- Ava -

“All reports are clear,” President Goanesi said. “The aliens are pulling back from the solar systems around us. They appear to be going back to their home systems. It's too soon to be absolutely sure, but it does appear that the danger is over. All Earth forces will be ordered to stand down when we get final confirmation.”

Ava nodded. It didn't surprise her.

The President of Space Expansion gave her a rare, tight smile. “It seems you were right after all. The friendly approach does work.”

“Mostly. Sometimes it has to be mixed with some degree of ... um ... aggression.”

“So noted. The Earth owes you a lot of gratitude. And Captain Xark'ion.”

“Mostly him. He realized that the Kunuru are essentially cowards and that their urge to kill everyone else didn't run too deep. They just need a purpose.”

“Don't we all. And you've fulfilled enough purposes for many lifetimes. I think that should be rewarded. So does everyone else. Whenever you decide to come back to Earth, you should get ready for a shower of medals and all kinds of honors. Heck, you'd be elected president of this whole planet if you came back now.”

Ava laughed. “Then I'll make sure not to come home for a long time.”

Goanesi smiled. “I understand your sentiment. But you might have to come here sooner than you think. I was fundamentally wrong about the right way to approach aliens. Now that your way has been demonstrated to work, and this thoroughly, I don't think I'm the right person to lead Space Expansion in the time ahead. But I think you just might be. You up for it?”

Ava frowned. “Are you retiring?”

“I'll resign from SE next month. They're offering me a professor's chair at Cornell, and I'm going to take it. It's for their new Department of Inter-species Relations. But it would be easier if I had a successor ready to go.”

Ava thought fast. It was tempting. The Space Expansion tendency to meet every new species with the muzzle of a laser would be a thing of the past, and space would be safer for everyone.

“Do I have to stay on Earth to do that?”

Goanesi shrugged. “A major part of this job is to schmooze with government officials to get funding. Or rather, that's the way it has been. Now that we actually are in contact with many alien civilizations, I think that part will diminish. You can probably devise a way to make money for the organization without depending on Earth governments. I mean, a one-percent sales tax on goods that are traded with aliens would pay for about half our current budget. At the current trade level, which is tiny. So there's potential. No, you probably don't need to always be on Earth.”

Ava thought about it. There would be no greater chance to influence the future of the Earth and make sure it went in the right direction. Peace, friendship, trade, cooperation. Her way.

“How long do I get to think about it?”

“Take a week. Then I'll want to know.”

“Thank you.”

“You are extremely welcome. You saved our bacon. Earth's, I mean. Goanesi out.”

The two-dee image went blank and Ava got to her feet. Acerex still rotated outside, and she saw the night side with thousands of tiny, yellow lights. Camp fires and fires outside the tents in the villages. It must be about dinner time in the area the Friendship was just now flying over. 

Someone entered the room, and she could tell from the electric tension in her body that it was him. She didn't turn around, and he didn't say anything until his huge arms were wrapped tightly around her from behind. “You done with your secret conversations?”

She leaned her head back onto his chest. “For now.”

He nuzzled her hair the way he often did. “Are you conspiring to conquer Acerex for Earth, seducing our warriors one by one?”

“Yes,” she said. “That's exactly it. We'll seduce you good and trick you all into marrying us. One at a time. Just a couple of warriors a year. So that in about a billion years, half your population will be Earthlings and then we will enslave you. No, enslave us. Actually, we don't really know who exactly we'd be enslaving at that point. Everything would be mixed up. Hey, it's a half-baked plan. But as they say, it's not so much about the outcome as about the process. And I'm really enjoying the process.”

She reached back with one hand and found his bulge, hard and twitching. She knew she was just as ready as he was. He had that effect on her.

“My love dares joke about the mighty warriors of Acerex,” he said into her hair. “She will be surprised when, a billion years from now, you try to enslave us and you realize that it's we who have tricked you into marrying us by the billion. Earth's most precious resource, their women. All ours. For free! How we will laugh! Indeed I will laugh right now: Haha.”

Ava slowly rubbed his twitching bulge. “Maybe I dared joke a little,” she admitted with a dry mouth. She couldn't wait to have him inside her. “What's the mighty warrior going to do about it?”

He grabbed her shoulders and turned her around, then cupped her butt and pulled her close. “I intend to ravish you.”

She got up on tiptoe, trying to rub the crotch of her jeans on his now quite scandalous bulge. “That's your answer to everything.”

“It always works,” he grumbled and impatiently pulled her sweater over her head.

She stretched her arms up to make it easier for him. “It really does.”

He stripped her naked and lifted her in that way he had that placed no strain on her and made her feel weightless. He placed her on the bed, on all fours, facing the large window.

She nodded to the planet outside. “What if they see us?”

“Then they will say, 'observe how Warrior Xark'ion is thwarting the Earthling plan to enslave us. Truly he is a patriot.'”

Ava relaxed and rested her head on her arms, arching her back to thrust her hips up and presenting herself as openly and submissively as she could for her love and lover. Only Xark'ion had ever brought that urge out in her. But now, it was as natural as breathing.

The bed flexed with his immense weight when he knelt behind her. As usual he took his time, and she knew he was admiring all her female charms.

She pushed her hips up even further, luxuriating in the feeling of showing all of her to the man she loved and feeling another wave of liquid heat stream to her already dripping pussy. Stars, she was always ready for him.

His hands stroked her feet, her ankles, her lower legs, both the good one and the sleeve, then continued up her thighs.

“Mine,” he grunted in a thick voice. “All mine.”

Then the head of his cock was at her entrance and she gasped as always, in delight and in expectation and in encouragement. Just a second from now, he would be deep inside her sex, making her his once more with all his bulges and ridges and spots that hit her insides just right. Every time.

He slid the end of his rod up the down her slit, wetting it for what would follow. Ava jerked when it barely touched her clit. She had never been more highly strung. Fuck, she would come gushing the second her speared her.

It was as if they'd never been apart at all.

She felt his large hands on her butt, kneading and spreading even more. She had never known such bliss. And he wasn't even fucking her yet.

She took a deep breath.

Then he thrust.