by Bianca D'Arc
“Okay, I’m out. You were saying we’ll be split up?” She picked up the thread of their conversation.
“It’s the most likely scenario,” he admitted, still not liking the idea.
He heard her moving around inside the lav, but he didn’t peek. Everyone was entitled to a little privacy, even if they were keeping the door propped open for safety reasons.
“Well, don’t sweat it,” she said in a casual tone. “If we’re parted, it won’t be for long. Everything I’ve seen shows us together at the crucial moments.”
“How confident are you in your visions?” he asked, curious. The idea of her running around this vast temple all alone nearly gave him hives.
“I have a very high reliability rate. Unless something changes radically in the time stream, I’d say we’re on track with everything I’ve seen so far.”
He heard her moving around a bit more and a moment later, she stepped from the lav. She’d taken a bit longer than he had, but he couldn’t complain about the results. She looked lovely.
He moved closer to her, resting his hands on her shoulders as he looked deep into her eyes.
“Just in case, I want you to know that I’ll do everything in my power to make sure you come out of this alive. And if the worst happens, I want you to know that the short time I’ve spent with you…well…it really meant something to me, Star. Something important.”
A joyful light came into her eyes as his head lowered. He had to kiss her. If these were their last moments alone together, he wanted to take the memory of her kiss with him into the unknown. She met him halfway, standing on her tiptoes. He liked that she was as eager for him as he was for her.
Their lips rubbed together sensually before he took the kiss deeper. His tongue slid into her mouth, savoring the taste of her. There was a trace of mint in both their mouths from the teeth cleaning supplies they’d both taken advantage of in the lav. But under the hint of mint was the sweetness that was Star herself. A taste he would always remember no matter how long—or short—he lived.
As if she had been made just for him. His favorite flavor. His favorite sensation. A caress to his soul.
When the door slid open behind her, he immediately lifted his head and met the gaze of the jit warrior across from him. There was a modicum of surprise, quickly hidden, along with what seemed to be a trace of envy…or perhaps admiration.
Star stepped back from Julian and turned to face the newcomer.
“Good morning,” she said in a bright voice, clearly trying to gloss over the slightly compromising situation they’d been found in.
He noticed her breathing took a few moments to stabilize and he realized with some surprise that they’d been standing there, kissing for a lot longer than he’d thought.
They were escorted to a dining room that was filled with quiet soldiers and monks just sitting down at a long table. Their silent escort indicated where they should stand, at simple place settings near one end of the table, and they took their places, waiting along with everyone else, to see what would happen next.
There was a table at the top of the room that looked more imposing that the others somehow, though it was also quite plain. As was everything in this temple they had seen so far.
The head table—if that’s what it was—was empty when Julian and Star took their places, but a moment later a small door opened at the far corner of the long room. A few older monks strode in quietly and took their places at the head table.
The old monk who had greeted them the night before was among the group, though he didn’t seem to be the head of the gathering. No, there was another man who looked a bit smaller in stature from this distance, who sat at the middle of the head table. Everyone seemed to wait for him to nod, then everybody sat all at once.
Julian learned a lot from the exercise. First, there was a hierarchy and those old guys up at that head table seemed to be in charge around here. Second, there was less standing on rank here than in the human military. The officers sat first back home, but here, they merely nodded and everybody sat at the same time. There was respect, but perhaps, a bit more egalitarianism.
The place settings were simple. Nothing heavily ornamented or gold-plated. Simple ceramic plates and steel utensils with pleasant patterns, but nothing too flowery or fancy. These things were meant for men, and it showed. The colors were darker, lending toward blues, greens and browns. The patterns more masculine in every room they’d been in so far.
Julian had yet to see another woman besides Star. He worried about that, but these monks seemed to have great discipline. Nobody spoke during the meal and he and Star followed suit. Platters of food were passed around the table, each person taking as much as he wanted, then sending it along the way.
They didn’t stint on food, but neither did any of the warriors sitting around them take more than he could finish. They ate quietly with almost military precision and table manners. The men were big, but seemed at ease here, in the heart of their sanctuary. Most appeared wide awake. Yawning at breakfast, it seemed, was not tolerated.
It also made Julian wonder if these men had already been about their duties or training long before the meal. He’d bet they probably had some kind of rigorous training schedule that included dawn PT, just like it was back home in the human military.
For it was clear to him now, as never before, that the Zenai might be a priesthood, but it was a military one. Every single one of these so-called monks was a warrior. Every single one had sized Julian up in a glance, as he had done to them. There was a certain look common to seasoned warriors the universe over, and these men had it.
If they weren’t the Goddess-damned enemy, he might actually admire them.
Chapter Six
After the meal had been consumed and a small contingent of young boys collected all the empty plates, the monk at the center of the head table stood. Star had been observing everything she could see of this massive room and the people in it, who were also massive, by her standards. Soldier-monks, every last one of them.
Even the boys who scurried about serving the meal and collecting the plates were born of the same stock. She could see all of them would grow into the behemoths who towered over her all around the room. If she wasn’t so confident that they were on the right path, she would be scared. There wasn’t a single woman anywhere to be seen and that usually didn’t bode well for a girl on her own in a room full of soldiers.
Thankfully, these guys seemed to have their baser impulses under strict control. Only a few of the youngest among the warriors gave her any kind of lingering looks. The serving boys blinked at her owlishly when they first saw her, their surprise in seeing a female eating among the monks very obvious. She sent them soft smiles which the little ones—she judged them to be around eight years old or so—returned shyly. The older boys merely nodded at her, the discipline of the priesthood’s teachings already taking hold.
The monk at the head table spoke in a clear voice. He spoke in the jit’suku language used on Solaris Prime, but Star managed to grasp a little of what he was saying. She had studied the language as much as she could in the months since she realized she would be heading for this planet with Julian. It wasn’t enough time to learn the language properly, but she could at least follow along with some of what the older man was saying.
He started with a rather lengthy prayer to the Mother Goddess. It was nice to hear that these warriors seemed to believe so strongly in a female deity. Judging by what she could follow of the monk’s words, their beliefs about their Goddess were very similar to the beliefs she had been raised with.
In the Milky Way, those who still believed in a deity leaned more toward God being male, but there were those, like her family, who still believed in the older ways. She had been taught to follow the Maiden, Mother and Crone, like all those in her family dating back to the days they had all lived on Earth.
From the little Julian had said, he too believed in the Goddess, which she found comforting, but hadn�
�t really questioned until now. Suddenly her visions made a bit more sense. Julian had common ground with these warrior-priests. They believed in essentially the same deity, which was always a good thing when dealing with a group of men who had devoted their life to their beliefs.
When the prayer was finished and a final blessing issued, the men began to file out of the big room. Star stood with Julian, unsure of what they were supposed to do now, but they were saved by the warrior who had escorted them here, then sat next to them through the meal saying nothing.
He spoke now, just two words. He said, “stay here,” on his way out of the room.
Julian shot her an amused look as they both sat back down, letting the warriors file out behind them. It took some time because the room had been very crowded, but eventually, they saw the old monk from the night before walking toward them. Star and Julian rose once more, to meet him.
“Good morning, again,” the older man said as he approached. There were four large, much younger men behind him, watching carefully. Were they an honor guard? Star wasn’t sure, but they looked ready for anything.
“Good morning, sir,” she answered for both of them when Julian didn’t say anything. She sent the older man a smile, figuring it couldn’t hurt to be polite. If she was right—and she usually was—this man was going to be instrumental in Julian’s mission.
“We have much to do today,” he stated, getting straight to business. “Come with me. We have a meeting to attend.”
The older man breezed past, leaving the four guards to surround Julian and Star, walking briskly behind the older monk as he led them from the room. They walked down a maze of corridors and entered a transport tube at one point, turning Star in so many directions, she would never find her way back. The temple complex was truly vast.
Eventually, things started to look familiar and she realized they were somewhere near the medical center they had visited last night. She worried for a moment, then fell back on her sure knowledge that they were walking the right line of destiny. Things would go well, even if it seemed a little scary at times. She just had to hang on and trust in her vision.
When they entered a conference room instead of an examination room, her nerves settled. It looked like the doctor from last night had set up some kind of presentation. Interesting.
“Take a seat,” the old monk ordered.
Star noticed that the guards stationed themselves around the room, watching Julian. A wise precaution, of course, but still a little creepy. And it was a bit insulting that they didn’t seem to consider her a threat.
Julian politely pulled out her chair for her, seeming to delight in the small ceremony that delayed his being seated—and therefore at a strategic disadvantage to the other warriors. He winked at her as she sat, then deliberately grinned at the four men who watched his every move as he took his own seat.
The old monk seemed to view this with a bit of amusement, Star was glad to note. The old guy turned to the doctor and signaled for him to begin with a wave of his hand.
“Good morning,” the doctor said, his voice strong.
The doctor—Dr. Terva, she recalled his name—didn’t seem nervous, or at all cowed by the old monk’s presence and air of command. If anything, he seemed comfortable with the monk, as if they were old friends. Perhaps they were, Star reasoned.
“I have run standard analyses of the blood and tissue samples collected last night. You are both very healthy specimens of your species, I am glad to note.” Dr. Terva looked up from his notes to smile at Julian and Star, then pressed a button that dimmed the lights and activated a view screen at the front of the room. “DNA analysis shows some interesting anomalies,” he went on.
Oh, boy. Star realized they were probably going to see some strangeness in Julian’s DNA because of his Enhancement. She wondered what it might mean that they called a special meeting about it.
“As I have seen once before with a so-called Enhanced human soldier, there is considerable jit’suku DNA spliced into the otherwise human Y chromosome.”
She felt Julian tense at her side, but he said nothing. Meanwhile, her mind was spinning. Enhancement was done with jit DNA? What in the world had the human military been thinking? If the soldiers knew what the military docs were doing to them, they never would have agreed. She felt sure of that.
Even more disturbing was that the jits seemed to know all about it. They’d studied at least one other Enhanced warrior’s DNA. But whose? And what had become of the poor devil? Had the thread of fate they’d been walking just taken an egregious turn for the worst? She sent up a quick prayer to the Goddess, hoping things were still going to work out in their favor, despite this troubling news.
“In addition, this subject has an X chromosome that is entirely jit’suku in origin. Meaning the subject’s mother was one of us.” The doctor didn’t seem to realize he was dropping nuclear bombs left and right.
Star saw Julian’s hand clench on the table a moment before he spoke out of turn.
“Are you still talking about my DNA?” he asked tersely. “Or are you on to Star now?”
The doctor looked up at Julian, seemingly startled. “I apologize for not being clear. Your lady is one hundred percent human. It is your DNA that contains a very large proportion of jit’suku DNA. Your mother was most certainly jit’suku and in fact, I can tell you exactly who she is.”
“I know damn well who my mother was,” he practically growled, understandably upset.
Star covered his hand with hers, hoping to comfort him in some small way. She knew he saw the guards move a step closer at his outburst. His eyes flicked to the corners of the room, pinning each one of the jit warriors with an angry glance.
“Matilda,” the old monk said in a voice that sounded unaccountably sad. Thankfully, it drew Julian’s attention off the threatening guards.
“My mother’s name was Matilda,” Julian confirmed. “But she was human. My father was human. My brothers and sisters, and aunts and uncles, and cousins, were all human. And they were all murdered by your Goddess-damned emperor and your bloody war.”
The accusation hung there in silence for a long moment.
Then the old monk spoke again.
“Please tell him, Terva.” The old monk seemed somehow weakened…by grief?
Star was confused. Something else was happening here. Something she had not foreseen.
The doctor brought up another slide of DNA sequences. It showed two distinct patterns.
“This is your DNA profile,” Dr. Terva said, gesturing toward Julian. “And this is the Princess Matilda’s profile. Sister of the emperor. Thought dead over thirty years ago.”
Terva manipulated the controls and brought the two DNA profiles over each other like transparencies. It was clear the X chromosomes were identical. Julian was this Matilda’s son. There was no question about it.
“You’re lying,” Julian ground out, clearly angered by the claim.
“I have no reason to lie about it,” the doctor objected, but the monk waved him to silence.
“It would have been easier to deal with you had this not been the case,” the monk said. “Frankly, this brings up things better left at rest. But it cannot be denied, now that we know the truth of it. Somehow the Princess Matilda left jit’suku space and found a new life in the human galaxy. She had a family with a human male which produced offspring. One of which is you, Captain. You are, whether you like it or not, part of the royal family of the jit’suku empire.”
“You have got to be kidding.” Julian slapped his palm down on the table and stood, pacing the length of the room. He growled when one of the guards got in his way, but much to everyone’s surprise, the guard backed down.
Holy shit. They weren’t kidding around. That jit guard had backed off because Julian was royalty, Star realized about the same time it seemed to dawn on him.
He spun and retook his seat.
“If I’m some long-lost prince, then why the hell did jit pirates make damn sur
e to wipe out every single one of my relatives?” he asked, angry. But then she saw the wheels turning as her own mind spun to the same dreadful truths. “Or maybe that’s why they did it? Did the emperor not want his royal blood mixed with mere humans?” he sneered.
He was very angry and he had every right to be, in Star’s view. The poor man had just had all his beliefs about himself and his family ripped apart.
“What was done to your family was not done by royal order,” the old monk assured him. “At least I don’t believe it was. When and where were they killed?”
Julian sat back, suddenly seeming drained of all emotion. He was probably in shock.
“Pacifica Station,” was all he said, and the tone was bleak.
The old monk cringed, taking in the words as if they were physical blows. Had he some kind of personal stake in this? Star wasn’t sure, but it looked that way.
“We heard what happened there and we know who is responsible. The destruction of Pacifica Station was not ordered by imperial decree—either public or secret. It was done by a rogue faction that claimed that station was being used as a staging area for munitions. The evidence was considered thin at best, but no charges were filed against the perpetrators because there was nobody left to testify.”
“And nobody knew that’s where Matilda had gone,” Dr. Terva added, speaking directly to the old monk.
The monk’s expression hardened. “Someone damn well knew. And he murdered her.”
Now it looked like the old monk was as angry as Julian had been. Could it be this was the common ground that united them in seeking justice for Julian’s lost family? Star felt sure this was the right path, finally. Perhaps she and Julian would get out of this alive after all.
Julian stood up abruptly. “I need to hit something.”
Star stood at his side, hoping to mitigate, but she should have realized these warriors would understand his need to give vent to his anger. The old monk stood.