by C. C. Ekeke
His superior officer, Sam D’Urso.
It took him back to the first time they’d met over two years ago during his time at the Union Intelligence Bureau Training Academy. Sam had sashayed into his life with that naughty lopsided grin and more curves than a winding river, offering him a better outlet for his abilities than the UIB could ever provide. Khal had been mesmerized from the start.
Yet tonight, Sam was the last being Khal wanted to see.
“What are you doing here?” he hissed through gritted teeth.
“I should ask you the same thing, ‘sweetie,’” his superior officer snapped. “Is this what a night out with the boys entails?”
Khal straightened up, alarmed. He didn’t bother wondering how Sam had found him. What troubled him more was this jealous girlfriend act. And they hadn’t even spoken before he came to Red Bar tonight. What the hell is she playing at?
“Me sorry?” The Nnaxan girl looked from Sam to Khal, confused and with her lower set of hands on her hips. “But you are who?”
“His betrothed!” Sam angled an accusing glare at Khal. “Whom he proposed to last week.”
“What? No!” Khal gaped at his boss in horror. Bad enough that she didn’t place him on the new combat team. Now she had to mess with his easily-earned prospect? The Nahraini turned to the now enraged Nnaxan with desperate pleas. “No, she’s not my fiancée. She’s lying. Look, I—”
The Nnaxan girl hauled off and slapped him, with both right hands. Khal staggered back, the left side of his face stinging fiercely.
Disgust quickly surmounted desire, and both the Nnaxan’s craniowhisks rippled in a threatening way that made Khal cringe.
The girl stormed off through the crowd, and Sam openly guffawed. “My understanding of Nnaxanese is a bit rusty, but I think that meant something like ‘die by way of meteor strike.’”
Khal held his still-smarting cheek tenderly and moved to pursue the Nnaxan, but Sam placed a hand on his shoulder to stop him. “Sorry for the cock-block. We need to talk.”
Khal shrugged her off and rounded the table. “What do you want?”
“Sex,” Sam purred huskily, as if the answer were obvious. She leaned over the table, lips perfectly pouted, giving Khal an unhindered view of her abundant cleavage.
Khal gaped back in a daze, pulse quickening, loins stiffening, that Nnaxan girl already forgotten. Sam’s gaze had scorched away the fog of his anger. Khal recalled his last ‘reward’ for an off-the-books task. She’s never pity-fucked me before, he considered, leaning in closer. Oh well.
Sam threw her head back and laughed loudly…mockingly.
That wiped the sex-glazed look right off Khal’s face. An embarrassed flush crept up his neck and he jerked back furiously.
“Not tonight,” Sam straightened up and grinned suggestively grin, beckoning him toward Red Bar’s exit. “Let’s go talk.”
Khal stayed put and kept the table between them, partly to wait for his ‘excitement’ to go down. “About what?” he asked, not caring how rude he sounded.
Sam arched an eyebrow. “You know what.” Clearly an open discussion about Star Brigade amongst civilians wasn’t an option.
“You and Nwosu made your decision,” Khal countered stubbornly. He cast an uninterested stare over Red Bar’s swelling patronage. “What’s there to talk about?”
“Plenty,” Sam ran both hands through her hair. “Like your future.”
“You mean the lack thereof?”
Sam’s smile withered like a leaf kissed by frost. “Christ on a goddamn comet. Get over your man-period and come here!” She grabbed her subordinate by the arm and marched him toward the bar’s exit. Khal would not have taken this humiliation from anyone else. Yet even though he had half a foot on Sam in height, her wrath was a terrifying force when roused. So Khal held his tongue and let himself be led away.
Once they were safely inside Khal’s personal shuttlecraft cargo bay, in one of Jefferson’s parking structures, he finally unloaded his frustration on Sam.
“Why?” he demanded curtly. Khal was past caring that she outranked him. “Why wasn’t I selected for the new combat team?”
Sam had seated herself in a booth taking up most of the cargo hold’s right-side wall. “You’re not ready,” she said without hesitation.
The blunt reply stung worse than that Nnaxan bimbo’s slap. Khal sat down heavily next to her. “After all the shit I’ve done for you. The side missions, helping you oust Azohl’ozyma and Nyell, yet you have the gall to tell me I’m not ready?”
“Yes,” Sam twirled locks of blonde between her fingers, as casual as if discussing the weather. “You’ve mastered the basics of your telekinesis, but you’re lazy about moving beyond that. And you don’t support your teammates well on the field with your abilities. And your bragging is pissing off the other recruits.”
“It’s not bragging if it’s the truth,” Khal scowled. “Besides, Khrome brags all the time.”
“Khrome’s funny,” Sam made a face. “You’re not, pretty boy.”
Khal clenched his teeth, intensely hating when she called him that. He couldn’t let this injustice stand, not after hedging all his bets on becoming an important player in Star Brigade. And it all started with snagging his spot on a combat team. “Khrome and Tyris getting spots, I understand. Even that psycho Kintarian of yours makes some twisted degree of sense. But you and Nwosu have a really skewed view of combat-ready to pick that useless doctor chick over me.”
“Lily is green, yes,” Sam nodded coolly, not remotely perturbed by his critique. “She also possesses a special set of skills that you don’t. Does it make sense to bring two intel officers on the same team, when we needed a full-fledged doctor?”
“No.” Khal remembered this Dr. Cortés, the one with the killer aim who passed that little test Nwosu set up during last month’s all-hands. During the weeks of training, Khal had caught Cortés stealing looks at him more than a few times. She wants me, not that I blame her. He was used to females from all different species gazing at him. The doctor was cute enough, but nothing extraordinary. Her legs, though, were amazing, going on for light years.
Legs or no legs, everyone knew how terrible Cortés was. Khal had heard about her freak-out during a field mission simulation two days ago. And rumor had it Cortés also was terrified of space travel. Yet she lucked her way onto the combat team because she’s a doctor. Knowing that irked Khal even more.
“I should have never left the UIB for this waste of time,” he spat, folding his arms and turning away from Sam sullenly. “I could’ve been an active field agent by now, if I’d stayed with the agency—”
“Let me tell you what your future would be with UIB,” Sam cut in sharply. She didn’t yell, but her voice and face conveyed a cold, petrifying rage. “You might be a desk jockey or you may even be an active field agent in a few months. But most likely, they trot you out for a few high-profile missions only. But the majority of the time, you’re probably a lab rat, poked and prodded, testing your abilities to the point of agony, never seeing daylight again. They’d even deny you sex,” she added pointedly, making Khal flinch. “All because of your maximal powers.
“Or worse,” Sam continued, insolently tossing her hair, “you’d be picked up by some black ops outfit. Would there be missions? Absolutely. But after six months,” her russet-brown eyes narrowed, looking like chips of burnt auburn under the cargo bay’s halo lighting. “Maybe a year of that, and all the immoral shit you’d be forced to do for this ‘great’ Union would eat you up inside and make you want to kill yourself.”
Khal was so stunned he briefly couldn’t speak. “Y-you can’t know that,” he finally said, but with no confidence backing his retort.
Sam crossed her arms and studied him contemptuously. “I know it for a fact, young man. But hey, if either of those options appeals to you, I’ll have Captain Nwosu get the transfer order signed tonight.”
A protracted silence followed while Khal digested Sam’s words
. You’re valuable, but not invaluable, she all but said. More than once, she had been less than forthcoming with him, but in this instance Khal knew Sam was shooting straight from the hip.
“I’ll stay,” he shook his head and sighed, defeated. “I just…I want to be out in the field. I haven’t done much with my life, but I feel I can do this well if given the chance.”
His frustration reached Sam, and her hard edges melted away. “I know,” she said in a husky whisper. “And you will.” She caressed his cheek tenderly, like a lover would. Her warm touch made Khal’s skin tingle, soothing away his unease, distracting him. Just for a moment.
Sam only displayed this type of affection with Khal when it suited her.
“When?” he asked peevishly, pulling back. “It’s been almost a year.”
Sam leaned in closer, eyes alight with fiendish mischief. “I’ve got big plans for you, pretty boy,” she declared, suddenly playful again. “And it all starts tonight.”
She wants something, Khal realized. Of course, another task that brought him no closer to combat-team placement than before. Instead, he hid his suspicions behind a mask of calm. “What do you need from me?” Maybe the task might be interesting, and she’d reward him like all the other times.
Sam pulled out a 5-inch datapad as slim as a paper sheet from her belt. She keyed in a code across its typepad. Instantly, the viewscreen was filled by a squid-faced Rhomeran with maggot-white skin. “Meet Glu Zlliosho.”
Khal stared at the holoimage blankly, not recognizing this ‘Glu Zlliosho.’ “Who is he?”
Sam made a rude noise. “That’s for you to find out.” She flicked off the holoimage and slid the datapad back in her belt. “I sent the image and the name to your Union TriTran account.”
“You want me to find dirt on this guy?” asked Khal.
“Find out everything you can about him,” Sam nodded. “What does he do for a living? Where does he live? Does Glu have family? What’s his favorite food? What’s his political affiliation? Who’s his favorite polymaero player? Does he even like polymaero? Everything, anything, and then some.”
“What for?” Khal scrutinized Sam as she stood up. He wasn’t sure how spying on some Rhomeran would get him on a CT.
Sam leaned near the shuttlecraft’s side exit. Khal could not deny the suggestive way that she carried herself: relaxed in posture yet oozing confidence and an irresistible feminine allure. “Get me all that and be patient,” Sam kept her husky voice at almost a whisper. “Keep improving and follow my lead these next few months. You will be placed on a Star Brigade combat team.”
The phrasing confused Khal. “But we only have one Star Brigade combat te—” The import of Sam’s words sank in then.
She gave him a barbed smile. “Still mad at me?”
A combat team. Meaning that this first combat team would be Nwosu’s…and then Captain Ishiliba would get his own. Khal shook his head, and felt a smirk pull at his lips.
“Good,” Sam sassed, like a teacher giving a student a pat on the head. She whirled around and out of the cargo bay with a mesmerizing sashay. “You got till the day after tomorrow,” she called over her shoulder. “And tell no one.” Her departure was marked by the hissing open and shut of the shuttlecraft door.
Half an orv later, Khal was on a return course to Hollus. As his ship hurtled through Zeid’s roiling emerald clouds, he had already started a detailed search through official and unofficial databases on this Glu Zlliosho. So far, nothing. Was he a covert agent of some sort? Working for the Rhomeran Acunet maybe?
Searching for a needle in an asteroid field, Khal considered with a smile. Not unlike the test Sam had tasked him with after their first meeting, to ensure he was worth poaching from UIB’s grasp.
Khal had no complaints then or now. He always excelled at cracking the challenging mysteries. Meanwhile, he sent a transmission to a data analyst friend posted on Star Brigade’s nearby Cobalt Waystation. After almost a month of training and no sex, Khal needed some action tonight.
“Hello?” answered a young human female with a faint Martianborn lilt.
“Hey Gigi.”
“Hi, sunshine,” Genesis Delgado’s voice instantly brightened.
“Still on your shift?”
“Just got off,” she replied blithely, “About to fly up to Hollus for dinner with the girls. What’s up?”
She’s coming to Hollus, Khal perked up. That saved him the trouble of flying down to Cobalt. He recollected the wonders Gigi could perform with that sweet little mouth of hers and smiled wolfishly. “Come over after dinner.”
A sharp intake of breath could be heard on the other end. “Sure,” Gigi replied after a charged moment, barely hiding her eagerness.
“Luminal! See ya soon.”
“Bye handsome,” she whispered.
Khal ended the transmission, still smirking. He’d gone through his share of extracurriculars amongst Hollus’s female personnel, but Khal enjoyed Gigi’s company the most. While plainer and plumper than his usual type, Khal couldn’t get enough of her unflappable positive outlook of the universe. Plus Gigi always came whenever he called, had zero complaints about their arrangement, always made time to help him on intelligence tasks, and could keep her mouth shut. In short, Gigi was perfect.
Khal glanced at his ETA to Hollus: 10 macroms. He expected Gigi in about two orvs, more than enough time to get some headway on this task.
Right then, data from his Glu Zlliosho search began to appear—the boring personal minutiae, of course. Then he spotted Glu’s connection to Bhoryus Corp, a renowned military defense contractor.
“Okay, this just got interesting,’ Khal murmured, pointing and clicking to access the data packet.
Believe
Surje could no longer feel his arms, his legs, or even his head. Not in the physical sense, at least.
That’s because at the present time, he had no arms. Or legs. Or head. In the physical sense.
Having shifted from his solid humanoid form into plasma form, the Voton had no need for corporeal extremities. Surje felt disembodied, as if floating in zero-G, yet connected to everything—the metallic tang in the air, the dim luminosity from the halolights above overpowered by the light leaping off his now shapeless body. All of Surje’s senses amplified tenfold, even though he had no physical means to touch anything.
This never gets old, he mused. Surje’s thoughts were shared by the Voton couple joined with him.
You both ready?
More than ready, Jabei thought.
Qarm’s joy was like an actual sunrise. I’ve been waiting for this since the moment I met her.
Let’s proceed then.
Right now the Star Brigadier was a fluid mass of glowing red, joined with two other Voton, also in plasma state. Qarm burned bright orange and Jabei throbbed with pale blue shimmer. Together the trio formed a sizeable floating sphere of brilliant plasma energy, flooding the small quarters they were in with blinding light. Surje, Qarm and Jabei were joined in mind, body and soul.
On its own, a joining transcended tactile sensation or individualism. But a joining under the radiance of the Living Light, allowing that hallowed glow to fill them up and guide them… Surje could find no words in any dialect to describe how that nourished his soul.
Even though I walked away from that life.
His mother was a Sun Matriarch, his father a high-ranking Joiner celebrant. They had taught their son everything he knew about the Living Light, pushing him into becoming a certified celebrant in hopes that he would one day take over their ministry. Surje remembered the training, getting the certifications, yet feeling no passion for that path. He wanted to contribute his gifts to a more active calling. A long, difficult stretch of time passed before his parents accepted his choice to enlist in UComm and then become a Star Brigadier.
Correction—attempted to become a Star Brigadier. Surje’s father had come around first, seeing his son’s maximal gifts as bestowed by the Living Light itself. For
all the good that did. A pang of resentment twisted his insides. Lights be gone.
Excuse me, Pleiad? Jabei’s bafflement bled into Surje’s past memories.
Apologies, Surje stammered. He’d let his private thoughts taint into the Joining. With a thought, he steeled away that part of himself from the Joined sphere.
Despite his refusal to become a Joiner celebrant, in times of doubt or fear or sadness, the Shining Faith remained Surje’s refuge. Like it was tonight, after finding out he hadn’t made the new Star Brigade combat team. At least Sam D’Urso, his superior officer, had told him herself. For a human, D’Urso was at times unorthodox, but her frankness was appreciated.
Still, Surje needed time to clear his head. So he was spending his evening at Roosevelt, one of many gas mining cities floating inside of Zeid. Roosevelt also had a number of Living Light sources which he’d grown familiar with since being stationed on Hollus Maddrone Starbase.
But right now, he brushed aside his needs and failures. Surje focused on Qarm and Jabei, the young Voton couple he’d just met at a modest Shining Faith source, not two orvs ago. They were missionaries, about to start a new journey on Kheldoroth. The two, so dutiful to the Living Light, so drunk with love for each other, were desperate to become merged before their mission started. Surje had officiated Mergings before. How could he refuse them?
Qarm and Jabei had already exchanged fragments of life energy with one another, then interweaved their senses. Now was time for the bright words.
Do you Qarm, Surje began, pledge to join your life with this female, protect her from the Infinite Darkness, guide her down the path of radiance until she leaves this plane and joins the Shining Host?
Qarm beamed, showering the sphere and the room with his love. I do.