Silas: Imperial Warrior (A Sci-Fi Alien Warrior Romance) (14 page)

For long moments, neither of them moved, and then Katia started to laugh softly.

“What is it?” he asked her, head tilted.

“Nothing,” she said. “I just
really
need a shower now.”

Silas smiled at that.

“I’m so late,” she said as she poured her coffee and looked at the clock. For someone who cared about punctuality, she didn’t seem to be all that broken up about it.

“You are,” Silas agreed. “Is that okay?”

She shrugged and smiled before leaning up to kiss him on the mouth. “I’m not complaining,” she murmured against his lips.

“It’s a good thing I wouldn’t have fit in the shower with you, or you’d be even later,” Silas pointed out, and she rolled her eyes at him.

“I think you’re addicted,” she said.

Silas shrugged in return. “Would that be such a bad thing?”

Her eyes went wide, and she didn’t seem to have an answer for that. Instead, she kissed him once more and then made her way out, calling over her shoulder that she’d see him later.

With the exception of the kissing, it was just like it had been every day that she’d gone to work since he’d been here. It was like they had a routine now, talking in the morning, dinner together when Katia got home. She went to work, and Silas did what he needed to do here, and things felt...comfortable.

It was predictable, but in a different way from how things were when he was back on Gathra serving with HIMA. This was a whole new world, really, and the possibility that lingered in the back of his mind was more tempting than he was expecting it to be.

But he didn’t have time to think about that now. Now, he had to put this thing back together and try to get some kind of message out.

Silas folded himself down on the floor, surrounded himself with the parts and tried his best.

An hour later, the best he had was a flickering screen. That was something, considering the whole thing had been smashed up to the Void and back in the crash, and when he got back to Gathra he was going to talk to someone about making these things out of stronger materials.

“Come on,” he muttered to himself as he worked. “Come
on
. I just need you to work for a little while. Just long enough for me to call someone.” He narrowed his eyes and joined two wires together, giving a little sound of triumph when the screen stayed lit up.

Now
, he was getting somewhere.

Chapter Nine: Hide and Seek

This was not what he had signed up for.

When the Empress had said he needed to put together a force to find Silas, he'd been imagining a task force of ten or twenty, broken into two groups, scouring this Quadrant and nearby areas for any sign of their Captain.

But then the Fremeri had gone and made things worse than they needed to be, so it was all hands needed on Gathra, and he had five people. Five. And they weren't even really a force, considering they had been ordered to split up and search.

As things got direr with the Fremeri, the Empress' mood soured more and more. She could be talked to, but anything that sounded like disagreeing with her wasn't allowed. Anything that wasn't exactly what she wanted wasn't allowed. Anything that hadn't been ordered by her wasn't allowed.

So Cress didn't even complain as he piled into his ship and headed off in search of his wayward Captain.

"Do you think he really was taken?" Hamara had asked the night before while he'd been packing.

"No," Cress had admitted. "I don't." Because that wasn't like Silas. He didn't get held captive, and if he had been taken by surprise, then he would have found a way to turn the tables by now. That was just how Silas was. There was no way he was rotting in some Fremeri cell.

"So you're not going to check their planet, then?"

Cress had looked at her like she'd lost her mind, which it seemed like maybe she had. "Are you serious?" he asked her. "You think I'm going to go marching in there by myself to look for Silas, who, in all likelihood, isn't even there?"

"It was just a question, Cress. You don't need to bite my head off." Hamara shook her head. "Either way, I don't know how the five of you are supposed to find him like this. You've been hailing his speeder for days now, and there's been no response. Where are you even going to start?"

"I don't know," Cress said. "But we have to do something. What if he needs help?"

"You know that she's just going to call you back if you don't find him soon," Hamara said, and Cress didn't need to ask who 'she' was in this scenario.

"I know," he replied.

"What are you going to do if you can't find him?"

He didn't want to think about that. Not finding Silas wasn't an option. Besides the fact that they needed him, he was Cress' friend. Cress needed him to be safe. Eventually, the Empress would call him back to Gathra to help with the ongoing fight against the Fremeri, and he'd have no option but to go back or risk being branded a traitor. And Ammaline wasn't kind to traitors.

Cress cleared the thoughts from his head.

He'd bid Hamara and his other friends farewell and coordinated with the others who were heading out with him. They would keep in contact. Anyone who found anything would let the others know. There would be no unnecessary risks.

All in all, it was a good operation working with a good plan, and Cress was proud of himself for coming up with it with what he had to work with. As he flew the ship through the darkness of space, he sighed, wondering if that was going to be enough.

He made stops on planets that were nearby, asking if anyone had seen the Captain of the left arm. Everyone already knew who Silas was, and though they didn’t know Cress by name, they recognized him as being in HIMA. They were all helpful in answering his questions and lodging their complaints, but none of them had seen Silas.

“I think those Fremeri have him,” said a man on Caperon. “They’re causing all kinds of trouble.”

Cress frowned. He ignored the part about Silas and the Fremeri and focused on the part that was actually worth noting. “They’ve been here?”

The man shook his head. “Not here, but on Simula. My sister lives there with her family, and she says people have been going missing all over the place.”

Well, that was just wonderful. Another place to add to the list.

“I’ll let the Empress know,” he said. “And in the meantime, you should make sure your own local authorities are aware of what’s happening. Don’t take any unnecessary risks.”

The man nodded, wide eyed.

In the other places he went to, it was the same thing. People were talking about the Fremeri, and what was worse, the word was spreading that Silas was missing.

Cress wasn’t even surprised when a few days into his mission, he received a call from the Empress.

“Do you have anything to report?” she asked, looking bored already.

“No,” Cress said. “Well, not about the Captain, but people have been reporting Fremeri sightings all over the Quadrant. People are going missing and being attacked. This is turning into a big mess,”

She sighed, pressing fingers to her temples. “It was already a big mess, Corporal. It just continues to grow. I am displeased that you have found no trace of the Captain as yet. I am even more displeased that the rumors that he’d been taken are spreading. People are fearing for their lives and wondering just how safe they can possibly be if my army can be compromised.”

“I’ve been telling them that the Fremeri don’t have Silas,” Cress said.

“And how do you know they do not?”

He bit his tongue to keep anything rash from coming out of his mouth. The last thing he wanted to do was make her angry. “I don’t,” he admitted. “I can only go off of what I believe.”

“And you believe what? That he has defected? If he has not been detained and he is not dead, then I will be forced to consider him a traitor.”

“No!” Cress said sharply and instantly regretted it. “I mean. Silas wouldn’t do that. You know that as well as I do, Your Imperial Majesty. He could be stranded somewhere or hurt. If he could come back, he would. That’s the kind of person Silas is.”

The Empress looked at him through the screen and then sighed again. “Very well, Corporal. I’m sure your Captain will be touched by your loyalty. Keep me informed.”

The screen went black once more, the call ended, and Cress breathed a sigh of relief. Another encounter survived, and he could go back to finding Silas. Honestly, the man was going to owe him so big for this by the time it was all said and done.

“Now I just have to—” He broke off when the radar that had been scanning for the signal from Silas’ tablet began to trill softly. His eyebrows shot up, and his eyes went to the screen instantly.

The tracker had picked something up. It was faint because it was far away, but there was no doubt about it. Finally, something to go off of.

Cress pinpointed the location and searched the coordinates to find out where he was going. When the planet swam into view on the screen, his jaw nearly hit the console. “Earth?” he asked, speaking out loud even though he was alone. “What in the Void is he doing there?”

It didn’t make much sense, but there was only one way to find out. He looked up the nearest warp path that would take him there, and set a course for it.

It was time to bring his Captain home.

Chapter Ten: And Found

Katia stretched in her bed as she opened her eyes, frowning for a moment as she tried to get her mental bearings. Whenever she woke up without the aid of her alarm, it took her a few moments to remember what day it was and whether or not she had to work. It was...Saturday, and she grinned, knowing she could stay in bed for a little longer.

This had been a strange week. Silas had been working harder than ever at getting his communicator up and running because several days ago, he'd managed to get the screen lit up for about ten minutes before it had gone back to not working. He was still desperate to get a message out to someone, and Katia didn't know how to help him, so she'd taken to sitting on the couch with her computer trying to look up anything that might help.

Alien and human tech were pretty different, as it turned out, so it hadn't been easy.

On Wednesday night, they'd stayed up until midnight working on it, though Silas had tried to send her to bed several times. He was frustrated, she could tell, and by 12:08 in the morning, she'd been hauling him to bed with promises of what she'd do for him if he got some sleep.

It turned out that he'd liked that idea, and they'd worked off his frustration until nearly two in the morning. When her alarm had gone off a little over four hours later, Katia had been groggy, petulant, and still sore, and so she'd done something she hadn't done in all the time she'd been running her inn.

She called in and took the day off.

The world hadn't stopped turning, nothing had gone to hell, and everyone had been happy that she'd finally taken a break. Silas allowed for distractions from his work periodically, so they could have breakfast and lunch together among other things, and though they didn't make much progress on getting a message out, Katia liked to think that they were both better for the break.

On Friday she'd gone into work and talked to her stand in and Ava, who had eyed her with suspicious eyes and asked if her visitor was still in town.

Katia hadn't lied to her.

Well. Not really.

Now it was Saturday, and she was in bed alone from the feel of it, which made her plans to lay in bed and try to seduce Silas fall short. Instead, she got up, put her robe on, and padded into the living room.

Silas wasn't there, either, and she frowned.

The front door was open a bit, though, so she peeked out and saw Silas standing there with his head tipped back, looking at the sky as the sun came up fully.

"Hey," she said softly. "Are you alright?"

He turned his head to look at her and nodded, a little smile on his face. It didn't meet his eyes, though, and those looked sad.

"Just wondering if I might be stuck here," Silas said.

"Oh." Katia didn't really know what to say to that. Obviously she didn't want him to leave. Things were good between them, really good, and she knew that with time, they would only get better. But she couldn't ask him to stay with her. He had a duty, and that was clearly very important to him. Important enough that she had to let him go do it.

Because she cared about him, she wanted him to be happy. Even if that meant she would be losing something she wanted so much.

They hadn't discussed that part of it yet, and honestly, Katia didn't want to talk about it. She didn't trust herself not to get overly emotional about things and end up making a mess of everything.

"You'll find your way back home," she said finally. "You'll do what you need to do. I believe that."

He smiled at her again, and this time it was warmer and he let her draw him into the house and back into bed.

"What are your plans for the day?" Silas wanted to know once they were wrapped up in each other again. He was so much bigger than her, and when he was big spoon, it was the most comfortable she'd ever been.