Overlord: The Fringe, Book 2 (25 page)

“Yes.” All of his desire drained abruptly away.

Mary must have heard terror in Duster’s voice too, because she sat bolt upright with her gaze riveted to his wrist com.

“You’d best put her in lockdown.”

She lifted her gaze to his face. Panic rolled off her in sickening waves of scent. “I didn’t do anything.” Using the fainting couch for balance, Mary pulled herself to a standing position.

“Circumstances?” The hair on the back of his neck stiffened.

“More than your bandit causes you problems,” Duster said.

Michael tensed. “They’re back?”

“Yes.”

That explained the tension in Duster’s voice, but they’d fought the IWOG off repeatedly. What was different this time?

“Force?” Michael asked, struggling to remain calm.

“Strong,” Duster responded.

“Defense?” He thought they’d seen the last of the IWOG for a while. What would cause them to launch another major attack so soon after the last crushing defeat two months ago?

“Mobilizing.” Duster spoke quickly and, in the background, Michael could hear guards shouting orders and ships gearing up.

“Surface, air, or Void?” He frowned, thinking Duster’s tension came from the fact this was not a major assault, but a massive assault.

“All three. It’s another round of civilize.”

Michael lunged forward and scooped Mary over his shoulder, then strode from the room. Mercifully, she remained silent and didn’t struggle. He raised his wrist com. “Get everyone in the air, and if they breach our Void perimeter, we’ll be ready. Mobilize each troop member. Midas and Cibola are on full throttle. Now.”

Everything around him buzzed with electricity, and he felt her warmth against his shoulder. Fear for her safety gripped him with a crushing fist.

With a painful gasp, she said, “IWOG.”

“Yes.”

She struggled. “Don’t lock me up! Don’t lock me up where I can’t fight them!” Kicking him hard with her cast, she landed a good blow to his upper thigh. Another bruise to add to his collection. It didn’t slow his stride into lockdown. “Put me down, damn-it-all-to-hell! I can—”

He gripped her legs tightly. “You are safer in lockdown.” He settled her to the bunk in the cell.

“Not if you don’t win!” The anger in her voice almost masked the sound of her fear, but the scent of cold panic rushed over him like fresh-turned earth.

“I’ll win.” He backed out of the cell.

“How do you know?” She hobbled over and flung herself against the door. Her next words cut off when he ordered the door closed and locked. Red in the face, she screamed at him, but he couldn’t hear a word she said. His whole world stood in defense of an IWOG civilization attempt while Mary reamed him out because he wouldn’t let her fight.

Watching her pound against the clear walls of her cell, he knew if he didn’t love her before, he certainly did now. She didn’t give a rat’s about anything but fighting the IWOG. Broken foot and all, she wanted to blast them apart.

Even had a cast not bound her foot, he wouldn’t let her fight. Hell, honest to a fault, he wouldn’t fight directly himself, nor would he let Duster. Hard, cold fact of the Fringe, Michael could afford meatbags.

At his disposal were hundreds of thousands of male and female fighters, housed in barracks throughout Windmere, both moons and hundreds of outposts. By command, each one of them would rush willingly into battle. His authority bothered him for the first time. Would he let Mary go forth as one of his fighters? Not in a million years. Then how could he do it to someone else?

He faltered. Michael considered his orders in light of a potential human toll. What if it came down to Mary? At his very word, he could kill everyone on Windmere, including her. Without a warning, his whole world focused to a slip of a woman with a broken ankle who, right out from under him, stole his very heart. Wily bandit. The Bandit of Taiga. Remarkable Mary. Her skill netted her a prize she probably didn’t even know she had, perhaps didn’t even want. How could any woman love a man like him? Blocked behind the thick glass, he couldn’t taste her scent. Mary didn’t speak but looked at him with defeated eyes.

“Commander? Get airborne,” Duster said.

“How close?” He turned his back to Mary, who pressed up close to the glass.

“Knocking hard at the back door,” Duster said.

“Did something leak?”

“Yes. Jones is in custody.”

“Hell.” His fussy Einstein-diva over at R and D turned out to be a traitor on top of everything else. Jones must have found a way to relay the security problem with the plastimirror to the IWOG. “How big is this breach?”

“Wide enough to fly an IWOG mother ship through.” Duster’s voice held something far greater than fear, and now Michael understood why. “Commander? Get airborne now. Leave Mary in lockdown and get behind the second perimeter.”

Chapter Twenty-Three

Commander left lockdown, returned dressed, bound her hands in front of her, then picked her up and carried her out to a sleek ship on the base tarmac. Dark of night didn’t hamper his efforts as every inch of the tarmac swarmed with not only high-intensity lights but also multitudes of men and machines.

Bound over his shoulder, she bounced as he took her inside what she knew was the fastest ship on the planet. He strode to a cell and locked her in.

“Why are you locking me back up?”

“You’re right where you want to be, Mary.”

She didn’t know what he meant, but the first thing to cross her mind was he was in charge of her again. This cell didn’t look nearly as impossible to break out of as lockdown did, but still, the cage looked plenty solid. The ceiling, floor and three walls were durosteel, with only the front made up of bars spaced about a hand’s width apart and sunk deep into the floor.

After looking around, she caught his gaze. “This isn’t at all where I want to be.”

He smiled from the other side of the bars. “You’re on a ship. You’d kill me to get your hands on it.”

“No, I—” She stifled herself, conflicted. She wanted to get away but wanted to stay, and she knew she couldn’t kill him to get away, because she realized she liked him. Commander drove her crazy in a multitude of ways, but deep inside she felt a compelling kinship with him.

If she did manage to escape, she wanted to do so without hurting him. The thought frightened her, as considering his safety would make escape far more complicated, and she’d never considered protecting anyone but herself and Emmet.

Fear at her insight compelled her to attack. “I guess we’re right back to you being in charge.”

Commander slipped his hand between two of the bars, lifted her chin and held his mouth a breath from hers. “When this is over and done, I promise, we will go right back to where we were, with me on my knees and my hands up.” His gaze bored into hers. “You should think about what you want me to do.”

He left the room without a backward glance. Once he turned down the hallway, she lost sight of him. Her gaze darted around her new prison.

Three bunks were stacked against one wall while a sink and a toilet took up the other. Everything looked clean but didn’t reek of antiseptic. All she could smell was metallic new-ship air. This top-of-the-line vessel couldn’t be more than a few months old and hardly used at that. Checking the linens on the bunks, she found not only clean sheets but also new sheets and new mattresses.

I’m the first prisoner aboard this ship.

As the ship lifted, a low rumbling vibrated her body. She couldn’t decide what made her tremble more, the quivering ship, or the power of Commander’s fleeting touch and the wicked promise behind his eyes.

Plunking herself on the lowest bunk with nothing to do, she thought about this erotic game of captive and captor. He got one thing right; she did want him in charge. His aggression excited her, and his control took away her responsibility. He’d pointed that out too. Embarrassing how that man could read her like a book.

When he cast her as the captor, she didn’t know what to do with him. Having him take off his shirt seemed like a good start. Next, he should slip off his pants. Did he wear boxers or briefs, or would he be bare, like he’d been in the dojo?

She’d felt him against her, but she wondered what he would look like standing bare and hard in front of her. Just the thought burned her face. Could she vocalize what she wanted him to do once she ordered him stripped bare?

She tried to imagine looking into his eyes and ordering him to rise above her, between her legs, then to thrust into her, again and again. She wanted to look up into the mirror over her bed and watch the muscles in his back and buttocks contract as he rocked his hips between her wide, welcoming legs. She wanted to hear his hot breath panting erotic words into her ear. Smell the pine and citrus of his body change as sweat covered his velvet skin. She wanted to slide her hands all over his slick body, her mouth working to taste—

The ship lurched and she sat bolt upright on the narrow cell bed, smacking her head into the bunk above. Below her feet, the engine strained. As the ship began to rock from side to side, she lay down on her belly and grasped the head of the lower bunk with her bound hands.

Christ! Here she was in mortal danger from an IWOG attack, and she indulged in lusty fantasies about Commander, at his suggestion. He’d
commanded
her to think of him while he went off to fight. Did he do so to keep her mind occupied so she wouldn’t worry? She wasn’t overly concerned. He seemed more than capable of defending himself. Pathologically assured, that man didn’t seem to worry about anything. Something tickled her mind, but before she could fully grasp the thread of thought, the ship lurched again, almost throwing her off the bunk.

As Michael rocketed his way to the second perimeter, he understood the terror in Duster’s voice. Hundreds of IWOG attack ships filled the sky above Windmere in a firestorm of metallic confetti.

In five years, the IWOG had launched twenty major offensives, but never a force this massive. Reports from Midas and Cibola indicated a phalanx of IWOG mother ships stood ready beyond the Void perimeter. He ordered the ships blasted with EMF, but the trick had no effect. They’d shielded themselves. Those solo scout ships had been sniffing around for a reason.

For the first time, he questioned his ability to defeat the IWOG. As he shot past the first perimeter, they tried to shoot him down but didn’t come close. He flew the fastest ship in the battle, hell, fastest ship in the Void. Duster must have feared an actual on-foot invasion or he wouldn’t have suggested Michael get off-planet. Now that he saw the scope of the battle, he knew why. The phrase Pyrrhic victory cycled through his mind like a whirling dervish in the sand. Gritty and harsh, he realized this civilization attempt was an all-or-nothing deal.

The IWOG seemed determined to either take over Windmere or blast the planet apart. They didn’t seem to care which. IWOG attack ships spiraled down to the surface in kamikaze missions, loaded with fuel and bombs. His ground units were able to blast them apart before they could succeed. But with so many…

On the other side of Windmere, out of visual range, Duster directed the ground troops from a ship similar to his. In the event that one of them went down, the chain of command would not be broken. Duster’s paranoia, combined with his battle acumen, made Windmere a difficult planet to invade. But difficult didn’t mean impossible.

Michael commanded the air troops. He ordered his skeet ships, so named because their small size made them almost impossible to hit, to swarm the larger ships. Fast and loaded with firepower, the skeet ships
en masse
took bite after bite out of the IWOG attack ships.

Wallowing in atmo as his ships darted around them, the attack ships couldn’t turn fast enough to fire back. In desperation, the IWOG tried to crash their ships into the skeet ships. When they eventually succeeded, both ships exploded in a blinding flash.

High up, Michael couldn’t hear the blasts, but he could see the multicolored explosions. It shocked him they would go to this extreme. One IWOG attack ship held a crew of fifty. Skeet ships held only one pilot. How could they condone killing fifty men for one? Tasting their desperation, he ordered his skeet ships to take potshots from a distance so they could avoid the chance of a collision.

Eventually, after enough blows from the skeet ships, the IWOG attack ships crumpled and drifted out of orbit. Those that fell toward the planet disintegrated before they could crash.

Information streamed across the screen on his main console. Sweat slicked his skin all the way down to his feet. Wrenching his shirt off, he flung the wet fabric away, then kicked off his boots. Between reading the screen and eyeing his sensors, he removed his sweat-slick socks and leather pants.

Nude, he plucked a pair of black gi pants from the weapon bin at the back of the bridge and pulled them on. In an instant, he felt more ready for battle.

Adrenaline surged through his body. A primal drive to fight filled him, but he suppressed the urge. He needed to keep himself safe so he could command troops, but he felt a bit cowardly. Back in the days of old, a king led his troops into battle. In the days of high-tech communications, a king stayed well back. And this time, he had Mary to think of.

With a flick of his finger, he checked the audvid to the cell. Mary lay on her belly, clutching the head of the bunk with her cuffed hands. From the angle of the camera, he couldn’t see her face, and he wondered if she was afraid. One look at her clenched fists indicated she was. He wanted to reassure her but didn’t have time, so he did the next best thing; he sent a command from his console to her bracelet.

Vergessen trickled into her bloodstream. The drug would sedate her and keep her calm. It would also prevent her from launching an escape attempt. In addition, it would soften her memory. He didn’t want her to figure out his identity yet.

Reports rolled across his console. A trooper ship had managed to land intact on Windmere. When the ground troops took the crew into custody, they made a startling discovery. The IWOG officers had exact duplicates of their plastimetal security bracelets and all of them, officers and ground troops, had stashes of plastimirror.