Astral (3 page)

“You would reject a mate for a pet hologram?” His astonishment was evident in the flare of light around him.

“Well, no. But if I can keep Fish, it would make my decision easier.” She crossed her arms and scowled at the physical embodiment of the star.

He seemed to catch on to what she was doing and he crossed his arms to mirror her. “What else?”

“A home on an inhabitable world. A wardrobe that is suitable to my new station and a com unit so that I can continue to communicate with my pen pals around the sectors.” She extended one arm and examined her fingernails. “And a pony. I definitely want a pony.”

“I have a world that Zakkar uses as a base. The wardrobe is easy as is the com unit. I will look into what a pony is and let you know.” He extended one hand. “So, you will consider it?”

She grinned and gripped his hand. “I will keep an open mind.”

Dina sat upright, her hand tingling, nipples tight and an uncomfortable dampness between her thighs. If the touch of Arci in her dreams could spin her into arousal, actually trying to have sex with Zakkar might blow the top of her head off.

What a way to go.

Chapter Four

Dina put on her standard uniform and peeked into the hall before sneaking to the dining room. It was no use, Zakkar was awake and Fish was walking him through breakfast selections.

“Good morning, Dina. How are you today?” He was smiling as he turned around and the smile faded rapidly as he got a good look at her.

He put his tray down and walked up to her, examining her with a glow in his eyes. “Arci spoke to you, didn’t he?”

She blinked. “How can you tell?”

He frowned. “I know his energy when I see it and it is all over you.”

Dina looked at her hands and tried to see whatever it was that he saw. “I don’t see anything.”

Zakkar touched her face. “It is everywhere on you, shining in your eyes.”

“We may have had a conversation last night, but I don’t think it had any effect on my physiology.” She frowned and turned on her heel. With deliberate strides, she entered her medical facility.

Putting herself into the scanning bed, she asked for a complete cellular scan as well as a detailed neurological workup. It was a fairly standard scan for her. In her line of work, it was common to court aneurysms.

Zakkar and Fish followed her and waited with her while she lay still under the beams.

When the computer began to digest the information, she sat up and rubbed her head.

“Are you all right?”

She chuckled at the worry in his face. “I have no idea. I feel fine, but if you see stellar energy in me, I need to know for certain what it is doing.”

Zakkar sighed. “I apologize. Arci is simply making sure that I get what I need.”

She blinked. “Wait. No one has ever said that you
needed
a mate.”

He scrubbed a hand through his hair. “With Arci inside me, I have aged very slowly. Extremely slowly, but even stars have to give way to time and I am entering my mating time with no female of my own kind. That meant we had to begin a search before it became a desperate matter, but time is rapidly running out. In another ten years, without bonding to a female, my body would degrade and Arci would have to seek out another avatar. He doesn’t want that and so I believe that he is working to adapt you even before official authorization has been granted.”

“You seem pretty sure that it will be granted.”

“I am the last of my kind and a stellar avatar to boot. There is no doubt in my mind that they will authorize your match to me.”

She twisted her lips and nodded. “It is likely and it was part of my original contract with the Alliance when I volunteered.”

“Tell me about that, over breakfast.” Zakkar smiled and offered her his arm.

“I would like to wait for my results.”

“They will still be there when you have eaten.”

“Good point.” She took his arm and together with Fish, they walked back to the dining room.

She was smiling and having a surprisingly good time. “So, what did you do next?”

Zakkar was leaning back and having a cup of tea. “Well, I nodded to the bartender, sent out a flash of light and flew the hell out of there.”

She cackled with laughter. His tales of the first few years as avatar were hilarious. His people had been wild and the Valoi were considered untrustworthy across the sector, so when he came to worlds where his folk were known, it had often caused a problem.

The Valoi had made a conscious decision to turn their pursuit of pleasure and knowledge into a simple focus on knowledge. To do that, many of their oldest and wisest had forgone their reproductive lives and when they discovered that they could accomplish much without the distraction of the opposite sex, they split their population in two and communicated via teleconferencing.

The population had dwindled rapidly and in the course of a few centuries, a once-great civilization collapsed and died out.

Dina had heard of similar events as well as whole planets being destroyed by disease. It seemed that the only way to ensure that your species didn’t get wiped out was to get citizens to colonize other worlds.

Scientists back home had a similar postulation. If humans could get one toehold out in space, there would never be a chance for them to all be destroyed by any natural or stellar disaster.

She blinked and grinned. “I wish I had amusing tales to tell about my first time on assignment, but I don’t.”

He chuckled. “Not to be nosey, but I read your file. There were several training incidents that you were involved in.”

She blushed and laughed at the same time. “True. Okay, once upon a time, there was an astral projector who was working on pushing herself out of her body at will.”

“You.”

“Exactly. Now, I was working on engaging in projection when an idle thought flitted through my head. The next thing I knew, I was in the men’s quarters at the Citadel, in the locker room of the gym to be precise.

“The men who were showering were a little surprised, but I wasn’t the only one who got an eyeful. I had been meditating naked and so when I snapped back into my body, I was still only half dressed when the instructor knocked on my door.”

He snorted. “What happened then?”

“I was written up for failure to comply with the Citadel uniform codes. It was the least harmful statement that they could put in my file, but due to the complaints or compliments depending on your point of view, they had to report something.”

He chuckled. “I can only imagine your surprise and their surprise.”

“Some of them reacted rather quickly to my presence and I don’t mean that they grabbed for a towel.”

Zakkar let out a low growl of displeasure and she blinked in surprise. Without thinking, she reached out and took his hand in hers, the spark of energy along her skin growing more violent as she maintained the contact.

She shivered intensely as the waves moved up and down her skin, waking nerves and pulsing randomly in the most pleasurable of ways.

He noticed her reaction, but instead of withdrawing his hand from hers, he turned his palm and gripped her forearm.

She started shuddering. The electronic pulse was more intense than anything she had ever gotten from her vibrator and the energy pulses grew in strength the longer that she kept contact. Her clit throbbed, her thighs flexed and her breath came in pants.

With a low moan, she shuddered as the sensations overloaded her system and pleasure broke over her in heavy, violent waves.

With a light caress on her skin, Zakkar let her go, but he leaned forward to press a kiss on her lips.

The light slide of his lips against hers sent sparks through her that caused an aftershock to go through her that had nothing to do with stellar energy and everything to do with Zakkar. As he backed away from her, she opened her eyes to watch the silver gaze look at her with a quiet and very masculine satisfaction.

“I think your reports will be ready by now. Do you want to see what they say?”

She blinked and gave him a slow smile. “I know very well what they say. Arci has already begun the transformation and there is nothing that I can do about it.”

His shock was evident. “You don’t seem upset.”

She laughed. “I am far too pragmatic to be upset. Since I came to the Alliance and got my training in the Citadel, my life has not been my own. I agreed to it openly and freely. I am required to submit to their choice of mate when they found one for me. I never suspected that one of them would come looking for me.”

He stood and pulled her to her feet. He stared down at her for a full minute before he spoke. “Once I knew you existed, how could I not?”

Chapter Five

The medical bay had her reports ready and it proved what she had concluded. Her body had been infected by Arci’s energy and it was rewriting her DNA. Estimated time to visible signs was two days.

“Well, at least he is being gentle.” She pursed her lips and jerked her head back. Fish swam in front of her eyes.

“What is it doing?”

“I have an incoming request from the surface. I did promise them to assist with any matters requiring my attention. Duty calls.”

He blinked. “May I come with you?”

She chuckled. “I am not going physically, but if you want to meet me down there, you are welcome to do so.”

He smiled. “Then, I will see you there.”

He caught her around the waist and pressed his lips to hers. The smooth, silky stroke of his mouth against hers had her stifling a sigh in seconds.

Just as quickly, he was gone.

Fish blinked urgently and she headed off to her pod. She loosened the seals of her suit as she walked and prepared to drop herself to the planet below.

With Fish watching her every move, she plugged in all-important hoses and descended into the gas clouds of Yeshkin.

With eight hours of negotiations for fertilizer rights under her belt, Dina was exhausted, but Zakkar had kept her spirits up. The petty squabbles had been quickly squelched with the presence of a stellar avatar. The negotiating parties had been so star struck that they had spent two hours offering Zakkar food and beverages as well as flattering every move he made.

It was amusing for Dina to watch her clients as they tried to get Zakkar’s attention. The down side was that she was waiting for them to let her get on with her work. When Zakkar finally got the negotiators under control, Dina took over and six hours of gruelling negotiations later, they had a ratified treatise.

“Thank you for helping them keep their minds on their work, Zakkar.”

“Go back to your body, Dina. You are exhausted.” He ran his knuckles down the side of her astral projection.

To Dina’s shock, she felt his touch, even without her body. The same tingle that ran over her when they physically contacted was running through her now. With a gasp, she pulled away from Yeshkin and back into her body.

Fish was swimming urgently in front of her as she used her unusually weak limbs to remove the plugs and tubes. As she lay still, staring up at the chronometer, she noted that while she had spent eight hours on Yeshkin, twelve hours had passed on the ship. She must have been unable to wake and Fish had used the protocols to jolt her up. A steady thump at the door got her attention and her skin blazed with energy that lit up the dim room.

“Whoa. That’s new.” Illuminating the room, she walked to the door and acknowledged Zakkar’s worried expression. “Unlock.”

The door clicked and rolled back. Zakkar caught her in his arms and quickly carried her to the medical bay.

“I am sure that I am fine. I have come out of a projection feeble before, this is just a little worse than normal.” If her voice had been stronger, it would have been more convincing.

He set the scanners and stood at her side while Fish hovered next to him.

She heard a few alarms beeping and wondered what the problem could be. When she tried to sit up, Zakkar put his hand on her chest to hold her in place. “Stay still. You are changing far more rapidly than Arci anticipated. Your body has begun to put out a lot of radiation, but since you are not completely through your transmutation, there is no way to contain it.”

She grunted. “Yes there is, sort of. I can stay in the pod.”

“Do you have supplies there?”

“I can use the intravenous feeds. I will be fine.” She tried to smile brightly, but her head spun and she wasn’t even moving.

“We will get you through this. I promise.” The worried tone in his voice did not inspire much confidence.

She chuckled. “You can try and I will follow along as best I can.”

Light was still pouring out of her and she couldn’t stop it. Her body was limp, her joints weak and she was completely helpless.

He lifted her from the scanning bed and carried her back to her pod, settling her carefully on her chair.

She relaxed and felt his hands slide over her in both comfort and containment.

“Just rest, Dina. I will take care of everything. Just rest.”

Sighing, she slipped into a deep sleep, taking the image of Zakkar leaning over her with Fish flitting urgently above his head.

Dina felt hot, cold and then a persistent tugging that brought her out of her endless night. “Wha?”

“Your containment suit arrived from Morganti. I am putting it on you and then you are sitting up so we can get some soup into you.” Zakkar’s voice was calm and amused as he worked the tight suit up her thighs and over her hips.

She let him tuck her into the bodysuit and smiled at the gentle compression that she felt as the suit moulded to her body. Her throat was dry, but the loose feeling was gone from her joints, leaving a slight ache and a peculiar energy.

As soon as he had the suit sealed, he tilted her upright and then he rotated the chair he was sitting on to take a bowl of soup into his hands.

“Fish has been very cooperative and the Alliance has given me full access to the systems.”

She frowned, but she opened her mouth when he held the spoon to it. The soup was chicken noodle and it was hot enough to drink but not hot enough to scald. Like an infant, she waited for the next spoonful with her lips parted.