Love Thy Enemy Ch. 04

Rachael and Ryan woke up together, as usual. It had become a regular thing in the past few weeks, and both were getting used to it and enjoying the feel of sleeping next to each other. The Nimitz had been stationed at Belaeus IV with USS Gryphon until USS Excalibur could return from being repaired. Calhoun had taken his Sovereign Class Battleship to Starbase 763 for repairs a week ago, and the entire crew was itching to find out if Friday was still alive or not. He was more than a fellow pilot and crewmate. He was a friend.

Rachael had asked Jean-Luc Picard and the Enterprise to see if they could make it to the NZ8 system to search for Friday, and he had said that it would be possible after a quick pirate investigation along the Neutral Zone, since it was in the same general vicinity. That had been a day ago, and Jean-Luc had commed them to say he was now enroute to NZ8-257.

*****

Eight days after their crash landing, and 1 day before Enterprise began the journey to their little piece of Paradise, Jason and Delaara had settled into a routine of sorts. Up at dawn to do Physical Training, which included swimming, abdominals and arm strength workouts for two hours. Then a run to the pool for a quick wash under the small waterfall and a leisurely cooldown stroll back to their campsite. They had taken to sleeping inside the downed Valkyrie's single crew compartment behind the cockpit since a storm had rolled in on the evening of their third day and washed their fire away. The wreck was high enough on the beach and heavy enough that the waves from the storm couldn't wash it out to sea.

They had also discovered, entirely by accident, that they had similar taste in music. During their morning workout, Delaara had plugged a small music device into her ear for some workout music. When Jason asked what she was listening to, she smiled and placed the listener over his ear. His jaw just about hit the ground when he heard "Aces High" blasting into his eardrum. He then pulled out his own MP7 player that he used while flying on routine patrols and hit the play button. He had over 500 gigabytes of music on there. Mostly late 20th and early 21st century Heavy Metal. The familiar drums of "Where Eagles Dare" began playing from it.

"Honey, I have to ask. How the hell did you get Iron Maiden in the Empire?" Jason asked incredulously.

"I went to Earth once about ten years ago as part of a security detail for our Ambassador. As a pilot, I didn't have much to do, so I went shopping in downtown San Francisco while the talks were taking place. I went into a small shop that had a lot of old music, and I heard "Aces High" on the sound system. I asked the owner, Ricky, about it, and he was only too happy to show the 'hot alien babe' the Heavy Metal section." She chuckled at the memory. "We talked for hours about the similarities and differences between Human and Romulan music."

"Tesla Records!" Jason exclaimed and started laughing.

Delaara's eyes grew wide. "How did you know?"

"Where do you think I got my collection?" he grinned. "Ricky still owns the place, and his hair is even longer now. If we get the chance to go to Earth, we are gonna have to pop in and say 'hey' to him." They both laughed at that, and the memory of the long haired metalhead who was their friend.

"He was funny, that's for sure! He showed me a holopic of his wife and kids while I was there."

"His oldest, Jimmy, enrolled in the Academy a year after I did. He should be graduating in about a month from now." What were the odds? He had a feeling that if Starfleet rescued them, she would be made welcome by his friends on Earth. Their grins got even wider at the shared history.

"Why couldn't we have met before the war, Jason? We might already have a life together", she smiled sadly as she asked that question.

"Hey, sweetheart. We have a life now, and we'll have a life together after we're rescued." He took her into his arms and kissed her softly. He had always loved tall women, and Delaara was only half an inch shorter than he was.

Delaara loved his kiss, and she loved the beard he had been growing for nearly a week since the battle. She stroked it as they kissed even more passionately.

Just then, a roar passed overhead along with a very large shadow. They both looked up and drew their weapons.

"Orions", Jason growled.

"How did they find us?" Delaara asked nervously.

"The ionosphere messes with sensors, remember? It makes sense that pirates would hide out here. Looks like they're landing on the other side of the island." Jason was both relieved and frightened at the prospect of encountering Orions here. Frightened for Delaara's safety, while relieved that if they could somehow wrest control of that battle raider from them, they could rescue themselves.

"If we can get ahold of that ship, I could fly us out of here. I can read Orion", Delaara said hopefully.

"I love the way you think, baby." Jason leaned in and kissed her. They started into the light jungle towards where the battle raider appeared to touch down.

*****

On board the Enterprise, the investigation of pirate activity along the Neutral Zone was complete, except for one Orion battle raider that had escaped. Lieutenant Commander Worf turned to Captain Picard and informed him of the ship's probable destination as the NZ8 system.

"Good news, Mr. Worf. We might be able to get two birds with one stone." Picard smiled at the thought that he might be able to find out what happened to young Lieutenant MacKenzie and track down the escaped pirate ship at the same time.

"ETA is two hours until NZ8-257, sir", said Commander Riker. "When we get there, I'll have an away team ready to go when we determine their position."

"Excellent, Number One. Helm, engage."

*****

Jason and Delaara slipped forward in a low crawl as they topped the hill overlooking the battle raider's landing site. They spotted two Orions, a male and a female, outside the ship looking around. He used his ocular to zoom in on them, and discovered something odd.

"Delaara, take a look at this. Anything seem a bit off to you?" he asked as he passed her the mini-telescope.

She looked through it and saw it immediately. The male Orion seemed to be taking orders from the female. As they watched, three more Orion males came down the boarding ramp at the back of the ship. The female ordered them to secure the area, judging by her hand gestures.

"She's in charge, Jason. I don't like this. If a female Orion is in charge, that means....." she couldn't finish the sentence.

"She's the baddest bitch of the bunch, honey." Jason didn't even want to think about the horrors she was capable of. Male Orions were nasty enough. If a female was commanding them, she would have to be twice as mean and twice as deadly.

"What do we do?" They probably saw our camp, so they'll be heading our way soon." Delaara handed Jason his ocular back and he stowed it in the flight suit's left leg cargo pocket.

"The only thing between us and that ship is five Orions. Probably two still inside the ship as security. so add two to the estimate and we're dealing with a possible total of nine crewmembers. Orion Pirate crews are nearly always all male, so the odds are that any females onboard aren't active crew, but concubines. If we open fire from here, they'll just up skids and gone. If we manage to kill Queen Bitch down there with the first shot, her XO will call evac, and we still won't have a ship. Our best option to capture it is to get up close, somehow. Any ideas?" Jason looked at her as he asked.

"Orion males are lecherous fools, so a stranded female Romulan fighter pilot who was downed here might be able to persuade them to take her onboard with them. For the promise of some latinum, of course." She grinned and could see him slowly shake his head 'no'.

"With a male captain, I would say 'hell yes, go for it'. With a female captain, she would see you as a rival and burn you down where you stand. I would stand a better chance of getting their attention while you snuck around and neutralized their onboard security detachment. I know Orion females, and most of them are sex-starved nymphos. Even the crazy ones." He could see that she didn't like the idea. "I don't like it either, but a direct assault is out of the question, here. They outnumber us nearly five to one, sweetheart."

"Ok. If you can draw their attention, I can sneak around behind them. And Jason...."

"Yes, Delaara?" he asked as he turned to face her.

She kissed him passionately and held him close to her. She whispered in his ear "I love you, baby. Please be careful."

He kissed her back. "I love you too, sweetheart. You be careful, too. I'll be fine." Jason smiled at her and she slid off to the right to circle around. He went left and prepared to make himself a Human target.

'Ok, here goes' he thought as he stood up, his phaser hidden inside his mostly unzipped flight suit in an oblique angle. The weapon was flat enough that it probably wouldn't be spotted at a cursory glance. He raised his hands and started towards the landed Orion ship.

"HELLO!" he yelled at the closest sentry. "I SURRENDER!"

The Orion sentry looked at him strangely at first, and raised his disruptor rifle.

"Don't shoot! I'm just looking for a ride off this rock! Are you the Captain?"

The green skinned pirate didn't say anything, but motioned him to move past him with the barrel of his rifle. He then spoke quietly into his comm to presumably his captain.

Jason promptly marched forward with his arms raised in the universal sign of surrender. The female Orion stood and walked towards him. The sway of her hips alone would have made most men turn to jelly in their boots. Luckily, she didn't hold a candle to Delaara, in his eyes.

"Well well. A Federation fighter jockey? I recognize your flight suit", she said with a seductive smile on her face.

Jason grinned back. "Lieutenant Jason MacKenzie, at your service, ma'am. I would be much obliged if you could give me a lift off this rock."

"I'm Captain Sulina, and this is my ship, the Havester. Are you the one responsible for all that Romulan wreckage in orbit?"

"Most of it. I blew the last Kestrel as my engines overloaded, and I crashed on the other side of this island. Totalled my Valkyrie. My wingman made it out, but I was burning in at the time and he probably presumed me dead." He shrugged. "I just want a ride off this rock, and would be much obliged. I can pay you in latinum for transport to a Federation or neutral world." Jason was pouring on the charm as much as possible, while still spinning a believable tale.

"From the wreckage we scanned, there were four Falcons, but only one Kestrel. What happened to the last Kestrel, Lieutenant?" she asked with a perfectly raised eyebrow.

"It dropped about 100 meters off the land shelf on the other side. Have your ship do a scan if you don't believe me. It sank like a rock." He smiled and shrugged again.

The female Captain turned and nodded to her subordinate, who spoke quietly into his comlink. A pregnant minute passed before he received the confirmation from his ship's sensor operator and whispered his findings to the Captain.

"So how many of those kills were yours alone?" she asked him with a genuine smile on her face.

"Total of four were mine. Two were joint kills between me and my wingman before he took serious damage and had to disengage." All of that was true, and he wanted to avoid lying to her as much as possible. Orions had an instinct if anyone was falsifying information.

She nodded her head in appreciation. "Impressive, Lieutenant. I like a man who knows his way around a cockpit." The way she said it with her lascivious wink was all too clear. She just wanted him in her cockpit for some wild hot green lovin'.

That was when he caught a peripheral glimpse of Delaara sneaking up the ramp of the ship, and decided that he would give her a minute to do her magic. "Well, Captain. I can definitely fit any.... positions you had in mind", he said with a grin and the double entendre left hanging in the air.

'Holy crap, I just felt like James Bond chatting up the femme fatale', he thought about Bounce and his insane collection of old 20th century flatvid movies.

That was when he caught Delaara out the corner of his eye leaning out from the boarding ramp and aiming her disruptor pistol directly at the Captain's back. She gestured 'three down, ok' to him and he gave a smiling nod in reply.

The first green bolt blasted through the female Orion as Jason dodged to the side. He drew his phaser as they turned to fire at Delaara and burned two down where they stood. Delaara had ducked back inside the ship, and the Klingon disruptor rifles' bolts glanced off the hull. The last two were trying to bring down the threat on their ship as Jason blasted went to fire and nothing happened. He reached over to the nearest fallen Orion and grabbed his rifle, just in time for the closest Orion to notice that he was moving and his friends were dead. He turned as Jason brought the rifle up and squeezed the trigger, blowing a fist sized hole through the green man's chest. As his partner turned, the green bolt from Delaara's disruptor pistol blew his head clean off.

Jason stood up to see Delaara running towards him, grinning. He ran and grabbed her up in his arms, feeling her body against his and thankful she was alive.

"I love you, sweetheart", he whispered to her as he held her close. The relief washing over them that their plan had actually worked.

"I love you, Jason. Did you have to flirt with that bitch that much, though?" she asked with an arched eyebrow.

Jason looked at her quizzically until she tapped her pointed ear. "Romulan hearing, hotshot." She smiled at him and he kissed her lovingly.

"Ok, let's go have a look at our new ship, beautiful." Jason grinned as they walked toward the battle raider hand in hand.

*****

The Enterprise dropped out of warp and took up an orbit around NZ8-257, automatically dropping probes into the upper atmosphere.

Commander Data was on monitor duty and spotted them. "Captain, there are presently two life forms on an island in the western equatorial hemisphere. One is Human. The other is Romulan."

"Thank you, Mr. Data. Will, is your away team assembled?" asked Captain Picard.

"Aye, sir. We'll beam down immediately." Will Riker ran for the turbolift with Worf and Ensign Brower on his heels.

*****

"This is HOPELESS!" screamed Delaara as she glared at the locked controls of the battle raider. "That fucking bitch was too smart for her own good!" She then punched the console, sending sparks flying.

"Sweetheart, remind me to never make you angry", said Jason with a soft chuckle. She glared at him for a split-second before her gaze softened and she put her arms around him.

"I'm sorry, love. I have a bit of a temper, sometimes." She smiled sheepishly as he chuckled.

"Let's go back to the crash site, sweetheart. We can at least move our stuff here and bury the dead pirates. This ship is a lot better cover in a storm." Jason shrugged, and Delaara couldn't help but feel that everything would be alright in the end, even if this damn ship was grounded.

They left down the boarding ramp and walked the klick back to their crash site camp hand in hand. They sat down on the beach just as the sun was setting, leaning together as only lovers could do.

"If or when we do get rescued, I'm going to miss these sunsets", Delaara said.

"This is where we fell in love, sweetheart. When this war ends, and we have our own children, I pray that we can come back here after that damn Neutral Zone is gone and we can all live in peace." Jason was always hopeful. "And if not, I still own my old house in Santa Barbara. The sunsets there are about the same."

She smiled at that and leaned into his arms, turning her lips to meet his. they were disrobing faster than normal as the stress of combat from earlier finally caught up to them, causing a horniness that they hadn't felt since crashing. With superior strength, Delaara pinned him down, her mouth covering his as she mounted his extremely hard cock.

"Now it's my turn to fuck your brains out, baby", she said with a wicked gleem in her eyes as she started riding him hard and fast. his own thrusts met hers and he gave as good as he got, causing her first orgasm in record time. Her cunt clamped so tightly on him, he thought she would snap his cock in half as she screamed out a primal roar of lust.

She collapsed on his chest as he rolled her over, raising her legs above his shoulders and started laying into her even harder. Their moans and screams split the air as they came together over and over, the mind meld taking them to new heights of ecstacy.

Jason rolled off of her and pulled her to him. She draped her leg across his hips and they were asleep almost instantly.

The unmistakable thrum of a transporter beam nearly woke them from their slumber.

*****

Will Riker, Worf, Dr. Beverly Crusher, and Ensign Brower all materialized and beheld the scene before them. Worf was wide eyed as his mouth dropped open, Riker was laughing softly, Brower was eyeing the beautiful Romulan lady, and Beverly was blushing as she averted her eyes.

*****

Something at the back of Jason's mind nudged him awake, and he opened his eyes to see the Starfleet contingent standing over him.

"Sonuvabitch!" he shouted, waking the beauty in his arms.

"What is it, baby?" she asked before getting a good look at the three Humans and one Klingon standing over them.

"Umm, this isn't what it... oh shit. Ok, this is exactly what it looks like", Jason said, grinning ear to ear.

For her part, Delaara blushed fiercely and clung to him even tighter.

"Permission to get dressed, Commander Riker, sir?" Jason asked with a salute.

Riker, grinning ear to ear and nearly laughing himself hoarse, said "Permission granted, Lieutenant."

As they quickly collected their flight suits and put them on, Jason made the introductions.

"Delaara, this is Commander Will Riker, Dr. Beverly Crusher, Lt. Commander Worf, and.... HOLY SHIT! Jimmy????"

Ensign James "Jimmy" Brower had graduated early from Starfleet Academy, in the top of his class. He had chosen the Enterprise as his first duty assignment.

"Hey, Friday. Good to see ya, man." Jimmy sounded almost exactly like his father.

"You're Ricky's boy?" asked Delaara. "Jason said you weren't graduating until next month!"

"Whoa! You know my dad?" Jimmy asked with his mouth hanging open.

"Know him??? He introduced me to Iron Maiden!" She grinned as she saw the confusion on most of their faces and the huge grin Jimmy was sporting.

"Yes, ma'am. That's my dad!" Jimmy said proudly.

"Hell, Jim. I didn't know you graduated early! You should have commed me!" Jason said, grinning ear to ear. This was all just too much.

Composing himself, Will Riker finally addressed the business at hand.

"Lieutenant MacKenzie, are you prepared to hand your prisoner over to Starfleet authorities?" asked Riker.

"With respect, no sir. She's not my prisoner, sir." Jason was back to spit and polish, in spite of the beard that Delaara loved on him.

"Explain yourself, Lieutenant", Worf barked out in his baritone voice.

"With respect, Commander Worf, she isn't my prisoner." His hand went to hers and squeezed it comfortingly. "Go ahead and tell them, sweetheart."

She glanced at him and saw his smile. She smiled radiantly and turned back to the assembled Starfleet officers. "I, Commander Delaara, formerly the commanding officer of Gladius Wing, declare my intent to defect to the United Federation of Planets and marry Lieutenant Jason MacKenzie, Bravo Flight Leader of Skull Squadron. Is that acceptable, Commander Riker?"