hundred and fifty-year-old woman?"
Ben found himself nodding and stammered out, "One hundred and fifty! You don't look a day older than Raina."
"No, I don't, do I? I like how this body ages. Mind you, I've spent a lot of that time asleep. I only wake if someone enters into the bunker or about every five years or so to update the systems and recharge it."
"I hope I've stocked the ship to meet your preferences. I can't produce food in the replicator, so I had to speculate as to what you people would like to eat. Lucky for you, I only stocked up a few months ago."
He nodded dumbly as he rubbed the soap over his tight balls absently. He was still looking at her, and it wasn't helping him go down one bit. Raina got him hot, but few others had in a while. The fact he was reacting to Zarka surprised him. But what wasn't to like?
Zarka watched his hands as she spoke, "I had my first visitors in ages, three months ago. That's when they welded the doors shut. The idiots didn't seal the escape tunnel. So, I could still access the mine and go to town. I suspected something had changed, so I went shopping."
"It was easier before they shut down Iultin, but I have managed. I still have the old truck, so I could go to Egvekinot to pick up my orders," she said as she leant against the wall outside the shower.
"Hey, Zarka! Where did you get off to?" Raina called out.
"In here," she called back, looking over her shoulder.
Raina came in and looked into the shower cubical. She grinned at Zarka and took up the other side of the entrance, happy to enjoy the view. It had been a while since she had seen Ben's body, and she found she liked it just as much now as she had then.
He had filled out a little and had now had tight, toned muscles. He was hot to look at, Raina decided. He wasn't particularly hairy, but she'd like to trace the thin dark line of the curly hair holding the soap bubbles around his genitals. Ben tended to be a bit of a nerd, but he had kept his body in good shape since he had become a field operative.
"Sorry, Raina, I had to check out your hubby. I can see why you picked him. He is very sexy," Zarka said, as they both watched the unconscious action of him rubbing his thumb along the underside of the lovely cock, he had on display for them.
Ben was looking at them, trying to decide which woman was turning him on the most. Raina had stripped out of her suit and was only wearing her singlet and a pair of shorts like Zarka. His eyes fixed on her tits, and his lust meter spun into the red, she was just a little fuller than Zarka, and her nipples were hard.
"He's not my hubby," Raina replied absently.
"But he is the father of your child," Zarka replied.
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- Chapter 7
Ben frowned at Raina as she dropped her eyes and bit her lip.
"What, bloody child?" he said.
His shocked mind was trying to wrap itself around this information and put his lust on hold.
"Oh, dear! I'm so sorry, Raina, I didn't realise that he didn't know. It was not information I could access," Zarka said, distressed at upsetting Raina and Ben.
"It's okay, Zarka. I was going to tell him, but the opportunity hasn't come up," Raina replied.
She knew Ben wasn't going to be happy at this little revelation.
"Zarka, if you don't mind, I think Raina and I need to have a chat," Ben said, tight-lipped as he stepped from under the sprays and turned the water off and grabbed the towel off the rail.
Raina sighed as Zarka mouthed a 'sorry' at her as she disappeared out the door and shut it behind her. Raina went and sat on the bed and waited for Ben to finish in the shower.
He had dried his top half and wrapped the towel around himself as he came out of the cubicle. He sat down beside Raina on the end of the bed. He took a little longer than she thought he would, but she guessed his mind had been busy.
"So, I not only raped you, but I also left you pregnant. Fuck! No wonder you can't forgive me," he said sadly.
He was seriously pissed at fucking up so bad with Raina. The fact he had a child was still taking hold in his head.
"You didn't rape me, Ben," she said firmly as she straightened up and looked at him.
"I saw the blood on your thighs. You were all curled up and laying away from me," Ben said as the horror of what he had done came fresh in his mind.
"Well, considering you were my first, and you're not exactly small, I wasn't surprised that I was a tight fit for you. But you were so gentle, Ben. I couldn't have asked for a nicer man to be my first," she told him sincerely.
Ben frowned. Her first? He was flabbergasted and now even more pissed he couldn't remember what happened.
"So why were you so upset with me afterwards?" he asked, still not sure that she was telling him the truth.
"Well, how did you expect me to react? You looked at me as you had just slept with your little sister and then high-tailed it out of the hut. Then you avoided me and could barely say two civil words to me until we were picked up," she said tonelessly.