Star Brigade: The Supremacy (SB3) (32 page)

“Who?” Habraum grumbled, annoyed. Checking the console revealed the transmission had an anonymous Star Brigade ID originating from Conuropolis, not Hollus Maddrone. That was enough for him to guess who it might be, and he accepted the transmission without hesitation.

He spun about in his chair to face the caller’s 3D holo-image materialized before him, just like Mao Hoang’s had previously. Only this vision brought Habraum actual joy. Sam D’Urso’s brown eyes sparkled with relief the moment she saw him. “Hullo!” She giggled like a schoolgirl, grabbing at her own face to keep it straight. “Thank GOD! I need your help.”

Sam’s throaty voice hit Habraum with a deluge of nostalgia—the warmth of her sunkissed skin, the flawless slopes and ample curves of her body, that lopsided grin... His desire for her actual presence jolted through Habraum like electricity.

He noted Sam’s professional attire, a traditional white button-down shirt paired with black slacks and a dark green vest. Her blonde hair fell stick-straight past her shoulders, chicly tucked behind her ears. And of course, the shiny Cantalesian heartknot dangled around her neck.

Habraum, admiring the length of her curvy frame, felt playful. “Hope this isn’t for role-playing holosex. Someone almost caught us last time—”

“No, dumb-dumb!” she snapped, and then roared out bawdy laughter. The hands-holding-her-face tactic was failing. Habraum stared as Sam finally recovered. “Ari is speaking to a Bicameral committee in like fifteen macroms, and I can’t stop laughing!”

Habraum nodded with recognition. “You’re having a panicky giggle fit. How can I help?”

“Say a sad story, mention someone I hate,” she pleaded, shaking all over, “anything to sober me up.”

Habraum didn’t have to think hard. “The plight of the Korvenites you’re trying to help?”

To his shock, Sam doubled over with even bawdier laughter. “Tried that!”

“You got it bad.” The Cerc crossed his arms. “Jeremy got into a throwdown at school today.”

Laughter shook through Sam again. “Oh, c’mon, Habraum! Come. On!”

“No joke, Samantha,” replied Habraum, no longer smiling.

Sam stopped laughing. “Jeezus, is he okay?”

“Jer’s fine.” The Cerc waved off her concern. “But he got suspended for two days.”

“No wonder Rukk was acting weird when Tharyn called.” Sam’s dark eyebrows furrowed. “Did Jerm kick the other kid’s ass?”

Habraum was almost insulted by the inquiry. “He’s my son. Of course!”

“Nice!” Sam clapped in delight, goofily swaying to the left. Her shameless joy on Jeremy’s behalf almost made Habraum glad his son had clocked another kid.

“Not that I excuse him fighting,” Habraum added with a sharp hand chop.

“I expect nothing less from you, babe,” Sam teased, a smile in her voice.

Habraum stared back in strange wonder—like someone viewing a starry sky after a lifetime of darkness.

It struck the Cerc then how much he missed Sam, beyond just professional and friendship—or even sexual. His longing washed away the usual mission worries, the horror of the Ttaunz’s treatment of the Farooqua prisoners, his outburst toward the Ttaunz soldier, filling him with inebriating warmth. Habraum had never been so certain over his feelings until now.
I’m in love with Samantha D’Urso.

As he was absorbing this revelation, the silence between them had grown awkward and long.

“Soooo...” Sam said finally, her eyes falling away from his stare, like always. “Why would Jerm get into a fight with anyone?”

“Yeah, uh…” Habraum scrambled to collect himself. “He was defending Tharydane’s honor.”

“Awww!” Sam cooed lovingly, clutching at her heart. “I love that child!”

The Cerc barely heard her. His mind was light years away, stuck on the epiphany.

Sensing his disquiet, Sam assured him, “Habraum, it’ll be okay. Jeremy’s a good kid.”

“True.” Habraum nodded idly. “Jennica was exquisite in raising him.”

“So are you.”

“I guess…when I’m there,” he added sullenly. He wasn’t looking for pity, knowing the sacrifices of this job. But knowing that fact never made it easier to digest the instances of Jeremy’s life he kept missing. Sam’s heart-shaped face was full of concern, but she knew not to push. Even through the holographic TriTran, her beauty was arresting. Habraum knew what he wanted to say next.

Habraum hadn’t felt such terrifying certainty since Jennica. Still, CT-1’s mission needed his total focus. And with Jeremy acting out at school and having nightmares about his dead mother…Habraum’s wants felt selfish. For these reasons, he should keep quiet.

“What are you thinking?” Sam’s question was husky and whisper-soft, but so loaded.

“Already told you,” he retorted bluntly.

“Not everything.”

Habraum bristled.
She knows me too well.
“And you assume this because?”

“That look,” Sam countered fluently, “says you’re carrying the weight of the galaxy on your shoulders.”

The Cerc shifted uneasily in his seat. “Glad that you’re my spotter, yea?”

“I heard about Thasque.” Sam rolled her eyes peevishly. “Just say the word and CT-2 can fly—”

“
No
,” said Habraum flatly. “It’s more than I expected, but nothing my team can’t handle.”

Displeasure flashed briefly across Sam’s face. “If that changes…”

“I’ll call you first.” Habraum nodded truthfully. “What would I do without you?”

Sam’s eyes widened with impish glee. “I shudder to imagine!”

Habraum’s smile was so big and boyish that both Brigadiers began chuckling. How could he cover his true feelings when her presence—even through TriTran—was so intoxicating?

Sam hugged herself as she shook with mirth. “So much for keeping me serious, no?”

“Then let’s be serious for a spell,” Habraum advised with a straight face.

“Okay.” Sam gave a cool half-smirk, squaring her shoulders.

“Listen.” Habraum sucked in a calming breath and leaned back. “Sorry for twisting your arm so much over our…situation.”

“You should be,” Sam sassed melodramatically. “Cuz I’m finally getting some feeling back.”

He nodded mutely. The logical part of him screamed to keep quiet. But Habraum shrugged it off, set in his path. “You’re my best friend, and I won’t ruin that because of sex.”

Sam’s expression soured. “‘Friend,’” she tested the word out, looking like she had swallowed a block of salt. Suddenly her face was a blank mask, betraying nothing. “Thought Rukk was your best friend,” she uttered limply.

Habraum arched an eyebrow. Whatever pulse flowing between them had gone dead. But he ignored the call of his paranoia. “Rukk’s a brother from a different mother.” The Cerc smiled, aching to tell Sam his heart. The excitement pounded so furiously against his insides that Habraum feared he might burst. “But you, Sammie—”

“—are just a ‘friend,’” Sam cut in, her face still unreadable. “Got it.”

Habraum nodded reflexively. “Yea—whatnow?”

The bitterness in her tone registered a moment too late. Sam put on a forced, tight-lipped smile. “Feel the same way. Well, you’re on a mission, so I’ll go. Okay, bye,” her words tumbled out in a rush.

“Samantha, no—” the Cerc began protesting. But her transmission had already disconnected.

A bewildered Habraum found himself staring at empty space. “What just…happened?”

“Finally got my answer,” Sam whispered with a sad smile.

Habraum’s answer had been a white-hot knife thrust to the chest. He had kept on talking obliviously after his assertion of their relationship, but by then his words had become white noise. Sam held it together just barely—ending the transmission before she made an unkind assertion of her own.

Only after finding support against the wall behind her did Sam finally let in the flood of blinding pain, basically feeling like her chest was getting dragged across a bed full of jagged razors.

No tears fell, though. Sam’s dignity wouldn’t allow it. Was it because she knew this would happen, despite years of secretly hoping for their relationship to bloom into more? Even if she had been good and faithful from the start, some part of her always knew how it would end.

Sam squeezed her eyes shut as this searing reality made her knees buckle.

Breathe,
she commanded herself, inhaling with slower, deeper gasps. At first it felt like acid filled her lungs instead of oxygen. But soon the burning ache inside Sam lessened—at least physically.

The TriTran booth’s privacy was a godsend. No one could see her so exposed, so raw.

Sam knew she still had Habraum as a friend, the kind who used her like his personal sex doll. Asshole…

She stood up, disgusted.
You can’t mourn something you never truly had.

Sam opened her eyes to see the chronometer screen above the TriTran’s console. In half an orv, Ari would meet with the Bicameral Joint Committee for Species Relations to discuss the Korvenites getting their own homeworld. He
needed
her. And here she was in a TriTran booth…
wallowing
?

“I don’t have time for this,” she snapped, stuffing all the pain away and throwing her emotional armor back on. She moved toward the TriTran booth’s entry, which slid open enough to peek her head out.

The lobby of Conuropolis’s Bicameral Hall bustled with feverish activity, a spacious area with cream marble pillars and burgundy ceilings connecting the rooms where committees decided on a bill’s entry into the Chamber of Delegates and Union Senate. Despite the devastation hitting the Union’s capital city-state months ago, the Bicameral had taken minor damage that was repaired in days.

This was clearly a heavy committee day. Delegates and Union senators of various species rushed back and forth to their next meetings, flanked by their retinues of staffers and useless sycophants.

Sam’s eyes landed on a small gathering several yards directly opposite her booth, Senator Mre Guilloche of Rhomera surrounded by his unnecessarily large entourage. Not even those expensive jade Pallanorian silk robes could make the Rhomeran any less ugly. This had little to do with the countless writhing tentacles sticking out from under his robes, or his creamy yet clammy and hairless skin. It wasn’t the Rhomeran’s elongated face either that turned Sam’s stomach, particularly his bulging black eyes and several blubbery wattles covering his mouth.

Sam’s disgust came from Guilloche’s politics, mainly his hardline stance against Korvenites. The Rhomeran currently chatted up a handsome Ttaunz who looked every inch the archetypical highborn: tall, lissome, and covered by a short, blue, downy pelt. The coppery braided hair complimented his chiseled features well, as did his choice of elegant gold and cobalt robes. Sam recognized him immediately—Praece son of Proejer, a hotshot junior Union Senator from Faroor.

Guilloche’s wattles vibrated gleefully at some quip Praece had uttered. “What’s this about?” she muttered, not liking this scene at all. Seeing Praece drew Sam’s thoughts to CT-1’s mission on Faroor…

…and Habraum
. She gritted her teeth and forcibly kept focus on the current dilemma.

A sudden disturbance drew many politcos’ attention. Guilloche’s face soured, fleshy wattles trembling angrily. Most of his entourage looked appalled. Praece paled beneath his colorful pelt and suddenly remembered an urgent engagement elsewhere, darting off as fast as a dignified stride allowed.

Sam followed their glares to the source, Ari Bogosian walking down a side staircase. She gave him a quick, admiring onceover. Gone was the facial stubble and shaggy, graying locks. This clean-shaven Bogosian wore a crisp, chairman-styled navy-blue suit, freshly trimmed hair combed back to frame his famous square-jawed face with its can-do focus. Sam’s relief was dizzying. Ari looked like
Chouncilor
Bogosian again. What committee could refuse him?

Shadowing him, of course, were two armored Honor Guardsmen—his whole entourage.

Senator Guilloche gurgled something to his audience, which sounded like a human attempting speech while gurgling mouthwash. As expected, his minions guffawed as if their jobs depended on it, which they probably did. Sam eyed them in disgust.

The legendary hatred between Bogosian from the Temperate Party and Guilloche from the Imperialists had originated before Ari had become Chouncilor. A public spat between him and Guiloche today would do no one any favors, especially the Korvenites.

Thankfully, Bogosian ignored the glares yet returned the greetings while briskly approaching the TriTran booth furthest from Sam. She ducked back inside her booth and waited on the TriTran platform.

His call came within nanoclics.
“Hey Ari,” she greeted Bogosian’s life-sized holo materializing before her.

“Hi Samantha.” The former Chouncilor smiled welcomingly. Both had agreed never to appear together in public. Bogosian’s high profile would cause too much exposure given Sam’s occupation. Besides, she loved being the power behind the power.

Sam got right to business. “How are we looking?”

“Close. Between your efforts and mine we have just over half the needed votes.” Ari rubbed his hands together. Anxiety seeped through his authoritative veneer. The past two days, Sam and Bogosian had worked hard to court committee members most likely to vote for a new Korvenite homeworld. The former Chouncilor had met directly with certain legislators, making the appropriate apologies and emphasizing what good press helping the Korvenites could curry.

Sam, however, had worked on those not against Bogosian but not sold on his proposal. Employing a handful of contacts who were influencers in the Union political scene, Sam had targeted key advisors who had the ears of their respective delegates and senators. “I got Delegates Wyndham-Thomas, Nineeri, and Orruthon voting our way. What about Sakoda? I know he took your resignation rather personally.”

Senator Jushin Sakoda from Terra Sollus, the committee chairman and their key to victory. “He’s a lock,” Bogosian assured, “and whatever direction Jushin goes, Senators Prydatha-Haish and Rhamamurthy will follow.”

“Wait,” Sam cut in, pulling up a holoscreen showing the eleven attending committee members. “As of an orv ago, it says Sakoda’s taken a leave of absence. Some personal emergency…” The portrait of Senator Sakoda’s alternate was unwelcomingly familiar.