15

Four weeks later

- Charlotte -

“That Xoth nearly had you, Grebion'ex!”

“He did not! I was only checking how you would handle it, Wre'ox. And you performed satisfactorily when you cut its weapon off. Why, I deem that in only a few years you'll be ready for your Trials.”

The dimly lit room erupted in loud laughter and the warriors slapped each other's backs and clinked their glasses together around the table. The after-battle meals were always happy and boisterous occasions where the warriors could release the tension that had built up by combat and their relief of still being alive and unharmed. Charlotte enjoyed it a lot – she had the same need, even if she had spent the whole time inside the dropship.

After battles was the only times when Cori'ax would make sure to sit beside her in public, and she loved having him near and feel his heat and his hand sometimes lying heavily on her thigh under the table. He never got too blatant about it, and Charlotte appreciated it. He was a warrior and leader to the core.

He was rarely the loudest during these occasions, mostly enjoying his food and grunting and nodding to the stories told by the others. But she noticed that they all looked to him for clues to how to respond to the various things said.

He set his stein of brey down on the table and wiped his mouth. “Indeed Wre'ox performed satisfactorily. As did everyone. Yes, I agree. You're all almost ready for your Trials.”

They all laughed again, not least in relief that they had all passed their Warrior Trials long ago and that they would never have to go back to the Fire Planet. Those trials had been traumatic for most of them, and jokes with the Fire Planet as the punchline often came up when they were drinking. They still feared it.

Charlotte had been surprised to realize how real and alive the memory of the Trials were in the minds of every warrior, regardless of age. As their most harrowing experience, it was such an integral part of their culture that it was hard to imagine them without it.

“Just don't make us retake the Trials,” one warrior grunted. “Now that they take place at the North Pole, they've changed a lot, I heard.”

Charlotte took a sip of her own brew and placed her hand lightly on Cori'ax's, knowing how he felt about that topic. It was a difficult point for many warriors. No young, untested Acerex man would ever again have to go through his Trials on the Fire Planet in order to become a full warrior. King Vrax'ton had recently decreed that from now on, the Trials would take place at the Ytter tribe, at Ravex'ton's village in the far north of Acerex. There, the infernal Freeze would present a challenge that was just as difficult as the Fire, but much less deadly, so that more young men survived it and could go on to fight aliens for the Acerex.

Charlotte knew that it had probably been Lily's idea in the beginning, and Ravex'ton had seen the sense of it and had convinced Vrax'ton. Now most of the young warriors survived their Trials, and many escaped without any serious injuries. But still it hardened them and created confidence, camaraderie and a sense of accomplishment in the newly minted warriors, without unnecessarily killing a lot of them the way the Fire did.

Charlotte had even given some vague thoughts to taking those Ice Trials herself, so that the Acerex would trust her as a full warrior, but going through the full Trials seemed a little too dangerous to make sense.

Another warrior snorted. “One Fire Trial warrior is worth fifty of those new Ice Trials. I sometimes can't understand what the king is thinking.”

“His Majesty knows what he's doing,” Cori'ax said, but there was no strength in it. “It's all for the best.”

The other man heard his captain's lack of conviction. “All for the best to weaken the army? I grant that the Ice Trials have made our army larger. But strength isn't measured in numbers! It is measured in valiance and skill and bravery. And, yes, I'll say it: it is also measured in luck. We have all survived the holy Fire Planet. We can count ourselves lucky, blessed by the Spirit. And he who is blessed by the Spirit will continue to be so. He will be lucky in battle. Lucky for Acerex. And we all survived. We have that blessing and that luck.”

Cori'ax smiled. “I can't quite follow your reasoning, Warrior Ererox. But I'm sure it makes sense to you. To the rest of us, we understand that the king's decision stands and that he has his reasons. And I'm sure he would prefer not to have them discussed by drunken, rust-bladed grunts like you. Drink another glass, warrior.”

They all laughed again, but Ererox wasn't placated. “It's an alien conspiracy! Ever since those Earthlings came – I beg your forgiveness, Pilot Charlotte, you are not to blame, but these things must be said – the king and his best men have had their judgment clouded. End the Fire Trials? That has served us so well for centuries? It spells doom for our planet, mark my words.”

“Coldness can be as bad as heat,” Cori'ax said and placed his stein down on the table in a decisive gesture. “Now let's talk no more about it. Who slayed the most Xoth today? I have you down for eighteen, Vuri'ex.”

The conversation turned to other things, but Charlotte knew that many warriors were uneasy about Earthlings and their ideas. For a species which had always been at war with all the aliens they met, it was understandable that the Acerex would take a lot of convincing. And Charlotte was happy to be part of that.

Even with combat-hardened warriors, the post-battle celebrations tended to last for many hours, and long before the end, Charlotte left and went to her own tent. She was as happy as anyone about the squad's good performance, but there were limits to how much brey she could drink and to how many of the same jokes she could take before she started rolling her eyes.

She had a good, new tent made from Earth tech. All the Acerex had been offered those, but only a couple of squads in the whole army had accepted them. The Acerex skepticism of everything that was alien would be hard to turn, Charlotte realized. Well, if they didn't want to sleep in perfect temperature and breathe carefully scrubbed air, then that was their own problem. Charlotte herself didn't want to go without those things. Being on combat duty for the Acerex was demanding, and she needed her small luxuries.

She got out of her flight suit, hung it in the locker where the garment would be perfectly cleaned by nanoparticles and slid between the sheets. She knew that Cori'ax would soon be there, and her girly bits were heating up a whole lot.

They were usually both very much in the mood after a successful mission, after the worst of the stress hormones in their blood had subsided and the pleasurable stuff took over. The brey helped, too.

The sheets were cool and soft against her naked body, and she wondered how he would take her tonight. She liked everything he did to her. Lately he had taken to lifting her up with her feet against his chest and then lowering her onto his raging erection, fucking her standing up and holding her whole weight in his arms. She loved that, too. No one else had ever done that with her, and she doubted any other man was strong enough to do it. Only Cori'ax could fuck her like that.

The thought sent a hard tingle right through her sex, like a lightning bolt, and she moaned in the silent tent. Sex with Cori'ax just got better and better as he got more and more familiar with her body, and her orgasms just got stronger and stronger. But that could also have something to do with ...

She stroked her stomach, feeling the bulge. All that sex had definitely had some results. From pretty early on, too. She was trying to hide the morning sickness from Cori'ax, because she wasn't at all sure how he would take it.

She hadn't told him. She hadn't even gone to the medics to check for sure. She wasn't impressed with the Acerex medical facilities anyway, and she had promised herself to go to the Friendship as soon as possible to get it confirmed once and for all by Earth doctors.

Of course she would tell Cori'ax first, ideally in perfect Acerex and in the formal High Warrior dialect. She'd been practicing in secret, so that she could tell Cori'ax about the pregnancy in his own language, as flawlessly and elegantly as she could get it. She thought he'd probably appreciate that. Becoming a parent was common on Earth, but much less so on Acerex, because of the shortage of women.

She'd kept telling herself 'just one more mission'. But time was passing fast, and leaving now would mean staying away from the squad for weeks. Possibly even until the baby was born. She was pretty sure the Acerex military, consisting only of males, didn't have any policy to deal with a pregnant warrior or pilot. Probably they would just tell her to stay away from active duty until she would be less of a headache for them.

But she was still fully capable of flying missions for the squad, and she would remain so for a good while yet as the pregnancy developed. If anything, her reflexes were even faster now.

She turned over and peered at the tent flap. What was keeping him? Usually he would impatiently let a couple of minutes go by before he would follow, just to not make it too obvious to the other warriors where he was going and what he was planning. But this time it seemed to take him longer.

Well, whatever. She wasn't going to go get him, like some lovesick teen.

She laid back and yawned. Of course, if she was taken off active duty because of the pregnancy, then Cori'ax would have to find another pilot. That someone else would take her place for a while didn't worry her. But she hated the thought of Cori'ax and the squad she had started to feel such an important part of being in the hands of a less competent pilot than her. And all the Acerex were less competent. Much less, even. Some of the advanced moves she had insisted the squad drill during deployment and extraction would fail miserably if another pilot was flying the dropship, and no Acerex flyboy knew how to give the squad real fire support. That was not something they trained, but it had been a vital part of Cori'ax's tactics for many weeks now, after Charlotte had shown him what she could do. If he were suddenly left without a good pilot, Charlotte feared what could happen to him.

Still she smiled into the darkness in the tent. She was happy, happier than she had been since she left Earth to go into space. She was flying combat missions again. She was the best pilot in the army. And she had the best boyfriend she could imagine.

No, she corrected herself; she hadn't even imagined someone like Cori'ax before. He was like something straight out of some ancient legend about a mythical hero, like Hercules or something. And he fucked like a damn god. And alien god. And she was pregnant by him.

All of that made her happy. So maybe it would make him happy, too?

She made a decision right there. She would tell him tonight. After sex, of course. She didn't want him to hold back, and there was no better time than afterwards, when she was resting in his arms and feeling like her whole body was a warm, sparkling liquid. Yep, that's what she would do. She would tell him in the formal dialect, the High Warrior one, that he was going to be a father. He'd appreciate that.

She grunted in frustration and tossed the covers off. Where the hell was he? Did he want her to come to his tent this time? She'd never done that. He always came to her.

She sat up rubbed her eyes. She was at that level of sleepiness where sex was just a little tad better than otherwise, because it could sometimes take on a dreamish quality. But fine. If he wanted her to come to him, she wasn't too precious to do that. But she was clearly too horny not to.

She got up and tossed on a pair of pants and a top, then stuck her head out of the tent and looked around. There was no one, but she could see that there was a small stripe of warm light visible right under the flap of Cori'ax's tent. She smiled and felt another spark of hotness shoot through her pussy. He was clearly up and waiting. Maybe he had something special in mind for tonight. It had been a very fine victory they'd shared.

She ran lightly over to his tent, then stopped right before she was about to lift the flap. He was not alone in there.

There were voices, and even through the heavy fabric of the Acerex-made tent she could hear that at least one of them was not from the squad. It was an older man, and the voice was rough, but so firm and confident that she realized that it had to be someone from high up in the command structure.

“... will be of the greatest importance. We get a single chance. It cannot go wrong.”

Charlotte understood a good amount of the Acerex language now, and this man didn't speak like the squaddies. He used different words that sounded old-fashioned. It was the High Warrior dialect.

“There are no guarantees in war.” That was Cori'ax. But he sounded different than usual. Curt, annoyed. As if he was struggling with a difficult thought.

“I am aware of that, warrior. And yet we must guarantee that this will succeed. We are doing our parts. Are you doing yours?”

Charlotte frowned. That gravelly voice was familiar.

“I have done my part all my life,” Cori'ax growled. “And more, some would say.”

“Indeed many would say that Warrior Cori'ax has performed invaluable services to our people. But is it not the way of the world that those who give much are always asked to give even more? No one questions your patriotism or willingness to suffer for the cause, warrior. But you have been silent. I have not heard from you for weeks, and I must check that you are still in. Surely you understand my concern. We must succeed in this. We must.”

Charlotte's hand flew to her mouth. That voice – that was Bandi'ex, the legendary Chief of the Dirt who had accepted her into their army. Why was he there?

“We must,” Cori'ax said, but to Charlotte it sounded like a reflexive response, and she couldn't hear any of his usually unshakeable confidence in it. What the hell were they asking him to do? Whatever it was, he clearly didn't like it.

She looked around quickly, but the camp was quiet and dark. The air was cool and fresh, and her bare feet were cold on the damp grass.

“Warrior Cori'ax,” a new and younger voice said from inside. “I am not as diplomatic and wise as the rest of our brotherhood. I must say that I do detect some hesitance in you. And I wonder if you are now having second thoughts about the whole thing. Does it have anything to do with the Earthling that you have piloting your squad? Are you developing some affection for her? There are rumours that you're spending nights with her.”

Cori'ax rumbling laughter was low, but unmistakable. “Oh, the alien? She's a pleasant enough bed warmer, certainly. Nothing more, of course. Far too alien for me to actually feel affection for. My stance on anything that's not our own should be well known. Would I feel affection for a lesser being? But thank you for sending her to me, Bandi'ex. My nights are indeed enjoyable now. She's a fair pilot, too. When she's not busy falling out of her own shuttle.”

The men inside chuckled, and Charlotte felt the bottom fall out of her life. She felt her face go cold and her stomach turned to ice.

“I'm glad you could get some utility out of her,” Bandi'ex said. “I suppose she has served her purpose for us by now. Then our plan still goes ahead. And hopefully that pilot will have the sense to stay inside his craft when it's airborne.” The men laughed again, Cori'ax too.

Charlotte had heard enough.

She stumbled back to her own tent on unsteady legs, stunned by disappointment and shock.

She stood in the middle of her tent, just staring into nothing as the world fell apart around her. Of course he couldn't love her. Of course it had been an act from the start. Of course he had just been using her.

Bed warmer. She clasped her forehead. How could she have been so stupid?

The tent seemed to be encroaching on her, growing smaller and sucking the air out.

Charlotte cupped her stomach with the little bump. And of course she was carrying his child.

Her knees turned to jello and she collapsed onto the floor, which immediately softened to dampen her fall. She tried to hold back the sobs, but it was no use.

It had all been fake. Being accepted into the Acerex army, Cori'ax's appreciation of her skills, the camaraderie with the squad, their relationship. And the feelings she thought he had for her. All pretend and falsehoods. And she had believed it was true. All of it. Especially the feelings. She could have done without those other things. But the love she thought he felt ...

Had he been truthful to the other men when she had eavesdropped? Guys would often exaggerate and say stupid things that weren't true in order to seem cool to other guys.

But she knew that wasn't it. Cori'ax was too honest, too straightforward. It was one of the things she really liked about him. Trying to seem cool was totally unnecessary for him. He just was coolness itself. He knew who he was. And his voice, and that little chuckle ... no, he couldn't have faked that. Not he.

She had known he was wary of aliens. But she also thought that she had felt a change in him, a softening about that. But the truth was he still hated them. And that included her.

Fuck. This was becoming too much to bear.

In a flash it became clear: she had to go. Now.

She was technically on leave for five more days, so leaving now didn't make her AWOL. But it would give her ample time to withdraw from Acerex duty. She was not going to try another unit after this. She was clearly not welcome in their army.

She stiffly got to her feet again. In a daze, she put on her flightsuit, collected her few personal items and mechanically straightened everything out with military precision.

She threw her backpack on and marched to the dropship. That belonged to Earth's Space Expansion, and she had every right to take it with her. No one else in the Acerex army could fly it right anyway.

The grief gave way to a white hot anger as she initiated the engine start.

A fair pilot, huh? These idiots clearly didn't know a pilot from a hole in the ground. Well, they had just lost their best one. She had racked up so many alien enemy kills that only a handful of warriors in the squad had chalked up more. And she had done it in just a few months.

The dropship whined as it powered up, and Charlotte gave it a little extra power as she took off and zoomed over the camp, gaining height. She wasn't going to go quietly. Everyone would know that Pilot Charlotte was gone. She pushed the power slider all the way forward and aimed straight up. She would be at the Friendship in a couple of days, and she would see Vrax'ton and resign.

She wasn't sure yet which reason she would give him. This whole thing seemed too personal.

The acceleration forces pushed her back in the seat. The base grew smaller on the screen that showed the rear view.

Somewhere down there was the love of her life.

Because of course she still loved him. More than she had never loved any man. Ever.

That he didn't love her back was the hardest thing she'd had to face.

She had been so sure, too. Even without the Mahan thing. She hadn't needed that, and she was sure he didn't need it, either.

Shit. Was she being rash? Should she give him a chance to explain? If he was in fact the love of her life?

She snorted. That would have been a weird conversation.

'Hey, so, do you consider me just a bed warmer?'

'No, of course not.'

What could she say to that? The doubt would always be there.

Or, since this was Cori'ax, the only man she'd known who'd never lie: 'yes, of course I do'.

She didn't know which would be worse.

She had been so close to trusting him, too. And then this.

Well, it was probably better that she found out before things got more serious.

The planet was a disk on the screen, and it would soon be time to start the interstellar travel.

She cupped her belly again. “But don't you worry. I love you. And I have a plan for you.”