Nova (46 page)

In order to fool any identity sensor scans upon entry, the
two would apply a rather sophisticated subterfuge program from their CPA’s. The
program would allow them to falsely transmit the bio–signs of the two guards
they took out. To reduce the risk of discovery, the goal was to communicate as
little as possible with any Karukai that they interacted with. Matters would be
helped by the fact that they were both female and each could fluently speak the
Karukai tongue.

Their cause would be further aided by the late hour itself,
when most of the Outpost’s residents would be sleeping. Once inside, Avara and
K’llan would then find and hack into an accessible terminal to locate and make
their way to the Communications Hub. There, they would then contact Nova and
Excalibur
.
If she was still in system, they’d seize a starfighter and rendezvous with
their crewmates. If not, the plan was to hide a communique asking for help in
junk–feed and await a rescue response. If neither of these two tactics bore
fruit, Avara and K’llan’s only other option would be to wait for the next
Karukai transport. It was not an appealing thought, for stowing away on a
hostile military vessel was all but tantamount to guaranteeing capture.

Finally, Avara and K’llan would endeavor to fulfill the
mission goal that had brought the
Excalibur
to the Arkaia System and the
TS Ardent
in the first place. While they had access to the facility’s
data–core, they would data–dump the Outpost’s records for later examination
regarding what
exactly
the Karukai were doing here, in the emptiness of
Black Space that though unclaimed by any particular power, was still only
too
close to Quorum Aligned Systems territory.

In case of failure or separation, Serros and Z’arr set up a
fallback camp some fifteen miles away from the facility where they would leave
all of their non–essential survival gear, from portable generators and tent to bedrolls.
They’d only keep their two canteens of greatly diminished hydro–fluid and
weapons, as well as two med kits and some dried jerky for Avara.

Before setting out, Serros and Z’arr deliberately spent the
last half day not only preparing for their mission but also in rest. They knew
it was very unlikely that they would have another opportunity before the
success or failure of their mission was realized. In making ready, the two
meticulously cleaned their equipment, checking and rechecking their Nadir DZR rifles,
two pistols, and MA–Knives for any flaw, no matter how minor. Avara sported her
favored Volturnos as where K’llan volunteered to use the Karukai pistols. The
pistols were standard issue Nadir Stingers, just as their DZR rifles represented
typical accoutrement for Karukai infantry. With a sigh of regret, Avara knew
she’d have to relinquish her Volturnos before entering the facility under
disguise so as not to give the game away at its start.

When their weapons and gear were fully detailed and prepped,
the two companions set about readying their bodies. Each bathed and carefully
cleaned her clothing, not only for personal comfort’s sake, but more so, to not
risk giving their presence away to any Karukai Arcas with an SP enhanced sense of
smell. It wouldn’t do for the game to be lost before it truly started because a
random guard caught a faint whiff of weeks–long trail dust and so raised the
alarm. In addition, knowing that this would in all probability be her last
chance for real food for some time, Avara prepared and ate a batch of small,
freshwater fish that reminded her a lot of the trout she’d hooked on fishing
trips along the Tahona River on Pax with her old friend, Jamie Sweetwater. It
was a happy memory, one of easy friendship and simpler times, and Serros took
it as a good omen.

Finally, Avara found herself in the same position she had
been in several times during the over seventeen–hundred mile trek across
Dantis; bringing up the necessity of Feeding to a resistant K’llan Z’arr that
seemed stubbornly intent on pretending otherwise.

Marshaling her arguments, Serros knelt next to the
Lieutenant, who was busy organizing her gear. “K’llan, we need to…”

“I know, Avara.” Z’arr interrupted, her tone neither biting
nor dismissive as she deftly secured her med–kit to her unworn mag harness.

“Oh,” Serros responded, mentally shifting gears. At this
stage, Avara was finally not surprised that K’llan had known what she was to
say before the words left her mouth, but was still struggling to read the
Vosaia’s emotional state. “Good then.”

With a faint smile, K’llan remarked “You were excepting an
argument?”

“Well, yes.” The Captain answered forthrightly, brushing fingers
through dark locks curling a bit around her ears and grown rather longer than
she preferred.

K’llan stopped what she was doing and trained both her gaze
and full attention on Serros. Avara noted absently that for the mission, K’llan
had tied back her own hair with a ragged strip of cloth. It did nothing stop an
errant, sapphire colored lick from spilling down across her face, one that with
mild irritation, K’llan recaptured and tucked away. “The time when argument
would be applicable is long past, Avara.”

Studying the beautiful features of the Vosaia, Serros was
struck by the new, or perhaps
renewed
, sense of serenity pooled in the lustrous
violet depths of her eyes. Avara could feel a softening of trepidation and
anxiety regarding Feeding and, perhaps much more critically, the status of
their empathic link that had been trickling forth from K’llan since planet–fall.

“Why?”

 “Because choice has already been made that cannot be
unmade. Now all that is left for us is to understand and accept what that
choice means, no more, no less.”

Nyeria.

The word vibrated between and within them, resonating with
such clarity, it was as if K’llan had just spoken the term in her ear.  The
image and sensation was so vividly real, that Avara fancied she could feel
K’llan’s breath actually brush her lobe. Synchronously, Avara’s own mind issued
the term, all without separation of space or time. The conversation that they’d
had a week ago right after the experience of the second Feeding, came tumbling
back to Avara.

Like a child’s set of carved puzzle blocks, words tethered
to concepts fell into place and clicked together in perfect design and unity. Still
struggling to fully understand and accept the set puzzle laid bare before her,
Avara found that no words would come, so she issued a quiet nod of
acknowledgment.

With a sweet smile that flew straight to Serros’s heart,
K’llan tilted her head in response, eyes flooded with an understanding and
acceptance so deep, that Serros felt a pleasant shiver chase across her body. Then
K’llan stood, carrying Avara with the motion by taking her forearm. Using a
smooth, pearlescent hued hand that stood in stark relief against the crimson
colored jacket she wore, K’llan gently brushed Avara’s brow. Then, with a sense
of infinite affection coupled with willfully controlled and checked want,
tilted her head and leaned forward and up to place blue–brushed lips on Avara’s
own.

Just as before, the contact brought a tidal wave of emotional
and physical sensation forth. Life–energy, memory, deep held beliefs, fears and
aspirations, all spilling to, though, and between each individual until there
was no real understanding of where Avara began and K’llan ended. Like molten
metal from a forge dripping through every fiber, every pocket and pore of her
being and then quickening, Avara also felt the unmistakable surge of desire she
felt for this person, the need for physical expression of their emotional
coupling. And through it all, Serros knew it was an actuality that was exactly
twinned by K’llan. As the Human and the Vosaia operated in a state of harmony, flushed
with intoxicant–like spiritual exploration, a moment of recognition passed
between them.

Purely physical reality came slamming back, causing dark
sapphire and amethyst eyes to open as one. Feeling no less breathless than
before and slammed with the now familiar sense of loss at the cessation and
interruption of their psychic coupling, Avara realized she was gripping K’llan
in a bruising hold that the Vosaia was returning in kind.

“You are so very exquisite.” The words escaped Avara’s mouth
before she even realized she was thinking them.

To her surprise, a faint blush of blue brushed across
K’llan’s countenance, but her eyes neither lowered nor wavered from Serros’s
own. “Thank you, Avara. The sentiment is most definitely returned.”

Frowning slightly, after a moment’s hesitation Avara tilted
her head down and tenderly brushed her lips across K’llan’s forehead, issuing a
tight squeeze of her arms before releasing the Vosaia from her embrace. “We
should sleep while we can. My guess is that it will be our last chance for
quite some time, and we have only four hours until we need to ‘borrow’ some Karukai
armor and make the rotation.”

“Yes, quite correct.” K’llan responded, and just like Serros,
Avara could feel Z’arr consciously release her desire in the face of the danger
and responsibility that lay before them. The shift of focus was accompanied by
another shared sentiment, this time, the fragile thrill of hope blooming.

Home.

They were so close, that Avara could practically smell the
cool durexium walls of
Excalibur
, hear her low–toned thrum of systems
and engines as she sustained life and purpose to all those aboard ship. As
K’llan lay down to rest a foot or so away from Serros, Avara took comfort in
her presence and their shared resolve.

It was almost time.
  

 * * * * *

Only too soon after they had settled down to sleep, the time
came to leave what would hopefully be their last campsite on Dantis. It took
only minutes to securely stow away and strap on their readied gear, as well as
leave all superfluous equipment behind in the rocky nook of a small gully. Final
preparations complete, under the rain of chill starlight, the Human and Vosaia sped
across the sea of gray–green savannah grass, reaching their destination in just
under a quarter of an hour. After expending ten minutes or so to ascertain that
the Karukai guard routine was unchanged, the two positioned themselves behind
and to the south–east of the central beehive, as Avara had come to think of it,
next to the rushing waters of the stream.

The Captain and Lieutenant carefully hunched low to the
ground next to a thorn bush and covered all parts of their bodies with dry
bramble–branches to blend into the terrain. As they waited, locked in position
and silence so as to not given away their presence, the smell and song of water
flooded Avara’s senses. Overhead, the soft
thume–whick
of batwings
rippled in the night air as they hunted. After about twenty minutes, Serros was
able to pick up the faint sound of sweet–smelling grass being crushed underfoot.

Sure enough, after a few minutes the increasingly loud
footfalls matched a pair of booted feet walking more or less lazily in step
just a few feet from stream’s edge. Star and moonlight revealed two unhelmeted,
crimson armored individuals of medium height, one sporting the black markings
that denoted Officer ranking but fortunately, neither was accoutered with the
lightning chevron of the Varda.

When the Karukai had passed by their position, with a gentle
push
of emotion and thought towards K’llan, the Human and Vosaia sprang
into motion. Their forms no more than a deceiving blur, both rocketed towards
each chosen guard’s back and then locked right arms around Karukai necks even
as left arms stifled any cry or response. In less than a blink of an eye, two
low
cracks
slipped into the auditory mix of zinging insect life. The Karukai
shuddered then slid to the ground even as the last trickle of life ebbed from
their limp forms.

With deliberate alacrity, the Nova Squad members stripped
the guards of armor and weapons, quickly donned their newly acquired plunder, and
scanned Karukai bio–sign imprints. After, each heaved a body over her shoulder
and Arca–sped a mile or so downstream where they let the water’s currents take
the corpses away to oblivion.

Though it was stiff and a somewhat ill–fitted, Avara thought
to herself how good it felt to once again be in armor, especially given the daunting
task still before them. Serros and Z’arr quickly synced their new suits to
their CPAs, and then resumed the tail–end of the now expired guard duo’s pre–determined
patrol course. With her mouth dry and heart thudding in anticipation of
discovery, eighteen minutes later, they slipped into the eastern entrance of
the central beehive building along with two other pairs of guards as the fresh
and final night patrol traded out with them.

Captain Serros could feel the trickle of perspiration trace
down her temple inside her helm as the pale blue, impersonal light of a bio–sign
scan swept over both her and Z’arr in the small, locked security atrium before
the interior entrance of the building. At the dismissal of the scanner’s search
and the automated “go–ahead” that sounded throughout the cramped room, the
Shield Operative felt her heartbeat slow as one of the most difficult of many
upcoming hurdles was successfully overcome.

The inside of the facility was as smooth lined and curved in
construction as the outer, featuring pristine white walls, tan flooring and pale
blue windows and skylights. The interior was infused with the sharply clean
smell of a sterilized medical office. From floor to ceiling to symmetrically designed
station doorways all along and off of the open hallway in which they entered, everything
was utterly spotless.

Fortunately, other than bidding the unidentified infiltrators
goodnight, their fellows seemed little interested in conversation, only preoccupied
with acquiring rack–time. It was no time at all before the two non–Karukai were
able to split off from the rest and swiftly disappear into a small adjacent
office.