by Bianca D'Arc
It seemed no female was immune to his charm. Jana had tried so hard to be the exception, but it all seemed for naught. Not that she’d let him know the extent of her uncontrollable attraction for him. She would die of embarrassment if he ever found out how she really felt about him.
And now, they were stuck together on this small ship where the crew engaged in sexual orgies whenever the mood struck. Jana didn’t know how she was going to handle this. Already, she knew she could not hide out in the shielded room she’d been in before.
She’d been assigned duties on the ship, to help keep it running. She was on a work rotation with everyone else. She’d been given crew quarters. It was a luxurious room for a starship, but its placement was problematic. Her room was directly next to the captain’s quarters—Darak’s suite. In order to get out of the crew area of the ship, she had to use a corridor that passed not only his door, but also the open hatchway to the recreation area.
Jana knew that was where off-duty crew hung out together—and engaged in all sorts of scandalous activities. She tried not to look as she walked past the open arch of the room, but she had already seen two of the younger crewmembers fucking the blue-skinned Loadmaster—a woman named Trini. One had been seated on the huge couch while Trini rode his cock, and then, as Jana watched helplessly, the other young man had stuck his cock in her rear. Trini’s moans followed Jana down the hall, much to her mortification.
When she finally arrived on the bridge for her turn on comm duty, she knew her face was bright red. Her cheeks were hot, but there was nothing she could do about it except to take her station and pretend nothing was amiss. It wasn’t until Darak walked onto the bridge a moment later and caught her eye that she knew her ruse wasn’t quite working. He gave her a knowing smile before turning to receive the reports from the previous shift.
It was a small ship, tightly run, with a small crew. Jana had met most of them already, and found it easier than she had thought it would be to make a place for herself among them. At least as far as ship’s duties went. A lot of the skills she must have learned while under control of the collective were coming back to her. Skills related to reading navigational charts, assessing system readouts, plotting courses in three-dimensional space while allowing for fluctuations due to gravity wells and debris fields. All of these specialized space faring skills had stayed with her, much to her surprise.
A lot of what she had been subject to since her kidnapping, all those years ago, was a blur. Frankly, she was glad of that. The little she did remember of the things that had been done to her was horrific enough. The mind healer had told her that some of it might never come back, and maybe that was a blessing. He told her that the human mind often developed surprising ways to protect itself, and that perhaps, her mind had done so.
They’d managed to retrieve the memories that had been sitting closest to the surface. Truly awful things that she had to deal with in order to recover and move on with her life. But some parts of her experience were more deeply buried, and best left the way, at least for the time being. He’d warned her that being on a ship in space again might trigger certain recollections—and it certainly seemed that way, judging by the skill set she had managed to access. Maybe more would come back to her. Or maybe not.
Patience was the order of the day, though Jana couldn’t quite remember if she had ever been a patient person. Regardless, these things couldn’t be rushed, she had been warned. If the memories came, she would have to deal with them as best she could.
Jana found work on the bridge to be both interesting and stimulating, though a small part of her itched for command. The captain’s chair looked awfully comfortable, and somehow, she seemed to recall having felt right at home in command of an armada.
When such thoughts occurred to her, Jana felt distinctly uncomfortable. She’d heard what she had done with that armada. They’d been following her commands—her lead—when she had ordered the destruction of a good portion of the peaceful, agricultural planet of Liata. Many innocent people had died, and it had been by her command.
The only way she could deal with the guilt was that she knew those commands had come from the Voice. The collective had spoken to her through the command crystal. The Voice had been her constant companion. She had been its pawn, its dupe, its puppet. She hadn’t really been in control of the armada. Hells, she hadn’t even been in control of her own mind. She had simply fulfilled the Voice’s commands, issuing orders to the armada that had been implanted into her consciousness. So, it hadn’t really been her decision to kill all those people. It had been the Voice. The hateful, insidious, despicable Voice.
The Voice of the collective had controlled her utterly and made her do things she couldn’t even bring herself to contemplate. It had ruined her life. It had taken away all of her choices, all of her hope, and what she thought would be all of her life.
And then, Jeri had come. Jeri and this tiny, formidable, spunky little ship full of adventurers and Talents. The Circe and her crew had saved Jana. Unexpected, unprecedented and unanticipated, this ship had brought salvation, though at the time, Jana hadn’t been able to appreciate it with the Voice still whispering in her mind and controlling her thoughts.
And it had brought Darak.
But the Council was the sworn enemy of the collective. So many of Jana’s missions had been against Council worlds and holdings. She knew they viewed her as an enemy, and her actions as acts of war against the Council. She had fully expected to be put on trial for war crimes when they arrived, but instead, she had been taken to hospital and healed.
Her body would never be the same, though they’d tried their best to help her. Mentally, they had tried to help her, too. The mindhealer had done all he could with her in the time they had together, but had told her honestly the full healing would take a lot more time. He had helped her begin the process, but it was an ongoing one, that could last the rest of her life.
Being busy helped. She liked the routine of the ship. She had a job and a purpose in helping keep the ship functioning at top levels. She enjoyed sitting watch on the bridge with the others and had become friendly with some of the crewmembers, to a certain extent. There was still a degree of distrust. They didn’t really know what to make of her. They all knew of her origins. They’d seen her lead the attack force against Liata.
And they’d seen her after. When she was too damaged to move and close to death. And since most of this crew had been on that voyage, they had all been affected by the shattering of the crystal.
Most of them probably should have stayed on Geneth Mar, continuing to learn about their new abilities and levels of power, but everyone from the old crew—with the exception of the former captain of the Circe and his new bride—had signed on for Darak’s maiden voyage as captain and newly minted StarLord. Agnor, in particular, probably should have stayed behind. His increase in power was still not fully understood. He’d started the previous voyage as a Specitar, and while he remained one, he was able to do so much more than he could have previously.
Specitars usually fit somewhere between Mages and Mage Masters in overall strength, but excelled only in specialized areas. Agnor’s specialty was telepathy. Even before the change, he could reach farther with his mind than almost anyone, except perhaps Shas and most Viziers, but his other psychic skills were not that strong, except perhaps his cognition. He had developed his mental processes—influenced by the telepathy—so that he could solve scientific problems faster than most computers, using human intuition that comps just didn’t have.
Jana had learned that Specitars were given seats on the Mage Council but also had their own Board of Specitars, which was a subsection of the Council devoted to scientific and technological matters. Agnor also served a special function aboard the Circe. He was there to send telepathic messages directly back to Geneth Mar. There was no known way to intercept such messages, which made them utterly secure.
But distance was still a factor. At least it had been on that last
voyage. After the psi wave, Agnor’s telepathic reach had extended far beyond anything anyone had seen before. He’d been able to ‘path directly back to their home planet from half a galaxy away, without using the relay Talents employed and stationed around the galaxy by Geneth Mar’s intelligence service. Agnor had ‘pathed directly to the Grand Vizier, Darak’s Uncle Brandon, right after the change, and it had raised many eyebrows.
Agnor should still probably be back on Geneth Mar, being tested and examined. His was a rare Talent, among so many Talented people. Just as Micah and Jeri were now cosseted Shas, Agnor, too, should probably be receiving similar treatment, but he had steadfastly refused to give up his position as science officer and comm tech on the Circe. Underneath the ascetic exterior and formal robes of the Specitar, Agnor seemed to have an adventurer’s heart.
And he was as horny as the rest of these Council folk. More than once, Jana had seen him balls deep in one of the female crewmembers. He hid a very lean, muscular body under those robes, and Jana was embarrassed to admit she had taken notice. She explained away her fascination with watching him fuck Seta in the rec room as the shock of realizing the tall man was hiding quite a physique under those concealing robes of his. And, if her ladyparts seemed to twinge in…yearning? That couldn’t be possible. Could it?
Jana had turned away from that particular scene, both confused and embarrassed. She’d gone to her cabin and tried in vain to sleep for what seemed like hours. When she finally emerged from her room the following shift, she was tired and out of sorts. Darak left her alone, for once, not commenting on her mental state—which she was certain he knew. He was still shielding her when she wasn’t in her cabin, and he had to pick up on her frazzled energy.
The cabin was the only place of true privacy for her. She was able to engage a reflective field, which would not allow anyone to use psi energy without a great deal of pain. She was safe within the field. Safe from the murmuring voices of the collective. Safe from the empathic senses of the rest of the crew—particularly Darak. Just…safe.
But it really was all just an illusion. She was in a small ship, hurtling through space, possibly headed into danger. The future was uncertain. They were on a Council mission, and that could mean just about anything. Jana hadn’t been told the specifics of Darak’s orders. She didn’t need to know them. All she had to do was play her part, as requested, when the time came.
She didn’t know what that would entail exactly, but she had agreed to help the Council and aid Darak in his mission. She had switched allegiances. Not that she’d ever had a choice in her allegiance to the collective. They’d simply demanded. At least the Council had asked nicely.
Jana wasn’t quite sure what they would have said, or done, it she had refused. For her sister’s sake, and for her own, she really had no other choice than to become a good little citizen of the Council. Jana had nowhere else to turn. The only family she had left in the entire universe was her sister. So, where Jeri went, Jana would follow. They’d been separated long enough as it was.
* * *
Frustration wasn’t something that Darak handled well. In fact, he couldn’t remember a time in his life where he’d been under more pressure and unable to accomplish what he’d set out to do. In this case, all he really wanted was to help Jana recover fully. And, for a citizen of a Council world, full recovery included sex. Lots and lots of sex.
But Darak had to tread lightly with Jana. She’d been through things that the vast majority of people on Council worlds never experienced. With the level of Talent all around on every Council world, the empaths and telepaths, sensitives and telekinetics, rapists never got very far in their plans before somebody became aware and did something about it.
Jana’s case was unique in Darak’s experience. He knew how to heal her physical wounds, but the mental ones made him feel just a bit out of his depth. He’d spent a lot of time with the mind healer, asking questions and trying to learn as much as he could before they left Geneth Mar, but it didn’t feel like enough. He’d been counseled to watch and wait for Jana to make the first move. She had to be Darak’s guide. She had to decide when she was ready to take the next steps of her road to full recovery.
So, when he’d come upon her watching Agnor fuck Seta senseless in the rec room one evening, he’d held back in the corridor and watched her reaction. She hadn’t run away. Not at first. No, Darak had been surprised to note that Jana had stayed in the doorway, watching the oblivious couple for a few very long minutes.
The expression on her face had been hard to decipher. Darak had viewed her from the side, stationed farther down the hall where she couldn’t see him, so he could see her profile. Her eyes had widened, and her mouth opened in shock, but before too long, curiosity had replaced surprise, though her cheeks had flamed with heat. She was embarrassed by what she saw, but also intrigued.
Darak took that as a hopeful sign—until she’d fled.
He gave a great deal of thought to how he should handle her. She seemed tired and cranky. He didn’t want to push her so off balance that she lashed out. He didn’t want her hatred. Far from it. So, he decided to let any teasing he otherwise would have engaged in with any other crewmember, pass without comment. Something was building—changing—within her, and he didn’t want to stifle it in any way. If she was finally ready to come out of her shell, he wanted to do all he could to encourage it.
Which is why, the very next day, he arranged something that might just push her to the next level.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Darak had taken great care in organizing the crew schedule, with the full endorsement and cooperation of the bridge crew. In particular, he arranged a nice long double shift for Sita, to get her into the nighttime rotation, so she could keep a better eye on the yeoman crewmembers that were running the graveyard shift. It was something they had intended to do all along, but hadn’t quite gotten there, yet. Now was as good a time as any and had the added benefit of creating a scenario that might be beneficial to Jana’s recovery.
Or not. Darak didn’t know how this was going to turn out. He might just be pushing too hard.
But one thing was for certain—he couldn’t go on with this incredible level of frustration eating at him. He had to try something. It would either work or fail miserably, but at least they’d be moving in a direction—forward or back, he just wasn’t sure.
Seta sat her double shift, making a great show of yawning and stretching as Darak and Jana stepped onto the bridge, ready to start their own daytime shift. Day and night were merely conveniences used to help the crew keep track of time, but the terms were ambiguous when you were on a spaceship, jogging from star to star.
“Good morrow, Seta, how goes the night shift?” Darak asked, unable to conceal his good mood. He was eager to see how the events he had put into motion would play out.
“I guess I’m not as young as I used to be, Captain,” Seta said with a good-natured smile. She had once been a sex slave and came from a highly permissive world where some Talents trained to bring others to orgasm using their powers of telepathy or telekinesis alone.
Seta dressed in skimpy clothing, which emphasized her lovely body. More often than not, her breasts were visible, the piercings in her nipples adorned with a variety of jewelry she had picked up or been given by past lovers and friends. She was a highly sexual being, and every man on the crew had enjoyed her warmth and open nature many times, including Darak, though come to think of it, he hadn’t had sex with her—or any woman, for that matter—since they’d rescued Jana.
Darak knew that was significant, but he didn’t spend too much time thinking about it. His focus had to be on Jana and her recovery. Whatever they would be to each other would sort itself out later. If she could get past her scars and the horrible things that had been done to her under the collective’s despotic rule.
“I’m sorry to hear that, Seta. Perhaps Agnor could give you a boost before you leave, if you’re so inclined.” Darak nodded to the tall scienc
e officer who had just arrived on the bridge for his shift.
Agnor smiled at Seta, and she smiled back at him. They were about to enact the plan Darak had hatched with them hours ago.
“Would you care to join us?” Seta asked Darak with a purring sort of smile as she stepped into Agnor’s arms.
Darak was aware of Jana’s quick intake of air as if she’d been startled by the question. He was pleased by her reaction. She was aware of what was about to happen, and somehow, his participation—or lack of it—mattered to her.
“Sadly, no. Not this time. Someone has to run the ship, after all,” Darak quipped. Seta laughed as Agnor swooped down and placed a kiss on her neck.
Then, Seta did something that wasn’t in the plan. She looked pointedly at Jana, making eye contact as Agnor ravished her neck and moved lower.
“Darak hasn’t been with any of us since becoming captain. Even before that,” Seta told Jana in a conversational tone, even as Agnor began to kiss her nipples. “I’m not sure what you did to him, Lady Jana, but I think you might’ve ruined him for any other woman.” Seta smiled and winked at Jana. “Lucky girl.”
Seta moaned as her head dropped back, and she wrestled Agnor’s robes open, reclining back on the nav board she had switched into standby mode when her shift ended. It was just the right height, Darak knew from prior experience. And Agnor didn’t waste any time, sliding deep into Seta’s receptive body.
Jana’s face was scarlet as she stood frozen, not too far from Darak. He was afraid she would run, but instead, she seemed rooted to the spot, fascinated by what she was witnessing. Good. Darak could work with that.