Chapter Six

 

“Hang onto your hats, people!” Evie yelled.

Kromin had never heard that expression before. Must be an Earth thing, but he caught the meaning well enough. Evie dipped the Starburst almost straight down, descending rapidly through the thickest part of the storm. She had been flying quite high to avoid the worst winds, but now they were close to the mines, and the only way to get there was to head down through the craziness and land outside the mines’ airlock.

The Starburst groaned under the pressure of the storm beating against it, and Kromin nervously clenched and unclenched his fists. He’d flown through some pretty bad storms in his lifetime, but he’d never been in the air during something quite this bad. No wonder the military guys hadn’t wanted to fly. This was pretty close to a suicide mission. And yet, Evie had jumped at the chance to take on this challenge, just as Anya had predicted she would. These humans were a strange breed. They might be physically smaller and weaker than the Zocronians, but they were courageous to a fault. Kromin had to give them that.

He glanced over at Anya, wondering if she was maintaining her courage in the face of this storm. She had her eyes closed, but her face remained serene even as her entire body bounced wildly against the seat she was strapped into. She wore a survival suit, as did Kromin, but neither of them had put their helmets on yet. They would do that once the spaceship touched down, and then they’d have to walk into the mines on foot. The Starburst wouldn’t fit inside the airlock. Because of that, Evie would be taking off and flying back to the city dome as soon as Kromin and Anya were inside the mines. Leaving the spaceship out in the open was just asking for it to be permanently damaged, and Evie was convinced she could get it safely back to the city of Zocrone. Kromin had been skeptical of this at first, but after watching Evie fly, he had to admit she could more than likely make it back.

As long as she could land them first, that was. The ship reeled from side to side as they descended, and Kromin wished he could close his eyes just like Anya was doing. He didn’t think that would look very manly, though, and he didn’t want to be caught doing anything unmanly by these two humans.

Kromin wasn’t sure why he even cared. He wanted to get Anya out of his hospital as soon as possible, and after that he hopefully wouldn’t have to see her very often. He felt a bit guilty for the way he had overreacted to her mistake with the steroid shot. After all, she was right: everyone makes mistakes, and no harm had been done. But if Kromin was going to try to get rid of her, a mistake like the one she’d made was the perfect excuse. He could play up the mistake and lead Daxar to believe it was much more serious than it had actually been.

And then what? Deep down, Kromin knew Anya was right. He needed help at the hospital. But the thought of giving up his solo practice to let other people in paralyzed him. He didn’t want to have to deal with managing other people or arguing with them. And he definitely didn’t want to have to deal with working with people who were so attractive that being around them was a constant distraction. Like Anya.

The Starburst banked wildly to the left, and for a moment Kromin felt his stomach drop at the sudden loss of gravity. He clenched his fists, wishing this crazy ride would be over already. A few moments later, Evie managed to straighten out the ship, and then she set it down hard on the planet’s surface. The force of the landing caused Kromin’s whole body to lurch forward in his seat, and he was sure that at any moment the ship’s emergency system was going to start warning of a pressure leak. But after taking a few deep breaths and giving his brain a few seconds to figure out which way was up and which way was down again, Kromin realized that the emergency systems still weren’t going off. Not only that, but Evie had turned around and was grinning.

“We did it,” she said triumphantly. “Ship is landed safely. Now you two get out of here and into the mines so that I can get back to the city dome before the storm gets much worse. The Starburst is a hardy old bird, but this storm is getting to be too much even for her.”

Kromin began unbuckling his seatbelt, still in shock that the ship didn’t seem to have suffered any damage during its rough landing. He knew the ship’s hull and undersides were reinforced with damage-absorbing panels, but he hadn’t thought those panels would do that much good.

Apparently they did. He breathed a sigh of relief and started donning the helmet for his survival suit. The walk into the mines wouldn’t be easy, either. The wind was gusting strong enough to blow even him away, and Anya weighed much less than he did. They’d have to be careful and stick together, arm linked in arm to give themselves more leverage against the brutal wind. This was hardly the first time Kromin had gone storm-walking. Over the years he’d had to head out in storms dozens of times to treat wounded miners. But none of the storms had ever been quite this bad, and he’d never walked through one with a woman, let alone a human woman.

She’s so tiny. She’s going to blow away. Kromin glanced over at Anya as they both entered the airlock that would cycle them out onto Zocrone’s surface. He towered over her, and he must have weighed twice as much as her. He guessed that if he picked her up right now, she would feel like she weighed about the same as a feather. He had to hold on tightly to her out there on the surface. No, he didn’t want her working at his hospital anymore, but he didn’t want the reason she left her job to be that she had blown away across the planet’s surface.

Anya looked over at him, her turquoise eyes surprisingly serene for someone who was moments away from facing down a nasty storm. Kromin was struck by how beautiful she looked in her survival suit. The suit was skin tight, and he could see every curve of her body perfectly. He’d noticed how good-looking she was before, but he’d never seen her on display quite so clearly. To his dismay, he felt his cock stirring between his legs.

Get a grip, man, he told himself. She’s gonna be able to see that you’re turned on. Now was not a good time to have to explain that sort of thing, so Kromin took a few deep breaths and tried not to focus on Anya’s perfect curves. It didn’t help that at that exact moment, she reached out to lock elbows with him. It was time for them to connect to each other in an effort to brace themselves against the storm, but when Anya’s arm touched Kromin’s, he felt like an electric current was shooting from her body to his. His dick stiffened even more, and he could only hope that the chaos of the storm was enough to distract Anya from what was going on between his legs.

And what chaos it was. As they stepped out of the airlock and onto the planet’s surface, Kromin instantly felt like he was battling to walk against a brick wall. The wind was that strong. Evie had done a good job of getting them as close as possible to the mine’s airlock entrance, but even still—the spaceship could only get so close. There was still a journey of at least twenty paces between the spaceship’s airlock and the mine’s, and each of those twenty steps was going to have to be fought for vigorously.

Kromin felt a strange, almost primal protective instinct welling up inside of him. He needed to protect Anya. She was so fragile and so vulnerable to the storm. At least, that’s how she seemed to him with the red dust of the planet’s surface swirling up around them like a thick cloud. Kromin kept their elbows linked as tightly as possible and tried to press his body more into hers, making them one against the storm. Not too much further to go.

The feelings swirling within him were crazier than the storm itself. Why was he suddenly feeling so much like Anya was his responsibility? Like he needed to keep her safe from every danger of the outside world? She was the one who had volunteered and even pushed her way onto this mission. She had known it would be dangerous, and it was no one’s fault but her own if she died out here today.

And yet, Kromin felt responsible. He felt like losing her would be devastating. If she blew away right now, he’d never have a chance to explore her body further. To see what was beneath the stretchy fabric of her survival suit.

Come on, man. Get a grip!

The airlock appeared in front of them, and Kromin breathed out a sigh of relief as he entered the access code. Just a few more moments, and they’d be in. He could hear the beeping from inside as the system began to depressurize the inside chamber of the airlock to match Zocrone’s outer surface. After a few beeps, the heavy door, made of thick Zekkardite, began to slide open. Almost there.

And then, the biggest gust of wind yet came hurtling at them. Kromin felt Anya starting to rise into the air beside him, and the force of the wind picking her up started to lift him off the ground as well. Desperately, he reached out and grabbed for something, anything, to hold onto. The rocky outside walls of the mine’s entrance didn’t have much in the way of handholds, but luckily the edge of the airlock’s doorframe was just within Kromin’s reach. He grabbed for it and held onto the thick doorframe for dear life. He couldn’t see or hear Anya at the moment, with his face pressed up against the mine’s wall for leverage, but he knew she must be terrified. Both of her feet were up in the air, being pulled away from him by the storm’s unforgiving force.

Kromin cursed under his breath, willing the wind to die down just a little. To his relief, a moment later it did. The huge gust passed, but Kromin knew there would be another one soon enough. They had to get into the airlock. Using what felt like his last bit of energy, Kromin yanked Anya inside with him and began entering the access code to shut the door. Even once the pressurizing and locking sequence had begun, Kromin held nervously onto Anya. They were protected from the worst of the wind in here, with solid rock walls surrounding them on three sides. But the wind could still reach them, and swirls of red dust continued to pelt them until finally the door slid shut and locked.

As soon as the door closed, things felt almost eerily quiet. The only sounds for a full minute were the soft beeps indicating that the pressurization sequence was working. When it finally finished, a computerized voice announced, “Pressurization complete. Air is safe for oxygen-breathing life forms.”

With a sigh, Kromin stripped off his helmet and looked around. The inside of the airlock was a mess. A thick layer of red dust from the outside planet covered the floor, as did piles of small rocks that had been blown in. It had been crazy to come out here and walk in like this. He and Anya were lucky to be alive. One more big gust of wind out there and they probably wouldn’t have made it.

Anya reached up to pull her helmet off, and Kromin felt a shiver of delight as he saw her curly red hair bouncing loose from the helmet prison it had been in. The curls were kinky right now, flattened in weird places or extra curly in others, thanks to the strange pressure they’d been under in the survival suit. Kromin found the effect strangely sexy, and he had to fight the urge to reach up and brush some of those curls back from Anya’s face. He pushed away the thought, and told himself once again to get a grip. Anya might be beautiful, but he had to remember that she was obnoxious and trying to make a bunch of changes in his hospital.

Right now, she didn’t look threatening at all. Her face, which always looked a little pale to Kromin, had turned almost completely white. Her eyes were round and wide as she stared at him, looking a little dumbfounded.

“Well, that was crazy,” she finally said.

Kromin allowed himself a small chuckle. “That might be the understatement of the century.”

But Anya didn’t laugh. Instead, she shook her head slowly, as though still trying to come to grips with the adventure of the last few minutes. “I almost died, Kromin. You saved my life.”

He shrugged, although deep down he was pleased with the way she was looking at him with such admiration. “It was nothing. I was acting on pure instinct, and I would have done the same for anyone.”

“Still,” she said softly, the wonder in her voice giving him shivers again. “You did it for me.” When she looked at him a certain way, or spoke to him in a certain tone of voice, it absolutely undid him. He swallowed hard as he met her gaze, and he knew that something had somehow changed between them. He felt drawn to her, like some sort of magnetic power was pulling them together. He felt his dick growing harder, and he hoped to Jupiter that Anya wouldn’t look down at it right now. He wasn’t sure what her reaction would be if she saw it, but he was pretty sure he wasn’t ready for whatever that reaction might be. If she was horrified, he’d be crushed by that. But if she was interested, well, he probably wouldn’t be able to keep himself from throwing her on the ground right now, stripping off her survival suit, and making love to her.

And that would be a very bad idea. He had to remind himself that she was the enemy. She was the one he had to keep at arm’s length, and to push out of his hospital. Sleeping with her definitely wouldn’t help things. Not to mention, there was a miner in here somewhere in desperate need of medical attention. He was sure that miner wouldn’t appreciate a delay in treatment because the senior doctor was busy banging the junior doctor.

“Come on,” Kromin said gruffly as he turned to walk deeper into the mines. “Let’s go find our patient.”

He tried to act as though nothing had changed between them, but he knew that somehow everything had changed. There had been a moment, when their eyes were locked on each other’s, that some deeper emotion had passed between them.

Kromin told himself over and over as he walked into the mines that he could not let himself fall for Anya. She was beautiful and smart, yes. But he had been doing pretty well in his life up until now by always staying alone. With no one in his personal life, and no one working at his hospital, he hadn’t had to answer to anyone. Everything was under his control, and that was the way he liked things. That was the way he would keep things. He couldn’t help being physically attracted to Anya, but he didn’t have to act on those attractions. He would do whatever it took to push her away.

Still, it was damn hard to walk with a full blown erection between his legs. He cursed his body, feeling like it was betraying him, and he tried to force himself to think about anything other than Anya’s body in an attempt to get his cock to settle down. He was careful to walk in front of Anya so that she couldn’t see what was going on, but he knew that in a few minutes they would be reaching the portion of the mine where other Zocronians would be anxiously waiting for them, ready to take them to the injured miner. Kromin wasn’t interested in having any of those miners notice his arousal.

Just think about the job you have to do here. You can deal with all the other feelings later. Easier said than done, but Kromin had always been a professional. He’d managed to keep the Zocronians healthy on his own for the last several years. He could block Anya from his mind for an hour or two and take care of this problem, whatever it was.

After that, well, he wasn’t so sure what to do with the new tornado of emotions filling him. But he’d worry about that later. Now, it was time to get to work.