Angela Knight - Stranded (pdf).pdf - IT_ebook - archiepol1

Stranded

By Angela Knight

Frustrated, Lt. Commander Cade Irons stared at the dimensional gate hanging twenty

feet over his head. Too far to jump, particularly from the rocking rubber bottom of his

Zodiac raft.

Trapped. He was still trapped.

He glowered up at the shimmering oval, wavering up there like the sun seen from

deep below the water -- a promise of freedom, light, hope . . . far out of reach.

He stared so hard and bitterly that he jumped when the white, man shaped object

plummeted out of the oval and hit the water ten feet away with a tremendous splash. For

a single frozen instant, Cade stared blankly at the patch of ocean still throwing up a plume

of water from the impact.

Then he dove in.

He swam frantically, down, down toward the white fabric sinking below him, toward

the arms waving desperately. Reaching down past flailing limbs, he grabbed hold of a

fistful of white, then began to kick upwards with all his strength. Cade broke the surface

in an explosion of spray, pulled in a hard breath, and hauled the drowning man up with

him. Apparently the guy'd had the wit to see he was about to hit the water and had held

his breath; Cade heard a sputter, then a desperate, sucking gasp.

"You hurt?" he demanded, turning to face the other.

"No, just scared to ... Commander!"

Cade found himself staring into a pair of wide green eyes and a soft pink mouth that

definitely did not belong to a man of any sort. "Lieutenant Hayes?"

"Commander Irons!" She grabbed his bare, slick shoulders. "We been looking for you

for hours!"

He stared at her. "Hours?" According to his count, he'd been missing for two years.

"Get in the boat, Lieutenant. You can tell me about it later."

Grace Hayes hooked the rubber side of the Zodiac with a slim, muscled arm and

hoisted herself inside, then steadied the craft as he climbed in himself.

"Where've you been, Commander? We . . . ." She stopped dead. Herfull mouth fell

open in an unabashed gape. Cade turned to see what she was staring at with such shocked

attention.

Low in the sky, three times the size of a harvest moon, the ringed planet hung, looking

faint and ghostly in the daylight. At night it would be bright enough to read by.

"Where the hell are we?"

Cade sighed. "No place like home. Grab an oar, Lieutenant. I'll show you where I'm

hanging my hat. If I had a hat."

Grace stroked hard with her oar, watching Commander Irons as he did the same. His

blond hair hung like a curtain of gold between powerful shoulders, muscles rippling with

every stroke. But as tempting as his back was, what really held her attention was that

long, flowing hair. Because the last time she'd seen Irons, his hair had been buzzed to a

short, thick pelt.

She'd last seen him twenty-four hours ago.

There was no way in hell the commander's hair could have grown fourteen inches in

twenty-four hours.

And why were they paddling, anyway? The Zodiac was supposed to have an

outboard motor, though it was nowhere to be seen now.

Another thing: his uniform, or lack of it. Irons was wearing some kind of skins

wrapped around his hips like Tarzan. He'd left the aircraft carrier John F. Kennedy the

day before in a wet suit. When had he had time to stalk, kill something, and cure its hide?

And why take the trouble?

Unless more time had passed for him than had back on Earth. Because it was damn

sure they were no longer on the mother planet; the alien world she could see overhead

made that plain.

"How long have you been stranded here, Commander?" she asked.

He didn't look around. "Two years. I gather it's been considerably less time than that

back on Earth."

She winced. "A bit more than twenty-four hours. What the hell's going

on, sir?"

"Nearest I can determine, that oval hole you fell through is some kind of space-time

doorway -- or some such Sci-Fi shit. It appears over that same area roughly once a week..."

"Once a week?" She frowned, puzzled. "Sir, why not just jump through and come

home? Does it only go one way?"

"No, in the beginning I actually stuck my head through once or twice. Unfortunately,

it doesn't always lead to Earth. Once I saw a blue sun through it. Needless to say, I didn't

poke any body parts in that time."

Her eyes widened, sickening images spinning through her mind. "What if the

doorway went somewhere like Venus, with a surface temperature that would melt lead

and acid pouring from the sky?"

He shook his shaggy head, so different from his usual sleek military cut. "Actually it

does, a couple of times in its cycle. Then you get vicious ripping winds and poisonous

gasses pouring through the door. I'm careful to seek shelter and stay away from the thing

when it first appears until I can be sure it's relatively safe. I sure as hell don't put my head

through anymore."

"I don't blame you. How often does it go to Earth?"

He shrugged. "It seems to follow a six month cycle, hitting the same worlds in

succession. It's been to Earth four times thus far. Unfortunately, once it formed

underwater on the other side, so I couldn't get through because there were several tons of

ocean rushing this way. Another time it popped in back home several hundred feet up,

making for a damn long fall if I'd been stupid enough to jump. Which I wasn't, thank you.

And sometimes it forms here where I simply can't get to it, this last time being an

example."

She listened uneasily. "So basically, we're stuck here for at least another six months,

possibly more."

He turned to look over his shoulder at her. "That's about the size of it."

She fell into an appalled silence.

They landed the raft on a section of smooth, white beach. Grace eyed her

surroundings cautiously, but they actually appeared no different from Earth; green foliage,

blue sky, white sand. Looking at one particular tree, she frowned. "Isn't that a palm?"

"Yeah, we have a lot of those. This planet is so similar to Earth, anything that comes

through that doorway has a good chance of making it. As a result, we've got a sizable

population of earth birds, fish, animals, and vegetation from airborne seeds. Which is a

damn good thing. Otherwise I'd have starved long ago." He gestured with a broad,

powerful hand. "There are some other life forms here too, but I wouldn't recommend

eating them; none of the earth predators do, which means they're probably poisonous to

us. Though the fur and horns and teeth can be usable .... Let's pull the raft up where the

tide won't get it."

She helped him drag the heavy raft away from the ocean and lash it to a tree. "Think

any other humans have come through?"

He hesitated a long moment. "I have found remains. Single skeletons. Apparently

one person would sometimes get stranded here and never find his way back. I'll admit,

I've wondered if I'd end up the same way."

Grace shuddered. "Ugly way to die. Nobody to even bury you."

He didn't answer, but his expression was so grim she knew that had been a very real

fear of his.

Irons had made his camp in a cave set in the side of a cliff. They had a hike to get

there, followed by a rock climb that was less than enjoyable in Grace's slick, wet leather

shoes. Finally she clawed her way over a lip of the cliff face to stare into the cave's black

opening. Irons scrambled past her and immediately began striking a flint to light one of

the lamps hanging from the cave ceiling. Following, Grace saw they were made from

hollow gourds.

"What kind of oil is that?"

"Fish." Catching up a short stick, he began to light the other lamps from the flame in

the first.

Looking around, Grace saw that he'd been busy in the last couple of years. Along with

the gourd lamps, there were several large woven baskets, clay jars, spears, bows and

arrows. A big pallet took up a sizable section of floor space.

Irons noticed her looking at it. "It's a pile of furs covered with a tarp from the boat,"

he explained. "In the jars I've got dried fruit and meats. Back through there," he nodded

at a dark rear opening in the cave, "is a spring I use for water and bathing."

She looked up hopefully. "Spring? Bathing?" Her white uniform was drying, sticky

with sea water. Grace badly wanted a bath.

He grinned. "I'll light a lamp for you. You can bathe and wash your uniform while

I try to find you something dry to wear."

Preferably a something that had an actual top to it, she thought, following his massive

bare back into the next chamber of the cave.

The spring he'd spoken of, Grace saw when he'd lit the lamp, was a wide, dark pool.

"It's pretty deep on the other side," he told her, "but I think you can stand on this end

without being underwater."

"Sounds good." She waded in while Irons turned and went back into the main

chamber. Watching his tight, muscled behind as he walked away, Grace thought there

were definitely worse people to be stranded with for six months -- if he was interested in

her. Irons had always seemed a little hostile back on the Kennedy , though he'd been pretty

civil here.

Then again, considering that he'd been stranded for two years, he was probably

starved for human companionship.

Not to mention sex, said a sly voice in the back of her mind.

It was, Grace admitted silently as she stripped off her uniform, an intriguing thought.

She'd had more than one erotic fantasy about Commander Irons, SEAL and old-school

Navy man who saw no place for women on an aircraft carrier. True, he'd been a real

sonofabitch to her on more than one occasion, but there was something about him that

appealed to her darker side. Maybe it was the diameter of his biceps. Or maybe it was the

size of the bulge she'd seen in his trunks at the base swimming pool ....

Grace shook her head hard. Entertaining thoughts like that was NOT a good idea until

she knew how Irons saw the situation.

Sighing, she took her uniform and waded deeper into the pool. It actually felt pretty

good, not as icy as she'd expected. After stripping, she set to work rinsing out her clothing,

swirling them through the water to wash away the salt. That done, she wrung out the

excess and draped them across a rock to dry, then turned to stroke into deeper water. The

feeling of the cool currents slipping around her was so delicious she closed her eyes in

bliss.

Behind her lids, an image of Cade appeared, his body rippling with the hard muscle

built by the SEALS' demanding training. She smiled.

When Grace opened them again, Irons was standing on the edge of the pool. His stare

was hot with erotic interest, and locked directly on her cold-beaded nipples, thrusting

upward as she floated on her back.

She jumped, instinctively folding her arms across her breasts. "Commander!"

It took a moment, but finally he dragged his eyes away from her body and threw

down a bundle of skins on the rock next to her uniform. Without another word, he turned

and left the chamber.

Well, Grace thought drily, so much for the question of whether Irons wanted sex.

Quickly, she waded out of the pool and dried herself with the thin, broad leaves he'd

provided, then tried to figure out how to drape herself in the skins. Finally she knotted

one around her hips, the other around her bust. Feeling like something out of a bad jungle

movie, she made her way into the main chamber.

Irons was seated cross legged on his pallet, a pile of fruit in front of him. He'd

arranged a second pallet some distance from his own. Grace eyed it, brows lifted, then let

her gaze slide back to him. He returned her stare, his expression coolly professional, then

tossed her a banana. Catching it out of the air, she wondered if she'd imagined the

blatantly sexual evaluation in the pool chamber.

"I'm going to have to instruct you in survival skills here," Irons said. "Though the alien

life forms won't eat us, they're quite capable of killing us anyway. It's a hostile planet, and

staying alive is hard work. Which means when I give you an order, I expect you to obey

it instantly, without question."

Peeling the banana, Grace looked at him, wondering what was going on behind that

hard, handsome face. "Commander, even back on Earth I wasn't in the habit of

questioning a superior officer's orders."

"I'm aware of that." He leaned back, stretching out his muscled legs in front of him

and crossing them at the ankles. "However, Earth is a very long way off -- and so is the

United States Navy. The usual regulations no longer apply."

"Including the ones about sexual fraternization?" The words were out before she had

time to bite them off. She lifted her chin and stared at him, determined to brazen it out.

"Excuse me for being so blunt, but it seems to me that it's unrealistic to expect there to be

no . . . sexual . . . contact between us. Particularly considering the length of time we may

be stranded."

Dark satisfaction flared in his eyes. She wondered if that conclusion was what Irons

had been leading up to all along. "That's the way I see it. I'm relieved you're as realistic.

Unfortunately, there's more to it than that."

Grace lowered the uneaten banana to her lap, her mouth suddenly dry.

"We have no access to birth control," he told her bluntly. "If you and I start having sex,

you're going to get pregnant. Frankly, I don't think that's a good idea. Considering the

primitive conditions, it would be too easy for you to get an infection and die, or for there

to be other fatal complications."

Damn. She hadn't thought of that. "You could ... uh... pull out." Her face flamed in

a blush.

Irons locked her in a level stare. "Yes, but that's not a very good method. Women

have been known to get pregnant from pre-ejaculate, not to mention a simple loss of

control. We're going to have to try alternate methods."

Grace couldn't believe she was having this conversation with Lt. Commander Cade

Irons. "I assume you're referring to," she paused and swallowed, eyeing the size of the

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