Command Control Read online

  He nuzzled her throat. “That was something.”

  She shuddered as an aftershock went through her and squeezed him. He grunted in surprise. “What was that?”

  “Um, post-orgasm spasm? My species have fluid semen, so getting as much of it out as possible is beneficial.” She shrugged. “But, honestly, I have no idea why it happens.”

  He grinned. “How long does it last?”

  “A minute? Two? I have never timed it. It could even be a redistribution of blood from the stimulated tissue.” She flinched as it happened again.

  He grunted again.

  She asked him. “So, what does it feel like on your end?”

  Argo smiled. “Like the most perfectly fitting hot, wet glove is squeezing me.”

  She blushed. “Can we go back to the vessel now?”

  “What would make you feel more at ease?”

  “Not being in an environment that would kill me in a matter of hours?” She swallowed.

  “I would never leave you trapped.” He frowned.

  “I have been trapped. I have been pinned under metal that was crushing me as my burned body was being covered in icy salt water.”

  He went quiet. “What?”

  “That is how I ended up here. My mind aside, I had been injured in an accident, my body burned and crushed, and then, the rig I was on tipped into the ocean, and the waves tried to finish me off.” She saw his face, and she said, “Not the waves. It is just an expression.”

  “How did you survive?”

  “My world’s avatar was in the area. She got me out and got me breathing. I was trying to explain it to Huron, but Heron was there, and I didn’t want to scare him.”

  She sighed and pressed her forehead to his shoulder.

  He stroked her back. “What happened then?”

  “I woke up in hospital with a tube in my throat and another to feed me. My right hand was the only part of me not burned, and the rest of me was in a cast. My face was scorched; even my lips were gone. Talking was tricky, but I just can’t be stopped. My sister was holding my hand and talking to me. They didn’t tell me how long I had been there, so I know it had been weeks if not months.”

  “How did you get here?”

  “There was a request for my neural pattern. They asked me if I would go into space and mind being tampered with. They would reset me to my best state of health and then add the other genetics. I had the avatar read the contract to me, and then, I signed, and things got started.”

  She grimaced. “Since you and Huron are so chatty, you can fill him in. It is all in my file.”

  “Are you working with teams on other worlds all the time?”

  “No, of course not. Guardians only work in emergencies. Well, that is where they need me. I tap into the local satellites, cameras, newsfeeds. I process it all and then give a supervisor’s eye view. Well, you know, the boat stuck in the tidal swirl thingy. I was in your ear when one of the kids was getting away.”

  He blinked. “I didn’t tell anyone, and there was nothing on the report about the child panicking.”

  “Yeah. I know. I saw it through the camera on your skimmer.” She wrinkled her nose. “I feel a little like a spy now and then, but it seems to be working.”

  “Well, our efficiency is up, and our injury rate has decreased.”

  “I believe it is the same on Caloff and Virtal.” She smiled. “At least I am having some impact. I keep worrying about losing my focus.”

  He rubbed her back again. “Why?”

  “Because I don’t think they ever had my acting in formal capacity while I was having sex as a possibility. It was made very clear to me that I had to remain on duty during my days off.” She sat up but couldn’t meet his direct gaze.

  He blinked. “So, while I was inside you, you were directing an op on an alien world?”

  She nodded. “They just finished it. No casualties.”

  He sighed. “Well, as lovely as this is, I think we should get back now.”

  She slumped in relief. “Thank you. I might be up to something like this again eventually, but not now. Not until I can wear on the memory a little. It is still very fresh.”

  “I understand. You will need to meet Shock soon. He trained as a counsellor.”

  She groaned. “I don’t need counselling, and isn’t he alien to Relita?”

  “No, he is native. We all are. He’s a hasku-Relitan. He goes outside species specs.” He slid out of her, and she blinked at the rush of fluid again.

  “That is so disconcerting.”

  He laughed. “I imagine it would be, but it keeps our semen pod from being removed until it latches on to wait.”

  “Oh, right, otherwise a queen could just flush out... wait, can you control releasing that pod?”

  He tugged her into the water. “Of course.”

  He pulled her under before she could yell at him, but the yelling was coming.

  Chapter Ten

  Having lunch on Huron’s lap after what she had just been doing with Argo was odd.

  “How is everybody okay with this?” She waved at the circle around the table.

  “It is what we are. No single male can satisfy the queen.”

  “How do you tell whose child it is when the egg shows up?” She blurted it out because she had no idea.

  Huron choked on his sandwich, but Argo said, “The colour. The beginning of the skin markings. They are visible during the transfer, so it is easy to see. We could also get a surrogate to carry them to term.”

  She nodded. “Damn. This place could be overrun with little half-Terrans in no time. How many children are ideal from a queen?”

  Huron frowned. “Across her lifetime... fifteen, maybe sixteen? That would be a very prolific queen.”

  She did some math on her fingers. “So, given a month between one pregnancy ending and the next starting, I could finish the whole project in four years or so. That is with surrogates.”

  Huron spoke, “You don’t understand. The pregnancy only happens when you release an egg.”

  “Every twenty-eight days. That is pretty basic math.” She grimaced. “According to Imbolt, it is the reason that we are being introduced so carefully. They are pre-mixing us before they send us out to slow our propagation. We are great on low population worlds.” She looked at the two surprised men. “Like Relita?”

  Huron chuckled. Heron was napping after finishing lunch. Swimming tuckered him out.

  “So, they gave us a super breeder with talent and installed her with the guardians. Interesting tactic.”

  She looked at him. “It wasn’t a tactic. The genetic material had to come from somewhere, so your government, my avatar, and the Imperium set this up. It isn’t random.”

  Argo smiled. “What he means is that our government has been flailing around to increase our birthrate. We have been on a collapsing spiral for nearly a century.”

  “Oh. Well. We have started instituting family restrictions in some areas. One country had a single child policy, and then, they had a generation of nearly all boys as that was the preferred sex. They ended up having to allow immigration of females from other countries.”

  Huron smiled. “Sounds familiar.”

  “How did that work?”

  “Not very well. We were not breeding compatible. Apparently, our species is different than most.”

  “Yeah. I figured that out.” She got a pinch on her butt, and she stifled her squeak so she wouldn’t wake Heron. She finished her lunch and asked, “So, with you two, I am done, right?”

  “You might want to ask the governor. If she says yes, you are done. If not, she will tell you how many she wishes you to acquire.”

  “Acquire? You aren’t collectibles.”

  “If their goal is a wide spectrum exposure to different genes, they may want you to have more males in your court.” Huron nodded. “You should meet Boran and see if he is interested. His talent and biology defy c
aste, so I have no idea if he would take to you.”

  She closed her eyes. “If he is Shock, I don’t really want to meet him.”

  Argo frowned. “Why not?”

  “He calls me Mom. I don’t care what planet you are on. You shouldn’t fuck that.”

  Huron covered his mouth to stifle his laughter, and Argo blinked and then grinned. “He does, doesn’t he? Oh, I have to have him meet us for dinner.”

  She snorted and scrambled off Huron’s lap. She went around and prodded Argo in the chest. “Don’t. You. Dare. He is always nice to me during sign-off, and I appreciate it.”

  Maya sighed and headed for the deck on the back of the boat, and she lay on one of the benches, enjoying the sun. It was nice that her new skin didn’t burn, or perhaps, it was just the UV frequency. All was quiet in her sector of space, so she could dip in for a shallow nap while part of her remained on alert.

  * * * *

  Huron got up and went to the com.

  Argo asked, “What are you doing?”

  “Calling Boran. If they meet and get along, we have our third, even if he is unclassified. From there, we just need a fourth, and that should satisfy the governor.”

  “Why didn’t you tell her that we needed four to make a court?”

  “I didn’t want to freak her out. They didn’t even give her basic biology lessons.” Huron snorted.

  “I know. She asked me all kinds of questions. We had a nice chat, and then, she told me how she actually ended up here. It made me feel like shit for picking a bubble cavern.”

  Huron checked on Heron while he sent the message, and then, he looked at Argo. “Tell me all about it.”

  Argo prefaced it with, “We will have to check the records, but she did seem pretty shaken up when she described it. On the plus side, there is no genetic fault; on the minus side, she has been through hell.”

  Argo explained what she had told him, and Huron asked a few questions before sighing. “Why didn’t she mention this before?”

  “You have known her for a day. When was she supposed to tell you?”

  Huron blinked. “Right. I had forgotten that. It seems like I have wanted her forever.”

  Argo nodded. “Yeah, that is about it. Even though she is napping, I still want to be touching her. She’s so soft.”

  The com unit chirped with a message displayed. Boran would be meeting them while they were at sea.

  Huron nodded. If he and Maya got along, they would have their third. Then, it was up to Maya to choose their fourth and a few surrogates in case she wanted to start with children right away. She had mentioned that she was on a suppressor shot, but he was fairly certain that they could get the governor to reduce her duties.

  First, they had to see if their third teammate was in the mood to court a queen.

  * * * *

  There was shadow where there had been light. Maya looked up, and there was a man staring down at her that she only knew from news vids and reports. He was wearing the standard guardian uniform. He crouched next to her, and she sat up. “So, you are what all the fuss is about. I must confess, I haven’t seen UV-sensitive markings before.”

  She sat up and looked around. The other two were in the front of the boat, and Heron looked like he was trying to fish. The boat was still.

  “Um, who are you?” She ran a hand through her hair.

  “Oh. Playing dumb. Not an attractive trait, but I will explain. I am Shock. My teammates have called me in to see if I am suitable to be the third member of your court. So far, I am not seeing the attraction.”

  She noticed that her skirt was high on her legs, which definitely wasn’t how she had started napping. She pulled her skirt down into place. “Okay. Right. So, what the fuck is with your attitude? Yes or no? I don’t need you to call me dumb or unattractive. I have had a very trying two days, and your teammates are trying to lock in their favourites so that they won’t have to hang out with strangers during parent-teacher conferences.”

  She surged to her feet and prodded him in the chest until he thudded to his backside. He gripped her arm and twisted, so she kicked him in the jaw. His head snapped to the side, and he released her arm.

  “You are training in combat?”

  “In my off time. You are pretending to be a guardian? Way to grab an unarmed woman.” She sneered.

  He blinked, and his silvery eyes were confused. “I thought you were going to try to seduce me?”

  “Why? Every other man around here is trying to crawl inside me, and it is exhausting. I am not saying that I don’t appreciate your teammates, but some of the other men who have cornered me have been repulsive and looking for an easy mark. A woman who hasn’t figured out her worth.”

  Boran looked confused, and Heron just seemed to have noticed him. He ran up and made a polite bow.

  “Uncle Boran. Are you here visiting?”

  Heron climbed into Maya’s arms, and she kissed him on the forehead. “We both had a nap, huh, little man?”

  Heron grinned. “I swam a lot.”

  “Me too.”

  Boran looked at her and Heron then the boy’s father as Huron came in. “Hey, guy. You were supposed to stay with me and Uncle Argo to let Boran meet her.”

  “It’s fine, Huron. I didn’t meet Boran. I met Shock, and Shock is stuck-up.”

  Huron blinked. “You know better.”

  Maya stroked Heron’s hair. “Yes, but he doesn’t know that I know. I will look for a third elsewhere. I already have one in mind. He was pretty aggressive about it, so he will probably be amenable.”

  Huron frowned. “Who?”

  “Doctor Lylwin. He was checking on my genetic fusion, and it was he that told me that I should be taking better care of myself and that I was going to need to take at least one high caste male or the other ones would continue to pursue me. He never said it would get worse.”

  Boran asked, “Why did you say that I didn’t know that you know? What do you know?”

  Heron smiled. “I know, too!”

  Boran asked him, “What do you know?”

  “That she’s called Command Control, and she talks in her head.”

  Boran looked a little ill. “You are Command Control?”

  She went through the com signals and sent him a message. “Shock, this is Command Control. There is an urgent need for you to pull your head out of your ass. Command Control, out.”

  He winced. “I am so sorry. Your voice does not sound the same.”

  “Does the voice in your head sound like the one out of your mouth?”

  Boran sat and ran his hands through his pewter hair. He was a study in grey. His skin was pale grey, his markings were dark charcoal, his eyes were silver, and his hair dark. He had slightly less muscle mass than Argo but not by much.

  “I have botched this introduction.”

  She smiled. “I agree.” She got to her feet. Heron was taken back to the front of the vessel by his father.

  She extended her hand. “Hello. My name is Maya, and I work in communications.”

  He blinked. “My name is Boran, and I work in planetary defense.”

  “Hello, Boran. Now, do you feel any attraction for me at all?”

  He blushed. “I don’t register it like the others. I have to touch and kiss. I know they can scent and taste. My attraction is strictly tactile, which is difficult to quantify.”

  She stepped into his personal space, grabbed a hand, and put it on her butt. The second one went to her neck, and she pulled his head down and kissed him. This would sort things out once and for all.

  His kiss crackled when she kissed him. Tiny little static jolts ran across her lips. She opened her mouth, and his tongue slid against hers, the small jolts of energy kept coming, and she didn’t mind them. She didn’t know if it was her own attraction to electricity or her newly refurbished body, but she groaned and pressed into him. If she had to screw guys she was indifferent to, he qualified.
>
  He wrapped his hand under her hair, and he deepened the kiss. To her shock, he backtracked her signal, and he said, “I am sorry, Maya. They have tried to set me up before. It never ends well. The women can’t bear my touch.”

  She opened her eyes and broke the kiss, weighing her options. “Your touch is fine. Your manners when you want to seduce someone are lacking.”

  He smiled. “I am the guardian on duty. It is my job to be a humourless dick, as you stated.”

  “Let’s try the kiss again.”

  His pleased expression warmed her heart. The kiss started slow but crackled into a frenzy as the skimming of electric prickles moved across her. She stepped toward him, straddling a thigh, and he gripped her hips and rocked her against him. Her clit throbbed, and then, he sent a few sparking fingers between them, and she jolted and moaned into his mouth.

  She shivered and carefully stepped away from him when he lifted his head.

  “Do you want me?” His question was plain.

  She looked him over and thought about his touch. “I do. You might not be right for every day, but you can definitely make it into a rotation.”

  “Would you allow my child into the world?”

  She scowled, “Of course. Your lack of caste definition doesn’t phase me. I am lacking a clear definition for myself.”

  He smiled slowly. “So you are.” He chuckled. “If you have time, I am your third.”

  “Just like that?”

  “Your body responds to me, so that is attention-getting right away. Most of my people read the static as pain.”

  Maya licked her lips and tried to remain casual. “My nervous system is... not the same.”

  Boran gave her a slow smile. “I can see that. What does this do?”

  He reached out his hand and settled his thumb and forefinger to either side of her left nipple, and he sent an arc through it.

  Her eyes widened, and she hissed. She gripped his wrist. “Don’t do that.”