Eleven Unveiled (Imortum)

by Kord Stone

  She had gone to TDS 1 to get away and try to calm her emotions. But when Jerren made reference to Justin pulling a Jason lightning rod again, she had almost come unglued. The events replayed in her mind and her emotions almost exploded from her. She did not know how to reel them in so she decided to head back to her ship and figure it out there.

  Calia knew full well what electricity could do to the body. She and Atlas had responded when the distress call went out the time TDS 1 lost its commander to an Albatron attack. They had to collect the binding disk from what had passed through the Albatron’s digestive tract, then shoot the disk at TDS 1 in order for the AI to reintegrate with the ship.

  She shook her head in frustration. She was not amused when Justin almost died the last time, and this time, it scared her almost to death.

  Repeatedly subjecting yourself to that bordered on insanity or at the very least a reckless and total disregard for his own life and or her feelings. She could feel tears welling in her eyes and she forced her emotions down. She was not going to cry, she kept telling herself, and she took several cleansing breaths to prevent it. This helped her regain her composure, then she proceeded to the third level.

  Calia looked around but didn’t see Justin in the room. A bit irritated she focused and located him on the observation level and went up to confront him.

  He was standing next to the transparent wall, looking out into the void. He seemed to know she had arrived and he turned around.

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  Calia numbly made her way to him, and he tried to hug her. She pushed him away and he moved closer. That’s when she lost all control of her emotions and began pounding on his chest. “NO! Sorry…does…not…make…it…better!” Then she burst into tears and dropped to her knees, sobbing.

  Justin dropped to his knees with her and pulled her into a tight hug. “I am sorry.”

  Between sobs she said, “I…thought you…had…died.”

  He placed a kiss on the top of her head then let her continue to vent.

  “You just…rush out…and into their…ship. You could have died…over there… Their life support could…have failed…and you just…ran in.” She sniffled.

  He sighed and said, “I checked the state of their life support before I entered their ship.”

  She slammed her fist into his chest again. “ASS…” She sniffled then said, “You still could have been killed! Is that what you want?”

  “Look at me,” he said firmly.

  It took a few seconds then she gradually looked up.

  “I do not want to die. But I can think of no better way to go than in the process of saving someone I love.”

  She was about to lose her temper again and he reached up and took her face in his hands. “If you were in danger or dying I would risk everything to save you. A life…even an extremely long life is not worth living if you’re not willing to sacrifice it all for those you love. And I do love you…very much.” He bent down and sealed his declaration with a kiss.

  Calia pulled away from the kiss a minute later and said, “You are still an ass.” Then she stood up, took hold of his shirt by the collar, pushed him back against the wall and with a single tug, she tore his shirt from his body. She stretched up on her tiptoes and pleaded, “Make me forget that you could have died.”

  A wave of painful emotions flooded over Justin when they made contact and he was surprised when Calia picked him up and shoved him. Not because he didn’t think she would do it, but because it didn’t seem possible that a five-foot-seven, fiery redhead could have had the strength to not only pick him up from his knees and force him to the wall but to prop him up off his feet. Then in one swift move, she tore his shirt from his body. He didn’t know why but the thought that her anger needed to be appeased with sex aroused him. And when she said as much, he almost came undone.

  He brought his mouth down in a hard, wanton kiss, his hands running from her hips to her shoulders. He ran one hand up the back of her neck into her hair and the other drew her body closer to his. He punished her lips and worked his way to the side of her neck then back to her lips. He brought both hands to the base of her neck and, grabbing the cloth of her bodysuit, he tore it apart then proceeded to peel it down her body as he fantasized about doing when he first saw her wearing it.

  Calia moved closer and wrapped one of her legs around his to achieve better balance. She smiled and took a firm grip on his shaft. He drew in a breath, then he reached down and got a firm hold of her ass. He pulled her up his body. Turning on the spot, he roughly pressed her hard into the transparent wall.

  Calia worked her hand free to join her other, running it through his hair and down his back. She could feel the stiffness of his arousal at the junction of her thighs. He held her aloft and just out of range of the pleasure she sought, which frustrated her to no end. He broke the kiss they were sharing and assisted her back to the floor. She knew he was going to insist they take it to the bedchamber, but she was having no part of it. She pivoted and tugged his arm then used her body as a fulcrum and he flew over her to land flat on the floor. In a swift motion, she straddled his body.

  She rubbed her sex along the length of him over and over. With each motion, she could feel her pleasure mounting; Justin was about to say something and she brought her mouth down on his. Punishing his lips in return, she pulled back slightly and bit the lower lip. This seemed to arouse him further if the groan he let out was any indication, and she deepened their kiss. Her body was ready. She moved to position his shaft and lowered herself gradually until she came to rest with him buried deep within her.

  She sighed in pleasure as she slowly worked up a steady rhythm. Her body was tingling and with every motion, pleasure coursed through her. She sat upright and gyrated her hips. Justin ran his hands from her legs up her body and back down, bucking his hips in cadence with her movements. The motions began slowly at first but before long they morphed into a fast and furious thrusting and grinding of pleasure.

  He pulled her down and took one of her nipples into his mouth. The hot, moist suction was almost her undoing. She sat back upright with a pop, and her nipple was free then she rode his shaft as if her life depended on it. He managed to get her other nipple into his mouth and gave it a slight nip, which sent her over the edge. Her body began to quiver in pleasure.

  Justin rolled her hard onto her back, and his feet must have been positioned against the wall because she could feel the increased thrusting power as he repeatedly drove his unyielding manhood into her. With a spasm of warmth, she wrapped her legs around his waist and ran her hands up his back. Her fingers curled as she dug her nails into his back and with a cry of pleasure, she felt his heated essence erupt deep within her, as she clung tightly to his quaking body.

  She remained like that a few minutes before he rolled to her side and pulled her into an embrace. “I love you,” he said then he kissed the top of her head.

  She tucked her head against Justin’s chest and replied, “I love you too, but you are still an ass.”

  Justin let out a slight laugh and said, “I will endeavor to rectify that.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Calia and Justin had moved their love play into the bedroom, and a few hours later Jason’s voice woke them from their much-deserved slumber.

  “Justin, we’re ready for the meeting when you are.”

  He looked to Calia questioningly and mouthed, “Meeting?”

  She nodded and he replied, “Okay, give us ten minutes and we’ll be there.”

  Justin closed the communications and asked, “What meeting?”

  “I told Alise to let us know when they were ready. We have to go over the information I have gathered,” she said as a shiver ran down her spine.

  He looked at her questioningly. “What information?”

  She was afraid her anger and frustration were going to return if she explained it to him first and she decided to only tell it once. She forced a grin for him and said, “The
information you will find out in ten minutes. Now get dressed.”

  She walked over to the wardrobe panel and browsed through her clothing. “I really wish you had not destroyed that bodysuit. I really liked it, and there is not another like it.”

  Calia was scanning through the other clothing but a moment later Justin said, “Well you did start it by ripping off my shirt, but maybe this will make you feel better.”

  She looked over to him and saw he was holding the cloth from her bodysuit. “Is that supposed to be a joke?”

  He smiled and let out a chuckle. “No. I just put the remnants into base storage and had it remade for you.”

  Smiling, she walked over and took the bodysuit from him and held it up. It was in pristine condition once again, and with pleasure, she got dressed.

  “Why do you like it so much?” Justin asked of her.

  “Because I know the outfit arouses you and I have plans for your arousal when we get back,” she said with what she hoped was a mischievous smile.

  Justin looked down and said, “I don’t know; I think you may have broken it. That was some mighty rough riding you were doing.” He smiled up at her. “Let’s get this meeting over with so we can get back here.”

  * * * * *

  Jason, Alise, Jerren, Justin and Calia were all seated in the master control room and Calia had started to speak when Alise cut in.

  “Calia, I do not know what we did to annoy you, but I can assure you it was not intentional.”

  Justin asked Calia, “Are you angry with them?”

  She shook her head and looking directly at Alise she said, “It is not you I am angry with. For the most part, I am angry with myself. My miscalculation almost got us all killed.” She took a deep breath and continued, “The dark matter explosion was much larger and more powerful than I had anticipated. When I figured the minimum safe distance, it was based on flawed information. I had only ever dealt with single particle events in the past.

  “I figured out my mistake immediately after the explosion however. The blast reacted differently than the ones I am used to. In the past, they caused a thermionic reaction. I now know that is isolated to a single particle event. The wave hit your ship and was heading our way extremely fast. I pushed our ship to the fastest speed we had ever gone, and barely managed to get ahead of it, and Justin had run to check on you.”

  She took in a few deep breaths, knowing what was coming. “I programmed the ship to keep dropping probes every twenty seconds until the wave subsided. Then Justin called out that Jerren was in need of assistance in the master control room. I set our course for the far side of the universe, not knowing when the wave would dissipate, and rushed in to check on him. Jerren was unconscious so I put him in our medical unit and rushed over to TDS 1. When I arrived it was just in time to see asshole here,” she gestured to Justin, “becoming a human lightning rod as Jerren so elegantly called it.” She had to close her eyes and force her emotions down before continuing.

  Justin said, “I thought you weren’t mad at me anymore.”

  She rolled her eyes derisively, “I am not mad at them.” She swept her hand around the table. “You however, I am still quite irritated with.” She raised a brow at him and he signaled for her to continue.

  “I saw the three of you convulsing arcing and glowing, then he flopped over like a dead fish. At the time, I did not know for sure you could handle the exposure to that kind of energy and thought you were all dead. Despite your physical conditions, which were severe, I found steady life signs, so I put you all into medical units and then I moved you all to your beds after the mending processes were complete.” She had to force herself to finish the tale then exhaled and opened her eyes.

  After a few calming breaths she continued, “I went back to my ship and began analyzing the data from the probes. It had gaps due to the fact the probes were only being launched every twenty seconds, but the wave was destroying them within ten seconds of launching. After the data was compiled, I performed a navigational and temporal overlay to plot what had happened, and now I have the results.

  “The wave that hit your ship was traveling near .315 parsecs per minute, and it lasted three and a half minutes. It annihilated the ships in the convoy, but TDS 1 was riding the leading edge of the wave. From the data, it looks as if the moment Justin’s body came in contact with your ship, the energy wave your ship was riding on dissipated and for some unknown reason, your ship stopped as well.”

  Jason looked stunned and asked, “How did we survive the impact?”

  “You almost did not. Your ship was riding a mega electromagnetic wave just microns ahead of the void.” She looked at Alise to see if she had caught on yet.

  Alise’s jaw dropped. “How bad is it?”

  Calia stood and turned to the TDS 3 display wall behind her. She closed the archway and brought up an intra-galactic chart. “Here is what the Asharan Void looked like before the blast. And as far as I can graph, this is the aftereffect.” She applied the overlay and they all took in deep breaths.

  “How much larger did it make it?” Alise asked.

  “I told you I made a miscalculation in the blast. I figured it to be equally proportionate to the amount of dark matter within the bomb. But the dark matter, once detonated, caused a chain reaction within the other dark matter particles and the explosive power ended up being at least a third order of magnitude stronger than I had estimated. As close as I can tell with the speed and duration of travel, we are at least 1.1 parsecs from the blast site. The exact volume of lost space is hard to chart due to spatial shift, but with where the radius of the blast appears to have ended, I would estimate the bomb had increased the void nearly 9.3 cubic parsecs with void tendrils shooting off in other locations where it came into contact with reactionary particles.

  “This was a relatively small void in comparison to others, but now it is much larger. If I had to make an overall guess, I would estimate it to be nearly three times its original size. The only thing that stopped it from being worse is the fact that it detonated next to an existing void.”

  Alise sighed. “Are you thinking they are related?”

  “What?” Jerren asked.

  Calia nodded. “There are millions upon millions of these voids throughout the universe. Many are a lot larger than this, and if this event is any indication then it appears as if dark matter weapons may have been the cause of them as well.”

  Calia paused a moment and brought up the consortium ships’ heading and sighed in relief. “There are no other voids in the direction they were headed, but there are several inhabited galaxies. If this blast had happened anywhere but here, the destruction would have been far greater.

  “As it is, I had to put up a beacon informing travelers of the shift in the void to prevent any ships from hitting it.” She ran her hands through her hair and said, “We cannot allow weapons like these to exist… We still have two others to deal with back on Serqalin and who knows how many others elsewhere.”

  She needed to clear her thoughts and decided to change the topic for a few moments, and with a sardonic smile she said, “On a lighter note, I like what you have done with your eyes.” She let out a forced laugh.

  Justin said, “I thought I was imagining that. Are mine like that as well?”

  Calia chuckled. “No… your body did not retain the energy, from what I discovered with the medical scans, our new, improved triple-helix DNA affords us the ability to withstand and absorb energy. The side effect seems to be when we are charged up, our eyes will get that swirly blue look with arcing within them. But for some reason your body discharged almost all of the energy you were exposed to, into Jason and Alise while healing them. And I absorbed some from them while moving everyone around.”

  Jason said, “That’s the same effect Jerren’s eyes had when he ate the ambrose, so it will more than likely fade as his did.”

  Justin said, “If you knew we could handle the electrical shocks, then why are you still mad at me?”
<
br />   Calia failed to see that topic returning and tamped her emotions down, then she snapped, “Because you did not know that when you zapped yourself. I do not care if Inola told you to do it or not. You should have informed me ahead of time of what you were going to do so I would not lose a million years off of my life thinking I just saw you die. If you had taken a second to inform me of what you were going to do, it would not have scared the life out of me! As much, at least.”

  Alise said. “I have to agree with Calia one hundred percent.”

  Justin got a mortified look on his face. “I am sorry I scared you. You all know why I did it.”

  Justin looked into Calia’s blurry eyes then added.

  “If at all possible in the future, I’ll notify you before I do anything remotely dangerous again. But I expect the same from you.”

  Mollified a bit she nodded in agreement then, wiping her eyes, she said, “Okay, we need to come up with a plan to retrieve the other two bombs.”

  The five of them worked on the plan for hours. The problem they kept running into was that once the dark matter was bonded with other dark matter, it could not be un-bonded, and thus, they would either have to detonate the bombs in a safer fashion or find a secure location to store them. Calia had explained that if they could go back in time and reset the planet, they could get rid of most of the ships and conventional explosives around the planet. However, dark matter reacted differently. It existed within all phases of time concurrently, and there was the possibility that any ships or bombs within the range of the dark matter weapon would still exist within a temporal bubble of sorts.

  They decided to perform the reset and take out any ships that might be protected, then collect the bombs. They reviewed many locations throughout the universe and came up with a few possible locations that if detonated would not affect nearby galaxies. They got lucky with the blast that had just occurred. The only galaxy that would be seriously affected was relatively young and uninhabited. Not that they could do much to change the outcome even if there were sentient beings there anyway.