“Yes…” I say. “And my Seraphim on the inside. I recruited a small squad of them--they’re the ones who planted the bombs.”
“You saw them plant the bombs?” Eli asks. “You know they’re there.”
“I trust my man,” I say.
The humans all groan.
I flick my ears at them. “You are all weak! And stop making that sound at me!”
Kara laughs and grabs my arm. “That was actually pretty good news, Kain.”
I smile at her and pull my ears back.
I throw Kara down on the bed in the captain’s quarters, and she laughs.
“What’s so funny?” I ask.
“It feels like we’re on Mars,” she says. “I’m so light!”
“You like Mars?” I ask.
“It’s the only planet I really have memories of,” she says. “I’m too young to remember Earth.”
“We will got to Mars together then.”
She smiles up at me. “I’d like that. It would be nice to go there for fun rather than to sell a bunch of rocks.”
“Cygnus will owe us,” I say, lying down beside her. “He will have to give us luxury treatment on his planet.”
“It’s not really his planet,” Kara says. “If it were, the fleet wouldn’t have pulled away…”
“No one owns Mars,” I say, “That’s true, but if you want to have a good time on Mars, Cygnus is the best Marauder to have owing you a favor.”
“Fair enough,” she says, running her hand along my face. “Did you worry we wouldn’t see each other again?”
“No,” I say honestly.
“No? Really? Not even a little bit?”
“I promised we’d see each other again. I had to make it so. There was room for doubt.”
She reaches down for my cock, but my biosuit is hardened, and the crotch plate is covering me. Before she can move her hand off of me, I liquify the biosuit and have it melt away into a small sphere.
Her hand falls through and lands on my cock.
She giggles. “Were biosuits designed for easy access to a Marauder’s cock?”
“Of course not,” I say. “They are the ultimate weapon in our arsenal.”
“But think about it,” she says, cupping my balls. As soon as her hand is on me, it’s hard to think of anything else.
“About...what?” I say, taking deep breaths as she strokes me.
“If you’re any indication,” she says, “Marauders think with their dicks. So maybe the guy who invented the biosuit was just tired of fiddling with his boxers, and he wanted to be able to instantly vaporize his clothes so he could fuck at a moment’s notice.”
“Intriguing theory,” I say. “I had to wear these ‘boxers’ on Venus. Most unpleasant. Though a human male had the idea to put a small hole in the front of the boxers...so maybe you are correct about the biosuit.”
“I think that hole is for peeing…” Kara says.
“No.” I shake my head. “If your dick becomes hard, it allows you space to grow. Otherwise I’d tear the boxers apart with my erection.”
She bursts out laughing. “Okay, for humans they are designed for peeing. I guess they have another use for Marauders. But what were you doing popping boners on Venus?”
She squeezes my cock, and grunt as I begin vibrating.
“You hadn’t met me yet,” Kara says, “So who was getting you hard?”
“I had base urges,” I say, “But I fought them. No one will ever get me hard again, now that I’ve met you.”
She smiles wide at me, and I shove her onto her back.
I look down at her grey prisoner jumpsuit. I grab hold of it with both hands, and I rip it apart, right down the middle. I pull until it splits down to Kara’s legs, and I pull the whole thing off and throw it to the ground.
“What the hell!” She says, laughing. “Was the really necessary?”
I dive between her legs and lick her wet juices. She moans loud.
“Yes,” I say, “Someone will need to invent a human biosuit.”
19 Kara
Kain wakes me up in time to see Jupiter.
“Jesus,” I say, looking out the window.
My chest feels full--ready to burst--as I look at the magnificent gas giant. The big red spot that the planet had been famous for for centuries has all been died off--it’s more like a little red pimple now. But the sheer size of the planet is beyond my comprehension. It’s over 300 times more massive than Earth--it looks like a giant marble floating through the void. I hold my pinky up to it, and I imagine Earth as the size of the nail on that little finger.
“It’s so big,” I say.
“Not now,” Kain says behind me. “Unless you want to go at it again.”
“Not your cock, idiot,” I say. “Jupiter.”
“Ah,” Kain says, “There are larger gas giants out there.”
“Not in this solar system,” I say, “Not that you’ve ever seen! Stop trying to act like it’s not amazing.”
He grabs hold of me and pulls me against him. “It’s amazing, truly beautiful.
He scoops me up and presses his lips to my neck. “But not as beautiful as you.”
It’s such a cheesy line, but it works on me. I grin wide and kiss him back.
Someone knocks on the door.
“What is it?” Kain grunts.
“The console thing is beeping,” Eli shouts.
Kain rolls his eyes and opens the door.
I walk out behind him, and I see Felicia too is glued to the window, along with Eli and Thorsten.
“You know,” Andreas says. “My habitat is actually at the Lagrange point--really close to here--we could--”
“No,” Kain rasps. “We go to Titan.”
Andreas huffs and sits down, not even looking at the window. “You all are like peasants. Who hasn’t seen Jupiter before?”
“Have you been to Titan?” I ask him.
“God, no,” he says. “Why would anyone ever want to go there.”
“We want to go there,” Kain says, sitting down at the pilot’s console. “To defend the solar system.”
Andreas rolls his eyes. The habitats like to think they are removed from all conflict. Safe and insulated. I don’t quite understand how he thinks they could be immune to Darkstar--as if Darkstar cares about human neutrality pacts. Or even Harmony...if Harmony is willing to blow up Earth, what happens to all the habitats in orbit around it?
“This is Kain,” he says.
Cygnus’s face fills the screen. His hair is grey at the temples, and his face is chiseled and weathered, but strong and solid as a mountain. He’s wearing a biosuit, and there are dozens of people behind him drawing up battle plans.
“How long do we have?” I ask.
“I don’t know,” Cygnus says. “They threw out a bunch of decoys around Darkstar to mask their acceleration. We won’t know where they are until they start their engines again to slow down. Anywhere between two and six days is our best guess based on all the decoys.”
I really want this to be over with. It kills me that we managed to escape, but only to escape into a battle where we are vastly outnumbered. I trust Kain, and I realize the importance of defending Titan...but a selfish part of me can’t help but ask: why us? Why not someone else?
“Alright,” Kain says. “I forgot to mention that I”ll be adding the three strongest humans in the solar system to your existing numbers.”
Andreas jumps to his feet. “I’m not fighting!”
Eli stands up. “I will! I want to kick some Darkstar ass! Those bastards held us prisoner for over a year, man! As soon as our bones and hearts started giving out, they’d have recycled us into fucking gruel! Grow some balls, you habber shite!”
Andreas crosses his arms. “I choose to remain neutral.”
“Fuck it,” Thorsten says. “I’ll fight too.”
“Alright,” Kain says, “I’ve got the two strongest men in the solar system, and the strongest toilet scrubber.”
&
nbsp; We land on Titan, and the gravity is barely there. It’s a stark contrast to Darkstar. The moon looked like a flat orange ball of candy from orbit, but as we sunk through the atmosphere, I soon saw the rocky surface and the lakes of methane.
Cygnus’s base and the antimatter nanofactories are all on a peninsula jutting into the moon’s largest methane lake: Kraken Mare.
The hangar is located close to the coast, and I see thousands of pipes snaking out from the base and dipping into the lake. The hoses suck in the methane and convert it atom by atom into antimatter. It’s a slow process, but the factory has been running for decades, and they’ve built up huge stores of antimatter--enough to knock Titan out of orbit and send it sinking into Jupiter. Kain reminded us--bad news, of course--that this would be the worst possible outcome of the coming battle.
The hangar cycles in new air, and finally the door to our ship opens and the ramp goes down.
Cygnus, and his Seraph daughter Sara, are standing at the bottom of the ramp to welcome us.
He pulls Kain in and bear hugs him.
“Is she going to fight?” Sara asks, pointing at me. “And her?” She points at Felicia.
“I’ve, uh,” I mumble. “Never...fought. My sister and I always avoided fights. We’re miners.”
“Do you see the double-standard here?” Andreas says. “I’ve also always avoided fights, yet I’m made to be the toilet scrubber?”
“There’s no double standard,” Sara says. “These two--and you, toilet scrubber--are all going to do your part.”
Kain steps in front of me. “With respect, Sara, daughter of Cygnus, she is my mate, and Felicia is her sister.”
“So what?” Sara asks.
Sara steps forward and squeezes my arm. “Thick Darkstar muscle. She’s stronger than the human males here.”
Kain pulls me away. “I’ve given you a huge edge. You’ll not send my mate or her sister to the slaughter.”
Sara scoffs. “From my perspective, we blew three months’ of antimatter mining to slow your ship down with our laser, and you brought Darkstar close on your heels.”
Cygnus steps forward. “This attack would have happened either way. We would have fought ten dropships instead of nine.”
“Oh,” Sara snaps. “The bombs. I’ll believe that when I see it.”
Cygnus narrows his eyes at us. “I’m not as skeptical as my daughter, but we’re forced to plan around fighting only 200 Seraphim--”
“Only,” Sara cuts in sarcastically.”
“The bombs will work,” Kain says. “And my men will pull through. We’ll have backup on the ground.”
“Well,” Cygnus says. “This is what we’ve planned for, so if you’re wrong, we’re all dead. Your mate and her sister included.”
We’re brought into a lobby to rest. There’s huge floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the silvery lake of Kraken Mare.
“It looks so surreal and beautiful,” I say, holding Kain’s hand. “But do you think it smells like farts?”
“I will not allow them to make you fight,” Kain says, gripping my hand.
“Don’t worry,” I say. “I’ll do what I have to.”
“No,” Kain says. “You won’t.”
“What about drones?” I ask. “Surely they have drones here?”
“They’ve been decommissioned,” Kain says. “We had to kill all the A.I. driven weaponry to steel ourselves against Harmony.”
“Right,” I say. “But Felicia and I are both good pilots.”
“Oh,” Kain says. “I think Sara would agree to this.”
20 Kain
Five days. That’s how long it took for them to arrive.
Kara and Felicia were given ample time to practice piloting the fighter jets--safe underground in the base, to my great relief. There are dozens of drones, so even if the first pair is shot down, Kara and Felicia can launch a second pair near instantly and continue fighting. The drones’ weaponry is not particularly strong against biosuits, but none of the Seraphim will even have biosuits.
“Kain,” Cygnus says. “He wants to talk to you.”
“My brother?” I ask.
“No,” Cygnus says, “Raius.”
I narrow my eyes. Adus sent Raius? Is he too busy acting as High Commander safe on Darkstar, or does he think I’m not even worth fighting. The second possibility shame debts me.
I step into the comms room, see Raius’s smug face, and ask, “Where’s my brother?”
“Dead,” Raius says. “I killed him.”
I don’t know what to feel. My first emotion is sheer disbelief--my second is anger. Am I angry that my brother is dead? No...I realize I’m angry that someone else killed him.
Raius grins. “I should have seen what you were up to...but I was too busy plotting my own betrayal. There was a slim chance it was going to work, but your bomb went off at the perfect time for me. I seized control during the confusion, killed Adus, and executed all the human prisoners.”
“You fucking bastard!” I throw a metal stool into the screen, but the screen is flexi-plastic, and it absorbs the impact without so much as a crack.
Raius laughs down at me. “You’re...incredibly outnumbered. If you hand over the antimatter--all of it--we’ll leave peacefully.”
“I’m going to kill you,” I snarl, and shut off the comms link.
“How many humans were on Darkstar?” Sara asks, voice grim.
“Hundreds,” I say. “All dead.”
“We’ll avenge them,” Cygnus says. “And look on the bright side, Darkstar’s High Commander is here. We can deliver a crippling blow and take them out of the picture.”
The comms blink again as Kara and Felicia walk inside.
I hit the button.
“Don’t throw another chair,” Sara says under her breath.
Malcolm’s face fills the screen.
“Who is that?” Felicia asks. “He’s hot.”
“My man on the inside,” I say. “Malcolm...why the fuck are you risking communication with me?”
Then I realize it’s a recording.
“Kain, sir,” he says.
“Cute,” Sara says, “You made him call you ‘sir?’”
I didn’t make him do that. He just started calling me it. Stupid seraph woman.
“I made sure they can’t intercept this signal,” Malcolm says. “But I’ve got good news, and bad news--”
“Jesus,” Felicia says. “Did you make him do that too?”
“I’ll start with the bad news. I lost the detonator. It’s a long story, and it’s actually kind of funny, it involves a clogged toilet and a lot of gruel, but--”
The signal cuts out into static.
“What happened?” I ask, my mouth dropping open.
“He lost the detonator?” Sara asks. “In the fucking toilet?”
“He didn’t specifically say he lost it in the toilet,” Felicia says, “Just that it involved a toilet--”
“Why are you sticking up for him?” Kara asks. “He lost the detonator!”
“He said there was good news,” I say. “Maybe he found a workaround--”
“Do you think it was real good news,” Kara asks, “Or Kain-style good news?”
“Hmm,” I say, flicking my ears. “I think we have to trust him. He seemed fairly upbeat. If all hope was lost, would he be telling us a funny story?”
“Maybe,” Sara says, “He’s the kind of guy that just smiles and laughs in the face of death?”
“No…” I say, thinking back to the way he buried his friend. “He’s not like that. We go ahead as planned.”
The first wave of Raius’s attack begins with hundreds of decoys. The decoys throw out engine burn to mimic the dropships, and they draw fire from our automated defense turrets.
The dropships will not attack us directly--they aren’t made for that--instead they will try to land just out of range of our defenses so they can release the Seraphim army. They’ll try to surround us in a siege situation, making us bur
n through our antimatter to wear down their superior numbers--until we surrender or die.
But if Malcolm pulls through, there will be no superior numbers.
We wait inside the base, watching screens showing plasma turrets blasting beams high up into the orange, methane sky.
“We should be outside,” I say.
“Why?” Cygnus asks. “I’m too old for heroics. We wait here in case the bombs don’t go off. Hold them off long enough and hope that Mars can get reinforcements to us.”
“When the bombs go off,” I say. “We attack.”
“If the bombs go off,” Sara says.
Kara and Felicia’s drones are patrolling around the peninsula, looking for dropships. I never thought I’d be tucked away watching a screen while Kara actually did something. I should be out there keeping her safe, not the other way around.
A view from Kara’s drone overlays onto the screen. “Look!” She says.
Far in the distance from her drone’s camera, what looks like meteor tails are filling the sky in parallel lines.
“Hit them!” Cygnus roars.
The turrets re-align and open fire, and Kara’s drone fires missiles.
The dropships all cover themselves in teal shields, which bounce the plasma off harmlessly. When Kara’s missile hits, it explodes, but a intact bioshield remains when the blast clears.
“So they have a biosuited Marauder on each dropship,” I say. “That’s at least ten real threats.”
“And they’ll probably survive the bombs,” Sara says. “If they go off--I mean.”
I grin. She’s finally getting optimistic, at least.
The dropships hit the ground, I hold my breath.
“Kara,” I say, “Keep your drone back at max range, we need eyes on them more than we need you to get shots off.”
“Got it,” she says, and she starts to circle around on the edge of visibility.
We watch as the tiny teal spheres sit still on the rocky ground. One sphere melts away, and an intact dropship reveals.
“Dammit!” Sara says, but she doesn’t take her eyes off the screen.
We all hold our breath now.
A second sphere falls away, but rather than a gleaming dropship, there is a single teal speck--a figure--standing in the center of charred metal, bloodied body parts, and a pile corpses more charr-black than pink.
Marauder Kain: Scifi Alien Invasion Romance (Mating Wars Book 5) Page 13
