CHAPTER 18

Nick

How long were the four of us stuck to that damn slab?An hour?However long it was, at some point I felt a humming, buzzing sensation up and down my body.

I said to the men and Tara, "Feel that?"

"Yes," said Tara.

"Yeah," said Lon and Kris.

"What do you think it means?" Kris asked.

"One of two things," I guessed."They're pumping more energy into this thing and that's how they're going to execute us, or…"

Suddenly the humming sensation stopped—and I fell forward off of the slab and quickly got my footing on the floor in front of us, very much alive.Reflexively, I reached to my right and took Tara by one arm to make sure she didn't fall when the same thing happened to her, while to my left, Lon and Kris also came loose from where we'd been pinned by that invisible force.

"Well," said Lon, "that was no execution.But what's next?"

Before any of us could make another guess, the blue-skins came striding back into the chamber from the rear portal from which they came before.Once again, the elder one, Neegan, and the empath, Catrox, took the lead.I was suddenly very aware that none of us werearmed.They'd taken our two-guns.That meant that if they turned aggressive, we'd have to fight them hand-to-hand, or whatever those appendages of theirs were, and protect the Princess at the same time.I looked them up and down.I had no prior knowledge of these Caloxi, no idea how strong they might be or how they might have been trained for combat.I knew only that in our wolf shapes we were stronger than human men.Stronger than aliens we'd never met before, though?That was thequestion.

Still, if they'd turned off the juice in that slab device and set us free from it, why come in and attack us now?They'd had us right where they wanted us.Killing the four of us while we were pinned there would have been a simple matter—no fighting back, just neat, clean, quick death.

I could go to wolf form in a flash, and so could Lon and Kris.If they rushed us, they'd be meeting three wolf men head-on.Preparing myself for anything, I instinctively put my right arm out to the side, in front of Tara, blocking her from them.The next move was theirs.

"There is no need for defense," said Neegan."You will not be harmed."

Keeping my arm in front of Tara just in case it was a trick, I said, "What do you mean?Are you releasing us?Are we free?"

"You may depart as you wish," Neegan said."You may attack us in your other, animal bodies as you wish—though Catrox's findings suggest that you will not.Our releasing you and facing you now is an act of risk, if not trust.What you do next will decide whether our risk was foolhardy."

"It wasn't," said Tara."It wasn't foolhardy, and it wasn't in vain.Trust is always a risk, just like going out across space and visiting other worlds was a risk for your people and ours.There's always a chance of risk coming to danger.But not this time, Neegan.This time your trust was not in vain.We're not your enemies.The Soorns are our common enemy."

"She's right," said Kris."We're on the same side."

The mood in the room was different now.The tension on both sides dropped like a meteor.I lowered my arm, but still stayed close to Tara.

Tara said, "On Earth, long ago, our two species, humans and wolf metamorphs, mostly didn't trust each other.We feared each other and fought each other.Most of my kind didn't know how to live with their kind.But a few of us, just a few at first, learned that the other kind weren't monsters.We learned that we all had the same feelings; we all had the same fears.And just a few of us learned how to love each other.That was how things slowly changed.Today the lycanthropes live alongside us.And many of us do care for each other and love each other."She touched me on the arm that I'd held out to protect her."Some of them even protect us.They're our friends.I believe it's possible for our two species and yours to be friends.First, we have to learn to work together to save all of us.Then, maybe, we can try for something more."

"That is what my empathy with you suggests," said Catrox."That is what we have been deliberating together since we left you.And that is the reason for the risk of releasing you."

"What do you want to do now?" I asked.

"The female stated that she is the daughter of the one who leads you," replied Neegan.He faced Tara and said, "We would have words with him."

Tara looked over at me.She wore a hint of a smile, a look of encouragement."We'd better get going," she said.

The Princess had spoken.Neegan said to Catrox, "Select those who will accompany you and equip yourselves.Return the metamorphs' weapons to them.Depart quickly and seek out their leader.Remain in communication."

And with that, we were off.

*****

And that was how something happened on Lycia that had never happened in the history of the Earth Alliance:first contact with one species in the middle of an attempted invasion by another one.

Catrox came up from below with Tara, the men, and me; and three other Caloxi came with him, all engineering types, according to a plan that Catrox had made with Neegan.And we all met the Prime Regent, with Alpha Commander Brunson and a couple of other Guards, in Mr. Landon's fortified office in the Regency bunkers.Tara ran into her father's arms for the biggest, most relieved hug that a father and a daughter ever had.The Prime Regent thanked Lon, Kris, and me for getting her back to him safe and sound.And then the very stunned leader of the Colony and the Guards attending him met the representatives of the aliens who'd been among us all along without anyone knowing it.

I hoped that the security cameras in the Prime Regent's office got a good scan of the moment when Daniel Landon shook hands—or whatever the Caloxi's appendages were—with Catrox and his friends.But it was a historic moment that my men and I got to witness.I wanted a good scan of it just to keep for myself.The Prime Regent, just like a good statesman, expressed his hope that this moment would be the beginning of a long and rewarding friendship between the Caloxi and the people of Earth.It was the payoff of everything that we had talked about with Neegan and his people down below, the reward for taking the risk and showing trust between species that had never met before.

Then, Catrox explained his plan.He and the engineers that he'd brought up with us all had the empathic powers that had turned things around, gotten us set free, and started the friendship on which Mr. Landon put so much hope.They all needed to be empaths for this plan to work.We would use their special gift and a combination of technologies to create a circuit or "bridge" and transmit that empathy across the planet and out into space.That empathic wave would move through every sentient being in and around Lycia—including the Soorns.The plan was that the Soorns—paranoid, xenophobic, hating any intelligence that wasn't themselves—would be so repulsed by feeling the shared emotions of two different species that they'd battled before, that they'd break off their invasion attempt, retreat into space, and not look back.

The problem was that Caloxi technology and ours weren't directly compatible.Their engineers and ours would have to rig up a way for their tech to encode their empathy into a signal that our tech could pick up and broadcast.That signal would then go out to every Canis Guard and Earth Alliance computer on the planet, and out to every communications node that we had in every Lycian settlement, and from there out into space where every Guard and Alliance ship would pick it up and transmit it through the entire system.We would blanket every kilometer of Lycia and hundreds of billions of kilometers of space with the combined feelings of two species and send the Soorns a message that they'd feel under their coal-colored skin.We are united.You are not wanted.Having alien emotions worming around inside them, we hoped, would do the trick and stop the destruction going on up above.

While all this was being set up, Lon, Kris, and I wouldn't have much to do; we had the technical know-how that was a part of all Guard training, but not the specialized skills to hook up our tech with alien technology and make it work on this kind of scale.Even our best engineers were going to find this a challenge.So as much as we hated the idea of leaving Tara, we were all anxious to get into the battle raging in Leto.That was when Catrox sprang one last surprise on us.

As we were all gathered in the Prime Regent's office, once Catrox had outlined his plan for Mr. Landon, the lead empath announced, "For the bridge to be most effective, it will require an empathic nexus."

The Prime Regent looked at the Caloxi, as perplexed now as he was surprised when they were introduced."A what?An ‘empathic nexus'?What would that be?"

Catrox said, "The bridge must be created with a binary core of emotions at its center, at the source of the transmission, and linked directly into it.The beings must share the strongest emotional connection.That connection will initiate the wave, which will be fed into the system."He looked right at Tara with the dark horizontal pupils of his eyes."I believe the Princess must be one of the nexus beings."

Tara blinked and put a hand on her bosom."Me?"

"Yes," said Catrox."The emotions that I read from you when you argued for communication and peace between our species, the passion that I sensed from you, both for coexistence and for the ones chosen to protect you, would be best suited to create the bridge—in combination with the emotions of one other with similar passions.You and one other with whom you share the strongest bond will be our best hope."

Everyone was speechless, but especially Tara and her father.The two of them shared startled and worried looks, then the Princess's anxious gaze passed over all three of us who would gladly lay down our lives for her.

Mr. Landon spoke up next."I understand what you require, Catrox, but before we go ahead, I want to know about the risks involved.You're saying you want to connect my daughter and someone else empathically—and I'm guessing physically—with this technological bridge you're going to build.How would you do that?And what would be the danger to my daughter and the other person that would be doing this with her?"

"It could be accomplished most safely with minimal contact, a simple flesh-to-device interface," said Catrox.

"You mean just by touch?" Mr. Landon said.

"Correct," Catrox replied."It could be done without danger.The bridge could be severed simply by withdrawing the touch."

"I see," the Prime Regent said.Then he looked to his daughter."Tara…?"

Tara said decisively, "I want to do this, Daddy.I have to, for everyone."

Mr. Landon said, "Then we're going to have to decide who's going to engage in this thing with you."

The black eyes of Catrox fell on my men and me."It must be one of them," he said."Only with them are the emotional bonds sufficiently powerful."

With that, there was another moment of anxious silence.The Prime Regent stood behind his desk, quietly studying Lon and Kris and me.I could only imagine what he was thinking.Well, you three, you've been in my daughter's bed, and you've started something with her.I wouldn't have thought you sleeping with Tara would be the thing to get our world out of its greatest crisis.But it's going to be up to one of you to use this thing you've started to save everyone."Well," said Mr. Landon, "it appears you're going to have to choose.And you're going to have to do it quickly."

"We're going to need a moment in private, the four of us," I said.

Next door to the Prime Regent's office was a special chamber with a hatch leading up to the surface and a ship that could be used to lift him and his daughter up to relative safety out of the bunkers in case of an attack or disaster that caused a severe breach.That was where Tara, the other men, and I went to determine our next move.

Facing the three of them, I said flatly, "One of us is staying to make this work.I know which one."

All eyes went right to Kris.

"Me?" Kris said, his eyes darting around.

"Yes, you," I said.And I took a quick glance at Tara as I said it.The way she looked at him made it obvious.I could see in her eyes, in the look of longing for him even though he was standing right there, that in the Princess's mind the whole world was narrowing down to him.A wolf man knows when a female wants him, and there was no doubt in my mind that Tara wanted Lon and me.But her strongest desire, the greatest longing both emotional and physical, was for Kris.

"It's you, Kris," she said gently.She glanced at Lon and me."You've all been my best lovers, my very best; I know that as well as I've ever known anything.But for this thing that's meant to save all of us—Kris, it's you."

As soon as she confessed that, I studied Kris carefully.His own version of Tara's look had come over him.Somewhere in his mind, Kris was in bed with her right now.We all were, but on Kris it showed the most.

I said to Kris, "We all wanted Tara.And we've all been with her.But right from the day you got here, everyone knew there was something special about you.Those instincts of yours that made you go after that spy while everyone else followed orders—you were the one who had him in your sights right when he showed up, and it was you that caught him.And then you were the one who was ready to lay down his own life for Tara when that thing got into her room.Any one of us would have done it, but something drew you and her together.I knew all along that you were someone to watch.That's why I wanted you assigned to us as her third Guard—so I could keep an eye on you, watch this bond that you have with her that's not like anything she has with anyone else, even Lon and me.The three of us have an order, a protocol, for being with her, and we're on our honor to follow it.I may be the first to have her…," and I swallowed my pride when I admitted it, "but you're her best."

Tara touched me on my arm and said to me sincerely, "I said you're all my best and I meant it."

Running my fingers along the softness of her cheek, I replied, "I know you mean it, Tara.But what the three of us have with you…it's strongest with him.That's why it has to be you and him."I faced Kris and said, "Sub-Lieutenant Tynan, you have your orders."

Kris looked almost mesmerized at Tara."Sir, yes, Sir."

Our decision was made.All that was left was to seal it.I gently pulled Tara to me and took her mouth in a long, warm kiss, telling her with the press of our lips how important she was to me, that she was the sweetest duty I'd ever been given.

After our kiss, Lon took her by the hand and folded her up into his arms for a kiss of his own; a kiss that made her swoon back, feeling the fullness of his desire, his caring, his affection.At the end of that kiss, she straightened up and lingered in Lon's embrace.

Finally, Tara went to Kris.Their arms encircled each other and their mouths met in the deepest kiss of all.Tara moved a thigh up along his leg and Kris held it while kissing her, keeping one hand at the small of her back.Their lips stayed together for a minute longer than her kisses with Lon and me, which was only right.While I was the leader, the two of them were the most important unit in this passionate pack that we had become.Tara and Kris truly were the nexus of it all.

When Tara and Kris finally parted, I said to them and Lon, "We'd better get back in there and tell them what we've decided.We've got a world to save."