***
As the heat of Steven’s passions faded into oblivion, so did Ashlyn’s image dissipate from beneath him. With her disappearance, he once again found himself afloat on the golden pathway. Backwards he traveled, away from the metaphysical reality until even the pathway itself disappeared.
His return to reality was stark, brutal. He was lonely as never before. He yearned to again be enfolded within her arms.
From the moment he had awakened in the hospital, four days after his return from Denver, he had felt a growing need to be near her. Each of the following three days, while Avenger was being readied to go into space, he had visited her, hoping she would awaken. He had a million questions, but none of them was as important as the simple need to look into her eyes and hear her voice. Being in her presence made him feel complete.
Once Avenger was done prepping for battle and Project Terminus checked and double-checked for readiness—he had been forced to leave.
Now as he lay in his bed, gathering his breath, he contemplated all that had just happened. The disheveled blankets and threads of semen upon the bedding made for a convincing argument that it had been more than just a dream.
He hoped it meant that Ashlyn had awakened.
***
As Ashlyn’s aura separated from Steven and began to shrink, the wind swirling about the room started fading.
Renee, first to be released from the energy field, had no explanation for what she had experienced. Her mind and heart were a jumble of swirling emotions. She felt at once embarrassed and betrayed by her own body for having an orgasm. Her conflicted heart ached, for she longed to hold on to the experience. It had shown her a depth of lust and desire that she had not thought humanly possible.
As Ashlyn began to show signs of waking, Renee had to move quickly, straightening her mussed hair and buttoning her blouse. She almost missed her torn black panties on the floor, managing to pick them up and stuff them into the pocket of her smock just seconds before Ashlyn’s eyes opened.
***
To the sound of Renee’s faraway voice, Ashlyn returned to reality. Such was the depth of her longing for Steven that her heart ached for him. So powerful had been the melding of their two minds that she could still feel her own fading orgasm and his hot seed swirling inside her. Even now, her breath was deep and ragged, her vocals high in timbre.
Though he was somewhere in the depths of space, her search had confirmed that he was alive. How she would get to him or when she would meet him, she didn’t know. For now, she was content just knowing that he was alive, and on this day, there was nothing more important to her.
As her eyes slowly opened and she swiped the errant strands of hair from her face, “Hi there,” said Ashlyn with a soft, sexy, lingering lilt in her voice.
Renee retrieved the sheet on the floor. Draping it over Ashlyn, “Do you know what just happened to you?” Renee looked round the room at the chaotically strewn debris.
Ashlyn’s first thought, the honest answer, I had my first, not by myself, orgasm. An amazing, incredible orgasm. Instead, she answered with, “Not really,” which was also honest.
Studying Gena’s data on the monitor beside Ashlyn’s bed, “My god, your heart was racing at 390 beats a minute. Yet—your vitals don’t show that you were under any harmful duress at all. I’ve never seen anything like it,” said Renee with sincerity and excitement as she studied the graphs. “The levels of your brain activity are unprecedented. Your theta waves were spiking at levels Gena could barely measure. Same for your adrenal glands.”
Renee spotted an anomaly that alarmed her, “Gena, display frames 136 and 137. Decrease magnification to a 1 to 1 ratio.”
“Frames 136 and 137 are already at a 1 to 1 ratio,” came Gena’s reply.
“What the hell! Your pineal, hypothalamus and pituitary glands are almost three times normal size. Not to mention, your EM field vibration levels are off the chart. So is your DMT level. In fact, everything is.”
“In layman’s terms?” asked Ashlyn.
“I think—you had an out-of-body experience. I’ve read a number of case studies about people who claim to have had them, traveling to distant places and other time periods. They say that by channeling the mind, they could create something akin to an inter-dimensional portal, but there has never been any hard, scientific evidence to support it. Not evidence like this anyway.”
“Do you think that’s what happened to me?” asked Ashlyn.
“Probably. These numbers are incredible! It’s just that yours was so interactive, so physical. It was like seeing two realities converging together.
Ashlyn, if I can be so candid, it appeared that you were with someone in the O.B.E? Do you know who it was? Because, it truly looked like someone was trying to twist you into a pretzel,” said Renee with a small, embarrassed laugh.
Ashlyn blushed.
“And I’m also curious about why it all started when you said aloud the name of the three stars in the belt of Orion. If I didn’t know better, I’d say the words triggered the event,” added Renee.
“Yeah, I guess an explanation might help,” said Ashlyn, smiling.
After picking up the overturned chair, Renee sat down, anxious to hear what Ashlyn had to say.
“The words were a planted, suggestive trigger that Tynabo put into my genetics. It was only to be used in an emergency. Fifteen years of stasis seemed to qualify.
But your answer is no,” said Ashlyn. “I don’t know who it was. I’ve never seen him before. I just wanted to find out if he was still alive. It hadn’t seemed likely with so few people left.
All I know is that he was alone and that he had a lot of books in his room.”
“Books?” parroted Renee as she rose to pick up a pillow upon the floor, placing it under Ashlyn’s head. “There aren’t many men who read real books, anymore.”
There was a strange moment of silence in the room. “By the way, my kids told me to give you something when you woke up. It’s their way of saying thank you for saving their father.” Renee opened a drawer in the wall and retrieved two crayon drawings for Ashlyn.
“I saved your husband? I don’t remember that.”
“It isn’t uncommon with the severity of the injuries you had. It is possible that you may remember in time, but yes, he took you out of stasis. Then—you saved him. He was frozen.
The team radioed ahead, getting us ready to receive the injured. From the story they told, I expected you to be a three hundred pound linebacker. The story was astonishing!” Renee then handed the pictures to Ashlyn.
“How old are your kids?” asked Ashlyn.
“My son is eight, my daughter six.”
Ashlyn looked at the pictures and giggled. One picture was of a cow eating grass, the other, a woman with long black hair standing beside their father.
“That’s supposed to be you,” said Renee.
“The woman or the cow?” said Ashlyn.
The two of them laughed.
“Renee, is your husband still here in the hospital? I’d like to meet him. Thank him for finding me.”
“No—he left a couple of weeks back. Right now, he’s aboard Avenger, in space. He’s the Fleet Admiral,” said Renee.
“Your husband is an Admiral?” said Ashlyn, her voice betraying recognition. Her heart leapt into her throat, her stomach knotting as she recalled the worn set of Admiral’s bars on the nightstand.
“Yup, and he’s a book reader too.” Renee let out a loud notable sigh. “Steven—is the only person at Sea Base that still reads the old hardbound books. He collects them. It settles him. He likes to see it the way the author himself saw it.”
Ashlyn’s eyes grew large, her face inlaid with deep concern.
The moment Ashlyn had uttered the word, books, Renee had known. It explained the familiarity she had felt. For it had been her own husband touching her and thrusting himself inside her. Albeit, a shadowed image of the passion that he had shared with Ashlyn.
�
�Steven was different after he came back. It was subtle. Probably no one but me noticed it, but he’d changed,” said Renee. “I compared your charts. The two of you share hundreds of similar genetic anomalies. I haven’t told anyone, not even Steven. I had been hoping that you were a relative of Steven’s, perhaps his sister. Obviously, with what just happened, I was wrong.” Though she hid it well from Ashlyn, her hands were shaking, her voice quavering.
“The only conclusion is that you are his genetically engineered mate. I guess it wasn’t coincidence that it was he who found you at the Children of Destiny Foundation, a genetics facility.
It also explains why he had an almost obsessive compulsion to meet you. He came here several times each day, hoping you would awaken before he had to ship out. It’s not that he said anything, but his behavior spoke volumes.”
“Renee, I-” Ashlyn had no idea what to say, just that she wanted to apologize.
“Let me finish. I know it’s not your fault, Ashlyn—nor Steven’s. In many ways, I actually should be saying thank you. When the team returned from Denver, Steven was brain dead. There was no activity at all. There was, literally, no reason to hope.
Within hours though, his brain activity had not only restarted, but its patterns had matched yours. The two of you were synched. Somehow, your energy saved him. He drew strength from you.
A day later, you were both in stable condition. By day two, your readings were a 1000 percent above normal. You were stronger together, more than you ever could have been alone.
I ran tests. Lots of them. I wanted to know how the two of you had survived. The results showed that your electrical fields are linked. You are effectively, one person. It’s the only explanation for why you both regenerated so fast. You are very special people.”
Renee, staring intently at Ashlyn. “You even have his eyes. That strange combination of light silvery-blue.”
Renee turned and went to the cabinet behind her. Quietly retrieving a few items, she turned round to Ashlyn.
“Steven is actually the reason I came back to see you. I had forgotten to give you these. Steven wanted you to have them when you regained consciousness. He said it would ease your transition. Here you go. You were wearing this when they found you.”
“My locket,” Ashlyn took it tenderly and closed her fingers around it.
“And this. Steven said to tell you, a picture is worth a thousand words.”
“He’s right. It is. It belonged to Tynabo. He told me it had once belonged to Neil Armstrong.” Ashlyn read it softly, “One Small Step for Man—One Giant Leap for Mankind.”
“And,” Renee handed Ashlyn the holo-player that Tynabo had left. “I haven’t seen what’s on it. I don’t think I want to. Steven was adamant that you see it though.”
“Renee, I don’t know what to say.”
“For now, nothing. Get some rest. Tomorrow, we’ll talk. Deal?”
Ashlyn nodded and gave a small, narrow smile.
Seeing past what should have been a natural enmity, “By the way, Ashlyn. Call me Ren, all my friends do.”
Chapter 4
For the last seven weeks, Avenger had been lying in wait, hiding in the sun’s chromosphere—but all that changed two hours ago with the arrival of Enlil’s fleet.
As Steven had anticipated, the flagship held back, staying close to their jump point by the sun, while the main fleet of seventeen ships headed to Earth, using the Moon for cover. As the ships came to their closest point of approach, less than 30 kilometers from the Moon, Steven sprung the trap, activating Project Terminus.
Project Terminus was a bomb of incredible destructive power, set deep within the core of Earth’s Moon. The UN had placed it there decades before, and like President Tomlinson had said, it was a Hail Mary. There was no guarantee of survival. It was a last resort. The bomb was comprised of Helgenium, element 119, a rare stable super-heavy element, discovered less than a century earlier.
Enlil’s fleet was ill prepared for the massive strength of the blast or for the debris that pummeled them, overloading their shields. Within seconds, the enemy fleet was decimated.
Taking advantage of the distraction, Avenger launched a timed, coordinated attack upon the flagship.
Motivated by retribution, Enlil’s flagship had done the one thing that Steven hadn’t anticipated before she limped off, trying to escape.
Steven, an ordinarily unconquerable man with commanding eyes and broadly squared shoulders of leadership and strength—had melted into obscurity. In his place stood the mortal man, the husband, the father.
He stood stoically behind the shoulders of Avenger’s helmsmen, anxiously waiting—his eyes locked upon the forward view screen as his ship raced to catch the missile that was streaking toward Earth.
His head began pounding, his concentration faltering as he entered into yet another spike in the ebbing flow of the fugue, and he cursed himself for the bad timing. Like a fish caught on a hook, he struggled against the pull, always losing ground. Each day its grasp upon him tightened, dragging him deeper. Each night as he fell asleep, the fugue overtook him, whisking him away unto a netherworld of dreams in which Ashlyn came to him.
***
As yet another large quake stilled, Ashlyn’s craft settling—a small alarm on her tactical display sounded, bringing attention to a blip on the screen.
Sitting on the rim of the trench, some four thousand meters above Sea Base, Ashlyn saw that far outside the minefield’s protective grid and far from the numerous blips that represented the debris of Enlil’s destroyed fleet, a lone, red, flashing triangle was approaching Earth. Target 01M.
As a new pilot in training, they had given Ashlyn the simplest of duties. Each day, she took a shift monitoring the lasers, making sure they were always in a state of readiness for when the attack began. For Ashlyn, it was supposed to have been nothing more than the work of a sleepy-eyed night watchman. It was here that the myriad of little creatures, drawn to the laser’s resonant hum and eerie orange glow could help distract her from her profoundly strong need to be with Steven.
Each night, the fugue brought them together. Each time, Ashlyn’s blood felt like it were boiling; her mind and body focused upon the desperate need to possess him. The fugue was seeking a physical fulfillment, which had not come, and it often left her feeling faint and disoriented. Killer migraines had forced her into isolation, seeking out quiet, darkness and solitude.
Forty minutes ago, all that changed. Now the three sequentially linked quad-lasers were protecting Sea Base from Earth’s exploded Moon.
Ashlyn damned the bad timing as she began to experience a spike in the fugue. To help her focus, she let loose a guttural, gritty scream.
“Gena, how large is target 01M?”
“The Orbiter 3 satellite data shows target 01M is 12.2 meters in length and is fusion powered,” answered Gena.
As the spike peaked in strength, Ashlyn began to experience, bleeding. The images from within Steven’s mind told her all that she needed to know.
Without wasting precious seconds of time to transmit a message through her comm’s high-security encryption mode, “Dog house, this is Lady Fox! Emergency response requested!”
No reply.
“Dog house, repeat, this is Lady Fox. Please respond!”
“Foxy Lady, your orders are to maintain radio silence!”
Ignoring the reprimand and the familiar wordplay of her call sign, “Sir, the order is obsolete. There is a missile, a planet killer, on its way to Earth. We need to intercept it!”
A long moment of silence passed before a familiar voice returned, “This is Commander Stratton. We are well aware of the situation. The laser will take care of the missile. Your request is denied.”
“Sir, the missile is a doomsday weapon. It’s meant to destroy Earth! And it’s going to circumvent the laser.”
“We have no evidence to support that.”
“Trust me. I have inside information. We need to do this.”
&nb
sp; “Ashlyn, you were at the briefing a few weeks back. You know as well as I do, that it’s impossible to navigate through the hailstorm of falling debris. It’s suicide—and dammit, you are just too green to be considering this. Not to mention that it’s more than your life that you’re risking.”
“I’m sorry, sir. I don’t have a choice!” said Ashlyn with finality. “This is bigger than me, or the others that I’m putting at risk. The needs of the many-” Ashlyn knew that Stratton was one of the few people aware of the fact that by risking her own life, she was also risking Steven’s.
He heard her comm go silent as she cut communications, “Fuck!” Stratton pounded his fist on the console, his concern for her and Steven evident. “Son-of-a-bitch!”
“Lady Fox, preparing for surface flight. Watchdogs, shield your intakes. I’m powering up,” she announced over her ship-to-ship channel. “Gena, retract robotic arms. Run a check of all systems in preparation for air-flight. Executive priority one status to be given to maintaining full atmospheric pressure and cockpit hull integrity at their current levels.”
Her Sharkfin’s robotic arms retracted and the ship’s folded wings lowered in preparation for take-off. Outside, her Sharkfin’s flaps waved as Gena ran a quick diagnostic of the flight systems, calibrating them for optimal performance.
“Parker, the shields aren’t designed to deflect large debris. Stratton’s right, it is suicide!” said Jackson sitting in the Sharkfin fifteen meters to Ashlyn’s right.
“It’s true that they aren’t designed for it, but the simulator runs I’ve made, show that they will hold for a few minutes. I just have to avoid the big ones. It’ll be enough! It has to be!”
With her ship’s systems flashing readiness, Ash toggled on the external floods, sending the curious menagerie of strange creatures that were swimming lazily about her craft darting away into the darkness. Flipping the green, yellow and red toggles to her left, she began the energy buildup to ignite the three main fusion reactors. “Gena, bring the secondary’s on-line. Maintain monitoring and sync flow for maximum output.” A gentle pull on the yoke and her Sharkfin lifted quietly off the bottom. As her craft spun round, turning its backside to the laser, a heavy cloud of silt was sent roiling off the ocean floor.
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