A Clash of Empires: A Space Opera Adventure (Infinite Horizons Book 3) Read online

  There were no arguments against warmth and refreshments. Sherisza led their guests along the corridor toward the Malshekt’s lavatory and its powerful jet air driers. Once they were out of sight, Dillon stepped into his and Sherisza’s cabin and got undressed. He dried himself off, wrapped his wet clothes in a pouch for laundering, and put on something warm and dry.

  “You got the usual proof ready to show them?” Dillon asked the AI.

 

  “What professions are all these folks?”

 

  “That’s what I like to hear,” Dillon said. “Let me know when they’re all dried off and at least proper for sharing a meal with.”

 

  “I’m glad I got to go with her this time.”

 

  “I hear that. How are the babies doing?”

 

  Dillon chuckled. “Not theirs. Mine.”

 

  “And this is the first time this has happened?”

 

  “I’ll be damned if I let that happen to us,” Dillon said. “Then again, if we go help the Kwaagi with their coming conflict… who knows?”

 

  Dillon bobbed his head. “That’s what I’ve been thinking.”

 

  “Hey now, just because you don’t have a Kwaagi woman on board to heckle anymore doesn’t mean you get to bother me again,” he laughed.

 

  Dillon gave the ceiling a casual salute and made his way from the cabin. “Dillon to Captain Rousilarru and our guests, I’ll be taking the Malshekt offworld now. Standby to reach exit velocity,” he said over the comms before he slid into the copilot’s seat.

  He got them offworld with a steady and practiced hand, his piloting of the Malshekt a little better each time. He kept the jolts and angles as minimal as he could without risking being seen or detected by too many people or satellites. Soon, they were in space, but though he set their course, he was content to drift until they’d shared the evidence with their guests. Safely away from anything that could raise an alarm, they could afford to take it slowly. And when he considered it was these peoples’ choice whether or not they came, he didn’t want to take them too far from the planet in case they decided to go back.

  Though I suspect that would be suicide, he thought.

  Dillon could already hear the excited and stunned chatter of the Kiandarians in the galley as he got up and made his way along the corridor. There were many things that were going to surprise them, but he hoped the part about humans and Kiandarians once being enemies didn’t skew their perceptions of him too badly.

  Or the fact that Sherisza and I are a couple, he added silently with a lopsided smile. Nevermind that we’re also having children.

  CHAPTER 2

  BREADTH OF JOY

  Every time they brought refugees to Kiandar it was like a reunion. All the current settlers would come out to greet the new arrivals, and no one was more excited than the kids. The little neighborhood where Sherisza and her late family had lived was coming alive again, filling up with the settlers. It would be some time before the world of Kiandar as a whole started to feel alive again, but it would, eventually. This little town was a microcosm of what was coming, Dillon was sure.

  Just as interesting to Dillon was how much work managed to get done between their visits. True, they hadn’t been visiting weekly like Sherisza wanted to, but the work ethic of the Kiandarians was hard to overstate. With the help of their Kwaagi and Kystar allies who were keeping watch over the planet, they’d had some heavy machinery moved into the neighborhood. It looked to Dillon as though they’d begun installing or repairing the underground infrastructure such as geothermal, water, and septic utilities. They were making quite a bit of progress for less than twenty adults.

  It hadn’t taken much to convince their latest group of evacuees to come to the “future” with them. Even Dillon still had trouble swallowing when he saw pictures of the destruction, the untold numbers of Kiandarians laid waste by the plague. Sherisza didn’t go into specifics of how the plague came to be, not wanting to make the refugees any more xenophobic, but she held back nothing as far as how absolute the destruction was.

  Every time she told a new group, “I was the last of our people,” it really drove the point home and made their decision for them.

  Dillon didn’t usually like to take attention away from Sherisza, but the settlers had begun to warm up to him quite a bit. He suspected the night he’d spent with Sherisza in her old home had only multiplied that when they saw how supportive he was. In the end, he wasn’t doing any of that for their sake, but it still felt good to be appreciated. They never made any comments about him having a sexual relationship with Sherisza, but Dillon imagined they were probably still trying to come to terms with it. How much weirder was it from their point of view than from his or that of his family?

  That he was learning Kiandese came as a pleasant surprise to the settlers. None of them had the translation implants; typically, only people who went off-world or dealt directly with other species bothered. Dillon could understand them all perfectly but needed Sherisza to translate his words. That was becoming less true now, but he still had a long way to go to be able to hold a conversation with Kiandarians lacking a chip.

  An impromptu neighborhood barbecue was put together for the new arrivals, and Dillon and Sherisza helped the families get settled in their homes. Sherisza’s home remained empty since Emperor Malshii of the Kwaagi and his family had left. Dillon suspected it may have helped Sherisza shake off the ghosts of her past if someone else took up residence in her old home, particular in they had children. But that was something neither Dillon nor the settlers wanted to broach.

  Once the mealtime was done and the new arrivals were settled, Dillon retired with Sherisza to her old home as the hour grew late. Dillon expected melancholy to settle in when she entered, but this time was different. He watched in stunned silence as she walked the rooms of the ground floor, a smile on her face, her clawed fingers tracing lovingly across every bit of her old life that remained. She let out a little sigh now and then, but the smile never left her face, and when she came back to him, her eyes were full of stars.

  He didn’t get the chance to ask her if she was all right, as she wrapped herself around him and then kissed him deeply. Dillon got lost in the sensations of her tongue, the feel of her pressed up against him, and the smells of her fur and everything else. Sometimes, it still felt sur
real or even a little weird that he was with a lioness woman–and having cubs with her, no less–but when they came together like this, it all melted away in the bliss. They didn’t even have to make love for it to happen anymore; this was a melding of souls, an ecstasy of the mind rather than merely the physical body.

  She ran her hand down the side of his face, the feel of her claws distinct without leaving any scratches or discomfort. “You are starting to grow a mane,” she said, the corners of her mouth tugging up in a smile.

  “Yeah, I should probably shave,” he said, rubbing the other side of his face. “I won’t be able to grow more than scrub for a couple years yet, I think. If you’re hoping I grow fur and a tail, though, I’m afraid you’re out of luck.”

  She snorted. “I like the way you are, Dillon. I never wish you were Kiandarian.”

  He ran his hand down her back and played with her tail, the two of them chuckling together. “And I never wish you were human,” he assured her.

  Dillon followed her as she made her way through the rest of the house, that content smile keeping dominance of her face as she took it all in. She managed to keep her spirits high all through the ground floor, but Dillon saw it slip as they ascended the stairs. He took her hand in his as she made her way to the door of the children’s bedroom, where he relinquished the hold to wrap his arms around her instead. She didn’t break down crying, but the smile disappeared as she looked around the room, giving way to a tightness of her mouth.

  “Dillon, I have been wondering something,” she said in the stillness of the house.

  “What’s that?”

  “Would your grandmother take it as the intended honor if we named our daughter after her?” she asked, turning to face him.

  “Grandma Malinda? She’d absolutely love it,” he said, smiling. “If that’s what you want to do, I’d love it, too. But what about our son?”

  “I would name him after my father, Ishiduu,” she said. “Unless you would like to name him for your grandmother’s late husband.”

  “Nah, it’d be nice to honor both sides of the family,” he said, taking her in a tight hug. She laid her head on his shoulder and, amazingly enough, she began to purr despite where they were and the storm of emotions that had held her just moments before.

  “I need your help with one more thing while we are here,” she said.

  “Anything. Just ask.”

  Sherisza led him across to Daevol’s old study, and he waited in the doorway while she walked its perimeter. The smile returned to her face as memories played through her mind of her late brother, taking in the little trinkets and bits of him that remained. Dillon watched curiously, wondering what she needed his help with where her brother was concerned, but she never looked at him or asked him to join her.

  Eventually, she came back out of the study and took him by the hand. She led him to her bedroom, the one she’d shared with her brother, and the bed she’d likewise shared with him. That was still an odd facet of Kiandarian society to Dillon despite it being completely platonic, but he didn’t really put too much thought into it. It worked for their people, and it had little effect on his relationship with Sherisza. Maybe they would change one day as they became more accustomed to having human friends and even settlers on their world.

  Then again, maybe not, he thought with a silent chuckle.

  Sherisza walked to the side of the bed and got undressed, and Dillon admired her every step of the way. Her breasts were smaller than most humans’ and somewhat pointy, but like everything else about her, Dillon loved and would change nothing about them. His eyes followed the dark line of fur that began between them and ran down to her groin, and when she gave a little lash of her tail, it made him smile. She was athletic yet curvy, muscular yet all feminine, and he couldn’t tear his eyes away.

  “I gave birth to my children in this bed,” she said, letting out a little sigh through her nose after she said it. She touched the spot over her heart. “They will always live here now, Dillon, but I need to sweep out the ghosts from this home. I want them to live solely in my spirit, and not in this place. Would you help me with that?”

  “You know I will,” he said. “What do you need me to do?”

  She climbed up on the bed and lay in its center, and she beckoned him with a single claw. Dillon got undressed and joined her in the bed, sharing a long, deep, passionate kiss before they began their other intimate play. Not a word was spoken, but each moved in perfect time and harmony with the other, their dance of lovemaking a further entwining of the souls that extended what Dillon had thought and felt downstairs.

  Sherisza never cried, but she worked through her emotions with their lovemaking. In their intimate dance, she became more than a partner to him, more than a lover or even the mother of his children. She became his other half, the completeness of his body and his soul. Despite how some may have viewed the carnal pleasures of their love, he swept out the ghosts of her past, bringing her fully and completely into the now, and into the future of their family.

  When their passions had run their course, he lay his head on her breasts, enjoying the subtle scent of her. In the deep rumble of her purr and the thumping of her heart, he could swear he heard the echoes of sleeping, purring cubs. It soothed him to sleep even faster than her pleasured rumble usually did.

  They stayed on Kiandar for one more day, mostly so Sherisza could speak with each of the families individually. It was one thing to speak to the community as a whole and get a feel for how things were going overall. Sherisza was interested in how each of the families was doing as well, though. She was far from a leader for their people yet, but she was the one who had brought them all to this time and so she felt like she had a responsibility to help them in any way she could. She spent a while with each family, asking how they were coping and if they had any specific needs she could help meet.

  Dillon spent most of the time with the children, kicking a ball around or finding out just how quick Kiandarian cubs could be. The kids ran him absolutely ragged at times, and it was nearly enough to threaten to give him nightmares. Would his own children be so damned fast and slippery? It was good to get some exercise, but he figured he really needed to start working out and getting his cardio in top shape to prepare for what was to come.

  Eventually, Sherisza finished her meetings with the families and bid them all farewell as she and Dillon headed for the Malshekt. The settlers gathered and waved goodbye to their “savior” and her apprentice as they got the Malshekt prepared for takeoff. A few of the kids wiggled their butts at Dillon and he laughed, doubly so when their parents scolded them.

  “How did the meetings go?” Dillon asked as he went through the pre-flight checklist. “Any happy news about cubs coming?”

  Sherisza half-shrugged but smiled anyway. “No cubs to come just yet; I think they will need some time to form relationships before they move to that option. It will happen in time, though. It must if my people are to thrive once again. But we must be patient and give them time.”

  “More than we took, anyway,” he teased.

  She laughed and leaned over in her seat, and he met her halfway for a kiss. When he looked back out the front viewport, there were a lot of shocked faces, but a few smiles. A number of conversations broke out among the settlers, and Dillon expected he and Sherisza would literally be the talk of the town until they came back. He didn’t want to flaunt their relationship or make the settlers uncomfortable, but they’d all find out sooner or later. Wasn’t it better if they learned by seeing Dillon and Sherisza were in love, and not just using each other sexually?

  “There are a number of things the people need that they can commandeer from abandoned stores or settlements in other parts of the nation,” Sherisza said as she waved goodbye again. “I have arranged for the Kystar to take a few volunteers along with some Kwaagi defenders on short supply runs. Anything they can find that has not fallen to disrepair or ruin is better used than left as a marker for the dead.”

>   “I’m sure even the dead would agree,” Dillon said. “To think what they’d left behind helped their people survive… what more could they really ask for after what happened? I mean, isn’t that why you try to leave your family an inheritance?”

  A thoughtful look crossed her face and Sherisza took a deep breath, blowing it out in a long, wistful sigh from her leonine nose. “I think of your grandmother’s home and how strong the sense of family and memory is there… yes, it is what I would want to leave as a legacy. Not just this ship and the magnificent technology I created with my brother, but something more to help my people and my descendants.”

  “That’s the plan,” Dillon said, patting her arm.

  She turned to look at him. “At the same time, I feel as though I may be stealing you away from your family.”

  “Nah, we’ll visit them all the time, so don’t look at it like that,” Dillon said. “In fact, they may be coming to visit Kiandar, so that could really be a lot of fun. It’ll be a little complicated between two worlds, but we’ll be part of both families.”

  “Good,” she said with a small smile. “I am not sure I can live on Terra Prime full time no matter how good that pizzeria is.” Dillon laughed. “I do think I want to have the cubs there, though. Perhaps in your grandmother’s home if she would allow it. It felt like a good place to bear children and add to the family.”

  Dillon stared at her until she turned to meet his gaze. “I think Grandma would really like that,” he said, trying not to get choked up. “I think I’d really like that…”