He stood his fighter on its nose and cut his thrusters to nothing, watching the tiny pinpricks of light streak past his canopy on all sides. In the vacuum of space, it matters little what direction is craft faced? His control surfaces meant little to nothing here. With no atmosphere to work against his ailerons and stabilizers could not steer his craft. Tiny maneuvering jets spaced across the fighter sleek surface served to move the fighter in the desired direction. He moved his control stick to starboard, jets fired on the port nose of the craft and swung the nose to the right.
Maneuverability of this kind was unheard of within a planet's atmosphere. He could disengage main thrusters, spin his fighter one hundred and eighty degrees to his rear, and he could maintain his speed at his original course. With nothing to act against his craft, it would stay on the same course, at the same speed, until acted upon by an outside force.
With only six months of practice, the controls were still new to him. But with all the years he'd had in terrestrial aircraft, he could fly the new fighter as well as could be expected, so he brought it into final approach for landing very slowly.
"This is Falcon, zero, zero, one. I am on final approach to hangar bay three forty-six. Requesting permission to come aboard." Joshua Caleb Prey asked through his communication system.
"Permission granted. Just get into the grove and we'll have you aboard in no time." The voice of Flight deck control officer Mike Jensen came over the comms.
"Nice to be back Chief," then under his breath. "How's the Captain?"
"Pissed, he wants to know where you've been."
"I was afraid of that. Well, he's going to blow a fuse when I tell him what happened." Joshua said with a sigh.
"Your brother didn't come back, did he?"
"How did you guess? Something about wanting to check out a contact he was tracking."
"Oh yeah, the Captain's going to love that."
Bringing his fighter into alignment with the mouth of the gigantic hanger bay opening, Joshua felt his fighter's control go slack in his hands. He was now a passenger in his own fighter. The ship's main computer now controlled the craft he was in. In this way, the entire landing process took a matter of seconds. With the precision that only a computer could pull off, the fighter was maneuvered through the atmospheric containment field and into its assigned spot on the fight deck.
The instant the wheels hit the deck, Joshua popped his canopy and lept out of his cockpit seat. Hitting the deck, he looked for Chief Jensen. He found him standing near the flight deck control center.
"Chief, where is he?" He called.
"Inside, and he's not happy."
"Who told him?"
"No one on my line." Jensen shot back, looking hurt. "But it wasn't very hard to figure out what happened when he sent two fighters down to the planet and only one came back."
"Point taken," he grasp Jensen by the shoulder. "Wish me luck."
"Oh, come on, he's not going to eat you for breakfast."
"With that thing he's got on now, sometimes I wonder." Chief Jensen poked Joshua in the arm.
"You're wearing one of them too, aren't you?"
"Good point. But a little extra luck never hurt."
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"Are you coming or what?" Tamar heard Malachi call from up ahead of her and growled low to herself, hoping he wouldn't hear her.
How was he able to keep up this kind of pace? It had been two days since her unfortunate escapades at the water's edge. Since then, it was as if he was trying to run her into the ground. They would move for seven, maybe eight hours at a stretch, rest for maybe an hour, then hit the trail again. During the daylight hours, their movements were slow and deliberate as to not attract attention. At night, on the other hand, at night Malachi set a pace that Tamar thought would burn her legs and feet off. She was in top physical shape, her body honed to the razor's edge of perfection, yet after six hours of running beside, or most of the time behind him, she was like a rung out rag.
"Give me a second. We just stopped a few minutes ago," she grumbled.
Tamar didn't notice his approach until he was within arm's reach of her. His hand on her shoulder her first warning. The screech of her surprise tore from her lips and rang across the darkened city. Malachi blocked the outstretched claws that accompanied her scream as they sought his throat.
"Sorry." Tamar said, lowering her hand. "But I wish you'd stop doing that to me."
"Doing what?" He asked, all innocence.
"Sneaking up on me like that. I mean, how does someone as big as you move around without making a sound?" She was exasperated. All her life she'd been the one moving without sound. A ghost moving in the shadows, striking without warning, then fading before anyone could respond.
Now she had to wrap her mind around the fact that not only could she not smell him because of his suit, but she could not hear him unless he wanted her to. It was a serious blow to the ego.
"I was sneaking up on people a long time before I had this thing on." He grabbed a piece of his suit and pulled it away from his arm between thumb and fore finger.
Tamar let it drop. He seemed to stop in mid stride, then turn to her.
"I think we'll stop here for the rest of the night," he stretched both of his hands over his head. "I could use the rest."
"Yeah right." Tamar shot back.
"There's a bank vault in here." he walked through a pair of double doors that had no glass left in them and Tamar followed him through. "It should be able to shield us from any of their scans." Malachi walked up to the partially closed door.
Tamar walked up beside him and looked at the heavy steel door.
"How are we supposed to get in? It's open maybe a crack."
"Not a problem, but you might want to step back a bit." She gave him a dubious look.
"Suit yourself." He pressed the fingers on both hands into the small crack between the door and its frame.
Tamar watched as tiny spider webs of red energy began to crackle across Malachi's body. With a heave, the door swung open with a shriek of hinges in desperate need of lubrication.
"After you, my lady." He stepped to the side and bowed low at his waist, arm outstretched into the darkness beyond.
"But it's dark in there." She tried to crack a joke.
Malachi raised his hand and a dull red light shone into the room.
"There, no more dark." Tamar shook her head and walked past him into the small room.
The room was covered in a fine layer of dust from ceiling to floor. Tamar stepped one foot in, picked it up and looked at the print in dust.
"This place is filthy." She called over to Malachi, who was already sitting on the floor.
"Well, I couldn't get us a room at the holiday inn, so this will have to do. Wait a sec," he hopped to his feet. "Hold your breath for a sec."
"Why?" Tamar narrowed her eyes.
"Just hold your breath. You're the one who said it was too dirty in here.
"Fine." Tamar took an exaggerated breath and held it.
Watching, she saw his wings grow from his shoulders. She'd seen it before, but this time they grew slowly, as if Malachi was giving her a good look. They grew until they touched the walls on either side and he began to move them back and forth. The breeze they brought forth was enough to move some of the dust from the walls and ceiling. Soon the breeze grew to a gale, picking up loose papers, then everything not weighted down.
Now Tamar could tell why he'd told her to hold her breath. The dust storm made it so she couldn't even see its source, even though he stood no more than fifteen feet from her. As fast as it started, the winds died. Looking around, Tamar couldn't see a speck of dust anywhere. Every surface of the room had been scoured clean.
"There, now the room's clean, your highness. Now stay here." He walked past her and to the door.
"Where are you going?"
"Supplies and scouting. I'll be back in an hour."
"What am I supposed to do?" Tamar asked, tuning towards him.
"I don't know. I'm sure you'll think of something." He grabbed the door, its heavy hinges creaking.
"In here, there are not exactly a lot of options. I'd rather get out of here and stretch my legs."
"Are you saying you'd rather be with me?" Malachi asked, the door almost closed.
"Don't flatter yourself big boy." Tamar retorted.
With a chuckle, the door shut completely and Tamar's world descended to black.
After an uneventful hour of scouting and scavenging, Malachi returned to the vault. Dropping his bundle of supplies, he grabbed the door and heaved. It moved out until there was just enough room for him to slip past and into the black room. Stepping into the darkness, his vision switched from normal to thermal until he bathed the room in amber light.
Tamar was curled into a ball in the far corner, so he stepped out, grabbed his two bundles and hurried back inside. Once he had the door sealed behind him, he tried to awaken Tamar.
"Hey, wake up. I brought you something to eat and plenty of water." Sinking onto his haunches, he gave her shoulder a shake.
Without as much as a sound, Tamar rolled over, sprang off the floor, straight into his chest. The momentum of her leap threw him onto his back, where she tried to pin him to the floor by wrapping both hands around his throat and beginning to squeeze.
Malachi was astounded as his threat display shot a red indicator, highlighting for an instant the area around his neck.
"How much pressure is she exerting?" He asked.
"With both hands, she seems to be able to squeeze with almost eight thousand pounds of force. This little girl could rip a grizzle in half, with her bare hands." Malachi was shocked. What had those people done to this poor girl? He knew very little about genetic manipulation, and seeing what had been done to Tamar, he didn't want to.
The millisecond it took for that thought to cross his mind, his suit's defensive field came up. Tamar grunted and bared down even harder, but she couldn't breech his suit. Nothing on the planet could. The only problem Malachi had then, was how to get her to stop without hurting her.
First things first. He grabbed both of her hands and with just using enough force to break her grip, he pulled both of them off his throat. Every finger of each hand left furrows in his suit where her nails dug deep. When he had them both away from him, he shoved them wide apart, let go of them and slapped the floor. The force he delivered with his open palms was enough to bring him to his feet. It also was plenty to distract Tamar for the instant he needed to leap away from her.
She was on him like a cannon ball, her claws leaving deep gouges where ever they touched, and they touched every part of him. He knew that, had he not been wearing what he was, he would have been dead in seconds. Every part of this woman was a weapon. Her fangs were not for show. His arms and shoulders could testify to that. He would try to block a strike to his face, and she'd come in with her fangs and latch onto the arm he'd tried to block with.
Any other person and he'd have ended it in seconds, and he was about to when he noticed something that gave him pause. Her eyes were wide open, wide open, as if she was terrified of something. Then he saw it, something that made his heart sink. Her eyes were seeing nothing. They didn't focus, neither did they move. Her pupils didn't dilate either.
"She's still asleep," he mumbled under another barrage of strikes, and he knew what he had to do.
"Tamar!" He shouted into her face. Still nothing. She didn't even blink. So he stepped forward faster than she could see and grabbed her by both arms.
"TAMAR!" He roared, and at last she blinked.
"Wha...?" she stammered, her entire body going limp, as if someone had flipped a switch. All the energy seemed to flow out of her.
Then, in a flash, she realized where she was, and that Malachi was the one holding her, because she began to fight once again like a wild cat, not attacking him this time, just trying to escape his grasp. When he saw that she was conscious once more, his fingers sprang open, dropping her to the floor.
The instant she hit it, Tamar scurried into another corner, shoved a few of the toppled shelving units aside and hid behind them. Malachi was left wondering what had just happened. He'd just been attacked by someone while they were asleep. It sure was a first for him. Then he began to think, what could they have done to her to make her attack someone while still asleep? He looked over at Tamar, who was trembling in the corner. She must have thought he'd be furious with her after what she'd just done.
Malachi wasn't furious, he wasn't even angry. He'd had plenty of women try to take a swipe at him, and now with what he was wearing, claws were the least of his worries. Tamar didn't know that though, and by the way she always reacted to him, he had no idea how to approach her to tell her.
"Tamar?" He kept his voice just high enough for her to hear him.
"What?" she asked, the question coming out a snarl.
"I would just like you to know that I'm not mad at you for what you did."
The toppled shelving units exploded away from her as Tamar hurtled straight at Malachi in one bound.
"HOW CAN YOU SAY THAT!" she screamed, spittle flying from between her enormous jaws. "I just attacked you. If you hadn't been wearing," she poked in hard in the chest. "That suit I would have ripped your throat out, and I wasn't even awake! Not to mention my little freak out by the lake. How many Saltek did you have to kill to keep them off me?" Her entire body vibrated. She was so tense. "Why are you being so nice to me? I've been nothing but a pain in your ass since we met." Pacing back and forth in front of him, she continued.
"You never yell, you're always polite. Heck, you put up with me when anyone else would have just put a bullet in my head and called it a day. So why, why are you so nice to me? I need to know, no one has ever been this nice, no one's this nice."
"Because you need me to be." He answered as he watched her march back and forth in front of him.
His words brought her up short. All her life she'd been taught to rely on no one, and a man least of all. To rely on others was to show weakness, and weakness was not to be tolerated. But why was this man throwing her into such an inner conflict? She'd watched him destroy more aliens, and alien hardware than the combined might of earth's military had been able to when the Rougarians first invaded.
Tamar turned to look at him. To her, he looked almost harmless, but of course she'd been with him for almost a week. Where she saw some of the man underneath, everyone else would only see him from the outside, and on the outside he looked like death personified.
Then why, if he looked so deadly, and could back it up, would he choose to stay with her, to protect her? He could take over this entire planet if he wanted to, yet he, for some reason, decided to stay with her. Why? As hard as she wracked her brain, she couldn't come up with an answer that fit her concept of how the world should work.
"I don't need your protection. Thank you very much." She turned and, in short measured, stepped sauntered over to the wall opposite him. "What I want to know is why are you still here? You could be anywhere by now. Yet here you are, in a bank vault with me. You make no sense."
"And the king shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me." Malachi said, looking straight at Tamar and holding her gaze with his own.
"You still didn't answer my question." She held his gaze as well, feeling it as a test of will.
"Yes, I did."
"No, you didn't!" She almost screamed the words. "All you did was give me a few sentences that sound like they came from a very, very old movie or something. Why are you acting so nice when you haven't tried anything with me yet?" There, she'd said it. It wasn't that she'd been wondering why he was here, not really. The root of her anxiety, her lack of confidence, was that she had no idea why he hadn't made a pass at her. All men wanted one thing and one thing only from women. She'd found that out the hard way. Only here was this guy, who could have taken what he wanted, and she couldn't have stopped him no matter how hard she fought. The thought had her on pins and needle waiting for him to make the inevitable move.
But it had never come. For five days they were traveling together, and he'd never even as much as touched her but for a few instances. So the spring of her worry had wound tighter and tighter. Now it was beginning to snap. She would not let him think she hadn't seen it coming. She might not be able to stop him, but at least she'd make sure he knew he hadn't fooled her.
"What do you mean, something with you?" Malachi asked, sounded genuinely confused for the first time since they'd met.
Tamar's jaw fell open. Could he really be that dense? Or was he just trying to lull her into a false sense of security?
"I mean," she almost yelled the words. "When are you going to try to have sex with me?" There, it was out in the open now. Might as well deal with it here and now.
"I'm not! Thank you very much. What makes you think I'd want to have sex you with?" Malachi shook his head. What was wrong with this woman?
"All men want from women is to get between their legs. They're only nice when they want something, and everyone knows what that something is. So quit trying to deny it, and just tell me." Malachi shook his head again.
"I don't know where you were raised, or the kind of guys you grew up around. But I was raised to respect women as the beautiful creature God created them to be. As full heirs in the blessing of the good gift of his son. I don't want to have sex with you, really. You're a nice-looking girl and all, but I haven't had sex yet, and I'm not about to start with you."
"Why not? Is there something wrong with me?" Tamar's anxiety was now turning to indignity.
Why didn't he want to have sex with her? Was it because of her hair, maybe the way her mouth grew wide when she yelled, or her yellow eyes? He didn't want to have sex with her. He'd never had sex before. Wait, he'd never had sex before, with anyone. She'd always thought she was the only one.
"Why don't you want to have sex with me? Do you think I'm ugly or something?"
"That's what you're going with now? First, you're afraid I'm going to rape you the first chance I get, and now you're getting angry because I told you I don't want to have sex with you. Woman, make up your mind."
"You mean you don't really want to have sex with me? But all guys want to have sex, I mean like all the time. It's their one defining trait."
"Maybe boys who never grew up. Does it take so much of your brain power to comprehend that there some of us who are real men, men who take control of our bodies, instead of letting our bodies control us?" Tamar could tell she had pressed a button when tiny lines of red began to spread across his suit again.
"Yes it does. All the men I've ever met in my entire life have had one thing on their minds, one, and that was sex. I don't know why, or who taught them to think like that, but that was the way it was. So you can say anything you want, but I still don't believe you."
"Why not? Have I given you any reason to doubt my word?"
There he went again, answering her with a question.
"Because I can't. I don't trust anyone or anything. I trust only one person, me, and sometimes not that much."
"Tamar, I give you my word. As long as you're with me, you're safe. I will let no harm to come to you as long as it's within my power to prevent it. You have nothing to fear from me. By my honor and by the name of my God, I will get you to safety so you can make up your own mind about what you want to do with your life."
She came to a dead stop. The very conviction in those words made her mind jump, her heart pound. He had sounded so sincere."
"Nice words," she turned before he could see the confusion written large on her face. "But words don't mean much, do they?"
"No they don't, deeds do." Malachi watched her shiver, then stop, standing still with her back to him. When she turned, not a trace of emotion clouded her face.
"We'll see which one you're full of, won't we?"
"Yes, yes we will."
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