“Come for me now!” Kam ordered. “Right now!”
“Oh-ah-oh!” She exploded in a powerful climax that shook her world.
Kam’s body tightened and he also climaxed, his voice filling the orbiter with his pleasure and satisfaction. “Halah! Oh, fucking yes!”
After the tremors passed, they lay in each other’s arms, breathing heavily.
She felt Kam sign “I love you” against her back, using the Warrior upper-class method of silent communication. She sucked in a sharp breath, not having expected that from him. Each word of his touch burned against her skin. Halah’s heart clenched and her voice caught in her throat so tightly that she couldn’t speak.
Instead, she swallowed hard and stroked his cheek. She’d never felt so sexually and emotionally fulfilled as she did right now.
Glancing to their side, she saw that Pitch had gone up to the front of the orbiter, leaving them alone.
She cleared her throat, preparing her words. But before she could voice her feelings in return, Kam kissed her gently on the lips, then he closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep.
A small sigh escaped her. He never demanded anything from her that she wasn’t ready to give. As if he knew… She respected and appreciated that more than he would ever realize.
She closed her eyes, snuggling against him. And finally, after settling in her head what her true feelings for this man really were, she fell into a deep and contented sleep.
Erik flipped a few switches, going from screen to screen, double-checking the data.
He turned to Laszlo. “I’m getting in reports that some Marid transports are turning back and leaving Xylon’s atmosphere.” A huge sense of relief flowed through him.
Though he knew Xylon and the Lair were far from safe, at least now they might stand a fighting chance.
“Only some?” Laszlo’s brow furrowed.
“Yes. The rest are still dropping off foot troops, but I imagine that will be the last batch from the look of things. I’m picking up patchy communications of withdrawal orders. They must have gotten at least partial comm abilities back. The transmissions aren’t coming from Marid though. It’s ship to ship. They’re trying to regroup and assess their malfunctioning controls. That’ll give us some breathing room to do the same.
Hopefully, Kam and Halah damaged their systems enough that Daegal will call a cease-fire, for now, at least.”
“How’d our people fair?”
“I don’t have any casualty reports right now, so I can’t tell how effective the Egesa were against our Warriors. I’ll see what I can find out.”
“Slave transports?”
“No ships are taking off from the Xylon surface, so I don’t think they’ve taken any captives off-world yet. Or if they have, they’ve stopped for now.” The Council should approve rescue missions soon. They needed to get their people safely back on Xylon and recover any Warriors taken during or previous to the war. They couldn’t afford not to repopulate their security forces. Every man and woman was important to their survival now.
“What else?”
“Riot reports coming in from the Banishment Zones,” Brianna reported from another station.
“Good.” Laszlo nodded. “The more problems and distractions they give Daegal and his followers the better. Is Marid sending in support troops?”
“Not that I can tell,” she answered. “They will probably concentrate on Xylon and the outer planets, and leave the Zones for last. The prisoners in the Zones are mostly contained, since there aren’t many ships for them to confiscate, even if they do overrun security. I don’t think Daegal will give them high priority.”
“What’s happening in the Lair?” Laszlo glanced over at Briggs before returning his attention to the multiple control screens mounted along the opposite wall.
Erik also glanced over at Briggs, who sat near Laszlo and seemed to be studying everything more closely than Erik felt comfortable with. The man was no dummy, even if only an Earth military officer. Someone from another planetary system shouldn’t be trusted enough to listen to all the goings-on here, but that was Laszlo’s call. Not his.
An Earth man. Erik shook his head, hardly believing the Colonel was actually here.
Briggs’ presence couldn’t mean anything good. “Nothing is happening in the Lair. Not a damn thing, as far as I can tell. It’s dead over there.”
“What do you mean dead? There have to be security details moving around. What’s the activity from Command Center?”
“No readings.” Erik felt helpless. What the hell was going on down in the Lair? Had everyone abandoned their posts when Brianna disappeared? Torque and Tara should still be there. Torque would assume command. Brianna had said so. Even if a Council member had taken over, there should be something registering. Some sort of energy output. “Is there a way to scan the CC from here to at least check for life forms?”
“Yes. Panel L36.”
Erik moved over to the specified panel. Yes. There it was. After feeding in the coordinates, he turned on the directional scanner and waited. “All right. I’m getting readings. Definite life, but this doesn’t say how many, nor show if anyone is injured.”
“No, unfortunately the scanner is not that detailed. I didn’t have time to upgrade the system in this particular facility.”
This facility? Which meant more facilities like this existed. Here on Xylon or elsewhere? Both maybe? A beep drew Erik’s attention. He flipped a switch on the communications panel. “Yes.”
Leila’s voice came through the speaker. “Can you spare a few minutes? The babies are here. Two girls. Very healthy. And very beautiful, I must say. Braden would like you and Brianna to come see them. He’s beaming. Alexa is tired, but recovering just fine.”
Relief spread through him. Alexa had given birth, and it sounded like all was well.
Girls. No doubt they’d have Braden wrapped around their little fingers in no time. He turned to Laszlo, who had a wide smile on his face. “Do you mind?”
“Yes, Laszlo, I’d love to go,” Brianna said.
“Go. Both of you. See the babies. I’ll keep watch here.”
Erik turned back to the speaker. “We’re on our way.” He flipped off the speaker and he and Brianna left the control room, eager to see the new arrivals.
Laszlo watched them go. He felt happy for Braden and Alexa. He suspected Leila and Erik would want their own children now, too. Probably during the next Breeder Release—one of the prearranged time periods each year when Xylon Breeders became fertile.
Leila was an excellent nurturer. And though gruff, he expected Erik would make an excellent father. Any daughters he had would be well-protected and any sons would grow up to be fine men.
A sudden sadness overtook him though, overshadowing the happier thoughts, at what else the future held. He wished he could save everyone on Xylon and the surrounding planets, but there was no way. This “game” he’d been playing with Daegal for so many years would soon come to an end. Then a new command would emerge.
All fated. And he’d learned years ago not to try and fight fate, because destiny could rarely be altered. The path which led to that destiny, though, contained many variables.
So while he was still able, he’d try his best to save those who didn’t have to suffer for the mistakes made so long ago by his ancestors. When they all learned the truth, things would never be the same. The question now was how much to tell them…and how soon.
“Now that we’re alone,” Briggs said, “what the hell am I doing here?”
“You were briefed by your superiors.” ACE had to succeed, was destined to succeed—or so he hoped. A wildcard always existed though. Even in destiny.
He hated to dwell on how many would die in the process, if this did succeed. And if for some reason destiny’s path veered in the other direction…
“Not briefed enough. I suppose I can understand why. Nobody in their right mind would volunteer for this mission if totally informed. I have a feeling that I know very little of the whole truth, and I’m already having second thoughts.”
The man was too smart for his own good. But then, he’d requested a smart man for this project. Someone who could think on his feet, especially when things went wrong.
“What happened with the Initiation?”
“You mean that group sex thing?”
Laszlo chucked. “Yes.” From what he knew of Earth’s sexual customs, the Colonel may never have engaged in what he labeled as “group” sex. Or if he had, probably not with strangers.
Briggs shrugged. “Didn’t happen. Well, we got started but were interrupted. Not that I didn’t enjoy it,” he chuckled, “but it’s not a military procedure I expected.”
“It’s not exactly military. More medical, if you really need to classify it. What caused the interruption, and are you suffering any adverse effects from it?”
“Something—the chemicals they gave me—didn’t work right. I went a little nuts for a while. Then it seemed to wear off. When the alarm sounded down in the chambers, Brianna called the Initiation off.”
“Brianna was in the I-Chamber during the rite? Why?”
“She was part of the ceremony or whatever you all refer to it as. Leading it, from how it seemed to me.”
“Her sister was supposed to do that.” So the path had already been altered, not simply delayed as he’d thought. Or had he made a miscalculation? Whenever a path varied from what he expected, it caused a ripple effect that had to be compensated for.
He’d recheck his genetic indicator to make certain all was working as it should. Then he’d recalculate the variables, using the new data.
Briggs shook his head. “Well, I don’t know anything about that. Two other women were there, but she never called them by name. Maybe one of them was her sister, though they didn’t look anything like her.”
Tara and Brianna looked enough alike for someone to suspect they might be related. So he doubted Tara was in the chamber. “You said the chemicals wore off?
Naturally?”
“Yes.”
“Hmm.” He’d need to question Brianna more thoroughly later and find out exactly what had happened before making any plan changes. “I’ll look into it. You’ll still need to be Initiated though.”
“For what? I mean, Brianna explained what the ceremony is for, but she seemed to think that it should have been canceled and that it’s not done on Earth men.”
“Yes, I can imagine her thoughts. This is experimental, but highly important. You need to be protected, Colonel, before the next phase of the mission. That’s all I can tell you, right now. You will be Initiated. Soon. If it works, then we can proceed. How did Brianna know about ACE? Did you tell her?”
“No. The information didn’t come from me. When she entered the chamber, she already seemed to know about the project. At least minimally. What is the next phase? I know I’m supposed to cooperate fully, no matter what, but a lot of what I was told just doesn’t make sense to me. And I’m not used to blindly following orders.”
“All will make sense in time.”
A frown crossed Briggs’ face. He started to say something, then shook his head and started again. “So what happens if this Initiation thing doesn’t work?”
Too many questions, Laszlo thought. The injection Leila had given him was wearing off and weariness attacked his body. He didn’t possess the strength to handle much more at the moment. “I will explain everything to everyone involved when the time is right. Not that I don’t trust you, Colonel, but my own people deserve to know what’s going on first. That’s the least I can do for them now.”
* * * * *
Lair of Xylon
“Are we dark?” Torque asked his sister.
“Yes,” Tara answered. “Anyone scanning us won’t find any activity. We’ll look completely shut down to them.”
“Good. That should stop further attacks. They’ll think all our systems have collapsed. Great work cloaking our energy sources.”
The cloaking would give them more time to get the rest of their systems operational again without any interference from Marid’s computers trying to infect them with more malfunctions.
The only reason they’d even been able to go dark at all was because so many of their systems hadn’t yet rebooted from the code changes. They’d stabilized, but not re-energized back to full power. Now, when they did, they’d be undetectable. Hopefully.
The Lair couldn’t defeat Daegal at their current strength. But maybe they could save what they had and keep the lines stabilized until they could arrange a new means of attack on their enemy.
Tara smiled at his praise, until something on her screens caught her attention.
“Torque?” She seemed to be checking each screen over and over again.
“What is it?” He’d been keeping one eye on her and the other on Council Member Delemar, just to make sure the man didn’t try anything stupid, like attempting to return to the Council Chambers and gather the other members to try some sort of takeover.
“Something odd is happening. Several Marid fighters are starting to fire on each other.”
“What?” He walked over to her screens, watching as the data came in.
“What’s going on?” Delemar asked.
“I’m also reading…” She shook her head. “Some of the transports who dropped Egesa troops are now firing on those same troops on the ground,” she informed them.
“Transports and some fleet fighters are moving off. Oh! Two ships just crashed to the surface! Right in the middle of the city.”
“Damn!” They were too far down to feel the residual effect, but Torque checked his own screens and saw the damage reports streaming in from their auto-indicators. “Send out rescue teams and Healers.”
“On it.”
“Tell them we surrender, before it’s too late,” Delemar ordered them, jumping up from his seat.
“Didn’t you hear what she said?” Torque asked in disgust. “The Egesa are being killed. The fighters are firing on each other. That’s good news.”
“So they’re killing their own people with friendly fire. It happens in war. That doesn’t mean we’re gaining an advantage,” Delemar pointed out.
“Their ships are moving off.” Torque couldn’t believe the man’s ignorance. “We have a chance.”
“We have nothing, if we don’t surrender now!”
“Quiet, you two,” Tara shouted. “I can’t hear.”
“What’s going on?” Torque asked her, his attention returning to the data screens.
“Are more—”
“Wait!” With a sharp movement, she held up her hand. Tara turned a control knob and tapped her earpiece. “We’ve got fleet communications.” She turned toward Torque.
“It’s our Warriors! Piloting the Marid fighters and transports!”
“What? Could it be a trick?” Torque asked, his heart rate kicking up.
“No way! They’re annihilating all of Daegal’s fighters and troops! Our Warriors have returned to Xylon!”
* * * * *
Dome of Marid
Daegal grabbed the Top Commander by the collar. Panic rolled through him.