Nova

by Lora E. Rasmussen

  Seemingly years later, the cabin doors hushed closed and the two were at last, blessedly alone.

  Restraints of duty and decorum relinquished, Diana immediately grabbed Avara’s too spare form, holding fast and as closely as possible. When Avara’s strong arms wrapped around Adeline and returned the fervency of her embrace, it was if a dam had been shattered by an earthquake, allowing carefully checked emotion to flood forth. Heart–shattering fear and life–giving relief vied for supremacy as Diana’s tears flowed.

  “Shh, it’s okay Diana, everything is going to be okay.”

  “Oh, Avara. I thought I had lost you in the explosion, on that damn planet.” Diana sobbed, finally choking out the words that had held her captive for these last dark weeks.

  “It’s all going to be alright, Diana.” Serros soothed, holding her tighter and gently kissing her temple then brow, an offer of comfort and affection that nearly undid Diana all over again.

  Smiling slightly and moving her eyes to Avara’s face, consuming the features of the woman she loved with her entire self, Diana whispered Avara’s name once more like the sharing of a benediction, and then pressed her mouth to Serros’s.

  The kiss was deep, and as her mouth moved with Avara’s, the fleeting thought that she could never kiss Avara sufficiently to be satisfied raced in her mind. That close could never be close enough, but that she would spend the rest of her life happily making the attempt.

  After some minutes, Avara gently pulled her mouth from Diana’s, though she didn’t release her tight hold around Adeline’s waist. Looking at Avara’s face, it was as if a mask had fallen. Now that all immediate crises had been addressed, Diana could read how worn Avara was. Exhaustion was literally pouring off of her like rain in a storm, yet enervation was not the only story to be told.

  Diana caught a strange, sweet yet sad ripple in those magnetic eyes and though she couldn’t capture its exact meaning, the poignant expression tugged at her very core.

  Running her left hand through Avara’s thick, dark locks and placing a soft kiss on her cheek, Diana remarked, “You look like you’re going to fall asleep where you’re standing, Officer. It’s off to the showers and then bed with you, Captain.”

  Offering the trademark crooked half–smile that Diana knew and loved so well, Avara laughed lightly and replied, “Hmm. I’m gone for hardly any time at all, and you’ve already taken over my ship, I see.”

  “Only when it comes to your wellbeing, Captain. Now go on; to the showers!” Adeline answered with a gentle shove to propel Avara in the direction of her bathroom.

  “Yes, Mam.” Serros answered, issuing a smart–ass salute to go along with her vocal tone.

  While Diana left Avara to the no doubt much craved privacy of an extended shower after weeks of being stuck on the surface of Dantis, Diana commed for another meal to be sent up the Captain’s Cabin and then occupied herself with going over next week’s duty rosters. Truth to tell, she could hardly concentrate.

  Hearing Avara in the next room, unconsciously singing in that sweet alto that was all her own, sitting in these quarters surrounded by books, keepsakes, mementoes, and works of rendered art that were all her love’s, focusing on crew scheduling was the last thing she wanted to be doing right now.

  The bell–chime asking for entry came almost as a relief twenty minutes later, and Diana sprang up to meet it. Bennet Gaius’s smile was a welcome sight as he came in with a covered hand tray.

  “Lieutenant Commander Adeline.” He greeted, warmth in his light eyes as he nodded his pepper–haired head in greeting. “Some food for our patient.”

  “Excellent, Gaius, thank you.” Diana answered warmly.

  “Is that you, Ben?” Avara’s voice called from the bathroom beyond the living space’s wall and from within her bedroom.

  “Yes, Captain. Just making a special delivery.” The Captain’s Steward answered, lightly wrinkled face split into a smile.

  Coming out of her bed chamber wearing loose pants and a standard issue, royal blue tank, undried hair still dripping, Avara removed the lid then exclaimed, “Ha! It’s like a holiday. I should go missing more often!” Her comment was punctuated by enthusiastic inhalation of the wafting aroma of creamy, sweet–risotto and plump golden raisins still steaming in the large bowl.

  “I think not, Captain, or its bread and water for you.” Gaius answered, his tone and feigned disapproval hiding the very real worry Diana knew he’d carried with him for the duration of Serros’s absence.

  “Tyrant!” Avara accused fondly, gripping his shoulder for a moment in affection.

  “Yes, well, I shall leave you to it.” Just before reaching the cabin door, Bennet wagged his thick brows and admonished “Now make sure you get some rest, ladies.” Then, with a serene smile on his face, he exited the Captain’s Cabin before either woman could say anything in response.

  As Diana fought her blush, Avara issued a rueful shrug of her shoulders and then, bowl and spoon in hand, took a seat at her couch and set to eating the divinely smelling dish. As the Captain consumed her repast and the two sat next to one another and exchanged very basic observations and small snippets from the last few weeks, though thrilled to be so close to Avara once more, Diana couldn’t help but feel like there was a new sense of distance between them. One that had not existed before the events that fell into play with the TS Ardent.

  More, now that Avara had changed, Diana noted with worry several new scars and bruises that, though she knew with Serros’s PV would fade in time, such injuries still signified the harrowing ordeal she had survived. Her heart hurting for what Avara had experienced, Diana consciously pushed the lingering vestiges of unease she felt at Avara’s uncharacteristic, faint reserve as she watched Serros’s lids flutter and chin droop for the second time during the meal.

  “All right Avara, time to get you to bed, I should think, before you fall asleep face first in your porridge.” Diana commented briskly.

  Shaking her head to wake up, Avara responded with an embarrassed smile, “I suppose that wouldn’t be terribly dignified of me, would it?”

  “No, not really.” Diana answered, gently pushing Avara through the living–work space of the cabin to Serros’s bedroom. Tucking the covers up over and around them both and then holding tight to Avara as she spooned the Captain’s back, Diana gently trailed several kisses on Avara’s neck and then whispered, “Sleep, now Avara. It’s time to sleep.”

  Avara’s half–murmured response was quickly followed by her strong, even tempoed breathing as the Shield Operative almost instantly dropped into deep, bone–weary somnolence. Feeling content for what felt like the first time in forever, Diana also finally drifted off to be cradled by untroubled dreams.

  *

  Diana Adeline was unsure at first what had roused her, but when she heard Avara cry out, “No! No, no!” she realized that Avara was caught up in the throes of a nightmare. Seeing the raven dark hair shine from perspiration as the Captain tossed back and forth, arm on her forehead as if set to protect, Diana gently touched Avara’s cheek and urged her to wake.

  Without warning, the Captain shot straight up to a sitting position, blue eyes wild and open as if desperate to locate some unseen attacker.

  “Avara, it’s okay, love. You’re aboard the Excalibur, all is well.” Diana soothed, unused to see her friend and lover as vulnerable as she seemed right now. Adeline sat with Serros and gently but firmly began to rub her left shoulder and neck.

  Canting her head around her own bedroom, the sense of panic and imminent battle drained from Avara’s eyes and energy. “I’m sorry; a bad dream.”

  “So I see.” Diana said, grasping Avara close, continuing to rub her neck and shoulders. “Anything you want to talk about?

  “No, thanks. It’s just… a lot happened on the Ardent and on Dantis, Diana.” Avara answered, her tone both haunted and melancholy at the same time as she rubbed her palms against her face.

  Unsure what to say or do to help ease Avara o
f whatever burden she was obviously carrying with her, Diana asked “Would you like to go back to sleep? I’m sure more rest could only do you good.”

  Offering an expression that was half grimace, Avara replied “I’m not sure I can sleep right now; my dreams are a little too intense.”

  “Well,” Diana remarked, issuing a coy smile before moving her lips to Avara’s shoulder and neck, “I’m certain I can come up with something to occupy your mind and chase away the bad dreams.” Shifting her position so that though she was still bearing her own weight, she sat straddling Avara’s hips, her pose placing their faces less than a breath apart. Then Diana kissed Avara, first with gentle tenderness and then crushing her lips in rising passion.

  Fire raced through Adeline at the contact, craving pooling from her center like warm honey dripping from a ladle, tempo increasing as she felt Avara gradually respond. Moaning, Diana wanted, needed more, and that need resulted in an avid questing of lips and tongue, even as she gently pushed Avara back onto the bed.

  With care that did nothing to check the ache she felt, Diana’s right hand slipped under the thin tank Avara wore and traced a path towards Avara’s nipple, which hardened almost immediately at her touch. With her mouth still claiming, Diana moved her fingertips to Avara’s waistband to search out the answer to her need.

  Unexpectedly, Diana felt Avara’s smooth–palmed, yet iron–firm grip bar her from entry, felt herself gently half–pushed off as Avara straightened once more to an upright position.

  Attempting to claim Avara’s mouth once more only to be denied, Diana asked, “What is it? Am I hurting you? Are you okay?”

  “No, it’s not that, it’s just… I’m sorry Diana, I can’t.”

  Speared into place by the intensity of those beautiful eyes and the sadness they conveyed, Diana felt an unexpected disquiet.

  “I…” Avara started, then blinked, obviously shaken by something, some emotion she was attempting to come to grips with that was painful for her to face, to qualify.

  This was more than a nightmare, more than the ordeal of survival. “What do you mean, you can’t, Avara?” Diana asked, the vague feeling of foreboding now flowering to a tendril of real fear.

  “We have to talk, Diana.” Avara answered finally, moving her hands so that one of Diana’s was captured in each of her own.

  Meeting Diana’s gaze fully, her night–blue eyes glowing with sincerity, undeniably brimming with an affection that Diana could plainly read, Avara avowed “I love you, Diana, so very much, and nothing will ever change that.”

  “But?” Diana whispered, not wanting but needing to hear what her lover was struggling to communicate.

  Taking a deep breath and gripping her hands still harder, Avara quietly answered “Something has changed for me, since Dantis. Or, maybe changed isn’t the right word, maybe realization is more accurate.”

  Like an actor trapped into delivering pre–scripted lines, Diana forced herself to ask “Do you mean something changed for you on planet with Lieutenant Z’arr?”

  “Yes.” Serros answered directly, and Diana could see it was hard for Avara to say that word, not because she was being untruthful, but because she didn’t want to cause Diana pain. Her motives didn’t matter. Diana felt blackness threaten to take away sight, felt as if her heart was held between two chill pylons of a merciless steel vice.

  “Are you lovers?” Diana half–choked the question, tears pooling in her eyes.

  “No, we’ve not been deliberately intimate sexually, but there is… a bond between K’llan and I, that is very real.” Avara answered immediately, though there was something about the words she chose and how she uttered them that gave Diana pause, meaning obfuscated.

  “What the Bloody Hell does that even mean, Avara? Not ‘deliberately intimate sexually’? Does that mean you were accidently?” Diana finally asked, anger stirring for the first time, born from pain, confusion, and awful fear.

  Like a person determined to bravely walk the plank with courage no matter the watery grave that awaited, Avara answered evenly, “I mean that there is a psychic and spiritual bond between K’llan and I that came into existence during the first few times that we met. And I also mean that while on planet, that link expanded or, I don’t know, expedited the process of actualization… because K’llan Fed from me.”

  “What?” Diana exclaimed, hearing shock color her own voice like a stranger reacting to their conversation.

  “Yes. It was the only way for K’llan to survive; she would have starved to death otherwise.” Avara explained, and Diana could feel Avara’s absolute belief in the claim. “And the process is… intimate. So though we did not have sex, Feeding is… sexual by nature, especially if a bond is already present.”

  “I don’t fully understand, Avara.” Diana finally proclaimed, feeling like she could barely stop from screaming her frustration aloud. “Fine, what’s done is done. I can accept why you let K’llan Feed from you, and I don’t even care what did or did not happen between the two of you on that bloody planet.”

  Mostly.

  Savagely shaking off the image of her love and the Vosaia locked in a passionate embrace, Diana continued, “Now we move on. Unless the act created some sort of hold on you? Some kind of influence?”

  “You don’t understand, Diana.” Avara responded. “I am not under any sort of… influence. The bond between K’llan and I was already there, even though I didn’t fully understand it before. Remember what I said to you right before the first time we made love? Why I couldn’t fully commit to us?” Serros asked, her voice earnest.

  Looking into Avara’s eyes, seeing the grief written there, the determination to be truthful, Diana thought to herself how incredibly unfair this entire situation was. How during the last weeks she’d done nothing but desperately cling to the hope of being reunited with Avara, to again hold and be held by the person she loved above all others, the woman she wished nothing more than to spend the rest of her days with.

  And now this.

  “Yet when I kiss you, when I touch you, I can feel that you want me, Avara. So what does that mean?” Diana finally asked, trying to make Avara select a different choice than the one Adeline was afraid she’d already made.

  Shaking her head, crystalline tears quietly flowing, Avara responded, “It means exactly what I said before, Diana. That I do and always will love you. That at another time, this discussion never would have been.”

  Diana wanted to ask Avara to give it some time, give them some time, a chance. But she could not. For that was when Diana knew, truly knew, what it was Avara was trying to tell to her. Still, she needed to hear those final, damning words; needed the absolutism of a kind of death to search a way forward.

  “Are you in love with her, Avara?”

  Gaze still locked with Diana’s, Avara answered quietly, “Yes, I am.”

  With those three words, Diana felt her world shatter, felt light and hope and tomorrow reduced to ash blown away by winter’s wind.

  Avara loved and would always love Diana; she was in love with K’llan.

  Diana abruptly snatched her hands away from Avara’s grasp and half–stumbled to her feet from the bed as she turned blindly towards the door, not pausing to gather her clothes or data–screen, just needing desperately to leave.

  Yet before she had even reached the cabin’s portal, Avara was there, moving with the speed of a phantom to block Diana’s path, placing very real, very warm arms around Diana in a fierce embrace. “I am so sorry, Diana. So very sorry.” Adeline could feel the Captain’s hot tears trickle to her own head then face, was rocked by Serros’s trembling that intermingled with hers.

  Letting Avara hold her, letting herself feel safe and be comforted for one final moment, Diana whispered, “I know, Avara.”

  Then, pulling back just enough to meet Avara’s tear–filled face, Adeline offered a faint smile traced with self–directed scorn, and no small measure of bitterness.

  “I was wrong, you know; I di
d lose you on that planet.” She whispered, and then fled the cabin. This time Avara did not stop her.

  CHAPTER 31

  The last four days had felt like nothing less than some sort of temporal distortion, hours blurring together with the plethora of tasks and duties to be performed that had accreted and multiplied during her absence. Yet perversely, Avara felt that time was somehow being held captive, shackled from its normative flow as Serros lost hours to much needed rest, even while being plagued by unsettled emotion.

  Repair manifests, procurement needs, crew promotion and replacement requisitions, letters to the family and loved ones of those that they had lost during the Ardent’s explosion and the battle with the TS Watcher; all this and more took up the majority of the Captain’s waking hours. When not focused on managing the direct needs of her ship and crew, with almost fanatical zeal, Avara set herself to the task of drawing up preliminary plans and strategies in preparation for the dark days she knew were lying ahead for all the Quorum Aligned Systems.

  The Shield Operative expended countless hours not only strategizing against identifiable enemies, but also worked tirelessly drafting proposals to the Quorum and individual system administrations to ensure that all governments recognized and acted on the coming threat of escalated conflict with the Karukai Imperium. It would be a hard sell for many, some not wanting to believe the menace was real or being too occupied with day to day affairs of governance, others with concerns over prestige and self–serving economic interests.

  But Captain Avara Serros intended to succeed.

  When not sleeping or preoccupied with her duties, Avara struggled with a deep sense of grief that warred with the relief at being home and the peace of decision.

  Other than the barest of communication over responsibilities and the performance of duty, Avara had only spoken with Diana once since ending their romantic relationship. It had been almost unbearably painful for them both. When inquired upon, Diana communicated in no uncertain terms that she was doing poorly and expected that to remain true for the foreseeable future.