Burning Love [Flights of Fancy 1] (Siren Publishing Menage Amour) (11 page)

The group moved toward the waiting temple. 

Spence wondered just exactly what he was going to do next.
Shit
, he thought.
If I had three Marines instead of a pair of aliens, one I don't trust at all, and Star, I could do this.
He wasn't so sure now.

Nothing opposed them as they climbed the stairs and entered the building. The heat slapped him in the face, and he lowered his visor as the environment controls whined in protest at the work of keeping him cool. The aliens could handle it, but he worried about Star. In the quick glances he could spare from watching the area around them for threats, he saw sweat streaming down her face and staining her uniform. Despite the seriousness of the situation, his mind flashed back to the night of passion they shared and the sweat running down their bodies to mix as one. It seemed so long ago now, but only a few hours had passed since they snuggled together.

Krell led them to a large door, a huge metal affair, reaching at least eight meters high and nearly as wide. Ornate carvings with what Spence took as writing covered the surface of the metal plates, and what looked like gold decorated many of the runes. Stones of many colors glittered in settings scattered around in the pictures, highlighting scenes he didn't understand and words he couldn't read.

"This is the place where I talk to the elders." Krell shrugged, a habit all Hendri seemed to have. "I have no idea where they actually are."

"Then we'll start here." Spence checked his rifle. He'd used six of his twenty close-quarters nuclear grenades, but the projectile magazine was still full. He jacked a grenade into the launcher.

Harnlan touched his shoulder. "That door is more than four hundred years old."

Spence squeezed the trigger, and the launcher gave its familiar thud as the small fusion bomb lobbed towards its target. The door rang like a church bell, and fell into the room from its hinges.

Krell sighed. "It also contained more than a tenth of the wealth of the Hendri."

"Sorry." Spence shrugged. He must be catching the habit. "Let's go!"

As soon as he entered the room, he felt the temperature spike in spite of the environmental controls. The cooling system screamed in his ear, running at full power, but he felt the sweat spring out on his body as he staggered. Spence looked quickly at Star, and saw her stumble and fall, her face red and dry, the signs of heat prostration hitting her almost instantly.

Spence fell to his knees and lifted his rifle, the trigger already compressing under his finger even before he found a target. Far too late to stop the motion of his trained reflexes, he saw the barrel was red hot and slumped from the heat. The projectiles whizzing from the chamber at almost three thousand meters per second hit the bend, and the barrel exploded with amazing energy, ripping the weapon from his hands and throwing him back against a column in the center of the room.

As he slipped to the floor, he saw Harnlan charge into the room, but his chest exploded in flames, just as the grass in the garden had erupted. The alien collapsed, dropping the blaster, and rolled around trying to put out the fire that covered his torso. The heat made it hard for Spence to focus his eyes, but he saw the alien roll over the last of the flames, finally putting himself out, but then Harnlan lay very still.

A voice spoke from the wall, and when he looked, he saw the image of a Hendri, but distorted by age and time, looking out at him from a video screen.

"You fool. You could have simply accepted things and lived."

Spence found some energy someplace, and he lurched to sit up and lean against the column. "Humans are curious. We want to know the truth."

"Fools." The image on the screen changed, but the voice remained the same. "Now you will die." Again the view flickered to another face. "Even we will die. The Rangor will kill us, but not before we kill you."

"That hasn't been decided yet." Spence smiled. "You may die yet, and well before the Rangor can come to kill you."

He heard a soft moan, and looked around. Star was in a pile on the floor, her face fire-red and dry as desert sand. She looked at him with eyes that wouldn't focus, but she moved her lips. He read, 'I love you, too.'

As he watched her dying, Spence realized he couldn't save her, but he had to try anyway.

Using reflexes sharpened over more than a century of combat and muscles honed to perfection by countless exercises and real battles, he made one, smooth motion. Lightening fast, and without looking away from Star, he snatched the knife from its sheath on his hip and threw it directly at the speaker above and to the right of the view screen.

* * * *

Star couldn't concentrate, what with her body feeling like it was on fire as she'd seen Harnlan burst into flames. Somehow, though, she hung on to consciousness and had enough sense to wonder where Krell was.

This is
, she thought,
how it all ends. Spence was right and wrong; right to be suspicious of the Hendri, and wrong for waiting till now to tell me how he feels about me.

Maybe it was only her poor brain, addled once by a blow to the head and now battered by the searing heat, but she thought it suddenly seemed cooler. Her rattled neurological status may also have caused her to see Spence's motion flow like quicksilver as he threw his knife.

The elder on the screen shrieked in terror as the knife reached the wall, throwing his slender hands over his face just before the knife buried itself in the speaker, sparks showering in the shimmering heat to come to rest on the floor, skittering about like living things as they slowly faded and died.

As if he had all the time in the world, Krell stepped calmly into the room and picked up the blaster Harnlan had dropped as he burned. He pointed the gun at the screen, and she thought she saw a small smile play over his lips.

"You will not harm this woman or her people." Krell pressed the trigger.

The wall seemed unchanged for a moment, and Star wondered if the heat might have damaged the weapon. Then, in the slow motion some movie directors are so fond of, the wall slumped; it seemed to slowly dissolve, fading away to dust that ran to the floor.

The sound from the remaining speaker came as cacophony of screams, the elders all speaking at the same time, but having only one voice to speak with. Without the images provided by the screen, she couldn't tell which of the elders spoke, but the sound was of all of them screaming at the same time.

Behind the screen, Star saw a maze of electronics. It looked very much like the so-called brain core of
Daedalus
she was allowed to tour before they left the Jupiter Yards, consoles and displays everywhere showing flashing patterns of lights that must mean something beyond her knowledge.

Still very calm, Krell nodded toward the room. "Major, these are the elders."

Spence sat staring at the room for a moment, then crawled for his shattered rifle. The barrel had swelled and split, the metal ripped back like a peeled banana, but he flipped the gun over in his hands. He fumbled with the weapon for a second, and Star saw one of the small grenades drop into his hand. He pressed a button on the sphere, then tossed it past where the wall once stood.

"Take cover!"

Krell dropped the blaster and jumped on top of her just as an explosion rang out.

* * * *

Chris stood beside the command chair, keeping his voice low. "Elsa, we have to go. Now."

She glanced at the status board. The deflectors were down to 7%, and the Field was violet with some flickers of white showing.

He touched her arm. "We can't do anything for them."

"I know." She took a deep breath. "Helm, take us away from the planet. Full impulse power on head—"

The tactical officer interrupted. "Ma'am, the energy beams just cut off."

"Helm, belay that." As Elsa watched, the Field dumped heat to the surrounding space, the color already fading to blue.

"Captain, I have the source of the energy waves pinpointed now." The officer checked the scanners. "I can get a single torpedo in with no collateral damage."

She thought for a minute. Following her instincts, Elsa kept
Daedalus
here despite the threat, and that worked out, though she didn't know what lasting damage the ship had yet. Her gut now told her to wait, not to fire on their attackers, but she had no defense for the action. Elsa wondered how long it would be before Chris decided she was taking too many risks and relieved her of command.

It didn't matter. It would take time for him to get another command officer and the ship's doctor behind him. "Lock torpedoes on target. Do not arm."

"Aye, aye, Captain."

Chris' raised eyebrows told her all she needed to know. He thought she was crazy, but couldn't prove it.

Yet.

"Captain, I have the landing party." The communications officer smiled. "Sergeant Kyle on the line."

She thumbed the switch for the communicator on her command chair. "Sergeant, what's your status?"

"Everyone except Major Spencer and Lieutenant Hawking is here on the LC, Ma'am. Their status is unknown. We have no immediate threats to the LC and crew."

Elsa glanced to the science officer. "Find them. Now." She smiled at the communicator. "Very well. Standby, but be ready to evac if you're attacked."

"Understood, Captain."

"Stay in contact with us." She clicked off. "Science, anything?"

"Not yet, Ma'am. I started at their quarters and I'm spiraling out from there."

"Good. Keep at it."

"Damage reports, Captain." Chris didn't look terribly happy.

"Go ahead."

"Mostly minor stuff. The most serious is a plasma leak in the starboard hyperdrive tubes."

"Get crews on it."

"Already done." He smiled a little. "We got lucky."

"Very."

* * * *

He'd been just a little slow on his dive behind the column. Spence tried to justify it by thinking he'd been looking to make sure Star was safe, but the fact was that he tripped over his big feet. The explosion rang his chimes better than Betty Higingbaum did back when he was fourteen and in the ninth grade under the bleachers at the football game.

He looked up and saw Krell kneeling next to Star. His first try at standing resulting in the room spinning furiously and Spence sat down hard enough to cause his teeth to click together. He crawled instead.

Star was unconscious, and her breathing was rapid and shallow. Krell looked up. "I know nothing of human physiology, but I fear for her."

Her skin was hot, hotter than a Hendri's, and her skin felt dry and crackly. Spence leaned close to her, stroking her cheek. "Star? Come on, honey. Can you hear me?" She didn't respond.

He tongued the communicator control in his helmet. "Spencer to LC." No answer came.

Krell went to Harnlan's still form. "He's dead."

"Shame, that." He thought for a moment. "We need to get Star out of here, someplace cooler."

He nodded. "May I help you carry her? The heat is getting to you as well."

Spence considered. Krell obviously had his actions with the elders planned, but didn't reveal them for some reason. He trusted the man just a little more now. "Sure."

They carried Star from the temple and into the empty plaza. They found some shade under a tree that looked like some mad cross between an oak, pine, and palm tree and placed her on the dark grass. Spence pulled off his vest and rolled it into a pillow for her head.

"I want you to know that I care for Star deeply, but I won't come between you and her." Krell shrugged again. "The physical aspects of love are important to humans, and I can never give her what you can."

He felt a little off balance by Krell's sudden foray into the topic of Star. "That's big of you." It sounded flippant, and maybe he intended it to.

"Love between Hendri—" He stopped suddenly, his face wrinkled in thought. "Love between Hendri or between Rangor is more emotional. Perhaps spiritual is a better word."

"I don't understand." Spence chuckled a little. "Then again, I wonder just what she sees in you."

Krell shrugged and reached out his hand to touch Spence's forehead.

In an instant, the details of the situation they were in seemed to fade into the background. Spence knew they had problems and he knew they needed to solve them, but the urgency faded in perspective.

Like waves he once saw on a beach in the Sandusky system, undulations of peace and tranquility washed over his mind, relaxing him and letting him focus on the important things in life. In his mind's eye, Spence saw two faces staring at him.

One was human and beautiful, piercing green eyes set in soft, tan skin and surrounded by billowing red hair. A soft smile touched the lips of the face, and he felt things no Marine should feel, or at least admit to feeling. The warmth and safety promised by the loving smile rocked through him, and he found himself wanting Star to hold him.

The other was alien, with large black eyes placed far apart in blue skin that looked like suede. Bluish-black hair danced at the edges of the face, and the small mouth and thin nose were almost not noticeable at first. But the feelings of safety and warmth were the same, and the urge to cuddle didn't fade at all.

He'd bumped his head hard when the rifle exploded in his hands, and the pain had settled into a nagging throb. Suddenly, the pain vanished. It didn't fade away as his worries did, but just turned off, like someone pulled the plug on a laser. Just gone.

Just as suddenly, Spence realized exactly what it was that Star saw in Krell. It was Krell, somehow, doing this to him. He manipulated Spence's thoughts and perceptions in some way, and Spence knew Krell could do far more than this, and probably had with Star.

He knew he should push away, break the contact with Krell, but he couldn't bring himself to do it. The fact was that he liked the way it made him feel. It was almost as good as the feelings he had when Star held him close to her. Spence could feel her breath on his neck and cheek as they embraced, and there was something new in the mix, too. While her soft hands caressed his body, the gentle tendrils of Krell's mind touched his brain. His erection strained against the body armor, and he wondered if the rigid suit could contain him.