He chose the word deliberately, to throw in her face the distaste she must be feeling. Gaians and Stacians had always been adversaries. Truthfully, besides those women who sold themselves to every comer, whether purple-skinned Eridani or hairless Menari, he knew of no Gaian woman who had ever paired with a Stacian man. And of course it was unthinkable that a Stacian female would ever lower herself to bed a Gaian male.
“I will return to my ship now,” Captain Jannholm said. “I trust you will allow me safe conduct for that.”
“Of course,” he replied. Only a very naïve man would have expected her to give an answer immediately. “Shall we say, twenty-five standard hours for you to render your decision?”
Her eyes narrowed, but she only said, “You will hear from me before that.”
Her tone seemed to indicate she had a good deal to say on the subject, but held her tongue to avoid argument. In a way it was amusing to see her veiled outrage, the manner in which she lifted her chin and marched out as soon as he activated the controls for the door so she could exit.
He thought he had a very good idea of what her answer would be.
* * *
After returning to her ship, Lira immediately headed for her ready room. What she really wished was to disappear into her quarters, but she had only begun her rotation four hours ago; such a deviation from schedule would have been noted at once. The curious stares of her bridge crew as she greeted them curtly before retreating into her ready room had been bad enough.
Another devout wish was for a good stiff belt of brandy, but such things were rare in the Chlorae system and even rarer on board her ship. She settled for pouring herself a glass of water and staring into the viewscreen on the far wall, the one that showed the form of the Stacian cruiser where it perched in an orbit to match the Valiant’s own course precisely.
Of all the —
Over the years, she’d heard a good deal about the Stacians, their warlike tendencies, their fearlessness, their unpredictability. Theirs was a harsh desert world, one where the original lush biosphere that had led to the evolution of sentient life had been decimated tens of thousands of years earlier by a meteor strike. They had lost their oceans and their forests, been driven into the planet’s network of caves, emerging only to hunt the fierce predators that had survived the global cataclysm. They had taken the technology that had been the gift of the Eridanis — a race who prided themselves on sharing their knowledge freely — and crafted themselves into a space-faring power. But of all the things Lira had heard of the Stacians, she’d never heard that they particularly coveted Gaian women. So why Captain sen Drenthan would make such a proposition to her, she couldn’t begin to fathom.
A swallow of water, then another. The outrage began to ebb, as she had known it would. She couldn’t afford to let her emotions get the better of her. Much as she would have liked to tell that arrogant Stacian exactly what he could do with his proposal, she wasn’t in a position to give free rein to her emotions. She had to analyze the situation and decide what to do next. The responsibility for making such a decision must rest solely on her; Gaian regulations regarding fraternization were strict. What sen Drenthan had proposed was something she must keep strictly to herself.
The reinforcements from Gaia were on their way, that much she knew, but the stalemate here could last for some weeks before she might hope for any relief. The lumbering transport ships that carried supplies and colonists traveled far more slowly than the sleek cruisers of the GDF. And once those ships arrived, it was her responsibility to make sure they made planetfall safely, without any interference from the Stacians. It would be far simpler if the Stacians would just withdraw and relinquish their claim to the millenite, a claim that was specious at best. Yes, they had first visited this system, but only to take the crudest readings for their databases. It wasn’t until the Gaians actually landed on the second planet that the Chlorae system’s true worth was realized.
If she did the unthinkable — if she went to him — would he keep his word? She did not know this Captain sen Dranthan, but she knew the Stacians took their bond seriously, which was why the other sentient races had such a difficult time pinning them down to treaties and accords. Once a formal agreement was in place, the Stacians would honor it. That was part of the reason why the Eridani Accord was viewed as such a success.
But to coldly give herself to him, to let him…
The thought trailed off, and she drank some more water in an effort to banish those unwanted images. He was so very large, and so savage-looking, with those fierce ridges along his brow line and the mass of twisted hair down his back. Never mind that in other ways he was as humanoid as she, with ten fingers and toes, two arms, two legs. Scientists had been arguing for generations whether the galaxy was rife with instances of confluent evolution, or whether some long-ago race had seeded its kind throughout the stars. In the day to day, it didn’t matter so much. Gaians had been intermingling with Eridanis since within a decade of first contact, and the other humanoid races had followed suit, save the Stacians and the mysterious Zhore. Then again, no one had ever seen a Zhore outside their enveloping hooded cloaks, so their humanoid nature was still a matter of conjecture.
But Captain sen Drenthan was not a Zhore, but a member of a race that had been skirmishing with the Gaians for the last hundred years. She found it hard to believe that he had suddenly been so overcome with lust for her after glimpsing her on the comm screen that he was willing to relinquish his people’s claim to the Chlorae system. What, then, was his motivation?
Perhaps he had already been given the order to withdraw, for whatever reason, and had come up with this preposterous proposition as a final means of humiliating her. Why she should be made the object of such torture, Lira had no idea, but since she and the Stacian captain had been dancing around one another for the greater part of two standard months, she could see why his patience might be wearing thin. She knew hers was.
Then again, if he was being sincere…
He had sounded serious enough, with no hint of mockery in his tone, but whether that meant anything, she couldn’t be sure. She supposed she should just be glad that his command of Galactic Standard was as good as hers, since she’d heard that some Stacians refused to learn the language at all.
The comm beeped, and she ran her finger over the screen to allow the incoming message to display itself there. The smart ions that composed the screen material read her fingerprint and decrypted the words.
Gaian Exploratory Commission to Captain Lira Jannholm:
Schedule for accession of Chlorae II mining colony accelerated. Expect arrival of first colonists in two standard days. Increase security in advance of their arrival. Acknowledge.
Mouth dry despite the half glass of water she had just drunk, Lira pressed her thumb against the screen in the location designated for acknowledging receipt of official communiques. Not for the first time, she wished very much that the GEC, despite its notoriously parsimonious ways, had sent more ships than just her Valiant to protect its interests on Chlorae II.
Her gaze seemed drawn inexorably across the ready room to the viewscreen that still held the image of sen Drenthan’s ship. It floated against the blackness, its hammerhead shape reminiscent of a predator that had once swum in old Gaia’s oceans.
Well, Captain, it seems you might have gotten your wish.
Lips thinning, she turned back to the comm unit. “Lieutenant Ramirez? Send a message to the Stacian captain.”
“Message, ma’am?”
“Tell him to expect me at twenty-two hundred.” And she switched off the comm before Ramirez had a chance to reply.
For a few seconds she sat there in silence, staring ahead but seeing nothing. Then she shut her eyes.
You’ve done it now, Lira.
CHAPTER TWO
Rast wasn’t sure which had surprised him more — that Lira Jannholm had said yes, or the alacrity with which she had given her consent. Something must have happened to force
her hand, but exactly what that something had been, he couldn’t hazard a guess.
Curtly, he informed his second-in-command that he would be receiving the Gaian captain for a diplomatic visit, and that she would be staying for some hours. Commander sen Larnack was too well-trained to display more than a millisecond of surprise, but even that brief dilation of his pupils was enough to show what he thought of such a pronouncement. The crew had already been discussing Captain Jannholm’s earlier visit, truncated as it had been; Rast could only imagine what they would think after she arrived late in the ship’s rotation and didn’t leave again for some hours. Stacians, disciplined as they could be, also had an unfortunate tendency toward gossip when their superiors weren’t around.
In this case, he guessed they would have plenty to gossip about.
For himself, he experienced a distressing nervousness as the hours wore on. That was not like him — he was not some youth to be intimidated by an attractive woman. Then again, he had never been with a human female before. Human and Stacian anatomy matched up, more or less, but it was not a field of investigation to which he’d devoted much study besides the cursory survey of the humanoid races he’d been given during his fleet training. He was no diplomat, but a soldier.
A chime sounded from the communications console embedded in his desk. He opened the channel. “Sen Drenthan.”
“Captain, the Gaian commander is here.”
“Send her in.”
He stood then and waited for her in the center of the chamber. The door opened, and she moved past the guards who accompanied her. They bowed to their captain before exiting, leaving him alone with Lira Jannholm.
She certainly did not have the appearance of a woman come to an assignation. The same high-collared uniform covered her to her chin, and her hair was still bound in a tight coil at the back of her head.
At first he thought he might mention something of her swift decision, but one glance at the compressed lines of her mouth told him that was probably not a very good idea. Instead, he turned away from her, going toward a small table placed up against the far wall. On the table stood a bottle of lavender Eridani wine and two glasses.
“A drink?” he inquired.
“Do you think getting me drunk will make this any easier?”
He shrugged, and went ahead and poured two glasses, then extended one to her. “I don’t know — do you?”
For a second she hesitated, her mouth still grim. He thought he saw her shake her head slightly before she took the glass from him. “I suppose we’ll just have to find out.” And she took two very healthy swallows of the potent wine.
As he’d spent a good deal of his late adolescence and early adulthood tossing back large amounts of the fungus-based rotgut brewed in the caves of Stacia, the Eridani wine did not pose much of a challenge to his own head. Still, he only allowed himself a measured sip from his own glass. No use getting done up at this stage of the game.
Then again, perhaps there was some value to taking the edge off. With the two of them circling one another like two trelths marking their territory, it would be a long time — if ever — before they got down to business. So he lifted the glass again and matched her two gulps of wine with three of his own.
Surprisingly, a wicked glint came and went in her sea-colored eyes. “I hope this isn’t going to turn into a drinking game. You have an unfair weight advantage.”
“True enough,” he replied, staring down at her slender form. She seemed light enough to pick up with one hand. He would have to test that hypothesis later.
She seemed to catch the weight of hidden meaning in his eyes, and glanced away.
Damn. He had known this was going to be uncomfortable, but he hadn’t realized quite how agonizing the reality would prove to be. He was no seducer of women. His previous liaisons had been with equally willing partners. But this Gaian woman seemed to be anything but willing. The data he had on her said she was just past thirty standard, so she couldn’t possibly be some inexperienced virgin. No, her reticence had to be because of his race.
“You’ve never met a Stacian before,” he said, hoping he might put her at ease by showing that he was willing to continue the conversation.
“No,” she admitted. “I’ve seen vids, of course, but…” A brief laugh. “You look much taller in person.”
“Do I?” He stepped closer to her.
To his surprise, she did not try to move away, although he thought he saw her fingers tighten around the glass of wine she held. “Yes,” she replied. “Then again, I’m probably a little biased, considering most of the galaxy is taller than I am.”
“Oh, I don’t know about most,” he said. “The Eridanis are quite similar to you Gaians when it comes to height, and I’ve met several Eridani women who are no taller than you.”
“Have you?” Her expression appeared almost curious. “I wasn’t aware the Stacian navy had that many direct dealings with the Eridanis.”
Of course it didn’t; the Eridanis tended to work with what scientists his home world possessed, and beyond that, those of his people occupied in the diplomatic corps, or the Federation’s colonial government. However, the Eridanis occasionally assisted in the design of the ships that now populated the Stacian navy, and it was in that capacity where he’d met quite a few Eridani engineers and scientists. However, since he wasn’t certain how much the Gaians knew of Stacian/Eridani interactions, he thought it better not to reply directly.
Instead, he lifted his shoulders — a gesture apparently common to all the humanoid races — and said, “Oh, they come and go as consultants, as required. That is all.” He didn’t bother to add that he had found none of those Eridani women particularly lovely. Certainly not like this Lira Jannholm, this delicate creature who somehow still gave the impression that she had been wrought of fire-hardened steel. Yes, she was slight, but he thought no less of her for that. She had the graceful, compact strength of the low-flying darakh, with its ability to elude the attacks of Stacia’s most bloodthirsty predators.
He told her, “It is no hardship, the difference in our heights,” and then lowered his mouth to hers.
She tasted of the wine, sweet and dark and somehow forbidden, her lips fuller than those of a Stacian female. He felt her tense as their lips touched, but she did not draw away. Her mouth opened slightly, and their tongues met.
A spike of heat touched his loins, and he hardened almost at once. Understandable; it had been some months since his last liaison. But he thought somehow he would have reacted the same way even if he had been with another woman only hours earlier.
The table was close enough that he could set down his glass without moving away from her. He did so, then reached up to the mass of hair at the back of her head. It should not be confined so, but allowed to fall loose. Hard little pins held it in place, and he plucked them out one by one, letting them drop to the rug beneath their feet. Finally her hair slipped free, falling in shining coils over her shoulders. No Stacian woman had hair that glistened so. He wanted to run his fingers through it, feel it slide across his skin like the finest Iradian silk.
“You shouldn’t — ” she began, but he silenced her with another kiss, even as her hair slid against his cheek and neck.
After all, they had far better things to do than talk.
* * *
Up until the moment he kissed her, the whole situation had possessed an air of unreality. After all, what sane woman would have walked calmly into the cabin of an enemy captain, his promises of safe conduct notwithstanding?
But then he was all too real, the hard lips against hers, the spicy scent that seemed to permeate his skin and clothing, something reminiscent of sandalwood and yet subtly alien, while at the same time more enticing than anything else she had ever smelled. And his hands touching her hair, gently and with some sort of strange awe, as if he had never felt anything like it before. Perhaps he hadn’t.
She had to stand on her tiptoes to reach his mouth comfortably, and he mus
t have noticed, because then his arms were around her, lifting her, taking her out of the office or audience chamber or whatever it was, and carrying her to a smaller room dominated by a tall bed made of some substance she couldn’t quite identify in the dim light but which looked almost like polished stone.
This was madness, though, that she should let him reach beneath the placket on the front of her uniform jumpsuit and draw the zipper there downward, just before he pulled the garment away from her. If this had been a Gaian ship, the air that met her bare skin would have been chill, overly air conditioned, but the Stacian ship was warm and smelled faintly of the same spices that seemed to permeate Rast sen Drenthan’s hair and skin. He pushed her down on the bed, his hands stroking her bare flesh. If she closed her eyes, she could imagine those hands belonged to a human man, as they felt much the same, although the fingers that now reached up to caress her breasts were just a little too long, a little too strong.
But it would be the coward’s way to shut her eyes against this reality, that it was a Stacian who touched her so, who traced his way down the sensitive skin of her stomach until his breath came hot against the flesh between her legs, who pushed his tongue into her and tasted her.
She cried out then, fingers working into the coarse ropy masses of his hair, pulling him closer to her. She had had other lovers, of course, but none who seemed to know exactly where to touch her, who made love to her with his mouth, not as a means to an end, but just because he seemed to derive almost as much satisfaction from pleasuring her as she did herself.
The orgasm hit hard, and she bucked against him, still holding the metal-studded lengths of his hair, gripping him as waves of ecstasy pulsed out through every vein, along every nerve ending. Her own breathing sounded hoarse as she gasped through the last lingering ripples of pleasure. Only then did he stop, and pull himself up to lie next to her. For the first time she realized he still wore his own uniform, which scratched against her naked form.
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