Alien Conquest

by Tracy St. John

  Chap­ter 17

  Ad­mi­ral Pi­ras, leader of the Kalquo­rian in­va­sion force, had a rough, grind­ing voice from decades of yelling at un­der­lings. At the present he sounded pleased over the voice-only com con­nec­tion. “Codes re­ceived, Cap­tain Tra­nis. Ex­cel­lent work from you and your crew.”

  “Thank you sir.” Tra­nis al­lowed a small side com­ment. “I hope this works.”

  “It has to. One way or the other, this war is fin­ished af­ter we reach Earth. The en­emy has re­called all its fleet now that it knows we’ve breached the outer cor­don.”

  Tra­nis frowned. “How close is our sec­ond wave, Ad­mi­ral?”

  “They’ll join us in two days. If the de­fenses on the other side of the por­tal are too much, we’ll re­group with them and fight the long way to Earth. For now, the med­i­cal corps has just sig­naled their readi­ness, so we’ll be­gin the first at­tack soon.” Pi­ras paused be­fore cau­tiously ask­ing, “Is Com­man­der Li­don there with you, Cap­tain?”

  Tra­nis looked at his Nobek to see him quirk a smile. Li­don had been a squadron leader and then weapons com­man­der on Pi­ras’ ship back when the ad­mi­ral had been a cap­tain. More im­por­tantly, he’d come close to join­ing Pi­ras’ clan. Tra­nis won­dered if the ad­mi­ral still smarted from be­ing re­jected for a much younger, less ex­pe­ri­enced Dramok.

  Li­don caught Tra­nis watch­ing him. His grin widened, and he rum­bled in a low voice, “I’m here, sir.”

  “I wish you were fly­ing for us like the old days, my friend. Your ex­pe­ri­ence would be wel­come on such an im­por­tant cam­paign.”

  “It will be a glo­ri­ous bat­tle, Ad­mi­ral. My heart will be in the thick of it with you.”

  Very funny, Tra­nis mouthed at his Nobek, show­ing his fangs. Li­don shook with sup­pressed laugh­ter, not car­ing one bit that there would be hell to pay later.

  The warmth bled out of Pi­ras’ voice when he ad­dressed Tra­nis again, be­com­ing all busi­ness. There would never be friend­ship be­tween the two Dramoks, but they at least re­spected one an­other. “Get those cap­tured Mataras home to Kalquor safely, Cap­tain Tra­nis. Save a pretty one for me.”

  “That won’t be dif­fi­cult, sir. You’ll find all Earther women are lovely. Good for­tune and great vic­tory, Ad­mi­ral.” Tra­nis signed off.

  The bridge was silent for a time. The crew kept their rapt at­ten­tion on the vid show­ing the in­va­sion fleet gath­er­ing at the se­cu­rity grid’s bound­ary. Tra­nis had al­ready de­ter­mined his stolen Earther ship would stay long enough to see if the at­tack on Earth suc­ceeded. As soon as they knew the out­come, they’d speed to Kalquor.

  He thought about how this could be his fi­nal space com­mand. Tra­nis had been of­fered the pro­mo­tion to ad­mi­ral for the sec­ond time in his ca­reer. To ac­cept would make him the youngest of­fi­cer to ad­vance to that rank in Kalquor’s his­tory. He thought maybe this time he’d take it, along with a planet-bound post. Mataras and non-com­bat clan mem­bers were barred from stay­ing on board cer­tain classes of Fleet ves­sels, in­clud­ing spy­ships. Tra­nis wanted to be with Cas­sidy, and that meant giv­ing up the cap­tain’s con­sole.

  Tra­nis knew De­gorsk would be per­fectly happy prac­tic­ing medicine on Kalquor. The Imdiko had se­ri­ously con­sid­ered mak­ing such a move be­fore. With him, Cas­sidy would be well cared for even if Tra­nis and Li­don con­tin­ued to serve aboard ships. How­ever, Tra­nis wanted to see his beau­ti­ful mate ev­ery day. Go­ing for months at a time with­out be­ing in her and De­gorsk’s pres­ence was im­pos­si­ble to con­tem­plate.

  He eyed his Nobek, who was mon­i­tor­ing the gath­er­ing en­emy forces on the other side of the se­cu­rity grid. Would Li­don also con­sider a plan­et­side post? Tra­nis was ev­ery bit as loathe to be sep­a­rated from the scarred war­rior as he was Cas­sidy and De­gorsk. Six years of clan­ship, the best six years of his life, had been marked by Li­don’s con­stant pres­ence. Yet how would a Nobek used to fend­ing off dan­ger and fight­ing en­e­mies fare in the safe en­vi­rons of Kalquor? Some­how, Tra­nis could not imag­ine Li­don be­ing happy as a mere se­cu­rity of­fi­cer for base op­er­a­tions. Even the op­tion of train­ing other se­cu­rity spe­cial­ists for the fleet would pale in com­par­i­son to the bat­tles Li­don had fought.

  No, Tra­nis would never ask Li­don to give up his long and sto­ried ca­reer, not if the Nobek’s heart re­mained with the fleet. Yet a sub­stan­tial part of the Dramok’s soul would feel empty with­out Li­don’s con­stant pres­ence.

  He might have to face such a sit­u­a­tion, how­ever. The more Tra­nis thought about go­ing back to the Em­pire and stay­ing there, the more he was sure it was the right choice. Not only would he be with Cas­sidy and De­gorsk at the end of each day, but it would be nice to have a place to put down roots. He felt like he’d been knock­ing about space and fend­ing off its at­ten­dant dan­gers for­ever. Truth be told, Tra­nis was tired of nearly get­ting killed. This last brush with the Tra­gooms had re­minded him why he’d traded the vi­o­lent glory of com­mand­ing a war­ship for the less glam­orous work as a spy. And Cas­sidy’s pain over him be­ing part of the ef­fort against Earth con­firmed he’d had enough of be­ing on the front lines. It was time to step down, es­pe­cially if De­gorsk and Li­don were in agree­ment.

  Sim­dow broke the si­lence of the bridge. “Will the in­va­sion suc­ceed, Cap­tain?”

  Tra­nis con­sid­ered the scene on the outer vid mon­i­tor be­fore an­swer­ing. The Earther fleet con­tin­ued to gather, and they al­ready out­num­bered the Kalquo­rian ships. “If our forces can hold the por­tal un­til Earth sur­ren­ders, we will be vic­to­ri­ous.”

  “I hate hav­ing to stand back and watch. I’d give any­thing to be part of the in­va­sion.” The envy in Sim­dow’s tone was ap­par­ent.

  That’s be­cause you’ve never seen hun­dreds of bloody, scream­ing men af­ter a real bat­tle. You’ve never told a par­ent clan their son is not com­ing home. You’ve never given a heart­bro­ken Matara the news that some or all of her clan has just been dec­i­mated. What of your new Matara, Sim­dow? Are you ready to make her cry with your death? Are you ready to send men to their deaths?

  Tra­nis kept these thoughts to him­self. Yes, a planet-bound home in which to keep Cas­sidy com­fort­able had an ap­peal he’d never be­fore ex­pe­ri­enced.

  * * * *

  “How about this one?” De­gorsk mused, look­ing over Cas­sidy’s shoul­der at her reader. She gig­gled in re­sponse.

  His bite had re­laxed her, suc­ceed­ing in dis­tract­ing his young love from the up­com­ing bat­tle for her home world. Eu­phoric and aroused, she’d sug­gested they look through her copy of The Kama Su­tra for in­spi­ra­tion. De­gorsk had been only too happy to pe­ruse the graphic de­pic­tions with her, and the re­sults were as good as any fore­play. He was hard and she was wet. At least they’d had sense to get naked and in bed first.

  “It looks phys­i­cally de­mand­ing for both par­tic­i­pants,” Cas­sidy ob­served, try­ing to sound clin­i­cal. The ef­fect was ru­ined by her gig­gles.

  “In­deed, but we could do with a lit­tle ex­er­tion. Not only that, we’ll be able to watch ev­ery­thing hap­pen.” De­gorsk leered at her nu­dity.

  She leered back. His bul­let-shaped penises were stun­ning works of art to her greedy eyes. “You should have had a mold made of those as well as your back­side. Let’s see how they like this po­si­tion.”

  De­gorsk leaned back, sup­port­ing his weight on his hands. He spread his legs, the knees bent. Cas­sidy scooted for­ward un­til her crotch met his, her thighs over his hips, and mim­icked his pose. Yes, she could see ev­ery­thing from this an­gle. Nice.

  He used one hand to po­si­tion his or­gans to en­ter her. “Lift up,” De­gorsk said, and Cas­sidy tilted her hips sli
ghtly sky­ward, al­low­ing his sweet in­va­sion. They pressed to­wards each other, slid­ing to­gether like the in­ter­lock­ing pieces of a puz­zle.

  Af­ter a few clumsy starts over which they chor­tled un­self­con­sciously, they fi­nally matched rhythm and moved as one. Cas­sidy rev­eled in the sight of her dark-skinned lover’s body, framed by her lily-white legs and com­pletely ex­posed to her as they worked to make plea­sure hap­pen. De­gorsk’s long braid hung over the bunched mus­cle of one shoul­der, coil­ing next to him on the bed like a slick, black snake. She ad­mired his chest. It wasn’t as thick as Tra­nis and Li­don’s, but it was well-chis­eled just the same. His ab­domen was made up of two rows of eight bumps, longer in pro­por­tion than an Earther’s. The smooth penises driv­ing in and out of her core were shaded darker than the rest of his skin and gleamed wetly from their com­bined juices.

  Cas­sidy’s arms tired quickly from sup­port­ing her as she met his strong thrusts, but she ig­nored the slight dis­com­fort, en­joy­ing the view as much of the sen­sa­tion. Heaven help her, De­gorsk felt and looked so right. All three men did.

  It’s a sin. But on the heels of that tired, old ar­gu­ment came a new, star­tling one. But why is it a sin? Could the writ­ers of the Word have got­ten it wrong? Af­ter all, they were only fal­li­ble hu­mans. Who knows how many of them re­worked the sto­ries time af­ter time over the ages to suit their prej­u­dices?

  Cas­sidy knew she looked to jus­tify her be­hav­ior. It could be that she reached for any ra­tio­nal­iza­tion to ex­cuse fall­ing will­ingly in bed with three aliens. But with glo­ri­ous dis­so­lu­tion fast ap­proach­ing, she wel­comed the idea that per­haps God didn’t care who she gave her­self to. As long as love was the cen­tral com­po­nent to the ac­tion, what was the harm? And Cas­sidy loved Tra­nis, Li­don and De­gorsk. Of that, she had no doubt.

  She heaved against De­gorsk, now rac­ing to reach cli­max be­fore her arms gave out. He matched her pace, his gasps telling her he was close too. Their flesh pounded to­gether, and at the first stir­rings, Cas­sidy groaned his name.

  Sear­ing or­gasm em­braced her, and her head fell back as she jerked help­lessly in its grip. A few mo­ments later De­gorsk also suc­cumbed. Cas­sidy forced her head back up so she could watch his face suf­fuse with bliss, his lips parted to breath out sighs of de­light.

  Af­ter­wards, he gath­ered her in his arms and pulled her for­ward to lie on his chest. They rested that way for some time, let­ting their gal­lop­ing pulses slow.

  “Did you like that?” De­gorsk asked, rous­ing Cas­sidy from a light doze.

  “It was won­der­ful.” And it had been, but the con­dem­na­tions were in her head again, shout­ing her in­famy.

  De­gorsk sighed, the sound un­happy. “I can al­ways tell when the in­tox­i­cant wears off. It makes me sad that you can’t let go to en­joy our con­nec­tion fully.”

  Cas­sidy looked up at his dis­ap­pointed face. She slid up his body to plant a kiss on his lips. “You know it has noth­ing to do with you. Ad­mit it, I’m get­ting bet­ter.”

  He smiled a lit­tle. “Yes, you are. Has your at­ti­tude changed?”

  Cas­sidy grabbed his braid and brought the loose ends to her face. She ca­ressed her cheeks with the soft hair. “I have two dif­fer­ent views now. On one hand, I know my body is de­signed to find plea­sure in mak­ing chil­dren. It makes no sense God would fash­ion me in such a way only to make sex­ual plea­sure a sin.”

  “But your up­bring­ing and the laws of your so­ci­ety say dif­fer­ently. I un­der­stand that.”

  She nod­ded. “It’s all I’ve ever heard, but the Church is wrong. It has to be. Even my grand­fa­ther hasn’t been able to deny his needs.”

  There. That shut up the judg­men­tal voices in her head for the mo­ment.

  De­gorsk looked cau­tiously pleased. “And what of be­ing the mate of three men?”

  Cas­sidy gave her­self a mo­ment to think be­fore an­swer­ing. “I won­der if my peo­ple got that wrong too. Some of the books from my grand­fa­ther’s col­lec­tion men­tion men hav­ing mul­ti­ple wives. So polygamy wasn’t al­ways frowned upon.” She traced the Imdiko’s lips with her fin­gers. “Even now, there are con­tra­dic­tions within the of­fi­cial faith. Though wed­ding vows in this present time dic­tate mar­riage is un­til the death, men are al­lowed to di­vorce all the time and re­marry. I’ve al­ways found that in­con­sis­tency odd.”

  “So­ci­eties evolve con­tin­u­ously, and rules al­ter from gen­er­a­tion to gen­er­a­tion. Even­tu­ally, Earth’s cur­rent regime will change or fall. The only ques­tion is will it be worse or bet­ter?”

  Cas­sidy smiled at him, grate­ful he didn’t talk down to her like so many men. Like her grand­fa­ther.

  De­gorsk combed his fin­gers through her hair, mak­ing her shiver. “You didn’t re­ally an­swer my ques­tion, sweet­ling.”

  She low­ered her eyes. “I want to be with your clan. I don’t want it to be wrong if love is in­volved.”

  “Es­pe­cially when that love is re­turned.” She heard the quiet joy in his voice. He’d got­ten the mes­sage she still didn’t dare voice bluntly.

  She gazed into De­gorsk’s pur­ple eyes, eyes so alien yet still so kind. “You’re not just say­ing that to make me feel bet­ter.”

  “We love you, Cas­sidy.”

  “Then it has to be all right. God has to for­give it.” Please heav­enly Fa­ther, please un­der­stand.

  “Can you for­give your­self?”

  She smiled rue­fully. “I’m work­ing on it.”

  “What about your mother?”

  Cas­sidy’s mouth opened and the words tum­bled out. “She was a shame­less whore who de­serves the fiery pit—”

  De­gorsk stopped her with a fin­ger to her lips. “Whose words are those, pre­cious girl?”

  Cas­sidy went very still. She re­mem­bered Patrick Hamil­ton stand­ing over her in a tiny, dark room, shout­ing those very words at her. She had cringed from his wrath, but sobbed de­nials un­til … un­til his as­ser­tions made more sense than her own.

  “My grand­fa­ther said those things.” She blinked, star­tled that she had for­got­ten those long days, per­haps weeks, of be­ing a pris­oner in an un­fur­nished room in the gen­eral’s home. No one else came to see her, there was no news of her mother who had been ar­rested, and food and rest were only granted when she re­peated those ter­ri­ble words Hamil­ton wanted her to say.

  Then Cas­sidy re­mem­bered the rest.

  Her mother rises for sen­tenc­ing, tears slid­ing down her cheeks. Then Jacque­lyn Hamil­ton is led out of the court­room in shack­les. The two guards on ei­ther side of her dwarf her sunken frame. The con­demned woman casts a last glance at Cas­sidy, who sits by her grand­fa­ther’s side.

  “It’s all right, Cassie-lassie. I love you for­ever and ever.” The door shuts be­tween them. Her mother is gone.

  “De­gorsk?” Cas­sidy’s voice was high-pitched, al­most a shriek. The mem­o­ries came steam­rolling back, knock­ing her nearly sense­less with their force.

  She saw it all as it had re­ally hap­pened. She re­mem­bered the trial where she’d tes­ti­fied against her mother. She re­mem­bered the end­less time be­fore that in the win­dow­less room with her grand­fa­ther loom­ing over her and telling her this is what re­ally hap­pened, you know she brought it on her­self, say what I tell you or you’ll be con­victed too.

  And even be­fore that, she re­mem­bered the day in the apart­ment.

  Cas­sidy re­mem­bered the man with the knife.

  De­gorsk kissed her. His hands stroked her shud­der­ing body gen­tly. “Don’t be afraid of get­ting those mem­o­ries back. I’m right here with you. You can tell me, Cas­sidy. Tell me what hap­pened.”

  She curled tight against the Imdiko, as if she could find shel­ter from the hor­ror of fi
ve years ago. He cra­dled her, rock­ing her gen­tly as she sobbed.

  * * * *

  Tra­nis paced the length of the bridge. He fought to not to look at the Earther bat­tle­cruis­ers lin­ing up on the other side of their de­fense grid. He’d wor­ried the Earth­ers would use the por­tal it­self to at­tack the Kalquo­rian forces, but ei­ther they wanted to keep its ex­is­tence se­cret or they didn’t like us­ing the dis­torted pas­sage.

  No doubt the gath­er­ing bat­tle­cruis­ers had launched the mo­ment Earth knew the Kalquo­rian fleet had breached the outer se­cu­rity ring. The ves­sels, spew­ing out one-man fight­ers like loath­some mul­ti­ple births, were clumsy-look­ing. Tra­nis knew bet­ter than to un­der­es­ti­mate the clunky war­ships. With spoked laser can­nons that could fire al­most 360 de­grees around them, they were more than enough trou­ble for the Kalquo­rian de­stroy­ers.

  At­tack now, Pi­ras, be­fore they get in po­si­tion and all their fight­ers are ready for ours.

  As if hear­ing Tra­nis’ thoughts, Li­don said, “The se­cu­rity grid is down. Our at­tack force is en­gag­ing the Earther fleet.”

  The at­tack squadron was a dis­trac­tion to keep the Earth­ers from notic­ing the cloaked in­va­sion force. Tra­nis con­cen­trated his at­ten­tion on the vid of the por­tal en­trance. A shim­mer­ing dis­tur­bance ap­peared briefly on the screen be­fore wink­ing out.

  “First ship has en­tered the por­tal,” Sim­dow con­firmed. “ETA to Earth, thirty min­utes.”

  A weak cheer went up among the crew. They still had a long way to go. No one was ready to cel­e­brate yet, es­pe­cially know­ing the death toll could be heavy.

  Tra­nis glanced at Li­don. “Any sign the Earth­ers have no­ticed the por­tal breach?”

  “None. Our fight­ers and de­stroy­ers are keep­ing them dis­tracted.” The Nobek shook his head, his mouth tight­en­ing in a thin line. “We just lost a de­stroyer. The se­cu­rity grid has been re-es­tab­lished.”