My traitorous body didn’t seem to agree with that. I wasn’t sure if Atlans had pheromones like humans, but something was coming off him in waves and I was sopping it up, even through my armor.
Through the visor of his helmet, I could see his eyes were so very pale and my pussy clenched with want, instantly wet. Intense, ice-blue eyes.
Oh, fuck yeah. I licked my lips as I took in his huge size. The way he was breathing deeply, the way his heartbeat thrummed along the length of his corded neck. His hands were as big as dinner plates. I had to wonder what else on his body was big.
I wanted more than that beast’s attention on me. I wanted his body pressing into mine up against the wall, fucking me like there was no tomorrow.
But not yet. I didn’t want to get naked with a dead body just inches away, even if it was a Nexus. Because—well—yuck. Just yuck.
Not wanting to trigger him in beast mode, I kept my voice low and controlled. Calm. “Warlord, I need your help. We must remove the spinal implant from this Hive and return it, and its helmet, to the fleet. Please help me roll the body onto its side.”
The beast didn’t know this was a special Hive, that he was a Nexus. He just knew the creature needed to be eliminated and had done his job quite well.
With a shudder, the beast knelt beside me and shoved the Nexus over with about as much effort as me rolling a soda can…downhill.
Whatever. I was human, I was female. I was used to being at the bottom of the physical pecking order out here in space. Just meant I had to be smarter than the rest of them. Which, so far, I’d managed just fine. Except, I was stuck in a dang cave, so that was still questionable.
With the Nexus turned away from me, I ignored the beast and examined the monster’s helmet and attachments. The doctor had told me what to look for, at least in theory.
With shaking hands, I reached for the arched neural tissue that bypassed his spine and connected to the base of his skull. With a slow, soft sigh, I gathered every ounce of determination and pulled. Slowly.
The tissue gave way with a sickening sound of wet suction, of flesh tearing, and I grimaced as I finished the task.
Black fluid leaked from the wound as I pulled, at least twenty long tendrils—like five-inch needles—appearing as I removed the object and broke the connection to the Nexus’s brain tissue.
I thought the extensions were dead metal, but the moment they broke free, they writhed and moved like worms searching for earth.
“Agh!” I yelled and dropped the thing onto the hard rock floor where it continued to move and search like a centipede stuck on its side. Chunks of the Nexus’s dark blue flesh clung to the base of the implant. Tissue and implant. Everything a good little girl brought home to the mad scientist in the basement.
“God, that’s disgusting.” I winced just looking at it.
“What that?” The beast’s rumble made me jump, so absorbed in the task at hand that I’d nearly forgotten he was there. His voice echoed off the walls.
“We need to get that, and his helmet, back to the Karter. That is the key to winning the war.”
If he noticed that I didn’t answer his question, he didn’t say. Instead, the beast grunted and stood. “Done wit
h body?”
I looked at the limp form of the dead Nexus and nodded. “Yes.” I was sure Doctor Helion would cream his panties if he could have the cadaver to play with. But that thing was huge, heavy, and the extraction coordinates were more than a mile away. Even with a beast along, there was no fucking way I was trying to take the body back with me.
The beast picked up the body and carried it to the entrance of the cave. He scanned outside before tossing it as far as he could. It took a second before I heard the sickening thud of it hitting the ground below.
Good riddance.
The beast turned back to me as I stuffed the odd, wriggling thing into a containment cell Helion had given me. The sack was about the size of a preschooler’s backpack, but would seal airtight. No contaminants would get in or out. The thing that seemed to want to tunnel into the nearest brain—which was mine—would be trapped within the metallic lining, and special fibers on the inside would keep the tissue samples alive until I could get it back to base. Along with the creature’s helmet, Doctor Helion would have more than enough new toys to play with.
I tracked down the Nexus’s helmet and settled the sealed bag inside it. Together, they weighed about five pounds. I could carry that out of here, no problem.
Done, I turned to find the beast watching me from just inside the cave’s entrance.
“You safe.” His huge body swayed as he spoke the oddly gentle words. I might have been safe, but he was still in full battle gear. He had yet to remove his helmet. So while he said I was safe, I knew to wait until he’d put his weapon away and removed his head protection to relax completely.
“Yes. Thank you.” I set the Nexus helmet aside, my headache returning but not as bad, more like a steady drum beat than a chainsaw. It was an improvement, and I had a ReGen wand in my pack. “We’ll be safe in here. The cave is lined with highly charged magnetite. No signals can penetrate the rock. As long as we stay away from the entrance, the Hive scans won’t be able to pick us up.”
“Stay. Tomorrow, transport.”
“Yes.” I knew that, too. Protocol was for anyone trapped behind on a mission to make their way to the designated secondary transport location the following morning where an extraction team would be waiting to get Coalition fighters to safety. We just had to stay alive until then.