by Calista Skye
And then the flood wave just washed over her and she whimpered into his ear, feeling the ecstasy engulf her.
He increased the speed, and while she quivered in his hands and rode out the bliss, she felt his cock jerk hard and spray his juices inside her, he roared his own climax into the hall, and it reverberated from the walls.
He slowed down and she just clung to him, speechless and breathing hard, even if he had done most of the work.
He let her down onto her feet and held a strong arm around her, knowing that her knees could give way underneath her.
She discovered that she was still holding the sword. Looking the alien deep into his glazed-over eyes, she calmly cut the traditional nick in her own forearm, grabbed the scabbard from the floor and slid the blade inside.
“You can't go back on this, Ator'aq. We will win. Together.”
“We will. You have my word on it.” He went closer and embraced her again, his still-hard cock between them. “We will do many things together in the future. Everything, in fact.”
She breathed out and felt an overwhelming fatigue engulf her. She had been in some kind of intense physical activity or other for hours now, and she hadn't slept much the past few days. And his arms were so strong and warm and safe...
“Damn right we will,” she said and leaned her head on his chest.
Then she remembered no more.
22
She woke up in Ator'aq's bed, alone beside her sword. She had been asleep for a long time, she knew that. But now she felt refreshed. And just a little sore down below. It had been a while since the last time she'd had sex, and that time hadn't been remotely as fulfilling as the night before.
Ator'aq's quarters weren't much larger than hers, even if he was a king. He had a spartan lifestyle, and the walls were pretty much bare, except for a cluster of portraits on the wall.
She got out of bed and padded over, naked. She scratched her messy hair and peered at the pictures. One group picture caught her interest. It looked like a formal picture of the royal family, with the king in an elaborate uniform with lots of gold on it and the queen in a very regal dress. Ator'aq stood to the right of his father, the king, and looked very serious in what had to be a cadet uniform. Olivia had to smile when she spotted the short ceremonial sword that hung from the waistband of his uniform pants.
Nine family members apart from Ator'aq. He was the oldest son and had seven siblings, both brothers and sisters. There were also individual portraits of his siblings pasted around the group picture.
She found the bathroom and got dressed. She hadn't brought anything to the Braxian ship except the uniform she had been wearing, but Ator'aq had been able to come up with a number of garments that just about fit her. They were the remainder of old Braxian uniforms and other hand-me-downs, and the warriors had all gone through their meager wardrobes to see if they had anything that might fit her.
As a result, she was now very casually dressed and felt most of all like a pirate.
Her space marine uniform she would only put on for the attack on the Ethereals.
She had been worried about how she would get a hold of both sanitary and more feminine products on this alien and very male-dominated spaceship, but Ator'aq had given her several large boxes that had been originally intended for the spaceship sick bay, and they seemed to contain a lot of things that she'd need for basic upkeep. And he had liberated a box of luxury products from the former five-star hotel where he and his men had been stationed on Space Force Base.
She left his quarters, sword dangling from her belt, and made her way to the bridge of the ship, from where everything was controlled. That was where Ator'aq spent most of his time when he wasn't training with the sword.
He was there, sitting in the captain's chair and studying several screens. Other warriors were overseeing other parts of the very futuristic control room, but none of them seemed very busy.
“Good morning,” the king said when she entered. “Sleep well?”
“Sure,” she said and looked around. This part was always awkward. Were they a couple now? Officially? What would happen? What should she do?
Well, she was a big girl now. She'd trust her own emotions and just go for the 'couple' thing, which was what she wanted anyway. She sauntered over to him and placed one hand on his upper arm, forcing him to give her a little kiss or to disengage, thus making things very difficult for them both.
To her relief and joy, he took her head gently between his huge, callused hands and kissed her tenderly on the lips.
“Good.” He looked into her eyes, and she noticed that the other men in the room were discreetly paying attention. “I want my love to be rested.” He said it just loud enough that everyone in the room would hear, as a signal that it was official. They were a couple now. The news would reach everyone on board very soon.
He gestured to a screen on the wall. “Look at this.”
It was a schematic map of the Solar system, with the Earth and Space Force Base clearly marked in blue. Their own ship, which was called the End of Time, was represented by a little green triangle. And at the far end of the map, moving slowly away, there was a red circle.
She pointed. “The Ethereals?”
“Yes. Notice that they're moving now. They have a number of smaller ships that fit together and can form one large ship in many different configurations. They're not warships as such, but more suited to lay waste to primitive civilizations that can't defend themselves.”
“Where are they going?”
Ator'aq nodded. “That's the question. They can't leave this solar system. They need more food. They have to kidnap more people. Many more. We estimate that they'll need five thousand more humans to fill their stocks.”
“They'll have to go back to Earth and kidnap more people.”
The young Braxian king scratched his chin. “Maybe. The course they're on now would indicate that. Of course the only reason they stayed away from your planet was that I arrived here and scared them away to the fringes of this system. They're complete cowards. But now they know that I only have a few men left, and it may make them courageous and willing to chance it. They are many more, after all.”
“So what do we do now?”
“We follow, as well as we can. Their ships are much faster than this old crate. We can't go so far away from the Earth that we're out of reach if they suddenly dive in and attack.”
“We have to wait for them to act, in other words.”
“Yes. My plan was to wait them out completely, let them kidnap as many as they wanted and then ruin your Earth. Then I would attack, and victory would be certain because they would be exhausted. Now that we have to rescue your space marine friends and your sister, I don't quite know what to do. I'd like to lure them towards us, then attack them somehow.”
Olivia thought deeply. She might have a solution. “Ator'aq.”
The king just arched his eyebrows.
“If there were a way to contact the Ethereals... Could you lure them here?”
“I don't know. I have never communicated much with them except with the sword. And that's a very one-way form of communication. Are you suggesting that there is such a way?”
“There might be. You said that the Ethereal who contacted me was their king?”
“Denibael, yes. He did identify himself to me once, as one king to another. Well, one 'monkey king' to a 'real sentient king', as he put it. He left it up to me to decide which one I was.”
“So he has some power over them, right?”
“He has a lot of power over them. He seems to be a source of energy for them, as if he controls them in ways that are unknown.”
Olivia wavered. She had wanted to keep the details of her meeting with the Ethereal king secret, as a kind of an emergency exit that could bring Tessa back if everything went wrong. But now that Ator'aq and his men had accepted her into their fellowship, and she and Ator'aq were romantically involved, and she loved fighting with the sword...
“Tell me, Ator'aq: Why did you want Space Force to let me stay close to you?”
The king looked around the bridge, as if the answer was too sensitive to be talked about in public. He lowered his voice, and Olivia guessed that it was something he rarely did.
“Before we came to Earth, Boniar – the alien AI that seems to see the future – indicated that I would meet someone. A warrior. And that this warrior would be crucial for our final victory against the Ethereals. What Boniar did not say was that the warrior was a woman. A perfect woman who captured my heart from the moment I saw her flying through the air and take down my largest death commando. It was that last part that got me to impulsively demand that Space Force make you... hm... available. It had been a very long time since I had felt anything like that. It was like a torch suddenly being lit in my soul. I couldn't bear the thought to be without you.”
“And made you say that you were my fate when we met in that bar.”
“Yes. A childish thing, perhaps. But I was in love and I felt giddy like a teenager.”
Well, this was it. Time to burn some bridges. “The Ethereal I met wanted to know that. He wanted to know why I was so important to you. He couldn't understand it.”
Ator'aq frowned. “I see. I knew there was something you were keeping from me. That was what he wanted, of course. Everything that concerns me is strange and potentially threatening to him. He thought he could get a hold on me through you. Not a bad strategy for him.”
“And he said that when I had found the answer to it, I could contact him. In exchange, he will release Tessa.”
The king's face was an image of rapt attention. “How?”
“If I say his name backwards, he will appear to receive the answer to his question.”
“Ah. That could be a little tricky.”
“Why?”
“Because there's no way he will appear here on my ship. He fears me more than anything else. In fact, I'm the only thing he fears. Fear is a new emotion to the Ethereals. They don't understand it. No, he will not appear here. Apart from the fact that he can't. The ship is Ethereal-proof. He never expected you to ever come aboard here when he said you could contact him. But that's a problem we can solve. The question is, what do we tell him when he comes?”
“We tell him the truth. That you had a prophecy that I would win the war for you.”
“Not a prophecy, Olivia. A prediction.”
“Let's call it a prophecy. It sounds less rational. We want him to be relieved that that was all it was, and then he might feel reassured enough to attack Space Force Base right away. Lots of young marines on the base. The five thousand he needs to replenish his stocks and many more. Of course we'll warn Space Force before that, so they're ready to receive him and his fairies.”
The king shook his head. “If the Ethereals were to try another attack on Space Force Base, we could ambush them. I like that idea. But we can't warn Space Force. We will have nothing to do with them before the attack. It has been infiltrated. Someone there is a traitor. Someone high up is telling the enemy everything. That's why I was reluctant to tell your generals much about my strategies. I didn't want the Ethereals to know how much I know about them.”
“If they're not warned, it could be a massacre. They'd be sitting ducks, just like Hoffner said.”
Ator'aq was adamant. “The whole point is that we would be there to ambush the Ethereals and rescue your sister and friends. If Space Force is taken unaware, they'll just have to scramble. I'm sure they will have improved their lookout and their routines since the attack.”
“Our attack is much more likely to succeed if the space marines are ready for the Ethereals. We want them on our side, ready and awake and fighting.”
“If we could warn them, we would,” the king said mildly. “But as it is, we can't. If our ambush is betrayed, everything falls apart.”
It made sense, Olivia saw that. But the idea of her space marines facing an attack by the Ethereals and not being warned beforehand grated against everything she held dear. She wanted to warn them. But not if it would ruin the attack before it had begun.
“Let's see now,” the king said, making another map appear on the screen, visibly fired up by the idea of going on the offensive. “We can fly a shuttle to Space Force Base and enter secretly. We can camouflage the shuttle in such a way that it will not be seen on the primitive sensors they have. Then you contact Denibael, tell him about the prophecy and that you expect him to release your sister in exchange. He either does that or laughs in your face. The important part is that he will realize that the coast is clear and that I have left. Of course the prophecy can't come to fruition when we're apart, so that's no longer a concern for him.”
“Won't he know that I came with you?”
“Does anyone know that? You were ordered to stay with me until I left. Then you disappeared. For all Space Force knows, you could have been kidnapped by the Ethereals, like your sister. Remember that the base was still in total chaos when we left. You're probably listed as missing. All the Ethereals know for sure is that I and my warriors have left in my ship, because the traitor will have told them. I highly doubt they will realize that you came with us. We have never admitted any alien on our ship. And the concept of love is not well known among Ethereals.”
“All the corridors in the base have cameras.”
“Not in the Braxian section. We disabled all those. And quite a few more. No, I'm sure about this. No one there can know that you came with us.”
Olivia was starting to feel excited. It looked like there would be some action soon. And maybe she would see her sister again, too.
23
A couple of days went by. Olivia slept in Ator'aq's quarters now, and they made love every night, clinging to each other in ecstasy. Their days were taken up by sword practice and Ator'aq's planning sessions with his warriors. The whole ship felt different, as if gearing up for a crucial battle, one they were certain to win.
But one thing had to be done before they could launch their plan.
Ator'aq and Olivia walked down a narrow corridor, heading for the little room where they were keeping Boniar.
“He is hard to communicate with. But he can give vital clues about battles ahead. We never ask about the actual outcome, because it might influence our effort.”
“If you know you'll win, you might not fight as hard?”
“That's the worry. And suddenly we don't win after all. But we will ask about what to focus on and what might happen that could surprise us.”
“Is that what you asked about when he told you about me? Before you came to Earth?”
The king nodded. “We asked about what might surprise us. He was right, too. You did surprise me.”
They entered the room. Boniar seemed to be turned off in his housing, surrounded by all the wires and tubing.
Ator'aq checked on the wiring around the gray cylinder that was the artificial intelligence. “He's always on. Never found a way to turn him off. He runs on some kind of chlorophyll reaction and we have to keep him flooded with a sharp blue light to keep him alive.”
“So he's technically alive, right? Does that mean you're keeping him prisoner?”
“I don't really know how to think of it. He's really just a computer, but I think of him as alive because there's no off switch and he gives us some good insights.”
Ator'aq adjusted the blue light. “The only way we've found to communicate with him is to write questions on a screen and hold it up for him. We've found no way to connect him to any input device. But he has a visual sensor. I had to learn the alphabet that the aliens that built him used. Took me months.”
Ator'aq took a stylus and carefully and slowly drew some very alien-looking squiggles on a pad with a reactive screen, then held it in front of a part of the AI housing that looked like a small, round mirror, except it gave no actual reflection.
“If he feels in the mood to give an answer, he will project it at the wall. It will be in Br
axian, for some reason. I think he's just yanking our chain. But we accept it.”
Immediately, text was projected at the wall:
YES AND NO
“Is that Braxian?” Olivia said innocently. It was clearly English.
Ator'aq frowned. “No, it's not. That looks like an alien language. Damn, if we suddenly can't read what he writes, right before the ultimate showdown with the Ethereals...”
Olivia smiled. “Don't worry, I think I can read it. It says 'yes and no'. What did you ask him?”
“I asked if he's alive, which is what you wanted to know. Can you really read that stuff?”
Olivia nodded very seriously. “Only if I really concentrate. Okay, ask him some more things.”
Again Ator'aq wrote a question and showed it to the sensor. “I asked if the Ethereals will attack Space Force Base tomorrow, like we want them to.”
YES
“He says 'yes',” Olivia said. “You know, what if I try writing? It might be faster.”
Ator'aq just gave her the tab and stylus.
“I'll ask if there will be surprises tomorrow.” She wrote the question in English.
YES
“Okay. Too general. I'll ask what the surprises will be.”
VERY NUMEROUS FIGHTERS. RETURN OF LOST ONE. TRUTH ABOUT CHIEF
Olivia read aloud verbatim.
Ator'aq pondered it. “'Numerous fighters'? I hope he doesn't mean that there are more Ethereals than we think.”
“But 'return of lost one' is good, right? That has to mean Tessa!”
“I'm not so sure. Would we really be surprised if we got her back? 'Truth about chief'... does that mean me?”
“Something you haven't told me?”
“Oh, there are many things I haven't told you. But not important ones. Is that it?”
“I'll ask.”
THAT'S ALL
“Huh. Well, I guess it's something.”
Olivia quickly wrote 'do you feel that you're being held prisoner here?'
The answer came fast: NO
