Sex or Suffer [Dark Colony 1] (Siren Publishing Ménage Amour) (22 page)

Angelica put her right gloved hand on her left wrist. It was an established signal for the crew of the
Dalton
with various meanings attached. Basically it meant, “congratulations on a job well done” or “good job we’ve won” and could convey triumph over those uninformed. A silent victory signal to boost morale.

Cahill saw Angelica’s signal and allowed the barest of smiles to form at the corner of his mouth. He and Angelica promptly saluted, which Gray returned. They executed a perfectly choreographed right face turn and headed towards the
Dalton’s
open bay door to wait for admittance back on the ship.

Gray turned and walked over to Penelope still waiting near the ramp and pointed to the door that the delegation had just come through before joining them. They’d promptly danced with perfection to his “I don’t want to fly you anywhere” tune without knowing it. He allowed a self satisfied smile to shape his mouth. “I need to talk to someone then we’re out of here, okay?”

“May I go with you?”

“Sure. It’s in the caves. Are you okay with that?”

Penelope nodded and together they walked towards the underground entrance. Gray had been here a couple of times before, and he suspected nothing had changed. Hendle scrambled over and stopped them. “I’m sorry, Captain Wyckoff, but you’ll have to be escorted.”

“I know where the negotiation rooms are.”

“Yes, sir, but you still have to have a guide.”

“Fine. Will you please accompany us? I’m in a hurry to get on my way.”

Hendle glanced over his shoulder at the delegation. They chattered amongst themselves about how long it would take to get aboard the
Mirage
and when they started complaining about their time spent on Echo Province, Hendle nodded. “Yes. I can accompany you as far as the second blast door in the tunnel.”

“Great. Have the passageway guard call for the captain of the
Mirage
to meet us there.”

Once he trotted on ahead to the guard to make the request for Nathan to meet them, Gray leaned in toward Penelope. “Hang in there for another hour. We’re almost free.”

She nodded again and stepped closer to him as they strolled to the underground entryway trailing behind the effervescent green glow of Hendle’s clothing. The tunnel was circular with the exception of the flat pathway where they walked. Echo Province had spent decades creating the underground space where they dwelled.

At the first blast door, Gray helped Penelope step over the six inch wide trench which was where the blast door hidden above dropped into during emergencies. The tunnel was very well lit and while Gray wasn’t claustrophobic he appreciated the large bright path to follow.

“How much farther?” Gray asked.

“Not too much longer. We’re about to come to a bend in the tunnel which will drift to the right until we reach the second blast door.”

Penelope stopped and tugged on Gray’s sleeve. “I need to change the filter in my mask.”

“I don’t think you have to worry about the smell here in the caves,” Hendle said.

“I have very bad allergies and I don’t like to test my resolve in new places,” Penelope recited quickly before Gray could even form a response. “Besides, I’ll just have to put it back on before we board the ship.”

Hendle looked dubious but soon nodded. They stopped while she slipped her spare cartridge in and popped out the old one. Pocketing it, they continued along until they heard voices.

They rounded a sharp curve in the tunnel and Gray saw Nathan walking with another brightly clothed man dressed in a shade of orange just this side of the brightness of a sun gone super nova.

Nathan spied him and smiled. Gray crossed the trench for the second blast door. Penelope trailed behind him having stopped before traversing the dip. He marched ahead two steps and held out his hand to shake Nathan’s already outstretched palm.

“Nathan. Good to see you.”

“You are a sight for sore eyes, Captain. If I didn’t think you’d enjoy it so much, I’d kiss you on the mouth.”

“Very funny. I’ve missed you too.”

“What’s with the filter mask? I promise, I’m not really going to kiss you.”

Gray glanced at the two brightly dressed Echo Province leaders several paces away and deeper into the cave and murmured, “I told the delegation there was sewage leak into the ventilation system on the
Dalton
. With a single blast of noxious fumes from a sewer tank, I’ve convinced them to push through the paperwork for the
Mirage.
Therefore, you get to take them to Rycan as soon as the license clears you for authority.”

Nathan grinned. “Good job, Gray. The delegation headed to Rycan are all pompous assholes, but that will certainly take a load off of the
Dalton’s
steady consignment of trips in the future. Great news for the company.”

Gray turned and noticed that Penelope was still several paces away past the dip in the floor of the blast door. “I’d like you to meet someone, Nathan. This is Dr. Penelope Drake. She’s a scientist at the Bravura Science Lab.” He pointed to Penelope before realizing she looked a little bit distressed behind her mask for some reason. She shook her head a little, but Gray didn’t understand why.

Nathan stepped forward and headed toward Penelope with his hand extended. “Pleased to meet you ma’am. I hope Captain Wyckoff has been treating you well.”

Once Nathan got a good look at Penelope, he stopped in his tracks and uttered a shocked sounding, “You!” He glanced at Gray and then fixed his gaze back on Penelope. “At the café on Bravura. In the ally.”

“Yes. It’s me. I’m so sorry. Please let me explain,” she said in a nervous tone. “You see, I have a virus that makes me do things I wouldn’t normally do.”

Nathan crossed over the blast door trench just as a percussive explosion rocked the tunnel and knocked all of them off their feet.

Seconds later the second blast door dropped neatly into its prepared trench sealing Gray on one side of the clear barrier with the two men from Echo Province.

Meanwhile, Nathan was now on the other side of the six inch thick barrier with Penelope.

Trapped behind a clear wall, Gray watched as Nathan gained his footing in the aftermath of the explosion. He reached out to help Penelope to her feet on the other side of the transparent blast door. She’d gone face down on to the floor of the cave. Damn it. They were trapped apart. Gray stood up wondering how long before the barrier could be raised.

From behind him, Gray heard the other men run away from the blast door. They disappeared around the tunnel corner, leaving him alone. His attention went back to the other side of the barrier.

Penelope staggered to her feet with Nathan’s help and turned toward the blast door. Her mask was damaged. The heart-pumping realization that she was about to be without protection forced his spine to snap to attention. He could see part of her lovely jaw line as she reached to straighten the off kilter mask.

Her fingertips touched her skin. Comprehending that it was broken and she was exposed, Penelope screamed. He couldn’t hear her, but he saw the terror on her face. Gray pressed his body against the clear barrier and beat uselessly on the blast door. There was only a one in four chance that Nathan was a candidate she was attracted to enough to trigger the virus. But given what she’d said to Nathan right before the blast, he suspected they were already acquainted.

Penelope ripped the now worthless mask from her face. Gray did the same to his, pulling it over his head and bouncing it off the ground.

Pressing her fingertips against her face as tears trailed down her cheeks, Penelope turned and caught Gray’s gaze. She shook her head as if in denial of who stood with her, and Gray figured out for certain who she’d had sex with just after the initial discovery of her disease. Nathan’s favorite café was near the Bravura Science Lab, and he always made time to get a cup of coffee before every trip like a superstition. It wasn’t a stretch to figure out what alley she’d been in once the virus triggered for the first time.

Scrambling away from Nathan, Penelope ran toward the blast door where Gray was pressed, wishing he could melt the panel and take her into his arms. She put her hand up against the barrier at face level. Gray placed his hand to hers through the clear impenetrable wall.

He couldn’t hear her, but she mouthed the words, “I’m so sorry.”

A smudge of dirt marked her forehead and jaw from the blast that had knocked her off her feet. She was breathing hard likely from fear, and like clockwork, the lusty glazed over expression of her virus washed down her face, changing her personality just as he’d witnessed before. She pressed her hands against the wall as if she had the strength to push through it. Frustration soon shaped her look as she realized she wasn’t going to be able to get to him.

Nathan walked forward and closer to Penelope with a vibrant “what the fuck” look on his face. Penelope turned, tilted her head to one side briefly, and without warning launched at him. He caught her into his arms and held her against his chest, but when she tried to kiss him, he turned his head away to avoid it. Penelope, undaunted by his seeming lack of desire for participation, pulled away and started trying to take his clothes off. Nathan stilled her hands on his jacket zipper so she lowered her hands to his crotch and rubbed his dick. Dodging her familiarity with his privates, Nathan sent a puzzled look over her shoulder.

Now that he had Nathan’s attention, Gray fisted his hand and pounded on the barrier and screamed, “Don’t let her suffer!”

Nathan’s expression bordered on shock first and then sad resolve next. Penelope talked at what looked like a mile a minute as she resumed pulling his jacket off. He stopped fighting her, removed the garment himself and discarded it on the ground.

She doubled over for a minute and Nathan had to help her straighten. She threw her arms around his neck, and her hips gyrated against Nathan’s crotch. For his part, Nathan seemed very reluctant to do what she asked, but Gray could tell he wouldn’t let her linger in pain. He rested his forehead against Penelope’s and started nodding.

The decontamination deployment tubes on the walls near the blast door started filling the space behind the blast door with a misty fog that smelled like sour dirt. It swirled around Gray’s legs as he watched Penelope hurriedly slip out of her slacks. A hand went over her mouth as if she stifled a scream accompanied by her hunching over at the waist.

Nathan bent down to her and rubbed her back, obviously trying to help. Unable to tear his eyes away from what was about to happen, Gray found he was more upset about Penelope’s escalating pain. The anguish now resting on her lovely face was more agonizing to endure than the idea of watching her have sex with his best friend. He almost screamed, “Hurry up! Damn it. Can’t you see that she’s in pain?” They couldn’t hear him.

Penelope turned her back on Gray and pulled at Nathan’s shoulders until he dropped to his knees. She wrapped her arms around his neck and put her hand on the front of Nathan’s open trousers. She rubbed and grabbed at his stiffening cock until he pushed her to the ground. Penelope was talking again. “Please hurry. Oh God it hurts. Please…”

Her eyes closed, and her back arced as if wracked with the burning pain of her virus. Watching her discomfort made Gray antsy. He wanted Nathan to speed up and stop her from suffering.

Nathan nodded and pulled his pants off to his hips. Stiff cock emerging, Nathan put a hand on his member and directed it toward Penelope’s open legs.

Thrusting into her for the first time, Nathan closed his eyes and paused for a moment. Penelope was crying now in earnest. Several runnels of tear tracks stained her cheeks. Writhing back and forth on the ground beneath Nathan, she arched her back once again as pure anguish registered on her face. Gray melted into the barrier wanting her agony to end.
Please hurry
.

Nathan picked up the pace of his thrusts and stroked inside her at a faster pace.

Penelope grabbed at his shoulders. She pulled on his ass as if to make him go faster. After what seemed like an eternity, Nathan thrust inside Penelope deeply and stiffened as his head fell forward. The instant he came inside of her body, the utter joy from lack of pain on Penelope’s face almost made Gray weep with relief.

The decontamination fog thickened and roiled all around. For the barest instance, he locked his gazes with Penelope as she became aware of herself and what had just happened. Her eyes narrowed in sorrow before the mist took his view. With his forehead pressed against the chilly glass now fully engulfed in opaque mist, the true and vile nature of the sex or suffer virus hit him square in the chest.

Nathan didn’t know what Penelope meant to him, but Gray couldn’t think of anyone he trusted more to “help her out” while he was ensconced in this hellish incarceration.

Unfortunately, his containment would add an undetermined amount of waiting on to the time to get her the five day minimum journey to the Parsec Colony. Gray knew she couldn’t wait. Hell, she shouldn’t have to linger here. He stepped away from the wall on a mission to find a communication device. He’d send word for the
Dalton
to depart Echo Province as soon as Penelope and Nathan were on board.