Nova (44 page)

Taking two more swallows of water and continuing to eat,
though more slowly than before, Avara picked up where she’d left off. “We were
together for five years and overall, they were good years, if a bit strained by
our respective responsibilities. Yet unlike with Fen, we made that work. After
all, we both knew what we were signing up for, shared the same career, same
sense of purpose. Then in 3414, the Cindrex Affair took place. Do you know of
it?”

Intelligent eyes attentive, K’llan replied thoughtfully “The
Cindrex Gang, a viscous and highly effective free–lance group of Karukai slave
raiders that had been terrorizing the outer systems. They were eventually captured
by… you, yes?”

“Yes.”

“But, if I recall…. Some sort of bargain resulted in their
release. It was very hushed, so despite my position in the Vosaia STF, I was never
privy to the full details. Only that the Cindrex Gang was soon back to its old
activities until they were again stopped, this time permanently.”

“You have the most salient points, yes.” Avara affirmed, a
grim smile playing about her mouth, though her eyes and heart felt like stone
trapped in glaciated ice.

“That memory I experienced… You were the one who stopped
them.” K’llan asserted into the silence that had fallen between them.

In her mind, a vision of herself arose, hunting Karukai
after Karukai down, through space station to jungle planet, to desert. And
executing each for crimes against Humanity and all Sentients. Much as she had
killed,
murdered
really, if she’s fully honest with herself, Sub–Lieutenant
Icha Hyre, yesterday eve.

And she regretted it not at all, only the circumstance that
created the need.

Avara could feel by the emotional spill dripping from K’llan
she was
exactly
aware of what Serros was feeling, and that she could see
it in her mind as well.

“It was Admiral Jehara Vai who ordered that the five senior–most
members and leaders of the Cindrex Gang be released, in exchange for some intelligence
deemed vital to Ministry Naval Security.”

Looking directly at K’llan, feeling the old pain, the
betrayal, rip into her once more… it was as if it was happening in the present,
here and now, on the scourged surface of Dantis. Voice rising, Avara explained
“I argued vehemently against the action. I warned Jehara what would happen, that
the raiders would return to their old habits, that innocents would be hurt,
would
die
.”

With unfalling tears she’d thought long shed, Avara choked
out, “I even begged,
begged
her on our love! I said that if she loved
me, she wouldn’t do this; would not release them.” Feeling the old blackening
sense of helplessness and rage, Avara half–whispered “She said she knew that,
knew they would return to their old pursuits, but that sacrifices had to be
made for the greater good, and that I was to leave it… not track them, not stop
them, but leave it. On that day, she betrayed every ideal I thought we shared.”

Trembling with remembrance and the feeling of unadulterated,
pure regard that K’llan Z’arr was silently, but steadily sending her way like a
sturdy little life–boat in a rocking sea, Avara continued in a bleak tone
“Well, I may have left
Jehara
at our exchange, but I could not leave the
Cindrex Gang. Especially when I began receiving reports of more missing people.
Colonists mostly, but spacers as well. Hundreds of people… taken, brutalized,
raped, enslaved, and murdered, of all ages, all species. The worst was the hit
on Saint Martine Station. Elders deemed of no use but who dared to resist were stripped
and tortured, and then placed in life–pods filled with Kahd’he who’s larvae ate
them alive from the inside. A message writ in cruelty to those who refused to
surrender in the future.”

Feeling like her vision was going dark, Avara pronounced in brutally
cold voice “On Quorum Shield authority, I hunted down each and every single Karukai
raider and executed her.” Feeling the dark satisfaction of the justice she’d
wrought, Avara again relived those days, her efforts to stop the slavers from
ever harming another again. And in doing so, attempt to create personal
atonement for going along with a decision that she’d
known
to be
wrong
.

“After, I took a leave of absence from the Human Ministry
Navy and for close to two years, only worked Shield Ops. At the same time, I sought
employment
gratis
as a free–lance mercenary. I chose the jobs I wanted, efforts
that I deemed a benefit to those who were ignored or marginalized but needed
the help. Finally, I went to my old friend and mentor, Delegate Jamie
Sweetwater, with the concept for Nova Squad. As a Quorum Delegate rather than a
Ministry Representative, he signed off immediately and had
Excalibur
commissioned. And here we are today.”

Her eyes closed and with the three suns rising to their high
position in the hot afternoon heat, quiet fell between them for a time. Avara
fought to release the old burden and pain that, though faced and fashioned into
productive output, still hurt to this day. Until now, the only people other
than Admiral Vai who intimately knew the full events surrounding what was
deemed the “Cindrex Affair,” were Marcus, Gaius, Diana, and of course, Jamie.
And now K’llan.

In a whisper, Avara felt the Vosaia’s approach, could hear
the crunch of boots in gravel and sensed Z’arr as she knelt down before her and
then placed cool fingers on either side of her neck. “I am sorry, Avara, for
the betrayal by one you trusted. You deserved better. But
never
doubt,
those victimized by the Karukai
did
get better. They got
you
, to
fight for them when others would not. And the same is true for so many people
in the Quorum Systems today.”

Letting K’llan’s words wash over her like a balm, Avara
opened her lids only to fall into the extraordinary violet depths of the
Vosaia’s eyes, the unmitigated and undeniable warmth that Z’arr felt for her.
“You are the most beautiful person I have ever encountered, Avara Ceridwen
Serros.” Without any sense of expectation, K’llan gathered Avara close in a
tight, full–hearted embrace, letting her sincerity and belief sing towards the Captain,
providing shelter for Serros’s turbulent thoughts and emotions.

Avara returned the tight hold gratefully, thinking to
herself that the same could easily be said about K’llan. Though she let the
feeling flow, not wanting to rock the peace of the moment, she chose not to vocalize
thought. Instead, Avara pulled gently away but gifted K’llan with a full smile.
“Thank you, K’llan.

“As I said before, anytime.” Her voice was playful, yet held
sincere promise all the same. A moment later, she added, “You should finish
eating, perform your Synergy meditation, then rest.”

Easily assessing her continued weariness, Avara could only
agree. “Yes, true, and then enough caretaking of me. You need to Feed.”

The peace of their easy state was slightly pierced by the
needle of unease and need that vibrated within and off of K’llan, but instead
of refuting Serros’s words, she simply nodded. Replaying the events of the last
twenty–four hour cycle, Avara finished her meal and then slipped into her
healing trance, working to cure not only body from injury, but also mind and
heart.

 * * * * *

By late afternoon of the same day, Serros had completed her Arca
Synergy enabled, curative reverie and eaten a second time. Afterward, she
desiccated the remaining pig meat into jerky with the portable laser much as
she’d done with the jakhri well over a week ago. Though still aching, the day
of rest, healing, and an abundant quantity of food made her feel more refreshed
than she’d been since the cave they had sheltered in during the storm.

Especially given Avara’s still in–process recovery, the two
Nova Squad members decided that they would be best served by resting for the
remainder of the day and continuing their travels with an early start next
morning. As they would be staying, they set up the tent to ward off heat as
well as insectoid and reptilian life, making for the slightly cooler canvass
confines after Avara’s food preparation had been completed.

As the two settled down in the tent, Avara felt a quiver of
anticipation and necessity from K’llan, and Serros was again aware that the
Vosaia knew exactly what she was going to say well before saying it. “K’llan,
you need to Feed.”

Z’arr nodded in response but, sitting to Avara’s right on
her sleeping pallet, made no move forward, sapphire locks half–covering her
face. Normally so confident and easy in movement or repose, K’llan sat with a
stiff stillness that was utterly unlike her.

Dampening her own thrill of excitement and trepidation,
Avara breathed in deeply and focused on her concern and care for K’llan, let it
roll off her and over Z’arr much as K’llan had done for Serros earlier. Moving
to sit closer, Avara softly lifted K’llan’s chin, brushed azure strands away
from violet eyes, and offering a faint smile, captured K’llan’s mouth with her
own.

In a moment of perfect stillness the pose was held, then
Avara could feel K’llan respond. It started as a gentle trickle, the sensation
of each woman’s life–energy lightly dripping in time with the pounding of
heartbeats like an old fashioned water–clock. Then the cadence increased.

Avara felt the fabric of their
nyas
intertwine and
lock as the flow was amplified, even as the physical connection between them
shifted from staid gentleness to a passionate exploration of lips and tongues.
Avara could feel the escalation of K’llan’s desire like a living, breathing
entity.

At the same time, just as when K’llan had first Fed from
her, Avara could
also
feel the undeniable reality of her own echoing
response. Her heart was thudding and blood circulating with almost painful
acuity, every fiber singing with a wild, demanding hunger and want that was all
her own; all for the Vosaia. For the woman that she was somehow vaguely aware
that she was now fiercely embracing. Their kiss became more fervent and the
Human could feel an answering response in gut and groin, a physical testimony
to the truth of mutual craving laid bare. 

And then, also as before, the Captain was cognizant of the
rippling surge of her memories and thoughts pouring into K’llan’s consciousness,
the very flavor and tenor of mind and heart seeping from one to the other. After
a space of time that felt like less than a moment and longer than eternity,
Avara experienced another shift between them. Avara became the
recipient
,
rather than the donator, not only of a measure of K’llan’s life–energy, but
also the essence of
who
she was.

Serros was submerged in it all. K’llan’s strength and kindheartedness,
her sure intellect and natural inquisitiveness, the determination she held to
create positive outcomes for others that initiated her joining the STF; the
Vosaia’s love of adventure and discovery.

Serros also felt K’llan’s sense of excitement and
fulfillment in her still new role as a member of Nova Squad. Yet at the same
time, the very real pain she dealt with every day due to forced separation from
her people, her home, and her family, was equally tangible. Avara was made fully
aware of and experienced K’llan’s sense of loneliness and isolation.

Emotions were coupled with images… moments of import and
poignancy that shaped who K’llan was; places and people shutter–snapping in a
dizzying array within Avara’s mind, often so quickly that the Human could only
snatch the barest hint of meaning.

Above all else, for the first time Avara fully grasped exactly
what the Vosaia felt for her, and the extraordinary depth of those feelings
synchronously startled and warmed her. K’llan intensely, distinctly, and
passionately loved Avara. And yet the word, as powerful as its meaning was, in so
many critical expressions, went far beyond the Human equivalent to the term. It
was a reality intermixed with the connection that had been forged between them.

More, in understanding the truth of that differential of meaning,
Avara also fully experienced and realized the strain K’llan was enduring with
gentle patience. The perseverance the Vosaia had tendered and suffered through
as she waited with a hope that she knew may never be actualized. A weight
K’llan bore as she watched for the Human to comprehend and respond to what
culturally, would have been a given with another Vosaia.|

Finally, Avara also understood that K’llan, bestowed with a
lifespan of a millennium or more, would continue to wait, would continue to
give Avara all the time and space she needed to understand and reach a decision
until the day Serros drew her last breath.

It was with this final thought, this incipient understanding
that waves of shocked emotion went tumbling through her entire frame that
Serros came back to the present. Like a dunking in ice–water in the high–heat
of day, Avara became aware that the physical expression of their attraction had
escalated.

That somehow their clothes were partially–off and that their
bodies had been avidly exploring just as soul and mind. With a groan of want and
consummation denied, Avara pulled herself away, physically retreating in a
single swift movement by sitting as far as the walls of their tent would allow.

“Oh my God.” The words slipped out of her mouth before she’d
even realized she’d uttered them. Her whole body was trembling and oxygen
seemed a scarce commodity as she rapidly snatched shallow gulps.

“Avara, I…” Letting the hand fall that had half risen
towards Serros, whatever K’llan wanted to say was left unspoken as her words
trailed off, and uncertainty battled desire in her glittering, amethyst eyes. She
quietly began straightening her disheveled and undone clothing.

Still in a sitting position, with her elbow resting on an
uncurled knee, Avara said nothing, just watched K’llan as the Vosaia finished
righting herself and then finally turned her eyes back to Avara’s. All the
while the Shield struggled to find some measure of internal equilibrium.