Emerald
Legion, Chapter nine.
“Diplomacy, by Night.” – the beautiful coming together
of two cultures
(Warning:
Semi-Adult content. Huh, huh, I said
'semi.')
**********************************************************
“Hey Rokk, you decent?” Garth called out before barging in
anyway.
”No, I’m sprocking amazing,” Rokk said,
looking up from his hammock, where he’d been reading a pad on linguistic
commonalities and the development of Interlac.
Garth
waved his own pad enthusiastically, “Guess what I found…”
Rokk
gestured impatiently and the pad tore itself out of Garth’s grasp and flew to
his own hand.
“Hey!”
Garth protested half-heartedly as he crossed over to lean over Rokk as he viewed the pad.
“It’s a
nice likeness,” Rokk began, somewhat bewildered as to
why Garth would have a spectrum-enhanced depiction of his backside.
“Wait for
it…” Garth cautioned as he selected for the image to advance in half-speed, and
Rokk watched as the Talokkian
Ambassador glided by on his left, hands primly folded in front of him, while a
second figure moved past quickly on his right, and a hand snaked out and gave
his butt a firm squeeze.
“Image
freeze, and pan out.” Garth said, and the image pulled back to reveal the Kathooni delegate leaving the chamber with Queen Sarya. The hand in
question was attached to one of the Kathooni retinue,
a heavily-armored amazon of a woman who had copped a
feel without breaking stride. “Freeze
there.” Garth added unnecessarily to he datapad. “And there we have it. The pressing mystery of Ass-Grabber Lass,
resolved.”
“I’m just
glad it wasn’t Ravin.
Guy’s a galaxy-class perv…” Rokk conceded, before looking up to the proudly grinning
Garth, “While I’m grateful, was this really what you’ve spent the morning
looking up?”
“Actually,
I was reviewing the security footage of the break-in. It was Mekt who
sealed the doors. They meant to
suffocate everyone and leave no living witnesses. That Titanian woman
was just there to keep them from calling for outside help and keep them
pacified while they died…” Garth’s voice was shaking. “I can’t believe he’d do something like
that. I’m so sprocking
stupid…”
With a
heavy sigh, Rokk rolled out of his hammock and stood
in front of his friend. “I’m sick of
having to yell at you, Garth, so sprocking listen up
this time!”
Garth
started to lean back, but thumped into the wall behind him and had nowhere to
retreat, “Wait, what?”
“I am sick
to death of hearing you go on about this stupid farm-boy thing.”
“Actually,
I am…”
“You
*were* a farm-boy.” Rokk interrupted, punctuating his
words by poking his friend in the chest.
“Not any more. And you were never
stupid. I’ve read up on Winath, and on you, and your flight trainer gave you the
highest marks anyone got on the entire *planet* when you were fourteen. He said that you were a natural, that you
could take apart a skyburner and put it back together
with your eyes closed, and he said that he *hated* that you went back to the
farm and didn’t stick with piloting as a career choice.”
“It’s just
natural talent, ‘though, like your magno-ball, it’s
not like *science* or anything…”
“First of
all, you have no idea what it takes to play magno-ball,
so don’t even compare the two, and second of all, there is a hell of a lot more
to piloting than instinct or natural talent.
You have to deal with hundreds of variables, all with enough speed and
wit to avoid any of a dozen possible disastrous decisions. Flying doesn’t take balls, Ranzz, it takes *brains.*”
“I kinda used both, actually…”
“Regardless,
if balls were all you used, you would have died on your first solo flight, and
certainly not gotten highest marks.”
“It’s just,
all my life, I wasn’t smart enough. I
always thought, if I’d been a little smarter, I would
have been able to figure out why Mekt hated us.
I would have known what was up with Alayn, *Ayla,* know the right things
to say to make it easier...”
“You can’t
live other people’s lives for them, Garth.
They’ll make their own choices, choices you never would have imagined
for them, but it’s not your fault, and you’re not responsible for Ayla’s choice, and you sure as hell aren’t responsible for Mekt…” Rokk’s face softened as he came to a sudden
realization. “It was Mekt.”
Garth didn’t react, and Rokk stepped back, “Mekt’s been telling you that you were stupid all your life,
hasn’t he?”
“He always
knew stuff, and he’d just give me that look when I didn’t know something, like
I was one of the meat-animals or something…”
“He was
*older* Garth. *Of course,* he knew
stuff that you hadn’t learned yet.” Rokk shook his
head, “And this is the problem with Winath.” Garth looked puzzled at the shift in
topic. “You guys are all set with the
twin thing, but you have no idea how to deal with an older brother.” He shook his head, "Mekt
was *jealous,* Garth. *You* had the
twin. *You* were the 'normal one.' *You* were the one that got accepted into
piloting school."
“It’s not
just Mekt.
It’s everyone. Imra took all sorts of molecular science and neural
psychology classes. She talks about that
stuff and I’m just lost.” He points at the pad depicting the Talokkian soiree, “And here. You’re all like, ‘sulphur
dioxide’ and, ‘he’s Venusian, they breath methane and
oxygen kills them’ and I’m like, ‘hey, dude has a bowl over his head!’”
“Garth,
I don’t even know where to start." Rokk
exclaimed, shaking his head. "Braal is a mining world.
“Oh.”
“Yeah, I
know *some* stuff. You know *other*
stuff.” Rokk punctuated his statement by tapping
Garth in the forehead with his own pad.
“Like that the Talokkian Embassy had
spectrum-enhanced surveillance of the event.
*I* didn’t think of that…”
“I don’t
know. I just don’t feel like I can keep
up. Especially with Imra
being so… so…”
“Cerebral?”
“Yeah.”
Rokk steepled
his hands in front of his face, drawing up his nerve.
“Garth, if you ever mention this, I’m going to deny it.” Garth looked alarmed, but Rokk
steam-rollered on before he lost his nerve. “It *kills* me to say this, but I had a month
to impress Imra before we hit Winath
to re-supply. So there I am, a
good-looking, witty, charming *sports-star,* well-versed in interacting with sentients of all sorts.
Since I was fourteen, I’ve had anyone I wanted and she chooses *you.* She’s Titanian, Garth. She
didn’t choose you for your arms or that floppy mess you call hair. She chose you because *you’re smarter than I
am.* She knows
it. I know it, and the only ‘stupid’
thing I’ve seen about you is that *you* haven’t figured it out yet.”
“I..”
“Don’t. I’m never saying this again. Just don’t.” Rokk
turned and flew out the door, leaving Garth standing in Rokk’s
room, head spinning with notions that refused to take purchase.
Garth sat
down heavily on Rokk’s hammock. “Wow.”
The hammock promptly overbalanced and he flew backwards onto the floor
with a heavy crash. “Oof!” Looking up from the floor at his legs, still
hanging off of the hammock, he lay there, sides
shaking as he laughed silently, still spun by his friends words, “Yeah, I’m a
real genius…”
*************************************************************************
Rokk
was sitting atop the Embassy, checking the pad and getting alternate
angles. Each of the Kathooni
security agents wore their armor in a slightly different style, and his target
wore silvery torso-plate that resembled a one-piece swimsuit, covering her from
crotch to neck, while leaving her arms, legs and head bare. She had a similar plate of steel on her left thigh, and another on her right calf. Her arms were similarly mismatched, with a
bulky pauldron on her left shoulder and an ornate
bracer, almost big enough to call a shield, on her right forearm. Underneath, a skintight black bodysuit
covered the rest of her skin, although her milky-skinned fingers and toes were
exposed, and her strong-jawed face. Her
hair was a tower of black, held in place by far too many shiny silver pins.
Checking
the other members of the delegation, he confirmed that each had a different
style of body armor, and he was positive that he could recognize this one, even
in the dark, based on the positioning of the metal covering her body.
He then
looked up Kathooni courtship rituals. No reason, just bored, he managed to convince
the tiny protesting voice that said, ‘what the sprock
are you doing?’
The Kathooni mission was located in bowels of an administrative
building in Quadplex 6, as the Kathooni had no Embassy
of their own. Rokk
stood in front of the entrance, wondering what the hell he was doing here. He was just looking at the pictures. And then he was just figuring out if he could
recognize her. And then he was looking
up how to say ‘take off your clothes’ in Kathooni. It was all perfectly harmless, and it was a
train-wreck that would only stop if he turned around right now.
The door
opened in front of him, and the chamber before him was pitch-black. So much for leaving before they notice, he
thought wryly as an irresistibly strong arm reached out of the darkness and
pulled him into the darkened room.
In the
dark, he could feel a half-dozen metal-armored figures moving towards him and a
deep voice sounded next to his ear, making him jump, “Jath,
it is the purple-eyed one. His garb
speaks of his mating status.”
‘Mating
status?’ He finally managed to resolve
the metal signatures, just in time to recognize that the woman in question was
now directly in front of him. “Your eyes
burn with lust,” came the husky voice and suddenly he
felt the mail-mesh of his shirt bunch up as the woman grabbed his shirt and
yanked him forward.
“Uh, hi, I
was just passing by,” Rokk began lamely as he
stumbled to regain his balance, wondering where he had lost control of this
encounter, and then remembering that he’d never actually *had* control to lose.
“I will
take you now,” the voice said matter-of-factly, and suddenly everything was
spinning. By the time he got his
bearing, Rokk realized that he had been hauled over
the woman’s shoulder and she was carting him off like… well, like they carted
off Mekt, come to think of it. And, oh yeah, her hand was on his ass again.
“Actually,
I was thinking we could have something to eat, get to know each other…” Rokk protested in a voice that sounded far too high-pitched
for his comfort and then the world tilted again, and if not for her hand on
his chest, he would have fallen over when she set him back on his feet, apparently
in another room entirely.
“Oh hey,
we haven’t even been introduced, I’m…” Rokk began,
only to be stopped by the presence of strong fingers clamped over his mouth.
“No
names. You have not yet earned my name.”
the voice commanded, and with a sure confidence pried open the fastenings on
the front of his Champion’s Garb. “Your
armor will not serve you in this battle.”
“I…” Rokk managed to get out before she had peeled him like a banyo fruit, and he noticed that the room was just a bit
chilly all of a sudden. The hand began
relentlessly pushing him backwards and Rokk had just
about had enough of this. Using his
magnetic powers, he anchored himself to the floor and stood his ground, and
heard her grunt lightly as she pushed harder against his chest. “Neither will yours,” he snapped, and with a
series of pinging noises unfastened all of the snaps on the Kathooni
woman’s armor as well. He felt a slight
breeze and heard a loud clang as the woman pulled her now unfastened
breastplate free and flung it across the room.
Suddenly, despite his best attempts, he was flying through the air as
she re-doubled her push, and his unscheduled flight ended in a massive pile of
pillows piled in a corner. ‘Satin, I
think,’ he managed to ascertain before the woman was on him like a tidal wave,
pulling him under. The last sounds that
he could identify as words sounded like, “Impertinent male! Learn your place!”
**************************************************************************
The
waterfall was roaring past him, no, *through* him, and his body was shuddering
with its’ passage. It seemed like it had
been going on forever, and only now was he being born to consciousness from a
place of warm soft darkness. He finally
realized that it wasn’t a waterfall at all, it was his heartbeat, pounding so
fast that it was like a piston engine, one continuous low thrum, the individual
beats no longer recognizable as distinct events.
Slowly he
felt the world spin into being around him, and Great Smithy, his body felt like
it had been subjected to some sort of medieval torture! He was sprawled across the scattered pillows,
and dimly became aware of voices in the darkness.
“It yet
lives. I owe you two crystal moons and a
blade of steel.”
“I would
not have killed the male. Venegar would demand recompense.”
“I but
jest, the wager was of how long the male remained conscious. His fortitude is unnatural for one of the lesser
races. I desire him now.”
Rokk
felt as well as heard a blade of steel slide from a leather sheath and a voice
he recognized, as if from strange dream, said, “I announce claim.”
He felt
metal-clad bodies shifting position and belatedly realized that he was lying
naked in front of a bunch of people who could see in the dark. For some reason this seemed far more
important than any impending knife-fight, but his feeble attempts to pull a
pillow over himself were foiled by his arms, which trembled as if he had been
pounded into jelly, shaken vigorously and then poured back into his skin.
“Stand
down. I would not draw steel over an
out-worlder, no matter his exotic skills.”
‘Exotic skills?’ Rokk thought? ‘Lady, I spent the last hour and a half
*fighting for my life!*
That wasn’t ‘skill,’ that was desperation…’ Clearly these Kathooni
didn’t appreciate how strong they were.
“I leave
you,” a voice announced matter-of-factly and the others left the room, and Rokk was again alone with his tormentor.
He had
just managed to lean forward, ever so slightly, to discover that yet indeed,
*everything* hurt, and not for the first time he cursed the fact that a man
with no nervous system could still know pain.
“Drink
this, you must replenish your fluids,” the voice ordered, and a cup the size of
a serving bowl was thrust into his chest.
He managed to grab it before too much of the hot fluid spilled onto his
chest, and the smell was somewhat like Earth coffee, the beverage of choice to
the Braalian working class. He sipped the rich liquid, and felt a
pleasant burn travel down his throat and into his stomach, which, predictably,
immediately cramped up at the intrusion.
Still, a pleasant lassitude followed, and the pain faded away. “What is this stuff?” Rokk
managed to say, shocked to realize that he had drained the entire bowl.
“You would
call it an ‘energy drink.’ It is used
after battle to soothe the nerves, and runners use it to carry messages from
clan to clan, so that they may travel over many days without rest.”
‘Yikes,’ thought Rokk, not liking the sound
of ‘many days without rest’ as related to his current position.
“Actually, it’s making me a little sleepy.”
“I am not
versed in your physiology. Perhaps it is
poison to your kind.”
‘Well,
*that’s* reassuring.’
“Would you
like more?”
‘Why the hell not.’ “Please.”
As he
sipped at the second cup, he could feel that the woman was crouching in front
of him, no doubt seeing him clear as day even in the darkness, while he was
only dimly aware of her location because of the heavy metallic residues in the
cosmetics decorating her nails, skin and hair.
“I’m not
clear on your customs. Should I tell you
my name now?”
“Names are
sacred things. If you give me your name,
I will gain power over you.”
'Yeah,
like I'm so on top of the situation, now...' Rokk
thought sarcastically, “You could just look it up…”
“I already
know what your people call you, Rokk Krinn, Champion of Venegar. But you have not *given me* your name. Do not do this, if you do not mean it.” The
woman shifted before him, and he could feel the brush of her hair, which had
come unfastened and was now hanging ankle-length about her like a cloak. “Would you know me?” she asked, and her voice
for the first time was soft, uncertain.
“Yes.” Rokk said, without hesitation, reaching
out to take her hand firmly.
“My Clan
is Jath,” she said with some firmness, and then
leaned forward to almost whisper, “My name is Lydda,
and I give it to you.”
He wasn’t
sure if it was the drink, but Rokk felt his world
shift around him, and understood. He
leaned forward and said softly, for her ears alone, “My Clan is Krinn. My name is Rokk.”
She
breathed into his ear again and somehow made his name sound like sex, “Rokk.” She leaned
back slightly, “But this is not the name by which I shall know you. I shall make for you a name that none but we
shall speak, when we are like this,” her hand dropped possessively to rest
below his stomach, and Rokk winced with the reminder
that his next date was with a regen-pack.
Her face
hovered before his, and he could just make out the reflection of her silvery
eye-makeup in the purple light of his eyes.
“You are Thall.”
Trying desperately to remember any words in Karthooni,
“Plaything?”
“Ha! No, that is Thole,
and yes, you are that as well. Thall is the name of the comet that passes our world every
seventh year. It ignites great storms of
light that flicker like fires in the upper sky, and the ground below is bathed
in purple light. Predatory beasts stalk
the harsh light, taking advantage of our discomfort, and the males cower in
fear. We take them into dark places and
hide from the violet fire in the sky. We
comfort them through this time.”
“My eyes. You said they burn with lust…”
“Yes. Your eyes call to our brightest fears. But I am a warrior. I have stared into my fear, and found there a
mate.”
Her hand
began to move again slowly on his stomach, as if tracing patterns only she
could see. Rokk
was surprised to feel his body responding to her touch. He reached out for her hand, “Lydda,” he said, saying her name very softly, “I can’t do
this again. Not yet.”
“Release
your fears, little male. I will not
break you. Our time of battle is
done. Now it is the time of peace,” she
relaxed next to him and softly stroked his face.
“Uh, I’m
not sure about Kathooni males, but the rest of us
don’t like the phrase, ‘little male.’” Rokk
noted. ‘Especially when we are naked,’
he added silently.
“It is a
term of affection only, Thall. For the challenge at hand, your anatomy is…”
she cast a measuring glance. “sufficient.”
‘Ouch.’ Thought Rokk. ‘Oh yeah, that’s *much* better. Note to self; Kathooni
pillow-talk to be avoided at all costs…’
**************************************************************************
Rokk
limped into the Embassy quietly, attempting to stick to little-used corridors,
but resigned himself to his fate as he turned around a corner to find himself
face to face with Imra and the Queen.
The Queen
looked up with a distracted expression and not a trace of emotion passed her
face as she looked him up and down. “I
trust the other person looks worse for wear?”
~Garth! Bring the regen-pack! Rokk, what
happened…~, Imra said, eyes wide with concern.
Drawing a
breath, Rokk decided to get it over with fast, “Yeah,
it’s a funny story. I got married.”
~WHAT!?!~
He heard a
crash as Garth came around the corner and dropped the regen-pack
in the middle of the hall. “WHAT!”
Rokk
just closed his eyes and hung his head as the Queen of Venegar
began laughing.