Star Force: Divergent (SF74) (10 page)

“So you think we should be sexually promiscuous?”

“Wow. That word is such a killjoy.”

“You know what I mean. The Archons have a strict code,
and Commandos usually go along with it.”

Jyra pulled one hand off of where she had his pinned
and tapped him on the forehead. “And there’s where you’re wrong. The Archons
don’t follow a code.”

“No?”

“No rules. San told me that himself when I asked. He
said rules are for the young, the inexperienced, and the untrustworthy. Arc
Commandos are none of those.”

Linty looked at her a moment, feeling some semblance
of logic working beneath her red locks and intense eyes…then it finally
clicked.

“It’s a question of loyalty to the mission, which for
us was answered beyond a shadow of a doubt before we became Arc Commandos.”

“Go on.”

“We don’t need the restrictive guidelines and code
that helped get us here. In fact, it will probably hinder us in living up to
our mandate, therefore we must ‘unlearn’ what we have learned.”

Jyra smiled, glad this little gambit of hers had
worked. She’d almost been too shy to even try it. “And everything about this
current situation screams a violation of everything we’ve been taught.”

“Yet we’re still loyal to the mission. And when we’re
trustworthy we don’t need rules.”

“And when we don’t follow rules we can do things in…
funner
ways.”

“Like you getting me naked in order to explain this?”

Jyra flashed her eyebrows twice. “Savvy?”

Linty smiled. “And rather than take baby steps, why
not jump in head first and strip away the lingering protocol along with our
clothes?”

“You are a smart boy.”

“You planning to instruct everyone else that comes
here like this?”

“Honestly I have no idea how long I’m going to be
here, so I’m just playing this by ear and it seemed like a good idea a few
minutes ago.”

“And now?”

“You tell me.”

Linty smiled widely. “Part of me wants to say this is
just all frivolous, but another part realizes your logic is spot on. If we’re
going to differentiate ourselves from the Archons and other Commandos then we
have to break free of established habits…and this is about as fast of a method
as I can think of stripping away established protocol.”

“So we’re in agreement? I’m not crazy?”

“Oh you’re crazy…like a fox.”

“Good,” she said, suddenly getting up off him and
leaving Linty a bit disappointed. That caught him off guard, but he shook it
off and stood up.

“Lesson over then?”

“The lessons are just beginning. Time for a tour and
to get you up to speed on what the Archons left for us. What we make of it
going forward is anyone’s guess, but there are some notes left behind by other
Arc Commandos. Still, we’re near the tip of the spear and don’t have much in
the way of trailblazers to key off of. We have to make this up as we go and
I’ll be glad for the help.”

“Tour it is then,” Linty said, walking back to the
couch to grab his clothes.

“
Uhuh
,” Jyra said, stopping
him with a hand on his shoulder. “Habits don’t break that fast. You stay naked
for now.”

“Until when?” he asked with a wry grin.

“Until we no longer feel naked.”

“And what if someone else shows up?”

“Only Arc Commandos come here, and if another comes in
we get them naked too. You take the girls and I’ll take the guys and we’ll
share what we’ve learned via pillow fights.”

Linty laughed. “And what if they’re older Arc
Commandos?”

“Then we tell them what we’re doing and ask if they
want to join in. No shame here. We’re not misbehaving, just handling our
mandate in a way that most other people wouldn’t approve of. If we’re going to
be off the grid, then we don’t need to concern ourselves with what they think,
because they’ll never know. We can’t have their rigidity and protocol slowing
us down. We have to keep open minds and clear heads, hence the reason why I’m
not going to fuck you, despite the urge I have to do so right now.”

“Likewise.”

“I can see that,” she said, glancing down at his
waist.

“You said no shame.”

“None at all,” she agreed. “Though that’s got to be
awkward walking around with.”

“It is, trust me.”

“How long before you deflate?”

“Good question. If you’re not putting your clothes
back on either, could be a while.”

“I would offer to pop you off, but that would be
counter-productive I think?”

Linty shook his head in dismay. “I swear, when you
first started that pillow fight I thought you were…”

“Out of bounds?”

“Yeah, but to your point. When you’re loyal to the
mission, or in this case mandate, there is no out of bounds. I guess this is a
weakness I’ve got, and the only way to get used to being around you naked is to
see it through the less fun way. Just try not to bump into me or you’ll kill
whatever slack I start to get.”

“No promises rookie. I may do it intentionally now.
Just enough to keep you on edge and burn away whatever protocol you’ve got
clogging your mind.”

“And what about you?”

“I don’t have external sex organs, but feel free to
poke where you like. I can take it without losing my head.”

“This is by far the strangest lesson I’ve ever had.”

“Is that a complaint?”

“We really are off the grid here, right? No monitoring
at all?”

“Nada. It took me a while to really wrap my head
around that and loosen up. Didn’t realize how constricted I was beforehand
until it happened…then I got a little crazy to push it further.”

“Well, I like your crazy and see the wisdom in it. On
top of that, I think this next stage of training is going to be the
funnest
of all time.”

“Why not?” she shrugged. “As long as we still
accomplish our goals?”

“And keep it a secret from everyone else.”

“No one else is supposed to know what we do anyway.”

“Well, then. If we’re going to jump off this boat, how
about we make all leisure downtime nude? Not just for us, but everyone. We can
put up a sign that says so.”

Jyra laughed. “I’m glad you didn’t include training.
Running naked is…uncomfortably bouncy.”

“Ditto there.”

Jyra raised an eyebrow at him. “Is my crazy rubbing
off on you?”

“Looks like.”

“Good,” she said, lightly tapping her wrist against
his crotch as she walked by. “Follow me and I’ll show you around your new
digs.”

Linty took a moment to center himself and followed
her, feeling exposed and stupid, but in a fresh way that, honestly, was going
to take some getting used to, but he already could feel a wall forming between
himself and the outside world, with Jyra on the inside of it and the both of
them being saner for it. He’d never have done anything like this on his own,
but coming from another Arc Commando he was less resistant…and it did make
sense. Perfect sense. And he wasn’t going to let the fun aspect of it
discourage him.

Then he began to wonder why ‘fun’ should ever
discourage anything.

10

December 2, 2900

Epsilon Eridani
System

Corneria

Mace
Ortel
descended the
T-shaped stairway entrance to the Nest on the left side, turning an immediate
right and spotting two people sitting on a couch watching a vid screen. Before
he said anything to them he turned the corner and looked at the holo, seeing
some 18 dots circling above it. That surprised him, for typically the Nest only
had 1 or 2 Arc Commandos in it at a time. Maybe the growing number of their ranks
was changing that, but still 18 seemed damn high.

He used his Lachka to toggle the hidden switch, adding
another dot as he logged himself in and pressed the doorbell to announce his
presence to the facility, though the pair sitting with their backs to him
didn’t hear it in this chamber.

“Hi,” he said, retracting his helmet into the lump of
material around the back of his armor’s neckline as he looked down at the pair
of heads, both of which turned around, apparently a bit shocked to see him. The
vid screen was loud, and if these Arc Commandos were new then their Pefbar and
Ikrid probably weren’t that advanced yet to pick him up coming down behind
them.

“Hey, new guy is here.”

“Old guy, actually,” he said as the pair stood up and
he saw that both the guy and girl were naked. “What the hell?”

“That’s the standard reaction we get from new people,”
Veronica said, pointing to her left. “Read.”

Mace followed her finger line until he saw an addition
to the Nest in the form of a sign on the wall that read:

Sexuality can have a strong influence on the weak minded.

We are NOT weak minded.

So prove it.

“What exactly does that mean?” Mace asked, a bit
peeved.

“I thought the same thing when I got here,” Chad said,
raising a hand to forestall the typical reaction. “
Thought
everyone had gone
civie
and insane, but there’s a
method to the madness if you take long enough to think it through.”

Mace looked at both of them in turn, then back at
Chad. “Regale me then.”

“You’re…Mace, right?” Veronica asked.

“Yes.”

“Thought so. I tried to memorize the personnel files.
By the way,” she said, pointing two fingers at her eyes, then moving them down
to her chest, “my breasts are down here.”

“What she means to say,” Chad interrupted, “is that
we’ve instituted a…voluntary…program of sexuality training into our private
culture.”

“Program, huh?”

“Yeah,” Chad said, rubbing his sandy blonde hair.
“You’re the first old timer we’ve greeted. Or rather, that I’ve greeted. Mostly
we see
newbs
coming in.”

“And you just wait here naked as a doorman?”

“Easy, Mace,” Veronica cautioned. “We just got
finished with our workouts and we’re on downtime. Everyone else is either
training or sleeping. We haven’t gone nuts, just taking an angle on sexuality
that the Archons wouldn’t approve of.”

“And that being?”

“We use it.”

Mace rolled his eyes. “Oh boy.”

“Are you the ‘never get laid type?’”

“No, I’m the ‘do the mission, not your buddy type.’”

“You didn’t answer my question,” Veronica insisted,
crossing her arms over her chest.

“How about I let you two talk this out,” Chad said,
pointing off to the other side of the room. “I don’t have the compatibility to
ease the introduction.”

“That’s probably best,” Veronica said as Chad walked
over and sat down on a distant couch, turning on another vid screen and
ignoring that the two of them were there. “You and I have a lot to go through.”

“That’s right, you were going to explain why you’re
not acting like a Commando.”

“Want to have a seat first?”

“No, I think I’m better standing. Now talk before I
feel like kicking your ass.”

Veronica’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t let the lack of
clothes fool you. I can handle myself.”

“You’re fit, I’ll give you that, but you’re not going
to stand up to more than a few punches,” he said, flexing his armored hand for
emphasis.

“News flash, bro. We’re basically naked outside of our
armor anyway. Putting a T-shirt on doesn’t change that much.”

“Granted,” he allowed.

“We figure that if we’re vulnerable outside of our
armor then we might as well have fun with it, so long as it serves a purpose.
Everyone here goes naked when not in training. Just a part of our secret little
society. No Archon has come to beat some sense into us, like you’re thinking
about doing now, so it’s also a way to confirm they’re not spying on us like
they promised, but the bottom line is what the sign says. If we’re not weak
minded then we shouldn’t have to avoid sexuality. For us, we’ve taken it as a
challenge. We don’t avoid it, we embrace it. And if someone can’t keep their
focus then they don’t deserve to be an Arc Commando.”

“Then why not go nude in training too?”

“Because most of the time you bounce, whether you’re a
guy or girl, and that creates problems, but where we can without disadvantage
we do. We even spar nude on occasion, for training sake.”

“Explain that.”

“Battle can come at any place at any time, and our
enemies aren’t going to wait for us to get dressed if they catch us naked.”

“What about the ‘bounciness’ then?”

“We learn to work around or negate as much of it as we
can, and that requires practice.”

“Is that why so many of you are here? Typically the
Nest doesn’t see more than 3 at a time.”

Veronica shrugged. “Maybe. When I got here there were
9. Some have come and gone, including a couple of old timers like you. Once
they gave it a chance they understood what we were doing and joined in. If you
don’t want to strip down right away that’s fine, just don’t write us off as
traitors. We’re loyal to the mission, and per our mandate we’re thinking
outside the box. We’re just also thinking outside the Archon box as well. They
may avoid sex like a plague, but we’re using it to our advantage.”

“So you’re just not walking around naked, you’re
banging each other as well?”

Veronica nodded. “No more than once every three days,
which is standard when scheduling will allow.”

“Scheduling?” Mace said in dismay.

“We have to practice,” Veronica emphasized, “in order
to learn. Ignoring it isn’t something we choose to do anymore…though to be
honest some of us never did to begin with. Now we’ve just taken it from being a
random thing and turned it into a beneficial culture.”

Mace shook his head, not believing what he was
hearing. “You guys have gone nuts.”

“Please have more faith in us than that,” she said,
not arguing but asking openly. “The outside world doesn’t exist here. We’re off
the grid and we’ve found a way to maximize that. The Archons wouldn’t approve,
but we’re supposed to do things our own way. They didn’t give us a plan for
just that reason. We’re meant to improvise, learn, and craft the Arc Commandos
into something of our own making. We’re not mini Archons, so why would be
pattern ourselves off of them?”

“Because they kick ass.”

“Of course they do. And the ‘no sex’ rule works for
them. This works for us.”

“Fine,” Mace relented, glancing over her body again,
head to toes and back up. “I’ll hear you out…and me not having to look at
someone else’s dick while listening was a good call.”

“Simple biology dude,” Chad said from across the room.

“Lose the armor and we’ll take a walk,” Veronica
suggested.

“Do you go topside like that?” Mace asked as he triggered
the automatic release and his armor peeled apart, with him stepping out of it a
moment later.

“Nope. This part of being an Arc Commando only happens
in the Nest. Though there is never any guarantee of safety, this is about as
close as it gets. And like I said, we’re pretty much naked without our armor
anyway, so we’ve chosen to just go the next step here, but only here.”

“What about the other Nests?”

Veronica raised an eyebrow. “Other Nests?”

“There are two more, at present.”

Chad’s head turned around as they walked behind him
towards the door leading to the rest of the facility. “Why haven’t we heard
about that?”

“I’m guessing because you’re
newbs
,”
Mace said with some disdain. “Such information travels by word of mouth only.”

“To answer your question, I guess it will eventually,”
Veronica said as they passed through the open doorway leaving Chad and the
commons room behind.

“If you have your way.”

“It’s not my way, or at least the initial idea
wasn’t.”

“Who started this craziness?”

“I’m told it was Jyra, but we’ve been adding other
bits and pieces as we go along…like the 3 day rule. We experimented with every
day but found it left our minds gummy. 3 days allows us to stay sharp, and we
wouldn’t have figured that out without trying to figure it out.”

“Define gummy?”

“Answer my earlier question. Do you do anyone?”

“On occasion, but none since I became an Arc
Commando.”

“Why not?”

“Busy mostly. And the other times were special
circumstances. I don’t make a habit of it.”

“Why not?”

“The Archons are right in that there is a disadvantage
to it, training wise and fighting wise.”

“We know that, but rather than bury it away in our
subconscious to the point where it almost shuts off entirely, we take the
opposite route, feeling it out and learning how to minimize the disadvantage.
What we practice when we fuck is our recovery time afterward. So long as I
don’t violate the 3 day rule, or in this case it would be ‘guideline’ since we
don’t use rules, I can snap myself out of the daze within a few minutes, for
the most part.”

“You time it?”

“Not like that, but only because we can’t measure it.
We thought about using
biomonitors
but that would
require letting the techs in on our inner workings, and we do not let anyone
know what goes on inside the Nest. That is one rule we do keep.”

“Embarrassed?”

“Nope. I was in the beginning but it wore off pretty
quick. Other people don’t understand, so it’s best to keep them in the dark.
And it would be a huge mistake living under the constraints of what other
people can understand.”

“You’re making a little sense, but I’m not sold.”

“We’re sexual as a default, and even the Archons
haven’t tried to genetically strip that away.”

“That’d be cowardice if they did.”

“Exactly my point. A strong mind can override
sexuality with ease, so why can it not also function while indulging in it?”

“But why indulge in the first place if our mission is
tactical, not reproductive?”

“Several reasons. First is to negate the
disadvantages. Would you keep a ship in your hangar that you know absolutely
nothing about, or do you fly everything and figure out the intricacies of how
they work? We have sexual systems. They may not be very important considering
what we do as Arc Commandos, but that doesn’t mean we have to ignore them. And
if we can find a beneficial use for them aside from baby making, why not go
there?”

“What beneficial use are you referring to?”

“We hardly ever see one another, right? I’m asking
because I’m still in training phase and my psionics aren’t up to snuff enough
to go out into the field yet, at least not for the big assignments. You do, so
you tell me. You said 3 was usually tops for the Nest.”

“You see a lot of your unit, if you’re assigned to
one. But no, we rarely cross paths with others.”

“When you’ve gotten laid before, who was it with? I
don’t need a name, but what did they do?”

“A few other Commandos and one tech. All of which were
situational, no relationships involved.”

“None here either. We fuck everyone and love doesn’t
factor in, but we do develop beneficial bonds. That’s something you’re probably
not aware of if you’ve been banging for recreational purposes.”

“Everyone?” Mace asked, raising an eyebrow at her.

“Yes,” she answered automatically until she caught his
gist. “Everyone biologically compatible. There are more guys here than girls,
so our schedules are always full while the guys usually have holes in
theirs…but as we’ve come to say, ‘no whining over missed fucks.’ We do make an
exception for new arrivals, so you get priority. Our way of saying ‘hi’ or
‘welcome back.’”

“You’re saying if I wanted to, you’d fuck me right
now?”

“No, sorry. I did yesterday, and we only do it on
schedule, never impulse. I can bump you into my next slot though, or you can
pick some other girl.”

“Just like that?”

“We’ve learned not to be shy, and it actually forms a
bond between us that we’ve never had before. Not something sick, but something
familiar. We’re separated from everyone else because we’re Arc Commandos, so
when we’re in the Nest we take advantage of the time when we’re actually
together. We’ve already decided that if we meet up in the field that doesn’t
matter. We only indulge this part of our culture here…or in the other Nests, now
that we know they exist.”

“Any other guidelines you’ve come up with?” he asked
as they passed another Arc Commando in the hallway, though this one was dressed
in skintight shorts and running shoes.

“Getting
indocted
?” Linty
asked.

“Working on him,” Veronica said as they stopped. “He’s
old school.”

“A challenge then,” the topless and very sweaty Arc
Commando said as he looked Mace over. “Sorry, don’t recognize you. I’m Linty.”

“Mace,” he said, extending his hand in greeting and
glad that the guy had pants on.

“Back for some additional training or what?”