by A. C. Katt
The Sarrans were in shock. The Sarran fem was given every care. She was the center of her Bond Pair’s universe, they explained. But on this issue, the Americans would not budge. American was the only big nation on the planet Earth still in control after the plague hit. Smaller nation states were still in control of their populace, according to Sarran reports from the ground, but with the smaller populations, the fems taken would be missed.
Jonal sat in the Starroom waiting on the signal to go ahead from Earth.. He ran his fingers through his hair. The tousled black curls just touched his shoulders. His lightly tanned complexion sported visible stubble crossing the edge of his jaw, easing around his soft lips, suggesting a heavy beard despite a recent shave. At six-foot-seven, he was shorter than Tonas, but wider through the shoulder and solid. Jonal was granite to Tonas’s steel. Massive muscle definition rippled across his shoulders and pecs, down to his washboard abs and flat stomach. His maroon flight suit, made of Nathrian leather, pulled tight across his cock and balls. Although not as long as Tonas’s member, Jonal’s cock was wide, the plum-colored tip a fist in heat. Knee-high black boots of the same subtle material were fitted to hard calf muscles. Navy eyes flecked with silver flashed with impatience and barely restrained anger and passion. Anya's touch on his mind had awakened him from robotic state he had assumed since the Ipz attack. He burned with returning hope, flinging back and forth through the talks from despair to hope again. He now knew the elders were wrong, the Earthen fems could Bond. As he paced the room along the star table, the tic in his jaw throbbed, stretching the line of a thin scar down the right side of his face. It was a tic his BondMate knew well, and it betrayed his impatience. The scar transformed Jonal’s face from cold beauty to vibrant male. Unlike his BondMate, he paid little attention to his appearance. His suit, although impeccable in tailoring, was rumpled and a bit unkempt. Though he could be preternaturally still in battle mode and on the Bridge, here in the StarRoom he showed his fire. Jonal's style was to trust his instincts, sizing up situations and acting rapidly. He and Tonas were the ideal command team. They balanced each other. Tonas was used to his pacing. In more light-hearted moments, Tonas had teased him about wearing a rut in the floor around the table where Jonal had paced their way through the Zyptz War. Jonal had not paced since they saw the wreckage of the Ipz on Sarran.
“Tonas, don’t they understand their fems and their planet are doomed unless they take what we offer? Don’t they care about their people, or ours?” Jonal banged the table for emphasis. He turned, looking at his Bonded, tears gathering at the corners of his eyes. “How do you negotiate terms for what is given away? Our Elders sprung to ill-founded conclusions, Tonas.” Jonal brushed his hair back from his face. His intense frustration was evident in his clenched jaw teeth.
“They had insufficient data to make a sound working theory,” Tonas explained.
Jonal shouted, “Our fem endures, suffering, below our boots. The longer we linger over this continent, the more intense the song that stirs our Bond. Anya is ours. We recognize her as ours. The Bond summons. Primitive or not, when our fem needs, we provide.” Jonal’s emotional anguish had merged with the siren song of fem to WarriorPair. His organ pressed against the fine leather of his flight suit. For the first time in three cycles, passion flamed. He swayed from lust to intense pain. “The sewer sucker below negotiates duplicity while sentient life lies in misery.”
Tonas, Prince of LightClan, leaned on one of the consul desks. Outwardly, he was the cooler, more deliberative of the WarriorPair, yet inwardly he seethed. Down there on that blue planet was their destiny. He felt her every whimper. He couldn’t comprehend how she held on. His loins ached and hung heavy. Tonas saw the tension in Jonal’s face. There was urgency just under the surface driving him. They shared an instinct that demanded instantaneous response to threat.
Their fem, heart of their Bond, was down there, and her life force was faint, thready. Tonas’s muscles screamed for freedom to defend, champion, fight. They could not. Neither the Galactic Alliance nor the Sarran Elders authorized war. Trade, yes. Outright bribery, if necessary, even capture, were possibilities, but not war. Tonas rose to his full height, green eyes shooting golden sparks of light.
“They fear us, Jonal,” he said, attempting appeasement. “They have just had their first taste of the Zyptz, their population decimated, and they don’t know who to trust. The Elders were arrogant in their assumption that inferior technology equaled insufficient intelligence. The intelligence is there; they need time. Geological and cosmic events forced the course of life on this sphere into rebirth more than once. The evidence lies before us on the pockmarked surface of their moon. The planet itself is still actively volcanic. They have not learned to harvest and direct the core energy. We can offer them a future free of accidental extinction, with unlimited energy. What the planet offers to us is more valuable than any known object in the universe. It offers fems—life.” He finished with a breath of bitterness.
“Goddess take me, Tonas, she’s down there and she’s ours by right of Alliance. Alliance Law extends even to this backwater of the universe. I need to take her pain away. My member is hard. I’m overwhelmed by guilt at our lust and grief for her pain. I am enraged at being herded into calumny by the roach below. I am lost. We have been one since our twentieth cycle. Ten cycles ago we pledged under a Tierest tree. Physical desire, intense need for you, for her, and I reach out with my mind and body and I’m alone. Dammit, I need you both and soon. I’m alive again. We haven’t been alive since the Ipz.” Tonas waited and watched Jonal pace around the table, caressing the inlays, straightening the wide burgundy leather chairs. The StarRoom’s carpet was well worn under the broader man’s boots. Jonal had marked this path through the Zyptz Wars. Jonal’s fingers ran through his hair and the tic in his jaw appeared more often. Those strong, blunt fingers pulled at the sleeves of his flight suit, loosened the collar. He stopped abruptly and banged the table again, his body vibrating with anger. Tonas didn’t try to calm his Bonded. Jonal’s fire was finally kindled after three cycles of suppression and focus on mission. His body vibrated for release.
“What more could they possibly want? Fems are dying, Tonas, dying. What is it going to take?”
Tonas didn’t answer; instead he grabbed Jonal and pulled him into his arms, lowering his mouth onto hungry lips. The shock of his Firefly’s taste after so long a thirst for both of them sent Tonas reeling to near climax.
“Too long,” Tonas whispered as he licked and teased his kisses across Jonal’s deep jaw line in deliberate slow appreciation of his lover’s beauty. Tonas reached the corner of Jonal’s mouth. He outlined it with his tongue. His kiss deepened. Tongue and lips became a frenzied, brutal, invading force. They dueled, sending shock waves that reached past the wet, lush cavity of mouths to engorged cocks and hardened sacs. Jonal grew long and wide against Tonas’s body. For the first time in three cycles they were lost in each other—their responsibility, for a moment, set aside. They clung to each other, hips moving in a circular motion in sync with their mouths. Lips moved over flesh, licking, biting, and marking. Jonal unfastened the panel of the uniform beneath which Tonas’s cock lay hard and ready. He pulled, exposing the long golden spike to the air. He grabbed, pulling hard, his fist circling with his thumbnail pushing into the slit revealed with the foreskin pulled away. Jonal dropped to his knees. He used his other arm and pulled his lover’s hips toward his face. Tonas groaned as Jonal inhaled the scent of the coarse golden hair. Cinnamon, exotic spice, that feral, earthy odor his senses craved. Jonal buried his cheek against Tonas’s sac, kissing and taking each of the tight balls and rolling them inside his mouth. His left hand moved behind the sac to the heavy yellow-gold ring decorating the guiche piercing on Tonas’s perineum. It matched the white-gold piercing on his own, their personal symbol of commitment to their Bond and their love. He tugged gently, then twisted and pulled as his mouth rode his lover’s shaft. He ventured as near as he dared to the hard muscled
cheeks, touching the forbidden crease where completion lay. Tonas’s hands pushed down on Jonal’s shoulders. Jonal’s mouth moved to the shaft, his tongue worried the point just underneath the area where the foreskin attached to the head. He licked the circumference.
“Goddess, your mouth. How I have missed that mouth. Please…Firefly, please…”
Jonal moved his lips down Tonas’s twitching member, planting kisses, his tongue following the pulsing, ropey veins.
“I need you…I want…oh, my love, she’s with us. I can feel her; she’s wet…Jonal,” Tonas shouted.
“Yeah,” Jonal whispered. His chest heaved and his hands shook. Sweat formed on his upper lip. He stretched his mouth over the purple cock head, running his bottom teeth on the underside as his mouth descended down the shank. He sealed his lips, sucking, running his tongue, his throat working as it had so many times before. He felt what Tonas was feeling. He felt himself sucking and being sucked. He was Tonas, and Tonas was him. They were joined, mind to mind. They heard each other’s thoughts, and they felt each other’s senses. And now…she was there. She was wet, wanting, needing. She felt them. The link was almost complete. Almost there…
Chapter 2
“Our patience will achieve more than our force.”
—Edmund Burke
The communication console lit up. Tonas pulled away. His body strained, begging. But the console was lit, now was not the time. The government below had forwarded the final proposal. The incoming communication would decide their fate. Tonas dropped to his knees alongside his Bonded, taking deep breaths trying to push away arousal. He grabbed Jonal and held on. “We are one, never alone again.”
It took some time for them to stop shaking.
“It’s going to work,” Jonal said. “We were almost there and we’re not even on the planet yet. The Bond is so strong.”
“Come,” Tonas said rising and pulling the heavy man to his feet. “We have work. There are twenty-five hundred WarriorPairs in the Brightstar Fleet, each with a potential fem on the surface, maybe each of them feeling the first stirrings of the Bond. Every fem with a high enough psi rating and potential compatibility is unconsciously broadcasting to this vessel. We are responsible for every pair, for every potential Triad, for the survival of all things Sarran.”
Tonas’s words burned in his throat, “I feel her. But her touch, her radiance is dim. Our passion fed her soul, briefly, but you are right, there is little time. She is here, in my mind and yours. I have operated on anger for so long, that love and desire are almost strangers. I’m so sorry, Firefly. I’ve failed you.”
“No, Tonas, never that. We both needed the time to heal.” Jonal tried to comfort him.
“The pull is intense. I need both of you in my arms, yet she is the key. We need our fem, she is our future. And she needs us now.” Tonas grimaced with the pain of longing.
“She is alone, dying and fearful, and there is something she worries over, taxing her limited strength.” Jonal sighed. “Something that lives.” His brows moved together.
“Could it be she has a mate? There is a heavy feeling of an impending loss, someone she loves, fears for.”
“The Goddess could not be that cruel. I have to believe that.”
Jonal rose with Tonas and moved to the console. Both men still strung with unspent passion.
“Calm, Jonal,” said Tonas. “Whatever is to be in our Bond must come second to our duty.” He drew in his breath and sighed. “We need to do this right. We must control our desire for completion and think of our burden. It is only a few more tines. We cannot act in haste. We came to offer mutual assistance, not war, and they must not know how desperate our situation is. They claim that theirs is a monogamous fem/male culture despite the evidence in their literature and art to the contrary, and all primitives fear what they do not understand. Our ways are foreign to them. What is normal to us is perversion to them. We must tread with delicacy, like a slink laptard stalking prey. I will not lose this to poor execution.”
“We must outflank the enemy here. I don’t trust this Earthman in his White House. I don’t like secret treaties. We need data and a plan to maneuver around this roach. But to lose the fems would be unendurable, leaving us broken. He has to accept this last offer. And then, we corner the rodent,” hissed Jonal.
Tonas moved forward and ran his fingers along the scar on the side of Jonal’s face. He stroked his thumb across Jonal’s thick lower lip and fingered the cleft that delineated his chin.
Jonal moved his head. His lips brushed the palm of Tonas’s outstretched hand. “I bow to your patience, My Light. We wait, but not long.”
Tonas opened a hidden panel along the far wall of the room. He took two matching tumblers of silver filigree etched with maroon and gold. He filled the tumblers with a clear blue liquid and turned, bringing one to Jonal’s mouth.
“To our Triad BondMate,” he said, as they each drank from his BondMate’s tumbler and let the Sarran Asta brandy flow like a fiery snake down their throats.
Jonal drank from Tonas’s cup, “To our BondMate, one way or another she’ll be ours by this moontide.”
A voice sounded from the consoles, “Admirals, a communiqué from the surface.”
“Re-route it here, Lieutenant Septis,” Jonal replied.
“Break seal, by command, Jonal.”
“Break seal, by command, Tonas.”
Tonas stepped over to the console, the communiqué scrolled open on the screen.
“They agreed,” he shouted, “Bless the Goddess, they agreed.”
Jonas said, “Septis, get me the Bridge on a secure channel.”
Septis responded, “Line open, Admiral Jonal.”
“Commanders Lunas and Saxton, broadcast this communication fleet-wide.”
“Confirm, sir,” said Lunas.
Saxon said, “Attention all fleet personnel; this is Commander Saxon with orders from Brightstar. Attention: all fleet personnel.
“Admirals, the links are in place.”
“This is Jonal, Admiral, and Prince of FireClan. Ready the vaccines and antidote for transport. Brightstar medical pre-assigned staff report to surface teams for teleportation. Saxon, Lunas, distribute coordinates to section leaders, teams of ten pairs to each collection point. Pharmaceutical team, make sure you have complete instructions on antidote and vaccine manufacture. Warriors, proceed to your posts.”
“Communications, Lieutenant Septis, you have the Bridge,” Tonas said and followed Jonal to the cargo bay, issuing orders enroute.
“Saxon, Lunas, have remaining lead section pairs inspect the fleet’s Quarters. Make sure all is ready to accept the fems. Non-paired Warriors of all ranks are assigned to barracks. Those who have already psi’d their fem’s location have been assigned to the center nearest that locale. We go in twelve tine shifts. If a pair finds their fem, they will be immediately replaced by backup, until all Warriors Triad. First shift goes to BondStirred Pairs. All fems will have received the antidote and the vaccine prior to transport. As you are aware, with virus mutation, one without the other is useless to those already infected. Once the drugs are administered by the advance teams, fems will be placed in Earthen transport vehicles, conveyed to collection points, and then beamed aboard. BondStirred claims will be recognized immediately on surface, and the affected Warriors cleared to return with their fems. Back up teams stand ready to replace the newly-Bonded.”
Tonas and Jonal stepped from the transport pad into the cargo area of the ship. The surface teams had assembled.
“Tonas, Admiral: Non-Sarran, Alliance crew should be assigned to all but weapons systems.”
“I need Fleet Medical, now,” Jonal barked into his comm.
Medical Officers Bane and Flagen, fraternal twins and Warriors of FireClan answered Jonal’s summons.
“Here, sir,'' Bane and Flagen responded. Jonal narrowed his eyes. His body gave off waves of hostility.
“Medical Officer Bane, you and your second are in charge of
antidote and vaccination in Sector Two, the Manhattan Population Center in New York, United States. Take the list of all Brightstar Medical Personnel and assign at least one team to each of the remaining distribution centers. All of whom are to transport simultaneously in two marks time. Tonas and I will join you in Sector Two at 24:00 tines Earthen Time. You both report directly to me and me alone. Do you understand?”
“Yes sir,” replied Bane and Flagen. Jonal did not miss the arch look Bane sent to his twin.”
::Was that really necessary?:: Tonas spoke to Jonal’s mind.
::Yes, it was,:: Jonal shot back. Jonal returned to his broadcast, “According to Earth Government USA data, there are four thousand four hundred and forty eight Priority One cases. These Fems are the most genetically compatible, ironically because they are the ones most severely affected by the virus. The Priority One List has the additional advantage of no pressing ties to the planet, no clan to miss them or note their absence. Those Fems not paired from this first group will be assigned a medic, quarters and taken to Sarran as guests of the people and hopefully find Triads among our defense forces.”
Tonas spoke, “Follow your orders, I repeat, we beam to the surface in ten parties of 100 to the coordinates given. Timepieces have been set to local time in your translator chips. Additional chips will be given to each Bonded Pair to be inserted immediately upon recognition of their Triad mate. We rendezvous at the distribution sites, Moontide, 24:00 tines Earthen time. Are there any questions? None, good. May the Goddess bless our endeavor. May today be Sarran’s salvation.”
* * * *
“Laptard piss. What did you do to him?” Bane asked his fraternal twin. “Flagen, his eyes shot comets.”
They were standing with the group for sector two, Manhattan. Since their group would be accompanied by Admirals Tonas and Jonal, they would be among the last to leave. Tonas, I still call him Tonas in my mind, despite the ten years that separated us. And I still hate Jonal and Jonal knows it, Flagen thought.
