Alien General's Bride: SciFi Alien Romance (Brion Brides) (2 page)

Agent Perkins looked positively sick now. He scanned Isolde’s card and nodded his head in confirmation.

“This is an outrage,” he said, and for a Palian, even half-Palian, he sounded surprisingly upset. “That ship had strict orders not to leave anyone behind. This is a huge setback for the team. My ambassador will be furious.”

Isolde felt her stomach turn. She knew Rhea was important, but she didn’t exactly want to be in the middle of a galaxy-wide political fight. She wished she had run just a little bit harder – an awesome reminder of the fact she wasn’t exactly a small girl, by the way. Hooray for self-confidence!

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean to cause trouble.”

Agent Perkins did a full 180° and flashed a true, if strained, smile.

“Miss Fenner, you did nothing wrong. Your ID tells the tale. Your shuttle came in from Terra on time. You passed the security search without problems. Then you went to clear your permissions with the emissary, still all fine. And you proceeded straight to the gate from there. You were but mere minutes late. Five to ten, judging by your electronic trail. The fault lies with the commander of your transport. What went through that head, Go’Ran himself knows… I would like to be present for his trial, when he tries to explain how he thought of shaving
10 minutes
off a 20 light year flight.”

Isolde’s mouth dropped open. “Trial? But...”

The agent was serious again. “Do not worry for his sake, Miss Fenner. This is a huge blunder and we will try to fix what we can. But Rhea... Rhea is important. He should have waited for you, even if you had been a week late.”

He typed something into a console, pulled faces of which at least three bordered on disgust – Isolde would have to update her views on Palians – and finally motioned for her to follow. As they walked, Isolde composed a letter in her head to her professor back on Terra, the one who had sent her on this space adventure. It went something like this:

Dear professor Nagasuke,

I hope this letter finds you well and busy, as you love to be. Now, if you would please explain to me why you neglected to tell me that the mission to Rhea is important enough to create an intergalactic fuss over? That would be ever so wonderful.

Your admiring student,

Isolde.

They had to be joking.
Isolde was prepared to admit she wasn’t known as the life of the parties, but she wasn’t completely bereft of a sense of humor either. Only this was something else. She didn’t even know if she wanted it to be a joke or not. Because if it was, it was a very odd one and someone was likely to die.

Agent Perkins, for example. Face to face with the most handsome man she had ever seen.

Bloody Brions.

Isolde found it surprisingly easy to laugh about this situation. She had messed up, so they punished her by – as far as she could tell – trying to dump her on Terra’s (and the galaxy’s as a whole) most volatile allies. Naturally. What could possibly go wrong? With Brions.

It wasn’t like they had only recently been let in the Galactic Union, after being denied twice because of some things headlines at home called “the unfortunate result of routine military exercises”. The joke being the Brions were somehow always in the vicinity of a brooding conflict and seemed to wait just until it boiled over so they could step in and break everything, later claiming the most innocent of intentions. Her professors had called the Brions “a bunch of brats who play at war, only some idiot handed them nuclear warheads and adamantium blades instead of sticks”.

She doubted if any of them would have loved to phrase that to the towering 6’4” mass of man meat trying to burn agent Perkins to half-human, half-Palian ash with his gaze.

To his credit, the agent wasn’t backing down one inch. Isolde found herself oddly charmed by confident men, although this one obviously harbored clear and untreated suicidal tendencies. Her knowledge of Brionese dialects laughed hollowly in her face as she caught only some of what the hunk (no better or more self-explanatory way of describing Brion men) spat at the unyielding agent. To be honest, she didn’t actually speak Brionese – very few in the galaxy besides the Brions did – but the simplified version of the language, which the man in front of him apparently neglected to resort to.

She made out “unheard of”, something along the lines of “none of our business”, and several words she had to assume from the context were thinly veiled insults to agent Perkins’ character and martial capability.

That couldn’t be denied. The Brion could easily have broken a grown man’s neck between the trunks of what presumed to be his biceps, and Isolde had to enact some manual self-control not to stare.

When the Brion had to stop to breathe, agent Perkins slipped in with all the smoothness of a born negotiator. Isolde could have clapped when he spoke in a fluent, precise manner and in much more subtle threats of “precedent”, “upcoming GU High Council”, “questionable military presence”, and – Isolde had to bite her lip not to giggle out loud – “would do good for your image” – until she realized what that entailed for her. Then she shut up. So did the Brion, if gritting one’s teeth so loudly the air seemed to vibrate counts as shutting up.

“I have to speak to my commanding officer,” the Brion said.

Agent Perkins assented. As the Brion walked away, practically fuming, Isolde searched desperately for words to halt what most assuredly was a
precedent
. She vocalized only some of her concerns.

“Agent Perkins, I really appreciate what you’re trying to do for me, but is there no other way? I mean… a Brion ship? Is there no other ship I could take? I mean… they don’t allow other races aboard their vessels. And a military ship? They will never agree.”

The agent nodded slowly.

“It is true that the Brions have some very strict rules about their ships, but they will have to cope. As I said to him, I am sure you understood, this would be a good way to show the GU they are prepared to meet the rest of the galaxy halfway. I am not asking them to do something unthinkable. You are one person, on one ship. They would have to make a small detour, yes, but as much as we have gathered, Brion spacecraft are highly advanced and it...”

A hysterical laughter was bubbling to the surface in Isolde.

“You are negotiating to have me inconvenience a Brion military vessel. Can’t you just, I dunno, shoot me right now?”

Agent Perkins smiled, but it seemed to Isolde to be a
hopeful
, not confident smile. He noticed color draining from Isolde’s face and was quick to try to calm her, “I would not send you with them if I were not confident they would treat you well. They understand their position in the GU balances on the tolerance of others, and I do not believe, excuse me, they would find you so unbearable as to ruin years of work to get into the Union.”

Isolde was still pouting.

“Yes, I’m sure they’re great big pussycats, but why
them
?”

Agent Perkins shifted uneasily.

“This is… not exactly public knowledge, but some of the systems on the way are not entirely peaceful right now. Travel without a military escort is… unwise there. A Brion warship will not be challenged.”

Now Isolde truly burst out laughing, earning a weird look from the agent.

“Lovely,” she said bitterly when she was done. “What about the ship I was
supposed
to be on? I didn’t see any big guns on that.”

“It had a Palian-Sutherial support flotilla waiting en route.”

Isolde gave up. “Have it your way. I don’t believe they would agree, so it’s a moot point.”

She was about to ask why the Palians were so interested in a very faraway planet like Rhea, when the Brion from before returned with an even bigger, more handsome Brion warrior. This new one, as tall as the other, gave off such a vibe of confidence and power that Isolde nearly stood to attention. Some parts of her certainly volunteered for duty. Under him. Preferably.

She was certainly beginning to understand why the images of Brion men published on Terra were censored. There would be swarms of girls and women (and possibly men as well) forgetting all about the “unfortunate bloody clashes” and going all “but they just need to be loved”.
She had protested the issue of censorship on Terra on the grounds that it was offensive to assume that seeing a gorgeous man would make the girls go ga-ga.
Yet now she wondered if perhaps the higher-ups hadn’t known better, because she certainly hadn’t seen anyone like the Brion standing before them now. Her body had forgotten all the things people learned when they were about two months old, and she discovered herself drooling a little. She shut her mouth quickly and sent an evil glare to agent Perkins, who was – she was sure – grinning a bit.

It went pretty much the same way as before. Only the walking, talking image of a guy who had surely eaten all of his porridge and broccoli when he was a boy had more of those shiny Brion squares on his neck. Staring – at the squares, of course, not the way his long brown hair fell over his chest shamelessly flattered by the tight uniform he wore – Isolde found herself intrigued by the horrible things. Sure, they looked pretty: bright, white crystals starting just below the ears and travelling down. Blood diamonds, in truth, bought with the lives of the enemies he’d vanquished.

The implantation was said to be more torture than reward. They were electronic, for the lack of a better word, connected directly into the warriors’ nervous systems, reacting to their mood. Besides being really bright and clear to see, in battle they sent out pulses of light and sound to attract enemies who reacted to that. They were signs of ranks, testament to strength (and brutality) and a challenge to their enemies all rolled into one. It was the Brion way: they invited the attention of their enemies, showing they had no fear of them.

What a horrible way to live,
Isolde thought,
to invite death so loudly
.

She was ripped out of her musings by yet another Brion gritting his teeth. Agent Perkins was looking smug. Isolde wondered if he was enjoying this as much as she thought. In physical combat, he would be stomped to pieces by these guys, but in this he could make them do what he wanted.

For her part, Isolde remained quiet. She had no intention of further creating a scene and besides, she really didn’t want to risk angering a Brion, and as much as the stories could be believed, Brions needed very little to take offense.

The new Brion was looking at her now. Isolde straightened up and stared back. With wild animals, you must not show fear. They wouldn’t take her as a threat anyway, so she was safe in that regard. Less safe from the intense stare the Brion was giving her. Finally, he turned away and addressed agent Perkins again. “I must speak to my commanding officer,” he said.

Oh, come on
.

There was a caricature she remembered. “There is always a bigger fish”, it was called. She was reminded of that, which was to remain her last coherent thought for the day, because the Brion tapped a device on his shoulder and spoke the following words, “Commander Grothan, we have a situation that requires your presence.”

It sounded like he was signing his own death warrant, as much as Isolde could tell. More from the words than his tone, really. Her head snapped to agent Perkins so fast she thought she broke something and saw his mouth drop open too. Having much more experience, eloquence, and training, he beat her by half a second to, “Fuck...”
 

CHAPTER TWO

Isolde

While Isolde was still trying to piece together what was left of her sanity, agent Perkins continued with the tactical analysis.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck...” he murmured. “I am sorry, Miss Fenner. I seem to have killed us both.”

They had both switched to English. First of all, because it made swearing easier, and second of all, because they could hope the Brions didn’t understand a fairly unimportant language like that, only spoken on one planet.

“You didn’t know?” Isolde hissed at the agent. “Tell me right now you didn’t know that the Brion ship you were trying to get me on was the bloody
Triumphant
?”

“It is not here,” the agent whispered back frantically. “It could not dock at such a small station, the sheer mass of it would pull
Luna Secunda
out of orbit. The ship docked here is called
the
Forger
. But if the great Go’Ran is not merciful and there are not two Commander Grothans,“ – the Brions snapped to wary attention at the mention of the name – “then it’s
the
Triumphant
’s
cruiser and if
that ship
is here, then yes,
he
must not be far either. I didn’t know, I never imagined...”

“Then you’re saying there is a good possibility you just summoned the bloodiest of Brion generals and the main reason why the species was denied membership into the GU for so long to
fucking give me a ride
,” Isolde sputtered.