by C. M. Kane
That’s when their com-panel lit up again. ‘Attention please, to all surrounding battleships, this is the Brightmoon. Please be aware that if any of your fleet’s ships become weapons hot we will fire upon you immediately! We will be intercepting the approaching jumper.’
The quick response from three of the surrounding Captains was of anger. ‘We are here to help, Brightmoon, our Gods have surrendered, yet you still think to fire upon us?’
‘Only if your weapons become active, Captain,’ replied Adam calmly. ‘As you may be aware, our own Captain is onboard the Olympus, and given what has recently occurred between us, you will forgive us if we are not in a particularly trusting mood. I would suggest you do not test our resolve in this matter; as I have said, we will intercept the jumper, we have already adjusted our weapons firing solutions to her speed.’
‘Very well, Brightmoon, she’s all yours,’ came the sullen reply.
‘Unknown jumper, you will head to the co-ordinates I am sending you,’ said Adam with authority. ‘Failure to comply will result in your immediate destruction. As you have no doubt already heard, we have adjusted our weapons to your velocity and are tracking you as we speak, so escape is impossible.’
‘We will comply,’ said Xirra changing her heading so they were now travelling straight towards Brightmoon.
‘Olympus, this is Brightmoon, we will have your prisoners ready for transfer as soon as possible.’
‘Your help is appreciated, Brightmoon, we will send a jumper straight to your co-ordinates,’ came the swift reply.
‘As you wish, Olympus,’ replied Adam before turning off the com-panel.
Tae started laughing her head off, ‘You two are absolutely brilliant, you know that right!’
Xirra grinned and started to decelerate the jumper heavily as they came closer to Brightmoons hanger. She had slowed its forward momentum to a crawl by the time she neared the now open space doors.
Tae turned to her grinning. ‘If we’re safe, do you think I could send something to the Olympus, to thank Zeus for his lack of faith in us.’
Xirra nodded as she slowly flew the jumper into the open space doors and the tunnel connecting them to the hanger. ‘Brightmoon has continued to power up her reactors as she has been resting. Adam has her waiting to go at top speed at a moment’s notice. He has also thrown everything Brightmoon is not using on repairs into blocking sensor sweeps. He said it might be better if the surrounding ships had to guess at what we were capable of. Xirra looked across at Tae. ‘We are now inside and safe, Brightmoon is moving towards the portal as we speak, feel free to do whatever you wish, Captain.’
Tae nodded her head in appreciation of their plan. ‘Thanks Xirra, especially for that totally amazing bit of flying, you were incredible. Now let’s see what I can give our little friends over in the Garden.’
She opened a com channel. ‘Olympus this is Jumper …Tae searched around for a name for a moment after realizing none of Brightmoons jumpers had one, yet another thing to add to the growing list of things to do, she thought.
She started grinning widely as she had another idea. ‘This is the jumper, Snuggle Bunny,’ she said, as the inner doors to the Hanger proper started to open from their waiting area. ‘Oh and this is Captain Tae Rames by the way, I have a message for you to give Lord Zeus as soon as the Gods finish up with their meeting.’
Tae had quickly searched through the com-panel to get what she wanted while they were waiting for the holding area to recompress and the inner doors to open.
‘He’s not going to like this is he?’ said a troubled voice.
Tae thought she recognized the same voice as the last time she had done a runner. She laughed softly. ‘Probably not, but it’s funny as hell, having said that, please feel free to sneak a listen while you wait for their meeting to finish,’ then she downloaded her vid, just as their little jumper landed softly.
She looked around. It felt good to be home.
Chapter 3
Both Tae and Xirra were euphoric, they’d made it! Xirra had run a gauntlet successfully and had brought her Captain back home; and Tae had escaped the clutches of Zeus and Loki yet again. She had disembarked from the jumper and was about to enter the turbo lift when Xirra stopped her.
‘Captain, before you go to the bridge may I have a word?’ She asked almost hesitantly.
Tae turned back to her in confusion. ‘Of course Xirra, what’s wrong?’
Xirra smiled apologetically at her. ‘I just thought it might be wise if you got your pheromones under control a little more first, if you enter the bridge as you are now, you might cause quite few crests to become erect.’
Tae felt herself starting to blush as she remembered the erect feathered crest of Dishon, the teenage boy who was attracted to Xirra. She was still on a sexual high from her kiss with Vesh. She could still feel the wonderful sensation of his body against hers from when she’d plastered herself to him like a rabid Barnacle.
‘Damn it, I’m really going to have to do something about this. Valaria explained that it will just keep getting worse until I finally do the deed!’
‘It is part of your growth,’ said Xirra nodding sagely, ‘becoming sexually mature is not easy for some races, and from what I have been learning about the Vampire, it can be particularly hard if they ignore their natural urges. As soon as sexual maturity arrives they normally begin to indulge out of necessity. Captain, you do know that anyone of your crew would be more than happy to assist you with your problem, if you like,’ she stated calmly.
Tae felt her face turn scarlet, there was no way she would force herself on a crew member. She had been hoping to be able to solve her little problem today, while she was on the Olympus. She frowned in thought. Obviously those plans have been shot all to hell, thanks mainly to that humongous, mega knob, Loki.
She looked up to find Xirra still watching her, waiting for a reply to her helpful suggestion. ‘Don’t worry Xirra, I’ll make sure I’m fully recovered before I go to the bridge, and thank you for the warning, you just saved me from a great deal of embarrassment.’
‘You’re welcome, Captain, but please don’t forget what I said. It would be an honor for any of the crew to assist you in this matter.’
Tae nodded her thanks, trying desperately for what might pass as a casual smile, her euphoria of moments ago disappearing in an instant.
She stepped into the turbo lift, hoping to disguise her extreme embarrassment with a bit of proficiency at something, even if it was only pressing a button. She punched in her floor number and the doors slid shut, unfortunately her embarrassment at her predicament continued. It left her in a bad mood, especially when she considered the high hopes she’d left with. She felt like she needed to hit something, preferably Loki’s smug, smarmy, self satisfied face. Once she had reached her room she contacted Adam to get his report, he informed her they had managed to download the complete portal history of the Olympus, apart from one that was quarantined from the others.
YES! She thought, at least something has gone right, now at least we can travel safely anywhere. Unfortunately they had only just started to download and search for the other information Tae would need.
‘Damn,’ she sighed, ‘well it can’t be helped, we‘ve been lucky so far. Yours and Xirra’s plan was inspired, Adam, and apart from being a natural as a Captain, you have a really excellent sneaky streak. If I haven’t said it before I’m saying it now. Thank you. I wouldn’t have made it with-out the pair of you.’
‘You’re welcome, Captain, I’m just glad they fell for it. I figured it would probably be a onetime only thing, given all the confusion and wariness of the surrounding Captains. More importantly, do you think they believed what you told them?’
Tae thought about the question before she answered, ‘I think so, Zeus looked… I don’t know, worried I think, he definitely looked different from his normal self, we can only hope I suppose. Whether they do or not, they’re going to be pissed off with me after the spray
I just gave them, especially Zeus!’
‘Do you think that was wise?’
‘Probably not wise,’ said Tae. ‘But necessary and wise are sometimes two very different things. I remember when my aunt Valaria gave me a much needed kick up the arse. I might not have liked it at the time, but it did me the world of good. It made me look at myself and my actions honestly for the first time. It wasn’t easy, but I’ll be for-ever indebted to her for doing it. Zeus may not have liked what I said, but it needed to be said by someone. I just hope he realizes I did it for the greater good.’
‘Well sort of,’ mumbled Tae to herself. If she were honest, a lot of it was also her own simmering anger at her treatment by both Zeus and Loki. ‘Last time I save his miserably arse,’ she muttered, ‘he can keep his stupid black eyes to himself!’
‘I beg your pardon, Captain? I didn’t quite catch that last sentence.’
Tae felt herself blushing again. ‘I just need you to transfer all the information you collected to my room. I’ll go over it here then come up to the bridge. In the mean time, while we’re at Chena, have a quick check of their data bases. We’ll stay for no more than three hours though; I don’t want to chance them finding us there. From there we’ll head to Earth, they will only know where we went to from where they are, but I’m hoping they will assume we will move on straight away so they can’t track us. That should give us a little search time, which we are going to need. Once we reach Earth hide behind either the moon or Mars so we’re not noticed. Hopefully if we can hide out we’ll also be able to see who comes through its portal without being seen. We’ll leave a small sensor bot stationed there as we come through; well that’s the plan anyway. Oh, before I forget, how did the retrieval bots go? Did they have time to find anything in the wreckage of Hera’s ship?’
‘We were lucky, Captain, we concentrated on what was left of the main power relay section as ordered and they found Hera’s purple crystal, it was badly fractured, but its still useable if we split it along its fracture line; the quality is as good as the ones we have on Brightmoon. It will come in very handy to tie in as a backup for any of our major systems. Brightmoons self repair systems are still working on the hull breaches that occurred during the battle, but she drew in some material from Hera’s ship as we passed and has been using it for self repairs. At the rate the repairs are going, I’d say it will only be another few days before she’s as good as new. In the mean time the reactors have continued to power up and are now at 37% efficiency. As we now have sufficient maneuvering power I have started draining over ninety percent of any power she now produces directly into the depleted crystals. I thought it might be prudent to make sure we can fight, should a worse scenario eventuate.’
Tae smiled. ‘Excellent, so let’s start our search then, and hopefully we’ll get lucky.’
‘At once, Captain, but there is something else we discovered just after you left, something you should be aware of.’
Tae went still, Adams voice had changed; it now had an edge to it.
‘What?’ She asked cautiously.
‘We have only now found out that towards the end of our fight with Hera, her ship sent out a very powerful narrow beam message to an unknown address, before Brightmoon could completely block it. She did manage to copy what went through though; she finished decrypting it just after you left. What managed to get through contained detailed instructions on how to build a portal device, it also contained one portal address. It was to Salernis.’
Every curse Tae had ever known came boiling to the surface, along with quite a few she made up to try to complement her raging thoughts. Damn Hera to hell and back. How could she do this to her own allies, let alone her own people? Tae knew exactly where that message had been sent. This was how the Titans would come through the Salernis portal. The total destruction of her own people was going to be Hera’s final revenge. Not if I can help it you evil bitch!
‘Thank you Adam, message understood, this only makes it even more imperative we find the Felice, I’ll be up on the bridge later.’
‘Yes, Captain,’ said Adam signing off.
Tae leant back on her bunk wearily; do none of these Gods have even a hint of loyalty in them? Hera, well she’s been a megalomaniacal bitch with major Zeus issues ever since she was dumped, but Loki! She huffed angrily to herself, she’d gone over to the Olympus with such high hopes, and some pretty foolish dreams it seemed. Now she felt like a complete fool, a naive, highly frustrated fool. Tae knew why she wouldn’t take a crew member to her bed, or visit a house of Aphrodite until she‘d already had a lover. It was because deep down she desperately wanted her first time to be with someone who actually wanted her. She needed someone to need her, every bit as much as she needed them. She didn’t want to be with someone that had to be paid, or worse, someone who felt obligated to have sex with her. She wanted someone to think that she was desirable; she wanted them to be genuinely attracted to her. She’d spent her whole life as a rough tomboy, always in the shadow of her brothers beauty, and she‘d honestly never cared, never even thought about it until recently. But now that she had, she had acquired new and unexpected feelings on the whole subject of losing her virginity, and no-one was going to dissuade her from what she wanted.
She found she now wanted genuine passion. Just this once she wanted someone to look at her the way girls, and some boys, looked at Jason, and she thought that maybe Vesh did. Well judging by his reactions to her back at the Olympus she was now pretty sure. She knew a major part of her had really hoped that Loki might find her attractive as well, that maybe, just maybe, he and she could…
She bought herself back to the here and now. Unfortunately that secret fantasy had been crushed for-ever by today’s events. The way things were panning out, Tae thought she was going to be stuck with just herself for the foreseeable future.
Chapter 4
Loki sat stuck to his chair, trying desperately to ignore the Wolven, Vesh, who was standing beside a new patch in the hull of the Olympus. He looked as though he was trying to bite back a stupid smile that kept creeping onto his stupid face. Unfortunately there was nothing he could do to hide his very obvious (and equally stupid, in Loki’s eyes) erection.
Searing jealousy that Loki refused to admit to himself ate at him as he tried to reason out what had just happened with Tae.
So they’d had a little misunderstanding because he‘d betrayed her, so what! It was something he was sure he could have smoothed over. Surely this was just her way of punishing/embarrassing him in front of the others? Just another thing to be angry with her about, he thought sullenly as he continued to work through the problem.
But what if she didn’t know his intentions towards her, he hadn’t after all told her that he wanted to bring her to his bed. That thought brought up an even more disturbing question, even if she did know, would her behavior have been any different?
Apart from the female Titans, this woman wasn’t like anyone Loki had ever encountered. She had a disturbing habit of doing exactly as she wanted, and bugger what he, or anyone else thought about it. If she had known that he had arranged all of this to protect her and everyone concerned from harm, would it have even mattered to her? Obviously she must have known that neither Zeus nor the others would allow someone so young and inexperienced to have control over such a powerful ship, so she had taken her own precautions.
Then of course there was the fact that she was now sexually in need of a male, something he had intended to help her with (well himself really, but she did benefit of course), and that all of these factors combined were the true reason behind his betrayal, but that one question remained, would she still have wandered over to the idiot wolf?
If she’d only stayed, or even been prepared to listen to him, he could have explained this to her. As it was her last look had been loaded with her obvious disappointment and hurt at his actions. She had made him feel ashamed of himself for some reason, this was both a new, and entirely unpleasant feeling for him.<
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He was one of the Gods, he was used to doing as he pleased, when he pleased, and he felt resentful over these new, and decidedly unwelcome emotions. This of course meant that he now felt resentful towards Tae for making him feel this way. Strangely, instead of dampening his rapidly growing attraction towards her, it made him more determined. No one had ever outwitted him once he put his mind to it, well, apart from Phobos, but he was still in the realms of the titans and hopefully dead, so he didn’t count; he decided then and there that Tae would not be the first! He determined immediately that he would not be counting today, he was still recovering from a nine hundred year sleep under a volcano after all; both his mind and body had yet to fully recover, so he could be forgiven for this small slip.
Now, just to add insult to injury, he also had to listen to Thanatos dribbling on to Poseidon, laughingly calling him, Loki, the Emperor of Buttroaches to Ares King. It took the dimwit a few minutes to realize that Tae was telling the truth about the Titans before his joking subsided into thoughtful silence. To late of course, Loki had already added him to his list of those that needed to die soon. He was now right up there, just behind Vesh.
He glanced over at Zeus, wondering how he had taken not only the news of the Titans, but the verbal spray Tae had given him. He had been suspiciously quiet ever since that horrendous kissing display they had all been subjected to. Not that Loki blamed him for that.
He was standing like a statue; well obviously that was because of the Freya’s Breath Tae had released. Thanks to her they were all frozen in place; but this was more than that.
Loki looked at him more intently, Zeus’s eyes were closed, there was a “stillness” about him, he realized with a start he was breathing slowly and deeply, as if he were meditating. Damn! Now this really was a disturbing turn of events, he hadn’t seen Zeus meditate since before they had left the Titans realms. This was either going to be very good, or very bad, depending on which way Zeus went, especially considering Tae’s words. Insulting the Gods wasn’t usually the best way to achieve personal longevity, and she’d given them all quite a serve, especially Zeus and himself. Added to that she had killed Hera, and with the death of any God there was always a tribunal of sorts, to see if any punishment should be meted out. Tae could, in effect, be killed for saving them.