Everyone was silent for a long moment. Gavit couldn’t have pulled this off on his own. He had to have had help from some deck hands, or at least our squadron crew chief. Shaking his head, Blazer turned off the image and looked back towards the academy. Pio-Tolis would have words for people, when she got back, for allowing Gavit to orchestrate this memorial.
“All Units, this exercise is complete, return to base.”
UCSBA-13, Main Hangar
Never before had Blazer felt so glad that Pio-Tolis’ recovery area was on the opposite side of the hangar from his flight group. Even if half the squadron still had to taxi around the ring of the hangar to get to their recovery area, she would stay with her fighter until she signed off on it. Then she would have to take one of maintenance carts around to them, giving him time to talk to Gavit.
The moment his fighter came to rest, Blazer powered it down as fast as he could and opened the canopy. He had to be the first one to talk to Gavit and address his actions at the Proving Grounds. Blazer jumped out of his fighter as Gavit pulled into the next recovery slot. He couldn’t help but tap his foot as he waited for Gavit to shut down and climb out of his craft.
Blazer stepped up to Gavit as he reached the deck, but he was ready for him. “Look, Blazer, Pio-Tolis already chewed me out on the way in, and I’m sure she has a Sheol of a lot more to say to me once she lands. So save it.”
Blazer took a step back. He hadn’t expected Gavit to go on the offensive. The response knocked the wind out of his sails, but taking a moment, he continued. “That was reckless as all get out. You could have been killed, you dip.”
Both men stood firm for a moment, until Blazer closed his eyes and shook his head.
“Did you just call me a dip?” Gavit asked, unable to mask his smile.
“Afraid so,” Blazer laughed.
Before either of them could say another word, Chris landed between them, having vaulted over Gavit’s fighter on the low gravity deck, and slapped Gavit hard enough to topple him back against his craft. “You asshole!” she screamed and slid closer to him. “That was my memorial missile for Seri!”
Blazer started forward to separate them, but Chris turned her wrathful gaze on him before he could complete the first step, her red hair tail whipping back at him. “Chris, let me handle this.”
“No way,” she snapped and turned back to Gavit. “I had that missile painted special for Seri, you ass. What gave you right to fire it like that?”
Gavit rubbed his cheek. “I asked. You’ve been holding onto that thing since we began weapons training, and you have not once attempted to get it loaded. It doesn’t do any good to just have it sitting around and I wasn’t about to let it go to waste. Not with the anniversary coming up.”
“Look who’s talking about letting things go to waste. You’ve been living like a man about to die ever since we were assigned our Firehawks. Just how many beings have you screwed the last two semesters, Gavit?”
“You’re one to talk! If the rumors I’ve heard are true, you’ve been experimenting with damn near every alien species with a dick since we started Special Ops training.”
Chris clenched her hand at her side, her arm trembling as she held it back. “I’m far more selective than you, Mister Markus. I don’t look for mere sexual compatibility in my partners.”
“Up yours, Chris! I let those rumors swirl for a reason, so no one knows what I’m really up to. I haven’t slept with even half the people they say. What about you?”
The pair stared at each other for a long moment. Neither said a word as Blazer and Matt looked on, Matt still in his seat, others from the squadron filtering in around them. I know that rumors of these two’s sexual exploits are spreading, but they’re false. There’s no way they could be true. Still, the tension between them is getting thicker every cycle, and everyone’s getting sick of it.
“Will you two just get a room and screw already?” Matt asked, looking down at them.
“Shut up, Matt!” they both called back at him.
“Matt, zip it,” Blazer ordered and stepped between the pair. “Chris, it was you that had that missile painted?”
“Yeah, Treb sent me the design. I transferred it onto the training round a while back. I’ve just been waiting for the right moment to use it.”
Blazer nodded, realizing that the artwork did have Treb’s unique style to it. “Phantom Phunny?”
Chris nodded.
Phantom Phunny artwork still found its way onto the academy intraweave after Treb’s dismissal, and even some new helmets bore his mark. Now I understand how. Chris and the others must be transferring the artwork using nano-sheets, for Treb, after he stitches them over from Zel-Tag.
Blazer turned to Gavit. “It was Chris’ round to fire, not yours, and the stunt you pulled was reckless. I want whatever death wish is running through you two gone, you understand me?”
Gavit nodded. “I had to find some way to honor Seri. Plunging that missile into the hulk of the destroyer seemed the most fitting way.”
“Good. You are our best pilot, Gavit, and I don’t want to lose you or anyone else,” he went on, meeting the eyes of each of those who were gathered around. “Get yourself tightened back up.”
Gavit nodded and looked over at Chris. “I’m sorry. I should have told you first.”
“Damn straight, you should have!”
Before anyone else could say another word, Commander Pio-Tolis pulled up on a maintenance cart. Blazer broke away as Pio-Tolis slid with purpose out of her seat and marched straight for Gavit to give him the public chewing out she had been saving up the entire flight back.
UCSB DATE: 1001.378
Anul System, Anul, Heshin Mountains
“You never told me how your tests went,” Derjin commented, as the autocab whisked them up a dark mountain road.
Jell leaned back in her seat, stretching, her stomach still full from their dinner. I still can’t believe that he took me to Calden’s Steakhouse., That dinner had to have cost him half a decle’s pay. Just what is he planning? Sitting back up, she locked eyes with him. “I aced them. Of course. Now, what do you have planned?”
“What are you talking about?” he asked in return.
Coy to the end, huh? “I mean, everything this cycle? Our ‘dates’ usually just involve something quick to eat then and a roll in the sheets, not much more.”
“Timing. You’ve been so busy studying lately that, we haven’t had a chance to do much. I haven’t even gotten to see you dancing with other guys to get me jealous for over a tridec.”
Jell smiled and leaned forward, allowing her dress to fall open and give him a view of her bra-encased bosom. “You mean worked up, don’t you? I think the last time I did that I got you excited like that, we nearly started a fire in the stock room, we made love so hard.”
“Okay! Let’s just say I missed you, then,” he responded, caressing her leg. “I’ve been looking forward to this for a long time.”
“Really? Are you planning to do something special wherever it is that we’re going?”
“Very,” he replied with a wicked smile, and grabbing hold of her wrist, he pulled her towards him.
They met in a mad embrace, Derjin kissing her with more force then she’d felt in a long time. The air in the car began to spark in response as they passed an electic charge between them. Jell reached down to undo Derjin’s belt and cup his balls. Unable to contain herself, she slipped her hand into his pants. Much to her surprise, he pushed her away, electricity sparking between their exposed tongues. “What’s wrong?” she panted.
“We’re here,” he announced, and pointed beyond the car’s window out of the dome towards at the Overlook Inn.
It was all Jell could do not to laugh. Remembering her efforts to stop Blazer and Marda from consummating their relationship at this very hotel brought her to the edge of hysterics, but she managed to hold back as Derjin slid his hand into the back of her pants and caressed her butt. “This is wonderful,” sh
e commented. She then locked eyes with her sweetheart. “I will do such things to you.”
After drinks at the bar, the pair headed up to their room, where Jell sent Derjin to the bed while she slipped into the bathroom to change. She took her time there, slipping out of her form figure-hugging dress and pulling out her a black lace negligee. To say it was lace was a bit of a misnomer ; most of the outfit consisted of nothing but sheer silk just a shade darker than her own skin. The small lace filigrees only just barely covered her nipples before dancing down like vines to cover her vestigial nipples before meeting at her crotch. The backside was almost completely sheer and made no attempt to conceal her ass.
Once she was sure of how the negligee looked, she emerged. Derjin waited on the edge of the bed in his undershorts. She loved the sight of him that way, loved to look at his rippling muscles, and the hair on his chest filled her with excitement. She had trouble containing herself as she walked towards him, strutting with each step; twisting and turning to accentuate her body’s nicest features and entice him.
With each step, she watched his excitement grow. As she got to him, his excitement stood at full attention, poking out of his shorts. She straddled his lap and laid her arms across his shoulders before locking him in a passionate kiss. He returned the that kiss, and the pair fell back on the bed.
This makes it all worth it, she thought as they kissed and explored each other’s bodies. To end my decle of horrid studies with Derjin like this. I couldn’t ask for more. She shook her head for a moment to cast thoughts of school and family aside, and Derjin took the moment to pull off her negligee, before rolling back onto on the bed and pulling off his shorts.
Electricity sparked between them, dancing out across the room as they made love. It arced between them every time they pulled apart and into the electrical appliances, feeding off the energy flowing back into and through them.
After several pulses, a knock came from the door.
“Ignore it,” Jell panted. She didn’t want to stop now, couldn’t take the interruption, not when she was so close to climax.
The knocking continued—and became got more insistent.
“Go away!” Derjin hollered over his shoulder with a pleasure pleasure-filled grunt.
The knocking intensified. The person outside pounded at the door, never saying a word.
“Fuck off!” Jell screamed, feeling her climax slipping away in frustration.
In response, the door burst open. Twisting about on its hinges after the latch exploded, it slammed into the wall. Derjin jumped off Jell and rushed into the center of the room to defend her. Sure that something was wrong, Jell rolled off the bed to watch. What kind of sick joke is this? Did Blazer find out we’re here and send some of his friends to stop us too?
She watched several men enter the room. These were no friends of Blazer’s. They were all older, the youngest in their early thirties by her guess. A spirit orb hovered along with them, piquing her interest. How did it make it past the orb shield?
Derjin did not take kindly to their assault. He threw out a tazing charge at the first man to enter the room. The lightning bolt jumped from his hand and slammed into the man’s chest. He just shrugged it off. Both Jell and Derjin could only stare at that.
That charge should have knocked him flat.
Then the man cocked his hand back and threw out a lightning bolt of his own. The blast caught Derjin in the chest and sent him tumbling back into the wall, twitching from the powerful assault. A second man then stepped up and threw another bolt, and then a third approached and did the same. Jell’s mouth fell agape; their assailants were other all Energy Gatherers. Oh my God, are they Electrolites? Her mind raced with questions about why that old cult of Energy Gatherers would come for her .Is it because of Kamden? She’s long dead, and the Electrolites should be too!
She looked over at Derjin—he was suffering under the attack. He couldn’t handle this much energy flowing into him, and the smell of charred flesh wafted off him. She knew for some time that she was more powerful than him, but could even she take that kind of punishment? I have to do something.
Jell bolted from cover, she didn’t care if she was naked, she had to save Derjin. She threw her own lightning bolt at the trio, interrupting the circuit, and they turned to her. That was when she recognized them. I’ve seen those old guys around town and school. And him, he’s that creeper from the club that always tried to dance with me and the girls. Have they been following me, and I didn’t realize it?
These men couldn’t be her shadow. They didn’t have the bearing of someone who’d been in the service. She realizd that now wasn’t a great time to have ditched her shadow. They were Electrolites, and they’d been following her, the cult not being dead after all. Where are those damn shadows when I need them?
She looked up at the orb. “Why are you with these people? They’re Electrolites.”
The leader scoffed and leered at her.
Shame washed over Jell, a shame that she couldn’t recall ever feeling before.
“He’s with us, because he is us,” the leader said.
She looked back at the orb and it flashed images into her mind, images that stretched back over a millennium to the ancient times. She couldn’t believe the images and feelings the orb shared with her. This conglomeration of spirits was not just one person, but carried with it the memories and the essences of hundreds, maybe thousands of others, stretching all the way back to the first true Electrolite. She felt each of them claw at her mind, pull at her spirit, imploring her to join them. To her horror, the strongest voices boomed from her own family line.
She found herself in an ancient village filled with peasants and serfs. Looking through the eyes of the first Electrolite, she found them all enslaved by his power. He threw out lightning bolts at all those who opposed him. She felt him draw her in, enticing her to join them. In an instant, the orb let her experience the whole history of the Electrolites, their triumphs and failures, even Kamden’s death, even this moment.
It was almost too much to take in. She could only justbarely understand all that it was showing her. It didn’t sugarcoat anything. The orb’s final gift to her was Kamden Krain’s ultimate plan. Her grandmother had birthed the most powerful Energy Gatherer of the last generation with Jell’s father, Jorden Vaughnt. His pairing with her mother, Laresse, a multiplier, had created even more powerful Energy Gatherer children. If Jell possessed her mother’s gift as well as her father’s, her children could be the most powerful Energy Gatherers in history.
She stumbled back, breaking away from the memories, horrified by the imagery. Looking up at the men, she decided to put her power to the test as never before.
Never reveal your secrets to someone who isn’t your friend, Jell thought and recalled one of the techniques the orb had just showed her. She clasped her hands together, focused her energy, and then pulled them apart, with a ball of lightning growing between them. She shot it out at the leader without warning. It slammed him in the chest and threw him into the hallway, the crack of the lightning deafening.
She turned a wicked smile on the next man, the club creeper. He had tried to dance with her once, arcing as he approached to show that he too was an Energy Gatherer. She didn’t hadn’t cared at the time, she had no eye for him.. But he did for her, now more than ever. He threw a lightning bolt at her and she caught it, absorbing his power as she kept the link open, and surged the power back at him. He was powerful but each time he shot energy back at her she felt the amount lessen. He can’t stand against me!
She felt her power begin to wane, however. After wasting it on Derjin, I’m not at a full charge—I’m screwed. Glancing up, she saw what she had to do. She reached up with her left hand and shot a bolt into the light, then she reversed the flow from the inn’s power grid into herself. She surged it out at the man. He fell to the floor a moment later and the next three stepped up.
Following her example, they tapped into the power grid, drawing upon t
he fusion generator in the basement before unleashing their charges upon her. She did her best to keep on her feet, but even under this barrage she wasn’t sure how long she’d be able to stand. She had never practiced with her abilities, and after the fighting with the first two and her intense love-making with Derjin, she was exhausted.
The tang of singed flesh stung her nose, and she felt herself burning out. She absorbed and shunted away as much energy as she could, but it was too much. Then she felt the opposite and her eyes went wide in terror. They’re draining me! The sudden shift was too much for her.
Before she knew it, she’d fallen to the floor. She’d never felt so weak. She had to fight even just to keep her eyes open. Holding on to consciousness, she turned to look at Derjin. He lay slumped against the wall, his breath coming in hoarse wheezes. She turned to her attackers once again as they stood over her and they hit her with their charges again. Everything went dark.
UCSB DATE: 1001.379
Hyperspace, En Route to the Heric System, Dropship-116
It was all Blazer could do just to keep his hearts calm, sitting as he was in the mission commander seat at the back of the cockpit as the team raced through hyperspace. It wasn’t that he doubted his flight crew—Mikle was a great hyperspace pilot and negotiated the maelstrom of hyperspace with ease—it was their destination.
Heric was a contested system. For a full annura the UCSB and GF had battled for control of the resource-rich worlds populating it, with battle lines shifting multiple times a cycle. Blazer reviewed the status of the system one last time. The GF had broken a two-tridec-long stalemate with the introduction of a Barker class super carrier and its battlegroup. They took three mining bases and our primary base of operations, including command staff. Now we have to extract them from enemy custody. Blazer shook his head. This rescue mission, even more than the others they’d conducted, would rely heavily on the skills of their three-man flight crew—Gavit, Mikle and Acknit.
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