by May Sage
He shouldn’t have been surprised. Nothing and no one else would have completed him that way.
The day after that dream, things were quite uncomfortable for him. Her evil feline persisted in coming to his bridge, and this time Nalini did follow him. Seeing her so close to the chair where he’d eaten her out all night long—at least in his mind—amused and frustrated him, and made him readjust himself a few times.
Nalini didn’t dare sit anywhere when she came here. She simply lingered in the background, attempting, and failing, to remain unnoticed, until her neko consented to leave Kai’s arms. Then, she carried him down to his daily appointment at the vet.
Today, Kai just couldn’t bear it.
“Nalini.”
She lifted her eyes to where he stood on the command platform, in front of a holographic map of the sector marked with strategic notes.
Kai pointed to a familiar area. “You’ve lived in Itri. What do you think?” he asked.
She tiptoed until she came around the table, between Evi and Hart.
At her place. At long last.
Close to it, in any case.
“What am I looking at?”
Star clued her in. “The most vulnerable systems in our sector. We’re sending additional troops where we can. We can spare one command ship with five hundred light fighters, either going to the Var or Krazu.”
She bit her lip. “Don’t ask me, I’m biased. Against Itri,” she clarified.
Kai wanted to know why. He wanted to know everything about this female.
But he’d frightened her away once already with his forcefulness. Let her come to him now. Let her share parts of her because she wanted to.
And, at the end of the day, it mattered little. They could have flipped a coin about the direction of the handful of battalions.
“Krazu, then,” he settled. “Make the preparations.”
Evi nodded and moved to her station to get the ship dispatched immediately.
He changed the subject, attacking the next item on his very, very long to- do list, all the while noticing the way Nalini looked at him, inquisitively, like she was attempting to make him out.
Strange. He hadn’t believed himself capable of feeling quite so self-conscious.
“Any news on that weapon?” he asked around.
“Not yet,” Evi replied without ceasing to type directives on her command platform. “The spies are in place, but they just got there. They know how important it is, though.”
He hadn’t expected much yet. Next, he turned to Hart and Star.
“Other news?”
They always had something to say.
“There’s a festival of lights being held on Vratis. The people hope that you may attend. Given the circumstances, I gave no response, but it would be good for morale if you did attend. It’s your principal system, and you’ve barely showed your face there.”
“I went three times over the last year,” Kai protested.
“Yes, but the previous warlord actually lived there. Barely ever left. They get that things are changing, but remember – most Coats, the Merchant Guild – everyone of importance is based there. You need to kiss babies.”
Kai sighed. Posturing was getting old incredible quick.
“I remember those nights. I could hear it from my windows. Everyone below danced and laughed. I could… feel their happiness. It was one of the good nights.” Nalini said it with a delighted smile, like she was sharing a happy memory, not a nightmare.
Wench looked like he’d seen a ghost. Kai felt like someone was twisting a knife in his entrails. They both remembered too well their glimpse of what her life had been like back then. To her, recalling those festivities was a happy memory, much better than the rest of her childhood. And yet she’d been locked in her golden cage, never really living, just feeling other people’s happiness from a distance.
“Make the call. We’ll go,” Kai stated.
And by the Goddess, Nalini would get to dance and laugh all night if she so wished. Living the festival of lights for the first time. With him.
“If we announce our intention to attend ahead of time, there’s a security risk,” Star pointed out, probably just so she could speak out against her brother’s idea.
“It’s Vratis,” Evi weighed in. “Our shield there is impenetrable.”
“Perhaps not for the weapon that destroyed the Nimerian base with so much ease.”
He sighed, pointing to Hart. “You just told me to go.” Then he indicated Star. “And you’re telling me it’s too bloody dangerous. Make up your damn mind, would you?”
“Giving you every aspect of an issue is kind of their job,” Wench replied.
“How about crashing the party?” Nalini seemed as surprised she’d spoken as the rest of them. “Going without announcing it ahead of time.”
Evi laughed, punching her shoulder. “I knew this cabinet needed some fresh blood. Girl’s smart.”
“Cabinet?” she repeated.
“General of the lord’s armies”—Evi pointed to herself—“and tactical advisor.” Then, she waved toward the twins. “The Coats, politicians who always present different points, to make sure we see both sides of the situation. Wench is the genius, hacker, programmer, mechanic—if something needs fixing, he’s on it. And Mr. Warlord. We’re the brain; he’s the fist. There’s senators and royals who can weigh in on big questions, and local lords take care of their territories as long as they follow our laws; but the five of us basically rule this sector. As for these two,” now she pointed towards Park and Ollis, who stood close to the door, “they’re basically status. But they’re pretty.”
“She means to say,” Kai corrected her, “that they’re my head of security and my personal bodyguard.” Then, he had to admit, “Which means they don’t have much to do, yeah.”
Park glared, while Ollis gave him the finger. He was lying, of course. While no one was stupid enough to actually take Kai on, the two men had plenty to do in times of war.
They piloted two light fighters always stationed at Kai’s left and right, ensuring that he was covered at all times, and blasting plenty of enemies into oblivion while they were at it.
Nalini spent a minute observing every person present with a thoughtful expression. Kai would have given a lot to know what thoughts passed behind those eyes. As usual, her shields were lowered, and she broadcasted her thoughts carelessly, but they were too jumbled up, confusing, for him to read them well.
“I probably shouldn’t be lingering here then. I’m sure everything you’re saying is top secret.”
It was. And yet…
“I trust you, little lady,” he said. “Or you wouldn’t have made it on this platform.”
She pouted, quite adorably, too. “I’m not ten anymore, you know. You don’t have to call me that all the time.”
Yes. That, he certainly did know.
“You’re still little,” he countered with a shrug, earning himself a glare.
Adorable.
Feeling the looks the members of his cabinet sent his way, he turned away. “Feel free to ‘linger’ if you wish. Or you could make yourself useful.”
She lifted a brow, along with Evi. Wench just shook his head, smiling knowingly. The little shit knew how long he’d looked for her, and, no doubt, could guess Kai would do just about anything to keep her next to him. Even invent a damn job for her.
“Yeah, sure.” Through the reflection on the window, he saw her bite her lip. “I mean, I’m not exactly sure how I could—”
Her sentence was interrupted by visual and audible alarms flaring, alerting them of an imminent danger.
Kai returned to the control platform in the middle of the bridge. The artificial intelligence had already cleared their previous screen, displaying their attackers instead. A hologram showed a couple of hundred light fighters, white and orange—loyalists.
They were no threat to the Dominion. None of their weapons could pierce their shields. Still, Kai wasn’t o
ne to miss an opportunity, should it present itself.
“Kai?” Evi asked.
He smiled. Finally. He recognized the command ship – the largest they owned. This was their last stand.
“Crush them. Crush them all now.”
His general started to give orders as he headed out of the bridge, Sky on his heels, calling the rest of his team through his comm. Before he exited the doors of the bridge, he looked back, dreading what he would see. Nalini would, no doubt, resent his bloodlust, call him out for being the barbarian he truly was at heart.
She was looking at him, all right. Walking toward him, in fact.
In her hands was the mask he’d left behind on the captain’s chair. She didn’t say a thing, simply handed it to him.
Kai laughed as he pulled her by the hand and bent his tall frame down to reach hers. Then he took her mouth, his lips brushing hers. Every world in the galaxy seemed to spin around their axis in that short, yet endless second. His tired, frazzled mind, body, and soul came alive, forever changed.
He managed to pull himself away, safe in the knowledge that when he returned, he’d take those lips again. And again, and again.
Thirty
In Command
During an attack, the bridge wasn’t the quiet sanctuary it had been each time she’d ventured there. It was abuzz with a purposeful energy. And she didn’t belong.
Nalini was in the way of someone important wherever she stepped. Instinctively, she stuck close to Evi at first. The general was busy, so she didn’t dare interrupt her.
She saw Hart and Star standing close, just as useless as she, so she tiptoed their way.
“Can I do anything?” she asked of them. Before they had a chance to answer, another question came to mind, and she added, “Is the ship safe? Kronos, the kid I came with, is down in his classroom.”
Hart smiled. “We couldn’t be safer. Nothing the loyalists possess can pierce our shields. The only reason we’re meeting them head-on right now is to get rid of them once and for all. We came to help against the Imperials, and this is how they thank us. These people who attack us now? They’ll never stop. If there’s to be peace, we need to get rid of them.”
Nalini would have disagreed, in general. War never created peace. Still, they were going against the loyalists.
“Oh, they need killing,” she agreed.
As Krane had asked her to, Nalini had listened to their leaders’ minds. She’d seen how they treated their own soldiers, she’d seen their slaves. Some of the soldiers may be innocent, but Nalini was all for obliterating their power-hungry, tyrannical filth from the galaxy. And if that made her a monster, so be it.
She was about to say just that when the floor trembled under her feet. The lights blinked on the bridge. Everyone stilled.
Fuck. This was a hit, a bad one, too. Hart had seemed so certain the shields would hold, she hadn’t questioned it.
“Impossible,” Wench whispered.
Evi was quicker to come to a conclusion. “Someone is messing with our shields from the inside. Dammit, Kai shouldn’t have gone to help these rats.”
Of course. The soldiers they’d saved, some were completely wrapped around the loyalists’ doctrines. Evi armed herself with blasters stocked inside one of the walls and threw weapons to her men.
Shit. This was her fault. She could have – should have – seen it.
Since her arrival, she’d been so preoccupied with petty little selfish concerns, she hadn’t so much as opened her mind or meditated once. She hadn’t tried to see anything.
Nalini had genuinely expected that Kai would demand she use her power to his advantage when she arrived. He hadn’t, but still, she’d been so resolved against the very notion of being used, so determined against it, that she hadn’t stopped to think whether she should make use of it here.
“Nalini.”
Hearing her name called pulled her out of the funk. Turning to Evi, she pointed to her own chest, confused as to why anyone would think of her in this chaos.
“Kai said you piloted cargos. Are you any good at it?”
She shrugged. “I guess.”
“I hope that is modesty. You’re in charge. I don’t have the time to comm someone else in. We need to go on manual and stay away from those fighters until I reactivate the shield.”
She was about to protest, sure there could be better pilots available, but before she’d parted her lips, Evi’s voice reached her mind.
«You’re a seer. We need to avoid getting hit again — two or three more blasts like that, and the ship is destroyed.»
Fuck. No wonder she hadn’t said that out loud; everyone would have panicked.
“Kass,” Evi addressed another woman, “you’re taking the upper deck cannons. Fire on the biggest threats, you hear me?”
But Kass wasn’t hearing her at all. “We’re letting that girl pilot the Dominion?”
“We don’t have time for this. I need you on the cannons, Kass. You’re the best and we won’t survive if you can’t keep their bombers at bay.”
“I can’t believe it. A regular we don’t know at all? Over my dead body will I let a fuckdoll—”
Kass didn’t finish her sentence. There wasn’t so much as a shift of energy in the air warning any of the eighteen mages on the bridge that one of them was using any power, but Kass fell to her knees, choking on her words, her eyes widened, her skin ashen.
Evi could, and perhaps should, have attempted to intervene. Instead, she smiled.
Nalini stepped forward, head tilted, eyes golden. Mages’ limbs often moved as a manifestation of their powers. Hers didn’t anymore; not unless she truly pushed herself. But Kass’ spirit was nothing to Nalini’s; she broke it without any effort at all, not using much of her strength.
“Let us not pretend for another instant that you could stop me from doing anything I want to do here. Evi said I’m taking command. Deal with it and do your fucking job so we stay alive, okay?”
Nalini smirked and released the girl, who coughed deeply before staring at her in disbelief. Nalini ignored her, her attention on Evi.
“I’ll keep her afloat until you get back. Whatever it takes.”
The general tapped her shoulder as she passed her, running out.
Nalini sat in the captain’s chair, and immediately an unfamiliar set of holographic controls appeared in front of her.
Nova in command. Approved.
Kai hadn’t been kidding when he said he was clearing her for all levels. Damn, she really had control over the whole damn ship.
The neko, who hadn’t shown his face since morning, entered the bridge and leaped on her lap, quite happy to show her some affection now that she was fucking busy. Typical. He started purring softly, and instead of chasing him away, Nalini surprised herself by finding some comfort in the rhythmic rumble. Alright. The beast could stay.
You can do this. You can do this, she repeated in her mind. Otherwise, Evi wouldn’t have left her in charge, right? She would have asked Kass, or just about anyone else. If she’d read the general right, she was a psychic. She’d been able to tell Nalini could handle it.
Never had she piloted a ship of this size, but a large ship was just a large ship. A bigger version of the Whistle, no doubt with more power and flexibility.
You can do this…
«Yes. You can.»
Only when those words reverberated in her mind, said in a familiar male voice, did she truly start to believe it.
She engaged manual and opened her mind up. Truly opened it, lowering each of her shields to concentrated on intaking the energy around her.
She felt the direction of each hit coming at them. For all intents and purposes, she was the hits.
Nalini lifted their left wing a fraction, before nosediving at full speed.
“Disengage stabilizers.”
“What? Are you fucking insane?”
She was.
Through her comm, she gave everyone a heads-up, her voice resounding
throughout the ship.
“Nalini Nova to crew. Everyone, hang on tight. We’re in for a bumpy ride. Evi, engage exosuit.”
She didn’t say more, unwilling to warn the snake in their midst that their general was coming for him. Through her mind, she searched her surroundings until she’d found Evi’s mind. Harsh exterior, heart of titanium, and, underneath it all, a warm center. She was easy to find.
«You’re gonna need your propulsors.»
«Got it,» the general replied.
On that note, she started to dance through the sky. The Dominion twirled and advanced at full speed, only to stop suddenly while the fighters attempting to blow them to pieces failed, confused and frustrated.
“A ship that size shouldn’t be able to move that way!” she heard their leader scream.
Nalini smiled. Any ship could; people just weren’t crazy enough to pull that sort of shit.
«You okay, kid?» she asked Kronos, taking the time for find him now that she’d adopted a rhythm.
«No. Gonna be sick. You shouldn’t be allowed to pilot. Ever.»
He was just fine.
Finally, Nalini felt something switch on within the belly of the Dominion. Her comm came to life. “Done. Shields secured. Staying down to protect it, just in case, but you can stop the swaying.”
“But it’s so much fun,” she protested.
“Nalini? Just no.”
She pouted, but blew out a reluctant, “Fine.”
She typed the command, putting the ship back on automatic; however, she did remain in the captain’s chair. It was comfy.
Only now did she notice the stares from everyone on the bridge. They’d all put their safety belts on; the Coats stood together, firmly strapped against the wall. They all seemed like they were about to throw up. Instead, they started clapping. Even Kass, although the girl also glared.
“How are they doing out there?” she asked, finding the attention awkward.
“Well. We’ve lost seven fighters, the pilots of six of them safely ejected,” one male posted behind her replied.“ Their exosuits were working just fine; they’re on their way back to the ship. Last one, dead. The enemy is attempting to flee. A hundred and seventy-two loyalist fighters destroyed, thirty-seven left.”