“...Now you have a few million sets of eyes on you, Jet...and we have no idea how many of those are friendly, and how many know more than they’re saying. But even more critical for our purposes, those Nirreth who were cheering from the stands weren’t cheering for your owners, Jet, as is the normal thing with these matches. They were cheering for you. They saw you as dangerous and exciting...and in a way different than is usual for the Rings...”
Reddening a little, Anaze glanced at his father briefly before turning back to face her, his expression gravely serious.
“...I thought you were amazing, Jet...just brilliant. But my father’s not wrong. You really did act more like a soldier than some skag from the pits who’d been dressed up and handed a sword. It’s unfortunate, really, that they chose to put your first match in the context of a modern battle against the Nirreth themselves. It made it all a little too real in a lot of their eyes...”
He glanced at his father again before adding,
“I think my father’s also worried that this might change the minds of some of the Nirreth towards the occupation. If they start seeing humans as heros and freedom fighters instead of trained monkeys, it could cause a lot of unrest.”
“What?” Jet said, staring around at them in disbelief. “You’re telling me that it’s better for them to see us as slaves? What is the matter with you? Isn’t that exactly what we’re supposed to want? For more Nirreth to desire freedom and equality for all of us?”
“Yes,” Laksri said, his voice hard.
He glared at Richter then, in a way that made it clear that they’d already had this argument, and likely more than once.
“It could cause them to target us. To target you, Jet,” Anaze explained. “Too soon, I mean. Before we’re ready. We wanted you to have a big fan base, but not a political fan base. The idea was to put you in a position to be well-liked across the different factions. A unifying force, not a divisive one. The last thing we wanted was their media to tag you as some kind of sword-wielding revolutionary...”
Jet frowned, and looked at Richter, who appeared to have calmed down some, but who still stared at her with those coffee-colored eyes, as if he didn’t trust her any more than the Board did. When he caught Jet looking at him, he averted his gaze.
“You’ll need to take her out tonight, Laks,” he said finally, coming out of his stance and looking up at the tall Nirreth. “Sting her a few times, if you can manage it without losing your cool. Get her looking like sex to the rest of them...”
Jet saw Anaze’s jaw clench at this, but he wouldn’t look at her, either. Folding his arms, he stared at the floor as his father went on speaking to the dark-skinned Nirreth.
“...Whatever you do, don’t let anyone else sting her,” Richter warned. “They’re liable to try, even without permission. No matter how much they offer you, don’t let any of them get her alone, not even for a few minutes...”
Laksri gave Jet a forbidding look, as if promising with his eyes that he never would have let that happen anyway, regardless of Richter’s words.
But Jet scarcely noticed. She was staring at Richter instead.
“I don’t suppose I get a vote in any of this?” she said. “...As usual?”
“No, kitten...you don’t,” Richter snapped. “I think you’ve clearly got a bit too much freedom already, given what you chose to do with what latitude you were given...”
“What would you have had me do?” Jet said in anger. “Let the alligator eat me?”
Giving her a hard look, Richter didn’t bother to answer, but unfolded his arms, walking towards the door to the main corridor. After the slightest pause, Anaze got up to follow him, giving Jet another sympathetic look before he averted his gaze and headed out the door.
Jet just stood there until Laksri motioned his head towards the same door, coiling his tail around her arm almost tentatively to urge her along. Although it wasn’t really him she was angry at, Jet found herself jerking from his touch, her mouth hard.
“I can walk myself!” she snapped. “I don’t need to be led like your pet dog...!”
The Nirreth looked taken aback, but also a little bit sad.
He retracted his tail without protest, watching her face as he waited for her to head for the door. She didn’t, though, but instead stared into the trees of the underground garden, wishing more than anything she could be alone...or back in the skag pits, anywhere but here. When she still hadn’t moved after another minute, he stepped closer to her again. He didn’t try to touch her with any part of his body, but watched her face carefully with his speckled eyes.
“Hungry?” he said finally.
She gave a low snort, wiping her face angrily with one hand. “So you’re going to coax me out with food, now? We do that with dogs too, Laks.”
“I am hungry,” he said only.
Looking at him, her arms squeezing tightly at her chest, as if to hold the anger and whatever else inside, Jet was forced to laugh.
“You’re like a walking stomach, Laks,” she said, but it didn’t come out harshly that time; instead, her voice was almost a snort as she wiped her face again.
“You’re hungry, too?” he said, venturing a small smile. “Blowing up command ships...killing water lizards...taking prisoners. This did not make you hungry?”
Jet snorted again, even as a small amount of anger left her chest in a longer breath of air.
“Yeah,” she said. “Maybe it did. Maybe I am...hungry.”
She didn’t move immediately though, and after a long pause, she let out another sigh.
“Is he right, Laksri?” she said, looking at him again. “Did I blow it? Should I have stayed on the surface? Tried to rack up a few dozen points against the cullers, then let myself die?”
Laksri returned her look seriously, his dark eyes as still as a pond in the dead of night.
“I do not know shoulds or not-shoulds,” he said, inclining his head to the left. “I know he is worried. Richter. He thinks maybe someone here knows about us...about him and me and we brought you here. Maybe they recognize me...I do not know, but he does not like it. He feels responsible for you...I know it does not seem so, but it is true. He worries maybe he puts you at risk...big risk, I mean. To be killed in the Rings, maybe...on purpose.”
Cautiously, he wrapped his tail around Jet’s calf, stepping closer.
That time, Jet didn’t shove him away.
“I worry, too,” he added.
Jet didn’t answer, but his words stumped her a little, at least until he smiled.
“But Richter,” Laksri said. “He is stupid, too.”
“Stupid?” Jet smiled, in spite of herself. “How do you mean?”
Laksri shrugged, tightening his tail on her leg. “You are survivor. It is not in you to let yourself die...not even in the Rings. You would try to win. It is your nature.”
Jet didn’t have a good answer for that, either.
Even so, she found herself thinking about the Nirreth’s words.
The idea of Richter giving a damn about whether she lived or died frankly hadn’t crossed Jet’s mind even once. When the Nirreth just stood there, waiting for her answer, Jet eventually let out another breath, conceding defeat, at least for now. She was too tired to figure out how she felt about any of it, much less about Richter.
“Okay,” she said. “I’m hungry. Let’s go make Richter pay for our food.”
Smiling at her words, Laksri nodded, but that other look never left his dark eyes.
Laksri stung her twice before they actually left his room for the restaurant.
As usual, he took the shot before he did it.
Jet didn’t bother. She hadn’t taken one of those since she discovered it didn’t actually help things at all with her, at least not in the relevant ways. It just made everything kind of cloudy and made her less aware of her surroundings. They’d figured out in the days of training leading up to the match that Jet did better when she got stung without the drug.
In fact, her best trial scores had been after being stung, but about two or three hours after, so the strongest of the effects had time to wear off, but she still shared a connection with Laksri, as well as the remnants of that clarity.
They were early, even with the stings and the fight in the gardens and whatever else. With all that had happened since she got up that morning, Jet had forgotten that the match itself was only four hours, and that it started at eight o’clock in the morning. Even with all of the reporters’ questions and her time in the dressing rooms and showers, she’d been finished with everything before three o’clock in the afternoon.
Since dinner wasn’t until four o’clock, and would take place in an eating establishment outside the Royal Palace walls for a change, Jet asked Laksri to show her more of the Green Zone city. So Laksri led her out the front doors of the Palace walls and past the Trevi fountain to one of those sailboat-like trolleys that ran on rails all throughout the city.
Jet found herself forgetting everything else, even Laksri, as she looked around at a city she’d only glimpsed once, right after getting off the culler ship with Richter. Even with the clarity and the calmness of the venom, her brief tour through the gardens and streets felt strange, and confused her feelings even more around where she was, and what she was doing here.
Not only did she feel oddly free, walking around, but something in being there, in the regular wash of Nirreth life, made her realize how much she’d missed this, growing up in the skag pits. Something familiar lived in the peaceful walkways of the tree-lined streets and even the different heights of the buildings, despite the Nirreth style of architecture.
She realized only after they’d been walking for awhile that she’d never been in a city that wasn’t dead before. She’d never walked around buildings that were still being used for the purposes to which they’d been designed.
She’d never seen so many people on the streets, either, whether Nirreth or human...much less seen them laughing with one another and sharing stories, hands and arms and tails touching or even wrapped around one another as they strolled.
They looked contented. Like normal people anywhere, just living their lives.
Jet envied them for that, even through the venom.
Her musings were interrupted before long, though...mainly by having people recognize her.
As they reached the area nearer to the city’s center, the looks increased, until soon they seemed to come from every other set of faces. Before long, Jet found herself fielding more stares than she’d ever faced in her life, and saw a lot of Nirreth tails swishing in interest once they recognized her or Laksri, or both of them. At one point, as they neared the restaurant itself, they even stopped so Jet could sign autographs outside one of the parks. A handful of human children ran up for her autograph, too...and to get a better look at her.
The whole thing struck Jet as pretty surreal.
Once they entered the exclusive restaurant, however, everything felt different again.
Despite Richter’s mood when he left the conference room, he was waiting for them when they arrived, and wearing clothes that Jet had never seen on him before. Instead of his usual outfit of a homespun shirt under a combat vest and armored pants, he wore a V-necked tunic and fitted jacket over dark green pants that hung on his legs as though they’d been made for him.
Jet stared at him briefly as he rose to his feet, noting that he’d also showered and shaved, and that his hair had been cut, even the gold streak in back. That same gold streak looked brighter than it had earlier that day, too. He wore jewelry, two rings on his index fingers and a thin cord of a necklace with light brown stones that matched almost perfectly the color of his eyes.
Seeing the look on Jet’s face, he arched an eyebrow at her.
“Falling in love with me yet, kitten?” He smiled, even a his eyes roamed down her, his expression faintly critical. “...I see Laksri didn’t waste any time.” Grunting a little, he shrugged, sitting down as they did, with Jet between them on the curved, cushioned bench. “...I suppose that’s not such a bad thing tonight...” he added darkly.
“What do you mean?” Jet said. She’d gotten used to being stung by then, and the question came out slightly sharp, even through two stings. “Why tonight?”
Richter gave her a flat look, not answering at first.
In that pause of several seconds, however, she saw the mask on his face drop briefly, leaving a nearly pained expression in its place.
Then, the moment ended.
He looked away, taking a long draught of Nirreth beer.
“Bad news, kitten,” he said, his voice low. “I just found out from a highly reliable source that your room is under surveillance. Meaning, his...” he added, pointing subtly at Laksri with the hand clutching the Nirreth beer. “...Including his bedroom.”
Jet stared at him for a minute. Not in confusion so much as because she needed that minute to think through all of the possible ramifications of his words.
“When?” she said finally. “For how long?”
“A few days.”
“So they know Laksri and I...”
“There’ve been questions, yes. None too serious, as of yet.” Richter gave Laksri a hard look, as if holding him personally responsible. “...Apparently you two lovebirds have been snuggly enough that they aren’t openly suspicious yet...just a bit puzzled. But they’ve read the infrared signatures, so there’s enough there for them to think it’s likely an anomaly...something to do with kitten’s first Rings match today.”
“But that excuse won’t hold for long,” Jet said, finishing the thought for him.
It wasn’t a question so much as a statement of fact.
“No, kitten,” Richter said, that grimmer expression returning to his face. “No...it won’t.”
“So you think Laks and me, we should have sex tonight...is that it?”
Next to her, Laksri made a kind of choking sound where he’d been taking a long drink of his own beer. He’d been so quiet up until then, and it was such an unusual sound coming from him, that Jet couldn’t help but give him a puzzled look. Through the hyper-clarity of the two stings, she found herself looking into the light flecks of his expressive eyes until he averted his gaze.
On her other side, though, Richter was chuckling.
“...Think you just gave our Nirreth friend here a heart attack, kitten,” he said, his voice holding more of that darker humor. “...And probably a hard-on, too. Am I right, Laks?”
Laksri gave him an openly irritated look, his dark lips pulled back subtly to bare his teeth.
“We can’t take this machine out?” Laksri said, looking away a few seconds later. Avoiding both Richter and Jet’s eyes, he took another drink of the Nirreth beer, still speaking through gritted teeth. “...This surveillance. Why is it still there, if you confirmed this?”
“We need a pretext, first,” Richter said, his voice openly annoyed, as if he shouldn’t have to explain that part. “You know how these things work, Laks...”
“We could stay somewhere else tonight,” Laksri suggested. “Say it is for celebrating...”
“Where?” Richter said. “All of the hotels and common residences have surveillance, too.”
Laksri gave Jet an uncomfortable look, adjusting his back and tail on the bench.
“What’s the matter, Laks?” Richter jeered, his voice holding more of a bite. “Haven’t you shown her all of your equipment yet? Afraid you might hurt her?”
The Nirreth hissed at him, an open threat that time. “I will not force her...”
“Sting her enough times, you won’t have to,” Richter said with a shrug. He avoided Jet’s eyes when he added, “Hell, I practically had to force the two of you apart the other day. I doubt it’s the only time either of you have thought about it.”
Laksri didn’t answer, but looked at Jet. The fingers of his long hand closed over her thigh, but something in the gesture still felt more protective than otherwise.
Aft
er another pause, Laksri let out another low hiss, but that one sounded and felt more like a sigh.
“What do you say?” he said, looking at her directly.
Jet stared at him, then at Richter. Thinking about his words, she found herself nodding slowly, feeling this less than she thought she would.
“I say, if Richter’s telling the truth, he’s probably right,” she said finally. “About what we have to do, I mean...”
“If I’m telling the truth?” Richter said, his voice holding an open amusement.
“If you are telling the truth,” Jet repeated back at him, looking into his eyes. After another pause, she glanced back at Laksri. “It’s okay, Laks. If there’s no other way...it’s okay. For me, I mean.”
Laksri frowned, leaning back on the padded bench. Taking another drink of beer, he shook his head slightly, his dark eyes scanning faces in the room.
“It is not how I wanted this to happen,” he muttered finally. He glared at Richter, his dark eyes like chipped obsidian. “We should have asked her before. Before I stung her...” His voice held an open accusation by the end.
If Richter heard it, his face and voice betrayed no indication.
“Jet’s a big girl...aren’t you, Jet?” he said, patting her arm. “She knew the score on this, as soon as we told her the sleeping arrangements. Didn’t you?”
After another pause, Jet nodded slowly.
“Yes,” she said. “Yes, I did.” After taking a breath, she added, “I’ve never done it before, though. With a human, either, I mean. Will that matter?”
That time, it was Richter who nearly spat out his drink.
“What?” he said. He stared at her as if she were a ghost.
“Didn’t Anaze tell you?” she said.
“No.” Again, Richter’s eyes briefly turned disturbed. “No...he didn’t.”
He looked like he wanted to say more, but after a moment of seeming indecision, he shut his mouth, staring out over the same stretch of dining room where Laksri’s eyes had been trained. Jet glanced around them too, then realized something else.
“Where is Anaze?” she said.
Alien Apocalypse: The Complete Series (Parts I-IV) Page 38