James Axler – Gemini Rising

“Now?” Ryan repeated, straightening his eye patch. “We attack again immediately, of course.”

Chapter Sixteen

The unlocked door to the substation was violently kicked open, and the armed sec men marched inside.

Completely naked, Daffer cried out in shock and Mildred, beneath him, raised a knee to hide their joining. The nude couple was lying on a tangle of old blankets loosely thrown over a small bed in the corner of the room.

“Noble, ah, sirs?” Daffer sputtered, trying to hide his nakedness. “What can I do for you this, ah, night?”

Amused at their predicament, the sergeant snorted a chuckle as the other sec men did a brief recce of the tiny building, checking behind the woodpile and inside the wall cabinets. “Is there a back room?” he demanded.

Daffer blinked, sweat dripping off his face. “Here? No, sir, not even a cellar. I had planned on digging one, but when I was captured by the cannies last month”

The leader of the sec men waved that away. “Yeah, yeah, we heard. Bad for them, good for you.”

“This hole is clear,” a private announced, smiling at the trapped couple. “Unlike others.”

Scrawny shanks exposed to the cruel light of the lantern on the table, Daffer bent his head in shame. Contrarily, the naked woman under him raised herself on an elbow and ran a hand through her wild mane of hair.

“Look any harder, boys, and it will cost you,” she stated, cupping a plump breast as if offering it for inspection. “Hey, Sarge, you want to wait a few minutes, and I’ll take you next. Daffy here is almost done and hardly wets me at all.”

The troops roared with laughter.

“A gimp and a slut,” the sergeant muttered, heading for the door, shaking his head.

Still chuckling, the sec men walked out of the bunker, leaving the metal door wide open.

Easing out from between Mildred’s legs, Daffer lowered himself to the floor and, padding barefoot across the floor, closed and bolted the door.

“It worked,” he whispered, dragging his pants off the chair and pulling them on quickly.

Mildred swung her muscular legs off the bed and stood, reaching under the pillow and retrieving her ZKR blaster. “Idiots are easily fooled,” she said, checking the clip.

Facing away from her, Daffer whispered, “And my deepest apologies.”

Mildred laid aside the weapon and walked to the shaking man, resting a hand on his shoulder. He flinched at the contact.

“There’s nothing to speak of,” she said softly. “I know you haven’t been with a woman for a long time, and tucked so close to each other, certain physical masculine” the physician fumbled for a polite word “reactions were to be expected.”

Buttoning his shirt, the man didn’t speak.

“Besides,” Mildred added sternly, “weren’t you willing to die to protect the wife of your baron?”

“Certainly!” Daffer snapped. “I took an oath to my liege lord!”

She crossed her arms and smiled. “Then what’s a little embarrassment?”

Daffer mumbled a reply and headed for the door. Undoing the bolt, he peeked outside, then closed and locked it again.

“They’re gone,” he reported.

“Good,” Mildred said, pulling on her pants. Buckling the belt, she tucked her target pistol into the holster, then slid on her other garments. Touching her wild Afro, Mildred sighed. It would take her and Krysty a great deal of time to get her hair under control once again. She wondered if she should simply cut it off.

Turning the lantern higher for more light, Mildred pulled the blankets away from the bed, exposing Tabitha beneath on the bare concrete.

“You can come out now,” Mildred said, offering a helping hand.

The tendons sticking out on her neck, the pregnant woman was drenched with sweat, her fist jammed into her mouth to keep from crying out. An AK-47 was held tightly in her other hand, the bolt primed and ready. Her legs clenched together and trembling, the floor beneath her damp with a clear fluid.

“Oh, no,” Mildred said, kneeling on the floor.

“What’s wrong?” Daffer asked, bringing the lantern closer. “Did we hurt her pretending to bounce on the bed?”

“Her water broke. She’s in labor.” The physician took the weapon from the woman and placed it aside. “Help me with the bed.”