by Tia Wylder
“She wasn’t,” Liana said reassuringly. “She’s fine.”
Merrill shook his head, seeming weary. “This wasn’t the eighteenth birthday I wanted to give her. Now I have to keep her safe, and I don’t even know what I’m trying to keep her safe from.”
Liana put an arm on his shoulder. “We’ll get some answers. Then you’ll know better how to protect her.”
“I’d better,” said Merrill, his mind now turning to the last time he saw his little girl, happily watching the concert with her friends. She was eighteen years old now, facing a galaxy full of wonderful things—and things unknown for which no one including her father could prepare for.
Chapter Four
The gym facility was a short walk from where Tia and her father lived. She was there, clad in a leotard and using a pair of gravity weights while checking her form in the mirror that took one wall when two Security men brought him in. Tia was so focused on the way the small weights, which were themselves very light but used the same tech as the artificial gravity in a spaceship, gave her resistance as she raised and lowered them, that she almost did not notice him coming in. He was no longer wearing the strange suit in which he had so dramatically arrived last night; he had been issued a sleeveless leotard of his own. But then, she could not have missed that face. It was too unforgettably handsome. And his tight, hard body, packed into that tight, sleek garment, was too striking. With a hard exhale, Tia lowered the weights to her sides and thumbed the control to turn them off. She turned around to get a better look at him striding into the gym while the two Security men stationed themselves at the entrance. The view was better every second.
How was it even possible for a man to be so good-looking? And to be sure, he had just recently grown into his full manhood; Tia could tell it had not been long since he was a boy her own age. He was probably twenty, perhaps twenty-one. He probably had just two or three years on her. But what years they were. From the perfect thicket of dark hair on his head to the hypnotic man-boy handsomeness of his face to the way those muscles sang with his every movement under the dark, clinging fabric of the leotard, he looked like an impossible thing made real. And then there was what bulged in the crotch of his suit bottom; the roundness and fullness that made Tia recall every night she had lain alone in bed thinking about touching what a boy had down there, or every night she had sat up with a girlfriend talking about it. And every time she had imagined or whispered about doing more than touch it: licking it, putting it in her mouth and feeling it throb against her tongue and slide between her lips, letting him climb on top of her and put it…
Suddenly, rudely, in the middle of imagining how it must be to receive the greatest gift a boy could give her, Tia’s mind whipped around to the subject of gifts in general—and the memory of the gifts she had gotten last night. And the gift that was so shockingly, violently interrupted when this vision of man-boy perfection came hurtling into what had been the happiest night of her life, bringing terror and violence and upheaval with him. And suddenly, Tia’s pumping heart turned to fire, and her rushing blood turned to steam, and her teeth clenched in her mouth, and she dropped the weights, her hands turning to fists, and made an angry beeline right for him.
“You!” Tia cried, seizing his attention and stopping him in his tracks. “You…you! What are you doing loose? Why didn’t they lock you up?”
He made a stunned and frowning look at her. “What…?”
Stopping just a couple of steps in front of him, Tia shook her finger at him, wanting to do a lot more, but wary of the Security personnel. “For your information, that was my birthday party you broke up last night! That pavilion they had to blow up to stop you, that was where I was having my birthday party! You scared the living stars out of everybody! Why aren’t you locked up?”
The lad glanced over his shoulder at the uniform men. “I’m under surveillance all the time. I’m as good as locked up.”
“Is that so?” Tia glowered at him. “And just who is it they’ve got under surveillance? What’s your name anyway.”
“Jay Goodwill,” he said.
“Well, Jay Goodwill,” Tia snapped, “my father happens to be the Chief Administrator of this colony. I have a good mind to ask him why they’re just letting you run around loose!”
“They’ve got people watching me,” Jay quietly said. “I’m not going to do anything now. I was…not well when I got here. I was sick. Crazy. When I came to after…your party…my head cleared up. I’m better. I don't mean to hurt anyone. I’m sorry I scared you. And I’m sorry about your party.”
Tia’s mood softened and cooled only slightly. She was not prepared for the madman who had crashed her party in every sense of the word to be so calm now, so quiet, even polite. He was practically a gentleman. She had expected him to be a beast. A hot, gorgeous, steamy, sensual, dangerous beast. She’d been ready for that. She was not ready for this. But she was still angry. “So how did you get that way, anyway?” she demanded.
“I don’t know,” said Jay. “Listen, I’m not some kind of wild man. I’m not. I’m a member of Stellarforce. As a matter of fact, that and my name…that’s about all I know about myself right now. Everything else is a blank. If I’d been myself last night, I wouldn’t have done anything like that.”
“You’re sure about that?” Tia frowned.
“I’m sure,” said Jay. “I’ve…lost my memory, except for my name. But I know I’m not a wild man. I’m a space soldier, and I’ve got my duty. I just…don’t know what my duty is right now. Or anything else.”
She calmed down a bit more now, even more unprepared for his manner and what she was hearing from him. “Nothing?” she asked.
“Nothing,” he said. And there was a pain in his attitude, a genuine pain. He was not pretending; he was for real. She could see that the void in his mind, in which his only vague memory was of what he did last night, was hurting him. And for the first time since she spotted him, Tia felt a glimmer of something like compassion. “The people interrogating me—I didn’t even know I was a Lieutenant until they told me. And my records are locked up; the man leading the interrogation—I guess that must have been your father—had to put out a request to have them opened up.”
Somehow Tia found herself sitting with him on a bench near where she’d been working out. He sat beside her, half hunched over, staring either at nothing or at something he wasn’t able to discern. And with a pang of sympathy she had not had a moment ago, Tia asked, “There really isn’t anything you remember at all? What about where you were before you showed up here? Do you know where that was?”
“It’s not clear,” Jay said, trying to concentrate. “I’ve got this strange feeling of being someplace dark and closed in, and…covered in something. Or maybe, I don’t know, submerged in something, like you’d be submerged under water like I was drowning. Only it wasn’t water. It was thick and dark, and…I don’t know what it was. But I wanted to get out; I remember that much. And then I was out, and then…” He put his hands over his face, making an ever greater effort to call back his memories, struggling inside himself. “And then…all I could see were these…I don’t know what you’d call them. Shapes. All I could see were these shapes.”
“Shapes of men? Of people?”
He took down his hands and nodded no. “Not people. I don’t think they were people. And they were all around me. And all I wanted to do…was kill them. And I did. I started firing at them, and I saw them fall. And I think there were other people around me, shooting at them too. And I think suddenly I broke into a run. Yes, I was running. And the shapes were chasing me, and people were shooting at the shapes. And I jumped into someplace, like a cell, or…maybe it wasn’t a cell, but it was someplace lit up. And it was all lit up for a second, and then I was someplace else…” He looked over at her, one small piece of memory clicking into place. “I jumped into a Transit port. An interstellar Transit port. Without a spaceship, with just what I was wearing, which wasn’t a regular uniform. An
d somehow I knew what I had on would protect me. And I Transited out from…” A look of pale shock came over him—shock, and clarity, and realization. “I was at a Stellarforce space station, and I was in training, and we came under attack, and…and I deserted my post! I did that; something made me go berserk, and I deserted my post! I deserted the rest of my unit and jumped into a Transit port!” He leaped up from the bench as if his clothes were on fire. “I’ve got to find out what happened to the rest of my unit! I’ve got to get in touch with Command, find out what happened at the station, see if anyone else made it out! And…and…what happened to me! They’ve got to know what happened!”
Tia quickly stood up beside him. “Jay,” she said, “it sounds like what you did wasn’t your fault. It sounds like these ‘shapes’ you’re talking about did something to you, like that was what made you that way. Listening to you, I don’t think you did what you did on purpose. Maybe you didn’t mean to desert your unit. Maybe whatever these ‘shapes’ did to you made you act the way you did.” Reflexively, not even aware she was doing it at first, Tia reached out and took him by one arm. One lean, muscular, perfect arm. She was startled when she realized she was touching him, and from the look on his face, he was as startled as she was.
Jay, who had been facing the door, spun halfway around to face her and surprised both of them further by taking Tia by the shoulders. And there he was, touching her, holding her with those strong, smooth, duty-trained hands. In his grip, so strong but oddly so safe, Tia forgot to breathe.
“I’ve got to know,” Jay said. “I’ve got to talk to your father again. And the other people who interrogated me. I need to tell them what I remember now, and find out about my station, maybe see if they’ve been in touch with Command. Maybe Command can tell me the whole story of what happened.” Then, more quietly, he added: “And figure out what discipline to hold on me for running away.” Now he sank into a voice and an expression of shame and sorrow. “I ran away, Tia. From my unit, my friends, my station, when we were under attack. Tia, I ran away.”
“You didn’t mean to,” she said, meaning it from the bottom of her heart. “I know you didn’t.”
They stood that way for a moment, Jay grasping Tia by the shoulders, until the footsteps of the Security men drew near. Tia watched them approach over Jay’s shoulder, and Jay did a half-turn to look at them and realized he had grabbed the Colonial Chief’s daughter in view of personnel who were there to protect her and the Colony. As quickly as he had grasped her, Jay let go.
The uniformed men came up next to them, and one of them asked, “What’s going on over here? Ms. Swift, are you all right? Is he hurting you?”
“No!” Tia exclaimed, her fear and anger at Jay now disappeared as if they’d never existed. “No, we were just talking. I was trying to help him.” And she met Jay’s sparkling brown eyes, and a look passed between them that carried a feeling that neither of them could quite name.
Jay said to the officers, “I’ve got to talk with the authorities here. I’ve got to meet with them again. Take me to her father, or someone else in charge, now.”
The officer who spoke before addressed her: “Miss Swift…?”
Tia said, “Yes, please, do it.” Looking into Jay’s eyes again, she said, “Help him. Just help him.”
Gesturing to the door, the other officer said to Jay, “This way.”
And Jay let the two uniformed men start to lead them out, but as he started to go, he kept Tia in sight over his shoulder—until he stopped and walked back to her. Returning to Tia, careful not to touch her again and provoke his guards, he said, “Tia…I’m sorry about your party.”
A lump in Tia’s throat dropped into her stomach. At the confused, stricken look on Jay’s face, she wanted nothing more at that moment than to throw her arms around him. “I know,” she said. “Good luck, Jay. I hope you find out something.”
“Thanks,” Jay softly replied.
“Lieutenant Goodwill, come with us,” one of the Security men called.
With a last look at Tia, a look filled with that feeling for which they both were now starting to find a name, Jay returned to the Security men and let them take him out of the gym.
Tia moved back to the bench and sat down again—and put her hand on the spot where Jay had been sitting. He had just laid his hands on her. That’s all he had done, nothing more. So why did it feel like so much more?
She had never let a boy do more than French kiss her, and touch her bosom over her blouse. She had never even let a boy slip his hand under her skirt or into her slacks. Many times she had thought of letting one of them do more, and doing more to him. She had thought of letting one of them do everything. But she had never let it get that far. It seemed to Tia that she had always been waiting for something, not knowing quite what it was.
Now, after just a few minutes with the boy who had crashed her birthday party and terrified her within an inch of her life, Tia began to suspect just what it was she’d been waiting for. And when Jay disappeared with the uniformed men out the door of the gym, she felt a nagging emptiness inside her, waiting to be filled.
Chapter Five
One piece at a time, things began to click into place. In another session with Chief Administrator Swift and his aide, Jay discovered that Tia’s father had succeeded in getting information from Interstellar Command, Interstellar Intelligence, and the Terran Union. They had complied because of the security threat to the Terran Union but had done so on the condition that the Chief does not release the information beyond his office unless it became imperative to do so. Jay was permitted to know because it directly involved him, and the knowledge of his own identity and what had happened to him was another critical security matter.
Interstellar Security had learned that the Terran Union had been targeted by members of a hostile alien power, the Dhurians. These aliens operated by capturing their foes and sealing them in body sacs containing an immersive bio-agent that penetrated the cells of the victim and overtook the nervous system. To meet the Dhurian threat, Interstellar Command had set up training units in space stations at strategic points in Terran-controlled space. In this training units, Stellarforce personnel had been physically enhanced against outside control and to make their nervous systems compatible with advanced battle exosuits that would make them living weapons against the Dhurians. Jay was a member of one of these elite units, selected after a rigorous physical and mental vetting process. He had been in training at the Sigma Pegasii Station when it came under surprise attack by the Dhurians, who boarded the Station and began to assimilate the personnel. In the battle against the aliens, Jay was cocooned, and the Dhurian bio-agent started to penetrate his suit. The bio-agent contained amoeba-like cellular components that disrupted the interface between Jay and the suit and caused his violent, hallucinatory trauma. Jay’s training and conditioning had thrown off the Dhurian influence enough to allow him to escape his cocoon, but in a mentally compromised state. An extreme and instinctive fight-or-flight response had taken him over, in which Jay retreated into a Transit port and set it to lock on to any outside communications signal and send him to the point of reception. The Transit port found the holo-transmission signal of the concert being beamed to Tia’s birthday party and sent him to a Transit Bay orbiting Sigma Cygni. In a hallucinatory state, Jay had seen the Security personnel at the Colony as Dhurians and engaged them in battle. He commandeered a shuttle, took it down to the planet, took an aircycle stored on board, and fled onto the planet itself to find cover, inadvertently flying right into Tia’s party before being captured.
The good news was that the exosuit protected Jay from the effects of making a hyperjump without a spacesuit, and the suit itself was capable of weathering the jump as well—but the amoeba-like parasites infesting the suit were not so lucky. They died instantaneously, leaving Jay alive but temporarily, violently insane.
Knowing what had happened to him had brought back Jay’s entire life to him, slamming it all into his head wi
th a force that felt to him like the blast of the concussion grenades with which Colonial personnel had finally brought him down at the pavilion. His cognitive and memory enhancements kicked in, helping him with the process of filling in the vast empty space in his mind. He remembered everything, including the things he could still do even without the exosuit, which the Colony had impounded and was keeping under even tighter security than the surveillance placed on Jay himself. His enhancements and training enabled Jay to operate both physically and mentally at an almost superhuman level. And because of the interface between his nervous system and his exosuit, which was still in effect even when Jay was not wearing it, Jay had other capabilities that the Colony did not suspect—and which Jay had not disclosed. He had kept them to himself, partly because of his training to keep them a secret, and because Jay suspected he might have need of them.
When Colonial Security first apprehended him, they had kept Jay in a detention cell. While he was there, he had taken advantage his neural enhancements. He had discreetly, mentally accessed the computer systems in the detention facility and sent the fingers of his mind out into the systems of the entire settlement. He knew the complete layout of his surroundings. He knew that Colonial Security had given his exosuit its own detention cell, an accommodation that amused him. Now that his identity and background were known, he had been provided with an empty apartment in which to stay until Stellarforce issued him transfer orders—or decided what discipline to hold on him for desertion. Jay crashed onto the bed in the apartment and fell asleep for several hours until Colony administrative staff awoke him to bring him a meal. Lying on the bed in the apartment, Jay now recalled his entire life: his family, friends, and upbringing back on Earth, his enrollment at Stellarforce Academy and eventual commission in the Stellaforce itself as one of its most promising young officers, his selection for the Enhanced Operatives Program and his assignment to Sigma Pegasii—everything. Breathing deeply, replaying all the facts of his life and what had brought him here to Sigma Cygni, Jay slowly came back into himself and felt like a whole person again. He was not a cipher, not a blank slate, not an enigma. He was a young human male, just out of boyhood, with a past and future, feelings, and needs. And gradually, one particular need came to the forefront of his mind.
