CHAPTER 24

"That can't be good," Chloe muttered amid the blasted alarm. To herself, since Nitiel had rushed to the cockpit as soon as he could get off the pad and up on his feet.

That had taken him several tries. It wasn't his bad hip that had given him trouble - she had watched how he moved, and he hadn't been in pain. No, her Gaenthian had found it difficult to stand up because his first time with a woman had left him a boneless heap on the jelly pad.

Shehad been his first. She had left him a Jell-o on the jelly. Fist pump!

Chloe giggled, not caring that she probably looked like a lunatic, laughing amid an alarm-worthy situation in a disheveled 18th-century-style dress and with curls sticking in all directions. Because she had just been taken to paradise. Pleasured so thoroughly that she herself would have trouble standing. She didn't know where he had gotten his information, but the Subcommander definitely knew his way to a woman's G-spot.

Sure, Jacob's Ladder was famous for heightening a woman's pleasure, but even a monstrous peen with piercings, ridges, knots and whatnot could disappoint if its owner didn't use it properly. Nitiel, the self-proclaimed virgin, had proven himself an expert user of his purple, thick, and perfectly long cock.

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.

"Go, babe!" She cheered under her nose when their plasma shot cut an enemy sphere in half. Then she screamed as Nitiel kept going straight toward the two halves.

He turned the ship sideways at the last moment and slid in between.

"Loe?"

"I'm okay!" So much for not screaming. "Was that the last baddie?"

"Nine more. Shield at 40%."

Chloe laughed hysterically. "Easy peasy."

She screamed again when a sphere nearly collided with them.

"Goddess! They're ready to sacrifice some of their own!"

Perfect. They had to watch out for kamikazes now as well… They were definitely going to survive this.

"Seven targets left. Shield at 20%."

Yep. Going. To. Survive. For sure.

The ship shook as a laser beam hit them. Nitiel, still as calm as at the beginning, sent the fighter into a downward spiral, running from lasers and spheres alike. Chloe screamed throughout. Didn't puke, though – she was a champ.

The spiral ended with the ship upside down, and that was when she saw it. A console attached to the ceiling – now the floor. Could it be…?

"Nitiel, can I help somehow? With the console back here?" she asked before she realized what she was proposing. She must have gone crazy, her brain scrambled from the insane maneuvers.

"It's too dangerous!"

"More dangerous than dying? Tell me!"

"You have to get to the landing pad, but I can't slow down or keep the ship steady! Stay put, Loe."

He was right. She would never make it to the jelly in the center of the room. "And once on the pad?" she heard herself ask.

"Goddess damn it!" Chloe had never heard Nitiel curse before, which only served to prove she wasn't overreacting: the situation was deadly. "Mold the gel around you. I'll lower the console from here; it's connected to a plasma cannon."

Okay. Okay. Trixie had shown her how to manipulate the jelly. Nitiel was going to hook her up to a badass weapon. All Chloe needed to do was keep her neck unbroken on the way to the landing pad. Easy peasy lemon squeezy.

Her fingers shook so hard that it took her three tries to unbuckle. Then Nitiel took a sharp turn, and her whole body left the ground for several seconds. Her hands holding the seat belt were the only reason she didn't fly across the room to crash into the opposite wall. She did crash into the seat and the wall behind it, though, when Nitiel righted the fighter.

"Loe?!"

"I'm alright!" Bruised and close to hyperventilating, but he didn't need to know that. She would not disappoint him. He had risked his life for hers enough times, now she would do the same for him. "Tell me when to go."

"Now!"

She threw herself at the pad before she had time to freeze in fear. Her upper body sank in the jelly just as the ship spiraled down. She'd made it! "I made it!"

"Thank the Goddess!"

Chloe put every ounce of muscle she had into getting her entire body on the pad, then guided the jelly over her middle in a semblance of a buckle. No time to form a proper seat. "Ready!"

"Lowering the console now. Put your hand in the green holosphere and squeeze your fingers to shoot. Do you see the targets?"

"Yes." Two dots on the tiny screen of the console were jumping all over the place, while two others were moving fast ahead. How the heck had Nitiel managed to hit the others, let alone take all but four down? "What are they doing?"

"Half are trying to destroy us, the others are speeding toward the station."

"What can just two accomplish?" The moment she asked that, Chloe realized what the slimies were up to: they would go kamikaze on the station. The level of destruction would be horrendous. "We have to stop them, now!"

"I'm in pursuit. You focus on those behind us."

"Roger that, Subcommander." His confident tone managed to ground her racing thoughts amid the chaos. She could do this. It couldn't be that different from playing that DemonStar arcade game in first grade, could it?

Only that they didn't have several lives to spare in case she screwed up. And the shield was at 5%.

Chloe quickly got the hang of shooting, but managing to direct the shots at the enemy dots moving across the screen? Fat chance.

The shield beeped at 3%.

This was hopeless! She and Nitiel would be space dust long before she learned how to target properly–

"Bingo!" She did it! Somehow, she hit one of the spheres hot on their tail! Chloe felt like jumping in her jelly bed. "Ha, take that, slimeball!... Just one more left…"

The shield dropped to 2%.

"Hold on!" Nitiel sent the ship spinning like crazy, worse than ever before. Whatever he was doing had to be a last-ditch effort to stop the kamikaze baddies. Or the sphere behind them scoring a hit again. Or both.

Either way, Chloe could do nothing but keep her fingers squeezed for a constant volley of plasma fire while struggling to not lose consciousness. She dared crack an eye open only when she heard Nitiel shout in triumph.

"We did it, Loe! All targets are down."

"Huh?" Indeed, there were no dots blinking around them on the screen. "Why are we still spinning through space, then?"

"We lost power. I put everything we had in this last maneuver and the shield."

"Oh… What does that mean?"

Nitiel turned around in his seat, a sad smile on his face, and met her gaze. "Jupiter is drawing us in. We're about to crash on one of its moons."

"Oh."

"I'm sorry, Loe."

"Don't be. We saved the station. It was epic!" She laughed through a stray tear.

He chuckled. "Told you you're adventurous. I wish I could wrap you in my wings and kiss you breathless, my Loe… But we might still have a chance to survive. There is one thing I could try. Mold as much gel as you can around you."

She did as he asked, but it was obvious they were doomed. A gray moon was coming closer and closer at breakneck speed. It was so surreal she couldn't panic anymore. Instead, she closed her eyes and had the most random thoughts while the ship was hurtling through the atmosphere.

If they were going to die and everything happened for a reason, that meant fate had brought Chloe here so she could meet the male of her dreams, get laid, save the station, and then die right after realizing she was in love. Thanks, fate?

"Brace, Loe!"

She opened her eyes and looked out the porthole. "Shit!" Not the best last word, but there was no time for I love you.

The ground was coming to greet them.

Her world went dark.