Bightmares

Chapter Eleven

Late in the day and with Aaron back to normal, Emi felt the deadly clock ticking in her brain. Ford, Sam, and Gregor returned to the Tamora Bight to help Caph so Parisi could return to the Braynow Gaston and assist with research. Emi sent samples with Ford, several baked goods that had triggered rages in other men, as well as the individual ingredients and recipes for testing. Parisi and the others were already working on it.

Eckhart contacted her for a status update.

“We’ve isolated the cause,” she told Captain Eckhart. “It’s just a matter of finding out why. There’s no reason to sterilize the planet or kill anyone. It’s not contagious, it’s just an allergic reaction.” She couldn’t read him through the video com link, but she didn’t like the dark look in his brown eyes. He was young, not much older than her, yet he had an old air about him, with deep lines around his eyes and grey hair already feathering his temples. She suspected he’d had a hard life for his young age.

“I have my orders, Dr. Hypatia. They have not changed. You still do not have a clear-cut cause or antidote.”

“You’ve gotta be shitting me!”

He smiled. There wasn’t a bit of amusement in the gesture. “I assure you, Doctor, I will carry out my orders to the letter unless I hear otherwise from the ISNC first.” He cut her off before she could reply.

Aaron sat behind her, deep in thought.

“What?” she asked.

“I don’t know. He looks familiar, but I can’t place him.”

“What the fuck is his problem?”

“Assholes like him give the rest of us grunts a bad name,” Rob darkly joked through the com link, where he and Donna had been listening from the K-2. “I’ll contact the DSMC and give them an update. They’ll get the ISNC orders lifted. Don’t worry, Emi.”

“Thanks, Rob,” Aaron said. He ended the com link and pulled Emi into his lap. “You need to sleep.”

“I can’t.”

He kissed her. “You will. That’s an order.” All the men had been awakened and released after making it clear to them and their families they absolutely could not have anything on the trigger list. Restricted to fruit, vegetables, legumes, meat, and water, Emi and Sascha felt safe there would be no more rages.

Ilse and Sascha invited Emi and Aaron to stay with them. As they settled into the guest room, questions swirled through Emi’s mind. Captain Eckhart’s troubling attitude awakened Emi’s deep suspicion.

“Why is he being such a prick?” she asked Aaron. Snuggled in his arms, she missed her other two men like hell, but at least she had him.

“I don’t know, babe. Some guys are like that.” He kissed her, slowly sweeping his tongue across her lips. “If you want the honest truth, I’d rather not think about him or this situation right now. I’d rather spend a little time being greedy.”

No great sacrifice there, she relaxed in his arms as he spent a long time caressing and kissing her body. She hadn’t been sure at first if he could get her into the mood, but he soon proved he could.

“When we get done with this mission, baby,” he whispered, “I’m going to enjoying us being together again.”

“I thought you liked having me all to yourself.”

He smiled as he nuzzled the base of her throat. “I do, sometimes. But I can’t quit thinking about that night on Mars, me and you between the twins. That was damn hot.”

She felt his stiff member brush against her thigh. She shifted her hips, capturing it, and he slid home inside her.

“That was very hot.” Her clit throbbed as she thought about that night, not just the sexual sensations, but the emotional energy from her men. “It’s definitely hotter when it’s all of us in bed together.”

He smiled in the darkness. “Am I hot enough for you on my own, baby?” He nipped her shoulder.

She ground her hips into his. “Of course you are. You all are. A girl can’t lie and say she doesn’t enjoy it when she’s got three hunky guys servicing her.”

He rolled them over, his hands on her hips as he gazed up at her. “Servicing her, huh?”

“Mmm hmm. My own personal harem.”

His thumb found her clit. He rubbed it, light, teasing circles. “You are insatiable, Doctor.”

She bumped him with her pelvis. “So says the horny Captain lying below me.”

“Yeah. Didn’t say I wasn’t.” His other hand cupped her breasts, stroking her. She closed her eyes, and as he managed to make her come, at the last moment she remembered they weren’t alone on the Tamora Bight and able to make as much noise as they wanted. She dropped her mouth to his shoulder and muffled her cries against his skin as he held her, stroking her back.

“Beautiful, sweetheart,” he softly crooned. “Beautiful.”

Without lifting her head, she started rocking her hips again, letting him set the pace this time. She lifted her head to look into his eyes. Deep, dark, shadowed passion flamed there, for her.

“Come for me,” she whispered.

His eyes dropped closed as she felt his release. She kissed him, swallowing his loud moans as his fingers tightened on her hips before his grip slackened again.

“I love you so much, babe,” he whispered, his voice choked with emotion. “You’ll figure this out. I know you will.”

She didn’t want to think about that, to let reality intrude into her sweet interlude. “I know.”

They were settling in to sleep when Emi’s personal audio com link whistled, rousting them. “Yeah?”

“Sorry, Emi, it’s Rob. I need to talk to Aaron.”

He sat up. “I’m here. Go ahead.”

Emi could tell from Rob’s tone of voice there was something seriously wrong. “We’ve got a problem.”

“What kind of problem?”

“I just received a bounce-back from the trans-light satellite relay station to the message I sent earlier today. It’s down.”

Emi didn’t like the sudden tension she felt in Aaron.

“Where’s the next closest one?” he asked.

“Ten light-years farther, in the next Class A sol-sys. That’s an extra three weeks before it gets relayed to DSMC.”

“Shit.”

Emi couldn’t stand it any longer. “What? What does that mean?”

“It means we have to figure out a way to change Eckhart’s mind ourselves,” Aaron explained. “Our messages aren’t getting through to the DSMC. The signals are traveling at sub-light speed. The trans-light relays are like satellite equivalents to our jump engines. They boost the signals so they go a lot faster and farther.”

“Then I just say I figured it out and that everyone’s fine.”

“He won’t accept that, Emi. He’ll have to see proof,” Rob said.

“This is bullshit!”

“You’re telling me?”

In the dark, Aaron’s brown eyes looked nearly black. “Thanks, Rob,” he quietly said. “We’ll talk to you in the morning.”

“Kendall Kant out.”

Aaron pulled Emi to him, where she eventually cried herself to sleep in his arms. He lay there with her cradled against him, lightly stroking her hair as it flowed loosely across his chest. He dreaded sleep, knew tonight of all nights the dreams would return to haunt him.

Despite his best efforts, he found himself pulled down, sucked into a horrifying vortex of agony and impotent rage as he relived his ordeal on the raiders’ ship. Through it all, he’d kept his eyes on Kels, trying to empty his mind, breathe, and not think about the pain. Knowing that what he suffered would keep her alive and unharmed.

He clearly saw her tears as she struggled against her bonds. They’d gagged her so she couldn’t scream. During one break, when they’d finally finished with him and left him alone, they untied her. She raced to his side, cradling his head in her lap as she cried over him.

The scene shifted before he could relive her death. He’d locked himself in the private bathroom of his hospital suite. Caph and Ford were both asleep, jammed tight in the other bed.

He turned on the shower, a real water shower, and let it run. As the bathroom steamed up, he set his hand-held, the suicide note open on the screen, on the small shelf over the sink. Then he dropped his robe to the floor before stepping into the shower stall. As he sat on the floor and stared at his left wrist, he touched the scalpel he’d swiped from a surgical supply room to his flesh, willing himself to find the strength to do it.

Ford and Caph could grieve and get on with their lives, not be stuck taking care of a fuckup like him. He couldn’t save her. He didn’t deserve to live.

He remembered the way his tears felt cool against his cheeks as the hot water flowed over him. Then, as he sank the blade into his skin, he heard the knock on the door.

“Aar, you okay?”

Ford.

Aaron didn’t answer, biting back his cry of pain as blood, turned pink by the water, washed down his hand and swirled around the drain in the bottom of the shower.

“Aaron? Answer me. This isn’t funny, man.”

He closed his eyes and tried to grip the scalpel with his left hand so he could cut into his right wrist, but now he was shaking so badly he didn’t know if he could do it.

More pounding on the door, followed by Caph’s frightened voice. “Aaron? Unlock the fucking door!” The sound of the emergency alarm, probably hit by Ford, that would summon the staff.

Aaron looked at his right wrist and tried to bring the blade up to his flesh. Then several loud impacts against the door as Caph tried to kick it in…

Aaron sat up in bed, not realizing he’d cried out until Emi sat up with him and put her arms around him.

“What is it?”

His heart raced. He vaguely realized he’d been crying. He closed his eyes and sobbed as she pulled him tightly to her chest, one hand cradling the back of his head, the other stroking his back.

“Talk to me,” she whispered.

He finally did. Admitted it to her. Everything. The nightmares he’d been having and what they’d been about. Her grip on him only grew stronger as he sobbed, cried, talked about it.

Relived that fucking horrible day. The months of agony after.

The two suicide attempts, both interrupted by Ford and Caph.

And, when he couldn’t cry or talk anymore, he finally realized he was lying with his head in her lap as she stroked his hair.

“Why didn’t you talk to me sooner,” she softly asked.

He didn’t answer.

She changed position so she lay next to him, still cradling him, still holding him in a protective embrace he didn’t need to be empathic to recognize. “You can’t keep this bottled up.”

“You’ve got enough to worry about.”

“I’m going to kill Ford for not telling me. You realize that, right?”

He rolled over and looked up. Even in the dim light he spotted her playful smile. “Don’t be mad at him. I ordered him to keep that mouth of his shut.”

“Pulled rank, huh?”

“Yeah. Being captain has its perks.”

She leaned in and kissed him. “Well, guess what, buddy? Being wife and med officer has its perks, too. We get back, we’re all sitting down and having a long talk about this. All of us.”

He sat up. “No. We’re not telling Caph. I’m serious, Em, I don’t want him knowing.”

After several long moments, she let out a sad sigh. “I guess you’re right. The big guy doesn’t need to know everything.”

He stroked her cheek. “Not when it would only hurt him. He’s not like you or Ford. You know what I mean.”

“Okay. But you, me, and Ford will sit down one night while Caph’s asleep or on the bridge on watch. We’ll talk this out. Agreed?”

“Yeah.”

She kissed him before letting him pull her into his arms as they settled back on the bed. “Now go to sleep and have good dreams, Captain. That’s doctor’s order.”

He chuckled and kissed the back of her neck. “Yes, Doctor.”