Karma of Kalpana

by T. L Smith

  “Kali, you’ve been through so much. I didn’t want it to happen like it did, so…” His hand slipped along my arm, gently, grimacing at a bruise on my upper arm. “…so roughly.” Everett’s eyes were tender as he leaned over me. His hand slipped up to my cheek. “You’ll never be alone again.” His breath was warm against my lips. The kiss almost imperceptible, as soft as a whisper.

  Even though he barely touched me, I felt our souls still intertwined. Deeply. It was a unity I’d always craved. I wrapped my arms around his shoulders and he gently pulled me down into my bed again. This time as we made love, it was slowly, gently, like true lovers.

  Lying together afterwards, our minds and bodies were linked so perfectly we even breathed simultaneously. I let him wander through my thoughts and memories, but tried to not think of Carl. His memory was still a strong presence for everyone. I tried to not feel guilty, but the harder I tried, the more Carl returned to my thoughts, our thoughts.

  “I know!” Everett sat up and rolled out of bed. “I don’t expect you to just forget him.”

  “I’m sorry, I’m not trying to drive you off, but it’s hard, even with his… blessings.” I untangled my sari, following him up, hurrying to wrap at least a little of the delicate silk around me. Suddenly embarrassed to be so exposed. I turned away, flustered and confused. “Then there’s all the others. Most of them EH. What will they…”

  Everett spun me back, giving me a hard passionate kiss, then stared down at me with glowing eyes. “You aren’t driving me off, but I won’t pressure you to feel something in your heart you’re not ready for. No one ever said mated EH had to love each other, at least not right away.” He smiled wickedly. “I don’t care who knows either. Nothing will keep me out of your bed now. Or your mind.” Images of our night together rushed through my head and down into my body, making me want him again.

  Everett smiled as he let go, leaving without another word. He left me trembling as his touch lingered on my skin, my knees weak to feel the intensity of his passion. I slipped down the wall, the sensations more than I could control. This was what bonded mates felt?

  * * * * *

  After an hour of panic, the IGF patrol ship confirmed this wasn’t an elaborate hoax, but a true ‘first contact’ and more ships were en-route. Though the numbers had increased. Our message had brought the desired results. EH everywhere demanded transportation to join us. Their numbers couldn’t be ignored or denied.

  As ships arrived my team integrated their EH crew. While I had help, my life became a blur. The Elders poured out more and more information. They got easier to work with, while Humans got more difficult.

  But I wasn’t alone as I’d feared when Carl died. Everett never left my side as I faced the ongoing weary prejudice against the EH.

  Human commanders particularly resented being ordered about at the whim of an obscure EH woman. They argued, all the while pretending not to be impressed by the alien fleet amassing alongside theirs at Ceris M.

  I needed Everett’s guidance if I was to fulfill Huracid’s prophecy and pull all these factions together. Everett secured one of the largest of the IGF ships as host to a joint forces meeting.

  When I entered with my entourage, including Huracid, I received mixed reactions of disdain and awe. There were enough EH in my group to filter so many hostile minds in one place. If the barriers around me had been electronic, their thoughts would be fried insect carcasses piled at my feet. Even so, I still felt the sting of the strongest in the group.

  Everett held a seat out for me at the conference table. As I sat down, his hand brushed over my shoulder and I shivered. I was already hyper-sensitive with so much friction in the room. He sat down next to me and his knee pressed against my leg. I felt his calming energy.

  Taking a deep breath, I started, glancing around to all the faces gathered at the table. “Thank you for joining us. I want to make introductions as easy as possible, so first we invite members of the Collective who are unable to physically attend due to compatibility with our gravity or environment.”

  I raised a hand to empty seats as Everett tapped commands into the com system. Around the table, empty seats shimmered and the images of other alien species took form. One officer had taken it upon himself to move from his assigned seat. He twisted and half fell from the chair as extra arms started to protrude from his body. The entity’s hologram finished materializing, turning eyes to the officer as he scurried even further away.

  It was hard not to burst out in laughter, especially as the same reaction spread around the table. Humans seated next to the new arrivals involuntarily jerked away from incredibly realistic reproductions. I’d have done the same thing as creatures beyond imagination suddenly appeared out of nowhere, had I not already been privately introduced to them all.

  At my invitation, they introduced themselves, a pronounceable nameplate projected on the table in front of them. Some officers acknowledged the new arrivals, but for some the shock factor was short-lived. They raised accusations of fraud.

  “Huracid, if you’ll introduce those who can physically join us?”

  Huracid bowed and opened the conference room door. As planned, a procession of aliens entered. He introduced them and aides escorted them to their seats. Most wore varying atmosphere suits and one appeared to wear nothing at all, except a breathing mask. Another somehow made walking on six spindly legs look smooth and graceful. I suppressed a shiver as its feet clicked around the table and it crawled up onto a box between two horrified humans. They probably thought the same thing I did. It was one big-assed spider.

  Accusations evaporated.

  With my one chance to screw with my human counterparts over, I focused on the task. “Shall we begin?” All eyes turned to me again. “We need to address the impending threat. There are members of the IGF who doubt the validity, or question why we need to be involved at all. We don’t have time to debate this issue endlessly. Today we will find agreeable solutions.”

  Instructed on protocol before the meeting, a small light drew my attention to one of the four IGF battleship commanders sent to investigate this alien first contact.

  He leaned forward way too far, trying to make it an aggressive posture. “Aren’t we missing someone from this audience? You’ve referred to the Elders, but where are they?” He waved his hand abstractly around the table. “Why didn’t they send a representative? Why can’t we speak to them directly?”

  Huracid’s light flickered. He bowed his head and shoulders across the table. “The Malant Ghiya and the EH speak as their… descendants.”

  “The what?” He snipped back at Huracid.

  “The Malant Kalpana Ghiya.” Huracid gestured at me. “Malant… leader, guide… voice.”

  It was not something I had a choice in. Both he and Everett agreed that ‘captain’ would garner no respect from the humans. For the Collective, a Malant was a spiritual leader. I felt nothing like that, but as the link between two species, it was the closest description.

  “YES, yes, yes, Capt. Ghiya…”

  “MALANT!” Huracid’s voice boomed across the room at the officer’s insult.

  The commander started to protest, but failed to follow protocol. The computer drowned him out with a noise filter. He slapped the request button and pursed his lips tight as I overrode other requests to let him finish. “These Elders appear to be rewriting history and at this rate, the future too. We’re to be held hostage by some mass delusion propagated by this woman and her…her…” Gurgling sounds replaced words.

  The commander reached for his throat, glaring at me, but I shrugged my shoulders, looking around the table to see the smirk on another commander’s face. Commander Gardner, significantly higher ranked than our gagging guest. At her shoulder stood a menacing colonel, an EH. The first commander transferred his glare to her.

  Casually her hand reached out and requested permission to speak. “That’s right, Joe. Cast your dirty looks over here.” She smirked as her colonel continued his
influence to keep the man’s words contained behind his tongue. “We will not start this meeting with petty prejudices. The EH are equal citizens in the IGF.” She bowed her head to me.

  “Thank you. Commander Gardner.”

  She gave me that sly smile. “We concede the Collective forces are, forgive the term, a legitimate alien force. To include the cloud of Elders, with you, Malant Ghiya, representing their presence.” She gave an obvious glance to Commander Joe. His lips were clamped shut, still fuming. “I have conveyed this information to IGF Command myself, and speak as their representative to formally ask what you want from the IGF.”

  She wasn’t one for unnecessary fluffing of anyone’s ego. I bowed my head to her. “As you have all heard, a war is coming. One our galaxy is unprepared for. A war already fought once by the Elders. That was long before our civilizations truly existed outside of clans. But after eons of time, this enemy has returned to threaten us all.”

  Everyone at the table, alien, EH and human knew what I wanted, but she needed it said out loud. Officially. I leaned forward, keeping my eyes fixed to hers. “First, we want the IGF to recognize an impending threat from outside our galaxy. Ceris M. was the first casualties of this invasion. We need our colonies on alert and every effort extended to defend them. Where we sit today is the front line of our defenses.”

  She didn’t bat an eye.

  “Secondly, “We have called all EH capable for fighting, to join us. They have responded and are gathering to be transported, but the IGF needs to take the lead in bringing them to us. We want every trained EH soldier on a ship and on their way here. As soon as humanly possible, or…” I shifted my gaze to Huracid. “…sooner.”

  His helmeted head tipped in that angle where I knew I reached his thoughts. That moment of silence in the room encouraged Commander Joe to break his silence. “This is supposed to be an open meeting, yet you’re using EH tricks to communicate without us.”

  Huracid leaned his big frame forward. “Malant Ghiya asks if the Collective could expedite the arrival of IGF ships. Our ships are capable of speeds your ships are not.” He turned to Gardner. “With the permission of the IGF, we could transport ships safely, as we did the medical evacuation ship.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  The lights from the other three officers lit up, protesting before given the floor. Finally, Gardner stood up. “Enough!” That silenced her fellow officers. She remained standing. “The IGF concurs that Ceris M. is the first casualty of an invasion. The IGF will take immediate action. This war can’t take place here, not on our doorstep. We are not technologically advanced enough to go against anything capable of doing that…” She gestured to the images of the Collective’s devastated colony world. “…level of destruction.”

  Huracid’s colony world was far more advanced than I’d thought from our first talk. There had been large cities and a network of transportation. As compared to our ‘colonies’, where they really did scrape to build basic villages. What we called our ‘wild west’. Our colonists had simply been gathered up, where Huracid’s entire colony world had been scoured to nothing but rubble. The dead left where they fell. No one left to even mourn them.

  “Arguing about the ‘threat’ of the Collective crossing into our territory is ridiculous, on too many levels. The Malant has called out to the EH, everywhere, and they have responded. They intend to come here, by whatever means, to fight a war to protect all our people. The IGF must respond. We must step up and join the collective in taking this war to the enemy. Any less of a response will only result in our humiliation or destruction. Or both.”

  I pressed my leg to Everett’s “We have an ally.” Gardner gave each of her fellow officers a look of warning. Then she gazed at me. “Now that we have formally requested and accepted terms, let’s get on with figuring out how to make it all work.

  Commander Gardner bowed her head to Huracid. “IGF ships are incapable of making it here quickly. If Collective ships can expedite the process, I will secure…” A smirk curled her lips up on one side. “…safe passage to make rendezvous with IGF ships.”

  She resisted scoffing out loud. The IGF couldn’t stop the Collective from going anywhere they wanted. She turned to her left. “Commander Faraday. Meet your new best friend, Commander Huracid.”

  I wondered, briefly, if I was supposed to be offended as Commander Gardner took over my meeting. Briefly. As in as long as it took to exhale a sigh of relief.

  Everett seemed to agree, following her orders as the com board was disengaged to allow free conversations. Bodies shifted around the board as Gardner matched her personnel to Huracid’s. I remained quietly on the sidelines, amused.

  ‘Joe’, got left to the side, or rather the rear, assigned to take up the defensive line at Ceris M., while the other two commanders were assigned to the offensive. Everett joined her and the EH colonel as she started her official reports back to IGF Command.

  To my right, Commander Faraday finally sat himself down next to Huracid, having been patiently waiting. If that was what you could call the expression on his face and the electrically charged thoughts radiating from him. He reconsidered sitting, as Huracid overshadowed him, but then seemed to accept that it was a moot point. Huracid would always be huge.

  He stared at Huracid. “Your ships can really carry other ships, larger than the med evac?”

  Huracid rumbled, a scary sound, until you got to know he was only laughing. “My ship can transport two of this class.” He gestured to the ship around us. “We have three ships available. More will arrive.”

  The news got an eyebrow lift from Faraday. I liked his aura of inquisitiveness. “That’s incredible! You can carry two ships? This size? This weight? How far?”

  “It is not incredible. It is a fact.” Huracid sounded offended, but then he laughed again. “Ahhh, it was not a condemnation. Yes, Commander Fa…ra…day. Two of this class, possibly a third smaller ship. Mass is not an issue. Therefore distance is neither.”

  Faraday laughed. “For you! This information is… surreal. I’d love to learn more about your FTL systems, how you manage this. Any chance...” He shook his head, frowning. “…I really must control the engineer in me. The task is to coordinate getting our ships here. Would you like to accompany me to the Bridge? We can start identifying targets and have them arranged by the time Commander Gardner has our clearance.”

  “It would be my honor.” Huracid started unfolding himself from the crouched up position he’d assumed to remotely fit at the table.

  Faraday gaped for a moment, then snapped his mouth shut. “Man, I gotta see inside your ship.” He laughed, standing up again. “Right this way, Commander.” Faraday bounced ahead of Huracid, easily keeping up with the giant’s longer steps, thanks to reduced gravity.

  Part of me wanted to tag along to see how these two got along, but Huracid’s vibe said he liked this human too. I let them go, remaining at the table and watching the other groups around the room coalesce.

  It was odd, sitting here alone, but absorbed into all the conversations. Listening in, gathering information. A few weeks ago I struggled with just the voices in my own head. Now it was almost second nature to be spread everywhere. Was this how the Elders felt, in their own connected cloud of energy? Removed, but there.

  The feeling of being connected, disappeared. I wasn’t some ethereal cloud of matter, but flesh and bone, and alone. An outsider in the war I was supposed to be leading. I slipped from my spot and started to physically make my way around the groups.

  I didn’t get far before our disgruntled commander blocked my path. “Ms. Ghiya!” His voice was low, his eyes squinted. “You might have everyone else bewitched like your precious EH, but I’m not buying any of this invasion crap.”

  “Joe, I assure you—"

  His squinting eyes turned to mere slits and the vein over his right eye bulged. “My title is Commander Harding!”

  I could feel him on the edge of rational thought and should probably have
backed off, but I returned the lethal stare. “And, as you’ve been informed already, I am the Malant! Joe!” Everett stood up, but I held my arm out to stop him from intervening.

  Everett held his position.

  I’d never taken my eyes off the commander. “You got something to say, Joe? Say it now. It’s the only chance you’re going to get.”

  That vein in his forehead was getting bigger, especially with all eyes on him and my not backing down like he expected. His nostrils flared. “You want us to just step back and let these aliens waltz right into IGF territory. All on the premise that we’re about to be invaded by yet another group of aliens worse than this lot.”

  “Seriously, Joe? Have you not looked out there at their ships? If they want in, the Collective or the Punitraq, the IGF has absolutely nothing to stop them. We’re outgunned, technically and physically. If the Elders say that we EH are a viable weapon against what’s coming at us, and we’re willing to fight this battle, then who the hell are you to object?”

  His nostrils all but shot out fire at me. Joe’s facial muscles were clenching as he ground his teeth. I was surprised he could get a word out through his clenched jaw. “You have no proof of this supposed invasion. For all we know, this is a ploy to disable our defenses by taking all our EH away from us.”

  I let his words sit on the air, feeling every EH in the room cringe, as well as many of the humans. I rolled my head, stretching out the tension settling into my neck, standing up straighter as I took a step closer to him. Into his personal space. I knew he was the type to hold his ground, but I could feel my body emitting energy. He flinched.

  Good. He was mine now. “First off, Joe. I’m EH. I don’t ‘belong’ to anyone. No EH ‘belongs’ to anyone. We haven’t for a very long time. That you still think of us as property, as weapons to be used at your will, is beyond an insult to every EH.”