Galaxy Under Siege Page 9

  “How do I look?” Jegra asked, changing the subject.

  Brei looked the empress up and down, biting her lower lip in contemplative admiration. “Metallic burnt orange looks good on you. It’s very sexy.”

  “You don’t think it’s too much?” Jegra nodded down at the open front which trailed all the way to her belly button. It was a miracle the dress could hold her girls in at all, and it was sure to make a lasting first impression. Not that she was trying to go out of her way to impress; she just wanted to look good for her guests.

  “It suits you...and isn’t that what matters?”

  “I’m just worried about something slipping out,” Jegra said half-jokingly.

  “Well, that’s never seemed to bother you before,” Brei teased. “It’s funny, I’ve probably seen you naked more times this week than I have my own boyfriend.” Brei’Alas chortled lightly as she mused over the comical series happenstances between her and the empress.

  When she turned to see Jegra’s inquisitive stare, she gulped hard and couldn’t help but feel as though she was about to have a major panic attack.

  “Oh, s...sorry, Your Excellency...what I meant was...you’re just so beautiful...and you have the admiration of the entire crew. So, naturally, there are those attracted to you.”

  “Are you trying to tell me that you’re attracted to me, Brei’Alas?”

  Brei blushed and looked away, as though she were casing the room and making a mental log of all the nearest exits. Her face glowing steely pink with embarrassment, she fidgeted nervously, not knowing how to respond.

  “Attracted to you, Your Grace?” Brei’Alas gulped down the painful lump in her throat and laughed nervously. “Oh, no. I mean, I’m not, you know...” she stammered, catching herself mid-sentence realizing she was about to insult the empress to her face when she abruptly back-tracked. “What I mean to say is, it’s not out of the realm of possibility that I’ve imagined having a threesome with you and Barrion on more than one occasion. And he certainly didn’t balk at the notion. Which is to say, it’s not out of the realm of possibility that I may be open to being intimate with you...I mean...if Your Excellency doesn’t mind slumming it with a commoner such as myself.”

  Speechless, Jegra just mumbled an uncertain “Umm...” and thought about how best to respond to such an oversharing of so much information without hurting Brei’s feelings. Luckily, she didn’t have to, seeing as Brei’Alas wasn’t entirely finished yet.

  Brei curtseyed for no discernible reason, and still chattering fretfully, added, “Not that I would ever presume to make your decisions for you.” She curtseyed again for good measure.

  “Brei, it’s quite alright, you don’t need to explain yourself to me. We’re friends,” Jegra said with a warm smile, halting the girl’s apprehensive ramblings.

  Brei let out a huge sigh of relief and took in a deep breath. She had nearly talked to the point of passing out. Then it occurred to her that the empress had just called her a personal friend. Her eyes lit up and a curious smile formed on her otherwise timorous lips. She looked up at Jegra as if awestruck and asked, in all sincerity, “We are? Friends? I mean?”

  “Of course, we are!” Jegra laughed, placing a reassuring hand on Brei’s shoulder and giving her a gentle yet encouraging squeeze. “It’s not just anyone I ask to come visit me in my personal chambers and then let rave on about her personal sex fantasies about me.”

  “Oh,” Brei, said, feeling terribly self-conscious for having let such personal confidences slip from her lips so recklessly. She hadn’t meant to offend. “I didn’t mean to imply you were overly promiscuous or anything. Because you’re just so...fucking hot. And I’m, well...as you can clearly see. Not.”

  “Lieutenant,” Jegra interrupted, craning her neck and cocking her eyes at the girl, a puckish grin forming on her tightly pressed lips. “Please, for the love of all things good, just stop talking.”

  “Oh, I don’t think I can,” she confessed, her whole entire body vibrating with the tension of her building anxiety. Spontaneously, Jegra reeled her in and their lips crashed together.

  Brei’s eyes widened to the size of saucers as the impromptu kiss had caught her completely off-guard.

  It took her a moment, but she finally melted into it and the wet pecks on the empress’s cherry lips gradually became sultry and delicious exchanges of passionate breath and swirls of sensual tongue. In that moment, Brei found herself wishing it would never end.

  Eventually, however, it did end, and Brei’Alas drew back and gulped nervously as she stared at Jegra with a stunned expression which permeated her entire being. “You kissed me,” she said, stating the obvious.

  “Only to silence your rambling mouth before you said something you might have regretted,” Jegra informed her, offering the young woman a frolicsome smile.

  Their eyes locked and, in the aftermath of a really amazing and sultry kiss, they stood staring at one another, sensing feelings beginning to stir where feelings hadn’t been before.

  And for the first time since Jegra had known her, she realized that Brei, for all her eccentricities, also happened to be a true, natural born beauty.

  “And, to set the record straight, you’re totally hot.”

  “I am?” Brei asked, still insecure about her own looks.

  “Totally fucking hot,” Jegra reassured her.

  This left a smile on Brei’s astonished face.

  “So,” Jegra said, clearing her throat and returning to the task at hand, “we should probably get going.”

  She brushed her chestnut colored hair over her shoulder, trying her best to play it cool, even though that kiss had nearly rendered her into a puddle too.

  If it wasn’t for more pressing matters, that kiss might have led to something more. But Jegra couldn’t explore those feelings now. She shelved them to return to them another time.

  “Yes, of course,” Brei said in a distant sounding voice. She too was taken aback by the unexpectedness of the encounter and was still in a state of utter disbelief.

  It had been, after all, a knee quivering kiss and she simply didn’t know what to do with herself. She’d never imagined in a million years that the empress would show any kind of physical affection towards her and, besides, it had happened so suddenly that it almost felt as though it had all been a daydream.

  A moment later Jegra found herself waiting at the entrance of her own chambers calling out Brei’s name as the girl stood swaying on her feet in a trance-like, besotted stupor. When she didn’t respond, she cleared her voice and called again, a little more loudly this time.

  “Lieutenant, are you coming or not?”

  “Oh, right. So sorry. I don’t know where my head is at.”

  “Well, you’d better find it fast,” Jegra insisted, as they stepped out into the corridor together. “Because I’m going to need you right here beside me the entire evening. Lianica wasn’t wrong earlier. There is something off about all of this. I can’t put my finger on it, but I’m certain that President Karina of the Human Martian Alliance is hiding something.”

  “Ah,” Brei gasped. She glanced around, as if they were being eavesdropped on and, cupping her hand around the side of her mouth whispered to Jegra, “Do you think this all might be some kind of an elaborate trap set by the...you know who...to get to you?”

  “I don’t know,” Jegra answered, pausing in the corridor. She turned to Brei’Alas for a moment, her eyes speaking to the shared apprehension they both felt, before continuing up the corridor. “Regardless, I’m not willing to risk taking any unnecessary chances. Not at a time like this. Too much is at stake for me to grow careless now.”

  Brei lingered behind for a moment and admired the fact that Jegra was truly a fascinating woman. She was the smartest non-Dagon woman that Brei had ever met and she could see why Dakroth, despite whatever unscrupulous machinations inspired his madness and passions, had decided to make her his empress and co-ruler of the Dagon Empire.

  Regardles
s of what anyone else thought, Brei, for one, was proud to call Jegra her empress. She knew not all Dagons felt that way, but that the empress still held the majority popular vote of confidence. And on Dagon Prime, really, that’s all that mattered.

  As long as the people trusted you to do your job, you were sitting easy. But the moment you lost the people’s confidence, you’d be ousted by the next hungry up-and-comer. That said, Jegra was something of a Jack-of-all-trades and had managed to exceed the people’s expectations on more than one occasion. Whether it be fighting in the arena or leading the Imperial armada against enemy forces, she had always met every challenge head on and without fear. And this had certainly worked in her favor.

  “Lieutenant!” Jegra called out to her in a near holler, the strained continence in her voice hinting at the fact that she was growing impatient with Brei’s aloofness.

  Brei snapped back to attention. “Right! Coming!”

  10

  Darting across a cerulean sky like a radiant firefly, the shuttle cut across the radius of the ring world from one arch to another.

  Grendok fired the thrusters and the ship accelerated rapidly, shooting across the empty expanse. Re-entering the atmosphere above the opposite section of the ring, down below in the cradle, lights illuminated what appeared to be a small settlement that ran along a river basin.

  The eggshell white craft descended from the canopy of fluffy white clouds and then circled wide before coming back around to land just outside of a large base camp. The camp consisted of about two hundred prefab units; some of them linked together in quad units and stacked on top of one another to make cube-like apartments.

  Half a dozen larger warehouse-sized units sat in the distance and scatted about the lush valley were another three hundred hard-cover tents. At first glance, one could tell by the number of people living here and the well “lived-in” look of the camp itself that it must have been here for months, if not longer.

  Looking out the window of the shuttle Emperor Dakroth could see Dagon archeologists working alongside Galliforn geologists, scientists and engineers, mechanics and medics, and laborers of all kinds carrying out their assigned duties.

  Impossible though it seemed, he couldn’t help but feel amused by the fact that, here, of all places, there were Dagon and satyr folk working together, side by side. It wasn’t a sight he thought he’d ever have the pleasure of seeing during his lifetime. But here they all were.

  War had a strange way of uniting people behind a common cause, making old enemies into new allies. It was, after all, like the old adage said: The enemy of my enemy is my friend.

  With a hiss of air, the hydraulic landing skiffs settled into place on the wild grassland and the shuttle doors swung open. Grendok stepped out, followed by Callestra Van Morgan and finally, the Lord Emperor himself.

  Everyone stopped what they were doing and looked up when they saw the emperor. Dagon faces didn’t know how to react getting caught colluding with the enemy. But none of that mattered any more.

  Right now what Dakroth needed was the Galliforn people’s help. Not only did he require their technical expertise to rebuild his armada, but he would also need their allegiance when he finally did go up against the Gilded imp.

  Besides, he knew that if they remained divided, they’d fall. But if they combined their ingenuity and skill, they’d grow strong.

  “Carry on,” he said, with a regal wave of the hand, accepting the new alliance for what it was: necessary. “Today we join forces with all those opposed to the tyranny oppressing the once great worlds of the Commonwealth Alliance. Today we join the Resistance!”

  The impromptu yet rousing speech drew cheers from the onlookers and Dakroth shook hands as he slowly made his way through the crowd. Once he’d made it to the lodge at the other end of the gathering, Grendok gestured for him and Callestra to go inside. They ducked under the low doorway and found a spartan suite set up for them.

  “Shut the door,” Grendok ordered, waving at Callestra. She rolled her eyes, not wanting to be relegated to the servant girl, but begrudgingly complied, none-the-less. When she turned back around Grendok pulled a bowl of fruit out of the refrigerator that sat in the corner of the small apartment suite. “Wait, is that...?”

  Both Dakroth and Callestra rushed over to the table and greedily began to devour the fruits without so much as peeling them first. Juice and pulp ran down their chins as they bit deep into the flesh of the fruits. Moans seeping out as they inhaled the food, they appeared like rabid animals gorging themselves on a carrion feast.

  “I was in a Dagon labor camp for three years during the campaigns. I know what the wear and tear of malnutrition and being over-worked looks like. When you’re finished,” Grendok added, gesturing toward the other end of the suite, “there’s a shower in the back and a fresh set of clothes. Please help yourselves to anything here. We’ll convene at the refectorium at 18:00 hours and sit down for a meal together.” He flipped his wrist over and the holovid bracelet gave the time. “That’s in two hours.”

  “Much appreciated,” Dakroth said, wiping the sweetness from his chin with the back of his blue hand.

  When Callestra didn’t say anything Dakroth shot her an exacting look and she quickly turned to the satyr and bowed her head reverently in a show of genuinely-felt gratitude.

  “Until we meet again.” The satyr grinned, shot them both a wink, and then ducked back out the entrance.

  Dakroth leaned back on the counter and stared out at the other side of the room, his eyes not fixating on anything in particular as he lost himself to thought. Callestra, having had her fill of fruit, also leaned back on the opposite wall and folded her arms under her chest. She, too, fell into a daydream-like trance.

  After a long silence, both of them staring off into the distance, Callestra was the first to break the quiet. She asked, “Fancy a bath?”

  He smiled as she took his hands and led him into the back room. It would be their first real bath in over a year, not counting the time they had unwittingly waded into the acid waters of their morbid menagerie.

  In retrospect, that might have been one of her worst memories. The acid had melted the flesh off their bodies and, scrambling out of the water in a panic, they managed to stagger halfway back to the arena like a couple of undead corpses before succumbing to shock and unbearable pain. Dying in the middle of a clearing, they were holding one another in each other’s arms as the life drained from them.

  “I can’t wait to get out of these rags for good and slip into something a little more...practical.”

  “And I can’t wait to watch you do it,” Dakroth said with a suave grin and a twinkle in his eye.

  Upon entering the shower, they stripped, and he pressed her up against the glass. His bare chest pressed down on her back and her breasts squashed up against the glass wall.

  Dakroth’s lips dabbled the back of her blue neck with kisses as she turned the water on. Its coldness shocked them at first, but they were accustomed to a year’s worth of shocks and pains that it actually felt good. Refreshing even.

  They both laughed and then he went back to kissing her neck and running his hands along the curvature of her waist and thighs.

  No sooner had she gotten into it than he bit her. He’d bit her harder than he had initially intended and, in fact, drew blood. But the love bite was so tantalizing that instead of causing her to pull away in pain the opposite happened. She moaned with pleasure and shifted her hips back making sure her ass rubbed up against him—all of him.

  “Harder,” she moaned sensually, reaching up with her hands and squeezing her own two breasts.

  “I haven’t entered you yet,” he said, slightly puzzled.

  “That’s not what I meant,” she said. Tossing her hair, she exposed the bite mark on her neck and batted her dark blue eyelids at him.

  She desired him to bite harder, and to her pleasant surprise, he did. He bit so hard he tore a piece of her flesh off in his teeth, but this only caused
her to scream out in sensuous passion. Simultaneously, she orgasmed. Her body reacting to the pain as though it were pleasure. Apparently, a year’s worth of conditioning had primed her body to react in such an unexpected fashion to the extremes of rough sex—the taboo of pushing the limits of where pleasure passes the threshold into the territory of pain and vice versa made for a more gratifying experience.

  Callestra instantly spun around and, throwing her hands onto Dakroth’s firm chest, she dug her nails into his blue flesh and clawed long lines down his torso. She then started kissing his sternum, moving incrementally down to his left breast. She, too, bit into him, tearing off a piece of his flesh just above his Prussian blue nipple.

  Dakroth moaned out in pleasure. Surprised that the pain had induced such a thrill, he realized that their year of captivity in the arena had changed them more than either of them realized. But to what extent? he wondered.

  “I never properly thanked you,” Dakroth said, water cascading down them both as they panted heavily, pausing to catch their breath.

  “Thank me for what?” she asked, looking up at him with her magenta eyes.

  “For sticking by me this past year. For your loyalty, your support, and your devotion. I have not known a more loyal woman than you.”

  Callestra laughed. He cocked his head at her and gave her a curious look as though to ask what was so funny.

  “That’s overly-sentimental, even for you,” she said, her smile lingering on her face a little while longer. “Be careful, you king of melodrama and pandering to the crowd, because if I didn’t know any better, I’d think you were in love with me.”

  “Maybe I am,” he offered, wrapping his hands around her waist and drawing her close. “Deeply, madly, passionately...” his voice trailed off and he simply held her gaze, the words “eternally,” slipping passed his Prussian blue lips.

  “In that case,” she replied. Her sunken eyes settled on his dark blue lips for a moment and then she rested her head on his shoulder. The cool water of the shower drizzled down their hot bodies, washing away a year’s worth of accumulated dirt, sweat, and blood. “Let me silence your romantic blathering with a kiss.” She wrapped her arms around his neck and, rising to her tiptoes, kissed him long and hard. In that moment, she knew that she never wanted this to end. After the kiss, she rested her cheek on his firm chest and whispered, “Just...hold me.” And he did as she asked.