Hero

by Reagan Woods

  Palming open the thin door, she yanked them hastily into her room. A quick survey of the hall showed no one else up and about. She secured the door and turned to her late-night guests.

  Franny made herself at home, sprawling sideways across Tara’s bed, while Marta had dropped cross-legged to the floor leaving the low stool for Tara.

  “This better be good,” Franny groused, rolling so her hair hung over a slim shoulder all the way to the floor in a blue-black waterfall. “I just spent the last three hours getting lectured by an old Doranos woman about proper hygiene for a concubine.” She shook her head from side to side like a swimmer clearing her ears. “I’m all for a complete education, but sometimes they take it a little far.”

  “Yeah, that lesson was creepy,” Marta agreed, her blonde pigtails dancing with her nod. “Especially since the simulator makes you believe she’s your grandmother.”

  They all shuddered.

  “Anyway,” Marta turned expectant eyes Tara’s direction as she fiddled with the ends of her braids. “You’ve totally got us breaking curfew, so what gives?”

  Tara pulled the little wooden stool closer to her friends and waived them in conspiratorially. “So, after you left tonight, Calyx came to check up on me.”

  Franny crossed her almond-shaped eyes and grinned dementedly, doing a stellar impression of Disney’s Goofy, “Golly Gee, huh huh, did you make a new friend, Tara?”

  Giggling, Marta turned to Tara. “He was standing guard in the hall when we left tonight. We kind of thought he looked like a love-sick puppy.”

  “After he gave me grief for not asking you to stay late with me, we had a little rendezvous in a storage closet,” she announced proudly, deliberately skipping over the more awkward parts of the night.

  “Atta girl,” Franny offered a friendly shoulder punch. “Now, spill. We want size, positions, skill level and an overall rating on a scale of one to ten. I’m feeling generous, so I won’t require an in-depth analysis of his kissing (you know, lips too wet or too dry or just right, etcetera), but I reserve the right to ask in the future.”

  Marta dropped her head into her hands and pretended to be embarrassed by Franny’s blatant demand for information. “I think what Fran means is: we’re happy for you if you’re happy.”

  “That, too.” Franny nodded, steepling her fingers thoughtfully beneath her chin. “But mostly we want details. Oh, and we want to know where this convenient storage closet is. You know, just in case one of us gets a hot alien boyfriend and we need a convenient place to - what was your word? - rendezvous. Fancy.”

  Tara curled her toes into the spongy alien flooring and leaned closer. “That’s not why I asked you to come by. We can talk about all that anytime. What’s interesting is his theory on why I was attracted to him.”

  Marta’s light eyebrows drew together in a puzzled frown. “You were attracted to him?” She questioned. “As in, you’re not anymore?”

  “I shouldn’t still be attracted to him – he was an insulting ass,” Tara fumed, eyes narrowed as she mentally replayed her last few minutes in the storage closet with the idiot. “But I am. That doesn’t mean I’m going to do anything about it though. I’m weighing my options.”

  “Well, shit, Tara,” Franny snapped, climbing off the bed to sit cross legged on the floor. “Are you going to tell us what he said or not?”

  “I’m working around to it,” Tara said defensively.

  Marta patted Tara’s knee. “Maybe work a little faster, hon.”

  “Fine,” she fumed. “I was all over Calyx and he was totally into it. Next thing I know, instead of talking about when we can be together again, he’s telling me how he took advantage of me. Basically, he said the aliens have noticed that some of us seem to be hyper-sensitive to alien pheromones.”

  Marta’s forehead wrinkled skeptically. “I can’t say I’ve had the urge to jump any of the aliens.”

  “But some women have,” Franny murmured, staring off into space.

  “They have a theory,” Tara told them. Two rapt sets of eyes, one deep brown the other icy blue, snapped to her face. “The aliens believe most of our men were somehow damaged by the radiation blasters they used in the Last Great War.”

  Franny’s head bobbed affirmatively. “I’ve heard faulty weaponry was why our birth rate dropped to zero about twenty years ago and never recovered, but, I mean, they fixed it. How could that affect the men who came of age and fought after the shielding was improved?”

  It was a valid question. Too bad no one who could answer it remained.

  Marta hunched her shoulders. “The General kept me pretty isolated, but I overheard him on a call with El Presidente once,” she said haltingly. “Both the Western Central Government and the PanAsian Union had blaster issues. I don’t believe they fixed the shields. In my opinion, they didn’t give half a damn about the men at the front.”

  Tara hadn’t heard Marta make direct reference to the man who essentially took her as a child bride before. She didn’t want to pry, but she strongly suspected ‘the General’ was General Kachinko, the top military authority in the Western Central Government and El Presidente’s right hand man. Both El Presidente and Kachinko had disappeared sometime before the alien invasion became common knowledge. No one knew what happened to the two men.

  Franny’s focus shifted to Marta. “Your – er – husband – did he use a blaster?”

  “My captor,” she answered emphatically, “claimed to prefer the weight of an old-fashioned assault rifle.”

  Franny raked thin fingers over her face before focusing on Marta again. “I have an idea. I just don’t know how to ask you - you can tell me to fuck off,” she began. “But did he ever make you pregnant?”

  Hugging her knees, Marta studied her bare feet for a few moments. Finally, she whispered, “No.”

  “So.” Franny cleared her throat. “Maybe the weapons haven’t got anything to do with anything.”

  “I think they do.” Marta said firmly, sitting up straight. “The General didn’t want to ruin my figure or share my…devotion. I wasn’t allowed even a pet. A child would have been an unacceptable distraction.”

  Tara rolled her lips between her teeth, afraid of what she might say if she gave her tongue free rein. She’d known Marta’s life was hard during the never-ending war – everyone’s was -, but the day-to-day must have been torture for her sweet, sensitive friend.

  “Don’t look at me like that,” Marta said evenly, holding eye-contact with Tara. “Save your pity for someone more deserving. I had it easy compared to most.”

  “We can compare horror stories another time.” Franny bit out impatiently, sweeping both arms outwards. “Let’s look at the facts as we know them. First,” she pointed to each woman as she listed the situation, “Tara was only around soldiers – whom we know used damaged weapons - and she’s supposedly susceptible to alien pheromones. Marta was around a man we must assume was healthy and she reports not feeling the effects of the pheromones. That’s interesting.”

  Franny was correct. The observation was interesting, but two or three women exploring a theory did not make it fact. “What about you?” Tara asked. “You must be on team Aliens are Hot, right? You said you popped a few of them.”

  It was Franny’s turn to fidget uncomfortably. “I had ulterior motives for said banging. I’m trying to find out if my sister, Margot, is alive in one of their camps.”

  Tara’s heart went out to her friend, but it was Marta who spoke, “Any luck?”

  “Not yet.” Franny sat up straighter. “But I’m going to bust out of here and find her. Soon as I figure out how. Um.” Her eyes lit with an idea. “You don’t happen to know how Nora got out, do you?”

  Marta shook her head dejectedly. “If I did, I sure wouldn’t still be here.”

  “Am I the only one who likes it here?” Tara mused. “I mean, other than the thing this afternoon, I’ve felt safer here than I ever did at Fort Burro.”

  Neither woman commented. Fina
lly, Marta said, “Franny, you’re welcome to look over Nora’s stuff if that will help you.”

  Franny nodded. “I think I’ll bunk in your room tonight – that is, if you don’t mind? That way, if the suck-up reports me for breaking curfew, I have an alibi. Kind of.”

  Tara felt a little left out, but she pressed on, “So, you really don’t have the pheromone problem, Fran?”

  “Oh, I’ve got it bad,” Franny answered matter-of-factly as she pushed to her feet with a groan. “Good god, I’m getting too old for this.”

  Marta stood as well. “You can’t drop a bomb like that and not explain, Fran,” she chided lightly.

  Franny smiled grimly. “There’s one alien – he makes me cream my panties anytime he’s within a thousand yards. His scent alone is enough to make me want to throw him down and ride him all the way to Glory Land. But he’s a massive douche and I hate him. I am in control of only one thing in this world and that is me. I will not let him – or his big, gorgeous dick – make me into a drooling idiot.” The vehemence in her tone said there was a story there, but the look in her eye declared it off-limits.

  “On that note, I think we’d better call it a night,” Marta declared. She eyed Franny like the other woman was a bomb in danger of detonating. “See you in the morning, Tara.” Cautiously, she nudged Franny toward the door. “Let’s go take a look at Nora’s stuff, huh? Maybe there’s something I missed.”

  Wide eyed, Marta turned back just before she stepped into the hall. “Big, gorgeous dick?” She mouthed. Tara giggled at Marta’s mock-scandalized expression as she secured the door behind her friends.

  Franny brought a whole new level of interesting to any situation, and her rant had confirmed what Tara suspected. Namely, the sexual attraction she felt for Calyx might have some basis in biology, but it didn’t override her ability to logically decide he should be hers.

  He’d been gone for a little bit, but they had history. That shared experience certainly played into the attraction she felt for him, but maybe he didn’t feel the same.

  Chapter Ten

  The Previous Year

  Tara had watched, horrified, as the crack of lightning struck the monstrous gator that stalked her in the swamp. She waited, whimpering in the fetal position, for the water to conduct the bolt of energy through her metal bottom boat and turn her into so much charred confetti.

  Instead, a man called, “Stay where you are! I’m coming to help.”

  Thank God. One of the soldiers much have returned, was her first thought. Some wonderful soul had realized just what they’d left her to deal with and had come to help.

  The tall, broad man that materialized on the shady bank didn’t belong to Burro, though. “W-who are you?” Shakily, Tara got to her feet, as she took the stranger’s measure. He was far bigger than any man she’d ever seen. From this distance, she couldn’t make out his features. He appeared to have camo paint swirled over every inch of exposed skin. She gulped audibly.

  “A friend,” he replied in a strangely accented voice. “I’m not going to harm you, female. Be calm.” After a few seconds, he fiddled with something on the side of his black helmet and the dark visor covering his eyes slid away.

  “H-how are you going to help me?” She stuttered, glancing quickly away. Something was wrong with the soldier’s eyes and it was difficult not to stare. She’d heard rumors that the PanAsian Union (aka PAU) had experimented on their soldiers. Was she facing down the enemy, then?

  Hysterical laughter bubbled in her throat. She and the sick old people at Burro wouldn’t stand a chance against even one man as big as this one. It was obvious from the way the shadows moved behind him that he wasn’t alone.

  “I’m going to toss you a rope,” he replied, tall black boots splashing carelessly into the muddy water. He pulled a thin coil of cord off a utility belt and unwound it.

  “Did you not see the gator?” Tara screeched as the corpse bubbled ominously nearby. Where there was one predator, there were always more. The last thing she needed was for her rescue party to turn into gator food.

  “Of course, I saw it.” He looked up from what he was doing, and a ray of light fell across his face. She sucked in a breath. His irises seemed to reflect his environment like twin mirrors in his face. “I shot it.”

  The gator bubbled again and started to sink. It was doubtful her new friend with the scary eyes would allow her to go about her business after this, and since she was surprisingly still alive, it’d be a damned shame to starve to death. “Listen, I’m not sure where you stand on the whole prisoners of war thing,” she said quickly. “But that monster will feed my people for a week.”

  His lips curled, twin dimples bracketing his white smile, in an oddly appealing way. A slow tendril of heat curled through her center as he tossed the skinny cord to her. “After I pull you in, I’ll collect the corpse,” he promised on a chuckle. “Hold tight.” Hand over hand, he tugged her slowly toward the muddy shore.

  As she drew closer, Tara frowned in confusion. His black clothing didn’t look like any military uniform she’d ever seen. Despite the long sleeves and pants, he appeared comfortable in the muggy swamp.

  Black straps criss-crossed his thick torso and were hung with odd-looking boxes and cylinders. Though his weapons weren’t familiar, it didn’t take a genius to see he was armed to the teeth.

  A huge bald man joined her rescuer and fired something like a harpoon at the sinking gator, reeling it in silently. “That’s handy,” she muttered. The newest addition didn’t wear a helmet. That left her free to marvel at the flawless camo pattern across the back of his head and neck – it was a real pro job, even for a full-time soldier. Thick black goggles covered the newcomer’s eyes.

  Hands the size of baseball mitts plucked her from the Jon Boat and deposited her gently on the edge of the swamp. “I’m Calyx,” her rescuer told her. Up close, he was more intimidating than she’d thought, standing a good two feet, perhaps closer to three, taller than her.

  Politely, Tara reached out to shake his hand, her head touching her shoulder blades as she craned her neck to look in his eyes. “Tara. Nice to meet you. Um…forgive my curiosity, but what did they do to you?”

  He held on when she tried to withdraw. “Do to me?” He echoed. His frown didn’t crack the paint over his brow. In fact, his skin seemed to be tattooed with the swirling pattern.

  “Your eyes and skin.” Since they were holding hands, she squeezed his in sympathy. “That had to hurt.”

  The bald soldier hauling the gator in barked out a laugh and said something Tara didn’t catch.

  “Oh, little female,” her rescuer chuckled, a quirky smile settling over his full lips. “I was born this way. All my people have dappled skin and reflective eyes.”

  “Are you pulling my leg?” She asked with a nervous chuckle, gently trying to shake his hold. He tightened his grip and stepped closer, into her personal space. “The PAU didn’t do this to you?”

  “PAU?” He questioned. “You mean the soldiers?”

  Solemnly, Tara nodded. He clearly didn’t want to talk about what happened to him. Some traumas were too horrific to speak of. “I shouldn’t have asked. I’m sorry.”

  To her surprise, he stooped down and pulled her hand to his face. “Feel for yourself, little female. There is nothing wrong with my skin.”

  He felt warm and smooth beneath her fingers. Of its own volition, her other hand rose to push the helmet from his head and encountered thick, silky brown hair. “Oh,” she breathed. “Your skin and hair feel normal.”

  The skin around his eyes crinkled as he corrected her, “My skin and hair feel Corian. Silex and I are Corian Warriors from the CORANOS Galactic Alliance. Your planet is under our control now, my little Earther friend.”

  Tara patted his cheek, wildly unsure if she should turn her back on this obviously delusional man. Whatever the case, she had to trust someone sometime and he’d just saved her life. Hopefully, that meant he wasn’t a whackadoodle killer
who wanted to put her eyes in a jar and keep them on his mantle. “Whatever they did to you, it’s obviously scrambled your brain. All that pretty muscle can’t make up for crazy.”

  The bald Silex cackled somewhere in the distance as Calyx patted her disheveled head, further loosening the falling bun. “You’ll know the truth of my words soon enough, Tara,” he murmured, combing a huge paw through the sweaty curls. “In the meantime, why don’t we help you get this feast back to your people?”

  “I’d appreciate the help,” she agreed, disengaging from his hold to scrape her tousled hair into some semblance of order. Please, please don’t let these guys be psycho killers, she prayed. Her friends back at the fort didn’t need her bringing any more trouble to their doorstep.

  Calyx walked over to help his buddy, black boots squishing and splashing with every step. His back side was like nothing she’d ever seen in the tight-fitting pants and Tara briefly wondered if her tongue was lolling out of her mouth.

  “Too bad you’re completely looney,” she murmured to his retreating form.

  Chapter Eleven

  Calyx waited outside the entrance to Tara’s dorm building. The night before had been long and sleepless, and now his emotions were a jumbled-up mess. It was entirely possible that she might not wish to see him this morning, but he had a job to do and keeping her safe was part of it. If she didn’t like it, well, that was too bad. Tenacity had brought him this far and he wasn’t backing down now.

  Four years ago, when he’d left home to become a Warrior, he’d vowed to find a way to become one of the legendary few who earned the right to a female and a family through glory in battle. Because of the dearth of females in Corian Space, and the universe, only the oldest son of any family could take a bond-mate.

  Though he was smarter, faster and stronger than any of his older brothers, the simple boon of birth order put him last in the legal line for a mate because their society operated on a primonuptial system. Birth order was the accepted way of determining a male’s worthiness – nay, right – to mate. Life wasn’t ever going to be fair to Calyx, so he formulated a plan.