Chapter 23

We jump around to several locales this relatively short segment. Hope you enjoy the trip!

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He kissed her reverently, this woman who was all he was. She was his breath and his heartbeat. Her mouth tasted of spice and sweet from the candy they'd just shared, and the kiss was delicious. Their tongues entwined and danced gracefully and tenderly. Warren released her mouth, pecked her nose, then her cheeks, before nuzzling her graceful neck. She moaned softly and with longing. Already the fire was smoldering and urges to mate nipped.

'Control, Worthington. Remember…'

Then he dug his hands deep into her golden hair, penetrating fingertips to her scalp. Watching the crystalline-blue eyes as she gazed into his, their blueness deepening as did desire. She wanted him as he wanted her. Need clawed at their souls. They shuddered in unison.

"I love you," she whispered, her voice like the breeze through white pines.

"And I you," he whispered in return.

"Forever."

"For always."

With Ettwanae nestled against plumped pillows, he brushed his lips against hers, but did not take the waiting mouth. He looked up to his hands still buried in her golden locks and drew them out gently, focusing full awareness on the feel of silken hair sliding between his fingers. Reaching the end of the waves, he immediately moved to her wings and a new sensation greeted fingertips. Sliding along the leading edge of both wings, he focused on the sensual texture of the feathers – soft, smooth, yet mingled with the stiffness of quills. She rose up and nestled into the crook of his neck, bringing wings around them in a feathery cocoon.

"I want you…" Her voice was an ache.

"I know." He did. His soul wanted to join with hers. The physical aspect was almost secondary; a necessary means to that end. It was not to be, and the pain went deep. "Someday. I promise you." Then he could say no more as his throat tightened. He blinked back tears of frustration and fought with every fiber of his being to not attempt want they both desired. Slow caresses, soothing murmurs, deep kisses – that was the extent of what nature would allow. And he would endure any pain to have that much.

He eased Ettwanae back into the plush bed and kissed away the single tear that escaped. She spread wings wide as he came down on her lithe body. Drawing hands across her ribs and up to her breasts, he enveloped them, massaging gently at first, then with more strength. Her eyes closed and moans filled her throat as he continued to focus on bringing her pleasure. Lowering his head to her chest, he kissed, licked, and finally nipped at the erect nipples and she gripped his upper arms tightly, nails digging into his flesh. Placing kisses in the place between her breasts, he nuzzled lower, and then lower still. Her belly rose to meet his mouth as breaths came in quiet, quickening gasps. He brushed his lips back the way he had come, stopping to worship the mounds of flesh before trailing his tongue from the small of her throat to her chin, giving it a quick nip.

Hovering his face above hers, Warren paused to study the long lashes, the arch of her eyebrows, and the way her nose turned up ever so slightly at the end. She was perfection. Flawless. An angel. Then she realized things had come to a halt and the blue eyes popped open, quickly locking on his with a questioning look.

"You are too beautiful to be real," he let the wonder of her filled his voice. Warren blinked in realization that Ztar had once whispered the same sentiment to him. Was the awe Warren felt gazing upon Ettwanae anything like what Ztar felt looking at him? Then he pushed all thoughts of the Turzent Emperor aside – Ztar would intrude no further.

She smiled, and the room glowed. "I believe the same of you!" she said with tender enthusiasm, raising hands to cup his face. She pulled him down and took his mouth passionately. He sunk into it and felt her melt into his body as her hands roamed across his shoulders, down his back to where feather met skin. Fingers found the right spot – that place where hypersensitive wing nerves all came together on their way to the spine. Electric ecstasy shot from wing base to the very tip as the avian limbs swooshed wide of their own accord, creating a brilliant white canopy above them. His body went from gentle arousal to full hilt in seconds, and he groaned. Self-control wanted to depart and allow lustful need to take over.

Part of Warren was glad he'd decided to leave pajama bottoms on – if he hadn't, he may not have been able to stop. That thin cloth barrier was all that stood between him and an attempt to consummate their relationship knowing it would only end in blinding pain.

'Hold onto yourself, Worthington!' he yelled within his mind.

A hand sought Ettwanae's wing. She groaned and trembled as fingertips worked sublime magic across the large, feathered erogenous zone splayed across the bed. Then he did as Ztar had done to him so many times – drew fingers between and through the feathers. Warren savored the unique sensation of feathers against flesh as he combed to the very end of the longest remiges. Bliss radiated from Ettwanae, and a drunken smile crossed her face. "Again," she breathed. Warren did as commanded and watched in delight as Ettwanae accepted the pleasure he was bestowing. He prayed it would always be so…that she always longed for his touch; be moved to blinding passion in his arms. They must find a way to break his bond to Ztar. If he had to fight off an armada of Dark Ones to reach Etxan'Ir and their one hope, it is what he would do.

'I swear to you, Ettwanae, we will be truly together one day,' he vowed silently before plunging in for another delectable kiss. Together they ignored the demands of their souls to join and sought instead other pleasures of the flesh and of simply being together within the warm cocoon that was Volu. And finally, when sleep came, they lay face-to-face, arms and legs entwined, holding tight onto one another in defiance of forces that simultaneously wanted to merge them and rip them apart.

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Even in its nearly dormant state, Ta'uii felt them. They did not belong. It had tolerated the few who had infested its external self for some time, as the consumption of energy to rid itself of their presence had not been justified. Perhaps that had been a critical miscalculation. Undeterred, their numbers had grown. Expending precious reserves for an attosecond probe, limited information was Ta'uii's only reward for the expense.

The beings and their vessels were not of the Creator's dimension; that much Ta'uii had learned from probing the beings upon arrival of the first intruders. What the Sentinel had hoped to discover beyond the extent of multiplying infestation was their technological advancement. What it learned – or more appropriately, what it could not ascertain – concerned the great machine. More than a weaken probe burst would be necessary to evaluate the level of threat. The creatures' state of quasi-solid, fractional dimensional shift shielded them from limited query.

Passive defense had limits. Ta'uii had grown far too feeble to actively defend itself should the black beings breach its fortified exterior. If the blasphemy gathering on and above initiated a full-scale assault, the outcome was unpredictable. For the first time in its many megaannum existence, the Sentinel faced probable dereliction of duty.

An anomalous vibration traversed its consciousness nodes. A brief internal analysis of the phenomenon was inconclusive, but the gatekeeper arrived at a disturbing verdict.

Ta'uii was worried.

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"I need them to bring brilliance to the blackness of space, General."

Those were the Emperor's exact words. They made little sense. Ten ships were to be outfitted with old-fashioned, coherent-state photon weapons not enhanced for increased destructive power, but focused lumens output. "Encase the photon beam in a dispersion field so the enemy can see what they face," was the next puzzling order. Little more than a lightshow would be the end result.

Then at Ztar's command, the fleet was to venture deep into Commonwealth territory to fight an enemy whose only weakness may be light. An enemy few have ever encountered. An enemy Rehsaw had never heard of and more akin to childhood nightmares.

What manner of insanity had befallen their ruler?

Ztar didn't surround himself with 'yes' people. Rehsaw had not held back in expressing astonishment and concern. His fellow Turzent was short on whys and wherefores. Unlike the man.

Unless, of course, he really had lost his mind.

Ztar asked for trust. The General's commander offered that the time for answers would come, but that time was not yet upon them. Secrecy was paramount. The enemy potentially had eyes and ears everywhere.

Paranoia. One of the first signs of a mental break.

Yet it was Ztar who spoke the bizarre orders. Ztar, whom Rehsaw had stood behind and fought beside for 20-plus years. A man who, while often passionate and single-minded and sometimes given to the unexpected, always had logic firmly supporting his actions.

Rehsaw could find no logic in his orders.

The General was use to having solid answers and clear reasoning from his superior. All Rehsaw asked for was why. All he got was ambiguity.

Then the final stunning words came. "No other of Court is to know of this."

Rehsaw was left speechless. Secrets amongst Court members was never Ztar's style. Not on something as significant as sending a fleet into a one-time enemy's domain to fight a vaguely defined, but apparently empire-destroying threat.

General Rehsaw, head of all Turzent Standard Military, was quite certain their Emperor had gone insane or fallen under someone's mental control.

Ztar had gripped his shoulders and looked him squarely in the eyes.

"I know you are doubting my judgment, perhaps even my grip on reality, old friend. I ask that you trust me long enough to reach Atmos Prime. If nothing comes of the joint operation, if no enemy is there waiting, if there is no battle to be fought, then you may take whatever actions against me you deem necessary. Until then, have faith that there are powerful forces in our midst that could bring all we hold dear to an end. The battle to save what we've worked so hard to build will not be fought at home, but in a neighbor's realm and in ways that seem foreign. I need you to do as I ask – precisely and promptly. Without that, we've already lost."

Ztar had looked desperate, hopeful, and very determined. The man hadn't said if Rehsaw didn't do as ordered, the Emperor would find someone who would…Rehsaw knew that would be the case without confirmation.

What his commander and friend had asked for was blind faith. Could he abandon logic and participate in deception?

In the end, Rehsaw did the only thing he could.

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Taer was unsettled. Could it be she was afraid? The feeling was foreign. She'd never known fear.

As she attempted to sort out the emotion, the member of the Shozen Triune observed the scientists from the cold lab table upon which she lay. Grimacing, she'd allowed them to strap her down. If an Eilu operative had infiltrated the facility, Phai wanted Taer's identity unknown. Hence, through Sident, the irreplaceable Taer was presented as simply another test subject for the final trials of Source-channeling bionites. It meant the Shozen Council Elder must tolerate the same cold, dispassionate treatment all research subjects endured.

The Etagllots surrounding her went about their work with clinical detachment. Test Subject S10 was under the direct oversight of Director Sident, and warnings issued that the blue-skinned subject was to be return alive and unharmed to his care for post-augmentation evaluation by another team. Why that was the case, they were not privy regardless of how much it raised ire that they would not perform the evaluation themselves. Their sole focus was the successful implantation of the bionites into S10 and then return the unusual, bi-gender resource to Sident.

Head Researcher Vaedash, if Taer recalled the name correctly, issued orders in practiced routine. The bionites that had taken many centuries of scientific and technological advancement to create were loaded into the dispersion chamber. Soon a hermetic force field would surround Phai to prevent the bionites from escaping into the environment. Infusion with the microscopic invaders would quickly follow. How that would feel or how Taer's body might react would depend on her unique physiology. Typically, infusion went unnoticed by the subject's body. She hoped that was the case with her own.

However, several of the early test subjects did not survive the surge of bionite-channeled energy flowing through their bodies, literally being cooked alive. Others with more physiological ability to funnel energy survived with recoverable injuries. Rare ones with the right natural pathways succeeded in channeling Source in significant volume.

Taer's confidence rested on her unique genetic makeup. She could already channel small amounts of Source on her own, but not enough to be considered fully U'larr. The Sentinel's evaluation of her channeling strength and clarity was clearly described in the old writings.

But the ancients apparently also left themselves wiggle room in the Sentinel's evaluation criterion. While many passages in the writings were precise in detail, when it came to the traits sought to verify worthiness to enter the Sentinels and the Nexus machines, the text became more vague. The writings did not say how that ability needed to be present and performed, only that it must be present. Omission of those details was almost glaring in contrast to other passages. Were the U'larr afraid of genetic degradation even an eon ago?

But it was all conjecture…and hope. Hope that Taer and her brethren had not misunderstood the writings' vagueness as loopholes in the worthiness tests the Sentinel and Nexus would perform. Hope that they would not be instantly annihilated as unworthy and a galaxy lost.

Taer's ponderings were jarringly interrupted by a force field activating in close proximity around her. The time had come. Bionites would be soon upon her, boring their microscopic selves into every cell of her body. She shouldn't feel anything…shouldn't. She should survive…should. Taer shuddered. She could only imagine the dread the Etagllot's test subjects endured as they faced their fates without knowing what was happening or why. Yet she wasn't convinced knowing helped.

'Fear – this is what it feels like,' she concluded, realizing her eyes had squeezed shut tightly on their own, and her twin hearts pounded.

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To say she was nervous and fearful were woefully inadequate descriptors. Facing the leader of the seemingly all-powerful Shozen alone was intimidating enough, even if via holo-comm. To ask for an answer to one of the biggest questions in her life nearly rendered her soundless.

In a bold move, she had circumvented Hercjell and gone to Den-neer asking for help from the Shozen leader. Surprisingly, he'd agreed to contact his superior.

"Den-neer said you had an important question to ask, Gatebi. Have you decided it isn't so vital?"

Cold, blue eyes nailed Gatebi in place. Clenching fists, she gathered up courage and took a breath. "I want to know why the Etagllot took me."

A single white eyebrow rose. "You do not know?"

That struck Gatebi as self-evident and rallied bravery. "Would I ask if I did?"

Phai stood, but remained behind a desk, studying her. Gatebi struggled not to squirm under the scrutiny.

"What have you told yourself is the reason?"

"That is irrelevant."

"No, it is not."

Gatebi felt ire rising. "Can you find out or can you not?"

Phai moved around the side of the desk. The visual projection briefly displayed what may have been a starship window. A holo-interface similar to a PI sprang up, but Gatebi hadn't seen her activate any computer controls, nor did she recognize the displayed text.

"Perhaps. Some records do not make it to our main repository for various reasons. You joined Ettwanae at Hydeera, correct?"

"Yes."

The initial holo display shifted and new data appeared, still unreadable to Gatebi. Then some of the language characters seemed familiar, but from when and where?

"What did you learn at Hydeera about why you were there?" At Gatebi's frown, Phai quickly continued. "It will help me isolate the correct data section. I cannot simply search for your name."

Old angers and fears reared up. "Because laboratory test subjects have no names, right? They are not people, just resources!"

"I am sorry you went through what you did, but a galaxy is at stake. We did many things I find abhorrent, but few choices were available given what we needed to accomplish."

Gatebi's arms crossed and hugged her chest. "That doesn't exonerate you and your organization. Immoral is immoral no matter how you attempt to justify."

Coldness swept over Phai's face that sent a chill down the Alcab's spine.

"And that is a guilt I will carry with me all my remaining time, but a burdened gladly carried if we succeed in saving untold trillions of lives. This is war. It may not seem as such because it is a covert war unknown to most, but war nonetheless. And as in any conflict, difficult choices are made on who is saved and who is sacrificed. That is the harsh reality."

Gatebi considered the Shozen leader's words. Warfare was unjust and immoral, and usually brutal. The current conflict between the forces of light and dark was a different kind of conflict, but no less of a war than one fought starship to starship. Condoning scientific experiments on any living being was something the Alcab could never see herself accepting. However, she decided to cease the condemnations, at least vocally, since it would get her nowhere with the woman.

Walking closer to the floating data, she was curious. "What language is this? I think I've seen it before…" It hit her. "This is Ettwanae and Volu's native language."

Phai offered a faint smile. "Yes, the language of our ancestors. We use it to honor them. It's a beautiful language."

Gatebi reflected back to when Ettwanae shared some of her speaking lessons from Volu. It was beautiful when spoken. Then thoughts turned to less fond memories. "I remember the scientists speaking of adaptive DNA and bio augmentation."

"That fits the assignment of the Hydeera task force," she confirmed with a nod toward the visuals hanging before them. "Were you there long?" Gatebi waved a hand to indicate negative. "Let's see what we can find on a young, Alcab female registered shortly before the raid."

Gatebi's six-chambered heart began beating rapidly. Was she finally going to learn why the Etagllot stole her?

Phai's face grew still and the eyes took on that far-away look Gatebi had seen so many times when Ettwanae and Volu were deep in telepathic conversation. Then the holographic display morphed into what appeared to be a data record.

"This may be what we're looking for. Fortunately, we had evacuated vital personnel and records before the empire's forces stormed the facility."

The words suddenly switched to Imperial Standard Turzent. She scanned the fill-in-the-blanks report of an Alcab female matching her description and estimated age. Gatebi swallowed nervously.

Phai's gaze fell upon her. "The entry fits you, and it is the only one for the timeframe that does. We can assume it is you. The date of origination would put the arrival of this female about 10 ISD prior to the raid. Does that match?" Gatebi gave a quick nod, although telling time hadn't been easy as a captive. "Then let's delve deeper into the records for the Alcab female."

Suddenly, a multitude of documents sprung up, filling the air with floating words and medical scan images. Gatebi didn't know where to start reading.

"Let me organize this," Phai offered. "We'll go from baseline scans and preliminary data gathering to where they were applying this female to a specific assignment."

Gatebi shuddered at the impersonal words, suspecting Phai was purposefully not referring to the test subject as her for a reason. Pages shuffled to line up across the room. The amount of data about Biological Resource H02-107-34 was staggering. Everything from basic physiological notations to what seemed to be a detailed analysis of her neuron-synapse structure. That both her parents were research scientists for the Alcab government and the reading Gatebi had done in the past on the brain function helped her decipher some of what would be scientific mumbo-jumbo to most.

As she strode down the line of test reports, the Etagllot were indeed interested in her brain anatomy, which confirmed what she had deduced while being held. What was it about her that had gotten their attention in the first place? Was she simply another research resource, or was there something different about her? The more she deciphered, the more uneasy she became. Etagllot scientists were examining a specific trait within her neuro pathways…an anomaly…

Phai spoke, startling Gatebi. "The Hydeera team focused on the perfection of brain-bionite interface, specifically to control augmented physical function."

The Alcab turned toward the white woman, almost afraid to probe deeper. She noted an odd expression on Phai's face, but put the observation aside.

"It appears they found something of interest, but this is beyond what little I know on the subject." Gatebi's throat tightened in apprehension, but learning more was why she sought audience with the Shozen in the first place. She'd not let fear stop her short. The unknowing had to end. Gathering courage, she continued. "Would you explain to me what they found? Why they wanted me as a test subject?"

Phai raised an eyebrow and studied her closely. Gatebi would have sworn to her Alcab god that subtle apprehension registered on the beautiful face and in the crystalline-blue eyes.

"I can, Gatebi, but what I have to tell you will affect how you live your life, the decisions you make…perhaps even change your moral foundation."

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Next chapter could be called triumphs and nightmares as we focus in on two fronts. See you then!