Mom had suffered a stroke. They cleared out the blood clot that had caused it, but the damage has been done. While Dad assures me that with therapy Mom might recover some of what she’s lost, it is imperative we send her to Kalquor to correct the worst of the damage to her brain. If I wasn’t positive we should go there before, I’m well aware we have to now.
To see her so small and helpless is killing me. Eve Monroe was not meant to be an invalid. While she is no bigger than me physically, she has always possessed the stature of a giant. The dementia had been taking that, but in small pieces, a smidge here and there. The stroke has broken her in one fell swoop. The only sign I’ve gotten from her that she knows me is a slight squeeze from the cold hand I hold in mine. My mother, often my tormentor and sometimes my staunchest protector, is an almost motionless shell.
Nang, even with all his worries what with yesterday’s attack, took a moment to stop in. He held me, let me cry on his shoulder for a bit, and spoke to Mom while holding her hand. He had bad news for me too. The transport heading to Kalquor has been delayed. It won’t be able to take us for at least another four weeks, maybe five. Dr. Dad and the specialist who’d treated Mom before, Dr. Ginna, informed me that it shouldn’t make a difference in the long term for Mom’s prognosis. Yet all I want is to get Mom to Kalquor so they can heal her. I’d accept her with dementia if it meant she’d be up and knitting and giving us all fits. Anything. I’d give anything for her to not be laying there so quiet and still.
October 6
I’m jotting a quick note here before I go over to sit with Mom again today. I need to be with her, but I dread looking at how she is. Does that make any sense? God, I’m so aware of her mortality now. I understand we’re not eternal, but I can’t help but feel my mother should be. A universe without Eve Monroe? Not possible and yet all too real.
I had the worst time leaving her last night. I felt I was abandoning her, and the act of doing so would somehow determine whether or not she’d be here in the morning. (I’ve already commed Dr. Dad, and he confirms Mom is doing as well as hoped.)
Dusa and Esak showed up in Mom’s room late last night after pulling double shifts. The poor boys were no doubt exhausted. They still spent at least half an hour learning of her prognosis and speaking to her, though we’re not certain how much she’s aware of. Then they pushed me to come back to my dorm to rest myself.
I couldn’t relax though. I was so tired, but my mind wouldn’t shut off. My sweeties sat down to spend some hours allowing me to decompress.
We talked. I explained to them that I’d have to take Mom to Kalquor as soon as the transport arrived. As I did so, I realized how hard it was going to be to leave Dusa and Esak behind. They have seen me through a ton of angst and trauma. They’ve been my strength when I’ve been ready to curl up and quit. I’m not sure how I’m supposed to handle life without them. Even without the seemingly never-ending trouble, I enjoy being with the two men. I light up when they’re around. I have to wonder, am I in love with them after all? Is that the real reason I resist romping with Nang? Is love why every instance I’m in the commander’s arms, I compare him to Dusa?
I confess the conversation I had with Dusa and Esak has got me in a bit of a tailspin. After I told them Mom and I would be leaving soon, both gazed at each other with unhappiness and resignation.
Dusa sighed. “It will be difficult to let you go, Shalia. In all honesty, Esak and I want to clan you. We wish to ask you to be our Matara.”
Esak sounded angry. “We cannot, though. Even if we had Weln as our Imdiko right now, it would be an impossibility.”
I felt a little sick inside. I would have to leave them behind, and I didn’t like it. All my protestations of not being ready to join a clan, though they are true, sounded ridiculous in the face of the inevitable. “I know somebody has told me how this works before, but my brain isn’t processing so great at the moment. What stands in the way of me joining your clan if you have Weln as your Imdiko?”
Dusa traced the grooves on the table with a fingertip. He stared at them as if they contained the secrets that would unlock the answers to all our problems. “A clan must show they have the financial and emotional stability to offer a Matara a worthy home. From the financial standpoint, that means they possess not just the bare essentials of what the government provides, but funds that will assure her comfort. We don’t have that yet with our low rank.”
“What constitutes this emotional stability you spoke of?” I asked.
Dusa said, “The three male members must be established as a clan for at least a year to court a Matara with the intent to clan. Females are too precious to be given to men who haven’t learned to work together. The stress of such a situation is not conducive to her well-being.”
“It’s never been done before?” I asked.
“A past empresses did join an incomplete clan,” Esak said. “But that’s royalty. They can usually figure out a way to bend the rules.”
“Such as the current Imperial Clan,” Dusa said. “They were supposed to clan a Kalquorian Matara, but they met Empress Jessica and joined with her instead. Then the woman they were supposed to clan went insane, so they ended up with the woman they preferred.”
“But how did that other empress manage to get past the restrictions on partial clans?” I pressed.
Dusa shrugged. “It was a complicated case. Hers was to be an arranged union. Most royal joinings are similar to that. However, all of her parents, the Imperial Clan, were killed with only her Dramok mate chosen. In his case, the new empress convinced the Royal Council to waive the restriction since the match was set and approved. After that, there was a rush to search for suitable men to fill out the remainder of the clan.”
Esak added, “It was a special problem that affected the whole empire. They agreed it was proper for the empress to have at least the one clanmate for her protection and care. Kalquor was desperate to put him into place.”
“For her protection and care? You sure are a paternal bunch,” I said without rancor.
Esak managed a smile. “Women are very important to us, for survival and happiness. Our own women claim we can be smothering. I’ve heard my mother yell at my fathers about that more times than I can count. We can’t help the instinct to protect your gender.”
Dusa reached over and took my hands. “It’s killing me to say what I am about to say. Though we’ve grown attached to you, I have to put your requirements ahead of our wants. Shalia, you must go to Kalquor and find a clan to take care of you and Matara Eve, men who will provide a good home and everything you deserve.”
Tears filled my eyes. He was so sweet and sincere. I saw how he and Esak cared for me. I felt how much I cared for them. But is it real love?
They took me to bed. They removed my clothes carefully, as if I’d become some fragile being that would shatter apart at the least rough touch. I pulled at their formsuits, uncovering them and kissing all that I found. Soft smooth skin over granite bodies soothed my lips. I bent to suckle one man’s livid cocks while my hand worked the other’s. Then I switched, giving them the attention they deserved. Back and forth. I couldn’t get enough.
Dusa knelt on the bed in front of me and picked me up. While Esak held his Dramok’s smaller cock out of the way, Dusa pierced my vagina with the other. Then Dusa held the cheeks of my ass, supporting and spreading me open. He rose up on his knees, holding me in the air with my legs locked around his waist.
Esak pressed close from behind and I groaned as he filled my offered rear with his larger cock. I was between the two men, filled tight with them. Their movements were slow and careful. They kissed me and each other as they fucked me. It was the first instance I’d witnessed them displaying romantic intimacy with each other, and I was not disgusted. They were beautiful men and seeing them like that only enhanced my pleasure. The love they shared was obvious. There was nothing ugly about it.
Our passion grew as we moved our sex-slick bodies against each other. Our juic
es flowed with the friction, making soft, moist sounds as their cocks slipped in and out of my eager body. Dusa and Esak steadily grew stronger against me. Their breaths came louder and faster. Whispering moans punctuated soft gasps. I surged up and down between them, caught in the rising tide of our passion.
They quickened even more as need made its relentless demands on their young, virile bodies. Their groins slapped against me, growing forceful. I cried out often as rapture drove searing spikes in me. The gentleness we’d started with had passed, and the men thrust hard, making me accept that excruciating bliss that bore down on us all. There was an endless crescendo of growls and the nonstop hammering of masculine steel into accepting flesh.
We climaxed at the same second. Dusa howled and Esak yelled as my body erupted with a burst of pure elation. I was out of it for a little while, knowing only the exploding white sun of orgasm that made me blind and deaf to all else. I could have hid in its brightness forever, quitting this world with all its doubt and worry.
I returned to hear the gasps of the men and to discover that we’d collapsed on the bed. We piled there in a tangle of bodies that no one wanted to untie. We fell asleep knotted, not rising until Esak’s chronometer went off this morning to send him and Dusa off to work again, popping stim tabs to convince their tired bodies to move.
I’ve wasted enough time writing. I need to get
Oh shit, I think I heard an explosion. Good God, are they shooting percussion blasters? It sounds as if we might be under attack again. I have to go to Mom.
October 6, later
Another fun-filled day. It turned out the Academy was under attack, as I’d feared.
I was halfway to Medical before the lockdown announcement came on. When that happened, my Nobek guard picked me up and slung me over his shoulder. Usually I wouldn’t take that too well, but I knew this fellow. He was the same guy who’d loaned me his knife when I left the Academy to track down Mom after she’d been kidnapped. I trust him. His name is Anlod. He’s a little older than Esak and unclanned.
I did yell to him, “Not back to the dorm! I have to be with my mom!”
“I know,” he called. “Hang on.”
He did that freaky faster-than-the-eye-can-follow running, smearing my surroundings as we went. How the Kalquorians can do that and not lose their lunch is beyond me. The sight of moving that fast was so nauseating that I had to close my eyes. Meanwhile, I heard more blasters firing. I was convinced we were going to be shot at any moment.
What would have taken me twenty minutes to walk or six minutes to run, Anlod managed in what must have been seconds. Good grief, those aliens can move. He accompanied me into Medical and waited outside Mom’s door with her bodyguard.
Mom’s one eye was open, and she blinked at me when I came to her side. The left corner of her mouth twitched upward, like she was trying to smile. I guess I was overwhelmed by the sound of fighting, the crazy way I’d gotten to Medical, and my worry over her. I leaned over her, embracing her as best I could without disturbing any of the monitors strapped to her. I wept.
“You do know I love you?” I whispered in her ear. “We haven’t been on the best of terms, but I love you no matter what.”
I held her for a bit, feeling how small and frail she felt. How not-Mom she was. When I straightened and let her go, her eye had closed. She appeared to be asleep, but she had that hint of a smile on half her lips. Or maybe that was wishful thinking on my part.
I spent hours with Mom, sitting there watching her. The blaster fire stopped after a few minutes. I hoped nobody else had been killed. At some point Dr. Dad came in. He said all three entrances to the Academy had been attacked this time, and two of the attackers had been injured and brought on site. They were being treated elsewhere in the building. Nang was on his way over to question them.
When I asked about Mom, Dad brightened. “We believe she’s as aware of what is happening as her dementia allows. She’s in there, Shalia. It’s a matter of her brain recovering from the shock of the stroke before her body will start responding again. Dr. Ginna theorizes the long-term effects will consist of weakness on her right side, perhaps some difficulty walking and using her right hand. He’s also positive that most of that will be reversed once she receives treatment on Kalquor.”
I had to cry some more over that news. I would get Mom back. I was so happy.
After lunch, Nang stopped in. He appeared tired and angry, but he did his best not to show it, especially since Mom was peering around with her good eye. I’d begun teasing her about putting an eye patch on the lid that remained stubbornly closed. I told her she was going to be swabbing the decks from now on. One-Eyed Eve, I dubbed her.
Nang behaved with far more politeness. “I see you looking at me, Matara,” he said with a kindly expression as he bent over her. “I am so pleased your prognosis is excellent. We’ll have you up and knitting again very soon. My Imdiko sends his best wishes and asked me to tell you he’s still enjoying what you taught him. He finds knitting very relaxing and has made some lovely bed covers...I understand you call them afghans? He gives them to all his friends, some of whom also want to learn to knit. You've started a craze.”
A Kalquorian knitting circle? I bet Hell just froze over.
I went out into the hall with Nang after he’d finished his pleasantries. “I’ll be back quick, Mom,” I promised.
Nang’s worries settled over his features once we were out of the room. “You look like you feel terrible,” I said.
“I do,” he replied. “None of our men were killed this round, thank the Mother of All. Unfortunately, the attackers are growing bolder. The men we captured can't talk, considering the injuries that were inflicted on them. We’re sure this gang is performing a systematic testing of our defenses.”
“What does that mean? That they’re planning on trying to take over the Academy?” I asked.
He nodded. “That also means we haven’t seen all of their offensive capabilities or numbers yet. They’re scouting us, figuring out where any strengths and weaknesses lie.” Nang sighed. “I wish we had more forces coming in sooner.”
If Nang was worried, Shalia Monroe shook in her shoes. “What’s the earliest reinforcements will arrive?”
“Carriers full of ground troops are three months away. I can appeal to the Atlanta site for help, but they've got their hands full too." He blew out a heavy breath. "When we came after Earth, it was with the intent to hold your people hostage rather than actual occupation. All we planned was to intimidate your government into surrendering and ending the war, not having to fight you here on your home turf.”
We’d been over that in preparing Nang’s presentation to the refugees who had found rescue at the Academy. Kalquor’s space fleet of destroyers had been the attack force that showed up, while the majority of their ground troops fought ours on colonies and allied worlds.
“Can you hold out for three months?” I was scared.
“That remains to be seen. I’ve sent men out to track down these attackers to wherever they are based. I need to get a count and learn how well they’re armed.”
I shivered. “It can’t be good. If they’re bold enough to plot taking over the Academy, then they must think they can win.”
Nang reached over to stroke my hair. “Your bodyguards have instructions to evacuate you to a safe place should the situation turn dangerous. All Earthers, medical, and support personnel will be taken care of.”
It was a relief to know he had a contingency plan. It made me relax a touch. “I hope it doesn’t come to that,” I told him.
“That makes two of us.” He smiled at me. “I’m sorry I can’t stay and talk more, but there is a lot of work to be done.”
“Of course. I appreciate you stopping in to check on Mom.” That had been a super nice gesture since Nang undoubtedly had a full plate. The last thing he needed to do was check on invalids and their frightened daughters.
Nang leaned close and pressed a kiss to my forehead. I
let him, craving the comfort though I didn’t want to encourage him with the wrong ideas. I thought it would be okay this once. The commander is capable of simple kindness.
He murmured, “I will always find time for you, my little Shalia.”
With that, Nang left. When I returned to Mom, she was sleeping again. It’s been quiet for the rest of the day, and the lockdown has been lifted. Weln stopped by to check on us. He says at the end of his shift he’ll sit with Mom while I snag dinner. He’s due any moment now, so I guess I should sign off.
October 6, late
Boy, is it quiet in my dorm without Mom’s chatter. I am not good with the silence. It’s wearing on me.
Dinner started off almost as bad. With all the excitement that’s been going on, Dusa and Esak are working extra hours. I had to sit and eat by myself. Then who walks in but Matt King. His eyes lit up when he saw me, as if he’d come in just to speak to me.
Shalia's Diary Omnibus Page 22
