The Commander's Slave (8 page)

Carefully, he eased himself away from
her and rose, quirking his lips at the discarded clothing that lay
around his quarters. Picking at them, he pulled on a shirt and
trousers and made a brief trip to the bathroom. The smile stayed on
his face until he found himself humming as he regarded his unshaven
reflection, and he was brought back to reality with a
slam.

What was he thinking? He was Tangus
Xalor, only remaining commander of the Seti Space Corps. He was the
man responsible for the last remnant of the Seti. What was he doing
losing himself in the eyes and body of a golden beauty?

“
Tangus?” The soft voice
was a bit puzzled.

He gave himself a long look before
exiting.

Asha was sitting up in bed. No false
modesty here. She wasn’t holding a sheet against her naked breasts.
Instead, she leaned nonchalantly on one arm, the sheets draped over
her legs. Even without a single artistic bone in his body, Tangus
had the urge to paint her just so he could always remember her like
this.

“
I was wondering where you
were,” she teased, her voice still husky with sleep. “Will you come
back to bed?”

And Tangus had several flashbacks. He
remembered the time, as a young and stupid officer graduate, he had
picked a fight with a pair of Toldah mercenaries adventuring far
from home. He had come off second-best in that altercation, only
the timely intervention of four other friends saving him from a
thorough skewering.

He remembered the tense stand-off with
a ship from the Flow-Stick Cluster, a notorious smuggler species
famous for their weaponry-heavy space runners and how he had
bluffed his way into capturing them.

He remembered his last desperate
gambits as he extracted as many survivors as possible from the
marauding Lasc Prein before he and his decimated fleet beat a hasty
retreat.

But, as he stared at her long flowing
hair, perfect features, and beguiling eyes, Tangus realized that
nothing he had previously done in his life required more
self-discipline than just standing his ground and not--once
again--losing himself in her perfumed loveliness.

He spun the chair at his desk and
seated himself at what he considered to be a safe distance, content
to watch her.

“
I’m still captain of this
ship,” he reminded her. “I have duties to perform.”

“
I
have some duties you
can perform,” she teased, but he brushed her comment away with a
wry smile.

Maybe he gave a little more away in
that movement than he wanted, because Asha frowned as she, too,
began pulling on clothes.

“
Is there anything I can do
to help?” she asked. “As eye-opening as the past few days have been
….”

Tangus had the decency to flush along
his cheekbones although his expression didn’t change.

“…
I’d like to do
more.”

“
Such as?”

Indeed. She thought she could compartmentalize her
forgotten life in a little box and forgotten about it, that she
could start building a new beginning with Tangus. But no matter how
much she tried to ignore it, the questions around her existence
continued to appear at the most inopportune moments. How
could
she possibly help the crew of a quasi-military vessel? Was
she combat-trained herself? A superlative navigator or pilot? By
the gods, she wished she knew!

“
I’m not sure,” she said
slowly.

“
Now if only you were an
influential member of the Lower Convergence,” he mused, more to
himself, mentioning one of the two galaxy-wide political bodies of
the Fusion.

“
You’re thinking of the
Lasc Prein destroying your planet.”

“
I’m thinking of
justice.”

“
As a member of the Fusion yourself, you can petition for an
enquiry sub-committee,” she suddenly said then sat back,
thunderstruck. Where had
that
thought come
from?

But she was right. Tangus nodded.
“True, but we only joined the Fusion a few years ago. Who would
agree to sponsor and chair the sub-committee? The Lasc Prein were
very smart. They knew the best time to strike the Seti was before
we could build up any alliances. All the worlds we have
relationships with are non-Fusion. Short of starting an all-out
war, which I doubt I can do, the situation still looks
hopeless.”

The door to his quarters buzzed, and
still preoccupied, Tangus rose to answer it. He froze when he
recognized his visitor.

Doctor Zehnda’s face was open and
enquiring. “Commander, you passed orders that I should report to
you this morning. Sub-commander Daurent has already briefed me, and
I brought my genetics kit.”

No!
something shouted
in Tangus’ head.
Don’t do
this!

The night had been wonderful,
ecstatic, but what about the future of his people? Could he
sacrifice the continued existence of the Seti to monopolize one
delectable golden body?

“
Of course,” he greeted
after a short pause. “Come in, doctor.” Dammit, he had to prove
that he was stronger than this, that he was able to formulate and
carry through a difficult strategy. He tried very hard not to
think.

Asha, grateful she had dressed, rose
and offered her hand. “Good morning. I’m Asha.”

The older man put his small case down
on the nearby desk before walking forward and taking her hand
between his. “A pleasure to meet you. I’m the doctor aboard this
ship, Zehnda Galin. At your service.” He applied slight pressure to
his grasp then released her.

Both people turned to face
him.

Give him some excuse. Send
him away. You don’t have to do this, Xalor.

“
I’ve … called the Doctor
here to give you a checkup.”

“
A good idea,” Zehnda
chimed in with a smile. “We should always establish a baseline
before we start on the tricky business of xenotyping.”

Asha frowned. “Xenotyping?”

But Zehnda wasn’t listening. He moved
to Tangus’ desk and opened his case.

She turned to Tangus.
“Xenotyping?”

There’s still time to
salvage this situation. Send Zehnda away!

“
I don’t know what species
you are,” he began. “I asked Doctor Zehnda here so he can run some
tests. Genetic compatibility. Physiological bars to
fertility.”

“
What are you saying?” she
asked, quelling a small leap in her heart. “You want me to bear
your child?”

It was all a bit sudden and although
Asha admitted to herself that the thought itself was attractive,
surely he should have discussed it with her first? By the standards
of her species had she even reached sexual maturity yet? And what
kind of future would a child of hers have, on the run from the Lasc
Prein?

Zehnda laughed. “If my instructions
are correct, it’s not just the commander. Isn’t that right
sir?”

Both Tangus and Asha stared at each
other in frozen tableau while the doctor, still checking his
instruments, continued talking.

“
With just one person there
may not be a problem. But with a potential donor pool in the
thousands, the cumulative effects of recessive genes across
interspecies embryo development cannot be
underestimated.”

“
In the thousands?” Asha
asked through bloodless lips. Her voice was faint.

A tic worked in Tangus’ jaw. “I’ll
leave you to your work, doctor.” He left, quelling the howl that
rose within as the doors to his quarters slid shut behind
him.

* * * *

Tangus’ quarters on the
Strike
, like all rooms
on the ship, was temperature-controlled, but that didn’t stop
Asha’s shivering.

The doctor had already left, leaving
Asha’s body whole but splintering her mind into a million pieces.
Not being able to stay in his quarters, to have his scent taunt
her, she slipped back to the smooth decadence of the adjoining
chamber. She would never have believed for a moment that a room
geared to sex would comfort her, but in the entire galaxy, it was
now the place where she felt the greatest security. At another
time, she would have smiled at the irony.

But now, all she could do was collapse
on the edge of the bed and confront an unpalatable
reality.

Why had she even entertained the
fantasy of a life together for her and Tangus? He had made it plain
from the beginning that he had purchased her for a reason. At the
time, she had thought that meant possession by only one
man--him.

But
thousands
?

Doctor Zehnda had been more
forthcoming in that one hour than Tangus in the past several
days.

He told her that the Seti remnant was all male, the dregs
of a species that would soon die out unless someone came up with a
plan. And the commander had. A bold plan of acquiring female stock
to interbreed with the Seti so the genetic strain wouldn’t
completely die out. Preferably female
Fusion
stock so
they would always serve as a reminder of the Fusion’s perfidy while
they allowed the Lasc Prein to massacre them into almost total
extinction. She was their first acquisition.

It made her blood run cold to see how
much she had underestimated Tangus’ ruthlessness, reading
sensitivity instead of callousness, and torment instead of
all-consuming revenge. It had fooled her into thinking he was,
beneath all his actions, an honorable man, and she was going to pay
for such a misjudgment by living out the rest of her life as a Seti
breeding-receptacle.

But what could she do to escape such a
fate?

Where before she didn’t see her
amnesia as a negative, now she confronted dead-ends. Who was she
really? Was she someone powerful? Or just a bystander somehow
involved in a spaceship crash? Was her species capable of looking
for her? Did they even care?

Asha buried her head in her hands.
Only a few hours ago, she was prepared to throw away any thoughts
of her species, but now they loomed large in her future. How fickle
she had been to think that she could ignore everything that
happened in her life up till this point, up to the point when she
found herself betrayed by the man she had fallen in love
with.

Desperately, she started thinking. What she needed now were
options. Was there anybody on the
Strike
, for example,
who would help her? Doctor Zehnda was totally committed to his
commander. But what about Daurent? The young sub-commander had
treated her kindly. Would he help? She thought about it. No, even
she could see the bond between the two men. Daurent would not
betray Tangus.

What she needed now was a miracle. A
….

A shuddering jolt whipped through the
ship, toppling her from her seat. At the same time, a klaxon
sounded, followed by a terse voice she recognized as
Tangus’.

“
Battle stations. This is not a drill. Enemy sighted and
engaged. I repeat, battle stations.”

Another rippling concussion struck the
ship, sending it into a deep angled swerve. The moment the floor
steadied, Asha made a rush for the door in Tangus’ quarters,
hitting the access panel.

As the doors slid open, acrid smoke filled her nostrils,
and she recognized the smell of an electrical fire. Men rushed
around her, yelling to each other to make themselves heard above
the tortured whine of the engines. The
Strike
was still
listing, and Asha was, for once, glad of her bare feet which gave a
better hold on the tilted vessel’s floor.

She turned the corner and confronted a
scene of destruction. One wall panel had blown out, taking a young
soldier with it. Asha could see the flames lick at the wiring,
melting the insulation and flicking upwards inside the
bulkhead.

She grabbed the sleeve of someone else
rushing past.

“
Where’s the fire
extinguisher?” she yelled.

“
What?” his eyes were wild
and she tried to get away but her grip was stronger.

“
Fire extinguisher,” she
repeated.

He pointed to an opposite panel then
tore away from her hand and kept running.

Asha hesitated. This was an excellent
opportunity for escape. If only she could find the emergency pods
.... Then she looked down at the young man unconscious by the
panel. What if she had a brother and he was in a similar situation?
Would she forgive or condemn the prisoner who had a chance to save
him, but didn’t?

With an oath, she turned to the
opposite panel, grappling with her fingers at the catch. It stuck,
then released. Asha flung it to one side and reached in for the
extinguisher. If she knew anything about electrical fires in
enclosed spaces, the immediate vicinity would be super-heated.
Deftly, she released the safety and aimed it at the fire, pulsing
the shots. When it was doused, she moved closer, angling the nozzle
into the bulkhead and spraying all around, making sure all traces
of the blaze were extinguished, careful not to touch the still-hot
jagged metal.