by D. R. Rosier
“Without proof? We know he did it, but we have none.”
Xylla replied, “Proof is inevitable, and just a matter of time. Once it is gained, my counsel is to see him dead, disseminate the information to his former subjects, and then let the world vote.”
“I will consider your wise counsel.”
It sounded right to me, but then I was an ex-assassin and a bloodthirsty human who could get behind some revenge. So… grain of salt.
Xylla hummed, and then said, “My people wish to know you, will you give them an interview?”
I held back a sigh, I hated politics, what was I doing following around an emperor? Oh, right, I loved him, and he had a huge… I cut that thought off.
It should be a boring couple of days. On balance, that was probably a good thing. Jervistad was next.
Chapter Twenty-Two
I sighed softly. Vik was tracing circles on my lower back and ass, I was beyond content. On top of the post coital bliss, the feeling of his fingertips was decadent, and made me feel spoiled and cherished.
Vik asked, “How are you doing with all the changes?”
I smiled into the pillow, where he couldn’t see, “Worried?”
Vik tapped my ass, which made me giggle. Was that supposed to be a spank? We were lying in bed, and had just gotten done with round three, or was it four? It’d been over a year, and the man still made me melt with a touch. I loved him so much, and he made me feel completely safe and terrifyingly vulnerable at the same time.
“I’m good. Better than I expected, and getting to know Cyntariel. I like her, she’s worthy of you.”
He laughed, “She is, is she?”
I nodded, “I still worry about losing you of course, but it was either lose you very soon, or learn to embrace the craziness of Isyth relationships. Emotions rarely yield to reason, but I figured out if I made an emotional connection to her that would lessen the impact. It seems to be working. How about you and Jillintara, what’s going on there.”
He grunted, “It’s complicated.”
I made a humph sound, “What’s complicated, she wants you, and you obviously want her.”
His hand stopped moving, and I bit my lip. I relaxed as it started to move again.
“Did you forget what it’s about? We don’t sleep with every acquaintance, we only sleep with close trusted friends we might one day feel enough for to make them a mate. If it was just attraction, I’d have been fucking her long before you and I met. I do like her, and she’s sexy as hell. That’s wrong though, and would have been using her for pleasure and release, not to mention leading her on. Sure, the pleasure and raw attraction is a part of it, but it means more than that.”
I nodded against the pillow, and moaned softly as his finger softly traced the crack of my ass.
“I think I get it, if you slept with her you’d be announcing to everyone in your life she could be your mate, and that would be outside the norm of society.”
He sighed a bit in frustration, “Exactly. She’s so much more than the older A.I.s, she’s truly Isyth, I just couldn’t see it or admit it until you came along. The last year has opened my eyes, but it’s still a taboo of sorts.”
Did that mean he saw me as a possible mate, despite me not being able to have children? He didn’t hesitate to take me to his bed.
“I’ve always seen her as a woman, beautiful and accomplished, and very worthy of me. I’d urge you to follow your heart, but to be fair I can’t completely relate to your society, and maybe I never will. Perhaps you should have this conversation with Tel, he seems to have gotten past it.”
He grunted, and then changed the subject, “So you like Cyntariel, does that mean you’ll…” he trailed off.
I was completely taken off guard by the suggestion. The idea wasn’t exactly repellent either. She was a stunning woman, inside and out. I’d never even thought of it before, but it sounded like a good idea. I was even tingling a bit, but that could have been Vik’s fingertips running from my ass cheeks down onto my inner thighs.
“I don’t know, I’m open to the possibility. I’ve only known her a week, so we’ll see. Would that bother you?”
He pinched my ass, and then ran his hands down my thighs and down to my calves.
He said with a catch in his voice, “No, quite the opposite. It would give me hope.”
A thrill raced down my spine, did he mean what I think he meant? Telidur had told me almost the same thing, he couldn’t mate with me because I couldn’t give him children. Or at least, he couldn’t mate with only me. Their society was polyamorous. It was rare, but group marriage was hardly unheard of. I knew he loved me, but did he really love me that much? I was too scared to hope, but my heart did so anyway. I was a fool, fairytales weren’t real.
Of course, I wouldn’t be able to keep all of them in either case. That would be too much to ask for.
Before I could ask him to clarify his comment, to be sure, he spun me onto my back and claimed a warm lingering kiss, as his fingertips finally found the apex of my legs. His passion took my breath away, and I was instantly lost in him as my heart raced in excitement and desire. We started round four, and didn’t talk again for over an hour as I lost myself in him.
Or was it round five?
“Status?”
I was in the shower, getting cleaned up and ready for our second day on Raitov. As far as I knew, we were doing the interview, and then we’d do the tourist thing. Mostly museums and historical sites.
I jumped when Myra appeared outside the shower stall, of course it was just in my overlay, still, I should have specified voice only.
Myra giggled, “Mom. Still searching, it should be a day or two before we exhaust all the possibilities on hidden bases in both systems. So, it could be anytime in the next couple of days, or in the next five minutes. The one hundred eighteen new A.I.s are ready for their ships I think, and enjoying the online world Jillintara built. The first batch of bodies will be ready in three weeks.”
There were a hundred eighty new ships being built, but we’d lost sixty-two of the destroyers in the fights with Denik’s fleet, but those A.I.s were still around in their alternate cores and would get a new ship as well. We’d need another eighty-one A.I.s the following month for the sixty scout-destroyers, fifteen cruisers, and six dreadnoughts, but after that we should be good for a while. Any other ships built after that would replace the older destroyers I’d designed, and those A.I.s would just transfer.
Right then Jillintara and I wanted to limit our A.I. design to the fleet. They were more than the old A.I.s, they were real people, and in the fleet they would be safe from abuse in any way. Vik had complete authority over the military, and I wanted to see a change in how Isythians saw the A.I.s before we set this new race on the five worlds of the empire. Because that’s what they were, at least in my eyes, a new sentient race.
Maybe that perceptual change would start with Vik, if he took Jillintara to his bed.
The old A.I.s probably were too, their own race I mean, but they weren’t my children, and they were far more alien. One step at a time. I instinctively knew pushing any kind of agenda would be a bad idea, and most likely backfire. It had to happen naturally with subtle pressures.
In fact, it worried me a bit that fifty of them would be going to the Earth fleet, I hoped the humans treated them well. I didn’t really have a choice, I wouldn’t deny them bodies or break my promise. Still, it worried me, what if they slept with their whole crews? I could just imagine the morale issues that would cause with human male jealousy on the ships. From the A.I. side, the Isyth side, there was nothing wrong with that idea, not if they were friends with the men, or women for that matter.
“So, will you look like you do now? Your virtual avatar I mean?”
She smiled, “Yes, I designed it to be so. I’m looking forward to it, meeting you both in person I mean.”
I teased, “You just want to escape the moon.”
She smiled wider, “Maybe.”
>
I knew the truth, she wanted to hug her mothers. I knew that, because I felt the same way about her. Maybe that was weird, but in a lot of ways I saw them as my children, it was no wonder I wanted them protected so fiercely.
“Anything else going on?”
She shook her head, “I’ve been watching all the systems, I’d guess the Stolavii are only a week away from moving their fleet out. Not sure about the Suaterans, but they might take a little longer. As far as I can tell, they’re both preparing for war, but they aren’t allied either.”
I finished getting ready, the red and white dress was actually growing on me. It left more to the imagination than the skin-tight ship suit I had to put on every time we returned to the ship, despite the fact it showed a lot of skin. Not that I disliked the ship suit, or felt shy, but I like the way my lovers looked at me in the dress.
“Alright, let me know if you find anything.”
Myra nodded, “I will. Be safe.”
I smiled as she winked out, and left to join the others at breakfast.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Talking points, repeating the same things over and over. I supposed politics wasn’t any different on Earth than in the empire on that point at least, even if the underlying system of government was vastly different.
After breakfast when we met with the press on Raitov, Vik was asked the same questions in the interview that he’d been answering on Isyth and then on Vehiri, with all the same answers. The interviewers didn’t give softball questions, but it wasn’t hard to see that they wouldn’t push questions about empire security, or how we knew about the threats from our enemies.
In short, they respected the operational security of the fleet and intelligence gathering.
It was also clear to me by the end of the day, that the Raitov were the most loyal of Vik’s subjects. I’d heard it a few times before then, and had believed it on an intellectual level, but it wasn’t until then that I really felt it, viscerally. That didn’t mean I let my guard down, there were some few citizens of the other races on all the planets, and this one was no different.
After a leisurely lunch, we visited some of the sites. The Raitov was a very regimented society, like a hive in a way. In the dark past of their planet, there were several queens and hives that would war with each other over resources, so in that sense they weren’t all that different than the other races. They were a very old society though, and had been a united world for thousands of years before becoming victimized by the Stolavii, and eventually joining the empire.
It hadn’t been a peaceful process, but one of hives attacking other hives to kill the queen and absorb what was left into their own. Humanity was far from unique in that way, war and conflict over resources was a very common theme to all the races. It wasn’t until they’d conquered space, disease, and hunger that the races moved forward toward peace.
It was also clear to me it was a veneer of peace, due to the lack of threats to survival. All it had taken was Denik being a crazy asshole for a year, and the once stable empire was on the verge of civil war. It hadn’t taken much to resurrect those strong survival instincts. I was sure ambition played a role as well. The empire was far from perfect, just… far closer to it than Earth currently was. Life was conflict.
“You up for a workout?”
Jillintara teasingly looked me up and down, “Always. But isn’t it Telidur’s turn tonight?”
I laughed, “You know what I mean. But yes, it is, he’ll survive an hour or two until I show up at his door.”
The day had passed without incident, and after dinner I felt the need to work out.
Jillintara said, “Sure, but why? The nanites keep our bodies in top form.”
I shrugged, not sure how to explain it.
“I don’t want to lose my edge. The last few fights have all been won through superior technology. I’m having trouble remembering the last time I even exerted myself.”
Well, exerted myself outside the bedroom.
She tilted her head, “Maybe, but your instincts, quick reactions in instituting a response and assigning targets, had a lot to do with our success in those situations. Not to mention outthinking and out guessing the enemy’s moves.”
Granted, but it still bothered me. Not for the first time I wondered if something was wrong with me. Did I miss killing with my own body, or just close up and personal? That didn’t sound right, I’d always excelled at my job as an assassin, but I’d never craved it. In fact, I’d worked hard between assignments to escape my fate as a slave to my creators and handlers.
“The body is one thing, but what about the mind? You may be able to call it up at will, but the subconscious mind of a human can be more finicky. I’m afraid if I don’t practice, I’ll lose that mental conditioning that gives me an edge.”
Maybe it was an obsession, or even programmed into me somehow, but I felt the need to stay at my best.
She frowned, “I think you worry about that too much, you have been using those skills, if in a different way. But yes, I’d be happy to kick your ass.”
I laughed, “Thanks.”
She winked, and we went off in search of a training area. It was also true enough, between all my gifts, even the Isyth men couldn’t take me in hand to hand. Jillintara was a different story, at least in hand to hand. She was just as strong as I was, faster, and didn’t make mistakes. I still had an edge over her in weapons though, she had to have line of sight to hit something, I didn’t, I just needed to know where it was.
Jillintara reported, “The Suaterans have sent out a handful of ships, assuming it’s another wave of scouts, one for each of our solar systems. There’s a problem though, the ships cloaked this time right before entering subspace. Or at least, I’m assuming they entered subspace.”
We were on the bridge again, moving away from Raitov, and on the way to Kaprorix. Not much had happened the last couple of days, and we were still waiting on Myra’s findings in the two solar systems. We’d be in transit for a little under a full day, so expected the results before we arrived. We didn’t think anything would be found in the Kaprorix system, but we were still checking just in case.
Vik said, “Speculation? Why cloaking?”
While it was true it was now relatively inexpensive for us to stay cloaked, given the new much higher reactor efficiency, presumably it would still be wickedly expensive for our enemies. Unless of course, they found a way to improve their power cores too.
I said, “Well, they waited until they were on the edge of the system to do it, so maybe they still don’t know we’re watching. They might have cloaked simply to avoid being attacked or warned off when they exit subspace at our system. They’ll be ready to attack in a week, maybe a bit less, and probably want a better look at our deployment and numbers. Either they think it’s worth the cost to do so, or they’ve solved the reactor issue.”
Vik frowned, “Do you think the latter is possible?”
I smirked, “Well, considering the facts it’s more than possible. Their ships had the same ridiculous flaw as ours did, which tells me either we stole the old system from them, or they stole it from us. Espionage between governments on tech is a given. Most of the military applications and fabrication patterns are classified, and probably safe for now, but the new civilian ships have the updated power cores as well. It’s not at all likely that they aren’t plugged into our public data-net, and modifying their old reactors to use the new system cores wouldn’t be difficult for them. I hope it’s the former reason, they think it’s worth the price of the element, but I wouldn’t bet my life on it. We’d better assume their new shields and systems are at least an equal of the destroyer I designed, although I doubt they’re a match for the scout-destroyer design. Not that it matters, by the time those new ships are ready this will all be over one way or another.”
Jillintara said, “A well thought out assessment, I agree. Combined, the Suaterans and Stolavii outnumber us by two to one, if they’ve achieved ship par
ity in power we’ll have to take them piecemeal, and only engage when we have a clear advantage. Still, there’s little chance they have shielded missiles, we haven’t picked up any weapons testing like that with our probes.”
Vik grunted, “If Denik wasn’t dead, I’d kill him. This war is such a waste, or will be, but we can’t just lay down and die because my brother started it on behalf of us all.”
I kept my peace on that. The Suaterans fine, but the Stolavii have needed a smack down for a few thousand years now. Slavery, exploitation, pirates, and mercenaries without morals. I wouldn’t be feeling guilty about kicking their ass anytime soon, or ever. The Suaterans were a different story, but I agreed with Vik. If they won’t back down after Vik’s apologies and assurances it won’t happen again, there was nothing else we could do.
I couldn’t really blame them either, oops, my bad, didn’t really cover occupying their systems and keeping them out of space. Denik was a bastard.
“Suggestions?” Vik asked.
Telidur said, “Defensive posture, make sure all ships are following the new protocols and are shielded and ready for attack at all times. Most likely the scouts won’t do anything but look around, but we don’t want to accidentally give them a nice ripe target of opportunity either.”
Vik ordered, “Do it. Make sure they know they can’t talk about it, we can’t risk the fact we are watching their systems to get back to them. It stays on the secure military data-net only.”
It was a few hours later, when Myra appeared on the bridge to brief us all on what was discovered.
“The good news first, the Kaprorix system shows no signs of military ship building, or secret installations. Xulia is another story. Sorry it took so long, but they were quite clever about it. I checked all the moons and very large asteroids first, and would have given up if we didn’t have such strong circumstantial proof they had hidden cloaked ships.”
