by HC Playa
"Are you trying to get us killed? Since when do you nap while piloting?"
Zane swallowed the bile in his throat. Note to self, no telepathic conversations while piloting the ship. "Sorry. I wasn’t sleeping, but nonetheless it was stupid to zone out without putting the computer guidance system on first."
"No, really?"
Zane smirked at Coran’s sarcasm as he loosened his death grip on the controls. He re-checked his instruments to make sure the stealth modifications were working properly. If he attracted unwanted attention while on a covert op, Coran would never let him live it down, not to mention General Xu.
Long-range sensors showed a small image of a planet with swirls of blue and white interrupted by brown and green landmasses. The readings indicated no suspicious chatter emanating from the planet's communication satellites.
"So, if you weren’t sleeping, what in quasars were you doing?"
"A sensitive on the target planet contacted me."
Coran cursed in their native Truscan and then switched back to Standard. "Is our mission compromised?"
"Of course not. I'm not that stupid." I hope. "The contact was brief. Most likely she didn’t say anything more than a greeting." Zane's heart thumped and his stomach knotted at the lie, but he refused to admit to Coran that he’d already merged with her. Even though they exchanged nothing more than linguistic information, it wouldn’t take much for her to figure out none of those languages were spoken on her planet.
"Most likely? That isn’t very reassuring."
"It’s the best I can do without talking to her again." Another pang of guilt stabbed at him as the woman’s knowledge rattled around in his head demanding that he analyze it. With an eye watching the computer guidance system, he let his mind sort out the information he gained from the telepathic encounter. In the middle of his routine check of the fusion reactor's temperature, understanding of her main language clicked into place. He translated what she shouted at him while he practiced thought casting the day before. Zane bit his lip to keep the grin from blooming on his face.
Coran heaved a sigh. "Do you think the entire population is sensitive, or is this woman an unfortunate anomaly?"
Thinking of the 'unfortunate anomaly' and the strong sense of attraction he felt the moment they connected, Zane stared at the readout without seeing a thing.
"Is something wrong with the reactor?"
"What?" Zane shook his head. "No, I was just thinking."
"About how to deal with a sensitive population?"
"Huh? No, I doubt that, but I can ask her next time."
"Absolutely not! It’s against regulations!"
Zane snorted. "Like I care what regulations say out here in the middle of nowhere?"
Coran swiveled his seat to face away from him. "I don't know how you ever made captain."
"I made captain because I know when to follow rules and when to use my own brain. Blindly following protocol can get you killed." Zane winced right after the words left his mouth.
Grief shadowed Coran's scowl. "So can ignoring them," he snapped back. "I don't want to take you back to Yopmar in a stasis tube."
"No one's dying on my watch. Not this time." The specter of Rhea's memory hung between them. Zane stared at the instrument panel for a whole minute before saying, "We need intel. Command should have sent an entire squad for this mission, but I don't see one. Do you? The list of info they want isn't going to happen without some help. If we screw this up, people could die."
"And tossing regs out the window isn't screwing up? If Karglock hasn't broken the encryption on the data he stole from Gaza station, it's only a matter of time. There isn't a single sign of space travel in the sector. Earth is an easy target just waiting for someone like Karglock. IGCF sent us for intel; not to make first contact. I'm working on half a dozen different data mining programs."
"Your programs can only do so much, Coran. The subtleties of face-to-face interaction have to be explored by a person, not a computer. Why do you think they sent me?"
"Honestly, I figured they sent you to pilot and shoot anything that attacked us."
"You only got your orders. As the commanding officer, I got yours and mine. Want to know what my orders say?"
"What?"
"Infiltrate alien world by any means necessary to achieve mission goals without compromising the secrecy of the mission."
Coran stabbed at the controls in front of him and then leaned back in his seat. He rubbed the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. "Why did Command only send you and me? If Earth is so blasted important, why not send a fully equipped squad? What kind of planning is that? Help is non-existent out here."
"They aren't going by the regs on this one, Coran. We aren't talking about some random populated pre-warp planet, but the lost home world of several million humans. If fewer people know about this mission, there's less chance for civil unrest."
Coran stared at his screen for a long moment. "And if we die?"
"Better two dead than a whole squadron. There'll be less questions."
Coran let out a stream of ugly Truscan curses.
"Now you get the picture? This is big. Earth's discovery has the potential of tearing the Confederacy apart. "
"So what do they expect us to do?"
"We have sixty revolutions of this planet to find out what the kraghk has happened for the last few thousand years and provide a full assessment of culture and technology. Easy, right?"
"Of course," Coran said with equal sarcasm. He shoved away from the computer console and stood. "So we use the sensitive. Just make sure it's one that's useful."
Zane chuckled as he stood as well. He patted Coran on the shoulder. "Welcome to covert ops."
"I don't recall signing up for this."
"You're in IGCF, Coran. You signed up for whatever they want you to do."
Zane walked past Coran ignoring the mumbled curses. His friend possessed a streak of naiveté to not catch on before now that working with a covert ops soldier generally resulted in assignment of riskier missions. In fact, Zane preferred not having a whole squadron underfoot. Despite the limited resources, more hands also meant more lives to keep safe.
He detoured to the engineering portion of the ship and glowered at the small alcove termed "engineering." The designers were either a very small species, or found a sadistic pleasure in making the operator work the bank of diagnostic computers, secondary controls, and the control panel for the fusion reactor in a space barely bigger than an average human male. Zane's taller than average height required contorting into painful positions to work in the cramped space.
Four bumps on the head, three scraped knuckles, and a bruised elbow later he concluded, after a few adjustments, that all systems were operating at peak efficiency despite their near miss with the asteroid. Satisfied that nothing required his attention, he retreated to his bunk, bending down low to drop onto the less than comfortable surface. Zane emptied his mind of the minor aches and sought the human woman’s psyche.
Coran put his faith in Zane and he refused to violate that trust by mixing personal interests with the mission. The woman could prove of genuine aid, teaching Zane crucial information faster than Coran could piece together facts from their alien computers.
And if she jeopardizes the mission, I'll neutralize her.
With his walls firmly in place, Zane called to her. The passage of time meant nothing in this state. A minute or an hour, he knew no difference. Memory of her became his reality as her presence filled his mind. The soft feminine touch both soothed and aroused. For a moment, he forgot everything but her.
Heat.
Desire.
They beat at him, called to him. He caught flashes of pale skin and gold hair beneath him. The feeling of skin on skin breezed into his mind and then vanished. Unlike before, his surroundings remained insubstantial. He attempted to bring things into focus, but wisps of movement teased him. Tingles ran down his spine as her hands swept through his ha
ir. He reached for her and his hands went through her fuzzy image. He frowned and it dawned on him why she didn't respond and the surroundings possessed an ethereal quality. She was dreaming. Mala omea, what a dream!
Like ice water dousing him, his surroundings solidified into a barren room with stone walls. A door stood open, but an energy barrier shimmered across the threshold, reminding him of a force field, but without the requisite equipment anchored on the wall. The woman stood before him wearing a long white coat which hid her figure. The swells of emotion he sensed moments before vanished.
Zane extended a subtle probe to determine her reaction to his intrusion into her dream. He hit an invisible wall. Awake and alert, she eyed him with an emotionless stare. Wary, he continued to test the blocks, but he couldn’t even see them! He tried to recall a single person with such advanced skills, but failed to think of even one.
"Yes?"
"I didn't mean to wake you."
A moment of silence met his comment and it dawned that perhaps she took that the wrong way. He gathered his thoughts, trying to pull the correct words together to explain when she answered.
"What do you want?"
"My name is Zane. I want to meet. Where can I find you?"
"My name is Katarina." Again there was a pause, as if she were weighing her answer. "I live in Memphis, Tennessee in the United States of America."
A series symbols appeared in his head.
"That's my email address. Email me."
Before he could protest the stone room vanished and he found himself alone in his head. Telepathy could be as casual and distant as talking to a stranger, painful and intrusive in the wrong hands, or the most fulfilling bond that could ever exist between two people. Until now he never experienced more than a friendly chat, but even their brief conversations affected him in ways he did not expect.
Is this some sort of mental chemistry? Common sense told him to walk away and find a safer, less complicated person to aid him in fulfilling the mission. As if I ever do the safe and easy thing? He opened his eyes and winced at his raging hard on. Katarina, I hope you're worth the trouble.
***
Katarina flopped back into her pillows and allowed a moan to escape as she considered finishing manually what the dream started. "This is so not fair." Her body ached and throbbed with unfulfilled need. Teenage boys had wet dreams, not grown women. The contrast of over a decade with little more than vague interest and the consuming need demanding satiation tested her. Painful and sharp in its intensity, she could not push it away like the pounding ache of a migraine.
Heat and desire gripped her so intensely she panted. Katarina tossed her head on her pillow and glanced at the clock. "Two in the morning. Ugh." Her arms and legs trembled and the ache inside her refused to fade. "Fuck," Katarina muttered and pressed her hand over her heated flesh. An image of Zane rising over her and entering her crystallized in vivid detail, sending her straight to climax.
The orgasm eased the firestorm of pent up desire, but true satisfaction lay beyond her reach. Katarina punched her pillow into a more comfortable shape. "He's gonna pay for this." That image remained seared in her mind with a clarity that told her it was not imagination. She didn't experience precognition often, but it always left her feeling trapped by fate.
She flipped onto her stomach, hating that her body gave her no choice. Or did he just turn this on? Maybe when I go out tomorrow I'll feel like this toward any man. She called to mind a number of good looking men she knew of and better than a cold shower, the image of other men doused her desire. Well, fuck. She stared at the ceiling in the darkness and debated whether to run from fate or embrace it.
***
Sunshine spilled into the room and assaulted Katarina's eyes. She tossed a pillow in the general vicinity of the window and then burrowed under the covers. Laughter sounded and the pillow she just threw plopped on top of her.
"If you want to sleep all morning, don’t blame me if all of your coffee relocates to my kitchen." Naia's footsteps receded.
Katarina lifted the pillow enough to croak out, "Touch my coffee and die."
She hauled her tired body out of bed and Naia's sunny smile greeted her as she trudged into the kitchen. Already dressed, Naia's put-together look made Katina scowl. She couldn't recall how long it took her to fall asleep. In the early morning hours, as night gave way to dawn, she accepted that she lacked the strength to fight whatever drove this insane reaction inside her.
While Naia started breakfast, Katarina set to brewing a pot of strong aromatic coffee. Once fortified with caffeine, she assisted Naia with the food preparation, relying on non-verbal communication until she downed her second cup of coffee. By the time she had a third cup in hand at the breakfast table, she'd polished off half her eggs and a biscuit, and found the energy to communicate without revealing how snappy and on-edge she felt.
"Sleep well?"
"Very, but I did miss curling up with Robert."
Katarina winced into her coffee cup as she picked up a far too vivid image of Naia and Robert. Lack of sleep and her body's rebellion screwed with her usually solid telepathic walls. "Understandable. It seems marriage agrees with you. I'm glad."
Naia gazed into the distance with a dreamy unfocused look. "Me too."
Before she inadvertently glimpsed more naked daydreams, Katarina blurted, "The telepath contacted me again last night."
"What!? Why didn’t you wake me up? What happened? Did you find anything out?"
Katarina laughed at the speed with which Naia fired her questions. "You’ll never know if you don’t let me get a word in." Naia mimed zipping her lips. Katarina grinned. "First of all, I didn’t wake you because I wanted to go back to sleep afterwards. You would have kept me up the rest of the night nagging me with questions."
"I do not nag people. I’m a sleuth. I uncover the facts."
"Yeah, you’re Sherlock Holmes reincarnated."
"So spill it, Watson."
Katarina rolled her eyes and then sobered. She shoved every ounce of emotion behind the strongest walls she knew how to build. "His name is Zane."
"And?"
"He wants something from me, so I'll have to figure out what that is. I sense that he can be dangerous, but he has the personality indicators of a protector. I don't think he's a threat."
"All men can be dangerous because they all want one thing."
Katarina forced a laugh. He wasn’t the one obsessed with sex. After last night, she worried she might jump him the minute they met.
"Is he nearby?" Naia asked.
"I have a vague feeling he’s far away but traveling in our direction. He wants to meet. So, I told him my name, city, state, and email address."
"How much do you think he got from you?"
"Other than what I said, not much."
"You sure?"
"Definitely. Besides, I'm the stronger telepath." Katarina allowed herself a satisfied smile. "It surprised the hell out of him he couldn’t read me."
"Are you sure that you’re not just more skilled? Maybe he hasn’t been around other telepaths?"
"It's possible, but I'm confident I can hold my own against anything he tries."
"Does he realize that?"
"If he does, he's probably ignoring the little voice in his head telling him I’m way out of his league."
"Sister, every guy is out of your league." Naia grinned and tossed back her last swig of orange juice. She set her glass down and pushed her empty plate aside. "I think you should agree to meet him. Find out what he wants. It'll be good for you to meet someone else who has a few extra talents."
"Mmm." Katarina said, not trusting herself to say anything else.
Naia stood up and grinned, "Now, we go shop!"
Katarina frowned. "I need to go over the data again."
"Kat, there hasn't been an outbreak of Reaper in a year. The vaccine has stopped it in its tracks. You can stop pushing yourself."
Katarina shook her head. "No, the v
accine just slowed it down until it mutates again. It's a race against time."
"You aren't solely responsible for curing this thing, Kat. Give yourself a break."
She sighed as she pushed away from the table. "I'll go shopping with you, but only to make sure you don't replace my furniture while I’m at the lab. Maybe the break will help me figure out what the hell I'm missing in that darn gene sequence."
"You know, I never thought of that." She rubbed her palms together. "New blackmail fodder."
Katarina shook her head as Naia gathered up dishes and laughed all the way to the kitchen sink. She stood, but then froze in the act of reaching for her coffee mug. A whisper of energy breezed across her senses, triggering a sense of being watched. The privacy screen on the windows blinked a green light on the control panel, so no one in an adjacent building or low flying traffic could see in, but she knew that the spy did not use such mundane methods. A normal person might brush off the sensation but, for years she sensed her watcher from time to time.
"You know, this is getting old. Show yourself already." She kept her voice pitched low so as not to alert Naia. No one answered; they never did. Sometimes years could pass in between one feeling and the next, but it always happened, eventually. Katarina scowled and attempted to study the sensation to determine the source. As usual, she could not pinpoint the voyeur’s location or identity.
"Screw this. I'm not here for your amusement. Go find someone else to watch." She let just a hint of her powers surface and imagined a shield blocking her apartment. A warding spell her Mage friend, Delaney, once taught her leaped into her mind. She chanted the spell, letting power flow out, surrounding her. She smiled in satisfaction as the sensation vanished. Using the energy left her feeling peaceful and calm, a state she rarely reached. She considered Naia's suggestion on channeling the energy in small ways instead of driving herself to exhaustion. It might work. Katarina pushed the thought to the back of her mind to mull over.