“They are being gathered as we speak,” Poe put in, endeavoring to be something more than mere window dressing to this exchange. “As none are known to be under such ample protection, we anticipate further casualties shall be minimal.”
“All shall be given a chance to surrender peaceably,” Gatz confirmed.
Soroya said nothing, for clearly there was nothing left to say. Vichante couldn’t bring himself to follow her lead. He tried to tap into the well of her stoicism, to draw from her discipline and find strength in it—but he simply couldn’t.
“These men came here to fight on your behalf, and this is how you repay their dedication. With their own blood.” He spoke to Gatz and Poe directly, unflinchingly. Calmly. “You’ll burn for this, you scum. I’ll see to it personally.”
Gatz studied the bodies ambivalently. “In point of fact, it would appear these men were here to protect you, Commander Harm.” He toed one of the dead men with the slightest of shrugs. “Moreover, they seem not to have done a very good job. A pity.”
A well-timed blow to the back of his head underscored the point. It also cut short the rage threatening to explode out of Vichante. He slumped forward in his captors’ arms, distantly aware of Soroya screaming something before being gagged and bagged. That’s not necessary, it sounded like. And then he, too, felt a wad of fabric forced between his teeth and the false night of a head bag eclipsing his already shaky vision.
After that, everything went black.
17 • FRUITION
Deep in her daily meditative state, Tj Yeleyhi frowned.
Nightmares. Hallucinations. Visions. By any name, they troubled her. Worried what should have been an unencumbered conscience. Her mouth took the shape of an aborted snarl before settling back into that flat black frown.
In that state she dreamed of a massive bristling beast. Innocuous at first. Surrounded by dozens, even hundreds of spiked spears. Then a booming voice from the cowed beast. It was not cowed at all. Suddenly brandishing a kind of damning protrusion. Something foul. Something hated. Something that laid all her best plans to waste.
If only she could put her finger on it…
Like so much fog on the marsh, though, the vision remained beyond her reach. She dismissed it as the product of a mind fevered with possibility and promise. A self-loathing slice of her subconscious willing her to fail, to fall short of all that was her birthright.
She would have none of it.
“Tj Yeleyhi?” Jskaarl’s tinny, reconstituted voice shattered the strange and ominous vision pervading her dream state. “Tj Yeleyhi, please respond. It is a matter of some urgency.”
She suppressed the urge to eviscerate him for interrupting a sacred ritual, responding as coolly and evenly as she could muster.
“Urgency, you say. Do tell.”
“I think it would be better if you were to hear it directly.”
“For your sake, I should hope you are not wasting my time.”
“That would be the last thing I would ever deign to do, my Tj.”
“That statement is more accurate than you know. Very well. You may enter. Wait for me in the antechamber.”
Emerging into the antechamber, Tj Yeleyhi was understandably perturbed. For his part, Jskaarl offered a smile befitting only a purebred simpleton.
“Well? What is it? Out with it already,” she snarled. The visions that had troubled her dream state were not easily shed, no matter how much she wished them so.
Needless to say, she was in a bit of a mood.
Jskaarl, meanwhile, was unfazed by the mistreatment. Perhaps because he realized what was at stake, as well as how much he stood to gain from the news he had to deliver. Indeed, he fairly beamed with pride as he announced—almost as if he had made the capture himself—“They have them, Tj Yeleyhi.”
Her first reaction was to frown. Again. Somehow she had anticipated something grander; even her very visions had intimated more. A grand fight, a great battle. Something! Something more than fucking Jskaarl, moron that he was, preening for undeserved reward.
Then the implication of their clean sweep began to set in.
“All of them?” she wondered, just a hint of skepticism bleeding into her voice.
“All of them,” Jskaarl confirmed.
“After little more than a day?”
“As you anticipated, Gatz and his people were highly motivated. With your imprimatur secured, they chose to act quickly so as to preserve the element of surprise.”
“Show me.” Then, as if he was incapable of even that simple request, she barked, “Screen, now!” into the placidly calm room surrounding her.
A simulated screen resolved itself out of thin air before her. A short, clipped tone announced the imminent connection. The delay, at least to her, seemed nothing short of interminable.
“Greetings, Tj Yeleyhi,” the grinning visage of Gatz greeted her. “You look most well.”
Fuck all. More genuflecting morons.
“Dispense with the pleasantries and confirm that you have Soroya of Shih’ra and her people,” she demanded.
Gatz grinned even larger. “Oh, we have them, yes. See for yourself, good Tj.”
Abruptly, the right half of the screen quartered to reveal four separate feeds: two on the top, two on the bottom. Strictly speaking, the quality was dodgy. The footage was not just grainy and halting but further hampered by the fact that each appeared as though through a filter. The shifting masses of psychedelic green ranging from muted moss to electric lime could have been anyone. Yet even as each of the silhouettes displayed began resolving into something vaguely humanoid, even before the trickles of vital information she had long since committed to memory began to crawl along the bottom of each of the screens, Tj Yeleyhi felt a heady rush of certainty. A bristling, almost orgasmic elation. Even, strangely, a twisting, gnarly stab of fear.
Naked, elemental fear.
Summoning every ounce of composure in her reserves, she came down hard and beat all that asunder, flattening it into a hard little disc lodged firmly in the pit of her stomach. Not until they are in your hands, she reminded herself coldly. It was from that well of icy composure that she said only, “You have done me an immeasurable service, Gatz.” For emphasis she nodded but once, the most subtle if not imperceptible canting of her head. “You have my gratitude.”
“On the contrary.” Gatz’s mouth moved slyly. “We find its worth to be quite measurable. As we have discussed previously.”
The smirking little shit, she thought. To presume to dictate terms to her.
In the moment before she responded, Ty Yeleyhi allowed herself to be comforted by the knowledge that Gatz and his people were so very ripe for betrayal.
“Of course.”
“Very good.” Gatz canted his head forward in embellished imitation; Tj Yeleyhi made a labored point of denying herself the fury such a gesture would normally have elicited. All things in time. “As you can see,” Gatz continued briskly, more animated, “the prisoners have been isolated and are being held in conditions approximating total sensory deprivation. This should ensure a most smooth transfer of custody.”
Tj Yeleyhi eyed the grainy footage warily. “This deprivation,” she said, “it does not harm or otherwise inhibit their mental state?”
“Only temporarily, and only in the most trivial sense. Confusion. Loss of fine motor control. Heightened sensitivity to light and sound.”
“Allow me, if I may,” she said with a deliberate enunciation that made each word seem as if a threat unto itself, “to remind you of the primary and, indeed, governing condition upon which this exchange hinges: The prisoners must be of sound body and mind. Do I make myself clear? Physical coercion is acceptable—to an extent. Diminished mental capacity is not, under any circumstances.”
For his part, Gatz appeared unmoved by the display. He believed himself to be in the driver’s seat of this transaction, it occurred to her, with her no more than a willing but cranky passenger. “As we have indicated, y
our terms are most clear. The measure is of a precautionary nature, no more. Please be assured that its effects will have worn off well before they are yours to properly interrogate.”
Tj Yeleyhi nodded slowly. Again, only once. “Very well. You may consider me reassured.”
“It pleases us greatly to consider you as such.”
“To business, then.”
“To business,” Gatz agreed. The infrared feeds winked out of existence and the screen resumed its normal dimensions, Gatz its sole occupant once more.
“Naturally, the swiftness of your success comes as something of a surprise. A welcome and celebrated one, to be sure, but a surprise nonetheless. It will be some time before I can arrange the necessary formalities and assemble a team to properly take possession of the prisoners.” She had almost said ‘take custody of the prisoners,’ but no, she far preferred the word ‘possession.’ “Are you prepared to hold and defend your position while these matters are addressed?”
Gatz only laughed, an airy and exceptionally condescending thing. “Honorable Tj, our victory over the Free Planetary Pilgrims Irregular is sweeping. Please, take all the time you need. We would greatly dislike for such a mutually beneficial transaction to be colored by any hastiness or omissions, or even the perception of such improprieties. By either faction, of course,” he added hastily, by way of avoiding any obvious implications.
“Of course. I shall be in touch, Gatz. And do not hesitate to contact my representative Jskaarl in the event the situation should change somehow.”
“We look forward to your next communication, Tj Yeleyhi. Until such time.”
The screen went blank, then disappeared entirely.
Tj Yeleyhi’s first impression afterward, in the absence of any other stimuli, was that the room was thrumming. Practically vibrating all around her, and she with it. With the passing clarity of one moment giving way to the next she suddenly became aware of the blood pounding in her ears, behind her eyes. The sense memory of so many blooded victories and conception ceremonies stirred latently. Then furiously. The insistent twitching of her roused sex became a thing unescapable, irresistible, a biological imperative operating all but independently of her own distinct consciousness.
Turning slowly from the point in space where the screen had existed, she fixed glazed-over eyes upon Jskaarl expectantly. Presently he was in the course of discharging some unintelligible stream of congratulatory pablum from his guileless gullet. A perfumed misting of pheromones demanding attention brought quick end to that. Words caught in his throat, becoming an aggressive, throatily suggestive snarl. Even as they collided bodily atop her nesting mound, Tj Yeleyhi felt a shiver of lust verging on the climactic.
For all else he was not, Jskaarl was an astonishingly virile mate. Not that that was so much of a surprise. Not to Kerikeshaala: Ty Yeleyhi. Indeed, she was already keenly aware that what her servant lacked in breeding he more than compensated for in the performance of the act, even if not entirely to nature’s intended fruition. She had long since lost count of how many times such a coupling occurred during the course of his service to her.
What she was certain of was that at no time previously had she allowed him the distinct honor of seeding her.
This occasion proved no different than any of the previous.
Jskaarl dressed with purpose afterward, quickly donning his second skin along with the braided cincture and manacle symbolizing his status, something loosely equatable to elevated serfdom. “I shall leave you to prepare yourself for the exchange, Tj.”
“See to the assembling of the landing party,” she said, finally stirring from her languid, post-coital sprawl. “Make certain we do not lack for superior firepower. I believe I have had just about enough of Gatz and his preening snarrshit.”
“Yes,” he said, apparently surprised by the order. “Yes. At once, Tj.” He nodded smartly for emphasis and turned to take his leave. She noted with interest that her usual contempt for him had ebbed significantly. She made two decisions in very quick succession. One was predicated upon the purest and coldest of calculations, the other entirely upon her very efficient and uniquely intuitive gut.
“Jskaarl?”
Tj Yeleyhi had assumed a most erotic pose in the precious few moments his back was turned to her. The effect was visible as he caught sight of his mistress, every movement of his face betraying his crippling lust for her. The subtle shifting of his mandibles. The slight flaring of his nasal slits. The dilating of yellow pupils against black irises. She was certain if she were to look closely enough at his second skin she would detect the dimpling of his glans reemerging from within its protective sac. She elected not to avail herself of the opportunity.
“Yes, my Tj?” The words were spoken all of a hush, with almost worshipful reverence.
“You must understand this is a defining moment for me. For us.” She allowed a pregnant pause to underscore her use of the plural. “All I have done and all I may yet hope to achieve hinges upon the outcome of this exchange—”
“I understand completely, Tj Yeleyhi.”
“Do not interrupt. And no, you do not. You could not.” She rose liquidly off the nesting mound. Every subtle movement of her serpentine physique was part of a hypnotizing display designed to distract from the misting of fresh pheromones she excreted into the air. “You shall be my second in this, Jskaarl. I shall accompany the landing party in a ceremonial fashion, of course, but for all intents and purposes, it shall be you who directs the exchange.” She allowed a moment for the implication to sufficiently penetrate his thick skull.
Jskaarl’s eyes flared like sunspots catapulted into space. “Kerikeshaala, I… I do not know what to say…”
The result was just as she had expected. “The humans have a saying, you know. ‘Actions speak louder than words.’” With a practiced gesture she placed her hand just above his pelvis and ran it downward, between his legs, easily finding the hardened, nub-like protrusion of his glans. She traced it briefly with her finger, then for a single long second pressed her thumb over it, applying what she knew from previous encounters with the males of her species to be of the most achingly sublime pleasure. As if to confirm what she already knew, a ragged, barely audible moan escaped his mouth when she abruptly withdrew her thumb. “Act accordingly and you shall be rewarded beyond any measure you could possibly imagine.”
“I shall endeavor to do you proud, my Tj. On my own life, if required.”
Yes, she thought, flattering him with another emboldening press of her thumb. Yes, it will most likely come to that.
18 • AFTERMATH
With news of the successful coup came a celebratory atmosphere. As predicted, the worst casualties were in the taking of the command staff. With Soroya and her people neutralized and news of the deadly ambush spreading quickly, the majority of Free Planetary Irregulars had laid down their weapons and surrendered when confronted. A determined few offered resistance. Token though it was, they were quickly and mercilessly put down. All told, the coup claimed the lives of twelve Irregulars but not a single Oviddian. There were other casualties on both sides, of course, though few rising above the level of cuts and bruises or the occasional light burn.
Less than two hours after it began, Gatz and Poe ordered a simple message transmitted in the clear: We have control of the station. Forward forces will remain on alert while mopping up. All others stand down.
A wave of relief swept through the anxious Oviddians as this announcement filtered down through the ranks. Bottles of contraband booze materialized seemingly out of thin air (always, it was said, after having been confiscated from the defeated Irregulars). Toasts to their bravery and brothers-and sisters-in-arms were offered amid rowdy, spontaneous sing-alongs praising everything from their homeworld to the core of their convictions—even their newfound allies! With morale at an all-time high and inhibitions at an all-time low, couples and even the occasional small group of three or more were already starting to sneak off and engage in still
more licentious forms of celebration.
In the midst of all this orgiastic jubilance and ego-feeding, Alexia was alone in her manifest sorrow. By the time she clomped her way into the galley, it was clear she was not of the same raucous spirit. Without so much as acknowledging the several dozen people who stood in spontaneous ovation to her, she picked her way through the crowd as if no one else was present. Along the way she claimed a bottle and a corner table for herself. Kicking up her feet, she turned her back toward the door and everyone else between her and it. Eventually the display became so awkward for the would-be revelers that they abandoned her to that lonely vigil.
After several minutes of relative peace, she discerned the cloddish dragging of feet behind her. If the greasy stench preceding him wasn’t enough, the familiar chuffing sound of his mouth-breathing confirmed it was Vron Dumphy come to test her patience. Appearing within her line of sight, he turned and scooted atop the round table so that there could be no ignoring him. He was obviously drunk, reeking of some horrible bathtub gin, and had that look about him. She’d seen it before, working on the birds together down in the bay, despite the fact she was utterly formless in her grimy jumpsuit. She would catch him leering and he’d look away, suddenly extremely intent on anything near at hand other than her. She’d seen it a few other times, too, after the rare faultless flight, when all the deck rats would pass the hooch around. The difference was that those times, as now, he wasn’t so quick to look away.
“Some are sayin’ in nine months we’re gonna be hip-deep in a baby boom,” he observed in what was no doubt meant to be a completely casual opening gambit. “Sayin’ in times like these it ain’t uncommon for people’s passions to just up and boil over.”
The Lazarus Particle Page 12