by Damon Alan
“My nap? Yes,” she said. “Yes you are.”
He clacked over to her bedside in his magnetic boots. “I love these things. I can finally walk.”
“Where did you get that set?”
“Hanada Kuo gave me the pair he was wearing before he went back to his ship,” Salphan said. He looked down at the boots in admiration. “I should just call him Hanada, because we’re clearly friends. Luckily they fit and I only have to stuff a bit of toilet paper in the toes.”
“I’ll let him know you like them,” Sarah said, amused. “Has he given you anything else?”
“Well, not him specifically, but now that I mention it I really like toilet paper too,” he beamed. “My butt is the cleanest it’s ever been.”
Sarah laughed out loud. “Are you trying to be funny?”
“Trying?” he asked innocently.
“Okay, why are you being funny?”
“Because I’m trying to seduce you.”
“WHAT?!”
“Did I stutter?” he asked.
“No, have you lost your mind?” she said, laughing at him and nervous at the same time. “Even if I wanted that, this is about the worst time for it I can imagine. Are you still joking?”
“Your stress is at a maximum. You are emotionally wrought. You need to de-stress. You have at least a few hours right now that you are not using to maximum efficiency. I know how to make you relax,” he replied.
“This is no time for you to be speaking about such nonsense.”
“Now hold on, Sarah,” he said, wagging his finger at her. “You know full well you have feelings for me.”
“It’s not for me—”
“To love? Nonsense.” He grabbed her hand. “I have a few pieces of advice for you. First, you’re really tense, you’re snapping at people, you’re considering killing a man just because he did what he had to do to keep his family alive.”
“That’s not fair,” she said. “What about all the families he left in tatters? He’s a mass murderer in my eyes.”
“Shut up, I’m talking,” Salphan replied, shocking her. “I always give you the respect of letting you say everything you need to say to me. That was the term you used earlier today, right? Shut up?”
She growled at him, a low guttural tone before she spoke. “I’d suddenly like to beat you up for some reason.”
“You’ve done that, I’d like very much if you didn’t do it again. I have a cure for stress that is way better than beating on me anyway,” he said, smiling. “So back to my list. Second, you’re doubting yourself, your abilities, your decision making.”
“And you think sex will fix that,” she said.
“No, I think making love will relax you, bring the calm Sarah back that everyone loves and respects,” Salphan countered. “And shut up, you’ve never made love to an adept, so you have no idea what you’re talking about if you try to deny that I know how to relax you.”
She’d humor him despite him telling her to shut up twice. See how far he was really willing to go with this and what his goal was. He didn’t really want to have sex with her, did he? “Well, I am curious.”
“It doesn’t even have to be physical, we can leave our clothes on,” Salphan said. “You want to try it?”
“Does this mean we’re boyfriend-girlfriend?” she asked, giggling. He was actually being very sweet, and she was really fond of him. Stars! She might as well be signing his death warrant. If she loved someone, they died. It was like a formula.
He looked at her funny. “We were already that, since you’re female and I’m male.”
Again she laughed. “Never mind,” she said. “Everyone I love dies. Without fail. You interested still?”
“We all die. When is simply a matter of luck.”
She shrugged. She’d never loved an adept before, so maybe he was the magic survivor. She did like him, and he was fairly respectful overall… why not? “Okay, take my stress away.”
“May I sit on the bed with you?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said smiling. To be honest, she’d wondered about adept sex, but never asked. How did it work? What would it be like to be so entwined with another?
Stars! She was going to let him do this!
He sat down, then reached out to touch her face. She got chills as his calloused fingers softly touched her skin. She felt her body responding in a way that surprised her.
His hand came to a stop, and she felt a presence. A push at the edge of her mind. She looked up and him, his eyes were closed, so she closed hers too.
I am here, he said to her. I am about to touch you in a way that will make any other intimacy seem a shadow by comparison.
She quivered inside her belly. I’m ready.
The presence pushed deeper into her being, slowly and gently, until some of her felt like Salphan and some of him felt like her. She saw him as a young boy, racing along the parapets of a castle in Antecar. A juvenile friend is with him and she realizes it is Edolhirr. She sees him training as a battle adept, crawling in mud, using the gift to leap up a cliff side.
For the first time she understands what it feels like to use the awesome power the adepts wielded. It’s both a gift and a burden, a thing to carry with honor as a gift from creation itself.
Her understanding of Emille and Alarin grew rapidly, as does her understanding of the severe crime Fasdamar committed toward her.
Fasdamar is in exile, and with the injuries I inflicted on him, life alone can’t be easy, Salphan said, answering her thought.
Now is not the time to think about that dirtbag, Sarah replied.
He moved to a different part of her, exploring her love with Vonn, with Gilbert. Her feelings well up inside like fountains, her passion for both men still strong in her core. For the first time in ages memories of both men rush back to her as if she had just met them for lunch. She feels like weeping when she realizes how much she’d forgotten of those she loved and lost.
She can hear herself let out a sob, but it’s almost as if someone else is crying.
Salphan touches her fears, and instead of bringing them forward for her to face, he stands with her in the face of them. In her mind she can see her hand wrapped in his, and an overwhelming sense of approval from something beyond him. Something…
He moves again, his mind caressing her, loving her, the touches are so light a butterfly landing would seem as a meteor crash by comparison.
You’ve loved me since you merged with me in the hospital.
I have.
Why didn’t you say something?
What would penetrate your armor? What words carry that magic?
You could have tried.
I let time wear your armor away. I am trying now. And succeeding. Stop complaining, I have something else to show you.
She erupted in the most pure pleasure she’d ever felt in her life, and he was with her the entire time. Together they cascaded into endorphin-laced passion, their clothed bodies shaking with the ecstasy of it. She would start to come down and he would reach out his mind to lift her back up. Again and again she surged, arching her back with the best orgasms that she’d ever had.
Orgasm didn’t even begin to describe what she was feeling.
Mindgasm.
Stop a minute, she thought, at a moment when she was able to form words.
He stepped back from her mind, and together they opened their eyes to look at each other. If the expression on his face was any indication, he was every bit as interested in more time with her as she was with him.
“Stand up,” she said.
He did so.
She unstrapped the bed’s stick-strap so she was free, then stood up to float next to him. “Hold me in place, I’m not wearing magnetic boots.”
He did so, she noticed that he touched her like she might break. Maybe he knew something she didn’t.
She unzipped her jumpsuit, then slipped it off her shoulders, down over her arms. He bent over and kissed her, she tilted her head back t
o meet his lips.
You’re tall, she thought to him. I never noticed how much.
That’s because next to you everyone is small.
Shut up and get your clothes off.
Moments later she was laying nude on the bed as he floated around clumsily trying to figure out how such a thing as sex worked in zero G.
She reached down and grabbed the stick-strap again, pulling it over both of them. The movement pulled him down on top of her, and he finally gained enough control of his motion to grab a handful of mattress on each side of her body.
A second after that he entered her mind again, lifting her high up the hill she’d climbed just a few minutes prior. Then he entered her physically, and shared the sensation with her. What he felt being inside her.
She came immediately. She’d never responded so fast in her life, this experience was exactly what he’d said it would be. She came again, and he lifted her higher, holding her there in a moment of ecstasy that stretched into a seeming eternity.
Then she felt something she’d never felt before. A carnal hunger, a predatory desire that felt like a need and a passion and a want and a desire and a cure… he began thrusting into her, slamming their bodies together with both lust and fury. He wrapped his arms tightly about her body, pulling her to him… and then Salphan came inside her.
She experienced every moment, sharing the sensations with him from his point of view.
As he came he growled like a lion mounting his mate after a violent fight to defend his territory.
She growled with him, and together they rode the highest wave she could imagine. She felt her fingernails digging into his back, and neither cared. He grabbed her by the hair and pulled her head back as he violently thrust his tongue into her mouth.
She bit his lip as the passion, love, and sharing of violence flowed over them.
Then it was over.
“No talking,” she whispered hoarsely. She drew the stick-strap tighter around them, and they lay together for several minutes, arms locked.
She finally had the mental strength to speak. “I’ll never be the same again.”
You’re telling me, a different voice said to her.
Emille!
What are you doing snooping on me?
I’m not snooping, but all the adepts on this ship and half of the adepts on the Stennis know what just happened to you. That level of emotional outburst sort of shines like a beacon, you know.
Salphan started laughing.
“Is she talking to you too?” Sarah asked.
“It’s fine, she is glad for you. For us,” he said. “The adepts aren’t as prudish and private as you newcomers.”
It’s true. I’m glad for you. I had no idea that old man had it in him. Later I will teach you methods for keeping it just between you and him, assuming there is a next time.
There will definitely be a next time, Sarah thought back to the young woman. But you’re right. I’d like it a bit more between just him and me.
Get back to him now. He is in love with you.
Sarah looked at Salphan. “Can you do this again?”
“Now?”
“You can have a few minutes,” she generously offered.
“So you’re happy then?”
She giggled again, for the second time in the last half hour. “I’m happy. You were right. Don’t get used to it.”
“What?” he asked. “Don’t get used to it? Will we not be doing this again in the future?”
“Oh, you can get used to the making love,” she replied, stroking his burn scars. “Don’t get used to being told you’re right.”
He kissed her without saying another word.
Chapter 48 - Sterilization
28 Seppet 15332
Admiral Dayson glowered at the assembly from the front of the briefing room. She’d offered to let Heinrich and Kuo attend by holo feed from the Stennis, but Heinrich followed a philosophy of attending to flag officers in person.
Her philosophy might have been a mistake today.
At first the admiral had seemed relaxed, much like she’d had a weight lifted from her shoulders.
Heinrich knew what was coming. It was the Stennis that processed the images the admiral was about to show everyone. She’d tried to warn Admiral Dayson, but there hadn’t been time to have a discussion alone, and it seemed Dayson didn’t want to make time.
To make it worse, Emille distracted Heinrich from her goal of a private conversation more than once. As if she were directing the admiral’s time toward something else.
Heinrich wished the chain of command was a bit clearer. She didn’t know how aggressive she could be moving the adept out of her way.
So yes, the admiral was in a good mood when the meeting started.
But as the images from Mindari rolled onto the screen from the Stennis’ intelligence techs and AIs, the woman Heinrich respected most grew quieter and quieter.
The screen showed images of Mindari, but not the world they’d known when they were based there, or even when they’d raided Strick Isle.
The images crossing the screen were devastating. The atmosphere was darkened by storm clouds, which the spectrograph indicated to be rich in nitric acid. Lightning played across the surface of the entire planet, no ground could be seen from space.
“This is what you wanted to talk about?” Admiral Dayson asked, looking at her.
“Yes sir,” Heinrich answered.
“You have my apologies. I took some time to see to some personal matters, and I should have made time for you.” The pained look on the admiral’s face expressed her regret even more clearly. She turned back toward the images. “Lucy, state for me the events that would create the situation we’re seeing here and describe the effect on Mindari.”
“I have retrieved the data on this matter from signal analysis on the Stennis,” the admiral’s personal AI said, “I used that data and the ELINT equipment on the Sheffaris to verify my conclusions for the purpose of this briefing. It is the highest calculated probability that the weather phenomenon we’re seeing on Mindari is the result of several processes. The dust storms you see in this shot,” the screen changed, “are almost certainly caused by kinetic impactors from orbit, on a planetary scale.”
Admiral Dayson closed her eyes, probably to maintain her emotions. “So planet wide orbital bombardment. Next image.”
Kuo wasn’t missing the Admiral’s change in mood either. He tapped Heinrich’s arm and pointed toward Dayson’s hand. Only one was visible, but it was clenched tightly into a fist, the knuckles turning white.
The next image showed a spectroscopic scan of the planet.
“This image indicates a high presence of chlorofluorocarbons, and a complete lack of ozone in the upper atmosphere. Conversely, the ozone presence in the lower atmosphere appears to be high. This situation will not protect the planet from solar UV flux.”
“What will be the environmental manifestation of that?” Heinrich asked. She already knew, but she wanted the adepts in attendance to understand the fury they were likely to see Admiral Dayson release in the near future.
“Captain Heinrich, the impacts are already occurring, and will result in the collapse of the planetary food chain. The phytoplankton in the shallow oceans of Mindari are likely dying at this time, either from the increased UV flux or from the darkness that is almost universally covering the globe.”
“Next image,” the admiral snapped. Her voice was low in volume and gravelly. Heinrich knew from personal experience that was not good.
The new visual showed a hurricane sized dust storm. Lightning playing along the tops of what looked like cumulonimbus clouds, but clouds that were made of dust particles, not water.
“This image shows the prevalence of electrical discharge in the dust raised by the kinetic impactors. The likely cause of electrical discharge at this level is ionization of the atmosphere,” Lucy said.
“What is the cause of that?” Heinrich prodded again.
“My analysis indicates an influx of gamma radiation equivalent to the presence of a nearby gamma ray burster would cause this level of ionization,” Lucy continued.
“And were there any gamma ray bursters nearby?” Admiral Dayson asked, furious.
“Negative.” Lucy hesitated a moment. “Admiral Dayson, your stress indicators are leaving acceptable norms. Are you sure you would like to see the source of the gamma radiation?”
“I would,” the admiral replied, after looking momentarily flustered and adjusting her dress jacket.
The next image came onto the screen. A cruiser sized ship that had a huge array of reflectors stretching out in all directions on one end. The same class of vessel that Alarin had shown her on first contact. The parabolic end was pointed toward the dust storms below. A blue-violet light glowed past the edges of the reflector, clearly much brighter on the planetary side of the assembly.
“This is a ship designed to function as a signal amplifier,” Lucy said. “The parabolic dish seen on the planet facing side of the ship is reflecting gamma radiation into the atmosphere of Mindari.”
“Is that radiation lethal at the levels present?” Heinrich asked.
“It is well beyond the lethal range for humans,” Lucy answered. “Directly beneath the ships emitting this radiation any exposure will instantly kill organic life, if that life is without shielding. Those near the edge of the effect will experience two or three days of increasing radiation sickness prior to death unless medical aid is rendered in the first few hours.”
“What methodology will kill the victims?” Heinrich asked to clarify.
“Massive DNA damage, protein destruction, and cellular collapse,” Lucy said.
“Is there anyone alive on Mindari now?” Admiral Dayson asked.
“Not without extensive radiation shielding to protect them,” Lucy answered. “The orbits of the cruisers are such that every inch of the planet falls within a direct kill zone every few hours. Admiral, this is a planet-wide sterilization event. Survivors will be a very small fraction of one percent, and we have no way to find them through the current level of atmospheric disturbance. Anyone exposed is past the point of medical aid. Anyone in shelters will be asphyxiated soon without proper filtration of the air.”