by Elin Wyn
Stripping him naked. Licking my way down his hard body. His strong hands on my heated skin. Watching him enter me. Using my body for his pleasure.
And then…holding me close and snuggling me.
When I woke up, I knew I was his.
At some point during the day before, fresh clothes had been placed in the wall closet in the room. They were simple, a pair of black pants and a navy-blue long-sleeved shirt that hugged every curve of my body as if it were made for me.
At first, I assumed Karzin brought them to my room, but I doubted he’d get the sizing right. The more I thought about it, the more I realized I didn’t want to know where the clothing came from. I was simply thankful to have clean clothes.
I left my borrowed room and went to the cafeteria. Karzin was there, sitting alone at a table. When he saw me, his expression brightened. He looked much better this morning. His eyes weren’t bloodshot, the circles under his eyes had mostly disappeared, and he looked less haggard.
“Good morning!” I said cheerfully.
Karzin stood up and walked over to me.
“I knew you’d be in sooner or later,” he grinned.
“How long have you been waiting?” I asked.
“An hour or so,” he shrugged.
“I would’ve been down sooner if the water pressure in the showers wasn’t so divine.” We grabbed plates and began filling them with everything laid out before us.
“You should’ve told me. I would’ve joined you.” Karzin winked and I almost dropped my plate. A blush heated my cheeks. I took a sip of coffee to hide it, which was a terrible idea since it was still scalding hot. I swallowed with difficulty.
“You all right?” Karzin asked with a knowing smile.
“Peachy,” I replied. I hurried to a table and set my plate down.
“Did you and Leena have a breakthrough yesterday?” He slid into the seat beside me instead of the one across from me. Our arms brushed together as we ate.
“We’ve officially ruled out the Xathi. They had nothing to do with our little mishap in the crater. However, a toxic substance from their ship seeped into the soil. There could be something there,” I replied.
“That’s a relief, I suppose,” Karzin nodded. Before he could say anything else, his comm unit starting beeping and buzzing. He pulled it out of his pocket and activated it.
“Yes?” he spoke.
“Karzin, take the geologist and get to Malvor immediately.” I recognized General Rouhr’s voice.
“She’s with me now. What’s happened?” Karzin asked.
“There’s been another incident. Same as the last time in Duvest. Get down there now!” The comm unit disconnected. Karzin rose from his seat.
“Sorry to cut breakfast short.” He gathered up our plates and placed them in a bin filled with dirty dishes.
“Did the general say how bad it is?” I asked.
Karzin shook his head, and I worried.
Malvor was like Somerst, a new settlement propped up by pieces of debris, barely holding itself together. It couldn’t handle damage the way Duvest could.
“I know you’re not going to like it, but we have to get there now.”
“That means traveling by rift, doesn’t it?” I winced. Karzin nodded. “Fine. It’s an emergency.”
We ran from the hall. As we ran, Karzin asked Fen to open a rift for him. I was curious about the device that was able to open and close rifts at will.
It was ready for us, bright and shimmering, when Karzin and I stepped off the Aurora and onto the ground. He let me go first. I ducked through as quickly as I could, but that still didn’t stop the chill from seeping into my bones. Karzin slipped through after me. Fen closed the rift behind us.
Malvor was in a terrible state. Whole buildings had been toppled and torn apart. People were lying about in various states of injury. There were several dead among them, more than there had been in Duvest. This wasn’t going to be easy for Malvor to recover from.
And just as they had in Duvest, craters dotted the ground. Perfectly circular, no cracking in the earth, and no trace of whatever caused them.
“What happened?” Karzin asked the nearest onlooker.
“I don’t know,” she sniffled. She was coated in a fine layer of dust, but was otherwise uninjured. “Everything was fine. It was a normal day and then suddenly everything was destroyed and people were dead!”
“Just like last time,” I whispered. We asked a few more people and received the same response. No one had any idea what had done this.
“How is that possible?” Karzin asked, clearly frustrated.
“I don’t know.” I placed a hand on his shoulder. “We have to focus on helping people now. We can ponder the mystery of it later.” He nodded in agreement.
Malvor didn’t have a doctor in town, so Karzin called Dr. Parr on her comm unit. Within minutes, she was standing beside us next to a rift.
“Good to see you again,” she nodded to me before rushing to the side of the most severely injured civilian. A building had fallen on top of him, crushing his legs. I had to look away. Noticing my discomfort, Karzin placed a hand on my lower back.
“How about you collect more samples?” he suggested.
I nodded and hurried away from Dr. Parr and the injured man.
While I was in the Aurora’s lab, I had taken the opportunity to replenish my supplies. This time, I had more vials to collect samples. I could take two for every crater. Hopefully, it would give me a better idea of what had dislodged the soil.
I stepped over to the closest crater and peered down. Like the large one out in the desert, I couldn’t see the bottom of these. I started to think that crater wasn’t an appropriate term anymore. Tunnel seemed more appropriate.
But a tunnel that came straight up?
“Karzin?” I called.
He came jogging over. “Do you have more of those glow things?”
“You mean the things you called useless?” He folded his arms across his chest.
“Yes, can I borrow a useless glow thing?” I asked again.
“Will I get it back?”
“Probably not,” I laughed.
Karzin reached into his pocket and pulled out an already activated glowing rod.
“You had it ready?”
“I guessed that you’d want to toss it into one of the holes,” he replied.
I took it from him and did just that. Just like the crater in the desert, the glowing light disappeared into the darkness. If there was a bottom to this crater, it was miles down.
“Now go get it,” Karzin nudged me gently.
“Do my eyes deceive me?” A voice caught both our attentions. Walking down the main road of the town was a group of aliens.
As they came closer, I recognized them as the ones who accompanied me when I first went to investigate the crater. Rouhr must’ve sent the rest of Strike Team Two as backup.
“Hard to say. You were always a bit blind, Sylor,” Karzin joked.
“What the skrell happened here?” a Skotan asked.
“That’s what she’s trying to figure out,” Karzin jerked his head in my direction.
“It’s nice to see you all again,” I smiled. Each nodded in return.
“Let’s focus on getting these people somewhere where the buildings aren’t going to come down on their heads,” Karzin said decisively. Knowing what I knew now, I expected more push back from his team. However, they seemed happy to oblige. I saw Karzin’s features relax noticeably as he fell into rhythm with them.
“Karzin,” I called to him. “Hand me your comm unit, please.”
“Are you going to throw it into a hole?” he asked.
“No, I’m going to call my father and see if Finola will be willing to take a few people,” I explained. He pulled out his comm unit and entered my Dad’s contact before tossing it to me.
“Annie, is that you?” my father answered.
“Yes, it’s me. I’m working. There’s been an accident a
nd some people need shelter. Can you ask Finola if she’ll help?”
“An accident?” I heard my mother squawk in the background. “What kind of accident? Is my baby hurt? What happened?”
“I’m fine, Mom!” I called, though that didn’t do much to calm her.
“How many people?” my father asked over my mother.
“As many as Finola can take,” I replied.
“Can they pay? You know how Finola is,” my father said.
“I’ll pay.” Karzin appeared at my side. “Tell Finola her green friend has them covered.”
“You got it. Send them our way.” Feeling satisfied, I clicked off the comm unit and passed it back to Karzin.
“That’s so sweet of you to offer to pay for them.” I squeezed his arm with appreciation.
“It’s the least I can do. Their homes have been destroyed twice now,” Karin shrugged.
“Does this mean we have our strike team leader back?” A Skotan approached Karzin with a skeptical look.
“Only if you’re ready to help me figure out how to fight an enemy no one sees and no one remembers,” Karzin replied.
The Skotan gave him a satisfied smile. “That could be interesting.”
“We could set up cameras,” the K’ver suggested.
“Not bad but they won’t do us much good if they get destroyed in the process,” Karzin replied. “From what I can tell, these attacks happen quickly. Emergency response should be a priority until we get a better idea of what we’re fighting.”
“I think we’ve got to ask the old Skotan for advice,” Sylor said.
Karzin turned to me. “Come with us, Annie. The general will want to hear what you and Leena found yesterday.” I nodded in agreement.
“Do we have to use a rift?” I asked.
“We have transport units,” one of the Skotans said.
“Thank god,” I sighed.
Once the injured civilians were on their way to Finola, Karzin and his team were ready to go. Karzin offered his hand to me as we walked. I took it and held tight. The other members of the strike team noticed and shared curious looks.
Karzin squeezed my hand.
The warmth made me smile, distracted me from my circling thoughts.
What could be doing this? And how could we stop it?
Karzin
It was like the darkest days of the war against the Xathi for Ankou. Strike Teams One, Two, and Three all crowded into Rouhr’s office, trying to come up with a plan.
But this time the enemy was an enigma.
We knew nothing. Not what it was, how it traveled, what it wanted.
Nothing.
I still received some dirty looks from the other teams, but my team supported me. They knew I was back, and that I had found a way to conquer my addictive obsession with the satellites.
Vrehx still looked like Vrehx, his deep red skin with a few new scars and his military-issued haircut still in place. The difference in him was the look in his eyes. While still serious, they were now filled with joy and a sense of belonging that I hadn’t seen in him before.
Tu’ver sat next to Vrehx, his black skin and green circuitry shining under his white shirt. He had taken to a more informal style of dress since the end of the Xathi, wanting to show himself as less hostile. He, as well, looked less stressed than before, he was smiling and sharing a quiet joke with Vrehx. The smile looked good on him.
Dax and Axtin were polite to me and gave me a good-natured nod when they saw that I was behaving like the old me. Sakev had never been bothered by my actions, so he still treated me as he always had.
It was Team Three that still distrusted me, and I couldn’t blame them. Sk’lar, the black-skinned and blue-circuited K’ver, as leader of Team Three, had the biggest reason to distrust me. When I shirked my responsibilities, as the leader of Team Three, it fell to him to take over with Vrehx on leave.
He was professional, but I could feel the icy stares coming from his direction. The rest of his team, Jalok and Cazak—the Skotans, and Tyehn and Navat—my Valorni cousins, followed his lead. They were angry, and while they weren’t as angry as Sk’lar, they also didn’t show me any sympathy, either.
That was fine. I had earned their scorn and I knew it would take work to get their respect back.
I fully planned on doing just that.
“We need to enlist what’s left of the human soldiers to keep an eye on each city, new and old. We need a more reliable word on what is attacking the cities, and I don’t think civilians are going to cut it,” Rouhr said. He sat at the head of the conference table, while the rest of us filled the chairs down each side.
“I agree, General Rouhr,” Sk’lar said. “I would also like to begin a recruiting drive and train more men and women to be able to defend themselves. The better we are able to prepare these humans, the better they will be able to care for themselves when and if we find a way back to our real home.”
“This time, Sk’lar, I agree with you. Not for the same reasons, but I agree,” Rouhr amended. “The better trained and prepared we can get everyone, the better for all of us.” He turned to Vrehx, who was the direct liaison between our people and the human military forces. “Do you think you would be able to speak to them and coordinate things?”
Vrehx nodded. “Yes, sir, I don’t believe it will be an issue. And as for Sk’lar’s idea, I think this new threat validates his plans. I’ll run the ideas past Tona and Skit. They’ll know if there are people interested in the military route or not.”
Rouhr gave a nod of his own. “Good. If we can get members of our own crew, as well as human soldiers in each settlement, we may be able to not only get information on whatever this is but might be able to have people already on hand to fight it.”
He looked around the room. “I hate to do this to everyone, because I know that we all have responsibilities, but I want each team on stand-by until this is taken care of.”
No one argued the logic. We needed everyone ready to go at a moment’s notice, and that wouldn’t work if we were off doing other things. However, it did mean that some of our repair and construction efforts would suffer a bit.
It couldn’t be helped, though.
“Here’s a question,” Sakev cut in. “How do you fight something you can’t see, or, apparently, remember? I mean,” he looked around the room at everyone, and it seemed as though his gaze settled on me a moment longer than anyone else. “How do you fight something you know absolutely nothing about?”
It was a good question. None of us had seen it. Rokul and I were the only ones that had encountered whatever it was, and neither of us had any information other than it was solid, and potentially slimy.
“Well, we know that whatever is doing this doesn’t like light,” Sylor said. “According to what Rokul and Karzin told us about their excursion into the big pit, nothing happened until they used the light sticks. To me, that sounds like they have a problem with light.”
“Okay, how do we use that?” Rouhr asked. “We can’t exactly light up the entire inside of a planet.”
“We could send a team underground, have lights attached to battle-suits in order to prevent an attack. Maybe see where they’re coming from?” Sylor suggested.
“That’s actually not a bad suggestion. Do we have any suits left, though?” Vrehx asked.
“Only my team does,” Sk’lar answered. “We had never gotten them off the shuttle before we abandoned the Vengeance.”
“Does your team volunteer to go down into the crater?” Rouhr asked.
“If necessary, then yes, we do,” Sk’lar answered. “What are our contingency plans if we find nothing?” We spent the next few hours coming up with several plans of action, each one based on a different hypothesis of what could be causing all of this. Tobias had brought in water and food for us as we debated.
“So, since we know that these things are organic, do we kill it?” Tu’ver asked.
“Of course, we kill it,” Axtin answered. “It’s dan
gerous and it’s killing people.”
“What if it’s not meaning to kill people?” Iq’her mused. “For the amount of damage, the casualty rate is remarkably low. If these were active attacks, I’d expect a higher body count.”
General Rouhr coughed.
“Not that I’m complaining,” Iq’her hastily added. “Just another mystery.” He looked around the table. “What if it’s sentient, and not actually attacking with intent to kill?”
That raised an entirely new debate, but before things got heated, the emergency signal rang out.
Rouhr quickly turned on the wall screen. On the screen was Tona, covered in dust and looking a bit battered.
“What’s going on, Captain Tona?” Rouhr asked.
The picture shook a bit and Tona looked behind him. He yelled out orders to his people, then turned back to us.
“We’ve just been attacked in Einhiv, General. We’re not sure what the hell happened, but we’ve got holes popping up in our business district, sir. I’ve already accounted for four toppled buildings, sir. Each one was occupied. We’re already working on search and rescue, but we need help.”
“Understood, Captain. We’ll send help there immediately. Is there anything you can tell us about what attacked you?”
Tona shook his head and coughed. “No, sir. All anyone remembers is the ground started to shake, then there were holes in the ground. A few people look beat up, but no one remembers getting into a fight with anything. Sir, I need to get back to my people. When can we expect you?”
“As soon as possible, Captain. Rouhr out.” The screen clicked off and Rouhr looked at me. “I want you and your team to head over immediately. Grab whatever gear you think you need and have Fen rift you there.”
“Sir,” I said with a nod. As I stood, Rouhr got onto his comm. “Tobias? Get Doctor Parker on the line, now.”
“Sir? What about us?” Vrehx asked.
“As much as I want to send all of you, I need Teams One and Three to remain here in case there’s another attack,” Rouhr answered. He turned back to me. “I’ll send more help as quickly as I can get it coordinated.”
“Yes, sir. Gear still in the basement?”
“Affirmative.”