Authors: Tracy St. John
Vadef grabbed her, pulling her close so that Katherine sat on his lap. They clutched each other, holding tight. Their lips moved as they whispered almost silent entreaties to those they had faith in, those that they hoped would be waiting to receive with warmth and love those headed their way.
* * * *
Lidon’s groan filled the silent bridge. “Oh no.”
Simdow could only stare. If he had tried to speak, he feared he would scream right along with Cassidy instead. The first destroyers had broken through to the other side of the wormhole, never having received the frantic messages telling them to turn around and come back. The invading ships’ communications had automatically linked with the satellites around Earth and blasted the feeds back to the fleet.
Monstrous clouds, black with debris, erupted like volcanoes all over the planet. The Earthers had really done it. They had actually destroyed their world rather than surrender and face occupation.
The invading destroyers raced around the self-destructing planet, arriving at the blasted cities and piping back live vids of the horror. Simdow heard frantic orders and counter orders flying back and forth over fleet communications, but it was so much background noise. He could barely breathe.
Somehow a part of him remembered the duties he was supposed to be performing. His mouth opened. Instead of shrieks pouring out of his throat, he said, “First images are being transmitted from the invasion fleet. Shall I bring them up, Captain?”
“No.” There was more talking from the captain and his clanmates, but like the chatter between the fleet, it receded into incomprehensible nonsense.
Simdow was dimly aware of Tranis and his clanmates leaving the bridge, putting him in command. The young Dramok knew there was nothing to do but watch and wait and try to absorb the unthinkable tragedy that had just unfolded.
He had another duty, and his heart plummeted at the thought of it. Still on auto-pilot, he reached for his private com. Fuck the protocol that said he would not attend to personal matters when on duty. Fuck everything. He’d just watched the mass murder-suicide of millions of people. Maybe more.
Simdow clicked Vadef’s frequency. As before, he did not wait for his Imdiko to speak. “It’s over. It’s all over on Earth. They’re all dead. Tell Katherine I’m—”
He stopped. How could he say he was sorry? How could a stupid apology even begin to cover this horror? How could it mitigate the hatred his Matara must feel for him now?
Simdow clicked the com back off without saying anything else. He stared at the images on his vid, the unfathomable sights of blasted, blighted land peeking through the smoke and still falling debris.
He didn’t know how long he watched the vids before Weapons Subcommander Osopa came to his station and clicked the images off. He met the Nobek’s stricken and yet somehow compassionate gaze.
“My apologies for doing that, Commander. However, I think it would be best for you to spare yourself any further trauma. Looking at it won’t help them.” Osopa closed his eyes for a moment before recovering his control. “By the ancestors, nothing can help them now.”
He headed back to the weapons and security station, patting his Dramok’s shoulder – the ship’s navigator – as he passed him.
Osopa was right about not watching helplessly, but switching the vids off left Simdow with nothing to stare at. With their poisonous influence gone, he began to get his senses back. He noted that most of those on the bridge were also staring blankly into space, their gazes shocked and lost.
He shook himself and looked again at Osopa’s clanmate, Dramok Tukui. “Navigator, is your Imdiko with your Matara?”
Tukui blinked and visibly gathered himself. Simdow watched awareness of his surroundings seep into the other Dramok’s eyes. The navigator snapped a nod. “Yes, Commander. Sir, I know it’s not protocol, but may I com him to check on her condition?”
Fuck protocol.
Simdow still believed firmly in that dictate right now. “Yes. Anyone with an Earther Matara who needs to check in may do so. If the captain has a problem with that, I will accept full responsibility.”
Tukui managed a grateful smile. “Thank you, sir.” A couple other bridge personnel echoed the sentiment.
As men around him whispered into private coms, Simdow wondered how much Katherine hated him right now. She had to. Even someone of her kind nature must have its limits on forgiveness.
Simdow dreaded getting off duty, and he’d half-hoped Captain Tranis would make him stick around for another shift. However, the captain and the weapons commander had returned about halfway through the first shift, and Tranis sent him off.
“See to your Matara,” he told Simdow in a voice that was almost as lifeless as Simdow felt. “She needs you more than this ship does right now.”
Filled with despair, Simdow dragged himself through the corridors of the transport until he reached the door of his quarters.
She’ll hate me. After all my promises to her, I failed. Her world and most of the people of it are dead. She can’t possibly forgive that.
My Katherine hates me.
Simdow drew a deep breath. He only put off the inevitable as he stood outside the door where his clan waited. He may as well face his Matara and the accusations and recriminations owed to him.
He triggered the door and stepped in.
It was nearly the same situation as yesterday when Simdow had returned to his quarters. A tearful Katherine sat with Vadef and Miv on the small couch of the sitting area. The three of them looked at Simdow as he came inside.
Only this time they did not remain seated. Instead, they all immediately rose at his entrance. Katherine rushed across the room and wrapped her arms around the Dramok in a fierce but loving embrace.
Simdow gaped at her. This was so far from the greeting he’d expected that he was struck dumb.
Katherine gazed worriedly into his eyes. “Are you all right, Simdow?”
“I – I – Katherine?”
He searched her face. Her eyes were swollen and red from crying. His people had put that pain in her expression, the sadness that filled her entire being. His own feelings and fears were unimportant in that moment. Katherine needed him.
He kissed her gently. “I am so sorry, my love,” he whispered, wrapping her arms around her and squeezing tight.
“What do you have to be sorry about, Simdow?” Katherine stroked his cheek.
He shook his head, thinking perhaps she may have gone mad in her grief. What did he have to be sorry about? Only everything.
The Dramok said, “My people – what we did – you can never forgive us.”
Katherine continued to caress his face, as if soothing an upset child. “The information Miv and Vadef have says Earth’s government did something to the wormhole. They set it up somehow so when your ships went through, that would trigger the blasts. Is that correct?”
Simdow nodded. “We didn’t know. When we found out, the communication interference from the unstable vortex kept us from getting the ships back that had gone through.”
“How is that your fault?”
“If we hadn’t invaded—”
Katherine’s fingers pressed against his lips, quieting him. “If you hadn’t invaded, the war would keep going and Kalquor would be exterminated. Simdow, what did you personally do to destroy Earth?”
She wasn’t blaming him. The heaviness in Simdow’s chest eased as he understood that. Yet, he couldn’t downplay the part he’d played in the annihilation of her world and of all those lives. “I helped with the capture of General Hamilton and this vessel, which got us the codes to invade.”
Katherine gave him a sad smile. “In other words, you did your job. Did you know Kalquor had no intention of destroying Earth? Did you know that for a fact?”
Simdow frowned. What was she getting at? “Of course I knew it.”
“If the Empire’s aim had been Earth’s destruction, would you have gone along with it?”
“Absolutely not!” The first officer thought of the millions, perhaps billions of the dead, of all the innocent lives lost only hours before. The tightness in his chest returned, making it hard to breathe.
He whispered, “Never. Not even if they imprisoned me forever.”
“Then what did you do wrong, my Dramok? You followed orders, hoping to save your people. You did your job, hoping to end a war that was claiming too many lives on both sides.”
Simdow stared at Katherine. He’d underestimated her capacity for forgiveness, just as he’d underestimated her in so many other things. She was so much more than even he, completely swept away and viewing her through the eyes of love, had credited her for.
In utter awe of the woman in his arms, he asked, “How can you be so understanding? How can you look at us and not hate?”
Katherine smiled, her grief easing to let her bright soul shine through. “Because I love you. I know your heart, and it is a good one. Those with only kindness in them can still make terrible errors, Simdow. In this case, it wasn’t even your error. It was the madness of Earth’s leaders and the lack of knowledge of yours.”
“The road to Hell,” he said, remembering what she had said before the invasion.
Katherine nodded. “Exactly. We’ve all taken it at one point or another.”
Simdow looked into her tearstained and still beautiful face. For the first time since watching Kalquor’s fleet and Earth’s forces open fire on each other, the horrid misery of the day lifted. Despite all the horror that had happened since he last saw Katherine, he knew that somehow things would get better. There was still hope and goodness left, qualities that not even the atrocity he’d seen could eclipse.
He told the woman in his arms, “I love you. I would do anything to fix this.”
Katherine smiled. “I know. I have not lost faith in you.”
Simdow kissed her with all the fervor in his body. He didn’t deserve his Katherine, not in any way, shape, or form. Yet he vowed he would do all in his power to earn the right to be her Dramok in the end. He would not fail her again.
Katherine broke the kiss and moved back. She took his hands in hers and led him towards the couch.
“What are you doing?” Simdow asked.
“Making it better for both of us,” she answered. Katherine stopped next to the couch and pulled her gown, the too-big one she’d worn for so long, off her glorious body to stand before him naked.
Simdow forgot to breathe for a few moments, and then relearned quickly as Katherine went to the side of the lounger and bent over the arm of it. Her round, perfect ass went in the air. Simdow inhaled sharply as she wiggled it, enticing him with a knowing grin and wide eyes.
Naughty but still incredibly innocent. The combination made Simdow raging hard.
“My Matara,” he groaned. “For one so naive about the ways of sex a few days ago, you are remarkably knowledgeable on how to please a man.”
She giggled as he stepped behind her. “I was taught that women are inherently evil. Perhaps that’s coming out now.”
Simdow swatted the perfect globes of her ass, sending resounding smacks echoing through the air. Katherine groaned, the sound all pleasure.
“You are not evil,” he growled, watching his handprints appear on the pale expanse of her buttocks. “I will not hear of such things either.”
“Yes, my Dramok.” She offered a proper submissive tone.
Simdow cupped the orbs of her ass, loving their roundness and how they fit into his palms. He bent down to kiss the trembling flesh, his lips noting the warmth of where he’d struck her. Her scent rose, sweet and beckoning as he mouthed all that soft skin. Unable to resist its siren call, Simdow plunged two fingers deep into her wet, twitching pussy.
Katherine gasped and came up on her toes. Simdow turned his hand palm-down, crooking his fingers to rub that spot that set her on fire. She cried out, her body moving to encourage the friction on that nest of nerves. The Dramok watched her fuck his fingers, enjoying the sight of her now dripping pussy consuming them.
Ah, but his delicious Matara’s cravings wouldn’t be satisfied by mere pleasure. No, she needed the added bite of pain and surrender to his dominance. Dominance he needed to give.
Simdow’s free hand rose and fell over Katherine’s bobbing ass, delivering the stinging punishment that rewarded his Matara the way she wished. He didn’t spank her hard, certainly not nearly as hard as Miv’s discipline or her own scourging had been delivered. Instead, he let the heat and ache build through constant slaps, allowing the torment to grow a bit at a time. Her sobs grew, but they were breathless, excited sounds.
Her soft yet tight pussy clenched and pulled at Simdow’s fingers. Her ass reddened beautifully. Simdow continued to spank her to their mutual delight, his eyes drinking in her beauty as she gave herself over to him. There had never been a more perfect creature, he decided. She must have been one of her god’s angels.
Simdow pulled his fingers free of Katherine’s grasping pussy and ended the spanking all at once. She squealed as if angry, thrusting her ass towards him in unspoken demand. Well, that wouldn’t do at all. She was not in control here; he was.
“Hold still and be quiet,” he ordered.
She stopped moving all at once. Her head turned to the side. She stared at him, her blue eyes wide as she peered over her shoulder. Sky blue eyes, reddened from crying.
Simdow needed to take her away from her tears, from her pain. He needed to forget the past hours himself, even if for only a little while. They both needed the escape a session of demanding sex would give them, taking them away from the horrors they’d known today.
He was the Dramok. It was up to him to be in absolute control so they could find peace, however fleeting it might be.
Simdow told Katherine, “You will stay silent. Neither of our bodies is yours to command, so you will also remain still unless I tell you otherwise. If you disobey, I will deny you orgasm. I will bring you to the brink of it, but you will have no climax.”