by Celeste Raye
She said, “The Federation uses them as undeclared assassins. They do not pay them as they allow them to keep whatever ship they breach and they grant them safe passage and compensation for their filthy deeds.
“Soon their ships will descend upon Old Earth. The Federation intends to allow them that planet for their own. Only those who live above will be able to escape. Those who live below will be enslaved or killed.”
His face showed his horror at her words. “Why? Why would the Federation allow the Gorlites to take Old Earth? It is still the seat of Federation power.”
Jessica waited, knowing he would understand it very soon. Comprehension dawned on his face. His breath escaped his mouth in a long and audible exhale. “They intend to overthrow the older members of the Federation, don’t they?”
Jessica’s head moved up and down in an affirmative gesture. “Yes. As much as I hate the Federation, I will admit that those who intend to overthrow it frightened me much more than I can even say. They are even more ruthless than any the universe has ever known before. There shall not be a Federation any longer, only tyrants who own everything.”
He pointed out, “That sums up the entire Federation.”
Jessica said, “Yes, it does. However, even the Federation has limitations. As it stands now, most planets have rulers of some type in place that broker deals with the Federation. Those rulers and leaders are all that stands between the Federation becoming despotic. The ones who plot to overthrow the Federation tend to also create war and chaos by assassinating the universe’s leaders and rulers, particularly those who stand firmest against the Federation.”
Talon said, “Destroy all leadership and there is nobody to turn to but the Federation. Destroy those in the Federation who would stand against such total control, or who may be able to wield it, and what you have is a single being who could rule the entire universe.”
Jessica said, “Yes, exactly. He shall not have full control, of course. He is smart enough to make it appear as if he is delegating some power to those who follow him. But I would say it will not be long before they too find themselves at the end of an assassin’s weapon.”
His shoulders yanked inward, his hands gripped his weapon more tightly. His face closed like a fist. “I will not fight to save the existing Federation. I know that seems to be the only choice here. It is the demon you know versus the demon that you don’t.”
Jessica holstered her weapons. Her hands came up, her palms showing in a gesture of goodwill and peace. “I know how you feel. I have every reason to hate the Federation. I also have every reason to want to save those who are below on Old Earth.
“I can’t stand idly by while this happens. I know you, Talon. I know you seek the death of every Gorlite, and with good reason. I am telling you that you have been sadly mistaken for a great many years. You’ve underestimated their numbers. They have been widely believed to be verging on extinction. They are not.
“That is the rest of the secret that I know. They have built an entire armada from taken ships, and they have hidden themselves with cloaking devices so as not to attract attention. The Federation has kept them fed, and in fuel, and now they are going to descend on my home planet and kill all who stand in their way.”
He did not want to believe her. It showed in his eyes. He had waged war for centuries against that parasitic race that had murdered his parents and so many of his people and then enslaved him on that mining planet.
Jessica did not know all of his history. Talon did not talk about it. It was not a secret and many of the crew, especially Harlon, had been with Talon since Talon had been just a young child on his home planet of Revant. They occasionally said something, but never enough for her to really grasp the situation. She knew his planet had been destroyed by the Federation’s greed for a wormhole route and that after that his family’s ship had been taken over by Gorlites, which had then sold him and his three brothers—Renall, Marik, and Jeval—into slavery on a mining planet, and that those things had shaped him into the warrior that he was—and a being whose life was battle and blood.
He was marked by those experiences, and they were the reasons why he did everything that he did. She had to remember that because he was going to balk when she told him the rest of it.
She said, “Think about it. You told me yourself that you saw Federation ships on the surface of that mining planet that you were forced to work on. You have always said that the Gorlites must have found a way to take those Federation ships but that your first impression, when you saw them there, was that the Federation must be working with them. You thought that was too wild a supposition. It could not possibly be true, or so you thought. But it is. Open your eyes and see the truth!”
He turned away. Her eyes rested on his strong back. His shoulders tensed and his fingers reached for his weapons once more. His voice was gruff and hoarse. “I shall go with you to Old Earth to prevent it being taken, but I will not lift a finger to save a single Federation life.”
She wanted to argue with him that he was going to have to do just that if he wanted to prevent the universe from being taken hostage and held by power-mad beings that had no regard for life unless it would serve them.
She said nothing because that was not a decision she could talk them into and she knew it. His agreeing to go to her home planet was already a victory, and a hard-won victory at that. There would come a time when they would actually have to fight on the side of the Federation if they were to save the universe, and he was right: it was a hellish bargain and one that would ensure there were no winners, but much death on all sides.
He turned to face her. His lips canted upward in his usual arrogant smile. “I suppose I can hope to die in battle with those stinking worms long before the Federation is overthrown and thus escape having to make a decision that would go against everything I have ever sworn upon my heart.”
His race took their vows so seriously that death would be preferable to breaking one. Jessica said, “If you die in battle and I do not, I shall see to it that your body is returned to New Revant and your blood for a proper burial.”
He nodded. His shoulders slumped with weariness. “We had better go find the others. I do not know how many more survived, but I do know one thing: no matter how many warriors we have on the ship, it is not enough, not if what you say about the Gorlites having an entire armada is true. I wish I could find some reason not to believe you; I truly do.”
“Only you can’t.”
“You can fight against the truth, but it won’t change it.”
No, it wouldn’t. His lips thinned down to flat lines. “I need to get into clean clothes.”
“Talon…”
He held up a hand. He took two hard breaths. “I…”
She stared at him. Her blonde hair hung tangled and sweaty around her face. Her chest heaved up and down. The urge to kiss him was overwhelmingly strong, so strong that she actually took a step toward him!
Kissing him would be stupid. It would be, but she wanted to kiss him anyway.
He said, “I will discuss this with you again. But not now. I will fight the Gorlites because I know, as well as you do, what will happen if they have a whole planet at their disposal. They will mate like crazy, and they will eat their way through Old Earth, growing stronger and larger in numbers the whole time. Then, then they will do what they have always done when they have wrecked something to the point they cannot squeeze one more ounce of use from it.”
He turned and strode away.
Jessica took three long breaths. She had to go after him. He had to see that it was not just the Gorlites that he needed to go after but also the actual Federation traitors. That was the real enemy for them just then, and if they did not take them down…
“I have to make him see some sense,” she said and started after him.
He had to help her save the Federation.
It was not what she wanted to do either. She hated the Federation with every fiber of her being, and with goo
d reason. She had seen first-hand how that alliance killed everything in its path and turned a blind eye to injustices committed by the ones high within its ranks.
The Federation cared only for wealth and power, and while some planets had rulers that were just and fair and a population that still had divides but somehow managed to lessen the gaps between its lowest citizen and its highest one, Old Earth was not one of those planets.
Old Earth had been killed by climate change and war. The carogen bombs set off by the long-gone countries and the climate change had caused the seas to swallow the old land masses, and now the ocean waters were so acidic that touching a fingertip into the water would cause instant death.
The cities of old were gone, destroyed by fire and flood and the effects of the carogen bombs. What had remained had two very different and distinct classes of people.
Those who could live above, and those who had to live below.
Those who lived above enjoyed the sun and the air brought in through the domes while those below were forever gasping for more oxygen, straining for a clean breath. The air they breathed was sufficient for life, but it felt flat and dank in the lung and mouth.
She shook that off as she walked behind Talon, doing her best to match his powerful stride. Now was not the time to hate the caste system on Old Earth.
Now was the time to try to save that planet, and she needed Talon’s help and the crew. She needed him.
Chapter 6 - Talon
Talon strode through the ship and to his chamber. His hands worked at his clothing, releasing it from his body in long smooth motions. The door whirred open again, and he moved fast, a laser fit neatly into his hand, and his body already turned to the door.
Jessica stood there. Her mouth turned upward into a smile. “I need to wash off this blood.”
One minute she was fully dressed, the next she was naked, her pale body glowing like a pearl in the dimness of the chamber. His body hardened. Desire hit hard. He spoke in a husky voice, “We could wash together, save time.”
She walked toward him, her lean hips leading her body. Her pale pink nipples stiffened and poked upward, firing his lust yet again. She said, “We could.”
His hands caught in her hair, fisted it. His mouth slanted down on hers. He tasted salt, evidence of her life, in the corners of her mouth. Whether that salt was from tears or sweat, he did not know, and he didn’t care either.
They aimed toward the small tube-like cleansing chamber. They smashed into it, and their skin came into contact yet again, inflaming his senses and causing his erection to lengthen and thicken.
Her legs wrapped around his waist and he lifted her, his hands going below her thighs and then to her ass. Her inner folds took him in, milked him as they stood beneath the steam and scented ions pouring down from the ceiling.
His mouth found hers again as her wetness and tightness caressed his flesh, and his hips arched upward to go deeper still. Her fingers tangled in his hair and his teeth sank into her bottom lip. His back scrubbed against the wall, and her body shivered as she lifted herself a little then glided down upon his cock again.
Time stood still. There was just the two of them now; the world outside was gone. There was just flesh and bone and blood, sex and pleasure.
Life.
Her inner walls fluttered around his organ. He came as well, his body arching and shivering as his hot seed splattered into her body.
They slowly moved away from each other. The cleansing stream ended and they stepped out. Talon said, “I have to get back onto that bridge.”
“I know.” She smiled. “I have to go get some clean clothes, and then I’ll be up.”
She gave him one more kiss and then started out, her body gleaming and still nude, a thing that made him smile. Jessica had no shame, and he loved that about her.
He loved her.
He loved her so very much, and he did not want to see her die.
He could tell her she has to get off the ship. He could take her back to Revant Two and strand her there, but he knew her. She would steal the first ship she came across and head right for Old Earth, consequences be damned.
That was one more thing he loved about her.
He loved that she was fierce and wild and a warrior. He loved every inch of her skin and her body and her heart, and he wanted, badly, to just give all of that warring up and settle down, leave the skies to the rest and the Federation and its problems to someone else too. But he could not do that.
He couldn’t. He knew what the Gorlites would do, and he knew too well that the Federation was willing to send its people into the mines that they too controlled.
Talon walked onto the bridge and stood there, watching as the ship was turned on his order and headed toward Old Earth. His gut tightened. This was stupid, and he knew it. If Jessica was right, this was a fight that they could not win. They would be battling not just the Gorlites but also the Federation.
The Federation was in on this takeover, and the ones who were behind it, the ones planning to overthrow the Federation, no way were they going to let their plans go awry.
Too much rode on every part of their plan going perfectly.
“Bad news: I am here to ruin your day.”
The words came from his mouth on a sharp exhale of breath.
Old Earth came up in the windows just as Jessica stepped up beside him.
Chapter 7 - Talon
Old Earth.
Jessica stood looking at it, and her heart gave a hard throb.
She stared at the spinning blue and green orb, the browned and uninhabitable parts of the planet showing in stark contrast to the parts that still held life.
Centuries ago the air had become tainted by pollution, and the seas had gone bitter, killing off the life and food that could be found within those bodies of water. The freshwater wars had caused real havoc, and many had died when the oceans rose and drowned cities that had once been the seats of power.
There had been no Federation then. Back then; Old Earth had been stuck in a weird time and space hole that let other species go past without ever noticing that place. It had only been after an intrepid explorer who had heard the old tales of how once there had been a place that his race had gone to many years before. They went there because the beings there made for wonderful slaves and they had possessions. Old Earth had not even known that they were not the only beings in the universe.
Being that Earthlings would fight for any reason at all, especially if they had a common enemy, they finally banded together to stop fighting over the resources left on the planet in order to wage war on those in the fledgling Federation.
As a result, they had won a place in it, and their planet, while still mostly ruined and demarcated into two clear cases of rich and poor, had gotten much in the way of tech and aid from the Federation. Tech and aid that helped them to rebuild the still habitable areas until great cities once more stood.
Jessica had grown up in Old Toronto, below ground. Her father had been a smoke boiler, a man who kept the stacks of sun batteries working, and her mother had been a servant in a Federation house.
When she had been eight, her father had sold her into service to the Youth Brigade in order to pay for a medical procedure to save his life.
She had been given a bag and a rake and sent down to the bowels of the tunnels that lay just below the exquisite and guarded communities that those who could afford to live above resided in. Her job had been to gather up as much of the trash as possible every day and take it to the incinerator and compress stations, also below the communities. She knew, going in, that she had little chance of living more than a year at that job. If she didn’t fall off a rope trestle or catch a sickness from the trash and other things down there, she would likely be killed by a terra rat.
Terra rats had long heavy teeth, and they could weigh up to sixty pounds and stand up to three foot tall. After Jessica had witnessed not one but three other workers—all of them adults who had banded together in a
n effort to survive those terra rats, being killed and eaten, she had known just how expendable she was.
The very rich did not give a damn about the people from the below ground. That she had always known. That they would let them die so they did not have to deal with their own damn rats and trash. That had made her angry. She had been determined to survive the year of labor that her father had sold her into and she had been smart enough, after witnessing what the rats could do, to fashion a weapon for herself.
Her first training had been against those rats. It was only after a curious young man from above and his equally curious friends had come down to the tunnels to see if the terra rats they heard of but never saw really did existed that Jessica was noticed by the Federation.
That boy, who had been fourteen and twice her age and much more than twice her size, would have died if she had not seen him and his cowering friends trying to flee from a pack of terra rats.
“Stop running!” her voice echoed throughout the tunnel. “They will kill you if you run; you have to stop and stand your ground!”
They hadn’t stopped, and she had swung down from her perch above, her weapon at the ready. She stabbed one rat and then scrambled up the perch again, her feet barely clearing the perch before the rats began to snap at the dead one, tearing into the carcass with real relish.
The boys had huddled in a blind corner, trapped and unable to get out because the rats were there, right in front of them. Jessica reached a filthy hand down. “Come on. Climb!”
They’d climbed. But the rats, which could also climb, finished snacking on the body of their friend and began to stalk toward them again, their long tails slithering and swishing along the garbage-strewn gutter tunnels.
The one who’d led his friends demanded, “Give me your weapon!”
“No.” her fingers clutched it more tightly. “You don’t know how to use it. I made it myself.”
His hands clasped hers, and he yanked hard. They grimly fought for control of the weapon, a simply sharpened hunk of metal she had found on the trash heaps and sharpened on the stone walls.
