Read The Colonel's Man for Free Online

round is on you.”
    She grinned. “And the last’s on you, if you don’t hit the floor first.”
    * * *
    An hour later Arita stood in the middle of her temporary quarters. She’d showered the remainder of the dried blood from her skin and ditched the dressing. Hurst would be pissed but as long as he didn’t catch her, she’d be fine. Besides, the bulk of the dressing quite ruined the line of her uniform.
    Her lips quirked in amusement as she dropped her weapons case onto the foot of the bed and snapped it open. Inside were her assault carbine, two trench knives and a heavy-duty pulse pistol. Ignoring the first and the second, she selected the pistol and loaded a powerpack before holstering it at her hip. She was on someone else’s ship, but there was no way she was going unarmed if she didn’t have to. It just didn’t sit right with her. And it was unlikely the Captain of the Mandrakion would argue with the head of Section Three, a woman who was known to have cast iron balls and the attitude to back them it.
    Shaking the heavy fall of her hair back, she quickly braided it as she went over the FUBAR the Cestan Four operation had become. They’d known who she was, or at least, they’d blown her first cover identity and thought she really was the Alliance intelligence officer Scott and Michaels had assumed her to be.
    She smiled as headed for the door. It wasn’t all bad. She’d gone under cover for Intel, but if she was lucky, she might come out of this with a couple of new operatives for her team.
    * * *
    An hour after he’d left Arita in the medbay, Jason walked with Drew down the corridor towards the conference room. Well, Jason walked. Drew still had a slight hitch in his step. He was healing rather quickly, but it didn’t seem to be helping with his disposition this morning.
    “You know I really shouldn’t be surprised about this,” Drew huffed. “I mean a beautiful hottie gets hit and who else but you would leave his wounded partner behind on the drop-shuttle and not even check up on him until the next day?”
    Jason rolled his eyes. He’d been hearing this in different variations for the last hour. “She was in worse shape than you, and the mission revolved around her. So I kinda had to make sure she was okay before I checked up on your pansy ass.”
    Drew snorted. “Mate, you didn’t just make sure she was okay. You damn well slept in there at the side of her bed like some kind of little puppy dog. Did you let her rub your tummy, or did you just roll over and play dead?”
    Jason shot him a dirty look. “You know for a macho dude you really are starting to sound like a sulky girlfriend. Just to be clear, we’re not life partners, just work partners.”
    They rounded a corner and finally caught sight of the doors to the conference room. Moments later their eyes were adjusting in the brightly lit room. It was empty.
    “Are we early? Where’s Colonel Hague?” Jason grabbed the nearest chair and dropped into it with a sigh of relief. He needed a decent night’s rest on a proper bed. He groaned as he rubbed his neck. Medbay chairs were not made for sleeping on.
    “You sure you got the time and place right?”
    “Yeah he said this time sharp in conference room 3.” Jason shrugged as he glanced at the table. Damn. No fruit. Housekeeping really was going to the dogs recently. “Though he was growling at me again so I may have misheard.”
    “You didn’t mishear. I believe Colonel Hague is running a little late,” a female voice drawled from behind them. A familiar female voice. Both men turned to find the woman they’d rescued the day before leaning against the doorjamb. Jason’s jaw dropped.
    The yellow PJ’s were gone, replaced by an all black combat uniform similar to the ones they both wore but without unit patches. The quartermaster must have been all out of casual clothing.
    “Hey gorgeous. Nice, black really suits you.” He smiled. “What are you doing here? Not that I’m