Page 50 of Right on Time

And the way he had talked as he took her… Getting her all revved-up with promises of pleasures to come and proceeding to deliver on every single one… Proclaiming her his and saying she could lay claim over him… Chloe sighed wistfully.

“Loe, strap in!”

“Huh?”

Nitiel was by her side before she could blink twice. One second he had been in the pilot seat, and now he was pulling her to her feet, his face a mask of fury. The abrupt stop of the alarm added to her confusion.

“Nitiel?”

“We’re under attack, Loe. Enemy ships have infiltrated our perimeter from the dark side of Jupiter.” He led her to a row of three metal seats against the wall to their right. “You must strap in.”

“They’ve attacked the station?” She was so confused by the abrupt change in the situation that she couldn’t buckle up, and he had to help her. “What are you going to do?”

“The attack is yet to come; the alarm was for unidentified ships in our vicinity. I tried to send an alert to the station, but the comms are being jammed.” He cupped her cheek. “My ship is the first line of defense. I must fight, or many lives will be lost. I’m sorry, Loe.”

He was going to fight the enemy with her aboard. Just his ship against who knew how many baddies. The two of them might die… But Chloe could not live with herself if she told him to get them out of here. She could not ask him to turn his back on his people. Nitiel was a male of duty. That was one of the reasons why she had fallen for him.

God, she was in love with Nitiel.

“Go,” she urged him as he hesitated by her side. “Kick their evil butts, Subcommander!”

He nodded, determination filling his gaze, and jump-flew to the cockpit where he strapped in behind the console and took over from the autopilot. Chloe was glad he left the door open. From her seat she could see only half of the view through the porthole, but it was enough.

There were metal spheres approaching. Black, nearly indistinguishable against the darkness of space if you didn’t know to look for them and hadn’t seen such alien ships before. Chloe had, and it was a sight she could never forget. For these were the first UFOs to openly come to Earth and try to destroy humankind.

Three years had passed since these slimy extraterrestrials had tried to invade major cities across the planet. Chloe had had the luck of being in an arts and crafts workshop in a mountain village at the time, so she had watched on TV the footage of spheres of various sizes shooting lasers at buildings. The military had managed to stop the invasion, mostly because the humanoid octopuses called Hishchians weren’t prepared for some chemical weapons at humans’ disposal.

But new attacks on Earth kept occurring every couple of months, the Black Portal next to Mars being like a torn mosquito net: you could turn countless of those insects into a pancake on your wall, but they would keep coming into your room through the tear. If the Intergalactic Alliance hadn’t interfered, the Hishchians would have gained enough knowledge to overcome Earth’s defenses and turn humans into a pancake.

However, by staying to guard Earth on behalf of the Alliance, the Gaenthians had made themselves an enemy. The military station by Jupiter, as safer from attacks as Nitiel had described it, was still a target. And a vulnerable one, by the looks of it.

“How did the Hishchians get so close undetected?” Chloe reasoned out loud. Babbling was a good way to distract herself while Nitiel was accelerating, sending her heart in her throat. “Aren’t there patrol ships, like the Sangobar?”

“There are,” Nitiel replied to her. “But not on the dark side of Jupiter. The area is unnavigable due to electronic disturbances. Somehow, the Hishchians have managed to work past that.”

“What about the station’s defenses? Won’t they detect the threat?”

“By then the enemy ships will be close enough to do damage.”

No, Chloe didn’t even want to imagine such a scenario. “That won’t happen! You’ll stop them.”

“Hold on, Loe.”

That was all the warning she got before the ship’s floor became the ceiling and vice versa. Then bright lines began flying across the porthole.

There was a space battle, and she was in the middle of it.

Chloe squeezed her eyes shut. Now was not the time to puke. Screaming might distract Nitiel… What was left to do?!

The fighter ship kept turning as fast as if they weren’t in space where movement was slowed-down but in the air on Earth. At least, that was how it felt to her untrained self. Everything was vibrating and shaking – or was Chloe shaking in panic? She sure hoped their shields were at 100% and not dropping. They did have shields to stop them from going poof at the first hit, didn’t they?

Dang it. Why hadn’t she asked Nitiel about the important stuff?

Right. Because she’d been busy getting two orgasms in a row. Her last, no doubt–

No, no, she had to stay positive! If she could focus on one good thing–

The ship righted herself for a moment, and Chloe dared a look in Nitiel’s direction. He had two green holographic cylinders encasing his forearms and connecting him to the ship’s console before him, and he was moving them with expert precision. He had to be shooting through them. He and the fighter were in perfect synchrony, one unit engaged in a deadly dance among laser beams and exploding ships.