Alien Conquest

by Tracy St. John

  De­gorsk’s voice sounded ragged with ex­haus­tion. “Sim­dow has con­trol of the sit­u­a­tion. What he can’t han­dle, Li­don can.”

  Tra­nis’ frame stiff­ened be­neath Cas­sidy, and she knew he read­ied for an­other protest. Be­fore he could ut­ter a word, she whis­pered in his ear, “My fa­ther once said great lead­ers know when it’s time to get out of ev­ery­one else’s way.” When Tra­nis hes­i­tated, she added, “What hap­pens to me if the leader of my clan dies?”

  Af­ter a mo­ment’s si­lence, De­gorsk’s soft voice said, “Your Matara has spo­ken.”

  Tra­nis’ shoul­ders sagged. “I hear her.” He shifted so he could kiss Cas­sidy be­fore set­tling back down on the bed.

  “For you, my love,” he whis­pered. “Five hours, De­gorsk.”

  Pal­pa­ble waves of re­lief emit­ted from the Imdiko, and he smiled his thanks at Cas­sidy. “Ten.”

  Tra­nis scowled. “Six.”

  De­gorsk shook his head, rolling his eyes at his stub­born clan­mate. “Eight and not a sec­ond less. The cell re­gen­er­a­tion needs at least that long for min­i­mum re­pairs.” When Tra­nis opened his mouth again, protest writ­ten all over his face, De­gorsk held up a hand. Fa­tigue strained his hand­some face. “Tra­nis, I can’t stay here and ar­gue with you. I’ve got more in­jured to at­tend to. Let me see to your crew with­out hav­ing to worry about their cap­tain, please?”

  At last Tra­nis seemed to rec­og­nize the stress he was putting the other man through. He laid his hand on De­gorsk’s shoul­der. “Eight hours. Thank you, my Imdiko.”

  De­gorsk man­aged an ex­hausted smile. To Cas­sidy he said, “If he gets up, find some­thing heavy to knock him out with.”

  She knuck­led her tears away, try­ing to find hu­mor to match his. “Won’t you have to fix him again if I do that?”

  The Imdiko snorted. “With that thick skull? Not a chance.”

  De­gorsk gave Cas­sidy a quick kiss be­fore leav­ing the room, the hover stretcher fol­low­ing in his wake.

  Tra­nis held out his arms. Af­ter only a mo­ment’s hes­i­ta­tion, Cas­sidy slid into his em­brace. She couldn’t deny she was happy he was alive. His in­juries were scary to see, and hear­ing from De­gorsk that they’d been life threat­en­ing was no sur­prise.

  “At least I have some­thing beau­ti­ful to look at,” Tra­nis sighed. His hands ran over her un­der­dress, seek­ing the body be­neath. “I’d en­joy it even more if you’d take this off.”

  Cas­sidy was shocked that de­spite his in­juries, his penises were stiff­en­ing. Like sol­diers de­ter­mined to carry on with fight­ing, they rose from his bat­tered body.

  Salute, she thought and had to re­strain a gig­gle.

  Pre­tend­ing firm­ness, Cas­sidy in­sisted, “You have to rest.” She shoved at his busy hands.

  “Then don’t fight me,” Tra­nis growled. He was in­stantly con­trite for be­ing so de­mand­ing. The plead­ing in his voice soft­ened her. “Let me look at you.”

  Cas­sidy re­sponded to the need in his pur­ple eyes. See­ing how much the Dramok de­sired her made her sex wet. What was the harm in be­ing naked with him any­way?

  She sat up, pulling the un­der­dress off over her head. She de­sired his warmth and the re­as­sur­ance that Tra­nis in­deed still drew breath. Be­fore she could block the re­al­iza­tion, she had the thought that nearly los­ing him was too much to bear. She needed the close­ness he wanted.

  “Lie next to me,” he whis­pered, and Cas­sidy drew close, feel­ing him solid against her.

  She kissed him with­out be­ing prod­ded, slid­ing her tongue into his mouth to ca­ress its twin. His fin­gers found her core, slip­ping in and out. She arched, not­ing how well he knew her al­ready. Tra­nis knew ex­actly where the pres­sure felt best. She moaned into his mouth as his thumb rubbed slow cir­cles around her cli­toris. The heav­i­ness in her womb grew.

  Cas­sidy wept as cli­max swept over her, mak­ing her sheath clutch Tra­nis’ fin­gers. It felt good to be with him. Re­al­iz­ing how close they’d come to not hav­ing this mo­ment made it that much more poignant.

  “Why are you cry­ing?” he asked when the strong­est spasms had di­min­ished.

  Be­cause I love you and you nearly died.

  Cas­sidy al­most said it. The words wanted to fly off her tongue in neon-bright col­ors, leav­ing Tra­nis in no doubt of his mas­tery over her. Only her loy­alty to Earth and to her own poor re­li­gion-crazed, sex­u­ally re­pressed peo­ple kept Cas­sidy’s true feel­ings dammed up. She couldn’t turn her back on her own flesh. She couldn’t for­get that in the end, Tra­nis was the en­emy.

  In­stead of pro­claim­ing her love, she set­tled for an­other truth, one she could share. “I want to be with you. It’s wrong, and I feel ashamed.”

  For once, Tra­nis didn’t try to con­vince her she was wrong to feel guilt for her de­sires. In­stead he asked, “What can I do to make it bet­ter?”

  “Would you bite me?” Cas­sidy won­dered at her brazen­ness of mak­ing such a re­quest. How­ever, un­der the in­tox­i­ca­tion of a Kalquo­rian’s bite the ques­tions went away. The guilt dis­ap­peared. Un­der the in­flu­ence, she could truly re­joice that Tra­nis lived.

  “Come here,” he said, the fangs al­ready un­hing­ing from his palate. She swept her heavy hair from her neck and stretched to ex­pose the smooth col­umn to his pen­e­tra­tion.

  The pain was an ex­quis­ite over­ture to the sym­phony of eu­pho­ria sweep­ing through her. Cas­sidy moved against the taut ex­cla­ma­tion points of his sex. She man­aged to be care­ful not to pro­voke pain with her en­thu­si­as­tic ca­resses over his in­jured frame.

  “Bet­ter?” Tra­nis asked, his hands fondling her ea­gerly in turn. De­spite his in­juries, the man’s li­bido re­mained in­tact, un­fazed by hurt.

  “Yes, only now I re­ally want you. Do you think De­gorsk would be mad if I did all the work?”

  “He’ll be fu­ri­ous if I have sex in my con­di­tion.” Tra­nis chuck­led, but his ex­pres­sion told her he was more than will­ing to risk the medic’s cen­sure. “We won’t tell him, un­less you want him to pun­ish you.”

  “Mmmm.” Cas­sidy warmed to the idea, re­mem­ber­ing the sweet heat of Li­don’s spank­ing. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”

  Tra­nis’ grin stretched. “I’ll be glad to dis­ci­pline you my­self, if you’d like. Once I’m on my feet again.”

  “I hope you re­cover quickly.” She looked him over. De­spite the in­tox­i­cant mak­ing her world a happy dream, she frowned at the marks mask­ing the Dramok’s mus­cu­lar torso. They’d have to be very care­ful.

  Cas­sidy asked, “Do you prom­ise to lie ab­so­lutely still? I couldn’t stand it if I did some­thing to mess up your re­cov­ery.”

  “I’ll do my best, my beau­ti­ful mate.”

  Tra­nis shifted awk­wardly to lay on his back. She strad­dled his groin, low­er­ing her­self to cap­ture his livid sexes. She sighed, the empty ache of her sheath soothed as she filled her­self with him.

  Cas­sidy’s bliss was mir­rored in Tra­nis’ ex­pres­sion. He stroked up and down her thighs, bring­ing goose­flesh to peb­ble her skin. She leaned over him, prop­ping her­self with her hands on ei­ther side of his shoul­ders, care­ful to not put any weight on his bat­tered up­per body. He was too broad for her to com­fort­ably rest on her knees. Cas­sidy fixed that is­sue by draw­ing up her legs so that she crouched over him, her weight on her feet.

  She rocked back and forth, her moves slow and sin­u­ous. Re­call­ing the in­struc­tions in The Kama Su­tra, Cas­sidy added a slight cir­cu­lar mo­tion with her hips. Tra­nis groaned in re­sponse, his eye­lids flut­ter­ing. His hands cap­tured her breasts, clutch­ing and mold­ing the mal­leable flesh as if sculpt­ing clay. She echoed his groan, and clenched nether mus­cles around his shafts.r />
  “I won’t last, sweet­ling,” he gasped.

  “I had mine al­ready, re­mem­ber?” Be­sides, Cas­sidy was catch­ing fire as she moved against Tra­nis, feel­ing him throb­bing within the tight walls of her sheath. But it wasn’t just the phys­i­cal joy of mak­ing love to this man that ex­cited her. Giv­ing her­self to him, com­pletely fo­cused on his plea­sure, mak­ing her­self his will­ing ser­vant … these things ig­nited her senses. Cas­sidy had never known such rap­ture as what sur­ren­der of­fered. It took down all bar­ri­ers, al­low­ing her to revel in the act of yield­ing com­pletely to an­other’s de­sire.

  Swollen huge with ec­stasy, she burst into a thou­sand pieces when a thun­der­clap of plea­sure re­sounded through her be­ing. With a long, soft moan, Tra­nis pulsed deep within her, shat­ter­ing the re­mains into even smaller frag­ments. She hung over him, feel­ing she had be­come sus­pended flecks of de­sire in the warm wash of af­ter­shock.

  Slowly the traces of Cas­sidy co­a­lesced once more, drawn back to­gether to re­form the whole. Be­neath her, Tra­nis lay still, his eyes closed and arms limp at his sides.

  “Tra­nis?” Her breath caught to see him lie so dor­mant. “Tra­nis, are you okay?”

  He drew a breath, his bruised chest ris­ing to calm her. “You made it all bet­ter, lover.”

  Cas­sidy kissed the ex­hausted smile, her lips soft on his. She loved him. God help her, she loved this man and the other two as well. “I wish we weren’t en­e­mies,” she whis­pered.

  “We aren’t.” His voice wa­vered, let­ting her know he floated on the edge of un­con­scious­ness. “One day you’ll see that, and you’ll love me as I love you.”

  Tra­nis drifted away. Se­dated by her gen­tle love­mak­ing, he left Cas­sidy to stare at his hand­some, dream­ing face. He had said the words she didn’t dare to voice.

  Tra­nis loved her.

  Cas­sidy re­mained bent over him, ab­sorb­ing the rev­e­la­tion. She won­dered what it would change. She knew it al­tered some­thing, not just be­tween them but also in­side her. She be­longed to Tra­nis now. She be­longed to Tra­nis, Li­don, and De­gorsk. And what did that mean to her loy­alty to Earth?

  She wished she knew.

  * * * *

  Tra­nis woke to find De­gorsk lean­ing over him. Next to him, Cas­sidy whim­pered in her sleep.

  “She seems to be hav­ing a night­mare,” De­gorsk whis­pered as he scanned Tra­nis with a por­ta­ble unit. He frowned. “You smell too strongly of her to have sim­ply slept with her at your side. And I see you bit her again.”

  “She did all the work. I lay very qui­etly. And it was all her idea.”

  “Re­ally?” De­gorsk looked pleased. “Li­don said she agreed to be our Matara.”

  “She did. Are you go­ing to let me get to work now?”

  The Imdiko snapped the scan­ner shut. “Yes. You’re heal­ing well, cell re­gen­er­a­tion is on sched­ule, and none of your vi­tal or­gans is in dan­ger of re-in­jury. You’re still go­ing to feel weak,” he cau­tioned as Tra­nis sat up. “The blood re­placer only does so much. I’ll be nag­ging you to sleep again in about ten hours.”

  “You nag even when I’m not in­jured.” Tra­nis stood, pleased the pain had abated. He looked a mess and the bruis­ing was still livid, but he felt worlds bet­ter.

  Cas­sidy cried out, cap­tur­ing both men’s in­ter­est im­me­di­ately. Her brow creased, and Tra­nis wor­ried to see her dis­tressed, even in the throes of a sim­ple dream. He got back on the bed to smooth his hand over her face. De­gorsk also drew close to her, on the other side.

  “Cas­sidy, it’s all right,” De­gorsk soothed.

  She thrashed, com­ing partly out of sleep but still locked in the dream. “No, please,” she begged piteously.

  Tra­nis’ heart lurched to hear the fear in her voice. He shook her a lit­tle to pull her into wake­ful­ness. “Wake up, my lovely.”

  “No, no, don’t hurt her! Mommy!” Cas­sidy’s eyes opened wide, and Tra­nis saw clar­ity seep in as she rec­og­nized them.

  De­gorsk kissed her cheek, ca­ress­ing her all over to calm her. “What’s wrong, pre­cious girl? Who hurt your mother?”

  A cold look un­suited to her sweet, del­i­cate fea­tures slid over Cas­sidy’s face. “She got what she de­served,” she said in a flat voice. “She un­dressed for him, en­tic­ing him with wan­ton aban­don. The evil temptress se­duced him. She led him from the path of right­eous­ness.” Cas­sidy sud­denly cov­ered her face with her hands. “God for­give me, I’m just like her. Even worse, hav­ing sex with aliens!”

  Tra­nis looked hard into De­gorsk’s eyes, an­gry re­al­iza­tion dawn­ing. The words that had poured from Cas­sidy’s lips hadn’t been hers. He’d wor­ried about brain­wash­ing his lit­tle Earther, but some­one else had al­ready done it.

  In Kalquo­rian he said, “Do you hear who she sounds like?”

  De­gorsk looked hor­ri­fied. “It makes me won­der. Per­haps her grand­fa­ther’s ver­sion of her mother’s crime sup­planted the real events that took place.” He took a deep breath and con­cen­trated on their weep­ing mate. “Cas­sidy, you’re a good, sweet girl. You couldn’t do wrong if you tried.”

  She kept her face cov­ered. “I want to be strong. I want to deny you as I should. Why am I so weak?”

  Tra­nis tugged at her hands, forc­ing her to re­veal her tearstained fea­tures. “Be­cause deep in your heart, you know this is right for you.” He kissed her, ea­ger to erase her pain. He knew he couldn’t, not re­ally. He was help­less not to try any­way.

  Cas­sidy stiff­ened in mo­men­tary re­sis­tance. It only made Tra­nis more in­sis­tent that she ac­cept ten­der­ness. She needed to know be­yond all doubt he would keep her heart safe. He would see to it that she would know love as it was meant to be, not filled with con­di­tions and re­stric­tions.

  As he swept his tongue into her mouth, she melted against him. He sensed De­gorsk ca­ress­ing her too, and her youth­ful de­sire warmed her to their em­brace. Tra­nis felt grat­i­tude for the still-ma­tur­ing hor­mones that made arousal so quick and un­de­ni­able for Cas­sidy.

  Once they had her writhing with need, he broke the kiss to say, “You be­long with men who see not only your beauty and abil­ity to breed. We ap­pre­ci­ate your mind as well as your body. We want to hear you speak and share your thoughts with us. You were not meant to serve, but to be served.”

  De­gorsk had been kiss­ing a slow, wet path down her body, and he looked up as he reached the soft swirls of her pu­bic hair. “Tra­nis is right. There is so much more to you than you’ve been given credit for.”

  Cas­sidy moaned as he bent back to his work. Her hips lifted to greet De­gorsk’s knowl­edge­able lips and tongue. While he plea­sured her, Tra­nis kissed her lovely face and chest, suck­ling gen­tly on the rose tips of her volup­tuous breasts. He poured all his love into ev­ery ca­ress, des­per­ate to erase the pain his Matara lived with, pain in­flicted on her by her own peo­ple.

  Her moans came faster and faster. Their se­duc­tion car­ried her away from the agony of guilty con­science. They took her to the place where she could be the woman cre­ation had in­tended. At last she could be, for a few sec­onds at least, free of the soul-steal­ing an­guish men like her grand­fa­ther tor­tured her with.

  We will find a way to make it right for you. I prom­ise to oblit­er­ate ev­ery speck of sor­row you’ve ever known.

  Tra­nis didn’t know how he’d keep such a prom­ise, but he’d al­ter the uni­verse it­self to make it pos­si­ble. The clan was the cen­ter of his ex­is­tence, and Cas­sidy was now the heart of the clan. He’d find a way.

  He watched her lovely face dis­solve in rap­ture as cli­max took her to that place of sweet respite, his eyes sting­ing from un­shed tears.

  He would find a way.

  Chap­ter 13

  Tra�
�nis walked onto the dark­ened bridge, his eyes quickly ad­just­ing to the dimmed lights run­ning on backup power. The room was a sham­bles. Equip­ment lay in bro­ken hunks and many of the work­sta­tions were black­ened from torched sys­tems. He’d been the worst in­jured of his crew. View­ing the de­struc­tion, he counted him­self lucky that none had died. He sent a quick prayer of thanks to the an­ces­tors that the young men un­der his com­mand had not paid with their lives for his lapses.

  Cas­sidy and De­gorsk fol­lowed him. The medic kept close as their Matara wan­dered about to ex­plore the room, cu­ri­ous about ev­ery­thing. Tra­nis had to con­trol a pride­ful smile as his crew darted ap­pre­cia­tive glances at her.

  “Cap­tain!” The re­lief on Sim­dow’s face was un­mis­tak­able. “Re­turn­ing com­mand to Cap­tain Tra­nis,” he an­nounced.

  “Not so fast,” De­gorsk growled.

  Tra­nis ig­nored him. “What’s our sit­u­a­tion, Com­man­der?”

  Sim­dow gri­maced. “Give us a few months and we can get enough power to the en­gines to make it to a re­pair sta­tion. Maybe they can use our ship for spare parts.”

  Tra­nis wasn’t sur­prised by the an­swer. “I can’t say I par­tic­u­larly like that idea, Sim­dow.”

  “No Cap­tain. I don’t ei­ther.”

  Tra­nis treated him­self to a glance at Cas­sidy be­fore cross­ing his arms over his chest and chal­leng­ing his first of­fi­cer. “What’s your so­lu­tion then?”

  Sim­dow’s brow creased as he thought. Tra­nis had no doubt he’d al­ready formed an opin­ion but was care­ful not to speak un­til he’d gone over it once more. Sim­dow was smart, with all the mak­ings of an ex­cel­lent fu­ture cap­tain. Tra­nis was quite sure the young of­fi­cer had come to the same con­clu­sion he had.

  With a swal­low Sim­dow replied, “I be­lieve we should trans­fer all per­son­nel and the data banks to the Earther trans­port, de­stroy this ship to keep it out of en­emy hands, and con­tinue with our mis­sion.”