Defending Hippotigris

by Smith, T. L.

  Defending

  Hippotigris

  an

  Interstellar Alliance

  novella

  T. L. Smith

  This book is a work of fiction. All characters, places, organizations and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblances are entirely coincidental.

  Defending Hippotigris

  Copyright© 2013 by T. L. Smith

  All rights reserved.

  Cover Design by T. L. Smith

  Cover Art contributing artist/photographers:

  Spectral-Design/Getty Images

  Shmeljov/Getty Images

  Icholakov/Getty Images

  ISBN-13: 978-1494455804

  ISBN-10: 1494455803

  Acknowledgements

  There are so many people to acknowledge, I have to keep it simple.

  A huge thanks goes to my mother, Patsy, who never discouraged me from going after whatever I wanted, even if secretly she thought I was crazy for wanting to be a writer. And yes, Chuck, I am writing at 3am.

  Another thanks to the rest of my family and friends, who cheer me on as I stumble over each hurdle. The kids-Denita, Adam, Devion, Jayden and Kullen. Rick and Brenda, my movie night buddies, and my brother Bill, who introduced me to Science Fiction.

  A special thanks to all my writing friends, particularly Gini Koch, the Wyked Women Who Write and Dr. Bruce Davis, for helping me learn to do my craft better and who make Cons a blast. And my dear friend Sandra Bowen. Love our editing sessions over long lunches, or is that the other way around?

  And always, I have to thank thereaders who want to share in my insanity. Read on!

  .

  Want more from

  T. L. Smith?

  Check out her other books.

  Scent of Treachery - an Interstellar Alliance novella

  Jayda Maldonado exiled herself from humanity, but even a distant space station isn’t far enough to escape the attention of a charming freighter captain and a conspiracy that can kill everyone aboard.

  The Thing Down the Road

  Be wary of road-side freak shows. You may not like what you find.

  Or visit her at:

  http://www.tlsmithbooks.com

  CHAPTER ONE

  U.N. Space Alliance – 2198 CE

  Remy leaned closer. “Are you all right, Shara?” He whispered in my ear, though it was more of a shout over the noise in the bar. The official reunion was several days away, but we’d come in early for the week of bar-hopping and ‘remember when’ tales.

  “You look bothered.” He stroked my leg. “Lizzy’s stories never irked you before?”

  I laid my head back on his arm to gaze into his big brown eyes. His long eyelashes still got my heart beating when he fluttered them at me. “I don’t know, just tired. Think anyone would mind if we left?”

  There they went, flutter-flutter, thump-thump. A smile glistened against his creamy latte skin. “We’re on leave.” His lips brushed against my ear and out came his Euro-Spanish accent. “I can show you more R&R.”

  His hand slipped up the inside of my thigh and I grabbed his wrist.

  “Lizzy!” She had her audience enraptured with another story, making it twice as hard to get her attention. Remy made it even more impossible. I couldn’t pull his hand away without being obvious, and I was beginning to not want to. “LIZZY!”

  “WHAT!” From the wicked glint in her eyes she heard me the first time.

  Remy slid out of the booth and pulled me with him. “Sorry to break up the party, but Shara’s just off temporary duty and she’s fighting jetlag. You’ll excuse her?”

  “Jetlag. Right...” Lizzy wagged her finger at us. “Girlfriend, if I just came home to a stud like Remy, I’d jump his bones too. You know, Remy, Shara and I shared everything growing up. Did she ever tell you about sophomore year at ASU?”

  My face turned all the hotter. That was a story I hadn’t shared and I couldn’t get Remy out of the bar fast enough, followed by cat calls before the doors closed.

  Remy looked back through the window as Lizzy threw him an obscene gesture. “She sells children’s books with a mouth like that, and what about ASU?”

  I refused to look inside, knowing all too well what Lizzy was capable of. “I’m beginning to wonder how we stayed best friends.”

  Remy swung his head around to look at me. “Wow! Seriously? You two have been attached at the hip since first grade.” He tightened his arm around my shoulders. “I’m beginning to worry about you. All these TDYs are taking a toll. You’ve been… distracted… and something else I can’t put my finger on.”

  “Give me a few days and I’ll be fine.” Being a head shorter than Remy, I was able to huddle into his side as a cold evening breeze blew.

  Framed between the buildings of downtown Colorado Springs, was a nearly full moon. With the brilliance of its glow, I could see a spider web of lights from our home, the Peary Moon Base. The first solid accomplishment of the U.N. Space Alliance.

  Odd, how we’d been there long enough to think of it as home, though I spent half my time traveling. A shiver ran through me. “I’m tired and cold.”

  “Well, I’ll take care of cold first.” Remy grinned down at me. He tugged me into the hotel’s entrance and across the tiny lobby to the elevators.

  Though we’d stayed here often over the years, I couldn’t resist looking around. The hotel boasted late 22 nd century amenities, but they’d tried to recapture the old-world elegance of early 20th century art-deco. Bronze-hued mirrors, gold streaked black marble and red mahogany wood paneling covered every surface, adding warmth to the lobby the holographic fireplace failed to accomplish. Even the elevator’s walls reflected back that finely aged comfort as the doors opened.

  For a few seconds I admired the craftsmanship, until Remy whipped me into his arms and kissed me. After his escapade in the bar, I eagerly wrapped my legs around his waist. Thankfully the elevator was modern and the height of the building modest, otherwise we might have given security more to see before the fake-ancient bell announced our floor.

  I clung to Remy as he carried me the few doors down to our room. A couple steps past the door, he leaned me against the wall to rip my shirt open. His kisses were hard and deep, and from the feel of his hips grinding against me, I wanted the rest of him doing the same. Remy carried me the last few steps to our bed and dropped me onto it. In seconds he had my boots and pants off, then his.

  He kept his promise. I wasn’t cold anymore, not with my body curled so perfectly against him. His leg wrapped over mine and his arms held me tight. I loved the warmth of his breath against the back of my neck. This is what I missed so desperately on TDY, feeling this total serenity.

  I snuggled deeper into the downy cocoon of our bed. Sleep had been difficult since I got back. Tonight I’d reached that state where ordinary things made me edgy. But Remy fixed that problem too. I felt myself drifting off, though memories still played in my head.

  This TDY left me so tired I’d been tempted to cancel our class reunion, but Remy insisted we come. Twenty years. We might not get the chance for another one. Time had changed everyone more than I thought it would.

  Some people I didn’t recognize at all, but Lizzy reminded us what a wild bunch we’d been. Always in some kind of trouble, usually at her hands. Remy laughed as hard as the other spouses, while new boyfriends were shocked at the vivid details Lizzy disclosed.

  I laughed along with them, until her stories shifted to our childhood, particularly her rendition of a second-grade escapade. She’d turned many of our adolescent experiences into children’s books. She usually didn’t stray too far from the truth, until now. This time she said we ran away because my
dad got rid of my dog.

  We didn’t run away and I didn’t have a dog. We did go camping. Her brother had a secret fort in the woods, down the hill from my house. It sat up the bank from the river. At least it seemed like a river to us, fifteen-feet wide and waist deep.

  The fort was the boys’ place to hang out. Girls weren’t allowed. Lizzy and I commandeered it while the boys were at summer camp. Tom-boys both of us, we had no problem camping out, eating the military rations her brother got from my dad, or getting up the next morning to go fishing.

  We took the cane-poles and climbed into their little boat, casting off into the river. What we didn’t remember were the oars. I thought I could pull us back to shore, but after several days of rain, the deeper river swallowed me. Lizzy managed to help me back into the boat, just before the current pulled us downstream.

  The further we drifted away from the fort, the less familiar and darker the woods got. To a couple of seven-year-old girls, we envisioned ending up in China. It wasn’t long before we alternated between crying and screaming for help.

  Then the river bent around a curve and dumped us into the town lake. We’d have gotten over the embarrassment of not really being lost, except half the town was there. They had a search party out to find us, since we hadn’t told anyone where we went.

  But why did Lizzy add the dog? Or that we ran away? Why did she change the story? A stab of pain crushed into my temples. Fire raged in my head as hands grabbed me, shaking me. My uncle’s face appeared. “Where have you been? What were you thinking? Your dad is crazy trying to find you. How could you do this after your mother…”

  No, it wasn’t Uncle Jimmy shaking me, yelling at me. “Wake up, Shara! Wake up!” Another face came into focus. “What’s wrong? Come out of it.”

  “Remy?” I could barely get my eyes open. My head pounded. Where was I? Our hotel. Colorado. “My head. Something’s wrong.”

  “I can see that. Hang on. I’ll get your meds.” He rushed to the bathroom, returning with the hypo and a wet towel. “These migraines are getting worse. You need to go back to the doctor.” He pressed the hypo into my shoulder and held the dripping towel against my face.

  It took a couple minutes before the imaginary hands ripping my head from my body eased up. I curled up, blocking everything out as I pressed my face into the towel.

  He pulled the heavy blanket around me as chills replaced the cramped muscles in my body. “Any better?” I could barely nod. “Okay, a couple more minutes.”

  His promise was good. Finally, I was able to breathe. “That’s not how I like to wake up.”

  “Me neither.” Remy gave me a half-smile. “Surprised the police aren’t knocking down the door the way you were screaming. That’s not normal, and with the dose I gave you, you should be asleep.” He swiped stray strands of hair out of my face. “The way you were irritated with Lizzy, I should have known something was off. Why didn’t you tell me you had a headache coming on?”

  “I didn’t feel it brewing. As for Lizzy, I’m not used to her changing her stories.”

  “What changes? They were the same stories I’ve heard a dozen times.”

  “No they weren’t.” I could see the incredulity on his face. “We didn’t run away and I never had a dog… a dog named...” A surge of pain swelled in my head again. “It didn’t happen that way.” Images flashed in my head of a huge dog with grey and black striped fur. “Zebra…”

  Saying the name set off another explosion in my head.

  CHAPTER TWO

  I’d given up trying to tell anyone I was awake. No one could hear me, not the doctors or nurses, not even Remy when they pushed him out of the room.

  I tried to make them hear me, to make him stay with me. Instead Remy and Lizzy leaned against the room’s window, staring in at me. I could see they were worried. Hell, Remy even hugged Lizzy.

  Something was definitely wrong. I had a headache, no… two headaches. Remy thought I was crazy because I said I never had a dog… but Lizzy talked about a dog named Zebra. The image of stripes flashed through my head and alarms sounded in my ears, followed by a whirling sensation that washed through my whole body.

  It didn’t take many rounds of ‘dog-Zebra-alarms and whoosh’ to realize cause and effect, ending with drugs. The dog’s name was Zebra. What an incredibly stupid name for a dog. Zebra must have been real, but why couldn’t I remember? But I was remembering. A grey and black striped dog, weird looking, all skinny and long-legged.

  Whoosh.

  Why was Remy still on the other side of the window? I wanted him with me. I was home again. I needed him. I didn’t need him on TDY. Then I was a biologist… no… yes, an astrobiologist? No? Things scrambled in my head. Was I a biologist? Really? It sounded too simple. Of course it did. I really worked as a… a… Whoosh.

  Hmmm, there was a word for it, but I couldn’t remember what it was. Just like I couldn’t remember Zebra.

  Suddenly I remembered and tears welled up in my eyes. Dad sent him to my uncle’s farm because he kept getting out of the yard. He ate things dogs shouldn’t eat. He got aggressive when people got too close to me. Dad was afraid he’d get killed and break my heart, but that happened anyway. A horse kicked him in the head and he was dead. “Zebra!”

  Alarms blared and I couldn’t see Remy and Lizzy anymore, not through clenched eyes. I tried to cover my ears, but nothing stopped the noise, or the pain. “Mrs. Batista…” Hands grabbed at my shoulders, holding me down. “Hit her with another pulse, 10 eps.”

  “Doctor, she’s not anesthetized.”

  “10 eps.” The hands gripped me harder. “Now, or I’ll get someone else.”

  Almost as soon as she said it, I felt something tighten around my head, my scalp tingled, then burned, and something surged down into my brain. It flowed into my whole body, as if I’d picked up an electrical wire, paralyzing me.

  I wanted to scream, but nothing worked. For an eternity it pulsed through me, but as it faded away, so did the pain.

  “Mrs. Batista. Can you hear me?” I opened my eyes and rolled them towards the voice. A woman stood over me, a lot younger than me.

  “Yes…” My voice came out a whisper.

  She smiled. “Good. I’m glad you’re reactive this time. I’m Dr. Parsons.”

  I shifted my eyes to the window. Remy leaned against the glass, but looked relieved. “What’s wrong with me?”

  “We’re still trying to figure that out. You were brought in last night in seizures. Your husband said you experienced a terrible migraine and some memory loss.” The doctor touched my shoulder, drawing my attention back to her. “Do you remember any of this?”

  “The headaches. I never had them like that before. Is there something wrong? A stroke or aneurysm?” I didn’t want to leap that far, but fear matched the pain.

  “Not according to scans.” Dr. Parsons gave me what she must have thought was a reassuring smile, but I could see the upturned corners of her lips were forced. “I need to examine you. Then I’ll let your family in for a few minutes.”

  “Okay.” As weak as I felt, I tried to focus on her, flexing my fingers and toes on command. I described my headaches. “I guess they’ve been getting more severe. My doctor prescribed a pain killer that seemed effective, until last night. As far as setting it off…” I hesitated again, bracing myself. “It was a story about… my dog… Zebra.”

  I felt a twinge, but also a tingle around my head. I wanted to reach up to feel what wrapped around my scalp.

  Dr. Parsons moved over to the computer, watching the waves on her screen alter. “Hmmm, so far so good. The scans say you were awake before, though unresponsive. What were you experiencing? Were you thinking about this dog when your headache hit?”

  “Yeah, I was. I couldn’t remember him, then the headaches started, but I remember him now and it doesn’t hurt.”

  The doctor turned and looked at me, frowning. “I’m afraid that’s not accurate. We have you hooked up to a Cerebral Impulse Regul
ator. This last attack let us tune the CIR, so now it delivers electrical impulses as soon as it recognizes a seizure.” She leaned on the railing of my bed. “We have to figure out why they’re happening. Can you tell me, when you were on TDY, were you involved in an accident or anything traumatic?”

  “No, it was just the usual TDY. I do DNA tests at our colonies…” My head tingled harder. The doctor spun back to her computer screen. “I’m only a biolog… owwww.” The pain spiked higher, as did the tingling. “Make it stop!”

  “The computer indicates you’re blocking your responses.” The doctor looked at me harder. “What happened? I can’t treat you if I don’t know.”

  “I’m not lying. Nothing happened. I just look for DNA... DAMN!” This time I tried to reach for my head, but my arms jerked up short by restraints. Not just my arms, my legs, my chest. “What the hell…” More spikes, alarms and the thing on my head burned. “Let me out of these!” I twisted my arms harder and one broke loose.

  Before I could free my other hand, the doctor was on me, trying to force my arm back into the restraint. I tossed her off me, but someone else pushed me back onto the bed. I took a swing, realizing just before my fist hit, it was Remy.

  He took the blow, but looked down at me stunned, his eyebrows scrunched nearly together in the center, though one arched higher than the other. “Shara, it’s me!”

  “Make them stop!” I clawed at his chest, the impulse to fight trying to surge out again. “Get this thing off me. Get me out of here. Please!”

  “No!” He leaned on me harder. “Something’s wrong and we’re not leaving until we know what it is.” He stared me down, eye-to-eye. “If you keep fighting, I’ll approve chemical restraints.” Married or not, he was using his officer-voice.