by S. E. Smith
Destin didn’t understand all the specifics; he just knew that he didn’t want to tangle with that creature he had glimpsed from the air. The long tusks, six legs, and massive scaly body were formidable enough from a distance. He really did not want a closer look and was very happy that most travel on the planet was done by air.
The city he saw upon his arrival was magnificent. Large spiraling towers glittered with muted lights while transports moved along the ground and flew through the air. The tower on the far end spilled water from the top of the building in a dazzling waterfall into the Trivator-created reflection pond. Several of the transports disappeared under the reflection pool and reappeared on the other side. The more he saw, the more his excitement grew at the possibilities for Earth.
He paused at the top of the stone steps carved into the side of the cliff and looked out over the vast ocean. The sun wasn’t up yet, but there was enough light on the horizon to see the waves break on the outer reef. He stood still, appreciating the beauty and peacefulness of his surroundings.
Destin couldn’t remember the last time he had stopped to appreciate the beauty of anything. Death, destruction, fear, and responsibility had been his constant companion for as long as he could remember. He drew in a deep breath and released it.
No longer would that kind of destruction dominate his life. The Trivators’ first contact had plunged the Earth into a panicked chaos, but in the past two years, he began to see a change. Progress was being made to heal the wounds. For him, the most important indication that life was getting better was seeing his sister Kali’s glowing face and the living proof that there was hope for the future in his beautiful niece.
Originally, he had been reluctant to come, but Kali’s quiet plea and Tim’s, his second-in-command, assurance that the work Destin had done to restore a new Chicago would be carefully monitored by the team he had built convinced him that he needed the break. That reassurance, combined with his recent brush with death, reminded him of what was important – family. He felt like if he ever wanted a chance to see Kali again, and meet his niece, he had better rearrange his priorities. Until last night, he was convinced he had made the right decision. Now, he wasn’t so sure after hearing what happened on another alien world called Dises V.
Destin shook his head at his musings. No, even with what he knew now, he was still glad he came to visit. Seeing Kali again and meeting Ami gave him a renewed purpose to return to Earth and fight for a better life for others.
Focusing on the stone path in front of him, he started down the stairs. He needed a good run to help clear his mind. He might as well enjoy the last few days he had here while he could. Once he returned to Earth, there was a city to rebuild and a lot of fires to put out, among other possible threats.
At the bottom, his feet sunk into the powdered, snow-white sand. He took off at a brisk pace down the long narrow beach beside the looming cliffs. For a brief moment, he was able to lose himself in the enjoyment of his surroundings and replace thoughts of his nightmares with dreams of something better – dreams of rebuilding his city and maybe, just maybe, finding someone to share it with.
An hour later, Destin walked back along the beach. Sweat soaked his shirt and he pulled it off. There was a secluded cove farther down the beach that he discovered on his second day on the planet. He would take a quick swim before heading back to Kali and Razor’s house.
If he was lucky, Ami would be awake and waiting for him. His fourteen-month-old niece had taken a shine to him. It might have been all the toys he brought that put the hero worship in her eyes, but Destin didn’t care. He had planned a new gift for each day of his stay. Mabel, one of the grandmotherly women that was with the rebellion from the beginning, suggested it.
Destin crossed the empty beach and entered a hole amidst the rocks that had been carved by centuries of wind and water. The narrow gap glistened with natural crystals found in the rocks. Lifting his hand, he ran the tips of his fingers along the rocks. The crystals lit up under his touch. He would love to take some back to Earth with him so he could study them.
His hand fell to his side when he reached the opening leading to the small cove. Out of habit, he glanced around to make sure the area was secure, then walked over to a large boulder protruding from the sand. He tossed his sweat-dampened shirt onto it and pushed his jogging pants down. He stepped out of his pants and shook the loose sand off before he placed them on the boulder next to his shirt. Afraid he might lose the medallion he wore, he slipped it over his head and slid it into the pocket of his pants. His hand ran along the waistband of the jockey shorts he wore, but he kept them on. Life had taught him to never get caught with his pants down. You never knew when you might have to fight, and doing it in the buff could be a little distracting.
Destin walked to the edge of the water and stood looking outward. The gentle waves rolled over his feet and he curled his toes into the wet sand. A smile curved his lips and he slowly walked forward until he was waist deep. Drawing in a deep breath, he dove under the incoming wave, enjoying the refreshing feel of the water as it washed the sweat from his skin and cooled his heated flesh.
His arms swept out in front of him and his legs moved in strong, powerful kicks. The water was crystal clear and he could see the ripples in the white sand along the bottom. He swam as far as he could before his lungs burned and he was forced to surface for a breath of air. He turned onto his back and floated, lost in thought. The peacefulness of the moment, combined with the beauty and freedom of just watching the clouds, pulled the last of the tension he had woken up with out of his body. For a little while, he was alone in the universe with nothing else to worry about.
Jersula Ikera stomped across the soft sand in a foul mood. The thin, dark blue silk cover she wore clung to her lithe body and floated behind her. If anyone saw her from a distance, she would look like she was floating across the powdery white crystals that made up the sandy beach.
Her long white hair was unbound and blew around her. Her icy blue eyes flashed with an uncharacteristic fire and her pale blue lips were pressed into a firm line of irritation. She had come down to the beach to escape for a while, at least until she could find her center and restore the calm mask she relied on to interact with others.
A swift glance up and down the beach showed it was deserted. Jersula – Sula to her family and her few close friends – breathed a sigh of relief. She could mull over the orders she received early this morning in private. They were distressing, but she knew she needed to release some of the anger she was feeling if she wanted to get through the day without making a mistake that could devastate her career.
“Why? Why are they sending me to that horrible place again? Wasn’t once enough? Who could I have angered so much that they would send me there again?” she muttered under her breath.
Her mind flashed to the dozens of people that could be responsible. She knew her icy reserve and sometimes blunt attitude had angered certain members of the Usoleum Council, but she was always right in her assessments! It wasn’t her fault that most of the political members of the council were sweet, confused people who couldn’t think their way out of a wormhole.
Sula glanced back at her transport to see how far she walked along the beach. Not far; it seemed that stomping wasn’t the fastest way to travel.
The small transport glinted in the sunlight. It was given to her when she arrived on Rathon six weeks ago. She had hoped to be appointed the new ambassador between her people and the Trivators. That hope was brutally crushed when her new orders arrived this morning before dawn.
“No, I have to return to that horrible, war-torn excuse for a planet brimming with savages! Those uncultured, hostile, brutal beasts who were ignorant of any life forms outside of Earth until a few years ago! They haven’t even mastered space travel,” she snarled under her breath in frustration before her footsteps slowed and she blinked back tears of annoyance. “That is what they are… ignorant beasts!”
Her anger boiled when
she thought of her previous visit. The last time she had been to the primitive planet called Earth, her assignment was to assess the situation left by the previous ambassador who was killed, and it had been impossible to do anything when she received no support from the Trivators or the humans.
At the time, she was forced to wait two weeks before the Trivators would even allow her access to Councilor Badrick’s starship. By the time she was finally allowed to board, the previous crew had been recalled, a new crew assigned, and all of Councilor Badrick’s reports and personal files had vanished. The only things Sula was left with were a clueless crew, a Trivator named Cutter who had regarded her with suspicion, and a human male who had dismissed her with a look of contempt during their one and only meeting! It wasn’t until much later that she unraveled the reasons behind the Trivator and human’s animosity. Unable to blink back the tears of frustration this time, she lifted an impatient hand and brushed them away.
Sula had reported her initial findings on Badrick to the Council and her father, and within weeks of arriving on Earth, she was recalled to her home world, Usoleum. Believing she was being groomed to take over the Ambassador’s position at the Alliance Headquarters, she had worked day and night on a variety of issues, but it had all been for naught. She had discovered a hidden cache of Badrick’s files, and shortly after reporting the discovery, she was reassigned to Rathon. Here, she was to work with the Trivators to wring every bit of information possible from those files and to strengthen Usoleum’s relationship with the Trivators after the damage wrought by Badrick’s unconscionable behavior – a behavior that had mortified her family.
There were a large number of files to sift through, and in the meantime, she adhered to her assignment to grovel at the Trivators’ feet for the past six weeks. It should have shown the Usoleum Council that she would make an excellent Ambassador to the Trivator Council here on their planet. But once again, her hopes were crushed. Sula was the only living Usoleum with experience on Earth, and she was now reassigned there to finish her original task, which is to clean up the mess Badrick left behind – almost two Earth years later! Her only hope for any kind of real success with the humans lay in parsing useful information from those files. To get even the slightest bit of trust and good will on Earth, she needed to be able to answer the question preying on everyone’s mind: where were the rest of the missing human women?
Sula still had a couple of days left on Rathon, however, and part of reassuring the Trivators and the Alliance that everything was under control included attending some ceremony between a member of Chancellor Razor’s family and a Trivator warrior. It would begin in a couple of hours, and if she was not able to gain control of her emotions before the ceremony, her career would be in even worse shape than it already was.
“This is an insult!” Sula hissed, discarding her maudlin misery in favor of the more empowering anger she felt earlier. “If Father thinks my brothers are so much better at diplomacy than I am, then one of them should be the one to attend the ceremony, not me! When they need a problem solved, they send me in to fix it. Father knows I am more than qualified for the ambassador position. Yet he gives the position to Sirius, the progeny who is least qualified. All Sirius wants to do is chase women that he couldn’t do anything with and play at the gaming tables! He isn’t even fit to be – to be – to care for the racers in the stables, much less be the Ambassador to the Trivators,” Sula muttered with a slashing wave of her hand in the air.
Sula released a long sigh and stepped through the narrow chasm in the rocks. She gazed out at the water protected by the small cove for several seconds before she walked toward it, drawn to the soothing waves. She missed her world. It was mostly water and her people were born within its beautiful seas. They live on land, but the water is where they find solace.
Sula’s hand moved to the tie of the gown and she released it. The garment fell to the sand around her feet. Her body was covered in a form-fitting dark blue suit made for the water. She spread her fingers and the fine membranes between them spread like small webs. Stepping forward, she relished the first touch of the water against her skin. Pleasure coursed through her, cooling her fury and soothing her despair.
Her gaze scanned the water. The waves broke against the reef almost two hundred meters offshore. It would be a short swim for her, but she could do it several times before she had to return to her temporary lodging to prepare for the ceremony. Sula slowly walked forward until she was deep enough to sink down below the surface.
The two almost invisible slits along her neck opened and she drew water into her gills. The refreshing liquid filled the second set of lungs with life-giving fluid, extracting the oxygen trapped in the water into her blood when she exhaled. She loved living and working near an ocean. A shudder went through her when she thought of her next assignment. It was so far from the large oceans that covered most of Earth. There was a long, narrow lake, but it wasn’t the same. She would have to make periodic trips to the coast to satisfy her body's craving for the salty water.
And I’ll need to swim frequently to keep from killing that arrogant human male if he is still there, Sula thought. Perhaps I will be lucky and he will already be dead, and a more reasonable human will have replaced him.
Remorse swept through her at her hateful thoughts. It was so unlike her. She hated the idea of hurting anything or anyone. Her six older brothers teased her, saying that was why it was ridiculous that she would even consider becoming a member of the Alliance Council.
Sula pushed the negative thoughts away. She would lose herself in the pleasures of the ocean around her. Pushing off the bottom, her body cut through the crystal-clear liquid like a laser cutter through steel. All around her, colorful fish and plant life flourished in a world few could appreciate.
The cove was protected from the larger marine life that lived on the other side of the reef. She had researched Rathon’s oceanographic environment and decided it would be best to stay within the protected barriers that sheltered the coast line. ‘Nature’s unique fencing’ is the way Sula liked to think of it.
She was starting to feel more herself, more collected, but a wave of longing swept through her to just let go, to be wild for a few unadulterated minutes – not the frazzled, bitter release from the beach, but something… untouchable. To hell with her father’s belief that she wasn’t capable of dealing with the stress of being a leading member of the Usoleum Council or an integral part of the Alliance. She knew she could if she was given the opportunity.
Closing her eyes, she twisted until she was facing upward and allowed her body to slowly sink to the bottom. She relaxed her arms and a serene smile curved her lips. Maybe she would just forget about the ceremony and stay here all day. It wasn’t as if it really mattered if she attended. No one, especially the Trivator male and his human mate, would even miss her.
Finally, the peace that Sula was searching for settled over her. Her body floated above the soft white sand. The light from the rising sun created shafts of glittering beams that reflected off the silver threads in her bodysuit and made them sparkle like diamonds. She was unaware of how ethereal she looked against the satin bottom of the ocean, or the fact that she wasn’t alone.
Chapter 2
Destin dove beneath the waves and began swimming toward shore. As much as he hated it, he needed to get back to the house. He had promised Ami that he would make her some mouse-shaped pancakes this morning just like he used to do for her mommy.
He swam only a short distance when he caught a glimpse of something sparkling under the water. Surfacing, he glanced around with a frown before he took a deep breath and dove back down. He blinked when he saw the body of a young woman floating along the bottom. His heart thundered in dismay. He had seen enough death in his lifetime. The beautiful woman floating serenely near the bottom was too young to face such a fate.
Kicking downward with hard, powerful strokes, he reached for her. His eyes burned from the salt water, but he refused to clos
e them. He grabbed her arm and quickly pulled her against his hard length, then changed his grip to hold her more securely around the waist as his feet pushed off the bottom.
Her slender hands clutched his bare shoulders, and her brilliant, light blue eyes snapped open. Destin and the woman locked gazes in mutual shock. Her delicate, pale blue lips parted, and Destin was afraid she would instinctively draw in a mouthful of water. Unsure of what else to do, he covered her lips with his. The moment his lips touched hers, a wave of heat swept through him and he couldn’t help but wonder if he had captured a real, live siren.
Destin knew he should release her – or at least her lips – when they surfaced, but the fire that had ignited when he had pressed his lips to hers appeared to have short-circuited that part of his brain. She was not helping his resolve, either. Her hands tightened on his shoulders, but she didn’t push him away and her soft lips trembled slightly as her breath mingled with his. It took several seconds before he finally forced his body to obey his command to stop. He reluctantly lifted his head, but still kept her firmly pressed against him.
“Are you okay?” he asked, blinking to clear his eyes of the salt water.
“I… You… Of course, I’m… You!” the woman sputtered before her eyes widened in recognition. “You aren’t supposed to be here!”
Destin’s lips curved up at the corners. “Where am I supposed to be?” he asked with a raised eyebrow, studying her face with a growing sense of dismay. “I know you…,” he started to say.
“You should be back on that horrid, barbaric world,” the woman snapped, pushing against his shoulders. “Release me!”
Recognition hit Destin hard. His arms slackened enough that the woman – Jersula Ikera – was able to pull away from him. She pushed at the water to put some space between them, her light blue eyes flashing with fire. This was a much different woman than the one he had briefly met back on Earth. This one was…. The sudden image of a siren flashed through his mind.