Alien Fighter's Baby (Captured Science Fiction Romance) (11 page)

I
t was
a week after they’d made up, and Starling was washing her clothes while she wore the new hide outfit that she’d tacked together, when she noticed Bran was reading the medi-log. He was on the other side of the Zach, and he hadn’t noticed when she hung a tee shirt out to dry on the front grille of the big vehicle.

He’d already seen the new outfit she made with the pelts he’d given her. She managed to fasten together a strip that she used to wrap around as a top, and then another that she tied at her hip, which looked like a skimpy skirt with a large, revealing slit up the side of it.

Her belly was bare and it was big, but that hadn’t stopped Bran from getting hot over her new outfit. The minute he’d seen her in it, his eyes had darkened and he’d prowled right to her.

That was when she’d made love in her new outfit, with Bran telling her how hot and sexy she was, and he’d told her how he’d never get anything done if she kept wearing it. He told her all of it as he’d thrust into her from behind, while she knelt on their bed in the bio-h—it was their new favorite position.

She still tingled over it hours later as she peeked at Bran. Starling watched him put the medi-log on the bumper of the Zach, and then he walked away toward the entrance of the cavern. He seemed distracted, and he hadn’t noticed her.

With her curiosity piqued, she edged over to the medi-log to see what he’d been reading about that so absorbed him. The minute she looked at the log, her breath tensed. The log was open to information about pregnancy.

Immediately, her palm settled on her rounded belly as she remembered to breathe and felt her emotions tightening. She looked up at Bran’s retreating back, and she realized he’d been studying pregnancy because of her.

“Wow,” she whispered.

That was so amazing for a tough soldier like Bran. Did that mean he was committed to them? Committed to her and their baby? Starling scooted around so she could see the medi-log better. She checked to see where Bran was, and he was still moving away, so she reached over to touch the log display, and the history came up of what Bran had been looking at.

“Vitamin and mineral levels for pregnancy,” she read aloud. “Testing the fetus heartbeat. Testing DNA. Here he was looking at a full comprehensive scan for abnormal trace indications.”

Starling’s finger froze on the last one. She wanted to look and see what that meant, and what it involved, but she was afraid. So she lifted her finger from the display, and then hurried away.

The rest of the morning Starling alternated between convincing herself she needed to be brave and go through with the scans Bran had been looking at, to convincing herself that she felt fine and they didn’t need to have any special scans.

The thing she was most afraid of was the possibility that she could be carrying an alien child. An alien like the Grubs. It was so hard to think about that. But Bran had asked her why would the Grubs put them together, two humans, like they had that first time, if they were going for an alien baby.

“It just has to be what he thinks,” Starling whispered, looking down at her large belly.

The thing she hadn’t told Bran yet was that she thought her belly was too big for as far along as she was. She’d seen pregnant women before, been friends with a few, and none of them were as big and round after the same amount of time.

She wasn’t certain how long it had been from when she and Bran were forced together and he’d come to rescue her. Definitely months, but she hadn’t been that big when Bran had first rescued her. But the last month that they’d been running from the enemy, she had grown a lot. Even though their diet hadn’t been the best.

Another thing that upset her was that as her belly got bigger, she hadn’t felt any movement. She knew that women felt their babies kick before they were as big as she was.

“Damn it,” she swore, and then she threw down the ration package of rice that she’d been trying to open. Thinking about it all made her want to cry.

“Hey, sweetheart, you okay?” Bran asked from behind her, and he completely startled her.

She didn’t answer, but then he was in front of her and his warm hand was lifting her chin. She knew once he looked closely that he would see her tears.

“Hey, what is it?” he asked.

Starling looked up at Bran’s strong, concerned face, and her voice shuddered as she said, “I’m so worried about the baby.”

Bran felt concern tighten his body. “Is something wrong with the baby?” he asked, then he pulled Starling against him.

“I don’t know,” she said. “We don’t know.”

Then he understood where Starling’s concern was coming from. He had the same concerns, and he’d been trying to come up with a way to approach her about it.

He stroked her hair, before he said, “The one thing we know is that’s our baby.” He felt Starling shudder against him.

“Oh, Bran,” she whispered.

She looked up at him with tears in her eyes as he scrubbed her scalp with his fingers. “That’s our baby,” he said again.

She nodded slowly, and hope filled her gaze. “Our baby,” she finally said.

“So let’s find out how well he or she is doing,” Bran said, and he tried to look strong, and not concerned.

He’d already decided he was doing the scan, and that meant he didn’t have to tell Starling everything, if it was too upsetting for her wellbeing. Instead of prolonging the agonizing anticipation, he pretty much convinced Starling to do it right then. The skimpy outfit she had on was perfect for it. He could lay her down on the airbed in the bio-h and let the z-mensional scan do its work hovering over her.

He didn’t tell Starling, but he was running two scans simultaneously. He ran the hazard scan on top of the vitamin and mineral scan. The hazard scan would take longer, and he could see the results before Starling realized it had been run, and then he could decide if he was going to tell her the results.

So when she anxiously looked up at him with her eyes looking like crystal gems, he could honestly say things such as: “Vitamins are at acceptable levels, except for calcium. We need to figure out a way to get you more calcium. Minerals are all good, except iron. That would be meat.”

She nodded, and it seemed that having some nonthreatening results had calmed her. He knew she had avoided eating the alien cat meat, so if he wasn’t worried about the other scans, he might have joked with her about that.

Just then, the sound of a heartbeat sounded all around them. Bran’s gaze jerked to Starling, and he saw her eyes were wide, as he felt an adrenaline rush.

“Is that the baby?” she asked, nearly exclaiming it.

Bran felt awed as he nodded.

Starling began to get teary. “Oh Jupiter, I was so worried, because I’ve never felt him move.”

Bran’s gaze swept from the scan back to Starling and he searched for her hand to hold, while he thought that she hadn’t realized she’d called the baby “him.” Then it slammed into him that he was hearing his baby’s heartbeat and that baby could be a boy.

Feelings he’d never had before tightened inside him. He hadn’t known until that moment that he would want to be the best damn father any kid ever had, and unlike anything he’d ever had in his life. It was intense how quickly the intention came to him.

Yeah, no damn way was his kid going to be without a father. But then, Alpha-Force troopers didn’t have families. Alpha-Force troopers were never released from service. They died in service. It had been easy to give up that freedom when he’d had a shit life and no prospects. But now, he wished he’d never made that vow.

Starling’s hand squeezed his as their fingers intertwined. “It sounds strong, doesn’t it, Bran?”

“It does,” he said, and then he had to force his eyes back to the scans so he could read more of the results.

The lights of the scan flashed over Starling from her, breasts barely contained in a strip of hide, to her hips, with one side completely bare where she had tied the ends of a piece of hide together to make an extremely short skirt. With her fairly large belly, she’d never looked more desirable, and he felt sudden pride at breeding with her.

Their lovemaking had taken on new heights of pleasure the rounder she’d become and the hornier she’d gotten because of it. He’d read in the medi-log that pregnant women usually experienced heightened arousal through their pregnancy.

He’d never had a woman of his own before, and because of it he was hot for her all the time. But he really liked that she was hot for him too. Even right then, in the midst of their drama, he could tell it was half on her mind. He knew if he touched her slit, she’d be wet for him. That made it hard for him to concentrate, but then he read the results and everything flew from his mind except what they indicated.

Alien DNA had been discovered.

Bran jerked his gaze to Starling. Her eyes were wide and damp with tears, which made the green in her eyes look like crystals.

To the hovering interface of the scan, he snapped, “Identify unknown DNA.”

Starling shot upright, and he caught her to his lower chest as she made a distressed sound. He’d never know if he should have kept it from her or tried to break it to her more easily. Because in his shock, he’d just blurted it out.

“Cybertron DNA,” he said, reading the scan with his eyes flicking over it, waiting for more.

But nothing more came. It was only cybertron DNA.

“That’s it,” he said finally.

“Oh Jupiter,” Starling exclaimed, and he sat beside her so he could embrace her. After she shuddered and wept a few tears against him, she asked, “Is that bad? The cybertron part?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t think they ever intended us to breed.”

“No Grub DNA!” she exclaimed. “I don’t know what to think about the rest. But that makes me so happy and relieved that I don’t care.”

For right then, he had to agree with her. He was relieved too.

That night Starling lay entwined against him as they both lay on the airbed. They didn’t leave any lights on at night that could attract any attention, so he couldn’t see Starling at that moment, just feel her. They had lain that way many nights, usually kissing and eventually making love in the darkness, while he’d kept his night vision off.

That night, though, both their minds were on the scan. He felt Starling move against him, and then her soft lips were pressed to his. He accepted the kiss and stroked her bare back, while feeling her warm belly pressed into him.

He loved that belly—it was probably perverted, but there was something so sexy about it. He also really loved her breasts, which had become even bigger, while her nipples had gotten fatter. No way he couldn’t love that.

“So troopers never have families?” Starling asked, after she’d lifted her mouth from kissing him.

Their fingers intertwined in the dark as she settled her head against his chest. He looked up at the top of the bio-h—he couldn’t see it, because he had his night vision off, but he knew it was there.

“It’s an unspoken rule,” he said. “It’s probably written in the thousand-page contract we have to sign before they permanently accept us into Alpha-Force.”

“Thousand-page?” she asked, feeling so soft against him.

He nodded in the dark as their fingers played against each other’s. “Yeah, there are no loopholes. If they’re going to invest that time and money into a man, to make him a super soldier, they’re going to own him.”

“I don’t think civilians know that,” she whispered.

“Yeah,” he agreed.

They lay in silence for a while, before she said, “Well, you’ve had the cybertron DNA for a long time without any trouble, so it should be okay.”

Bran blinked hard. No way was he going to tell her about the extra crap they had injected him with to help him accept the alien parts and DNA they’d put in him. But all the scans he’d run on Starling and the baby had said they were both okay.

“Maybe there is information on cybertron in the medi-log,” he said.

“Yes, that is a really good idea.” Her hand clenched a little on his, before she whispered, “I think I’m really big for only being this far along.”

Bran rose a little until he had Starling partially under him, and he leaned over her. “You think so, baby?”

Her mouth was close enough that he could feel her nodding. “I knew some pregnant mothers on Ergo, and they were not this big after five or six months.”

He untangled their fingers and moved his hand to stroke her warm belly. “It probably has been five or six. Hard to figure, though, but I was trying to keep track of how long they held me prisoner.”

Suddenly, he felt something move against his palm. His entire world stilled to that movement.

“Oh,” Starling said. Then louder, she exclaimed, “Did you feel that?”

“I sure as hell felt that,” he said, even louder, back to her.

Then it happened again and he traced its movement down her belly.

“Oh Jupiter, Bran, that’s our baby.”

It sounded as if she was crying, while he was awed by feeling his baby move.

A
fter that night
, they had felt the baby move many times, and so they’d stopped worrying. Maybe they didn’t want to know, but for right then they were happy letting fate take its course. The days had melted into weeks, and then a month or more, as they worked to survive while staying undetected by the enemy Grubs.

The days had a rhythm, and the nights were for making love.

“Starling, I’ll only be gone for a few hours.”

Starling nodded at Bran’s back as he packed his gear. He had to go hunting. It was imperative that he get some new meat, and she knew that he still wanted to fix the camouflage shield outside the entrance to the cave. She wasn’t really arguing with him about going hunting; it was where he was going that made her concerned.

He intended to go up the mountain over their cavern. She knew there was a bigger part of the mountain up there, but it still seemed to open to detection by the Grubs, whom they had seen miles away in the valley below a few days before.

It wasn’t the first time they had seen the Grub ships. But their ships had only been in the valley a few times. Bran had made a promise to her earlier in the month that he’d never go more than an hour away from her. It was quite a promise from him, and had given her a lot of comfort. So she knew he wasn’t oblivious to her concerns, and that made her finally relent.

“Okay, but be careful up there, and call me on the hover-mic if you need me to bring the Zach out to catch you again.”

He turned to look at her. At first, she couldn’t read his thoughts, but then he smiled.

“Have my curvy babe rescue me. I like it,” he said, and that made her laugh.

He pulled her up against him for a long and hot kiss. She could kiss him for days, and her only problem was catching herself from telling him that she loved him. She wasn’t sure what he would do if she had said that, so instead she said, “Bartholomew is a nice name.”

It was a running joke between them. They’d been tossing out crazy names for weeks. Bran had laughter in his amazing silver eyes.

“No son of mine is going to be called Bart.”

She smiled back. “Bart is cute,” she teased.

She was still thinking about it an hour later, when she was elbow deep in washing a pile of their clothes. They had torn more fabric out of the Zach, and Bran had cured more pelts, so she had cobbled together enough for one change of clothes for each of them. To wash them, she used soap from the steam shower.

As she washed, she kept wondering what Bran’s plans were for her, after the baby came. But she’d been afraid to ask him. Bran always had a plan or two for most things. Only she kept wondering if it was stupid of her to hope that he would stay with her and the baby.

He’d told her all about the Alpha-Force troopers, and about how they were conscribed for life. But she thought if he didn’t go back, how would they ever know? It was easy in her head, yet she knew it would be asking a lot for a soldier like Bran to give up his entire military career—for him to try to be just a normal guy, with just a normal girl.

Some of the soap bubbles had bounced up onto her nose, and she blew at them, which made her nose tickle. She couldn’t help but lift her soapy wrist up to rub her nose.

That was when she saw him.

He was big, tall, blond, and built like Bran. He had to have come through a small side entrance to the cavern, which was past the water pools.

She didn’t even have her tack-pistol on. It was so stupid, but she’d been doing laundry and didn’t want to get it wet. On top of that, she was wearing her skimpiest outfit. It was only two bands of hide that were barely wrapped around her. Talk about vulnerability, as shocked surprise stalled her. She would have screamed, but she noticed right away the intruder was wearing an Alpha-Force uniform vest, like Bran had.

His eyes were intense as he looked at her from the other side of the pools. She was behind a washing tub she’d made out of one of the atomic coolers, and she thought he couldn’t see much of her lower body. Maybe she could try to reach her weapon. The tack-pistol was behind her and to the right on a small boulder they set things on.

But the intruder looked so fierce that she imagined him leaping the distance in seconds, if she had tried to move. How had he gotten there? Was it a rescue? She couldn’t imagine how he could be in front of her, standing in their cavern on an alien planet. But his entire aura was savage and edgy, while his uniform pants and vest were torn and he looked battered.

As if he’d survived on the hostile planet for a long time.

“Hell, you’re more beautiful than I thought,” he rasped.

More anxiousness thundered through Starling as her eyes widened. He knew her. Something about him seemed vaguely familiar. But then he started stalking toward her, around the pools, and she was stupid again, by being so startled, that she backed up. Past her weapon. Bran would be so mad, because he’d taught her better than that.

Never leave your weapon. Never hesitate
.

“Every night I dream of you, baby doll,” the man said, and his voice was a rough growl.

Starling’s heartbeat hammered. He’d dreamt of her. The soapsuds on her arms slid down and onto her belly as she held them up as if she could ward off his advance.

“You need to stop,” she cried. “Just stop there! You know me? You know Lieutenant Bran Hayes!”

The hulking blond rounded the last curve of the pool, but he hadn’t stopped. However, when she’d said Bran’s name, he growled as if he’d wanted to spit the name out. It seemed nothing was going to stop him from advancing on her, and she hastily looked to the Zach. Only the rear hatch-gate was open, so locking herself in the front wouldn’t work.

Then the hulking man came into view so they were standing face to face about two meters apart, where he suddenly stopped. His hand lifted and he sharply jabbed his finger toward her as his handsome face twisted.

“What the fuck is that.” His finger pointed to her very pregnant belly, which she clutched. “Who did that to you?” he demanded harshly. “Did Hayes do that? Damn him, damn him to hell.”

“Bran!” Starling screamed, because she’d finally remembered to key the hover-mic on so he would hear her. “Someone’s here,” she cried, while she looked for an escape.

But she knew she could never outrun the fierce and glaring trooper.

“You tell him it’s Cobalt,” the man snarled, and his fierceness made her flinch.

She was startled that he knew she was hooked by mic to Bran. This Cobalt, looking at her as if he wanted to screw her at the same time he wanted to kill her, had to be from Bran’s Alpha-Force team. She looked beyond him, hoping against hope there were others.

Suddenly, the man named Cobalt collapsed down onto one knee. It surprised her so much that she gasped.

“Tell him,” Cobalt said, then barely caught himself from falling forward, “he can have the baby.”

Starling was up on her toes, ready to flee down the cavern if she had to, but then Cobalt crumpled to the ground.

“Jupiter!” she exclaimed, as she rushed to her weapon, sidestepping the fallen man.

Before she ran to put on more clothes, even though they were wet, she barely took the time to make certain Cobalt was unconscious.

By that time, Bran was doing his version of sharp commander in her ear, while she tried to explain the situation.

“Cobalt is from my team,” Bran snapped into her ear. He sounded as if he was exerting himself, and she could imagine him running. He also sounded severe, as if he didn’t like his fellow trooper. “Lock yourself into the Zach with your weapon,” Bran ordered. “I don’t know how he got here. It can’t be good.”

Starling debated telling Bran about the strange, but very suggestive things Cobalt had said. But in the end, she kept silent, because just the man’s presence changed everything. And not for the good.

* * *

B
ran watched
Cobalt as Cobalt watched Starling. It had been twenty hours since his subordinate had stumbled into their camp, and Bran knew that since then, all of Cobalt’s explanations had been lies. Bran was fairly certain that he knew Cobalt’s angle. It was all about the one he watched so closely.

Starling.

Crazy thing was that Cobalt seemed pissed as hell that she was pregnant. As Bran had been judging the situation, he found that he was glad Starling was round with his child, because otherwise, he would have had to kill Cobalt.

That was because Bran could tell the man would have tried to snatch her and run off with her by then. A man didn’t throw away the Alpha-Force troopers and not get what he’d thrown them away for in the end.

And Cobalt’s claim that he’d been left behind while saving Bran and Starling’s escape, was a lie. While Bran agreed that blast to the Bug unit line of offense had opened up a hole for them, and while he agreed Cobalt had likely executed the explosions, there was no way Bran agreed that doing it had ended up stranding Cobalt on the planet.

Bran’s crew wouldn’t have left Cobalt on the ground like that. Bran knew of only one way Alpha-Force command lost track of its prized troopers, and that was MIA classification. Bran had hacked his right before he’d deserted his command. If he knew how to do it, then most of his team knew how, and that was what had allowed the Skitter to leave without all its crew.

Bran glared at Cobalt, who had been watching Starling so closely she’d gotten nervous and gone back into the bio-h, closing the flap. Another thing that angered him was he had to leave her in the bio-h alone and find another place to sleep. It had been hard to explain to Starling that he had his reasons to keep their relationship quiet as long as Co-damn-Balt was around.

Starling hadn’t understood, and she was mad at him … for various reasons.

“When will she drop the brat?” Cobalt asked, not looking at him.

Bran’s anger spiked, but he held it back. He ignored Cobalt’s question and instead made a demand.

“Need you to bust the damn tracker that found us.”

Cobalt slid a glare his way, then reached into a side pocket on the leg of his tack-pants and removed a circular device. Which he then launched at Bran, before he went back to glaring at the bio-h.

Bran caught the tracker in his fist, and tossed it on the ground to stomp on it with his boot. Hopefully, that meant only he and the Zach had trackers left. If Cobalt didn’t have another one.

“You know if command finds us, they will kill us. Desertion,” Cobalt said lowly, without looking at Bran.

Bran agreed it was a gray area, depending on his team’s reports and any visual or audio aids left. If command had the time to investigate the MIA hacks.

“You shouldn’t have left,” Bran said sharply.

“Neither should you,” Cobalt snapped back, turning to sneer at him.

Cobalt had been severely dehydrated, trying to survive on the alien planet alone as long as he had. But since getting electrolytes and water into him, he had been revived into his normal butthole self.

Bran had to admit. “You’re right,” Bran said, to Cobalt’s raised eyebrow. Then Bran tilted his head to the bio-h. “Couldn’t leave her to die,” he said.

Cobalt’s severe features finally loosened into a more relaxed understanding. “I feel you on that one, buddy.”

They’d fought side by side for a long time, always checking one another. Bran didn’t know what he would have done without Cobalt’s defiant nature, always keeping him on his toes, trying to one-up him.

But Bran was afraid this time their competition over the prize would turn deadly. Especially if he couldn’t convince Cobalt that Starling was already taken and she’d picked her man. Bran didn’t know how far Cobalt would take it, because Cobalt had already proven he was extremely into it.

Extremely.

Bran sighed. His other problem was the unspoken law that Alpha-Force troopers weren’t allowed to do civilians. So he didn’t want Cobalt to know how intimately involved he was with Starling now, until he could decide which direction to take.

“Either way, she’s damn well off limits,” Bran ordered sharply. “If you touch her, I’ll kill you.”

Cobalt looked at him through narrowed eyes, then slowly said, “Then if you touch her again, I’ll kill you.”

Bran wanted to punch him, but instead he nodded to their pact. Bran only wished he had a way to explain it to Starling.