by Elsa Jade
He was giving her love, sending it to her like a little box first class with the finest Swiss chocolates, something sparkly from Swarovski, and maybe a gift certificate to one of those upscale sex toy shops where the lighting and the music were better than average and all the lube was organic.
Aaaaaand her thoughts were managing to veer wildly astray considering that their path toward that menacing pearl ahead was unfaltering.
It was his fault. How could that single pulse of low-frequency sound be both so tender and yet so erotic?
Lana had told her once according to some mystical traditions, the universe itself had a frequency, and the sound of the frequency was love.
At the time, she’d been only half listening because, really, who listened to love frequencies? But now, with the resonance of Coriolis’s soundwave in her blood, she was ready to believe.
Too bad they were about to flush themselves into a giant upside-down toilet into the highest reaches of Tritona’s stormy skies.
Now that they were nearly upon it, the pearly column resolved into multiple thinner funnels descending from the surface of the water somewhere above them down into the dark. It was impossible that the weather above was so violent that it was sucking water out of the deeps.
And yet…here they were.
According to the legend, vortex riders had to pick the strongest of the underwater tornadoes to grab them and lift them through the funnel to the clouds above. Too many riders in one spout could result in fatal collisions since they would have no control until they deployed their wings.
If they spread the wings too early, the tornadic winds would rip even the tough battle skin fabric apart. Spread too late…and they would plummet to their deaths.
The ancient histories didn’t include shot clocks.
Damiara zipped past them once to catch their attention then pointed upward. Coriolis nodded, his chin bumping on the top of Marisol’s head, and rocketed upward.
Her ears popped and for a moment she worried she’d ruptured her eardrum when a hissing filled her head. But then the sting of rain slashed across her exposed face. They were at the base of a supercell.
The seasonal tempests were supposed to be a time of celebration for the Tritonans, the revelry a reflection of sexual vigor and passionate commitment. The long-running war and the way they’d chosen to separate their roles had all but eliminated interactions between Tritonyri and Tritonesse, and now here she was hijacking one of their strength and bravery trials to continue their battles.
But at least the Cretarni, who likely scraped all the Tritonans security data when Ariab gave them the codes to the citadel’s grid access, would never see this coming.
Mostly because no one could see anything through this relentless rain! Marisol suspected even the Tritonans were foundering. But as the waves tossed them, they put their heads together to be heard over the wind and rain.
“That one’s mine,” Damiara shouted, hooking one thumb over her shoulder.
To Marisol, the half dozen funnels spawned by this cell looked mostly the same—terrifying—although the Tritonesse-ra had definitely picked one of the larger and more terrifying ones.
“I’m going stamina over size,” she yelled back, pointing at another. “That one just started.”
Dami laughed, and with her red hair darkened in the water, she looked a bit demonic. It suited her, Marisol decided generously.
“I’m with you.” Coriolis had his hand on her shoulder.
She shook her head, partly as a no, partly to tug her braid free from under his hold. “We’ve never done this before. I don’t want to risk crashing into you.”
“You did once and enjoyed it.” His gray stare was fiercer than the storm, but he was close enough that he didn’t have to scream it.
The pummeling of the waves knocked her against him.
Or maybe that was just an excuse. “The omen told me you will save Tritona.”
That made his jaw fall open. Good thing he wouldn’t drown. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
She scowled. “Because I’d never had a mystical meeting before and I was kind of overwhelmed.” And because it had been special to think that he’d pledged himself to her with such devotion that he’d die without her.
But thinking it through, he couldn’t save Tritona and pine away for her, and his world came first. It had to, and she understood. Even she wasn’t so selfish as to demand he sacrifice a whole planet of his people to prove his love.
One night and one fight should be enough for her.
Impulsively, she grabbed him and sank him under. Without the rain and wind, it was almost peaceful—except for the cyclonic monsters all around—and she kissed him.
The salty water sealed their lips together, and she let her gills stretch. Through those fragile structures, the taste of him—spicy and wild—was almost too much. Maybe she was selfish to want it all.
Maybe she’d be a pirate mermaid, stealing his treasure, just for this moment.
She clung to him until she sensed the force of her chosen tornado dragging her away. Their lips parted without any sound or sensation, the rough caress of the raging water not so different from this last desperate kiss.
The riot of skinshine revealed by his battle skin told her he wasn’t ready to part.
A short distance away, Damiara had abandoned her propeller and was swimming hard toward the underwater pillar of her spout. The pack with her wing was fitted tight to her back, the glimmering AI threads cued to read the wind speed and direction to fire her toward the spaceport where hopefully the other Tritonyri were holding fast.
If not… Marisol gulped. They were about to drop in on the enemy unannounced and she hadn’t brought enough of the tasty lava-leaf for everyone.
She treaded water backward away from him, moving only her feet and clutching the straps of her wing pack to stop herself from reaching for him.
He too retreated, his rainbow-shot stare locked on her. The whole time he withdrew, his gaze was on her, until the spinning whip of the funnel grabbed him and flung him upward out of sight.
Her turn.
She spun to find her tornado right behind her and she dove into the white whirlwind of water.
At first it felt like an overly bubbly hot tub, a bit too sting-y. The mica it had scoured from the ocean bottom was a strip of glass tearing at her exposed skin. Trying to hold her external gill in place—no way did she want to breathe mica—she lost control of her tumble. The powerful vortex drew her higher, away from the ocean, and the ratio of water droplets to shrieking gale thinned. When the gill was torn from her mouth, she gasped in the diluted air. Which way was up…
It was all up.
Until it wasn’t.
She’d gone skydiving once and parasailing twice and ballooning several times. This was none of those. She had no lines to tug, no peaceful view. All that existed was the vortex. Her skin burned, but was it the cruel carving of a million little mica flecks…or a warning from the AI threads that she needed to spread her wing?
She’d spent too much of her life waiting. This time she knew what she wanted.
Just as she began to fall, she launched the wing. The black skin flared wide, tossing her out into open sky in the space between the bottom of the originating cloud and the dissipating funnel. Her braid, tugged loose by the brutal wind, unraveled and streamed out behind her. For just a moment, she was an iriwyl, high and free, and Tritona was her world to roam.
Her tornado fell back to the Sea, leaving her to glide swiftly inland. From here, the mountain range was only a dark wall beyond the storm—a barricade holding in the supercell. The slash of rain and howling wind left her almost as lost as the gleeful toss of the funnel. Then a glimmer of artificial lights caught her eye. The port!
As she angled the wing that direction, she scanned the heights for Coriolis. They’d agreed to go radio silent, or the alien equivalent, to avoid detection.
In the moment, her heart hung in the air. She wanted to sho
ut out his name, lonely as a seagull’s cry.
But a brighter flash of light from the port reminded her this wasn’t a pleasure flight. In quick succession, three more lights flared in a row.
A bombing run? But there were no other ships in the storm-wracked sky.
She conjured the image of her first flight in the Bathyal across the port, the one Tritonyri waving at them—small against the divots in the tarmac and the polluted stretch of river.
And beyond him had been the anti-aircraft guns.
It had been an ugly reminder, she’d thought at the time. Now, it could remind the Cretarni why they’d left in the first place.
She spun hard, nearly stalling, to bring the wing down in a steep descent. Skim fast across the open tarmac before whoever had the explosives decided to pick off the innocent little bird flying into the heart of the storm.
A scintillating flash dazzled her, and she winged blind for an instant. If they’d found her…
The boom of thunder cracking right overhead was a short-lived relief as another strike of lightning slashed sideways in front of her, followed by another deafening roar. Didn’t matter if the Cretarni or Tritona itself was taking shots at her; she be just as dead either way.
Leaning into the wing, she forced it lower. There, the river. Now where…?
The turreted dome of the stationary gun flashed by below her. Damn it. She tried to wheel back around—seagulls made it look easy when there were snacks involved—but the wind grabbed the leading edge and flipped her over. She yelped, and rain poured over her face as she fell backward, the black skin trapped under her and flapping helplessly around her limbs.
She only had a moment…
—Maybe less.
Instead of crashing and dying, she slammed into an obstacle seemingly as broad and hard as the mountains—and she soared.
Instead of breaking bones, the battle skin absorbed the worst of the blow. As she started to laugh in relief, the tip of the wing crumpled over her face, muffling her hysterical giggle. Just as well. She swiped at the fabric, but her arms were tangled in the semi-rigid struts of the frame, and something was pushing the fabric into her gasping mouth. After risking an alien abyss, she would suffocate in a wing…
Thunder rolled again, although this time she hadn’t seen the flash. No, not thunder—Coriolis’s rumbling voice telling her to hold on…
Even without the reassuring ping that echoed through her chest like a more intimate thunder, she knew that touch, those long fingers that tugged at her shroud. Of course she did. She tried to help by wriggling, but he stilled her with a warning squeeze.
He unwrapped her like a gift fallen from the sky, still holding her tight against a worse fall
She gazed up at him, grateful for the rescue and the relentless rain washing away the tears.
Lightning blasted across the sky above him—how could it get any closer?—turning his gray eyes black. “I saw you fall.”
Mutely, she cupped one hand around his cheek and stroked her thumb across his trembling lower lip. He slammed her to his chest, tighter than his storm-filled wing arched on the wind above them.
He kissed her with reckless hunger, as if they weren’t hovering, unnoticed, above a new war. Lighting spread grasping white fingers across the sky toward them.
“You taste like rain,” he said in a rasping voice. “And your hair was silver fire above the black as you fell. Like some creature of eld coming down from the mountains.”
“I feel like someone threw me down from the mountain,” she whispered against his neck.
His laugh cracked like another bolt of lightning. But then he shook her. “What did you think you were doing, turning like that?”
“Trying to get to the gun turret.”
He glared at her. “That was my mission.”
“I didn’t know we had missions. What was mine?”
“To chicken out.”
She stiffened. “You have chickens?”
“Everyone has chickens.”
At least she thought he said that; the blast of thunder obscured some of it. Anyway, she didn’t think they were talking about the same thing, but it was too late for that. “You mean you expected me to run away.”
“No,” he drawled with a faint note of reluctance. “I expected you not to run toward. This isn’t your fight, Marisol.”
Glaring back at him, she tugged at her broken wing tangled around her. “It is when I’m with you.”
He just stared up at her, his stormy eyes filling with the merciless lightning.
Then he turned her in the cradle of his arms so that her spine was curved to his wide chest. He laced her to him with tethers from his battle skin.
And he became her wing.
Across the tarmac below them came the flash and crackle of small arms fire—somehow more alarming than the lightning and thunder. As together they circled through the storm, quartering the spaceport on rising and falling draughts, they found his Tritonyri hunkered down within striking distance of one turrets but unable to advance with a larger squadron in Cretarni gear pinning them in crossfire.
“The Cretarni command is willing to sacrifice foot soldiers to clear the way for their ships,” Coriolis said in a savage voice. “They won’t risk coming in hot through this storm until they know they have a path.”
“Then they don’t get one.”
“You make a fine Tritonesse.”
Did she? Tucked into the shelter of his body, she squeezed his forearm clamped at her belly. “What’s Damiara’s mission? I bet she got a mission without chickens. Wait, the other gun turret?”
With his head angled alongside hers, he nodded. “If the Cretarni get those, the port is theirs.”
“And if we get there first…”
“They can’t land.”
“Grak-cret,” she muttered. “Sounds like something a chicken would say.”
He squeezed her in return. “You have one of the citadel weapons I handed out?”
She settled her hand at her hip. “I’ve only shot targets.”
“Dami is the same.”
“Yeah, I guess I could shoot her too.”
His chuckle was as rough as the wind. “Remind me to watch my back.”
“That’s what I’m here for.” She gulped. “I should’ve let you bring your fighters instead, shouldn’t I have?”
He gazed at her. “I was wrong. You’re a fighter too.”
When he put his hand on her hip, she tilted her head back toward him for a kiss… And ended up with the pistol in her palm.
Not a euphemism, sadly. She sighed. Right now, he was a fighter, not a lover. “I’m ready.”
“Battle AIs have to sacrifice some sophistication for speed and size constraints. But our weapons sights are linked to our skins, so let the pressure guide your shots. The AI will prevent friendly fire.”
She shivered. “Maybe not ready.”
“No one is.”
He let her fall.
The tethers he’d attached to her wing spread the black skin wide, belling it into the wind again. The wing caught the gusts, and then the lines broke free as he let her fly.
Her stomach dropped, then soared, and the rest of her followed a moment later.
Side by side now, she and Coriolis swept across the tarmac toward his trapped Tritonyri.
Weapons fire—the smaller caliber crack of rifles and larger booms—struggled for wavelengths around the furious attack of the supercell to the point that her body was numb from the acoustic barrage. Or maybe slamming into him when he’d caught her had hurt more than she’d noticed at the time.
The pistol in her hand and the AI threads woven through her battle skin tingled and tightened. As she and Coriolis descended on the fighting, the weapon seemed to aim her. She watched, detached but aching, as her pistol and Coriolis’s long rifle cleared the Cretarni squadron.
Clearly not expecting attack from the storm above, not when the Tritonyri had always retreated to the Sea, the Cretar
ni broke and ran.
The Tritonyri company cheered as Coriolis flashed past them, tilting his wing to display the stylized W frequency of her grandmother’s ring stitched in silver through the black. Most of his fighters pursued the Cretarni, but two Tritonyri ran for the turret.
While Coriolis wheeled to provide support from the air, she spun the other way, searching. Across the tarmac in a second defensive position, the other turret partially blocked a crumpled black rag.
Marisol gasped. The third wing… She scanned for Damiara then glanced back at Coriolis. He was still shepherding those vital gunners. So she twisted back, letting her wing catch a gust high, still searching…
There! The tall Tritonesse had almost made it to the second gun, but two Cretarni soldiers blocked her way, and a third stood at a right angle, cornering her.
For a heartbeat, the AI opposed her, tightened her muscles to take her higher, away from the fight.
Letting go, she plummeted.
Lighting spiked behind her, so close her hair prickled. At the last moment, the two Cretarni looked up.
Much too late.
She clenched every muscle, pulling up hard, like a seagull coming in for a stolen snack—and kicked out. Her lightweight boot only clipped one, but the power of her momentum sent him spinning. The edge of the wing raked the other Cretarni, and they all three tumbled across the tarmac, yelling.
By the time Marisol struggled free of the now ruined wing, Damiara had shot all three Cretarni.
Marisol froze, staring into the other woman’s white-shielded eyes. The Tritonesse wasn’t growling or impatient now.
“The turret,” Marisol prodded. There was no time to question.
Damiara nodded. “Mine. Go after the commander.”
As if she needed the permission.
Marisol spun away, gathering the cloak of her silver battle skin close against the squalling downdrafts that seemed to want to lift her into the air again.
