by Lara LaRue
“People, I’ve got an announcement to make.” He grabbed me by the hair and forced me to face the audience. I looked out at them, keeping my expression neutral. There were science officers I had trained with, some I had even considered friends. There were soldiers I had eaten lunch with in the mess hall, soldiers I had gone to physical training courses with, even a few who had flirted with me, with a lot more respect than Norcross had, now that I thought about it. But each and every one of them stared back at me now without a single scrap of sympathy or understanding in their eyes. They were eating up what Norcross was saying. He had already poisoned them against me, and I knew no matter what I said, until something happened to make them more persuadable, there was no point in saying anything.
Norcross raised his voice in the emphatic tones of a vitriolic preacher. “This little traitor bitch is the reason a hundred of our men did not come back from Lyra today. She told them all our secrets. How our weapons work, what our tactics usually are, everything. It’s her fault your brothers in arms are dead. And then, when we brought her back to interrogate her, she murdered Commander Wickman!” His voice brimmed over with false horror. An angry buzz rose from the crowd, and Norcross smirked down at me.
I looked out at all of them and suddenly noticed a change in the room. As they stood obliviously, taking in their new superior’s lecture about what a traitor I was, something was happening no one had seemed to notice yet. High above, amid a nest of exposed ductwork, several ventilation grates opened directly above the crowd. As I watched, what looked like a sparkling golden mist started blowing out of the grates, slowly drifting down toward the crowd in a thickening cloud. My eyes widened slightly as I recognized spores of the Golden Strain, more than I had ever seen in one place. Tabirus put it in the ventilation system!
Norcross went on obliviously, his hand like a steel manacle on my wrist. “It’s become clear this woman is too much of a liability to allow her to continue to survive. Therefore, it is my decision that she be punished in front of everyone, right here, right now. And once I’m done with her, boys, you can do anything to her you want. Just make sure she doesn’t survive it.”
Another rustle went through the crowd. To their credit, most of the soldiers immediately looked uncomfortable. A few men pushed to the front, grinning eagerly. Others stared in horrified sympathy, understanding at once what the less-than-subtle lieutenant planned to do. But in any case, all eyes were on me. None of them noticed the shower of gold descending from above.
Norcross twisted my arm behind my back painfully and drove me hard to my knees. “Now, bitch,” he hissed as he reached to unzip his fly, “you’re going to suck my cock in front of everyone, and that’s just the start.”
“You get that filthy thing near me, I’ll bite it clean off,” I hissed back. “You’re going to kill me anyway. I may as well leave you bleeding out through a groin wound.”
A ripple of laughter went through the crowd, and Norcross looked up in horror. The stage speakers had picked up and broadcasted our conversation. He angrily yanked on my arm, sending jolts of pain up my shoulder. “No, you won’t. You don’t have the guts.”
“You wish I didn’t have the guts. Truth is it will probably take less than a second and only a tiny effort to bite off your dirty dick. Thing’s probably got the dimensions of a toothpick.”
The ripple of laughter grew louder. As I looked out at the crowd, I saw the women laughing the loudest and wondered how many of them he had harassed during his tenure at the base. From their expressions, it was most of them.
Norcross started to huff and hiss through his teeth. He threw me against the stage and started kicking me. His boot slammed into my ribs, making me wince from the pain, but I refused to make a sound. I rolled away from him, and he chased after me, starting to yell and swear. My eyes narrowed. Had about enough of this crap. With nothing to lose, I chose to act.
When he kicked me again, I grabbed his leg suddenly, locking it up with my arms and rolling over. He went down with a yell; the crowd gasped. A few guards ran for the stairs to intervene. Meanwhile, I got up, hauled off, and drove the heel of my boot into Norcross’s groin.
He sucked air and choked, for the air was now full of golden motes, and he had just gotten a lungful of them. His eyes widened. The guards stopped dead, and I heard shouts rise up randomly from the crowd, none of the voices recognizable.
“What’s this shit?”
“Is it an attack?”
“It looks like glitter! Is somebody playing a joke?”
The crowd started to fall apart, some trying to filter their breathing through their uniform jackets, some already inoculated and collapsing under a wave of euphoria, others staring up at the descending golden cloud in wonder. Norcross gagged, curling up and cradling his wounded balls, and then started to choke and wheeze as the Strain hit his system.
I got up and looked around at all of them. “Don’t panic. This substance is benign in nature. You will be all right. Please, just listen to me. Lieutenant Norcross has been lying to you from the start. He’s the one who tried to kill the commander!”
Someone in the crowd tried to take a shot at me, but the bolt went wide. I ducked, looking down at Norcross as I did so. His eyes were rolled back in his head, and the golden motes were turning black as they settled over him. I could see blackness moving through the veins under his skin; he convulsed, drool gathering at the corner of his mouth. Serves you right, asshole.
I bolted for the stairs. No one stopped me; two of the guards looked my way, but their eyes were wide and dilated. I could hear the psychic chaos being unleashed around me. Soldiers and scientists alike panicking or trancing out or falling to fascination; a few even wept with joy as their minds expanded and started to connect. It was like a slow explosion, a wave of psychic energy so powerful it staggered me. I felt a soldier’s mind expand empathically, radiating confusion; I gave him a gentle nudge. Be calm. Tell the others to be calm. You’re not hallucinating. You’re not dying. You’re getting superpowers. And in the process, learning the truth, the truth that would hopefully end this conflict.
I ran out the door and into the hallway, stepping over a lab-coated tech who lay on the floor dreamily, staring up at the downpour of golden spores from a ventilation grate as her eyes slowly went from green to gold. “It’s beautiful,” she murmured. “Am I dying?”
I paused, crouching by her. “No. You’re just adjusting. You’re fine. Soon, you’ll be better than fine.”
She rolled her eyes toward me. “What is this stuff?”
“A gift from the Lyrans. It’s going to help you understand.”
She blinked, and when her eyes opened again, the golden threads had multiplied again. “Understand what?”
“That we and Lyra don’t have to fight for us to get what we need.”
She stared after me as I hurried down the hall, reaching out to Dekkir as I did. I could barely feel him through the cacophony of awakening minds . . . but finally, I found him, heading my direction. He was not alone.
I broke into a run, squinting through the gold-dust-filled air, my head starting to pound from the psychic chaos radiating from the auditorium behind me. It took a minute, but I reached the lifts at the end of the long hall and waited.
The doors opened, and Tabirus walked out with a weak looking but very conscious Wickman leaning on him heavily. His blue eyes were threaded with gold, and a look of hazy wonder filled his expression.
He focused on me after a moment and blinked. “You all right?” he mumbled.
I laughed. “You nearly got your heart flash-burned, and you’re worried about me? I’m fine.”
Tabirus helped him out of the lift, followed by his second, Dr. Eastman, whose eyes were slowly turning the same bronze as mine. He too had a look of wonder on his face. And behind him . . .
I saw Dekkir and ran for him, ignoring the pain in my arm and ribs, thinking only of being in his arms again. But before I could get more than a few steps, a look of hor
ror crossed all four of their faces.
A hand closed on my shoulder and yanked me backward with such strength my feet left the ground. I heard more than felt my collarbone snap and gasped as I was flung back against the wall and pinned.
Norcross held me there with inhuman strength, his lips twitching up into a leering grin. “Got you,” he gurgled, the inside of his mouth as black as his eyes and threads of darkness turning his skin gray. “Whore. Told you I would.”
Eastman stumbled back in horror. “What the hell is that thing?”
“It’s Norcross,” Wickman muttered, pulling the pistol from his belt and aiming at what his second had become. “Let her go, Lieutenant. Your murder and coup attempt have failed.”
“Never! I . . . I . . . I . . . Bitch poisoned me . . . poisoned us all! I’ll take her with me! I’ll take her with me when I die!” His claw-like hand dug into my wounded shoulder, making the broken ends of bone grind against my flesh.
Tabirus started to say something, but it was lost in a roar of outrage from Dekkir. Before anyone could do anything else, he bulled forward, and I saw he had his black spear in his hands. Tabirus had retrieved it for him on the way up.
He drove the spear through Norcross’s midsection; it thunked home in a spray of black, acrid-smelling blood, knocking him away from me. I stumbled back, and Tabirus and the others moved to surround me protectively. But all I could see was Dekkir and the thing he was fighting.
Norcross seemed to have swelled in size. His muscles bulged enough to tear his clothes, black fluid drooled from the corners of his mouth, and his breath came in a wheeze. He grabbed the spearhead and yanked it free. Dekkir twisted it out of his grasp and then stared as the wound knit together in seconds. Norcross shrieked out a laugh. “You can’t kill me!”
“We’ll see about that, abomination,” Dekkir growled.
Norcross hissed and charged him. Dekkir knocked him back with the spear and raked the blade end across his throat. More black gore flew, but the wound still knit together in seconds.
I looked to Tabirus, who was gaping in horror along with the others. “How do we kill it?” I demanded.
“I . . .” He shook his head slightly, staring at the thing circling and lunging as it tried to get at Dekkir. “I have no idea.”
Wickman aimed carefully as Dekkir pushed the thing back again and fired at its chest. Norcross staggered, clutching the wound, but I could see the skin rolling closed almost immediately. “Damn. How is it that everyone else is getting powers and healing old injuries, and he’s turned into a monster?”
“It’s because he was one to begin with,” Tabirus said solemnly. “The Strain’s effects depend on one’s brain chemistry, for that is the seat of its colony within a living thing.”
Dekkir’s eyes narrowed. He had already stabbed the thing, and even lopped off its arm . . . only to watch a new one sprout in its place in seconds. Norcross laughed madly, clawing at Dekkir’s face. The two were at a stalemate: Norcross couldn’t land a solid hit, and Dekkir could not make one count.
I stared at them. The brain is the seat of the Golden Strain’s colony within a living thing. The brain. The brain.
I focused as hard as I could and called out to Dekkir’s mind, Destroy his brain!
Dekkir kicked the creature away with a booted foot and then swept his legs with the shaft of his spear, knocking Norcross onto his back. Before the abomination could recover, he whirled, raised his spear, and drove it through its head, cracking bone and sending its brain splattering. Norcross convulsed, and his screeching went silent. A moment later, his body went slack.
I sighed in relief as Dekkir straightened. I wanted to run to him, but he held up a cautious hand, watching the corpse. Finally, satisfied it was dead for good this time, he sighed his own relief and walked toward me, leaving his spear embedded in the floor behind him. “It must be burned,” he told the others.
I noticed Wickman nod.
Then I was in Dekkir’s arms, breathing in the clean smell of his sweat and shivering with relief as I clutched him closer. “It’s done, my love,” he murmured. “The battle is over.”
CHAPTER 23 / GRACE
A few days later, Dekkir and I stood at the window of our small, carved-wood suite in the heart of master healer Neyilla’s tree tower, watching clean rain bounce down the leaves of the trees around us. My shoulder had healed in an hour once properly set. The only reminder I had of my captivity was the set of manacles that sat on the table as a souvenir of what Dekkir and the others had helped me win back. He and I stood at that window, naked, his warm, muscled form pressed against my back as his arms circled my waist and shoulders. His nose was in my hair, and his breath blew softly against my scalp as we stared thoughtfully out the open window.
“So what did Tabirus say?” I asked drowsily. My muscles still ached a little from the last bout of lovemaking, and I wanted more, but I was also dead curious. My mentor had been too busy training the hundreds of newly inoculated humans in the use of their powers to spend much time contacting me telepathically.
“Once everyone at the base is adapted properly, he will return with Wickman to Earth with the proposal of a further peaceful exchange of resources and knowledge. He will also be explaining the Golden Strain to them and bringing several people with him to demonstrate its ability to enhance humans and other organisms. It is his and Wickman’s hope that they will be able to negotiate peace. He also plans to use old Lyran science to help them repair your world.”
I smiled hopefully. “Good.”
He hesitated. “It was suggested that you return with them, to aid in facing the inquest. But Tabirus said he would understand if you stayed.”
“Good,” I replied, voice firm. “Because I’m not going anywhere.”
Earth was not withdrawing fully from Lyran space, but most of the soldiers were being recalled. In their place, more scientists and technicians would be sent, along with transport ships. In just a day, they had negotiated with Dorin the right to mine silicon and iron from one of the moons. In return, Earth had signed a twenty-year non-aggression pact. It stunned me that it had all happened so fast and filled me with hope that I would soon be able to introduce Dekkir to my family after all.
For now, though, all I wanted was more time with him.
I turned in his arms and ran my hand up and down his chest, leaning up to kiss him. He responded with a little rumble, his hot mouth tasting of the minty tea we had shared and his hands starting to slide over my body. His warm, slightly rough palms left tingling trails behind, and he shivered in turn as I caressed his chest and sides, then ran my nails lightly over his back. His sex stirred against my belly, and I smiled up at him.
Peace between our planets meant the last great challenge to our union had finally died. It could not have come at a better time, for now I was under the master healer Neyilla’s care for a unique reason. In my belly, which had been unsettled for weeks, now grew the first hybrid child of our two races.
When I finally saw my mother, I could tell her of my adventures with a clear conscience. Wickman had promised to advocate for me with Command. Both our actions had been maverick and even a bit defiant compared to protocol, but following protocol had led Norcross to causing the deaths of dozens of innocent soldiers and even more innocent Lyrans. And now a child would be born. Mom would be a grandmother in under a year. If she shed tears now because of all of this, they would be tears of joy.
I looked up at him, at his golden eyes gleaming with love and arousal, at the flow of his white-gold hair, his rugged face set in a soft smile as his hands slid over my breasts. He gently rolled my nipples between his fingertips, then pinched just a little, making me gasp and whimper. My skin had grown even more sensitive with pregnancy, but as with the rest of our union, he knew just what to do and just how to touch me. Tenderness from this powerful sexy warrior always made me melt.
I gasped softly as he lifted me, settling my bottom on the edge of the windowsill and moving forward bet
ween my parted thighs. He leaned me back in his arms a little so I stared up at the dripping canopy as he ran his lips and tongue over my breasts. I felt his member against my thighs and reached down to grip it, running my fingertips up and down his length teasingly until he started to gasp for air.
I scooted forward, bracing one hand on the windowsill, and wrapped my legs around his hips, taking hold of his sex and fitting the head inside me. He thrust forward, his eyes squeezing closed and his back arching, and then kissed me fiercely as he started to move. The hand not braced against my back slipped between us to caress me expertly, in time to his slow, firm thrusts.
Our bellies slapped together, the sound mixing with the rain and our softly labored breathing. I rolled my hips against him, feeling my body tighten around him slowly as his skilled fingers drove me stroke by stroke toward the precipice. We had made love even more often and more fiercely since the battle on the Earth base, reminded by those horrors of the preciousness of what we had. I was his now, forever, and though we would not formalize the union until my parents could visit in a few months, it mattered little. I felt our union all through me: in heart, in mind, all the way down to my bones.
I felt the tension gathering in his loins, his pleasure as my flesh embraced him again and again. I felt his struggle not to tighten his hands too much, to keep the rhythm of his fingers between my thighs. I felt his joy, his hunger, the eagerness with which he looked forward to doing this with me again and again, every night, for however many centuries the Golden Strain would let us live.
My grip on him tightened; I dug my nails into his shoulders, rocking my hips back and forth as I braced my feet against the back of his thighs. My soft moans spiraled upward, punctuated by his low, sharp grunts, which gradually evolved into shouts of pleasure. Outside, the rain intensified. I closed my eyes and felt his fingertips take me over the edge.
My climax touched off his, and the two mixed together, bearing us up toward ecstasy together. Our voices chorused; my flesh clenched around his, and his shuddered inside mine, and pleasure roared through us in long waves while we clung to each other and cried out in ecstasy and joy.
