by Loki Renard
Era would not submit like this. I would have to pin her by the hands just to get her to lie down. I would have to growl and lecture her to stop her from squirming. This woman sighs and falls into perfect position, and though I am not immune to her beauty—this is not the same.
Era is gone, however. She chose the shuttle and her freedom. I cannot mope. There is no strength in that. I must move forward, make new conquests.
I look down and admire the way she is flowering beneath me, the petals of her sex flushed with desire. When I look below her navel, I feel desire, but the moment I raise my eyes to her face, I know she is not the woman I want. She is beautiful, but she is not Era.
“Stand up,” I say. “Put your robe back on.”
She does as she is told immediately, but there is confusion on her face as she pulls the gauzy fabric that covers nothing back over her body.
“Do I displease you, Commander?”
“No,” I reassure her gently. “You are eminently pleasing. I will pass on my highest regards and recommendations. I am merely…” I search for words. “Distracted.”
Her glance, for the merest fraction of a moment, is doubtful, but then the trained smile reasserts itself and she bobs her head slightly. “Please call on me again, Commander, if you desire.”
I watch the woman leave, her natural gait a sensual sway that would have driven me into a sexual frenzy before I met Era. I feel nothing. No impulse to conquer. No desire at all.
The moment she leaves, I know I have made the biggest error in all my life. I should never have presented Era with the option to leave. Even if she begged for her freedom every day of her life, I should have kept her. She was mine, and I am going to reclaim her.
* * *
The shuttle is tracked, of course. It should not be too hard to find her. A simple instruction to our tracking team should lead to her location. I am going to get my girl back.
I dress myself swiftly and make my way to the team responsible for tracking our ships. The young officer is only too keen to assist me. He turns to his monitors and begins to work with them as I wait impatiently. I should be preparing a shuttle of my own, but I want to know where she is first. Depending on how far she’s managed to make it, I may need heavier or lighter transport.
“Well?”
“Sorry, sir. There seems to be some kind of interference with the tracker…”
My heart drops to the pit of my stomach. “What do you mean…”
“I’m sure it’s just background radiation, sir, it can take a few minutes to lock a signal down sometimes.”
I’m making him nervous, I can tell. His palms are leaving sweaty marks on the interface.
“Let me know when you find it,” I say. “I will be preparing transport.”
“Yes sir.”
I go to the shuttle bay to pick out a suitable craft. She has the Starskipper. It is a robust and swift shuttle, but there are faster. I am considering the Ranger or the Warscout when the same young man approaches me, a tablet in his hand and a look of obsequious concern on his face.
“We’ve located the shuttle, sir.”
“Good. Where is she?”
“We don’t know.”
That answer pleases me much less than the one before it.
“What do you mean, you don’t know?”
He cringes visibly, afraid of my ire. “We have found the shuttle. It is part of a Katiri convoy. She seems to have traded it. They have been hostile since contact, and do not seem to be inclined to indicate where she might have gone.”
The Katiri are traders. They’re small, they’re nimble, and they possess ships that are capable of interstellar travel in the blink of an eye. Suddenly, the few million mile radius I could safely assume she had to be within has extended to a nearly infinite amount of space. I have lost her in those stars she once stared at with such wonder.
“Impound the ship, bring me the Katiri captain. I need information.”
“Sir, that will cause diplomatic…”
“Impound the ship,” I growl. Diplomacy be damned. If the Katiri care about diplomacy, they shouldn’t be taking our ships as trade, and they certainly shouldn’t be denying me information.
Unfortunately, the ship is hours away, so for hours I am forced to wait. Every passing minute increases my agitation. I am aware that my impatience will not serve me well, nor will it get Era back any more quickly. Her absence is my fault. I shouldn’t be blaming our crews. I shouldn’t be blaming anyone besides myself.
* * *
“I’ll sue every single one of you fuckers!”
My orders have been carried out. The Katiri ship has been impounded and the captain taken into custody. Suffice to say, the Katiri captain is not pleased. He comes all the way up to my waist, but that doesn’t make him any less of a fearsome contender. The Katiri are one of the very few species we have not subjugated. In the end, it was easier to make an alliance with them than deal with their constant rebellions, not to mention their natural litigiousness.
He has long red hair covering much of his face, but two bright green eyes peer out from amid it. He is wearing the traditional dress of the Katiri, beaten sheet metal that encompasses his rotund frame. He’s stamping around the room, but stops when I enter.
“You, you’re the fucker who got me hemmed up here!”
“I believe you met a human woman named Era,” I say, getting to the point.
“I believe you can boil your dick.”
His insolence is an irritant, and I have no time for it.
“Did you see her, or not?”
“We saw her. Saddest little thing we ever laid eyes on.”
“Where did she go?”
He shrugs. “Promised not to tell. Was a condition of sale.”
“Rathkari shuttles remain property of the Rathkari empire. You know that. Your leaders signed a treaty agreeing to return all materials and technology that might fall into your hands.”
“Someone somewhere signed it, but I didn’t. I made my deal with that girl, and I honor my deals.”
I could break him in two. I’m tempted to do it. His defiance does not amuse me. I bend down, hands on my knees so I can get in his face. When I speak, it is with icy tones that carry all the vehemence I can muster.
“You are the one thing between me and the woman I love most. You do not want to be that thing, I promise you.”
He snorts. “The Katiri provide fuel to a thousand Rathkari colonies. You really want to jeopardize that more than you already have?”
I straighten and nod. “I see what the problem is. You think this is a rational conversation between two men. You think I’m interested in the bigger picture. You’re wrong. I am a dangerous, irrational male looking for his mate, and I will do whatever it takes to get her back. I will start a war—I will start a hundred wars if I have to—and you will be the first victim. Your head will…”
“Easy.” The Katiri holds up his hands and shakes his head. “Fine. I get it. Dramatic. Okay. She’s on one of our freighters heading for Essinia.”
“Call the freighter. Turn them around. I want her back.”
“They have perishable goods and medications aboard. Can’t turn them around. You’ll have to take a faster ship and overhaul them. Shouldn’t be any real difficulty for a Rathkari commander willing to tear the universe apart.”
Chapter Ten
“You’re sad.”
A green-hued alien woman sits next to me and makes the statement without any kind of reservation. This freighter is full of people of various species, most of them in similar desperate states to the one I’m in. Anti-Rathkari sentiment is high, so I fit right in. The woman next to me is wearing a brown leather dress of sorts. She has an ample figure and a warm demeanor that is comforting. Her wide brown eyes and easy smile make her seem almost human aside from the fact that she has no nose. I have been on my own since boarding and stayed largely to myself, but we have to eat communally in the cafeteria and this woman has decided that m
y solitude is coming to an end for the moment anyway.
“I guess,” I barely admit.
“Why?” Her curiosity seems genuine.
“Because…” I shrug and play with a two-pronged fork between my fingers. “A man.”
“A man.” She nods in commiseration. “Useless men.”
“It’s me that’s useless.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean…” I don’t want to say it, but there’s something about her big sympathetic eyes that makes the words come tumbling out of my mouth. “I mean he wanted to make babies with me, but I can’t.”
Her face screws up in disgust. “He wanted…” She shakes her head. “Ugh.”
I shrug, not knowing quite where her annoyance lies. Is she appalled by me too? Am I such an aberration that even on the other side of the universe, life forms so far removed from my own that they breathe from their ears find me abhorrent?
As I crumple in my seat, she leans in conspiratorially. “You know where they come out of? They come right out of your pleasure zone.” She makes a demonstrative gesture with her fist and the fingers of her other hand, along with a grimace.
“So I’d heard,” I say, trying not to smile.
“They feed from your body,” she continues, counting off points on her seven fingers. “They are loud. They smell. Most of them can’t use a bathroom for years. They never kick in for drinks. They’re poor conversationalists. They can’t wield a weapon to save themselves. They cheat at cards. They have no object permanence. Babies are stupid.”
As she goes on, I start to smile, and then to laugh.
“I had three,” she winks. “Biggest mistake of my life. You know how they turned out?”
“How?”
“One’s a tax collector, one’s in prison for tax evasion, and the other one insists he’s a dinosaur.”
“That’s cute though.”
“He’s thirty-five,” she deadpans.
I burst out laughing and she smiles.
“Any man worthy will not see you as an incubator for his seed,” she says more seriously, her fingers running through my hair with maternal touch. “You are beautiful. There is not a male on this freighter who has not shown interest in you. Do not be sad for the man who saw you only as a means to an end.”
I don’t want to be sad for him, but I am. I’m sad for him. I’m sad for everything I’ve lost. I’m sad for Earth, for humanity. I’m sad and sorry for myself most of all.
She nudges me as I sink back into internal misery. “The universe has a purpose for us,” she says in deep knowing tones. “I think you are yet to discover yours.”
“You believe that?”
“I do,” she says with the sort of conviction I need to hear. “You know, there are those who do not submit to the Rathkari. There are those who are making a difference. You could be more important than you realize.”
“I’m not important,” I mutter down at the table. “I’m not anything.”
Her arm snakes around my shoulders and squeezes. “I think you should come with me.”
Chapter Eleven
“Stay still, Karlo.”
The doctor’s needle works though my flesh, rebinding that which has been torn asunder. I have been injured in the course of my mission, but I am too impatient for this. It is a waste of time, stupid cosmetic mending.
“I will have a squadron come and hold you down if you don’t stop moving,” the doctor threatens as I make another attempt to get up. “This is an inch deep, Karlo. It needs sewing.”
“Do it quickly then,” I growl.
We just boarded a satellite. I thought I would find Era there. Instead we found seven hundred rebel troops who engaged us first with energy weapons, and then with knives, and then with fists. I am fairly certain part of one is stuck between my teeth.
“You are covered in blood,” the doctor continues. “I will call a girl to bathe you.”
“No,” I growl. “It is their blood. I wear it with pride.”
“It’s not just their blood. You’ve lost a lot too. You should have waited for backup.”
“I couldn’t. They might have had Era.”
He looks at me, his brows raised. “You know damn well they didn’t have Era, Karlo. You have a death wish.”
I shut my mouth as he finishes sewing my chest up. It hurts, but I don’t care. I welcome the pain. Every bit of it. It brings me closer to her.
“If I have to keep sewing you up, you’re going to end up looking like a stuffed toy,” he says. “All seams and missing limbs.”
“Can I go?”
“Yes, maniac. You can go. I’d give you painkillers, but I know you won’t take them.”
Damn right. There’s only one way I’ll ever stop hurting. When I find Era.
As I sit up from the medical bed, the door opens. A Rathkari commander is standing there. His name is Porto Mirkallus and he is one of my closest friends. It was he who sent the concubine to me, the one who was supposed to make everything better, but made it all immeasurably worse.
“Again, Karlo?”
I shrug.
“Don’t do that, you’ll tear the stitches!” The doctor curses behind me.
“Your job is to keep law and order, Karlo,” Porto begins to lecture. “I don’t need to tell you that. Commanders are not mavericks with vendettas against the universe.”
“What are you saying?”
“You know what I’m saying.”
He’s threatening me with something he thinks I care about: my rank. He’s wrong.
My uniform lies in tatters on the floor. I get up naked, sweep it up, throw it at him, and keep walking. “Keep it. I don’t need it.”
“Karlo, get back here!”
I stride naked through the ship. There are plenty of stares, quite a number of stifled laughs. A commander displaying himself nude and bloody is a breach of protocol, but none of this matters to me now.
“Karlo!” Porto shouts my name in officious tones. He is not speaking to me as a friend. He is censuring me as a commander. “Get back here and put your damn clothes on!”
“No.”
“Karlo!”
I reply without turning around or breaking stride. “You keep saying my name. Is it supposed to have some kind of effect?”
“Karlo, I will throw you into the brig,” he growls, stamping up behind me. He puts his hand on my shoulder.
I turn.
I swing.
Chapter Twelve
Three years later…
It is three years since I lost the one thing I loved. I set out to find Era the same day the Katiri captain told me of her whereabouts, but she was gone, vanished among the stars. We found the freighter, but she was no longer on it, and by the time we arrived, a new crew had been installed, one who knew nothing of the human refugee. I tried to track down those who had been aboard, found a few of them. They all talked, sooner or later, but none of them had anything of any use.
I lost her. Completely. And then I lost myself.
I am no longer a Rathkari commander. After six months in prison for assault on a fellow commander, I have returned to active duty as General Seale Karlo. I do not dally in the colonies anymore. I have eschewed ever taking a mate. I am on the warpath, and there is plenty of war to be made defending our existing territories. The borders are under near constant attack, from other expansive empires, and often enough, from rebel resistance movements. The latter are easily swatted away. The former, well, they have left new scars on me.
We’re cruising through space, at the very perimeter of our territory. There have been reports of disturbances out here lately and I’ve been dispatched to deal with them. There’s no sign of any trouble as yet and I’m starting to get bored.
Boom! Boom!
Suddenly, the ship rocks with the force of two explosions, one after the other.
Sirens blare and soldiers scramble. I plant my feet on the bridge and take my chair with a gruff bellow. “What in hell was th
at?”
“I don’t know, sir,” the navigator says, scrambling over the console.
Security officers are running the scans they should have been running already. I grit my teeth and hold back a snarl. We’ve been caught with our pants down, and I don’t like it. Not one bit.
Another explosion rocks the ship, more muted than the first one. We’ve stopped running and have our shields up. We can absorb most of what’s being thrown at us. I see the navigator’s fingers starting to hover over the ultra-drives. He wants to hop out of here, he’s anticipating an order to flee. That pisses me off almost as much as the attack itself.
“Slow down,” I order. “Find whatever it is. We’re not leaving.”
“Sir, those two hits weren’t significant, but they landed close to our propulsion systems. If they…”
“Find. Them!”
The last thing I tolerate in the middle of a combat situation is disagreement. I order, they follow. That’s how this works. I make a mental note to replace the navigator and turn to the scanners.
“What do you have?”
Boom!
The ship rocks again.
“Sir! That was the aft tank!”
Something is sitting just outside sensor range, pounding us. We’re leaking fuel into open space. This isn’t good, but I’m not going to retreat.
“Got them, sir!”
The scanner tech slams a button and the ship hitting us is projected on screen. I breathe a sigh of relief seeing how small it is, a button in the sky, throwing all its firepower at us. They can’t keep that up forever. A ship that size has probably emptied its weapons array already.
“Up shields and come about,” I order as a dark smile passes over my face. “Give them a nice juicy target. Let them keep hitting us.”
The navigator blanches, but does as I say. Maybe I’ll keep him on after all.