Alien Conquest

Alien Conquest Page 18

by Tracy St. John

  He frowned in grim con­cen­tra­tion as he looked at the in­de­ci­pher­able Kalquo­rian char­ac­ters on his float­ing vid read­out. Cas­sidy shiv­ered at the preda­tory ex­pres­sion on his face. Li­don might not be stalk­ing prey that would bleed when caught, but he was hunt­ing just the same. She imag­ined the sav­agery his in­tense look hinted at. He’d killed in the line of duty, he’d said. Had he en­joyed it?

  She thought he might have.

  Her gaze drifted down to his dam­aged leg, criss­crossed with bru­tal scars. He was like a bat­tle-branded lion, still ma­jes­tic de­spite years of de­fend­ing his pride. Some­how Li­don’s twisted, lumpy limb ac­cen­tu­ated the per­fec­tion of the rest of his body. It made him more beau­ti­ful, more de­sir­able.

  “You never told me what hap­pened to your leg, Li­don,” Cas­sidy said.

  He im­me­di­ately turned from his com­puter to face her. She’d been half-afraid her cu­rios­ity might of­fend the war­rior Nobek, but there was no trace of ir­ri­ta­tion in his ex­pres­sion.

  His voice was even, as if they dis­cussed mun­dane mat­ters like the weather. “I used to be the com­man­der of a fighter bat­tal­ion. In a skir­mish with the Tra­gooms, my fighter was nearly blown to bits with me in it.”

  “Does your leg hurt? I mean, I know it can’t be com­fort­able since you limp, but are you in real pain?”

  Li­don smiled, per­haps hear­ing the con­cern she hadn’t both­ered to mask. “Some­times. Not as much as it once did. I’m used to it now.”

  Tra­nis looked at him, and Cas­sidy saw the gen­uine af­fec­tion in his ex­pres­sion. “Don’t bother with sym­pa­thy, my love. Li­don could have had that leg re­placed with a pros­thetic, but like any Nobek, he likes to show off his scars.”

  “I con­sider the dam­age a mark of honor.” There was real pride in Li­don’s voice, the pride of a con­quer­ing war­rior.

  Cas­sidy slipped from Tra­nis’ side. He let her go, and she climbed off the bed to stand be­fore Li­don. The Nobek looked at her, his ex­pres­sion cu­ri­ous.

  She sank to her knees so his thigh was at eye level. She traced one long, vi­cious scar along the top of his thigh with a gen­tle fin­ger­tip. Still in­tox­i­cated, she was free to ap­pre­ci­ate the man be­fore her, to ac­knowl­edge his strength. “You are so brave,” she whis­pered. “I have never known any­one with even half your courage.”

  Li­don sat very still for her in­spec­tion. Cas­sidy tested the rigid tex­ture of the dis­fig­ured flesh. She probed the thick lumps, some of which were hard as gran­ite and some that were as spongy as her breasts. She thought of how he must have suf­fered, not only dur­ing the ini­tial shat­ter­ing in­jury, but later as he was patched back to­gether and re­learned to walk.

  She kissed the worst scar, a mas­sive lump of raised pale skin high on Li­don’s up­per thigh. She con­tin­ued to kiss the leg, wish­ing not to heal the scars of which he was jus­ti­fi­ably proud, but the pain, both past and present. She didn’t ex­am­ine why it was im­por­tant to her. Her mind shied from an­a­lyz­ing her mo­ti­va­tions.

  Li­don’s sexes re­sponded to Cas­sidy’s ca­resses, com­ing to twin ex­cla­ma­tion points. The cin­na­mon-y scent of his arousal sur­rounded her. She eyed the two or­gans.

  Cas­sidy had never held a man in her mouth, but she wanted to taste this one now. She wanted to know if her wounded and coura­geous cap­tor’s fla­vor was as good as his scent. Why shouldn’t she, now that there was no sense in es­cap­ing him? It seemed as good a way as any to tell the clan she’d given up hope of leav­ing them.

  A bead of liq­uid sat atop Li­don’s larger sex, beck­on­ing her tongue to lick it del­i­cately. He shud­dered all over when she did so. Cas­sidy gazed up into the Nobek’s pur­ple eyes as she rolled Li­don’s fla­vor around on her tongue. A whis­per of a growl left his lips, but he re­mained still.

  She was de­lighted to find the sweet­ish-spici­ness of his seed tasted de­li­cious. She wanted more. His mem­bers glis­tened with nat­u­ral lu­bri­cant, and she ran her tongue slowly up both lengths, mak­ing Li­don groan. He gripped the arm­rests of his chair, his knuck­les turn­ing the dark skin white.

  Cas­sidy worked first on the smaller or­gan, lick­ing it all over while her tiny fist held the larger one out of the way. Next, she took it into her mouth, en­joy­ing how the vein on the un­der­side throbbed against her tongue. She sucked hard, her cheeks dim­pling as she drew him deep into her mouth.

  Li­don panted as Cas­sidy moved her at­ten­tions to his larger pe­nis. An­other drop of sweet­ness waited, and she ac­cepted his of­fer­ing by clos­ing her mouth over the bul­let tip. She rubbed her vel­vety tongue over him, and his body thrummed with ten­sion.

  He was too big for her mouth to take him all, and she gripped the base of his pe­nis with her hand. She slowly en­veloped his length in her mouth un­til she came close to gag­ging. She backed off, suck­ing as she went. Li­don’s growl­ing groan in­formed her she wasn’t do­ing so badly de­spite her in­ex­pe­ri­ence. She slurped him in again, grow­ing in con­fi­dence as his sex grew even more rigid un­der her at­ten­tion.

  His heavy hand moved to rest on the back of her head. He pressed and re­leased, pressed and re­leased, guid­ing her rhythm. Cas­sidy paid at­ten­tion to the sounds he made, not­ing he grew louder when her tongue ran firmly against the vein on the un­der­side of his sex. She pressed harder on the puls­ing flesh and was re­warded by a hiss of pas­sion from her lover.

  “Close, my lit­tle love,” Li­don warned. “If you don’t slow down, I’ll lose con­trol.”

  Cas­sidy re­sponded by bob­bing her head over him even more en­thu­si­as­ti­cally. She wanted this. Now that she’d made her de­ci­sion, she wanted him and the rest of the clan in ev­ery way pos­si­ble. If she was to fall into deca­dence, she would fall all the way to the bot­tom.

  Li­don yelled, his groin jerk­ing to her face, his hand press­ing her head down. Warm, spicy-sweet fluid spurted into her mouth, thickly coat­ing her tongue. Cas­sidy swal­lowed, hun­grily de­vour­ing ev­ery pre­cious, pro­fane drop of the Nobek’s ar­dor. He mut­tered words of his lan­guage deep in his throat as he gave him­self over to her.

  When he was done, he lifted her into his lap and kissed her deeply. “Thank you, my love.”

  Tra­nis had moved close, sit­ting on the edge of the bed. His hand set­tled on her thigh. “Does this mean what I hope?”

  Though the in­tox­i­cant re­mained in her sys­tem, tears prick­led Cas­sidy’s eyes. She nod­ded, swal­low­ing hard. “You’re wrong for what you’ve done. I haven’t changed my mind about that. But my peo­ple would have me die for ly­ing with you, even though it was against my will. My crimes of lewd­ness would have me ex­e­cuted on Earth. I have no choice but to stay with you if I’m to live.”

  Li­don hugged her hard. “You are un­happy now, which is to be ex­pected. I prom­ise you will not be sorry in the end, my Matara. I will do ev­ery­thing in my power to make that hap­pen. This is my vow to you.”

  Cas­sidy looked from one man to the other. Their ex­pres­sions con­tained quiet joy, mak­ing her want to be glad as well.

  A part of her re­coiled. The hate­ful voice in her head whis­pered, Just like your mother.

  Not quite. Cas­sidy’s sur­ren­der came with a price.

  “If you would see me happy, don’t ask me to help you against Earth. I may be wicked, but I’m no traitor. I won’t will­ingly give you any more in­for­ma­tion than I al­ready have,” she told them.

  Li­don ex­changed a look with Tra­nis. The plea­sure in their ex­pres­sions faded.

  Tra­nis squeezed her thigh. She heard re­gret in his tone. “Ca­su­al­ties on both sides are mount­ing be­cause of this war. I’m still hop­ing Li­don will de­ci­pher those codes or your grand­fa­ther will give us the in­for­ma­tion we need be­fore I have to start
look­ing for an­other way past the se­cu­rity grid.” He gazed steadily into her eyes. “I will not tor­ture you, Cas­sidy. That I prom­ise. There is noth­ing that could ever make me harm my Matara. How­ever, if we have no luck with other av­enues of get­ting what we need, I may have to ex­tract what­ever you know.”

  “You’ll de­stroy what’s left of me if you make me turn against my own peo­ple.”

  What­ever Tra­nis might have said in re­sponse was in­ter­rupted by two beeps. An ex­cited voice, speak­ing in Kalquo­rian, filled the room. Li­don and Tra­nis were on their feet in an in­stant, the for­mer de­posit­ing Cas­sidy on the bed be­fore yank­ing on his form­suit. Tra­nis an­swered the dis­em­bod­ied voice as he dressed, also speak­ing in the gut­tural lan­guage. They moved so quickly, Cas­sidy’s eyes could barely fol­low.

  “What’s hap­pen­ing?” she asked as the men put on their boots and hur­ried to the door.

  Tra­nis paused long enough to an­swer, let­ting Li­don leave the room ahead of him. “A Tra­goom ship has en­tered our sen­sor range. I’m sorry, but we’ll have to lock you in here while we at­tend to this mat­ter.”

  With that, he rushed out, his quick pas­sage turn­ing him into a dark blur. Cas­sidy was left to stare at the closed door.

  Chap­ter 11

  Tra­nis caught up to Li­don quickly, and they en­tered the bridge to­gether. Li­don im­me­di­ately went to his sta­tion and his fin­gers flew over com­mand keys, bring­ing up in­for­ma­tion.

  “Re­port,” Tra­nis said, con­fronting First Of­fi­cer Sim­dow at the cap­tain’s sta­tion.

  “The Tra­goom ship has just changed course to in­ter­cept, but I don’t think they know the spy­ship is here. We cloaked the in­stant we de­tected them. I think their in­ter­est is in the Earther trans­port.”

  “Time of their ar­rival?”

  Li­don an­swered that one. “Ten min­utes.” His gaze met Tra­nis’. “Three-quar­ters of our med­i­cal per­son­nel and one-third of se­cu­rity are on Eu­ropa with the Mataras. An­other five Nobeks are guard­ing pris­on­ers on the Earther trans­port.”

  Tra­nis’ heart thud­ded heav­ily. “We’re spread thin.”

  Sim­dow’s worry was ob­vi­ous. “Cap­tain, we can’t get our se­cu­rity forces and the Mataras off Eu­ropa be­fore the Tra­gooms reach us.”

  Un­der­manned and out­gunned. The Kalquo­ri­ans had al­lowed them­selves to present mul­ti­ple tar­gets. Tra­nis looked at the vid of the Tra­goom ship, a squat mish­mash of other species’ ships cob­bled to­gether. The vi­cious race wasn’t in­ter­ested in de­vel­op­ing its own tech­nol­ogy; they pre­ferred to steal ev­ery­one else’s. He knew bet­ter than to be fooled by the al­most com­i­cal as­sem­blage of the ap­proach­ing ship. Tra­gooms were ugly, stupid-look­ing brutes, but they were cun­ning fight­ers. One only had to look at Li­don’s leg to be re­minded of that.

  It’s al­most as if dis­cussing them with Cas­sidy sum­moned the nasty things.

  Tra­nis shook off the urge to be su­per­sti­tious and turned his at­ten­tion to the Earther trans­port dis­played on an­other vid. “What kind of weapons does that trans­port have?”

  Li­don didn’t smile, but Tra­nis heard the plea­sure in his voice none­the­less. “Enough fire­power to give that Tra­goom raider pause. Earth­ers love their weaponry.”

  “Can you pi­lot it, Weapons Com­man­der?”

  “What an in­sult­ing ques­tion. I should slap you like a youngling for dar­ing to ask it.”

  Li­don’s dis­re­spect­ful re­ply to his com­mand­ing of­fi­cer had its in­tended re­sult: Tra­nis re­laxed enough to smile.

  Feel­ing bet­ter, Tra­nis told him, “Take a suit and get over there. Keep the Tra­gooms’ at­ten­tion long enough to draw them in. Fire when I do.”

  Sim­dow looked sur­prised. “We’re not tak­ing any pris­on­ers to find out why they’re here?”

  Li­don snorted as he mo­tioned Osopa to the se­cu­rity sta­tion to take his place. “They’re Tra­gooms, Com­man­der. They’re look­ing for some­thing to fuck and eat, and there’s al­most two hun­dred Mataras on the moon be­low us who will serve both pur­poses.” Ig­nor­ing Sim­dow’s sud­denly ill ex­pres­sion, Li­don left the room.

  Tra­nis spoke to the air. “De­gorsk, are you mon­i­tor­ing the bridge?”

  “I’m on line, Cap­tain. I’ve only got four medics on board, so no heavy ca­su­al­ties if you please.”

  Tra­nis de­tected the tight­ness un­der De­gorsk’s pre­tend teas­ing. “I’ll do my best, Doc­tor.”

  The young cap­tain’s stom­ach churned as he watched Li­don’s space­suited form ap­pear on the outer mon­i­tor­ing vid. The wily Nobek moved quickly in his at­mo­spheric suit, cross­ing the void be­tween the ships. Tra­nis held his breath as he watched his clan­mate go.

  The Dramok silently cursed him­self for hav­ing his crew in too many places to launch an ef­fec­tive de­fense. He’d never ex­pected Tra­gooms to dare Earth’s outer se­cu­rity in their search for sup­plies and food, but he should have ex­pected trou­ble none­the­less. An­other Earth ship might have chanced upon the Kalquo­ri­ans, and that would have been bad too. Ei­ther way, Tra­nis had al­lowed his ex­cite­ment over cap­tur­ing Hamil­ton and the Mataras, Cas­sidy in par­tic­u­lar, to cloud his usual good sense.

  He hoped his crew and the women of Eu­ropa wouldn’t pay in blood for his lapse in judg­ment.

  * * * *

  Cas­sidy sat on the edge of the bed, won­der­ing what to do. The clan had left her alone for the first time since her cap­ture. She’d given up hope of es­cap­ing the Kalquo­ri­ans and didn’t want to flee even now. Still, she needed to do some­thing.

  She stood up and crossed the small space to the aliens’ ver­sion of a closet. She tapped the wall as she’d seen the men do. A tall slice of its sur­face slid out, along with a row of sus­pended form­suits and her un­der­dress.

  Cas­sidy slipped on the un­der­dress. Be­ing clothed made her feel more ready for what­ever might hap­pen next. At a loss for any­thing else to do, she stroked one of the form­suits hang­ing in the closet. The stretchy silky ma­te­rial felt cool with­out a warm Kalquo­rian body fill­ing it out. The blue trim told her it be­longed to Tra­nis, and she held the sleeve of it to her face, in­hal­ing. Clean, it of­fered her none of his pleas­antly musky scent. She closed the closet feel­ing cheated.

  What was hap­pen­ing now? Would Tra­nis at­tack the Tra­gooms? What were Tra­gooms do­ing so close to Earth any­way? Cas­sidy had too many ques­tions and no one was around to an­swer them. If one of the men was with her, at least then she might not feel so help­less and scared.

  Cas­sidy looked up at a small square high on the wall. The Kalquo­rian ven­ti­la­tion sys­tem was no doubt much more ef­fi­cient than what the Earth­ers used. She would barely be able to slip her arm in there, much less use it as an av­enue of es­cape from the room.

  Li­don’s mon­i­tor vid was no help ei­ther. The green char­ac­ters floated in mid-air above his flat disc of a com­puter. The dis­play was a ca­coph­ony of squig­gles, dots, and lines. The alien read­out told her noth­ing. She couldn’t read Kalquo­rian.

  There wasn’t even a win­dow to look out of and per­haps see the ap­proach­ing Tra­goom ship. While Tra­nis and Li­don’s ex­pres­sions had been bland when they left the quar­ters, the speed of their de­par­ture had be­trayed the dan­ger. Cas­sidy knew real trou­ble could be in store.

  If the Kalquo­ri­ans and Tra­gooms en­gaged in bat­tle, she wor­ried Earth se­cu­rity would de­tect the ex­change. Mon­i­tor­ing in this area was sparse, but it ex­isted for the span that went from the worm­hole, just two days flight away, to the outer se­cu­rity bor­der be­yond Nep­tune. A fire­fight be­tween the ships might get Earth’s at­ten­tion. That could eas­ily re­sult in a squadron be­ing dis­patch
ed to Eu­ropa to in­ves­ti­gate.

  If Cas­sidy and the other women the Kalquo­ri­ans had se­duced were ‘res­cued’ by Earth…

  She shud­dered, know­ing all too well how that would end.

  Cas­sidy chafed to be locked in quar­ters and help­less to do any­thing to save her­self. Clench­ing and un­clench­ing her hands, she paced the room like a rest­less, caged tiger. The idea that she could only wait for the out­come, not in­flu­ence it, frus­trated her to the point of anger. She hated hav­ing to rely on hope and her clan’s skill to pro­tect her.

  The thought brought Cas­sidy up short. Did I just call Tra­nis’ clan mine?

  She’d given her­self to them, agree­ing to be their Matara. She had sur­ren­dered to spend­ing the rest of her life with them. Of course Tra­nis, Li­don, and De­gorsk were her clan now. Yet the ease and nat­u­ral­ness of how she’d just ac­cepted the three men as her mates star­tled Cas­sidy.

  Ac­cep­tance isn’t all, is it Cas­sidy? There’s a lot more, if you’d just ad­mit it.

  She shut down the thought, ter­ror spark­ing in her chest. She couldn’t con­sider such things, not now. She had to be ready for what­ever hap­pened next. If only she could get out of this damned room!

  Re­strain­ing an urge to bang on the locked door, Cas­sidy paced the cramped quar­ters.

  * * * *

  Li­don took the bridge of the Earther trans­port, bark­ing or­ders to the Kalquo­ri­ans op­er­at­ing it as he pulled off his space­suit. “Man the weapons. Power up ev­ery­thing de­fen­sive that this ship has.”

  The rank­ing of­fi­cer, a young Nobek named Dov, nearly fell over him­self com­ply­ing. “Yes sir.”

  Li­don’s hands ran over the helm con­trols, quickly mem­o­riz­ing the lay­out. He brought up a vid show­ing the ap­proach­ing Tra­goom ship. “Be ready to fire as soon as our spy­ship de-cloaks.”

  “All sys­tems armed.” Dov’s eyes were bright. “Will they at­tack, Com­man­der?”

 

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