He had to chuckle too. “Probably. The military is all I’ve ever known.”
She nodded. “Most people don’t know this, but my father was a military officer, like you. Spec Ops.”
“How’d you know I was SO?” Most civilians in John’s experience couldn’t tell one branch of service from another, much less what the various insignias meant.
“Aside from the fact that it’s written all over you—the eyes, the stance, the demeanor, the insignia,” she tapped a finger to the trident on his chest, “there’s the fact that only a Spec Ops warrior could pull off the kind of maneuver you are rumored to have orchestrated out on the
Last Spiral
.”
“So you pay attention to the news then? Playing for the troops isn’t just some publicity thing for you.”
Someone behind him gasped, and John realized he’d asked a very impertinent question in a very public place, but Diva just smiled, taking him by the arm and leading him toward the buffet tables.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have been so rude, ma’am.”
She stopped to face him. “No, John. You can ask me anything you like. I’d rather have a real conversation any day over being pandered to by sycophants. And to answer your question, yes, I do pay attention to the reports from the rim. My dad was lost in the Rim Wars. What you men do out there means a great deal to me and to a lot of others. Doing a few shows for returning troops once in a while is very little in comparison.”
John liked her forthrightness, her passion. Even as they resumed their walk toward the buffet tables and a three-star general came over to take her away, she held to John’s arm as if she didn’t want to let go. But duty called. He thought he read regret in her eyes as she turned to him and said farewell. She promised they’d resume their conversation sometime soon, but John didn’t hold out much hope of that. Nor did he begrudge it. She was very much in demand, with people much more important than he vying for her attention.
John faded into the background, well pleased with his brush with fame. Diva hadn’t disappointed him. She was every bit the beauty she appeared on her vids and every inch the class act he had always assumed she’d be. Diva had also made him feel welcome and important, though by comparison to the top brass gathered all around fawning over her, he was nobody. Still, she’d taken the time to tell him about her father and demonstrated that the keen intelligence in her songs had foundation in the woman herself. She was the real deal.
A week later, John gave the all-clear for Diva’s interplanetary shuttle to launch. As head of her escort and security detail for this run out towards the rim, it was up to him to coordinate with the military escort ships and the onboard escort he had hand-picked from the available troops. These were men being sent back to the front after earning some R&R like himself, or those who’d been heroically wounded and now wanted to return to their units. The military took every opportunity to transport troops with the least amount of fuss, and a “cake” mission like this was as good a reward as any to a man who’d faced death for his fellow man.
John had never worked with any of these men before, but they came with good reports and accepted his leadership. Apparently, word was spreading through the ranks about his single-handed stunt that wound up saving the lives of his unit and all those souls on
Last Spiral Station
.
John hadn’t intended to do anything heroic when he’d gone out on patrol that morning, but a sudden signal from a source identified only by the top priority code name Dalen had him scrambling to the jumpsite and calling for backup. As it turned out, the backup didn’t show in time, but John’s well-placed, last-ditch effort to shut down the jumpsite mechanism prevented an attack fleet from entering en masse right next to
Last Spiral Station
.
Sabotage had later been discovered, as well as dead guards. Traitors or moles on this side of the jumpsite had killed the contingent left to guard the vulnerable mechanism at all times and fixed it so that even without the proper ident codes, ships could jump in. As a Spec Ops captain, John was one of the few who knew enough about jumpsite mechanisms to be able to take it down with one single shot, leaving the multi-trillion credit mechanism easy to repair but non-functional for the enemy troops trying to infiltrate their system.
John could only guess where that warning signal had come from. He assumed it had been from some kind of spy ship, though he’d never caught trace of anything on his screen. But then, if it really were a spy vessel, he wouldn’t. They were able to run silent, it was rumored, and completely incognito. No one knew who ran the spy contingent, but they were damned effective. And the rumors of the spy known only as Dalen were legend. John understood first-hand now, and blessed the invisible helping hand he’d received that fateful day. Without that advanced warning, hundreds of thousands of souls would surely have died and a new war begun with a sizeable invasion force already having a solid foothold in our galaxy.
John went off duty ten standard hours into the trip. They’d made the transition to hyperspace with little fanfare, and he was tired after a long shift. Time to hit his cabin and settle in for some sleep, but first, he checked on the crew as he made his way toward the aft section where his cabin was supposed to be. Truthfully, he hadn’t even had time to check his accommodations, merely sending a yeoman ahead with his duffle, assuming any sleeping quarters on this comparatively cushy transport would be a far cry above what he was used to.
What he found when he finally managed to locate his cabin, however, was quite a bit above what he’d expected. A basket of fresh fruit awaited him on a low table set amid a small grouping of comfortable looking chairs. He had a large desk and comp unit in one corner, and a full vid setup in another, with his choice of all the latest vids. He searched through the menus quickly, looking for something that would send him to dreamless, peaceful sleep. Something by Diva. But there was not one of her vids set up in the queue.
John shrugged and gathered a Diva vid from his duffle, inserting it into the player. He sighed as her voice poured forth and stepped out of his uniform. A quick cycle through the fresher and he’d be ready for a few hours of downtime. John had just pulled on a loose pair of sleep pants when his doorchime sounded.
“Enter.”
John expected it to be one of his men, checking some last-minute detail, but was floored by the wide, shocked eyes of Diva herself when the hatch slid open. She stood there for a moment, staring at him—or, more accurately, at his chest. John looked around for something to put on, to ease her discomfort, but there was nothing within easy reach. Then, her scent wafted to him, and he forgot all about covering up his scarred body. She smelled of… Longing was the only way he could describe it.
The Enhanced genetics that made him an excellent soldier also gave him an edge over most normal humans on other fronts. His sense of smell was highly developed. John hadn’t been able to isolate Diva’s scent when he’d met her before because of the crowd, but now, her lovely scent filled his nostrils and his being. She was spectacular, and aroused, if he was any judge.
Now wasn’t that amazing?
“Player off.” Diva spoke the command that stopped the vid playback, shook herself as if she was trying to gather her wits and faced him. “I’m sorry to barge in on you, Captain.”
“Not a problem, ma’am.” Damn if she wasn’t cute when she was flustered.
“I have a standing order on this ship. If one of the crew starts playing one of my discs or vids, the comp pings me.”
“You don’t like people listening to you?” John crossed his arms, observing her eyes following the play of his biceps with some satisfaction. “You’re in a funny profession if that’s the case.”
She laughed, and John had to keep his body from reacting too eagerly to her proximity. She really was too gorgeous for her own good.
“I don’t like my band members listening to recordings. It helps keep things fresh when we play live. And why should anyone listen to a recording of me when I’m right here?” She shrugged and tried to laugh, but her eyes were glued to his shoulders and a blush stole up her cheeks.
“Would you do that? Would you sing for me?” He couldn’t believe he’d let the words escape his mouth, but they were out there now. Between them.
She visibly gulped as his voice dropped down low and intimate.
John took a step toward her, expecting her to bolt, but she held her ground. He liked that. He could nearly taste her fear, yet she stayed put, facing him down. She had courage as well as beauty and brains. The more he saw of her, the more he liked her.
“I suppose I could sing for you, John.” Her eyes swept up to meet his, and his heart stuttered. There was something so innocent, so trusting…so hopeful, in her eyes.
He took a step closer.
“You know, I’ve gone to sleep with your voice in my head for the past three years. My men kid me about it, but now, I don’t think I can sleep without you.”
The double entendre wasn’t lost on her, he could tell, but she backed off, her gaze skating sideways before she took a step back toward the door.
“Well, we can’t have that.” She paused by the door. “What time do you have to be back on duty?”
“Oh-three-hundred.” He wasn’t sure what she had in mind but was willing to follow wherever she would lead.
“Hmm. That doesn’t give us much time.” She bit her lip in a way that made him want to replace her teeth with his own. “Wait right here. I’ll be back in a minute.”
She disappeared through the open hatch, and John couldn’t help but step forward to peer out the doorway. He caught sight of her ponytail disappearing through the hatch next to his. Damn if they hadn’t put him in the cabin beside hers. How would he ever sleep now, knowing that gorgeous bundle of femininity and astounding talent lay just beyond a lonely plastisteel wall?
She reappeared a moment later with a large wooden object in her hands. John recognized it as an ancient guitar she played sometimes on stage and in her recordings. He stepped back to let her enter, and she looked up from the priceless instrument, her breath catching in her throat as she met his gaze.
“Do you mind listening? I’ve been working on something new, and I’d like a second opinion.”
“Are you kidding?”
Innocence shone from her wide eyes. “No, I’d really like your opinion. You’re the perfect person, in fact. It’s a song I’ve been writing in memory of my father.” Her voice faded to a gentle whisper as she talked of her dad, and John remembered her telling him that her father had been lost in the Rim Wars.
Though he hadn’t seen her since that first and only brief meeting at the reception, John realized he felt comfortable in Diva’s presence. More comfortable, in fact, than he usually felt around anybody who wasn’t part of his unit. She put him at ease and made him want to tease her.
John led the way back into his spacious room, letting her decide where she would sit. He wasn’t surprised when she made for the grouping of chairs he’d noticed on the way in. She sank down into the couch, tucking her little feet up under her as she settled the guitar on her lap. John could barely believe he’d be the recipient of a solo serenade by his favorite music artist, much less that Diva didn’t seem to mind that they were alone together in his quarters and he was only half dressed.
Well, he could remedy that problem fairly easily at least. John reached into the wardrobe and put on a short robe he’d picked up when he’d been stationed to Atlantia Station during the atmospheric malfunctions. Until they’d straightened out the station’s temperature controls, one never quite knew if they’d be sweltering or freezing from one minute to the next.
Diva felt her heart clench when John admitted that he listened to her music every night. The naughty way he’d phrased the compliment had also made her a little shaky, but she did her best to hide the juvenile reaction. She was a grown woman, even if she didn’t have all that much experience with men.
She liked John Starbridge, though. This was a man her father would have liked. Her mother too—if she hadn’t died a few years ago. Maggie could easily imagine her parents meeting and approving of such a man, if they’d lived to do so. Diva missed her father—the greatest influence in her life—so much. After going missing on a deep cover mission, he’d been declared dead, but Diva still secretly held out hope that someday, some way, her father would come home again.
It’s why she did what she did. Oh, she would have performed her music regardless, but her additional duties as one of the human defense forces’ premier spies had come about as a way to serve her people and work toward bringing all the missing soldiers home again to their loved ones. It was something in her blood. She was, after all, the impossible result of an unblessed union.
Her father had been one of the first Enhanced Spec Ops warriors. Her mother, the daughter of a brilliant general. There hadn’t been rejoicing when the young girl had fallen pregnant. By all rights, the genetic experiment that had Enhanced her father should have left him sterile, but it hadn’t. Diva was the result—an unplanned, unexpected result.
Half Enhanced, she had abilities most regular humans could only dream of. It made it hard for her to relate to most people on a close basis, and her talent and fame only finished the job of alienating her. Still, she wouldn’t trade her abilities or her position for anything. She’d been able to do some real good in the continuing skirmishes on the rim with her intelligence work. No, Diva wouldn’t give that up for the world.
But this Captain Starbridge posed a problem. He made her want things—yearn for things—she’d never wanted or yearned for before. She would bet anything he was Enhanced, like her dad, and he seemed to look at her and see
her
, not some idyllic image from a music vid. He even teased her, which is something very few people did these days. She loved that about him.
But he could never know what she was.
The military had decided to keep her parentage under wraps. It would be safer for humanity if they didn’t know the Enhancements could be passed on in subsequent generations. Purists objected enough to the few Enhancing programs quietly run by the military. They would never stand for altering the human genome by adding animal and alien traits in a way that could be passed from parent to child.