Chapter Twelve
Three years later…
It is three years since I lost the one thing I loved. I set out to find Era the same day the Katiri captain told me of her whereabouts, but she was gone, vanished among the stars. We found the freighter, but she was no longer on it, and by the time we arrived, a new crew had been installed, one who knew nothing of the human refugee. I tried to track down those who had been aboard, found a few of them. They all talked, sooner or later, but none of them had anything of any use.
I lost her. Completely. And then I lost myself.
I am no longer a Rathkari commander. After six months in prison for assault on a fellow commander, I have returned to active duty as General Seale Karlo. I do not dally in the colonies anymore. I have eschewed ever taking a mate. I am on the warpath, and there is plenty of war to be made defending our existing territories. The borders are under near constant attack, from other expansive empires, and often enough, from rebel resistance movements. The latter are easily swatted away. The former, well, they have left new scars on me.
We’re cruising through space, at the very perimeter of our territory. There have been reports of disturbances out here lately and I’ve been dispatched to deal with them. There’s no sign of any trouble as yet and I’m starting to get bored.
Boom! Boom!
Suddenly, the ship rocks with the force of two explosions, one after the other.
Sirens blare and soldiers scramble. I plant my feet on the bridge and take my chair with a gruff bellow. “What in hell was that?”
“I don’t know, sir,” the navigator says, scrambling over the console.
Security officers are running the scans they should have been running already. I grit my teeth and hold back a snarl. We’ve been caught with our pants down, and I don’t like it. Not one bit.
Another explosion rocks the ship, more muted than the first one. We’ve stopped running and have our shields up. We can absorb most of what’s being thrown at us. I see the navigator’s fingers starting to hover over the ultra-drives. He wants to hop out of here, he’s anticipating an order to flee. That pisses me off almost as much as the attack itself.
“Slow down,” I order. “Find whatever it is. We’re not leaving.”
“Sir, those two hits weren’t significant, but they landed close to our propulsion systems. If they…”
“Find. Them!”
The last thing I tolerate in the middle of a combat situation is disagreement. I order, they follow. That’s how this works. I make a mental note to replace the navigator and turn to the scanners.
“What do you have?”
Boom!
The ship rocks again.
“Sir! That was the aft tank!”
Something is sitting just outside sensor range, pounding us. We’re leaking fuel into open space. This isn’t good, but I’m not going to retreat.
“Got them, sir!”
The scanner tech slams a button and the ship hitting us is projected on screen. I breathe a sigh of relief seeing how small it is, a button in the sky, throwing all its firepower at us. They can’t keep that up forever. A ship that size has probably emptied its weapons array already.
“Up shields and come about,” I order as a dark smile passes over my face. “Give them a nice juicy target. Let them keep hitting us.”
The navigator blanches, but does as I say. Maybe I’ll keep him on after all.
Three more explosions hit us, though with our shielding at maximum power, we barely feel a wobble on the bridge, and then… silence. They’re all out of energy. Perfect. We sit becalmed, together. I expect the other ship to make a run for it now, but they don’t. They stay stationary. Maybe they’ve drained everything they’ve got.
“Identify aggressor,” I snap at the scanner tech.
“Unknown, sir. Closest classification is rebel, potential pirate. Scanning indicates goods from multiple territories aboard. Smuggler is also an option.”
Except smugglers don’t pick fights with Rathkari war ships. Pirate or rebel is more likely. Maybe both at the same time. One doesn’t preclude the other, in fact rebels are more likely to be dealing in pirated goods than anyone. What I do know is that it’s someone who wants my attention. And they’ve got it. It’s time to find out who managed to piss me off.
“Open a voice channel.”
“Channel open.”
I clear my throat before I speak. “Unidentified vessel, you are in Rathkari space. Identify yourselves.”
There’s a pause and then a click and a hiss. Static between us.
“Get the fuck out of here.”
There’s interference over the connection, probably as they put their shielding up to full charge, but that fuzzy voice signal makes my heart stop in my chest.
“Get that captain on screen now.”
“Sir, we can’t force a…”
“Now!”
“Requesting video feed,” he says, lowering his head.
There’s another pause while the underlings negotiate. We can broadcast voice across space to our heart’s content, but we can’t demand video. That has to be given. It feels like forever as I wait impatiently, fingers tapping at the panel. I’ve long left my chair, rising to my feet the moment I heard those words. I stride across the bridge, my body filled with an uncomfortable energy. Hope. Is that what I’m feeling?
“Video, sir.”
The screen before our eyes flashes with the colors of the other ship. I see the captain’s face. She is wearing tight black battle armor open nearly to her navel. The rounds of her breasts are visible, held in place by two dark black straps running beneath. Her hair is the color of a woodland, and blue eyes blaze defiantly into my soul.
It is her. Her.
“Hello, Karlo.” Her eyes are ringed with dark cosmetics, making the bright blue of her eyes stand out even more. I have dreamed of the day I would see her again, but I never imagined it would be like this. I thought I would find in her in a prison somewhere. She is too disagreeable to peacefully exist most places where women are expected to obey. But she has carved out something more for herself. She has grown stronger. Her figure is fuller. Her skin is clearer. She is healthy. She is all she was and more.
I have so many words, but they are all stuck in my throat.
“I’ll repeat,” she says with an arrogant little flick of her head. “Get the fuck out of here. This is my territory.”
“This is Rathkari territory.”
“Not anymore.” Her smirk is beautiful, the challenge in her voice makes my cock hard. “Fifteen colonies swear loyalty to independence.” She leans closer to the screen. “I am routing you out, Karlo. Every one of you. In every corner of the universe.”
Her beauty is matched by her fire. It is almost a pity to have to capture her, but these are the last hours of her freedom. Soon she will be mine again. I can almost smell her. Every now and then throughout the years, I feel I have caught her scent, as if she has been in a room before me, or as if her ghost has brushed past me. She has been ever present in my mind and my senses and I am impatient to claim her again.
“We have them in sight, General. Shall we fire?”
“No,” I say. “We will capture the vessel. Tie them.”
My order is followed and seconds later, tendrils extend from our ship, long powerful metallic tentacles that float through space propelled by small charges. They wrap around the smaller craft, catching it by a hundred different points so that when it inevitably begins to fire its engines, nothing will happen.
The best part of the capture is being able to watch it on the live feed, to see her reaction as her ship shakes in our grasp.
“Karlo! Don’t you… asshole!”
She is perfectly furious the moment before she cuts the internal feed. A moment later, their ship begins to buck and squirm, using what is no doubt the last of their thrusters to attempt escape. It is too late. The irony is, if she had simply stayed quiet, we would have floated past, never seeing them at all. It was her impatience, her desire to fire that bought her vessel to my attention. As much as she may now try to fight it, she sealed her own fate.
I watch the drama unfold as their ship is drawn toward ours slowly, close enough to allow boarding. A thicker cable, the main tendril has been deployed. It will dock with her craft, bore through the exterior, and create a passage through which we will board.
Though I have searched for years, and had given up all hope of her, I am not in a hurry now. Impatience is the enemy, as she has demonstrated amply.
“They’re attempting to remove our probes, sir.”
The surveillance hand taps at his screen and the image of her ship expands to show that someone in an exo-suit is out trying to hack at the connectors. It’s a futile effort. They penetrate through the skin of the ship and weld themselves to it with a thermo-kinetic burst. That ship is ours unless and until I sever the connections from our end—and even then, their once-quick vessel will be a wild and flailing thing dangling tentacles from every part of its fuselage, of no use to anyone.
There is just one problem. If that person is her—and I know in my gut that it is—and she severs that connector partially, more voltage than she can stand is going to run through her rebellious little body. That I will not stand idly by and wait for.
“Go get her,” I order. “Now. Bring her back alive or you won’t be for much longer.”