Solbidyum Wars Saga Book 1: Battle of the New Orleans (18 page)

Lunnie said th
at cranking the door open was slow and she was right, first a panel had to be removed by the door revealing a sort of jacking mechanism that one had to crank back and forth. Each crank opened the door about a half inch, opening the door large enough for a person to fit through took several minutes, fortunately no one in the
TRITYTE
came out.  Once the door was opened far enough Lt. Reidecor, Sgt. Marranalis and I slipped into the cargo hold and carefully worked our way to the cargo ramp.  From the open door we could hear the voices of the two guards but heard no sound of any others.

“Do you think there are only two
?” Lt. Reidecor whispered.

I
shrugged my shoulders and shook my head. “I’ve no idea I replied, we need to assume there are more.” I motioned for Reidecor to follow me and for Marranalis to guard the door.  Reidecor and I slipped aboard the
TRITYTE and
moved toward the galley. 

From inside we could hear the guards talking.  We were about to
pass the crew quarters on the way to the galley when Lt. Reidecor motioned for me to stop, he carefully looked inside and motioned indicating someone was in there.  I crept over and peeked in to see a man sleeping on one of the bunks; he was laying on his side with his back to us.  Lt. Reidecor whispered to me, “I’ll take care of this,” and he quietly slipped inside, a few seconds later he just as quietly marched the man out the door with the gun to his head and down the corridor away from the galley only to return shortly, “Where is he?” I asked.

“Taking another nap
,” Reidecor said with a grin.

Ahead from the galley we heard
two guards talking, “Do you think we will be heroes when we get back?” one guard asked.

“
Probably, but the Captain and that Corporal Lexmal traitor fellow from the Federation will probably get all the glory. I suspect we’ll get a nice promotion and some sort of recognition though. Plus, I’m sure there will be lots of women wanting to be with us.” The second guard said, a hint of excitement in his voice.

“Yeah” said the
first guard dreamily “having the women is almost as good as having the money.”

“Sure would be nice if we could open that container back there in the hold and take just one grain of that
Solbidyum stuff. They would never miss it, millions of grains in there and all.”  Guard two mentioned.

“
It would never work, I heard them say back on Bunem that the container is rigged.  If you try to open it wrong it is booby trapped, it would kill you.  There are alarms and poison gasses and other protections.  Without knowing what they are, there is no way to get into it.”

“Then how the officials going to get into it
,” Guard number two said emphatically.

“Because they got the codes dummy
, got them back when we was still part of the Federation.  They know how that thing is put together.” The first guard said in an insulting tone.

“Don’t you getting high and might
y on me; you’re not any smarter than I am.  You’re always acting like you’re so much better than me but I know that you never would have pasted the qualification tests if you hadn’t cheated, at least I didn’t cheat!” retorted the second of the two.

“Yeah and you only passed by one point
, at least I was smart enough to cheat, got a lot better grade than you did too!”

Suddenly there was a sound of fighting in the galley and I motioned for Lt.
Reidecor and I to make our move.  We both burst into the galley guns at the ready; it took a second or two for the two guards to realize what was happening and to raise their hands.   Guard number one looked at guard number two and said, “If you was so smart, we wouldn’t be staring at these guns right now.”  Reidecor and I just laughed.

With all the crew and guards in wrist restraints and locked in the very same hold we had been earlier I met with my crew in the cargo ships galley
. We had the ship on autopilot and I felt it would be safe long enough for us to have a brief meeting.

“It’s highly unlikely that the
Bunemnites know the
TRITYTE
was ever captured. If we keep the
TRITYTE
aboard this ship we can fly pretty much undetected all the way from here to Megelleon. Even though we know the Bunemnites were prepared to attack the
DUSTEN
, as far as we know peace still exists between the two systems, so a cargo ship flying to Megelleon will not be strange. Since the Bunemnites have all their ships off either chasing after the decoy or stationed by the
DUSTEN
its unlikely we will see a Bunemnites ship, but if we do they would only assume we are either on a cargo mission or hunting the
TRITYTE
ourselves, and pay us no mind.  If we encounter a Federation ship it will assume basically the same thing and again ignore us, same for any mercenaries trying to acquire the Solbidyum by means fair or foul.  Unknowing to the Bunemnites they have given us the perfect disguise to get to Megelleon without detection. By my calculations we are still about a week and a half out of Megelleon.”

I looked around the room at
everyone; all of them were beaming and Kala was looking at me smiling, “We never would have gotten this far without you Tib” she said admiringly.

I laughed and said
, “Well I guess it’s a good thing I actually fell into the
TRITYTE
then.”

Kala looked at me with a more
appraising look, “That’s not what I meant Tib, you seem to be way ahead of us in thinking, planning and in action and I think everyone else here agrees,” everyone was nodding their heads and looking at me.  “If it hadn’t been for your plan the
DUSTEN
would be in a battle right now with the Bunem fleet and the Solbidyum would most likely fall into their hands. Without your thinking and actions we would have still been back there and the Bunemnites would have won.  We could not have done it without you and your leadership.”

I think what impressed me most about her speech was the tears in her eyes and that ran down her cheeks
. At that moment I loved her more than I have loved anything in my life and I reached out my hand and took hers “Come with me to my cabin... we need to talk.” As I was leading her out the room I heard Lunnie exclaim, “It’s about time!”

Kala
seemed surprised by my action of taking her hand; other than for our dancing we had never really held hands at any time.  Yes we had touched in many of our activities, martial arts training and other occasions, but nothing like this.  I didn’t release her hand, nor did she try and pull away, but I could tell she was confused by my action; we no sooner entered my cabin than she began talking.

“
Tibby, if I have done something wrong, I apologize, it was not by intention and I ….”   I didn’t let her finish, I pulled her to me and kissed her lips, she broke the kiss and started to draw back looking at me in surprise and started to say, “Tibby I’m not sure this….” I interrupted her again with a kiss, for a moment she relaxed a bit and then suddenly stiffened and tried to pull away again but I pulled her tightly against me kissing her more passionately opening my lips and tracing hers with my tongue. For a moment she remained still and then suddenly she threw her arms around my neck and was kissing me as passionately as I was kissing her.  I opened my eyes for a second and saw tears streaming down her cheeks and I drew my head back and began kissing them off her cheeks.  I looked at her again and the smile on her face told me all I needed to know and I kissed her again.  I had her pressed up against the wall and suddenly she raised her legs wrapping them around me as she held on to my neck kissing me.  I turned her around and carried her to my bed and let us both fall into it, I was looking at her shining eyes and the most beautiful smile I have ever seen and I asked her quietly “Kala do you love me?”

“I can’t answer that
, I’m not supposed…” I stopped her.

“I don’t care what you are supposed to do or feel
, I want to know do you love me?”

“
Love is not typically part of our.” She started but again I cut in.

“Kala I am not asking you about your culture or your society or Federation practices
.  I am asking you do you love me.”  Kala looked at me, her face inches from mine her eyes moving, looking at my face and softly she said, “Yes,” I kissed her again and her kisses were as ardent as my own, our hands moving of their own volition and clothing coming off until at last our bare flesh was pressing against each other’s in the most pleasurable of ways.  We made love several times over the next eight hours, never leaving my cabin, taking small naps between love making and holding each other quietly after and kissing gently and often. 

After
several hours there was a knocking at my door and Lunnie’s voice called out... “This is a life check to make sure no one in there is dead!” Kala laughed and shouted… “Go away… brat!” Lunnie’s laughing was broken by a “just checking!” and all was silent again.  I propped myself up on one arm and looking at Kala “That’s what she’s been riding you about isn’t it? Now I get it, she’s known since she came aboard that you and I were in love, even before I realized it. All this time she’s been laughing at us stumbling around each other.  Before she said it, I knew I was attracted to you, but it was her words that made me realize I loved you that day in the shower.”

Kala was smiling and tears were in her eyes again
“Yeah, that’s Lunnie,.  She always has a way of knowing things like that and taking great pleasure in watching others struggle getting it together.”

“But how does she
.,” I began but Kala raised a finger and pressed it to my lips and said,

“T
here are some things Lunnie will never tell you or me, and this is one,” she laughed, “I’m not sure we would understand even if she did tell us.”  Then she rolled over on her back  “Make love to me one more time and then let’s get back to work.  We have a cargo to deliver.”  When a major, especially a very attractive and naked one gives you an order one should always obey.

It was about an hour later, after Kala and I had showered and dressed
, that we entered the bridge. Lieutenant Reidecor and Lunnie were the only ones there and other than for a normal greeting neither paid any particular attention to us nor acted as though anything was different.   Sgt. Marranalis had taken up a station outside the small hold where the prisoners were being held.  During the night Lunnie had rigged up a slot in the door big enough to pass items through but not large enough for a person to get through.   The prisoners were required to turn their backs to the door to have their restraints removed.  She had managed to find and install components for a portable shower and a toilet so there was no need for the prisoners to be removed from their cell.  Food was passed in through the slot.  From the bruises on Corporal Lexmal face and the way he isolated himself to one corner of the cell, it was obvious that he no longer was favored by the Bunemnites. 

Most likely
, after we made Megelleon the other prisoners would be released as a gesture of peace with the Bunemnites.  There would be hopes that now that the Solbidyum had been recovered they would rejoin the Federation and potentially benefit by getting some of this rare commodity to help their planet prosper, otherwise they would suffer economically.  But Corporal Lexmal faced a court-martial and the death penalty as did the crew that had sent the message about the Solbidyum in the beginning.

Time went by quickly after that it seemed everyone still practiced martial arts movements every day in the main cargo hold aboard the
TRITYTE
which was still in the cargo hold of the Bunem ship, only now we staggered it so there were always two people on duty in the control room.   For the most part we didn’t have any problems with the prisoners other than complaints.  Corporal Lexmal didn’t seem to be faring too well but after we threatened to put everyone into restraints for the rest of the voyage if they kept beating him, they stopped.  But it seemed that he was not getting his full portions of food and had lost some weight.  He stayed in his corner curled up in a fetal position and said nothing to anyone.  Personally I didn’t feel sorry for him.

For the rest of the Trip Kala spent every night in my compartment with me
.  We talked of many things.  I loved the natural scent of her skin.  We were talking one day shortly before we reached Megelleon when she asked me “Tib, what’s going to happen to us after we land?” 
              “What do you mean what’s going to happen,” I asked.

“I mean,
it’s highly unlikely they will let me continue as attaché with you if we are romantically involved.” 

“I see
,” I said thoughtfully.  This hadn’t fully occurred to me yet for some unknown reason, “what would you like to do?”

“Tib I don’t want to leave you
, ever.  I know that sounds strange for our culture here in the Federation, relationships seldom last a life time, but I don’t want any other relationships. The reason Lunnie gives me such a hard time is because I haven’t had many relationships, I just never felt I wanted to be with anyone. Then you come along and now you’re the only one I want to be with.” Kala said.