Dominating Dekalia Page 11

  “I told you I don’t give a damn about the Embracers.”

  “I meant the Narthians,” Marax said. “Anyone who weakens the war effort by creating any instability might as well be a Narthian puppet.”

  “Indeed. I like your thinking, narrow though it might be. What if I told you I was strictly on my own? That I had everyone outfoxed.”

  “I would say you were simply mad. But then again you were able to make a wormhole bomb, which makes you a mad genius.”

  “Boris,” Rodent Man called out to the bartender. “Bring our little friend here another drink.”

  The bystanders, sensing trouble, pushed themselves even farther back now until they were nearly flush with the walls.

  “You will die before she does,” Marax reminded.

  “I don’t intend to kill. I want her to bring us joy. You’d like to do that, wouldn’t you, Lola?”

  “You’re despicable,” Dekalia hissed. “And stop calling me that dumb name.”

  “You sure seemed to enjoy me calling your name out last night.”

  “Lying scum!” Dekalia spat at him. “I’ve never seen you before in my life and I don’t know how you got me here but you better let me go.”

  Marax made an executive decision. He set the gun down on the table.

  The barroom drew a collective breath.

  “Are you surrendering?” Rodent Man asked incredulously.

  “I am taking the fight to my level. Either you will release us both, this very minute or I will eliminate you and your men.”

  “With your bare hands, I suppose,” he said drily.

  “Something like that.”

  Rodent Man laughed. “Aren’t you the brave one? Though I’d call you stupid personally.”

  “Try me.”

  Rodent Man shook his head. “I don’t think so. The better part of valor is still discretion, you know?”

  “So I’ve heard.”

  Marax moved fast even by primale standards. The man holding Dekalia was the first target.

  He never knew what hit him as Marax caught him from behind, wrapping both arms around his neck. The man choked and drew a breath. It was his last.

  The knife fell to the floor at the same time as the body.

  “Anyone else?” Marax said.

  Two other men rushed forward. They were armed with more of the projectile-firing devices he’d carried in his pocket. Primitive but effective.

  Marax put Dekalia behind him for safekeeping. If anyone was going to die it would be him. Not that it mattered as dead as they both already were.

  “Nice moves,” said Rodent Man who was holding up a very large projectile weapon with a tubular ending and a circular piece across the bottom. “But it’s time we end this charade, eh?”

  “Unless I miss my guess that is a submachine gun,” Marax said evenly.

  “Correct. Don’t you just hate that the bad guys never play fair?” Rodent Man aimed.

  The weapon would spit bullets at a rate of a dozen every ten seconds. Talk about your Russian roulette. These were one-hundred percent losing odds.

  “Hold my hand,” said Marax.

  “Not until you tell me who you are,” she replied.

  He took her wrist peremptorily. “We will have time for introductions later. For now just don’t let go!”

  He’d said those words to her before. Felt like a thousand times. Hard to count when reality kept flipping like the pages of an archaic book.

  “You have to run,” he shouted.

  Easy enough to do, except for one thing. Marax did not mean away from the man with the gun. He intended for them to run toward him. He told her so.

  “Are you insane?” she demanded.

  “Probably.”

  He pulled her forward and in a second they were racing headlong. Time slowed down and everything went still so that he could hear the trigger being pulled. The first of the bullets exited the chamber and then another and another. Hot metal slicing through the air.

  It was at this point the lights went out and by the time they were back on Rodent Man was gone.

  And so was Dekalia.

  The bar was empty.

  Marax fell to his knees, clutching his chest. He had been ripped open by the hot metal slugs. His plan appeared to have backfired.

  Somewhere in the distance he heard Rodent Man…laughing.

  * * * * *

  The bar was gone.

  Dekalia felt wind in her hair and the grass on her bare feet. Rays of sunshine landed on her face. They were a reddish-orange color similar to Earth’s color but the grass was far too blue for that world.

  There was only one place this could be.

  Dekalia’s heart soared. She was back on Tellis Nine.

  The planet where she had grown up and where she’d achieved her maturation certificates and spent so many hours debating the meaning of life with her friends. It was also the place where she’d made sex for the very first time.

  “Hey, Lia!”

  She hadn’t been called that for years.

  Dekalia turned and saw Renfro and Demisias—two of her mem classmates—running toward her, looking adorable and shirtless. The summer sun was in their blond hair, making it glisten.

  Dekalia recalled how Renfro, the taller of the two, would make his hair ice-white in the winter while Demisias would make his magenta or star-blue. Sometimes they would paint their skin to complement one another and they both loved to play practical jokes. They shared other things too, including a deep abiding interest in Dekalia.

  She remembered how their attention amused her even as she constantly put off their advances. They wanted to make sex with her in the worst way but she wasn’t ready, despite having reached the age of legal maturation.

  Though she might have felt differently if the somber and serious Martirus had shown an interest. He was not one to show it though. He preferred to spend his time studying.

  “Hi, boys,” she called out across the grassy plain just beyond the main teaching dome of their university. “Come with me. There’s an outdoor study session.”

  Demisias was first to arrive, having won the impromptu game of tag. He placed Dekalia in a bear hug.

  “Got you.”

  She breathed his cool, male scent and felt the smooth hardness of his chest. His muscles were lean but solid. Demisias liked to swim and frequently programmed the exercise gel for sessions of three planetary microns or more.

  “You wish you had her,” said Renfro, grabbing them both.

  “You both wish,” she said, pushing them away good naturedly.

  Renfro took her hand. “Let’s ditch this loser. I’ll show you what a beautiful day like this is for.”

  “Come with me and I will show you why I spend all that time in the gel,” bragged Demisias.

  She rolled her eyes. Her girlfriends told her she was crazy for not taking up at least one of them on the offer. But they weren’t her.

  “Martirus is talking today under the big bregon tree by the lake,” she said. “Come with me.”

  Demisias and Renfro made comical gestures of worship.

  “Ah, the great one,” said Demisias.

  “Martirus the Martyr,” said Renfro.

  “Don’t call him that.”

  He had gotten the nickname because of his politics. Brilliant as he was, he preferred to push the envelope by exploring issues of genetics and Earth politics better left alone.

  She really never listened much. Not because she wasn’t capable. But because she was too busy dreaming of Martirus himself.

  Always serious, as if a universe of pain dwelt inside him, pain far beyond anything that could actually have been suffered by a person growing up as sheltered as they had.

  In some ways he resembled a primale, though his physique didn’t come close. Nor did he have the masterful demeanor. The confidence bordering on arrogance that so amused Dekalia.

  Sometimes it outraged her too. Primales had a lot of nerve acting as if they owned the g
alaxy.

  A small crowd was already gathered about Martirus. He was looking down with his head buried in a holo tablet as usual. He wore a hooded unisuit, also typical. Gray with no distinctive markings.

  All the same except for his voice. She knew it from somewhere. Not from her distant past but from a time more immediate.

  “That’s right,” the figure said as if reading her mind. “It’s me.”

  He looked up at her and she drew a sudden breath, fighting back the panic.

  It was the man from the barroom. The one with the face that looked like that of a rodent.

  She tried to look away but she could not avoid her reflection in his eyes. It was changing moment to moment.

  Her clothes disappearing.

  And something glistening about her throat.

  It was a collar.

  A slave collar.

  * * * * *

  Marax did not wait long to act.

  The bar would never hold him. Then again he doubted whoever had left him here intended to hold him prisoner. Not here at least.

  Picking up the submachine gun, he went to the door to give it a few quick rat-a-tat blasts, just enough to knock it from its hinges. A swift kick with the flat of his shoe did the rest.

  The light was blinding.

  Still holding the gun, he charged through.

  It was not what he expected. Nor was the sudden change of clothing and the change of the gun into a long, curved sword.

  Oh yes, Marax had been here before.

  He dropped the sword into the blanket that was held by two young boys. It was a ceremonial function. A sign of respect and peace.

  He had just entered the great tent.

  As the guest of the Chieftain of the Ameliorites, whose planet—among some thousand other worlds—had been immediately saved by his efforts at the victory at Three Comets.

  The chieftain’s name was Tanz-ikit and he was offering Marax hospitality. The finest wines and the best of the animal meat taken from the thousands and thousands of miles of prairie that surrounded the Ameliorites’ various encampments.

  He was also being offered the use of one of Tanz-ikit’s slave girls. Ameliorite females were rumored to be among the most sensual in the galaxy.

  “I must refuse,” he told his host. “I am still in the service of the Corps.” There were standards, the oath.

  “Are you sure?” asked the chieftain, grinning widely.

  The man looked the part in his red robe and turban. His face was covered in a long beard and he sported a mustache twirled at both ends. His eyes were brown, just a shade darker than his skin.

  “I have new meat, chual-ait,” he sweetened the pot. The word meant warrior and also not coincidentally great-despoiler-of-women.

  Marax was ready to refuse again to the end of time when two of the man’s soldiers brought the woman front and center of the tent.

  Tall and slender and dressed in a long silk gown. The gown was ripped on both hips and between her breasts. Far from shame, the woman showed pure fury.

  Dekalia.

  As if there could be another. Her hair was long now. She wore it tied back in a braid. Her skin was flushed and she looked as if she’d been fighting. The two men held her upper arms tight, claiming the advantage for the moment.

  “Kneel,” said the chieftain in both the Earth language and her own.

  She told him to fuck himself also in both languages. No surprise there.

  One of the soldiers moved to strike her with the whip he was holding.

  The chieftain raised his hand. “She is for our guest to tame. Aren’t you, little pet?”

  Her eyes gave a good indication of what she thought of that idea.

  “Never.” Looking at Marax, she spat on the ground in front of her.

  Grabbing the braid of her hair, the soldier with the whip pulled it taut, making her wince. “Apologize.”

  She gritted her teeth. Refusing.

  “I told you,” the one soldier said to the other. “She’s useless.”

  “I will take her,” said Marax.

  The chieftain laughed. “I knew you would see things my way.”

  What Marax really saw was what would happen to Dekalia if he didn’t take her now. The soldiers would kill her for sure.

  “We will have her delivered to your tent,” the chieftain offered.

  Marax declined. “I will bring her myself.”

  She shrieked as he picked her up and put her over his shoulder. Just like when they’d first met.

  Except then he had been carrying her to safety. Now he feared he was only drawing her deeper into disaster.

  Dekalia continued to squirm the whole way to the warrior’s tent.

  Adding insult to injury, he promptly dumped her onto the pile of pillows and homespun blankets that passed for a bed.

  “How dare you,” she exploded, leaping up to do battle.

  He caught her small fists in midair, immobilizing her.

  Now he had her attention.

  “Let go, please,” she said.

  “No. We will talk first. You don’t recognize me?”

  “Should I? The whole lot of you pig males look alike to me.”

  “Where do you come from?” he wanted to know.

  “I came from my home. Where do you think?”

  He spun her about and placed his left hand on her ass. His right one held her wrist high in the air, forcing her onto tiptoes.

  “Answer my questions, woman.”

  “Or else what?”

  The man spanked her hard with his cupped palm.

  “You motherfucker!”

  He hit her again.

  “I have all day,” he informed her.

  Dekalia tried to keep her composure. She felt hot and punished and needy all over, particularly between her thighs.

  “As do I.” She yelped, receiving a pinch. “You are no gentleman.”

  “I am a saint compared to the others. Might as well face it, I am your one chance at a relatively peaceful evening.”

  “Take what you want from me,” she said bravely. “It’s not like I can defend myself.”

  “I prefer my women to beg. That is something you used to know.”

  Something flashed in her brain. Recognition. Her life flooding back. And him along with it.

  “Marax!”

  He took her into his arms.

  She shuddered. “Where the hell are we? We were in some kind of a saloon, weren’t we?”

  “A Prohibition speakeasy in Old America.”

  “How the hell did that happen?”

  “I am afraid you’d need to see me about that,” announced the newcomer.

  The man who looked like a rat—the same one who had impersonated her classmate Martirus in her last dream—was standing at the door. He wore a long, blue robe and a matching turban.

  Instead of a gun he held a long, curved blade.

  The word for it came into her brain. It was a scimitar.

  Several tall men stood behind him. They had scimitars as well.

  Marax turned to face them, his body between the row of blades and Dekalia.

  “How romantic,” said Rodent Man. “You’re ready to give up your life. But that’s rather pointless when I own you both—and the whole of the Earth for good measure.”

  Chapter Eight

  Marax was truly over the Rodent Man.

  He and his pop-up scenarios, comical and bizarre as they were, would wear through anyone’s patience, even a primale’s.

  “You don’t own anything,” Marax assured him. “Especially not once I get hold of you.”

  “Ah but you won’t. That’s my point. No one will. Surely you of all people have seen that the limits of my power are beyond your imagining?”

  Dekalia stepped out in front of him. “So you can frighten people with bombs. What of it. You and about half a billion terrorists before you have died penniless and hated.”

  He laughed, emitting a high-pitched scraping noise, barely
human.

  Marax felt his skin crawl. He knew that sound.

  “Dekalia,” he said evenly. “That is enough.”

  “What are you talking about?” she accused him. “You want me to just let this go?”

  The eyes of the Rodent Man glowed. The brown color changed to an amber gold, hot and flashing. As if an intelligence behind them was awakening, revealing itself.

  Blast it. Why hadn’t he seen this sooner? Rodent Man wasn’t only human and he was not operating alone. He had about a trillion helpers to be precise.

  The last thing he needed to do was incite panic.

  “You’re working with them,” said Marax.

  The Rodent Man made no effort to deny it. “You’re observant. But don’t mistake the roles here. I am in charge.”

  Marax frowned. A single human in charge of a Narthian attack swarm? Not bloody likely.

  “You’re a fool,” said Marax.

  “And what does that make you?” the Rodent Man challenged. “I’ll tell you what. It makes you a dupe for the government. Do you think they have your interest in mind or the Embracers? Hah. No one will care for you under the new order, I promise.”

  “Don’t tell us. You are going to be its poster boy.” This from Dekalia who was either too stubborn or too unaware of the reality to show any fear.

  “I’ll be remembered as the savior of mankind. The species will survive, thanks to my quick thinking.”

  “You think you can make deals with the Narthian host?” Marax clenched his fists. Seldom had he felt such anger at a human.

  “We each have our self-interest.”

  Dekalia’s jaw dropped. “By the stars, I know you.”

  “Yes you do.”

  “I knew him from my student days,” Dekalia explained. “His name was Martirus. I just saw him in my last dream or whatever you call these things. The man I remembered had changed into this thing over here.”

  “You wound me, fair maiden. Though I will admit I’ve used you right along over the years so I have little to complain about.”

  “Used me? How?”

  “You think it was an accident you got involved in the Embracer movement? You turned to politics with my guidance. And you…” He turned now to Marax. “Who do you think directed your movements at Three Comets? You think you guided a pod through all those nest defenses and killed a queen on your own?”