He let her rest for a couple moments to let her catch her breath before proceeding. He stroked her ass and could feel the heat starting to build. This...was a good sign but he was far from finished with her.“Okay now let’s get down to business,” he said. Placing his left hand on the small of her back to steady her, he drew back his right hand with the paddle and gave her a swat after swat after swat with no pause between them. He rained down blow after blow until he had landed 40 continuous blows. ’ The anguish on his face deflated her anger and she approached him. She took his hand in hers and kissed it. ‘Deres.’ ‘Do you want me to try to find her?’ She studied him, unsure of what he meant. ‘What?’ ‘Do you want me to go down into the valley to cut a path to her body or to her? Say it and I’ll do it. I’ll do anything you want me to. I knew she was troubled, but I never thought…’ ‘And risk you, too? No. We must stay together, now more than ever. The thing only gains by driving us apart,. I didn’t knock him out, but I did keep him from moving his body from the pile of puke a few inches from where he was face down in the dirt.These assholes are going to wish the cops got here first.Using the implant, I had Paula call these guy’s dads and tell them exactly where they were and what they had tried to do. I made sure that she told them two of the guys had tried to shoot me but missed.As a third guy came at me with a prybar, easily five feet long, and a fourth with a two-by-four, I. So what if it were non-standard? The little shuttle was even jump capable, had a pair of light-weight point defense weapon mounts, and a medical tube and TWO sleep learners. Cargo was limited, and if we did hyperspace jumps the crew and passenger manifest had to be clipped to seven because of life support limitation. Messenger of the Gods wasn't even assigned to a class.There were two shuttle pilots and four Marines—and me—on board. Our mission was to investigate something that had dropped out.