by Lance Berry
Newson had pointed to the far curving wall as he spoke, and with mild grunts of disgust and curses, they did as they were told and lined up in a straight row along the wall. Newson assigned five of his people to move along the line to check the prisoners and take their names. He then approached David and Mara, who stood closely together, their stances still somewhat protective of each other, even though the enemy had been routed.
Newson gave Mara an odd look, then turned to Christenson.
He came to attention and saluted. “Sir! Commander Darryl Newson, reporting! It’s an honor to meet you, if you don’t mind my saying so!”
David returned the salute, although somewhat tiredly.
“Thank you Commander. Nice last minute save of our collective asses.”
“Thank you, sir,” Newson answered, then glanced over his shoulder to one of the troops that had entered with him. “I want at least three corpsmen over here. Double-time it.”
The trooper nodded and rushed back through the hole.
Newson glanced around at several of the dead aliens, his gaze lingering on the ones with knife wounds in them. He looked at Mara once more and whistled lightly. “You really held your own in here, didn’t you?”
Mara nodded numbly, and had to fight to keep from saying something that would’ve made every soldier—human and alien —blush. Newson nodded to himself, as if reaching some internal decision, then said to her, “I’m sorry if I doubted you, Lieutenant-Commander. Damn good job, you did here. Damn good.”
Appreciative of the gesture, Mara felt her dislike for Newson slowly begin to dissipate. “Thank you.”
The trooper Newson had dispatched returned with three corpsmen in tow. Newson pointed to each of the med-techs in turn. “I want you checking the bodies of our fallen and wounded. You tend to the Captain, you’re on the Lieutenant-Commander here.” As each moved to carry out their orders, Newson glanced at Mara again and winced. “Bet those scars hurt like shit, huh?”
Mara hadn’t had a chance to actually think about the pain, but now that Newson mentioned it, the hurt embraced her like a long-lost love. The Calvorian’s nails had cut well across the tip of her nose, her upper lip and just past the corner of her mouth. She stuck her tongue out to gingerly feel the lip wound, and the sharp sting seemed to ring out idiot! in her ear. She winced. “Yeah. Just a little bit.”
David turned away from his personal corpsman to study what seemed to be a primary console. “We need to crack the files on this bugger here. Newson…get me a tech, a linguist and your best com officer on this right away.”
“Sir, yes sir,” Newson replied, then moved off a couple feet to make the call on his GTS. As one of the corpsmen examined Mara’s face with a medical dsp, she in turn kept an eye on David, whose own corpsman was attempting to scan the captain’s back while he studied the console. David turned and shot the young man an annoyed look. “Get away.”
The corpsman took a step back and nervously bit his lower lip. He looked to Mara, unsure what to do. Mara placed a hand on that of the corpsman servicing her, gently pushing him away as she looked to the captain. “Sir, those back wounds look bad.
You need to get them tended to. Please.”
David turned to face her, and the hardened look in his eyes faded away instantly. He nodded in deference, then glanced at his corpsman. “I need to study this,” he said as he pointed his chin at the console. “You keep working, but try not disturb me, okay?”
“Yes, sir,” the corpsman answered, and began scanning Christenson’s wounds as he turned his attention to the console once more.
“Commander…”
“Yes, sir?”
David didn’t look at her, but she could see a wry smile play across his lips as he said, “Thanks for watching my back…in all ways. You handled yourself exceptionally well. Good show.”
Mara couldn’t help it; her lips curved upward as she answered, “Thank you.”
David glanced at the corpsman treating her. “Make sure you heal every scar. I’ll put you on report for every mark left on her.” He said this not altogether jokingly, and the corpsman answered affirmatively, a slight tremor in his voice. He sterilized Mara’s wounds down to a micro-cellular level, treated them with solvent and mild dermal sealant, then informed her that she’d be able to get more permanent treatment once she returned to her own Heavy Cruiser.
A short while later, Mara and the majority of her troops that had made it through the ring of fire headed back up to the Hawking in their troop transport. As they cleared the exosphere, Mara was surprised to find more Heavy Cruisers had joined the battle in space, which was now long since over.
Colossal hulks of broken and blasted out Calvorian battlecruisers drifted silently amidst the blackness of space as almost thirty more UEF warships hovered in close orbit above the planet, a protective circle cementing United Earth Force’s claim.
Once aboard ship, Mara headed straight for sickbay, as per the orders of Captain Stubbs, who had received a call from David Christenson in regards to the injuries she had received.
She was touched by the concern from both men, and didn’t protest. She soon lay on a bio-bed as Doctor Barrows leaned over her, applying dermal sealant to her wounds. “Wow. That Calvorian would’ve been really pressed to find another spot on your body where it’s hard for dermal sealant to easily take,” the physician remarked as she pushed away long blonde bangs from her face and peered through the micro-scanner placed over her eye in order to more clearly see the wounded areas.
She leaned a bit closer and sprayed another light coat of dermal sealant over the cuts. Finally, with a slight exhalation, Barrows stood once more. “Okay. It’s going to take about two days for the sealant to heal in permanently and become new skin. It’s going to be rough, but I want you to try and keep talking to a minimum. If you were seeing anyone, I’d rule out kissing entirely. Also, try not to—don’t pick at it,” she exclaimed as she slapped Mara’s hand away from the lip wound the security chief had begun tenderly exploring with her fingers.
“Sorry,” Mara said sheepishly.
“No talking, I said,” Barrows snipped. “And as I started to say, try not to rub the injured areas and definitely don’t pick at them—you’ll only remove or damage the sealant coating. And since it’s already started bonding to your skin, it would be pretty much the same effect as if you suddenly chose to rip an inch-long scab off a wound all at once. Trust me, you won’t enjoy it.”
Mara nodded fearfully. Barrows went on, “Eating’s fine, so long as you don’t open your mouth too wide…that wound near the corner of your mouth was particularly nasty. And when you drink, do so through a straw—at least until about ten hundred hours tomorrow morning. Are we on the same page?”
Mara nodded assuredly. Barrows patted her on the arm.
“Go on, get the heck out of here…I have real patients to attend to.” She said this last facetiously, but Mara knew there was truth to her statement. There were quite a bit more wounded from the engagement on the planet than Mara initially thought.
The injured were being brought directly up to the nearest Cruisers, without regard to what ship they originally came from. Captain Christenson’s main priority and order was that all troops get some type of medical treatment before the Earth fleet left the planet’s orbit.
Mara left the sickbay and headed for the nearest turbolift.
She entered and leaned against one of the walls, supporting her weight on the guardrail. Her shoulders slumped and she sighed heavily, beginning to realize just how tired she was. She wanted nothing more than to go to her quarters and lie down, but she hadn’t yet made her report to Captain Stubbs, and figured she should get it done…
“Please input floor destination on keypad, or request deck,” the ODC smartware suddenly requested.
Wow, I am tired. I didn’t even think to request a floor.
Before she could decide, let alone answer, a familiar voice called out over the ODC: “Captain Stubbs to Lieutena
nt-Commander Elliot. Report to war room A immediately.”
“Elliot here. I’m on my way,” Mara answered through clenched teeth, hoping she wouldn’t sound upset with the captain’s request, when all she was trying to do was keep from breaking the sealant on her wounds. She then tabbed a floor button rather than speak to the ODC, and the lift swiftly began to ascend.
In only a few moments, she walked into war room A and found Stubbs and Tamamura sitting together near the head of the conference table and going over plans with a dsp. Nikki immediately stood and walked over to meet Mara halfway, a smile on her face as she held out her hand. “Mara—great job planetside! David and Commander Newson both called to let us know how well you did.”
As Mara accepted the handshake, she tried to keep a neutral expression on her face and said tightly, “Thanks. Newson actually told you personally?”
“Yeah. Why, was there a problem?”
Mara shook her head. “No. We just didn’t have a lot of contact, that’s all.”
Nikki Tamamura’s eyes widened slightly as she caught on to
Mara’s clenched jaw. She leaned forward just a bit and grimaced. “Oh, you’ve got dermal sealant. Probably not supposed to talk, huh?” Mara nodded.
“You can hardly see anything,” Nikki said with empathy.
“You really do have to look close.”
“David did say that you saved his life,” Stubbs chimed in from his seat at the head of the table. “Good job.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Would you listen to Doc Barrows and stop talking, for God’s sake?” Stubbs said with a mild laugh, and got to his feet.
He walked over to the two women and placed a friendly hand on Mara’s shoulder. “You’ve always been a damn fine tactics officer, Mara. I gave you command of the ground troops, over Newson and every other officer of rank, so I could see what kind of leader you are—although truth be told, I never had a doubt.”
He glanced out the large bay windows at the brown planet spinning slowly below them. “David says the techs and linguists will be trying to break the Calvorian mainframe for probably most of the night.” He looked back at her. “Go get some rest. Write up your report in the morning, and follow the Doc’s orders.”
A few hours later, Mara awoke from an intensely sexual dream she had been having about David. She threw off her covers and sat up, breathing heavily. She tossed off her tank-top and panties and headed to her shower. The smartware always knew when a room’s occupant was awake and sensed movement, and so the room’s lights came up gradually to one quarter power, then half. It had reached full as Mara entered the head—not that she had needed the lights anyway, she knew her own room like the back of her hand.
“Cold. Very,” she ordered, and the ODC set the shower’s temperature to the absolute coldest it could be without inadvertently causing any type of damage to her body. She let the water pour over her, attempting to wash away her heat, but it was no use. She considered pleasuring herself, but fought it off. She rested her weight against the wall with one hand and slapped her other open palm hard against the metal. It was more than lust, she knew—at the conference on Mars, when they kissed, she had fallen completely and helplessly in love with him, she knew it at that instant—! And she knew he was in love with her, even if neither had truly admitted it to the other… yet she had never in all her life felt such intense sexual urges for any man!
He’s just a man, she screamed at herself in her head. He walks the same, has two eyes, puts on his pants like anyone else! He’s no different from any one of a million others!
No.
It was a lie, and she knew it. The truth was, David Christenson was a man like no other. His military skill was unmatched, he was intelligent, handsome almost beyond reason, and hell if he couldn’t fight with more passion and fury than anyone she had ever seen. Three Calvorians! Mara recalled in amazement. Three of them attacked him at once, and he didn’t flinch!
And hell, she thought at the last, Missy’s probably right: he can probably get it on in bed for all he’s worth, like they’d be about to outlaw sex tomorrow.
She was done in; she leaned fully against the wall, lowering her fingers to her belly and just below…she could see David’s face, picture him taking her in his arms, feel his lips touching hers…
Her eyes snapped open and she withdrew. No…it will be
God’s will if we’re to be together. Wait for him.
She stood erect, turned on her heel and stepped out of the shower, feeling her self-control abruptly returned to her. The shower automatically shut off and the sensor grates on the floor began to gently heat up to dry her feet even as she took a towel from the rack and dried herself off. When she was done she stepped out of the head and went to the vid-com at her desk.
She sat down and activated it. She was so focused on what she wanted to do that she had to actually remember she was naked in front of a video monitor. She snatched up her tank-top and threw it back on as the UEF seal appeared on the screen. She made some minor adjustments, letting the machine know she would be relaying information requests via the keypad rather than verbally…
Request location: Captain David Christenson.
The computer rejected the query, stating the information was classified and that if this particular request were made again, security and Captain Stubbs would be notified. Mara rolled her eyes. Focus, stupid, she told herself as she realized that of course such a general question would be denied.
Christenson was the captain of the UEF fleet’s flagship—such information couldn’t just be floating around on a general database for the enemy to find, should they manage to capture a Heavy Cruiser. With an exasperated grunt, she input her command authorization code and made the request again. The Hawking’s security systems analyzed, verified and re-verified her passcode in under a second. It then took another five seconds to send a brief yet powerful signal to the security smartware aboard the Horizon, which duplicated the recognition pattern of the smartware aboard Mara’s vessel and sent back a reply. This time, the answer was more positive, though no less satisfying: Captain David Christenson is planetside in Arcturus star-system, location designate I-55-Delta.
Mara sat back in her chair and sighed lightly. David was still on the planet, no doubt thoroughly analyzing whatever information his code breakers could give him. There was no sense in trying to contact him; he was busy with more important matters, and couldn’t waste time on her anyway. She switched off the vid-com and climbed back into bed, pulling the sheets around her tightly as she curled into a ball while she tried not to think about the man she knew she was in love with, and wondered if he would ever admit the same to her.
Interim Four
(Tholin)
Veltalas VIII was a distant, black world on the very edge of the territories claimed by the Calvorian Alliance. It was black not because it was a dark world, or a world which hung in the shadow of another and did not receive life-giving light from its sun. It was black because it had recently received severe punishment from the Alliance, and its surface was now scorched, darkened, scarred beyond nearly all recognition.
Veltalas VIII was a newly claimed territory, and so its inhabitants—the A’sh’le’lei—did not know, did not understand, and therefore did not believe in the might of the Calvorian armada, or the iron will of the Alliance’s soldiers and the determination of the Alliance itself to hold onto all worlds that drifted into the periphery of its vision. And so even as the Alliance’s soldiers attempted to lay final claim on the A’sh’le’lei home soil, the people rebelled in defiance, thinking that they could send the Alliance’s troops into retreat and keep their freedom for one more day.
But now they knew of the might of the Calvorian armada.
Now they believed in the Alliance’s determination. And finally, they understood the iron will of at least one soldier in the Alliance.
