Star Brigade: Odysseys - An Anthology (3 page)

“We miss you, Norad!” a Nnaxan voice bellowed in the background.
Eikoh.

The Kedri missed those friends he still had at M24, but getting overly sentimental in public over emotional bonds was not the Kedri way. “Your methods were…unexpected.”

“Rothorids aren’t idiots,” Parsec stated. “We had to ensure they suspected no deception from you.”

“No doubt. How is Eikoh?” Norad recalled how badly those passengers had worked him over.

“Just some bumps and bruises,” the female human named Kashmere replied. “He’s a big boy.”

That relieved Norad greatly. “I’ll send over your percentages once I receive the Wrathorids’s first payment. And please be discreet with your commission.” Norad knew he played a dangerous game selling Imperium weaponry to a competing mercenary group, no matter how small. If any of the Kedri within M24 found out, it could mean his death, as well as those of his three long-time comrades.

“We know, we know,” Parsec laughed. “Discretion is our middle names, Norad!”

“Of course. Till next time.” Trickery was not a dish the Kedri served often or willingly. But given the plethora of known suppliers out there, his plunge into gunrunning hadn’t come without challenges.

Before his days as a soldier of fortune, Norad Gour had served in the Imperium Armed Forces with all the stereotypical wants of any battle-hungry Kedri: fight for the Imperium, reach the rank of Warmaster, a good clean death by way of combat, and a progeny to continue their bloodline. But events and politics beyond Norad’s control disrupted all of those goals. And once the Ferronos Sector War had concluded, it grew increasingly obvious that the Kedri Imperium’s glory days of conquering others with impunity were over. 

After leaving the Imperial military, Norad spent seven profitable years with M24. The large and renowned mercenary group was known for its blend of Nnaxan, earthborn and Kedri members, as well as its ruthless effectiveness. Norad had gotten to war and whore to his heart’s content and rose quickly in the group’s ranks, only to finally tire of the constant battle a few months ago. That was a near-blasphemous sentiment amongst most Kedri and did not go over well with his Imperium brethren. Norad didn’t care. He needed a different path, one that could give him more than fleeting glory from battle, leading him to his current profession as an arms dealer.

And hopefully it leads me to the one I want to spend my life with.

He finally reached his suite, on the 816
th
floor of the 2500-story Miracle Living Sector, located within the second of ICOM’s massive cylinder superstructures. A retina and thumb scan granted the Kedri access to his room. The massive suite’s halolights brightened upon entry, revealing gunmetal grey walls, an open door that peeked into a massive bedroom with wall-sized viewports, and a dining area. Something on the floor caught Norad’s eye.

He took a few steps into the foyer, spotting a pile of clothing far too small and feminine to be his. The Kedri jerked his head up, noticing then the steady jets of the shower from his bathroom.

An uninvited guest.

Norad whipped out a dull grey H-4 Quickshot pulse pistol that looked small in his large hands and crept toward the bathroom with practiced stealth.

In the ceiling-high cylindrical bathing chamber was where Norad found his intruder: a petite female human, as naked as the stars were bright, earthborn by her sun-kissed complexion and the spun-gold hair spilling past her shoulders in sodden swaths. She stood with her head tilted back, eyes closed in relish as the chamber’s multiple hydrojets sprayed her clean.

Frowning, Norad crept closer. The human seemed unaware of his approach or the pulse pistol he had aimed at her. The Kedri was close enough now to identify two of her tattoos: a Voton emblem of interlocked angled lines on the lower back, and a small, Earth-based icon on the upper left shoulder.

Norad’s heart stuttered. “
You?
” he blurted out, shock freezing him in place.

“Seven months and
that’s
the pulse pistol you greet me with?” the woman scolded in flawless Kedri Common Tongue.

This meeting was happening sooner than Norad had planned.  He didn’t bother asking how she’d found his hotel or knew of his arrival on Ipsis. Espionage was her trade, her world. From the doorway, Norad could sense the shower water was near freezing, ideal for a Kedri but not remotely suitable for her species. Then again, the Kedri’s shock-addled brain recalled how extreme temperatures didn’t bother her like they did ‘normal’ earthborns. And she was anything but normal.

“Visiting Union Space
without
telling me?” the human asked with an air of mock offense. “Thought I meant something to you, Norad.” She still had her back to him, rubbing along the lush curves of her shapely yet fit body, concealing a tattoo encircling the appendage called a ‘belly button’—the Kedri Common Tongue symbol for hope. That was Norad’s favorite of her tattoos.

“More than you know,” the Kedri insisted, unable to ignore the stirring in his loins. “I planned on contacting you,” he cleared his throat, “after…securing new business.”

“Ah,” she shrugged, unconcerned. As icy water splashed down her in steady rivulets, she threaded her fingers leisurely through sopping blonde locks. “Soooo, you gonna stand there and shoot me?” The human finally turned toward Norad, with a gaze that teased and titillated. “Or come here and join me?”

Those words and that longing gaze scorched through Norad. He’d lost count of how many times he’d feasted on the wonders of this human’s body. Norad regained his carriage, realizing then that he was still pointing his pulse pistol at the human. Biting back a curse, he let the weapon drop to the floor in a clatter and began hurriedly peeling off his clothing.
The perfect reward after a victorious battle.

Sometime later, Norad lounged naked across the wide bed, watching his guest through the curtains on the suite’s outer balcony. A call had come in for her, important enough that the human took it while they were in the throes. Now she paced back and forth on the balcony, in an unlaced silky black robe and an earcom, jabbering animatedly in Union Standard Speak. One might think she was angry, the way her voice rose, save for how she laughed loudly and often with whomever she spoke with.

“And whose fault is that? Give me a time and place.” A brief silence followed. Her big brown eyes widened with amusement. “Corowood Zoo again? Of course,” she sighed. “
Christ
, I miss him.” Her husky voice grew thick with a longing she’d never displayed for Norad. “You? Eh. Not so much.” The human threw her head back with another loud and throaty laugh.

Jealousy stabbed Norad’s chest like a white-hot knife. For a heartbeat the Kedri wanted—no,
needed—
to snap the neck of whoever was on the other end of that transmission.

Stay calm
. The words rang in his head, and Norad of House Gour felt ashamed. He sucked in a breath, swallowed his wounded Kedri pride and unclenched his fists. Norad had no actual claim to her, nor had he made one after their unceremonious split eight years ago. The woman had built a new life for herself within Union Space in the ashes of her previous one, working now for some military spec ops group called Star Brigade. Though from what she’d divulged to Norad, which was predictably not much, that group’s days of usefulness were at an end.

Almost ten years they’d known each other, yet Norad didn’t truly
know
her. She’d claimed her name was ‘
Malyn Rossi,’ but Norad knew this to be an alias.
She’d given him only scraps and half-truths about the dark and dangerous past she’d been running from when they’d first met, but never the full story.

“Yep, I can make today work,” she said happily to her friend. “Alright, see you and Jerm later today.” After the transmission ended, the human called
Malyn
plucked the earcom out and stashed it in her robe pocket. She then leaned over the balcony railing and zoned out on the suite’s outer view, idly playing with tangled blonde tresses spilling over her right shoulder. And what a marvelous view this suite had. One could see all of IPCOM’s Miracle Living Sector: a colossal tube of vast width ringed from top to bottom by the lights of a million or more inhabitants in their abodes. The concentric rings of civilian light kept going on forever in both directions, bookended by dark and seemingly bottomless holes. Of course, Norad had a privacy screen erected to obscure and mute what went on in his suite.

The Kedri rose and walked through the curtains, coming up from behind and slipping an arm around her waist. His six-foot-ten height to her five-foot-six at times was decidedly pronounced, so much so that the Kedri had to lean down as he searched the back of her neck with his tongue. She arched her back cat-like and made a contented noise.

Their rendezvouses, though brief and infrequent, took Norad back to their time together in Imperium Space. For a time they had been happy, beginning to plan a future—until she left without a trace and returned to Union Space. Over the past eight years, their paths had intersected every so often whenever he’d venture to Union Space. Yet even as his profession veered into murkier territory, and his travels had found him sharing another’s bed, Norad’s feelings remained unchanged.

“Who was that?” he finally murmured.

“Old friend,”
Malyn
replied without further explanation, speaking again in Common Tongue.

Norad, expecting that non-answer, tried a different approach. “Not Nereyo, I’m guessing?”

She laughed loudly. “Haven’t spoken to Rey in months. She’s too busy playing ‘fashion magnate.’”

Thinking of the legend Imperium operative, Nereyo Kyr, and the disgraceful parody she had become twisted Norad’s innards with rage. He pulled back, shaking his head. “Appalling,” the Kedri spat.

The human twisted in his grasp. Now he had a close-up of her heart-shaped face, its high cheekbones, large chocolate brown eyes and smooth olive skin bearing few signs of age. The sight was enough to cool Norad’s anger.

She reached up to grasp his kutaa-studded cheeks. “Hey you,” she purred, wearing her sexiest lopsided grin. The Kedri loved that grin, even the fleshy human lips that formed it. Norad had learned to accept and enjoy
Malyn’s
soft, unscaled body parts, mainly the pillowy pair of breasts he now fondled.

“Hello.” Norad’s tongue met hers and rubbed around for a bit, until she abruptly threw her little self at him. Surprised, the Kedri stumbled back inside the suite as he caught her, only to trip onto the bed. She howled with laughter, a mischievous look in her eyes as she straddled him. Norad spiritedly ripped off her robe and the twosome picked up right where they’d left off earlier.

After they finished, both were on the floor entwined in each other’s arms, her head nuzzled on his massive chest. The bed had more or less been destroyed half an orv ago.

“How long are you in Union Space this time?”
Malyn whispered, as if afraid someone was listening.

Norad ran his fingers up and down the silky skin of her back. “Until next week.” Interest in Imperium weaponry had risen, one of the few benefits this trade merger offered Norad. “I’m meeting with a few mercenary outfits to offer my services as a weapons supplier, including the Crimson Suns…”

The human jerked up from his chest and eyed him sternly. “Sure about that? The Crimsons Suns are one of M24’s biggest competitors, Norad.”

“And I am no longer part of M24,” he met Malyn’s gaze with unflinching confidence that wasn’t just empty posturing. Granted, his meeting was with a cadet branch of the Suns, but it was still an opportunity.

Malyn tilted her head, wearing her playfully crooked grin. “Look at you, all risk-taking.” She ran greedy hands down his torso, toward his loins. “The Kedri Royal Military Service has no clue what they’re missing.”

Norad’s eyes narrowed beneath his overarched brow.
Was that a joke?
Sometimes he couldn’t tell with Malyn. He pulled himself up to a sitting position against the bed. “Even if they offered me the honor of becoming a Warprime, I would decline. It’s a political firestorm over in Imperial Space. The ultra-imperialists are riling up the masses again over the Imperium-Union Trade Merger…”

The woman rolled her eyes. “Christ. Those ‘Warsworn’ half-wits again? Can’t your Imperium send them all on a long voyage into deep space?”
Without a spaceship
, her scowl suggested.

Norad chuckled in agreement. “Most of those ‘idiots’ are from the Warrior Caste, the majority of whom strongly want the Imperium to return to its conquering ways.”

“What, that stupid ass Eternal War doesn’t cut it anymore?” Malyn snarked, tossing her hair defiantly.

Norad’s reaction this time was a cold, angry look. Any other Kedri would have killed Malyn on the spot for such a profane remark. “I enjoy you, human, but do not presume this enjoyment permits you to slight the Imperium’s noble struggle against those cybernetic abominations.”

Malyn’s olive skin paled. “Sorry!” she raised her hands regretfully. “Didn’t mean to offend your imperialistic pride.”

Her contrition satisfied Norad enough, so he continued, “Many within the Imperium see your Galactic Union as a foe ripe for conquest. You wouldn’t believe the lengths Sovereign Kel has taken to keep them pacified.”