The Siege of New Terra (Star Sojourner Book 7) (13 page)

She shook her head. “Bugs.”

It was not easy getting my leg over the motorcycle with my pants pressed tight around my crotch, but where there's a will…

* * *

We pulled off each other's clothes in the tight quarters of Sophia's private berth aboard the hovair. She lay back on the narrow bed and smiled. I lowered myself on top of her and the voices and laughter, the footsteps outside the narrow confines of our curtained berth as Orghes inspected the craft, faded to nothingness.

She touched the cigar burn on my chest. “What's this?”

I smiled. “An old war wound. It's healing. Don't touch it, OK?”

“You're full of old war wounds.”

“They all heal. And if they don't, Bat takes care of them.”

She ran her hand through my hair. “How many of your nine lives have you used up?”

“Who's counting?”

“I'm afraid to.” She lifted her knees against my hips and pulled me down. She cried out as I entered her.

Our lovemaking was wanton and as passionate as two cats fighting, driven by our need that had gone too long unfulfilled. She cried out as we both reached orgasm. Here, on this tight bed, we touched heaven for one explosive moment.

When it was over, we remained locked, panting, sweaty, and I realized that the voices and the footsteps had stopped and been replaced by giggles. I slid out of her and lay beside her on the bed. “I wish there was a back door.” I took her hand.

“Are you ready to leave?” She lifted to her elbows and looked down at me. “I'm not. To hell with the worlds, Jules, Earth and New Terra. Fuck them both! Let's just stay aboard ship and for once, let others handle the problem.”

I brushed wet strands of hair off her forehead. “I wish I could, Soph, but it's my problem too.”

“Babe, you've done more than your share. I'm afraid you already used up most of your nine lives.” She kissed my cheek. “Save one for me, my love.”

“Could you love me if I walked out on my team? They're only going to be here another week.”

“I will
always
love you, Jules, more than I love my own life. Don't you know that you're the soul within my body?”

I kissed the tip of her nose. “Do you remember what I said on New Lithnia before I went back to the slave mine?”

“No! You said a lot of things.”

I ran my fingers over her cheek, her lips. She was so beautiful. “Yes you do. 'I could not love thee, dear, so much…' ”

She lowered her forehead to touch mine and sighed. “ 'Loved I not honor more'.”

“Oldore?” I said at the entrance to his dark cave home. “May I come in?”

Oldore looked up from carving a figure out of a block of wood about a foot wide and high. Streaks of green and gold swirled through it. The statue of an Orghe was taking shape under his hand. Oldore's tan fur, white on his head and neck, lifted in the heat of a small fire set in a ring of stones. He wiped a hand across his eyes. “Enter, Jules.”

“Thank you.” I ran a hand over my eyes.

He chortled and nodded toward a woven mat across the fire.

I unzipped my jacket in the warmth of the den and sat down. “That's beautiful. Is it a doll for a child?”

He turned the half-carved figure in his long-fingered, furred hand. “He is the manifestation of my people's deity, the special god who watches over the Sunspire Village.” He lifted the statue. “This is Orin.” The figure's arm and upturned hand were stretched out, as though welcoming people into the fold.

“Sunspire.” I smiled. “Nice name.”

He stared at me with small round eyes. “Your…
shirt
?” he asked.

“Yes.” I fingered the torn material. “We call this a shirt.”

“It is torn, and you have been burned. I think the ravagers have treated you badly. One of our women would be glad to sew it.”

“OK.” I took off my jacket and the shirt. “There are extra buttons on the cuffs. See?” I showed them to him. “They can replace the ones that were ripped off.”

He stared at my bare chest and smiled, showing square teeth.

I smiled back and put a hand to my chest. “My very distant ancestors had fur. We lost it somewhere along the way.”

“But you replaced it with clothing.”

I nodded and put on my jacket. “Sometimes it's a real pain.”

He picked up a piece of solidified volcanic ash called tuff, and began to smooth out the figure's arm. “But you did not come here to discuss clothing, or the gods.”

I lowered my head and ran a finger through crumbled sandstone. “The help we requested for your people … it's …” I shook my head. “In about seven days the star ship will return from its mission on another planet and pick up my team.”

He kept working the wood. “And you?”

“I'm staying. I can help your fighters set up a defensive line. Chancey's teaching them how to use beam weapons. And we have an armed hovair.” I huddled closer to the fire. “We can evacuate your women and children, your non-combatants, to another island.”

“The islands are taken.” He studied the wood. “Our people would be seen as intruders and enemies.”

“Don't you trade with the other islanders, maybe intermarry?”

“All that. And more.” He studied the figure's hand and carefully scraped between the fingers. “The women who marry stay on the islands of their husbands. Others are not welcome.”

“But
your
women and children. What about
them
if the mercenaries overrun this village?”

“There is a creature that plows the seas in families. They are not fish. We call them our brothers of the sea.”

I tapped the ground, waiting.

He flicked me a look. “When sickness runs through their members and some grow too weak to swim, the family leaves their home in the sea and comes ashore to die.”

“I've heard of this, Oldore, on my own world. But– Are you saying that if you lose the island to the mercenaries, the survivors will commit suicide? The children… Is
that
what you're saying?”

He stood the statue in the sand. “I am saying that we live as a family and we will die, if we must, as a family.”

An older woman, the tawny fur thin on her pale head and chest, emerged from deeper in the cave and paused.

“This is Anbria, my wife,” Oldore said.

I started to stand up. Anbria wiped a hand across her eyes and smiled, stretching thick lips. I sat back down, smiled, and wiped my eyes with a hand.

She threw Oldore a quizzical look. He chortled and held up my shirt with a few words in his native tongue.

Anbria hooted softly, took the shirt and scratched the top of her head. Her eyes crossed as she studied the rips closely in firelight. Then she wiped her eyes with a hand and disappeared back into the darkness of the cave.

“You'll have to forgive my lack of protocol,” I said, “but we're talking about life and death here.”

He turned the half-finished statue so that the extended hand faced me. “I think you should leave with your people… your team.”

I shook my head. “I'm the only one who can fly the hovair. I'm the only one who knows the tactics of those butchers!” I thought of Sophia. She would not want to leave. If I tried to force her aboard the star ship, Joe and my team would force me there too.

“Still, you are of their race,” Oldore was saying, “a child of Terra. This is not your struggle.”

“You know what, Oldore, I just made it my struggle.” I wiped a hand across my eyes. “I'm sorry if I did that wrong.” I stood up, zipped my jacket, and strode out of the cave.

* * *

That night we feasted on roasted fish, wild nuts and berries, and hot bread from the new ovens, with digestall tablets to keep us Terrans safe. The Orghes' fields had been burned when the mercs destroyed the village, but the Orghes had stored bags of grain and taken them to their new village. I wondered how long the grain would last. Our weapons and vehicles were reassuringly close at hand. The night air was crisp, but warmed by the friendliness of the Orghe people.

Sophia sat beside me, our crossed knees touching, while young girls and boys danced around a blazing fire that held off demon shadows conjured out of black woods.

Somewhere, most likely at the merc base, plans were being devised for an attack, once they discovered this new village. My tel range was about fifteen miles, and I felt no presence save for alien Orghe minds. I glanced around at smiling furred faces. The people had no idea that besides the guards stationed in tall trees that crowded the village, I was also on guard for encroaching mercs.

Galrin staggered between the sitting people and plopped down beside us with three bowls and an animal skin bag taut with liquid. His eyes were red and glazed, and he chortled deep in his throat as he struggled to pry the wooden cap off the skin. Finally he succeeded and the cap flew over his shoulder. He lifted the skin. “I think we will have to finish this now.”

I slid Sophia a glance as Galrin poured ruby red liquid more on the ground than into the bowls.

“Here,” I reached for the skin, “why don't you let me do that?”

“For sure, as a Terran would say.” He watched me pour some liquid into the bowls and waved his hand. “You must fill them or I will take offense.” His lips curled back in a grin and he hooted.

I looked at Sophia. She shrugged.

“No offense meant, Galrin.” I filled the bowls, then fished out two digestall tablets from my newly sewn shirt, gave Sophia one and swallowed the other one.

Galrin lifted his bowl in two hands. “To the bounty of the land and of the sea.” He drank.

So did we.

I thought I had swallowed fire.

Sophia's mouth was open, her eyes wide. “I think I'm exhaling smoke! Is my hair on fire?”

“You must drink again,” Galrin told us. “Quickly, and the fire will pass.”

“I don't think so,” I croaked. The heat in my throat slid down to my stomach, and continued its slide. I felt an instant erection. “Oh my God!”

“Drink more,” Galrin urged. “If you drink more you will feel better.” He handed me my bowl, then gave Sophia hers. “Drink, woman, and quench the fire in your loins.”

“Are you certain, Galrin?” she asked.

“You question me?” He leaned forward. His small eyes narrowed. “And you, Jules of Terra, do you question my Orghe honor?”

“Uh,” I said.

The dancing had stopped. The people silently watched us. “Of course not.” I shook my head and drank pure fire. So did Sophia.

“Oh no,” I mumbled as it began its slide to my genitals. “Oh no!” I felt an orgasm coming on.

Galrin chuckled. “Is that not better?”

“Sophia,” I whispered. My pants were so tight, it hurt to stand up. “Let's get out of here.”

Her eyes glazed over. She threw herself at me with a cry. “Oh! Take me!”

I fell. She landed on top of me and ripped the buttons off my shirt. “I'm yours!”

“No you're not!” I rolled her off. “Not here.” I jumped up and ran for the small cave Sophia and I had been given by Oldore, with Sophia snatching at my jacket from behind. The orgasm came on before I reached the cave. “I'm going to kill that little bastard!” I shouted.

“Galrin!” I heard Oldore call, “what have you done, young snip?”

“It was just a few drops from the Marriage Bowls, sire.”

I heard snickers and chortles from Orghes around the fire as I threw myself into the cave with Sophia close behind.

“I'm going to strangle that little bastard!” I said.

I cannot remember a night like that one. We made love until we could no longer move. I was drained. With nothing left to give each other, we slept away the day.

“May we enter?” a voice called softly from the entrance.

I lifted my head to look out the cave on a darkening day.

“It is I, Oldore, and Anbria. She has brought you food and drink.”

“What
kind
of drink?” I laid my head back down.

“Nothing more than water with squeezed berries for nourishment and taste.”

“Come in.” Sophia sat up and scratched her head. “I could eat a horse.”

Oldore and Anbria exchanged glances.

“Ou orsh?” She put a wooden tray on the floor between us with two dishes, a skin of liquid, and two bowls. She squatted, inspected my ripped shirt, and hooted something to Oldore.

“If you would remove the shirt again, Jules,” he sighed, “Anbria is willing to sew it again. She found the buttons you lost during your flight.”

“Galrin!” I said between teeth and sat up. “I swear I'll kill that little bastard.”

“Take it easy, Jules.” Sophia put a hand on my shoulder and smiled. “Was it really so bad?”

Oldore chortled. “First you would save us at the risk of your own life, and now,” he hooted softly, “you swear to kill one of us.”

I stood up and helped Sophia to her feet. “No, Soph, I guess it could've been worse. He could've sold tickets!” I shrugged out of my jacket, took off my shirt, and handed it to Anbria. “Thank you.”

She wiped a hand across her eyes.

Yeah, right!
I thought and put on my jacket.
Whatever.

Sophia picked up the tray and we left the cave.

Joe and some Orghes had made a table of sorts with a metal panel unscrewed from inside the hovair. Tied cross-branches braced it, and tree stumps he'd burned out with a rifle served as chairs.

Sophia laid the tray on the table and we sat on wobbly stumps to swallow digestall tablets and eat a supper of red meat from a hunt, blue tubers that were spicy and stringy, and bread.

Sophia watched me as I carefully sipped the drink. It was just water flavored with berries. “The taster survived,” I said. “You can drink.”

She gave me a sly look and chewed a tuber. “Do you think it's possible, hon, to die from too much love-making?”

“It nearly killed me.” I watched her chew the tuber. “Soph, it's like an artichoke. Just strip off the soft part.”

“Oh.” She leaned forward. “Jules, I know how you feel about eating animals that have been hunted.”

“The fish have been hunted,” I said. “Sometimes you don't have a choice.”

We were finishing our meals when something nagged at my mind. I lowered my shields and tel-probed the darkening woods. Was it my imagination, deepened by the eerie blackness between trees, or the residual effect of Galrin's love potion?

Or something else?

Chancey was busy teaching a circle of young males about weapons. Joe was supervising guerrilla tactics with hidden pits in the road, and traps along the way. Bat was still teaching the women about first aid and the care of burn wounds from beam weapons. Huff was back at the fishing grounds with his new buddies.

“Soph, stay here in the village,” I said. "I'm going to take a jeep and check the outlying areas.

“Do you sense something?” She stood up.

I got up and walked to a jeep with her at my side. “It's nothing specific. Just an uneasy feeling, you know? A pressure on my mind, as though a storm's brewing.”

“I'll come with you.”

I stopped. “I'd prefer if you didn't.” I touched her cheek. “I don't know what I'm likely to meet out there.”

She gave me one of her harder looks. “You get the jeep. I'll get the rifles.”

We had already strapped on our stinglers and I had a new knife for my leg sheath from the hovair's cache of weapons. I saw her talk to Joe as I climbed into a jeep and started it. He watched me drive up to them. I bit my lip. “Joe, I–”

“I know. What do you think it is?”

I stared in the direction of the
send
, in those darkening woods, if it was a send.
Something wicked this way comes,
I mentally recited. “Whatever it is, I don't think it's friendly.”

“The mercs?” he asked.

I shook my head. “It's not Terran.” I tel-probed the woods again, as they slid into night. “It's…alien.”

“Chancey trotted up.”Where you heading, Superstar?"

“I'm not sure, Chance. You want to come?”

He rubbed his jaw and stared into the distance. “The woods at night, and armed mercs that want to kill us all. Why not?” He gave me one of his twisted grins. “It can't be as dangerous as my home turf.”

Sophia climbed in next to me. Chancey slid into the back seat. Joe looked around. “These tags know what they have to do.” He unslung his rifle and got into the back seat.

“Let's go,” Chancey tapped my backrest, “before the fur ball shows up smelling like fish and wants to take care of his Terran cub.” He gave my ear a shake. “You're so damn cute. He just can't resist you.”

“Screw off, Chance!”

I was driving under the canopy of boughs when I heard Huff call.

“Wait! For me. My tongue hangs! Wait for me!”

“Dammit,” Chancey said, “floor it!”

“He's part of our team, Chance.” I hit the brake.