The Smuggler's Ascension

by Christopher Ingersoll

  “What the hell just happened?” Kristof demanded, his voice a whisper. He looked around and noticed the candles had burned low, suggesting several hours had passed.

  “Something I have never seen before,” Subat said in amazement. “You have been moving through the forms for almost three hours. Some of them I did not even recognize. I have never seen a meditative trance like this before.”

  “And the light show at the end? I didn’t just imagine that,” Kristof said breathlessly.

  “As I said, I have never experienced this before,” Subat replied, clearly mystified. “This should not be possible.”

  Subat came to Kristof and peered deeply into his eyes.

  “You are not the same man that came to me on the Sanctuary just a few weeks ago,” Subat said after a time and turned away from Kristof. “Something in you has been changed, transformed into something…more.”

  “I don’t understand,” Kristof said, confused.

  “Nor do I, my son,” Subat said, clearly troubled. “Tell me of the visions you saw. I could see the ghosts of them in your mind, but I would hear them in your own words instead.”

  “I saw Anasha,” Kristof began, “The first night I met her on Wassiga. I also saw Sabine with you, training when she was still young. Then the visions became a whirlwind back and forth between Anasha and Sabine, as if sifting through all of my memories of them. After that I saw my father when he disowned me from the family. I started to see things then that weren’t from my memories. I saw my father with the Clovani Emperor and someone in a hooded black robe, and I don’t know why but I felt cold when I looked upon the robed figure. Then I saw Purannis being destroyed, first by orbital bombardment, and then differently through the use of mass launchers. All was followed by waves of darkness.”

  Subat stood silent, clearly troubled by Kristof’s visions. Kristof felt he could relate, the visions had left him feeling cold and afraid like nothing he’d ever felt before. The darkness at the end of the vision had seemed like something alive as it reached out and consumed the light.

  “I must consult with Elders of the Su’Tani,” Subat said finally. “There is much more happening here than we first thought. For now, go rest. Tomorrow we must begin to find a way to prevent the coming war, and we will begin by questioning Stephan and hopefully learn the extent of the plans of House Duranis and the Empire.”

  Kristof turned to leave, but stopped and looked at Subat.

  “No matter what I have to do, I won’t let that happen,” Kristof said, his voice firm with the steel of his commitment. “I’m not going to let Sabine and her people fall to the darkness I felt in that vision.”

  “Su’Tani at last,” Subat said with a smile as he looked upon Kristof with new eyes.

  Kristof did not answer, but instead turned and left.

  The lights of the palace corridors were intensely bright after the dim training room. Kristof walked with no clear destination in mind, memories of the chilling darkness making him feel cold inside. He was half way to Sabine’s apartments before he realized where he was heading. His thoughts were a chaotic storm following the visions he had seen, and he felt intensely the need to be with Sabine just then. She stood out in his mind like a lighthouse in the storm. It was almost a compulsion that drove him through the corridors until at last he was there.

  Kristof had been given full clearance to the palace by Sabine, so he walked through the corridors unchallenged until he reached the royal apartments. The guards outside Sabine’s apartments made a quick call inside before allowing Kristof to pass. Once inside, Kristof found the lights low and everything quiet. It was a few minutes before Sabine appeared, clad in a robe and appearing sleep tousled.

  “What is it,” Sabine asked urgently. “Has something happened with the Clovani fleet? Are they coming?”

  Kristof suddenly realized how late it was, and that his sudden appearance here had alarmed Sabine with thoughts of danger. He kicked himself for worrying her so, especially after everything she had been through recently. The trance he’d fallen into had burned away much of the night, he remembered too late.

  “No, nothing like that,” Kristof said reassuringly. “I just felt an overwhelming need to see you, is all.”

  Kristof could tell from Sabine’s look that she suspected more to his excuse, but she smiled and fell into his embrace anyway. Her head lay against his chest and he knew she could hear the racing of his heart. Sabine looked up at him, worry again in her eyes.

  “What is it then?” Sabine asked softly. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost or something.”

  “I just need you right now,” Kristof replied and leaned down to kiss her.

  Sabine paused briefly before responding passionately, all remnants of sleep disappearing from her. Kristof lost himself in the taste of her lips and the feel of her body pressed tightly to his. Suddenly everything else was gone and nothing in the world existed to him but her. There were no more dreams of bombardments, or his father, or a great darkness. Reaching down, Kristof lifted Sabine into his arms and carried her through the apartment, following her promptings until he found her bedroom.

  Barely contained lust registered on Sabine’s face as Kristof set her down and slipped the robe from her shoulders. He was surprised to find her nude under the robe, though he was quite thrilled as well, and he slid his arms around her slim waist as he kissed her again passionately. With nimble fingers, Sabine undid his training gear until soon Kristof was nude as well. They fell to the bed in each other’s embrace, their lips devouring each other with a growing need. Of everything that had happened so far that night, Kristof could not doubt that this felt very right.

  ~*~

  ~30~

  Sabine gasped as she felt Kristof’s lips wrap around her breast and take her nipple in his teeth. She entwined her fingers in his hair as she tried to ride the massive flood of sensations he had aroused in her. All of her fears and anger from the past few days disappeared in the blaze of love and passion Kristof had released in her. She surrendered herself completely to him in that moment, a surrender her body and soul had desired the moment she had first seen him, and all thoughts of duty shattered and disappeared on the winds of her release.

  When she felt his lips travelling lower down her body, Sabine felt as if she might explode from the sheer pleasure of it. Never in her short life had she imagined such feelings might be possible, and when his lips wrapped around her most private of places she did explode from the pleasure of it. When her senses returned to herself she found herself whispering ‘please, please, please’ over and over again until she felt Kristof’s body rising over her.

  Reaching down between them, Sabine grasped Kristof and thrilled at the groan that passed his lips as his eyes bore into hers with an intense need. She guided him between her wide spread legs until she felt him at the brink, and then she released him as he pressed forward and slowly entered her. She cried out as she felt him stretching her, filling her in a way she had not imagined before she’d met him. The first time they’d been together there had been pain, but now there was just an unbounded sense of joy. She wrapped her legs around him as best she could and cried out as he began to move in and out of her, slowly at first but gaining intensity.

  As Sabine looked up into his intense eyes, she watched as the pale green of Kristof’s eyes seemed to become brighter and brighter until it no longer just seemed that way. The green of his eyes glowed and then became lost in the intensity of the light that suddenly shined forth and lit up the room. Her shock was lost as the orgasm that took her then was more intense than anything she’d ever felt before, and Sabine cried out in sheer joy as it ripped through her body like an electric jolt. She felt the hard muscles of Kristof’s back flexing as he thrust into her, and she dragged her nails down his back until she could grasp his ass hard and pull him into herself harder.

  Kristof’s body tensed above Sabine suddenly, and she could feel him spasming inside her in the throes of his orgasm, which touched
off another orgasm in herself. She could suddenly feel inside her the light that shone so brightly in his eyes, and the light seemed to infuse her very soul even as it intensified the orgasm that ripped itself through them both. The light in Kristof’s eyes slowly faded as they both gasped for air and Sabine reached up to caress his cheek. When his eyes were once again normal, the look of love she saw in them for her chased away all the questions she had been about to ask. Instead, she pulled him to her and kissed him as she rolled him onto his back and began to make love to him again as she felt him growing hard inside her once more.

  ~31~

  Sunlight filtered through the shades covering the windows as morning came and Kristof awoke. Sabine was nestled tightly against him, still asleep. The feel of her skin and the scent of her aroused him, but he didn’t want to disturb her. He knew the past few weeks had been extremely stressful for her and this was probably the most rest she’d had since they’d arrived on Purannis. Max had told him of the hectic schedule the Queen had kept, which he’d learned of from her aides who came to get updates on Kristof’s condition.

  Kristof’s thoughts drifted back to the night before, to the visions he’d seen while training with Subat. The thoughts of his father and the bombardment of Purannis were front and foremost in his mind, along with the waves of darkness that followed. Kristof concluded that it was no surprise that his father was involved in any hostilities towards the Protectorate. Admiral Ethan Anders had never been predisposed to like the people of the Purannis Protectorate, but he had tolerated them when necessary until they had led his son to disgrace. Or at least that was how the admiral had always seen it.

  Kristof’s dishonorable discharge had changed everything. As a young officer aboard a cruiser patrolling the border between Puranni and Clovani space, Kristof had been in command of the ship’s weapons when they happened upon a Puranni merchant ship that had crossed the border illegally. The Puranni captain had stated their hyperdrive had malfunctioned, causing their ship to jump unexpectedly into Clovani space.

  The Captain of the Clovani ship had declared the Puranni a liar and a smuggler and ordered Kristof to fire upon the freighter and destroy it. Kristof’s sensors had clearly shown the freighter leaking fuel from its damaged hyperdrive and had refused to fire on them. The Captain had become belligerent, and Kristof had struck him and sent him reeling over a console and to the floor, breaking his arm. Kristof had been arrested, but at least the freighter had escaped in the ensuing confusion.

  Under the circumstances, given the fact that Kristof had been found right not to fire, the matter would have been handled with minor punishment had the belligerent Captain not also been the Emperor’s nephew. Kristof was charged with capital assault and would have served twenty years in a hard labor prison, but his father had intervened. Admiral Anders was on the Emperor’s inner council and a close friend, and was able to get Kristof off with only a dishonorable discharge.

  Admiral Anders then disowned his son for dishonoring the family. Also, from that day forward his father’s dislike of the Puranni people blossomed into an intense hatred for causing his son’s disgrace, even though they had been innocent of any wrong doing. When Kristof then married who the admiral thought was a Puranni woman, Ethan Anders’ hatred had spread to the son he had disowned, and he had allowed his son to remain in the prison on Bonibus after Anasha’s death. As a result, whenever Kristof dreamed of his father he also dreamed of a great darkness which he had assumed until now represented his father’s towering hatred for the Puranni people.

  These thoughts all ran through Kristof’s head as he lay in bed with Sabine wrapped tightly at his side. The smuggling mission to Bonibus had been as much his idea as it had been Anasha’s. While Anasha had been driven by the desire to help the starving people of Bonibus, who were slowly dying as the Clovani Empire blockaded the planet, Kristof had agreed to the mission as a small way to spite his father, who had ordered the blockade. If only he had known how the mission would end, he thought to himself, though he suspected now that Anasha had known all along what would happen that day.

  Sabine began to stir in his arms and Kristof pushed thoughts of his father from his mind. Instead he kissed this tiny woman who had changed his entire life as she came awake and looked up at him. Her brown eyes shined in the morning light, and Kristof thought that he could easily spend the rest of his life just gazing into them.

  “Good morning, beautiful,” he whispered to her as he caressed her cheek lightly.

  Sabine smiled and kissed Kristof again before laying her head back on his chest.

  “I say we call off the war and just stay like this forever,” Sabine said softly after a while.

  “Sounds good to me,” Kristof laughed. “I’ll just let my father know he can go home.” He’d thought he’d kept the bitterness from his voice at the mention of his father until Sabine looked back up at him.

  “Someday you will have to tell me why you hate him so,” Sabine said softly.

  “What makes you think I hate him” Kristof asked curiously, though she was not wrong.

  “It’s in the edges of your voice every time you mention him,” Sabine answered and said no more about it.

  Kristof caressed Sabine’s back as they lay together, and he was on the verge of falling back asleep when he felt her stir and throw off the covers. He watched as she climbed from the bed and stretched. The play of the muscles in her back drew his eyes as she stretched, and he marveled at the strength he saw in her nude body. It was easy to lose sight of how strong she was physically when she stood barely five feet tall, but it was clearly evident with her there nude before him like that.

  “Come on, lazy bones,” Sabine teased and jerked the covers the rest of the way off him. “Come shower with me, then come help me beat some information out of that slimy worm, Stephan.”

  Kristof rose from the bed and gathered Sabine in his arms. He couldn’t resist grasping her ass as he picked her up and carried her off towards the shower. “As long as you save some of the beating for me,” he told her, and she laughed and bit his neck. The shower lasted much longer than a shower normally would have, though neither of them seemed to notice or care.

  ~32~

  Stephan Duranis, former Seneschal to Queen Sabine Arctura the IV of Purannis, sat bound wrist and ankle to a chair in the war room. His eyes were slightly glazed, and Sabine noticed that a tiny amount of drool ran from the corner of his mouth as she stood before him. Apparently the drugs that Subat had ordered administered were working quite well, she thought, though she also hoped that the drugs were causing him a lot of discomfort.

  The assembled generals and admirals of the Protectorate Armed Forces sat gathered in the war room as well, though as many eyes that looked upon the disgraced seneschal also looked upon Sabine. She knew that the incident with the blaster the day before had shocked many of these old men badly. The burned hole in the ceiling had not been repaired, per her orders. It stayed as a reminder to her commanders that she was not her mother and would not be ignored.

  After her prolonged shower with Kristof that morning, Sabine had dressed in one of her preferred black body gloves. She had also added her gun belt and blaster, her knives, and a red leather jacket much like the one she’d lost aboard the Wraith, only much longer. Her look was quite militant in its appearance, as she had intended, and the assembled officers were clearly not used to having a queen that was obviously about to take a very active role in the rule and defense of their world. Sabine didn’t care what their expectations had been, though. Her night with Kristof had made her decide she was tired of worrying about what everyone else expected of her.

  Kristof and Subat stood off to either side of Stephan, though the man posed no danger to anyone in his current state. Sabine suspected they were there to prevent her from tearing Stephan apart with her own bare hands, a thought that held a certain appeal to her. Stephan had been with her since she was a young girl, even before they had gone to the Sanctuary. He had been her te
acher, her confidant, her friend. Or so she had always thought, anyway. Now she did not know what to think of him.

  On a sudden impulse, Sabine’s fist shot forward and landed a solid blow that rocked Stephan’s head back, but the man didn’t seem to feel it. Kristof quickly stepped forward and pulled her away while Subat interposed himself between his belligerent Queen and the seneschal. The commanders behind her gasped in shock, but Sabine was well past caring as a towering anger burned in her mind.

  “Perhaps I should conduct the questioning, Your Majesty,” Subat said lightly.

  “As you wish,” Sabine responded, trying to ignore the ache in her hand.

  When Sabine turned to take her seat, she observed the shock on the faces of her assembled commanders. Their shock would have been very humorous to her had she not been so angry at Stephan. She took her seat and turned back to look on as Subat tilted Stephan’s head back and dripped a few drops of a dark liquid on the man’s tongue. In moments Stephan seemed to recover some awareness of his situation.

  “Where am I?” Stephan mumbled softly. “Why does my face hurt?”

  “You are before the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the Purannis Armed Forces, as well as Queen Sabine, whom you have betrayed,” Subat said stiffly, all business as he checked to make sure Stephan was fully awake. “You are here to give testimony concerning the involvement of your family, House Duranis, in the assassination of the Queen’s mother, Queen Josephine. You are also here to tell us all you know of the plans between your House and the Clovani Empire, which stands on our borders ready to invade.”

  “I cannot…” Stephan began, but his voice failed as he struggled to give voice to his refusal. Sabine watched as he struggled against the drugs in his system, and she wondered to herself what Subat had ordered given to him which could force such cooperation. “I will answer,” Stephan finally said with a gasp as he gave up his struggle.