CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
SAHVIN
“Hey, Sahvin, wait up,” Pyrr called as I left the docking bay.
I stopped and turned to see him jogging toward me.
“Where you headed?”
“I was just going up to deck C to get Nora, so we can be ready when the shuttle is ready to take us back to Dread One,” I said.
“That’s been canceled. Two Sargan battlecruisers blinked in, and the Dreads are holding them off while we get the last of the shuttles aboard,” he explained, “Then we are blinking out and heading toward Farseek.”
“They are leaving us behind?” I wondered.
Pyrr shook his head. “It’s only temporarily---because of the Sargan battlecruisers. It’s too dangerous for us to wait for the Dreads to take care of them, risking all the people we just rescued,” he said. “We’re going to meet the Kurellis on its way back from Farseek and transfer to it.”
“Ah, I see. Will we then meet the dreads at the next rescue target?”
“Exactly. And we are in luck, we will have private accommodations on deck A. They make our quarters on Dread One look like luxury suites, but you get a private bed. Forget about sex in the shower though---hardly enough room to turn around.”
“Those Pican’s are small compared to Farseek humanoids,” I said.
“I think they must have fixed the air filtration system. The air seems better than when we got here,” Pyrr said. “Come on, I’ll walk with you. Scarlet and Nora are on the same deck.”
“Sure.” We started walking. “I’m glad we will not be separated this time. It could be weeks before we catch up with the dreads.”
“It will be at least three. Command didn’t want to risk these people in a skirmish with the battlecruisers. We’ve got Admiral Degatu’s only grandchildren aboard, not to mention Commander Maktu’s mother and sister.”
“I would not want to risk our mates either,” I added.
“There’s not much we could do to help on Dread One because that’s a whole different kind of fighting than what we’re trained for,” he said.
When we got to the mess hall on Deck C where the women were registering the people we’d rescued from Nadoo, the four of them were alone there reviewing their reports and talking.
Nora looked up as we walked in and smiled at me with that sparkle in her eyes that made me want to pull her into a secret room someplace and have my way with her. We had been sharing a barrack with the other couples for the last few days. None of us had any real privacy except for tarps that we had hung between the bunks. The beds were so narrow that we could not even sleep together with her in my arms.
I was happy to tell her we would have our own quarters. But I also had to tell her about the dreads and the battlecruisers.
“Are they going to be all right?” she asked.
“They took some serious damage, but they can still make FTL,” I told her. “Now that we’ve blinked out, they will too. They were only staying long enough so we could get away.”
“Good,” she said. “So, we’re going to be here for three weeks?”
“I’m afraid so, sweet one, but we have our own quarters on Deck A.”
“Well, we’re done here. Why don’t we go check them out before third meal?” she suggested with a smile that told me we were thinking the same thing. “Did you hear? We took in a total of 5200 people including the thousand that were already here.”
“That’s great,” I told her. “Pyrr said we will probably be able to complete our mission with the Kurellis. There are right around ten thousand more people they have accounted for.”
“It’s really sad. The rest are feared lost or spread so thin that it will take years to find them,” she said.
“The Alliance would never have let that happen,” I told her.
“I’m sure you heard they believe treachery was involved.”
“I did, but so far it hasn’t been proved, nor do they know who was involved,” Nora said. “Commander Maktu hoped to learn something from Evzen Guryon, but he didn’t give a hint---just paid the reward and thanked him.”
“Perhaps he didn’t know,” I suggested.
“It’s possible, but somebody knows,” she said. “Finding them might be hopeless.”
We found our way to the staff lift to Deck A and walked down a long hallway to cabin twenty-three, and it opened automatically for us. Pyrr didn’t exaggerate that our quarters were tiny. There was a bed barely big enough for us to share in an alcove with a storage cabinet above and below and two small closets on either end of the bed.
The shower closet was barely tall enough for me to fit in alone and I would have to crouch down to get my head under the water. There would undoubtedly be no sharing the shower. The toilet next to the shower folded into the wall when not in use, or it would block the door to the shower closet. It wasn’t much as accommodations go, but we were alone.
Even though it had been months since our bonding, barely a day passed that we didn’t make love at least once. It had been eight days since we left Dread One and our “luxurious” cabin there.
We tossed our duffels on the floor and peeled off our clothes in a matter of seconds. Nora slid into the bed, and I followed her. I was inside her almost as quickly as she lay back opened her legs for me. We both groaned in relief to be joined once more. I didn’t even start fucking her right away, but just savored the feeling of my cock hugged in the warmth of her inner walls.
“Aaaahh, you feel so good,” we both murmured almost in unison. We kissed for a long time as my full weight pressed her into the mattress. The hard tips of her breasts were crushed against my chest, and she arched her back to rub them against me.
As I felt her inner walls contracting around my cock, I thrust slowly in and out of her for a while then stopped. “Patience, meomee,” I murmured when she groaned plaintively each time I did, “we have hours before third meal. I want to savor you, my love.”
She smiled up at me, and I kissed her again. It felt good to be home.