Command Control Read online

  He smiled. “Your entire system lit up like a traffic jam.”

  “You can see that?”

  Boran cocked his head. “That is how I see.”

  She had to try to grasp that, but there was a building collapse on Virtel, so part of her brain went online.

  Boran stared at her. “You are doing it now. You are Command Control right now.”

  She frowned. “How do you know? Can you hear it?”

  “No, I can see it. Your brain lit up.” He blinked. “It is still lit up. How long will it last?”

  Maya was running coms and coordinating the guardians. “This is going to occupy me for at least six hours, possibly more if there are too many injured.”

  “You can keep that up for hours?” He was shocked.

  “And two more frequencies just like it.” She stepped back and sat down on the bench. “It can be really tiring. This was supposed to be my first break since I landed.” She laughed. “It is going to be a relief to be back at the base. I don’t think I can take all of this recreation.”

  He smiled, and it was genuine, and his entire face changed. Instead of the normal resting-asshole face that he seemed to have stamped on him, he sat next to her and held her hand.

  Heron crept out after a while and crawled into her lap. He looked at Boran. “Uncle, you look different.”

  Boran smiled at him. “Yes, little Heron, this is what hope looks like.”

  She was going to agree, and then, she got the distress call. “Command Control to Shock. There is a power system down on the Yekanna Coast. There is a research med centre there, and they need you to help supplement power while repairs are made. They have two hours left on the generators.”

  He touched his ear, and he nodded. “On my way.”

  She sighed. “Sorry. Work keeps showing up.”

  He grinned, leaned in, and kissed her quickly, nodded to Heron, and then, she heard a crackle of power as he launched skyward to a small shuttle.

  Huron came back. “Where is he going?”

  “Yakanna Coast. A collapsed tree brought down some power site.”

  Heron looked at his dad with a shocked face. “Dad. Uncle Boran smiled.”

  Huron looked at her, and he raised his brows. “So?”

  “There is a third for my court. Now, shush. It is hard to concentrate right now.” She rubbed the back of her neck, and when he turned her and started to give her a shoulder rub, she groaned and leaned into it.

  Apparently, they took classes for this, too.

  Chapter Eleven

  Waking up in a place that wasn’t the boat or the hotel was a little odd.

  Maya sat up, and she clutched the bedding to her chest. As minimal as the clothing was in the temperate zone, she was used to wearing something while in strange bedrooms.

  She wrapped the sheet around her and went to the door. She opened the door and was on a covered walkway that overlooked a lush expanse of jungle.

  “Oh, wow.” While she could track the guardians, she never used their cameras after the mission was over. This looked like the location their base was in.

  She saw the jungle beneath her and the ocean in the distance. There was a larger building further up the hill, and she was staring at the familiar shape when she heard footsteps behind her. Boran was there with a breakfast tray in one hand. Surprisingly, he was fully and casually dressed. He was wearing black with crimson trim in a wrapped shirt and loose trousers.

  She smiled. “Let me guess, your day off?”

  He nodded. “Would you like to eat on the deck?”

  She nodded.

  He gestured for her to approach the side of the house. She walked ahead of him, and when she saw the table on the deck and the riot of jungle flowers that grew around it, she could understand why he had steered her here. It was lovely.

  He moved around her and set the tray down. “Huron said you didn’t eat much at dinner, and I saw the news vids from the building collapse.”

  She closed her eyes but could still see the images captured on the cameras, drones, and vid screens. “Yeah, it... wasn’t good.”

  “The guardians did what they could.”

  “They did. They rescued three hundred and thirty-two survivors and recovered sixty-one bodies. There are only two unaccounted for.” She closed her eyes. “I notified the authorities that they were carrying on an affair and would probably be found up the coast. The guardians are out of it now. They have to seek their therapists and go through the debriefing.”

  He smiled. “I know how it works.”

  “Right. Of course. I am sorry.” She rubbed her forehead.

  “When do you see your therapist?”

  “Uh. I don’t have one.” She blinked and remembered what Huron had said. “Sorry. I wasn’t trying to unload on you.”

  His eyes twinkled. “I see that one of my teammates mentioned my training?”

  “Uh. Yeah. I am not trying to add to the stuff you deal with as a guardian.”

  Boran cocked his head. “You are literally leaning away from me, trying to keep your stress from me.”

  She held up her hand. “Please, stop analyzing me. I don’t like it.”

  He took her hand and pressed a kiss to her palm. She felt the electric tingle that coursed through her when he touched her, and she shivered. “Eat your breakfast, Maya. You are going to need your strength.”

  Her stomach snarled, and he blinked.

  She sighed. “I never skip breakfast. I don’t know when I will be able to eat again.” She looked at the prettily sliced fruit, the small portion of protein that she still couldn’t pronounce, and the cup of juice.

  Maya looked at him. “You ate already.”

  “When I got home from the med centre. I won’t need another meal until lunch.”

  “When did you get back? And why do I feel like I should know that?”

  He smiled. “I collected you from the base after you lost a food fight to Heron. You were already exhausted from managing the other team, and the moment you were cleaned up and the disaster team were dismissed, you collapsed into sleep.”

  She paused. “You are really relaxed today.”

  Boran nodded. “Now, who is analyzing whom?”

  She sighed and continued eating. “You are smiling. Yesterday it didn’t look possible, and even Heron was surprised.”

  “You made me an offer that no queen has made me.”

  Maya hesitated. “Which offer was that?”

  His eyes crinkled with amusement. “You let me touch you, and when I did, you didn’t flinch away.”

  “So, what do guys do for casual sex around here?” She blurted it out before she could think more about the feeling of his hands against her.

  “I only engage with aliens with neural impediments to their skin. Ladies with thick hides.” He grimaced.

  “Okay. So, aliens that you don’t pass the pod to are just for fun and games.” She felt a little cheated that she had missed out on that.

  “Yes. We try to avoid females of lesser caste among our people. We have an inborn urge to improve the genes.”

  She finished breakfast and drank her juice. “And my muddled genetics is an improvement?”

  “You are an active talent, so... yes.” He smiled. “I am curious to see if your biology will allow for children to be produced.”

  Maya snorted. “I am leaving that until I have to worry about it. Don’t get me wrong, I am going to do my research, but I am going to table the worry until something starts to exit my body.”

  “Why?”

  She sighed. “Because this is all too new. I have been getting the reproductive information in disjointed pieces, and it is confusing to me. Just once, I would like someone to explain it to me as they would to an adolescent, start to finish. I still can’t access any detailed information through the systems, and I think that is on purpose.”

  He nodded. “Probably. Our reproduction is not eff
icient. One deceased queen, and you can wipe out up to one hundred children.”

  “What about low caste queens?”

  “There aren’t such things. There are weak and strong. You have opened up a new category, I think. Exceptional.”

  She blushed and looked around, changing the subject again. “Why are you here when I am assuming the main base is up the hill?”

  “Two things. The first is that I can short out electronics easily, and the second, I can fly.”

  “Oh. Right.” She was filled with energy and wanted to do some exercise, but she wasn’t really dressed for it. “Where are my clothes?”

  “Your dress from yesterday is in the cleaning unit, and it should be done by now. I don’t envy Huron for cleaning up after you two.”

  She laughed. “He started it.”

  “He is six, I think.”

  “Six. Heron is six. Huron’s mother despaired of him finding a strong enough queen, so she cloned him and gave him the orb.”

  She sighed and flexed her hands.

  “You seem restless.”

  “This is the first day that I haven’t had any physical exertion the moment that I woke up. I have a bit more energy than I am used to. At the support base, I have a workout and combat training by now. I am not very good, but I am getting better.”

  His eyes gleamed. “I think we can improvise something and get you to sweat.”

  She blushed, but he got up, took her hand, and led her back to the bedroom, where he pulled out one of his shirts and dropped it over her head, tying the waist with a sash.

  “There. Can you move in that?”

  She pulled the sheet out from under the shirt, retied the sash, and stepped out. The fabric was nearly to her knees. “As long as I don’t do much kicking, but I should be able to do some of the acrobatics.”

  His eyes lit up again. “Acrobatics? This I need to see.”

  She put her hands on her hips. “Is there a space where I can work out?”

  “Come with me, my queen.”

  She took his hand, and the crackle of energy was in that contact. This was going to be a strange morning.

  He had a gym with a wide space padded for fight practice. She squealed and sprinted over, practicing her tumbling, and after she tucked the shirt between her thighs, she did a handstand and then went for a bit of a walk. She tried to bring her legs down gracefully, but she thudded to the ground. “Ow.”

  “Maya, are you all right?” Boran was at her side.

  She got her breathing under control and sat up. “Ytal has to help me with those. I suck at the back bend to stand.”

  He frowned. “Ytal, from the support base?”

  “Yeah. He is my trainer.”

  “Has he made overtures?”

  She looked at him. “He has been a highly flirty gentleman who just wants me to be in the best shape possible for Relitans like you.” Maya smiled. “And he wants to give me a massage. Desperately. He likes touching me.”

  “He would. He is gaining strength from your biochemistry.”

  “That makes as much sense as anything else.” She rolled to her belly and started doing push-ups and then sit-ups.

  He went to the weight unit, programmed it, and then started working out. She had just finished her last round of wind sprints across the room and back again when he paused and held out his hand.

  “Do you feel less jittery?” he smiled.

  She sighed deeply. “Much.” She put her hand in his and was surprised when he pulled her against him.

  She thudded against his chest, and when he slid his hand to hold her hair, she was pinned for his kiss. Her pulse picked up rapidly, her body heated, and there were literal sparks between them.

  He picked her up and carried her to the mat. He untied the sash, opened the wrap shirt, and glided one hand a centimetre over her skin. She gasped and arched when he went over particularly sensitive areas. When his hand glided across her breasts, she whimpered, and her legs rubbed together.

  The expression of wonder in his eyes was sweet, but she was being dragged to the edge of what she could tolerate. “B-Boran, I hate to trouble you when you are playing, but...”

  His eyes widened, and he took in her sheen of sweat, desperate gaze, and the tension in her body. His clothing was removed, and she heard a tearing sound, but he moved over her and slid against her before edging inside her. She slid her hands down his back, cupped his butt, and pulled as she thrust her hips upward. He slid home, and she let out a shriek as the taunted orgasm rushed through her. She might have heard his groan, but she definitely felt the throb of him inside her. She shuddered and moaned again.

  “Are you all right?”

  She looked up to see his earnest expression, and she leaned up to kiss him slowly with one leg draped across his lower back. “I am fine. How are you?”

  She stroked his cheek and rubbed his lips with her thumb.

  He grinned. “I am good.”

  “Excellent. Now, if you ever call me Mom in a com link again, this will be a once and only.”

  His silver-grey skin darkened. “I promise that I won’t, my queen.”

  She grinned. “Good. Now...” she leaned up and whispered in his ear, “Do it again.”

  He leaned back, realized she was serious, and pinned her hands above her head while his body rubbed along hers, sending delightful charges through her skin in all the right places.

  It wasn’t her normal workout, but she could definitely feel the ache afterward.

  Boran’s fluid was silver. She hadn’t seen Argo’s, but she was assuming blue or green. This particular part of the process was not her favourite. The slight twinge as Boran’s pod attached was nearly lost as he moved inside her, but she definitely felt it.

  It took about an hour before she felt confident in getting dressed.

  “We have been asked up to the house to have lunch with Huron and Heron. This afternoon I would like to have a counselling session with you. They mentioned that you had been through a trauma, and it might help to get it out.”

  She pressed her lips together. “I am pretty sure that even a guardian can’t make me engage in a medical procedure on my day off. I. Just. Want. To. Relax.” She settled her dress and looked at him in the mirror.

  He cocked his head. “When did you last have a day without work or training?”

  “At a guess, a year and a half. Even on my time off, I was always consulting.”

  “What would you do with a full and complete day off?”

  She sighed. “At this point, I would do my workout and then sleep for a whole day or just sit in silence. That would be amazing.”

  He got to his feet in his new outfit. His other one needed repairs. “In that case, we will see what we can do to have that manifest for you.”

  “We?”

  “Yes, your court has to work as a team for your benefit. That is why it is best if we get along.”

  “So, why four members of a court?”

  “It isn’t a hard and fast rule; it was instituted when our birth numbers started dropping. We are still a sHiirinking population, but it has helped.”

  “What is the largest court?”

  “The governor has over a hundred in her court and twenty children.” He smiled. “She produced three queens in her first five years with her court, and that is a very impressive record.”

  “Oh, so, girls are favoured.” She brushed her hair with his brush, but it was awkward, so she found the combs she had woken up with and used them to take out the tangles.

  “You have a general idea how things work here, so a strong queen is always in demand.”

  She smiled. “Well, girl or boy, it’s up to you guys.”

  He shook his head. “Genetically, no. Not here. It is up to you. If your body provides the material, ours provides the spark of life. That is all.”

  She felt a chill. “That’s a problem, then. I am going to have to have a talk w
ith the doc at the base then to see what changed when they reset me and did the alterations.”

  “Why is it a problem?”

  She frowned at him. “I will ask first, and the next time I see you, I will let you know. It might be nothing. Shall we go for a walk?”

  He wasn’t happy, but he nodded. He took her hand, and they headed up toward the larger house.

  “Boran?”

  “Yes?”

  “How am I getting back to the support base tonight?”

  He smiled. “I will fly you.”

  “Oh. Okay. Thanks.” She paused. “You mean in a shuttle, right?”

  He smiled slowly.

  “Right?”

  He put his arm around her waist and flew her the rest of the way to the main part of the base. The rest of her day was seeing the base, Heron’s favourite spot to catch bugs, and resting in Huron’s arms. It wasn’t the worst day off she had ever had, but when she was given her packed bag and lifted in Boran’s arms, she tried to think relaxed thoughts as they went streaking toward the rock face where the walking entryway was located. He kissed her slowly and smiled. “See you soon, my queen.”

  He set her on her feet, and she held her feet against the scan pad that let her into the entryway. She glanced over her shoulder, but he was gone. With a deep sigh, she went back to work.

  Chapter Twelve

  First thing in the morning, she made a request to see Dr. Lylwin and that she was going to need an hour of his time.

  She put on her exercise gear and headed to the gym to begin her workout. Ytal came in, and he paused then smiled. “You had a productive break.”

  She looked at him. “How bad is it?”

  “Bad? It isn’t bad; it is heady. Rich notes of your base scent and then others twisting around it. Who did you take?”

  She went to the pullup station. “The guardians.”

  “I gather that by the power, but which one?”

  She did another pullup. “The guardians.”

  She heard the thud as Ytal hit the floor. She glanced at him and kept doing her set then dropping and walking over to him.