He slipped from the bed and strode across to the door not caring that he was naked. Whoever it was that had interrupted his slumber was about to get an earful, and an eyeful. He slammed his hand into the door controls and doing his best to keep his voice hushed but forceful, so as not to wake Chris, called out. “What?” as it slid away.
Arion didn’t even wait, pushing his way inside. “I need to talk. I need to talk to somebody. And you are the only ones who I can tell this to and not be judged.”
The audacity left Gavit dumbfounded as he turned back to face Arion, his manhood dangling for the big man to see. If there was a clearer indication that now was not the time, he couldn’t think of what that would be. “Arion, not the time.”
Arion jostled his head. Gavit had never seen the big man so shaken. Gavit motioned towards the bed and Chris’ naked form as a shiver ran up her skin. The hairs on her legs stood up in the sudden breeze Arion had created. Arion glanced at her then back at Gavit. “I don’t care. It’s nothing any of us hasn’t seen before.” Arion plopped down into the chair at Gavit’s desk with an audible thump.
That woke Chris up. Pulling the blanket over her waist, she rolled over to face the pair. Sleep still in her eyes, she looked between them and shook her head. “We’ve been over this Gavit. I am not doing that, and especially not with just Arion.”
Gavit threw up his hands and let out a massive sigh, wondering what kind of joke the universe had chosen to play on him this time. “Not what I was thinking, and not the way I wanted to start this cycle.” He grabbed a pair of discarded underwear off the floor, had them halfway up his thighs before he realized they were Chris’. He huffed, and stripped them off before tossing them back to Chris. She batted them away as she sat up and kept the blanket concealing everything from the waist down.
Had she been anything other than the Chamalad warrior woman he’d come to know and love, he might be offended that she’d remain so unclad before another man. Keeping her genitals covered was all she, or he, needed to do to preserve her sense of modesty. Gavit felt no such social pressures, but still grabbed his slacks from the floor and pulled them on instead. Arion waited, shaking the chair enough that Gavit felt surprised the bolts didn’t come undone.
This was a side of Arion that Gavit had only rarely seen, and he hated it every time. It tempted Gavit’s anger. Had he not been so enraged he knew he’d be a mass of worry at the sight. For Arion to be so disturbed meant something was seriously wrong. Gavit stepped between Arion and Chris, not enough to block their view of each other, but more to establish himself beside her.
Gavit suppressed a smile and looked back at her for a moment.
“Alieha’s here, aboard ship.”
Gavit shook his head but kept his eyes on Arion. “If she’s aboard, then why are you here, and not in your room, with her?”
Arion kept his eyes on the floor. “I asked her to marry me last cycle.”
That got Chris’ attention. She sat up straight in the bed and began to slip out of it, societal pressures be damned. She stopped with such an abruptness that the bed creaked and drew Gavit’s gaze. He had come to fear the look of anger that had twisted those gorgeous features. “What happened?” Chris asked, venom dripping off every syllable. Gavit was never happier that he wasn’t Alieha in that moment.
“She said yes,” Arion replied, sadness ringing off his voice. “But there were conditions.”
Gavit stepped back, his face screwed up in confusion. Should he be happy, sad, mad? “What kind of conditions?”
Arion turned to Chris and met her eyes, never once allowing them to drift downwards. Of that Gavit remained certain, as he locked onto Arion’s face. “Chris, your mother, she was CIS right?”
Chris nodded.
“Alieha’s CIS. Not was, is.”
Gavit turned to Chris, her anger had given way to concerned wonder. He turned back to Arion, one finger raised. “Uh, I thought she was a cargo pilot.”
Arion met his friend’s eyes. “She is, and she is also a CIS agent. She’s also,” he swallowed hard and looked away. He seemed unable to find the words for a moment. “She spent twenty annura in a sleeper pod because an op went bad.”
That revelation nearly launched Chris from the bed as she leaned forward in concentration. “My mother knew a lot of agents who’d found themselves unlucky enough to get stuck in sleeper pods. Not all of them survived that. What happened?”
Arion shook his head and recounted Alieha’s story. Gavit tried to remain impassive as he listened, one nagging thought at the back of his mind. He kept his mouth shut however, but as Arion finished the tale, he had to give it voice before Chris could say something else. “If she’s still CIS, is she a plant? Is she here to watch us? Do they still think we have a spy in our ranks?”
Chris’ pseudo-telepathic message hit with enough mental force to feel like a slap, but he kept his ground. He didn’t care if it cost him sex for the rest of the annura, he wouldn’t relent, not after they’d proven themselves, time and again. “No, I’m serious. Does the CIS still doubt our loyalty after what happened with Mikle? We were exonerated. They went through every bit and byte of all of our data and then they scanned all our equipment and belongings down to the atomic level.” It took everything Gavit had not to scream in rage at the idea that there might be more traitors in their midst. “Mikle was a deep-cover agent, and he did absolutely everything in the book and then some to cover his tracks. None of us knew. None of us were complicit.”
Arion nodded. “I know that.”
Chris slid over towards Arion and laid a hand on his. She looked up at Gavit then back to Arion. “I hate to agree with My Gavit on this, but we have to know. Is she here to watch us?”
Arion shook his head. “No. We’re not her assignment.”
Gavit felt relieved but only just a little as another thought struck him. “Then why? Is she watching the Captain? Someone else on the crew? Why else would she be aboard so much?”
Arion looked towards the hatch. “No. The Captain is her contact. She reports to him and the Admiral.”
Gavit perked up at that. “The Admiral?” Hardly anyone aboard even knew what the Admiral looked like, or what species they were. The mysterious Commander of their taskforce always worked through aides and was enigmatic to a degree that disturbed Gavit to the core. He always wanted to know the face of his Commanders. While he’d never seen beyond Tadeh Qudas’ mask, that didn’t matter. The mask was the Telshin’s face so far as he was concerned. To have a fleet level leader who remained hidden in the shadows was beyond the pale. Gavit always noted when the Admiral’s flag code tagged a ship in the Battlegroup’s transponder, but when he’d question the various shuttle pilots none would or could ever say if they’d transported them. “Alieha’s met the Admiral?”
Arion shrugged and nodded at the same time. “I think so.”
Gavit felt a new-found respect for Alieha, and intended to ask her about the mysterious individual. He had to know if they even existed, or if they were a construct of the taskforce’s Captains to allow them to operate with a level of autonomy that they might otherwise not enjoy.
Chris squeezed Arion’s hand. “So what’s going on?”
Arion turned back to Chris. “She wanted me to read her file. Learn what I could about her and then decide if she really is the woman I want to marry.”
Gavit stepped back across the tiny room to lean against the wall. It made a certain sense. In a way, Arion had now come to know three Aliehas; the biodroid replicant whose nature they hadn’t discovered until her ‘death’, the transport pilot who served as the template for what they’d lea
rned were six such copies, and now the CIS agent. “I take it that she’s read your file.”
“Yes, she’s read all our files.”
Gavit didn’t like the sound of that. “All of our files?”
Arion nodded again and pulled the ancient data card from his pocket. “This is her complete, unredacted file.”
Chris whistled. “I haven’t even read My Gavit’s unredacted file.”
“You’ve read my file?”
“You haven’t read mine?” she asked, incredulous.
Gavit cocked his head to the side. He’d thought about it, but had never gone through with it. “Too afraid you’d kill me if you found out.”
Chris smiled back at him ruefully. “Maybe, if you’d done it before I claimed you. But, go ahead.”
He scoffed and his micomm pulled her file up. He pushed it to the back of his mind - there’d be time enough for that later. “You find anything objectionable in my file?”
“Plenty,” Chris replied. “But not enough to make me reconsider the worst decision of my life,” she went on with a playful smirk.
“More like best decision,” he replied and turned back to Arion. “I take it her file has some pretty dark stuff in it?”
Arion shook his head, then nodded. “Nothing that she hadn’t already told me. Though, it seems like what she told me had been somewhat sanitized.”
“Did it change your decision?”
“No,” Arion replied without hesitation, his eyes widening. “I still want to be with her, maybe even more now. She’s the most amazing woman I’ve ever known. I found out things about her and the biodroid program that would make Que Dee insane with jealously.”
Gavit laughed and half-jokingly replied. “Don’t let him know. He might unweave your brain to find out just a byte of that.”
Arion nodded. “Yeah, not something I plan to make public.” He stood and walked over to the door. “I don’t know what to do though. I spent all duwn reading what she gave me. I’m strung out, didn’t get any sleep, but just needed to talk to someone about this.”
Gavit laid a hand on the big man’s shoulder. Even despite the fatigue that was rattling him, the strength of those massive muscles radiated. “Thank you for coming to us.”
Arion motioned toward the wall chrono. “If I’d have gone to Blazer and Marda’s this early and woken Chrisvian, B would have electrocuted me.”
Gavit glanced at the chrono. It was still several hects before their usual wake up call. “And if I were Blazer, I probably would have too. Just count yourself lucky that Chris didn’t gut you.”
Chris got up and made her way across the space, one hand keeping the blanket in place around her waist. “Arion, you are one of my best friends. If it were a different universe, I might even consider taking you as my second husband.”
Gavit felt his eyes go wide and stared at her. She batted away his gaze with a single flash of her eyes.
“But Alieha found you first and if you let her go, if you leave her even though you say you still love her, then I’ll cut your balls off and serve them up to her as an ornament to hang off the back of her ship.”
Arion laughed. “Yeah, but they might regrow.”
“Of course. I’m not stupid enough to throw away quality genetic material like that.”
Gavit choked on his laugh. “You’ve threatened to cut my sack off more than once, and mine won’t regrow. What’s that about?”
Chris met him with a wry smile. “That was when I thought you were a waste of good genetic material and that there’d be no overcoming the taint.”
Gavit feigned a hurt look. “And now?”
She shrugged. “I’m still deciding.”
Gavit started to smile, began to wonder if she was serious and turned to Arion. “So? Made a decision then?”
Arion turned back to the pair and looked up, face flushed. Gavit looked down, the blanket lay in a heap on the floor. It was a great sign of respect and even love that Chris would reveal her full self to Arion in this way. Gavit felt like he should be angry, but knew better: this wasn’t about sex, or love, or breeding, this was a sign of a bond beyond all that, beyond even family. “Alieha never really lied to us, or me…”
“She just held back the whole truth,” Gavit added. “Made her a great template.”
“Yeah, but I can’t see spending the rest of my life,” he looked away. “To imagine my life without her kills me.”
“And what do you feel when you imagine being married to her?” Gavit asked.
Arion released that big toothy smile that reminded Gavit of a kid getting the gift they’d always wanted. “That everything, that every piece has fallen into place, and that I’ll have a beacon, guiding me through even the darkest depths of space.”
To Gavit’s amazement, Chris cooed and covered her mouth.
“Who are you?” he asked her.
“What? I have feelings Gavit. I confessed to loving you.”
He looked up at Arion. “Yeah she did,” he said and cupped her ass.
Chris slapped his hand away. “No! You’ve lost that this cycle.”
Gavit returned his mock hurt look again. “That just means you’ll want it twice next cycle,” he replied with a wicked grin.
“You too.”
Arion shook his head, pushed the pair apart. “Can you two rein it in for half a pulse?”
“Sorry,” they replied in unison.
Chris looked up at Arion. “You came to us for advice. Well I don’t do that. I give orders. I’ve been here from the beginning with you two.” She looked at Gavit and smiled, melting his hearts. “We have been. So, I am ordering you to find her. Drag her to the chapel, or the captain, or the admiral, or the fragging head chef for all I care, and marry that woman. Right now!”
“What if she wants a big wedding?”
“Do you really think that Alieha, the pragmatic businesswoman, will want to waste a ton of CMU on a big elaborate wedding? What the Sheol did you read in that file?”
Arion shook his head, smiling.
“I didn’t think so. Now, move it!”
Arion turned, keyed the door, and ducked out. Gavit watched Arion disappear out of the common area door then moved in close to Chris. He took her in a sidelong embrace. “I think we did good.”
“Yes, we did,” Chris replied and pushed Gavit back towards the bed, a wicked grin on her face. Liking where this was headed, he began to unfasten his pants. “And now we need to get dressed and track them down.”
Gavit stuttered to a stop, his pants halfway down his waist. “What?”
Chris moved in and kissed him then pulled away. “Because they need people to act as witnesses to their wedding and give them their bindings.”
Gavit pulled his pants up and nodded. “And we’re the reason they got together in the first place,” he considered. He thought back to the cycle that he and Chris had helped Arion get ready for his first date with the biodroid replicant.
“And,” she continued, taking his hand, and turning it upwards, kissed his palm. “Then they can do it for us.”
Gavit pulled back. “Are you asking me to marry you?”
Chris nodded and with an air of authority responded, “Asking, no. I’m telling you that we’re getting married, with them. And I will only,” she went on, kissing his palm three more times as she spoke, “tell you, My Gavit, once, more.”
Gavit looked about for a hidden camera. “You’re kidding right? Us, married, right now?”
Chris placed her hands on her hips and met him with a hard gaze. “When have I ever joked about us? My Gavit.”
Gavit took her hand, turned it palm up and kissed it. “What about our families?” he asked and kissed her palm again. “Won’t they want to know?” he asked, kissing her palm a third time.
“Don’t worry,” Chris scoffed as Gavit kissed her palm that third time. “I’ll make sure that my mother doesn’t castrate you, My Gavit, when she finds out you married me without her consent.”
&nbs
p; Gavit stopped before he could kiss her palm a fourth time, signifying his acceptance of her proposal in the traditional, Scibean fashion. “What?”
Chris pushed her hand into his lips and he released the last kiss by instinct. “It doesn’t matter. You accepted.”
* * *
Arion possessed only a vague idea where Alieha might be, so he fell back on his old tracking skills. First step, try the simplest solution. The Wolfsbane was filled with open access terminals for the crew to use, a relic from before most people started carrying macomms, or in case the shipboard wireless intraweave went down. He ran for the nearest terminal and queried it.
Without a security forces authorization, it could only respond that she was still aboard ship. He bit back a curse. He dared not place a request to Security Forces for a personal matter. Asking anyone on the team with authorization, like Zithe, would raise too many questions.
That left him having to retrace her steps. He knew she wasn’t in his room. He doubted she’d be at the the Burning Crater or the Quartermasters. That only left her ship. Arion ran for the nearest E-Tube and flung himself into the null gravity shaft, keying his micomm in the process to command the E-Tube to take him to the bomber deck.
He didn’t wait for the micro-grapplers in the walls to grab him. Instead he vaulted off the other side, diving down numerous decks as he proceeded aft. She typically parked her craft midway down the full-length hangar/flight deck. The grapplers pulled him out to a deck just a few frames forwards of that. He hurried through the deserted corridors and through the bending hallway that reoriented him to the spinal bomber deck. One look told him that the ship wasn’t under thrust. The bombers sat flush with the deck instead of having their individual shelves deployed. Orbiting one of Drobile 6’s moons as they were, that was to be expected.
He scanned the deck. Alieha’s transport stood out amongst the military craft. He launched himself across the deck towards it. The transport wasn’t going anywhere soon: docking clamps held it in place and manual connections to shipboard power, water and waste systems were all firmly in place. Despite that, it looked dead, and not a single light shone through the silicasteel canopy. Arion landed with a deftness borne of experience beside the main hatch. He pounded on it, calling out Alieha’s name. He didn’t care if he’d make a spectacle of himself. He had to find her.
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