by Vivian Venus
Casey Pearce never asked for this. Ordered to quarter this tall and mysterious alien soldier at her farm, Casey is reluctant to trust Grahf. She knows the stories of the atrocities committed by the Ezrok during the war, but the more time she spends with him the more she finds herself helplessly enthralled by his presence.
A human and Ezrok shouldn’t be mated…so why do the bonds of fate draw them together?
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Three honor badges for exceptional skill and bravery on the Veldarian front and this is where I find myself – stripped of two ranks and on my way to the Earthling’s newly seeded second home out with the farmers and the backwater traders, all because I refused an order. And what a ridiculous order it was – one completely without honor or sense. Yet, I suppose I should be thankful that I was not discharged, or worse.
The warship Kahran Prime exploded out of crossversal warp, the spiraling cloud of energy outside of the viewport window snapping away like a puff of smoke being sucked from an airlock, and I was greeted with the dreary rust colored surface of Mars. I was a little surprised at how much vegetation there actually was – I had seen images in the briefings, but seeing it in reality made it almost impressive. Light dustings of low growing trees in loosely packed forests that, from our altitude, made the surface look as if it were blotchy with faded moss. I saw the vast stretches of sath farmland, cross hatching through the red soil and interspersed with the occasional small lake or pond. Sol, the Terran System’s single sun, burned close to the horizon and the sky was going reddish pink with the sunset. It was beautiful, I had to admit. On the Veldarian front there were hardly any quiet moments to admire the beauty of anything except battle. And what glories battle could bring.
I donned the clean, crisp lines of my Ezrok official military uniform and reported down to the hangar bay where three other warriors were lined up for the mission to the surface. Like me, each of them had made trouble in some way, though none had been as decorated as I. Whether or not they were as skilled in combat, I did not know – but I highly doubted it. They were fresh, undisciplined. I shouldn’t be lined up with these soldiers, I should be leading them. I wasn’t sure what was a worse punishment – forced retirement and being sent back to Ezrok for reprogramming, or carrying out this pseudo-mission here on this shit rock. I took my place in the line.
“Heard we’re going to be quartered with humans,” Grenlok, a huge and hulking beast of an Ezrok said. “What shit luck.”
“I’m alright by it, if you ask me,” said Reylar. He had been transferred to the Kahran Prime shortly after I had. I had heard he had been caught with his commander’s daughter. Like I said – no discipline. “Have you ever seen a human female?”
“Never in real life,” Cayd chuckled. “I’ve been told that human women are the most beautiful creatures in the universe.” Cayd was the only warrior who I had known prior to my time on the Kahran Prime. I fought alongside him against the Veldarians a year ago – he was a capable warrior but ruthless and unwieldy. It was no surprise he ended up here.
Reylar grinned. “Fortune holds, I’ll be quartered with one of them. Maybe two.”
They laughed. I could no longer hold my tongue. “And just what do you think our purpose here is, warrior?” I bellowed, irritated. “To get your cock wet?”
They were surprised and stiffened up at first, a conditioned reaction to the tone of voice I had taken, but then slackened back down again. “What do you think we’re doing here? This is no mission of importance. We’re here because we fucked up, and they needed someone to do the job so better us than their very best.”
That stung. He was right of course – which made it all the more painful to me. Because I had defied orders, made an ethics judgement instead of obeying without question, I was no longer considered their very best.
“Attention,” the harsh voice of our commander croaked, and we all straightened up and stood at attention. The battle scarred elder commander’s boots cracked loudly against the metal floor as he entered the hangar. “Warriors. Welcome to the Terran system. I’m sure it’s a first time for most of us being here and you’re probably wondering what kind of shit shoveling job was low enough to be assigned to a lot of your quality. We’ve got reports that Veldarian infiltrators may try to dig their claws into the Terran system while our focus is divided back on the main front. Now we can’t have this, Mars may be in the middle of nowhere but it’s still a prime source of sath crops. For them to sneak around the back end and take control of this system would mean a certain destabilization in our supplies.”
“So what do you expect us to do, sir?”
“Keep an eye out. You’ll be quartered with human civilians. Not ideal I know, but we’re not going to dedicate any additional resources to build an encampment out here for you losers. Plus you’ll be able to gather local intel.”
“So basically we’re going to be doing nothing.” There were groans. “You don’t need to sugarcoat it, sir.”
“You’re going to be keeping an eye out,” the commander said firmly. “You know how the Veldarians are. They can easily hide in plain sight. There’s a lot on the line here, warrior. You fuck up, and it could mean a turn in the war.”
“Yes, sir,” he said, with feigned enthusiasm.
I had to agree with him. If there was really any importance to this mission, they wouldn’t have sent these jokers to do the job.
“Enough fucking around,” the commander barked. “Get to your shuttles. You’re going rock side.”
We scattered and ran to the shuttles lined up in the hangar bay, one for each of us and all preprogrammed to take us down to the surface. The inside of my shuttle was loaded with standard supplies, including one standard issue beam staff, my weapon of choice, a pole arm which could shoot out a charge of destructive energy from one end. I was a master with the beam staff, and wouldn’t have felt complete without one, so I was thankful that they at least deemed to fully arm us for this mission. I sat down in the cockpit of the shuttle which hummed to life on its own, and I peeked out the viewport window at the grand hangar of the warship and felt a pang of sadness. I belonged on a warship charging into the thick of battle with hellfire raining down around me, a full battalion of ready warriors under my command and thousands of enemy Veldarian ready to meet my staff, not stuck sitting around on some planet waiting to see if the enemy might show up one day.
I thought back to the event that got me here, that mission on Ghent, the fourth planet in the Veldarian system. Was my defiance worth the punishment? I remembered the look in their eyes as my warriors leveled their weapons at them.
Yes, without a doubt.
The shuttles blasted out of the hangar bay and swung down towards the planet’s red surface, the viewport window flickering with the flames of atmospheric entry. I watched as the other shuttles separated from formation and zipped off to other parts far away from my destination, which looked like a big blanket of sath farmland below me. I wouldn’t be seeing any Ezrokians for a while. It would just be me, and the human who was unlucky enough to be selected to host me.
Humans.
Small, fragile creatures. I learned about them during my training, but not much more than their capabilities in war. Other knowledge was of no use to a warrior. Their males were born extremely weak, needing extensive training to reach even close to the physical prowess of the weakest Ezrokian male, their females the same. They were reasonably advanced in their technology, more than many of the other civilizations we Ezrok had conquered back in the prime days of the war. I had heard stories from aging generals who were old enough to have participated in the short war with the humans, they were fierce and persistent fighters with surprising resilience and ingenuity, and if not for their physical limitations they may had a chance at equaling us.
Still, they were a foolish lot. Their desires for conquest were as great as ours, however they had no concept of equivalent trade. They only took, never returned, and as such their home world became poisoned. If
it weren’t for our rule and the gifts we bestowed to them once we had subdued them, they may have died out on their own.
“Warrior Grahf Vel Dien,” the computer announced. “Your mission files have been received. You will be posted at sath farm EX-145-B, owned by one Casey Pearce, female, human. Primary mission: Monitor sath crop growth. Secondary: Remain vigilant to possible Veldarian infiltration.”
I gritted my teeth. Sitting my ass on a farm watching crops? The mission was a joke. They surely had no expectation that any enemy would make their way out here. What a fucking waste of time.
The ship shuddered and I saw the shimmering waves of sath resolving below me, and the tiny glint of a farmhouse set on the border of the crops. Out in the distance I could make out another tiny farmhouse, and another even further beyond that one. All I could do was pray that the situation on the front got dire enough that they would need to recall me back, that they’d forgive my defiance. Otherwise I might be here for a very long time.
I tapped the screen and it shifted over to an image of a human female, with long brown hair and green eyes stared back at me, below it a name – “PEARCE, CASEY”. I sighed and turned off the display. A human female. After a moment I turned the screen back, pulled by an inexplicable desire to examine her image again. She had delicate features compared to the roughness of Ezrok females, but I could detect a hardiness in them, perhaps a bit of that human stubbornness I had learned about. It was the first time I had really looked at an individual human woman, one that wasn’t just some technical anatomical illustration as part of some briefing or training. I was greeted by an odd sensation in my chest. It had been a long time since I had taken a moment to look at any females, but I wasn’t so far gone to recognize that this one was quite beautiful. I shut off the monitor again.
A mission was no place for distraction, regardless of its importance. I was an Ezrokian warrior, battle hardened with a self-control unmatchable by any other creature alive. I would be strong and steady as the densest star, unwavering in my spirit, the reason why the Ezrok would never be defeated in war.
My shuttle touched red dirt, and the low roar of its engines died to a whine before shutting off completely. I pulled my supply pack from the rack, armed myself with my beam staff and then hit the exit ramp release button.
I was greeted by a warm breeze of Martian air, dry and dusty, and immediately my black uniform was tinted with a haze of red from the swirling dirt. Though dry, the air had the sweet smell of the sath crop on it, something that I hadn’t smelled since I was a young boy who hadn’t been taken away from home for warrior training. I was surprised at how quickly that smell took me back to my home on Ezrok, to my family who I never saw again. I quickly pushed away the feeling and walked down the ramp, my boots crunching down for the first time into the red Martian dirt.
The farm house was built in an old style that looked like it was right out of a history lesson. I had never seen such an old building before. I reached the front door and pressed the comm button, and I heard a chime sound inside the house, then just a few moments later the door swung open, and I found myself staring at the face I had seen in the photo. Her hair was damp, and she wore a loose shirt that hung long over a pair of shorts. She had a toned, healthy body with tanned skin, and I was surprised at how alluring she was. Again, I pushed the thoughts aside. She was much shorter than I was, and she looked up at me, her expression unenthusiastic. I had to admit, I was expecting a different welcome, a warrior’s welcome.
I gave her a curt bow of introduction. “Warrior Grahf Vel Dien,” I said. “Assigned to take quarter at your farm. My mission is—”
“Yeah, okay.” She held up a data pad and waved it. “I read the brief. What, they don’t think we can take care of our own crops?” She walked back into the house, leaving the door open. I frowned. That certainly was no way to greet an Ezrok warrior, but I held my tongue and followed her inside, shutting the door behind me. “And what’s this about Veldarian invasion? Things not going so well for your kind? I thought you were supposed to be strong?”
That was going too far. “Hold your tongue or I'll—”
I was nearly hit in the face by a flying bundle of blankets before I caught it. “What? Cut it out?” She laughed. “Here, these are to make up your bed. Hey, Notch!”
An assistant bot buzzed out from one of the rooms and glared at me with a red sensor eye before turning to the woman, the light blinking to green. “Yes, Casey?”
“Show our guest his room, will you?”
“Sure thing.” It turned back to me. “Come on.”
She held out her hand in a traditional human greeting. I took it and she squeezed, her grip surprisingly strong and her skin as calloused as my own. “My name’s Casey Pearce. I’ve got no issue with the Ezrok sending one of their warriors down here, so long as your remember – my farm, my rules.” She strode off, and I found myself watching the way her legs elegantly moved and her ass shimmied as she walked.
“Come on,” the bot repeated with an impatient voice, and floated away.
I found myself smiling. This human…I liked her. Perhaps this mission wouldn’t be so boring after all.
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WARRIOR’S DESIRE - TEASER
Reylar Ven Erz is a powerful warrior of the Ezrok, the alien race who conquered humanity, and his kind is at galactic war. Tasked with hunting down an elusive and deadly assassin hiding in the human colony on Mars, Reylar is lead to the doorstep of the human female who he believes is its primary target – and he’ll do everything he can to keep her safe.
A brilliant scientist, Doctor Liliandra Cast may hold the key to ending the war that plagues the galaxy. Now she’s on the run from an alien monster who wants her dead, and a whether she likes it or not she’s got an Ezrok bodyguard who won’t let her leave his sight. He’s stubborn, brooding, and intense – but there’s something about his fierce protectiveness that Liliandra finds herself helplessly captivated by.
Thrust together to defeat a common enemy, they’re the most unlikely pair on Mars – so why do the flames of desire enthrall them both?
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I ran through the checklist in my mind as I suited up to enter the research lab, a quarantined clean area that required the strictest of protocols to prevent against any cross contamination of our very rare Veldarian specimens. Pressurized under-suit was secured, atmosphere maintenance module was in place and activated. Outer shell was properly connected and donned in the proper order. Repulsor manipulator gloves fully operational and calibrated. I held out my hand and felt the neural connection between my mind and the gloves, a very strange sensation that had taken me a very long time to get used to. It felt as if I had a second set of limbs that I could feel but couldn’t see, and I reached out with them and grasped the helmet of my suit and floated it onto my head. I then reached up with my real hands and tapped the engagement button, and with a hiss the helmet pressurized and sealed to my suit.
“Doctor Cast?” my assistant, Gina, said as she poked her head into the changing room. She was already fully suited up.
“Coming,” I said, and I joined her in the airlock.
“Excited?” she asked, and hit the button to seal the room. The airlock was the size of an elevator with glass doors on opposite sides of the room, and as the door.
“More like a nervous wreck,” I admitted. Up until today most research had been performed on only fragments of Veldarian bodies sent in from the front lines, with varying ratings of preservation ranging from “okay” to “barely usable”. The way Veldarians were made up – their natural bodies a strange viscous jelly like substance which could morph and change and take the form of other beings – meant a fast decomposition, near instantaneous after death. They would lose form and collapse, basically into a puddle, unless they were quickly taken into a special preservation chamber. The few complete specimens I’d had a chance to research were collected after the Invasion of Mars, and were in terrible shape.
But today. Today my team had the fortune of examining a perfectly preserved complete specimen that had just arrived from the Ezrok high military command. We had already made such progress in our research with what we had, coming the closest that any researcher – Ezrok or human – had come to cracking the secret of the Veldarian’s greatest ability and weapon: the shape shift. We humans may have been behind our Ezrok overlords in practically every way, making our defeat during the war against them two generations ago inevitable, however something about our human way of thinking allowed us to excel in one field: biological research. The Ezrok could make ships that warped across universe and had developed sufficient technology to heal their soldiers…but after mankind gained access to Ezrok technology we easily surpassed them in our research of our common Veldarian enemy.
And now the next breakthrough was in my hands.
“You’ve got nothing to worry about,” Gina said. “Just do what you always do. You’re Doctor Liliandra Cast, after all.”
“I’m just a scientist, Gina,” I said. “You need to stop thinking of me as some superwoman.”
She laughed. “Well, that’s easy for you to say, Lily. But you’ve already single-handedly come up with the three biggest breakthroughs in Veldarian research. I think you’ve earned the reputation.”
“Not single-handedly,” I reminded her. “You and the rest of the team were there too.”
The airlock beeped and the door hissed open. “Well, let's do this.”
We walked down the hallway, the walls glowing and bathing us in a green light – a thranium radiation bath which would further sterilize our suits. Through a long rectangular viewing window in the hall, several technicians sat checking to make sure we hadn’t carried in any contaminants. They gave us a thumbs up and smiled. One of them mouthed the words “good luck.”
The door at the end the hall slid open to reveal the research room, a large laboratory with rows of research equipment on one side and an operating table setup on the other. Several scientists, all wearing the same suits as I, were sat at the equipment, peering into microscopes waving their fingers in the air as they prodded and touched microscopic organic material using their finely tuned repulsor manipulator gloves. As I walked by, each one of them looked up from what they were doing and nodded in greeting to me.
