While I didn’t want to believe it, I knew Rav spoke the truth. I didn’t need the surety of his words coming through the collar to make me believe. “If they had the proof, then why did they send me out here? What do they want?”
Rav placed a gentle kiss on my lips, his gaze cloudy. “I don’t know, mate. You tell me.”
Oh, I knew all right. Weapons. They wanted weapons. Technology. Anything that would get them ahead in their battle for domination of our little blue planet. My presence here wasn’t about the Coalition at all, or the arrival of the spacemen. It was all about Earth’s petty wars, the never-ceasing struggle for power.
After what I’d just witnessed, their obsessive struggle for supremacy was laughable. There was so much more out here, so much more that humans, with their petty fighting, had yet to comprehend. “When do Earth’s first soldiers arrive?”
“Soon. Tomorrow.”
Holy shit. I didn’t have much time. “I want to meet them first, talk to them. And…” My voice faded as I considered what I could do to convince the soldiers arriving from Earth that the threat was real.
“And?”
“I want them to see Myntar’s body. I want them to watch what happened. Do you have the video on file? Are there cameras in the medical station?”
Rav groaned and I felt his utter and complete disgust at the idea. “Everything that happens on this ship is recorded.”
Everything? Shit. They hadn’t exactly told me that either. But that was a concern for another day. “Let me show them, Rav. I know these guys, their type. They live by a code of honor that’s solid. Their loyalty is absolute. They’ll listen to me.”
“I hope so. I truly hope so. Because if they so much as glare at you, if Grigg believes they are a threat, he will kill them.”
I shuddered, knowing Rav spoke true. Grigg’s patience had been pushed to the breaking point by me, by Earth’s bullshit attitude and the day’s losses to the Hive. “They won’t.”
“Good. But you should know, love, if Earth tries to fuck with the Coalition’s fleet, they’ll lose.”
“Would the Interstellar Coalition let the Hive take us out? Destroy Earth?” The idea was terrifying, but I had no idea what the Prime of Rav’s home world, or the leaders of the other planets, might decide if Earth’s leaders didn’t get their heads out of their asses. Earth was so small, and so very, very far away.
“No. We’ll protect them, even if they don’t deserve it. There are billions of innocents on your world who need to be sheltered.”
“But what about our soldiers? You know Earth’s leaders won’t stop trying to get their hands on a weapon. A human pilot could easily steal a ship. Why let them come here at all? I don’t understand.”
Rav stroked my cheek as he explained. “You must understand, we are very, very far away from your home. Should a human pilot steal a ship, he would never make it out of this system alive. The light of your star takes thousands of years to reach us. There are over two hundred and sixty member planets in the coalition, most in different solar systems. The Fleet protects trillions of beings, hundreds of worlds separated by vast expanses of space. We live and fight and die and most never leave their sector of space. We are a vast network spread out over unimaginable distances connected only by our transport technology.”
“Then, how did I get here?”
“Our transport system uses the gravity wells around stars and black holes to accelerate travel and communications. You journeyed here as a beam of pure energy accelerated to speeds you can not comprehend. Our transport and communications stations are very secure and guarded my entire battle groups of warriors. Your naïve human spies could not break into our system even if we walked them through the door and chained them to the controls. The transport pads are controlled by bioscanners and neurostim units implanted directly in the brain of our technicians. There is no way for your people to overcome our security. Even the Hive has been unable to do so, and their race is much more advanced than the humans of Earth.”
“So, there’s truly nothing Earth can do and no way to send anything back without permission, not even a simple message?”
“No. There is not. But your Earth is not the first world to doubt our intentions. Your leaders will come around eventually. They always do.” Rav kissed me again and I melted in his arms, our embrace one of comfort and care, not hot monkey sex, although Rav was pretty damn good at that, too.
“I love you, Amanda. Whatever happens, I want you to know that.”
I didn’t have the words, not yet, but I held him close for a long time, both of us lost in our own thoughts, the connection between us wide open and flooded with tenderness, with love, as I allowed myself to believe he was mine to keep, allowed myself to fall absolutely, no-holds-barred, head-over-heels in love with him.
Chapter Fourteen
Grigg
The dining hall was full and the crowd of people who stopped to greet Amanda had begun to grate on my nerves. In less than an hour, the first soldiers from Earth would arrive via transport, and my beautiful, soft-hearted little mate had somehow convinced me not to kill them.
“Lady Zakar, Commander, Doctor.” Captain Trist bowed low as he rose from the opposite side of the round table, his tray now empty. “I must report to the command deck.”
“Captain.” I inclined my head as he left us. I often took my meals here, but before Amanda’s arrival, most had simply nodded silently and passed me by. Today I felt like the center of a one-woman event.
Everyone wanted to meet our mate, greet her, offer their congratulations. Amanda took it all in stride, seated as she was between myself on her right and Rav on her left. No one got close enough to touch. I was still too raw from the events of yesterday to let her out of my sight, mine or Rav’s
I’d felt them bonding, soothing each other, the peaceful flood of emotion soothing me as far away as the command deck where I’d sent more than a hundred pilots into battle. We’d lost a dozen, but the Hive incursion had been pushed back.