Fate War: Alliance (32 page)

He lowered himself, almost his full weight against her, and she had never felt more safe, more protected, more loved as she was wrapped in his flesh and shrouded in the his scent of sweat and sage.

Cole moved inside her deeper, more fervent; his weight heavier, stronger. She buried her face in the crook of his neck, all knowing gone except for the rising passion at her core and his body, flush against hers.

Passionate, unbridled thrusts bid her open, and Sam did gladly. A wave of frenzied ecstasy erupted from her core, clenching every muscle in her body. She clung to Cole, trying desperately to pull him closer, to be more one. He met her challenge as his swelling shaft pressed against her tightening passage. It was too much, and not enough so she screamed to release the tension of contradiction and held fast to Cole who moaned in pleasure or pain. She couldn’t be sure as all sense was gone, only the feel of him having her, completely.

He stilled, his weight settling on her completely. Sweat dripped from his face to her forehead where he rested his lips. She was aware suddenly of the uncontrollable trembling of her legs wrapped around his waist and her fingers embedded in the thick muscle of his back.

Cole shifted, threatening to remove his blessed weight from her, and Sam gripped him with her arms and legs to keep him in place. If she could breathe, this was how they would stay forever. After a while his heart beat stilled against her chest, and she released him. He only moved a little to the side, enough not to smother her, keeping them bound in the most intimate of ways.

He looked down at her, tucking stray, damp strands of hair behind her ears. Neither of them needed to speak to honor the triumph of the moment. Cole caressed her cheek with his thumb, then kissed her tenderly, his moist lips covering hers. They were salty, musky and left a sensual curiosity in their wake, tasting herself on him.

“Sleep,” he whispered, and disentangled himself from her, and she was sad for the loss. She tried, dispelling the images of impending war, and replacing them with those of Cole and their lovemaking. Eventually, she faded into troubled dreams.

****

The first hazy grey streaks of dawn lit the windows. Cole didn’t think that either of them slept more than a few minutes at a time throughout the night. When he awoke fully, Sam lay curled against him, petting a morose Sprocket. He imagined her as a child, this creature her only friend, only confidant. He spooned closer, caressing and kissing her still bare shoulder.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, and trailed his fingers the length of her arm. She sighed, and Sprocket seemed to mimic the action by spreading and closing his wings with an exasperated whir.

“People are going to die,” she stated.

“People die in war, Sam,” he tried to console. Cole kissed her shoulder again for reassurance and let his lips linger on her soft skin.

“People are going to die, because I’ve sent them to die.” This time she couldn’t hide the panicky warble in her voice.

“Sam,” he breathed, pulling her closer. “People were going to die anyway. You just offer the hope of victory.”

She nodded, but he could tell she was loath to accept his interpretation. He slipped his hand beneath the blankets, and traced the length of her side, enjoying the play of his fingers of the slight hills and valley’s made by her ribs. Chuckling at her reflexive jerk, when he trailed a finger lightly across the satin skin of her hip, he was shocked with a sudden realization.

“You tinkered your chastity belt,” he accused, amused. Cole ran his hand across the smooth skin again, where there should be scars or at least rough skin from abrasion.

“I didn’t have to.” She peered over her shoulder, and he was glad to see the slightest spark of humor in her eyes.

“What do you mean you didn’t have to?”

“Sprocket Deactivate.” The golden creature folded up where it stood, and she placed it on the night stand. Swinging her legs wearily from the bed, she tried to wrap a sheet around her as she left.

“Uh uh,” Cole chastised, and held fast to the offending fabric, making her traverse the room naked. He could see the blush rising from her shoulders to the nape of her neck as she opened a drawer in the desk and searched. When she finally turned, she was holding the accursed palm-sized brass shell. She sat on the side of the bed, and Cole joined her.

Sam began to turn tiny circles which were so finely set he hadn’t noticed them before. After a moment, the contraption began to ratchet open, gold sleeves expanding until a thin, intricately engraved chastity belt was formed. She handed it to Cole to inspect. The mech was covered in etchings and small moveable pieces.

“It’s a fractional exponent.”

“A what?”

“The pattern etched into the metal, it’s a fractional exponent. I could see it immediately, and once I noticed the movable pieces I completed the pattern and…”

Sam reached over, and slid a few circles around changing the pattern. To Cole it was an unintelligible design. The belt began to shrink back until it sat once again in his hand, a piece of tarnished carving,

“The keys were useless.” Cole stated flatly, amazed at the intricacy of the mech.

“I guess I already knew, but Jasper made it.” The strain in her voice pulled Cole’s attention away from the belt. Sam continued, “Zeb told me all about it. Jasper agreed to make it, and this is why. He made sure I didn’t actually have to wear it.”

Sam took the contraption and tossed it across the room, leaving it where it clattered. She joined him under the covers again, and he watched her sparkling green eyes lose their humor as they lay facing each other.

“I just don’t understand why he would go to all the trouble of protecting me like that, then desert, turn traitor. It doesn’t make sense unless he’s being held against his will. But why make the mech for the Fate then? Ugh! Why does Jasper have to be such an enigma?”

It was almost humorous to see Sam stumped, and Cole kept a tight rein on the smile attempting to curl his lips. It wasn’t funny. Jasper’s desertion was real cause for concern, but Sam was just so adorable when she was perplexed.

There was a soft knock, and the swish of something sliding under the door. Neither moved, choosing to stay close for as many moments as possible. They grasped at the last seconds of calm before they opened the dossiers just delivered, and before war.

For a morning such as this to be so serene, so implicitly calm, made the waiting unbearable. Sam drew in a deep breath, forcing nerves and flashing images of partial contingencies from her mind. It was the only fresh breath she had ever taken in the Capitol of Arborea. The air was clean and cool; like after a rain. The factories had been still for several days as the evacuation of the city was complete, which added to the eerie quiet of the day. Only a slight haze and a hint of wood ash hung in the air from the numerous bonfires at the base of the wall some twenty feet below.

Sam stood side by side with Cole, atop the wall that surrounded most of the city. The community had leaked out of the boundary over the years with a trickle of houses and businesses. But no industry had crept to the east where they now overlooked the great plain that was the entrance to Arborea.

The wall and the castle stood sentinel, protecting the rest of the country from intruders from the east. Towering sea cliffs guarded the land to the west and south. A line of mountains to the north, and frozen wasteland stretching beyond precluded attack from there. In centuries past, Arborea was virtually impenetrable due its natural defenses and the well placed castle and wall. Not so anymore with advancing technology.

Sam kept her eyes on the horizon where the first of the Fate air ships should appear in moments. She snuck only furtive glances at Cole and the Sagewood Garrison, their personal guards. They were all dressed in crisp, black military uniforms, including herself. This indicated their status as the beginnings of a new breed of warrior – The Alliance Army. It was a political designation at the moment, more than military. The rest of the hundred or so officers and guards were in their designated country’s uniforms: red, blue, and shades of green. The color that matched Sam’s eyes represented their newest allies, the Nakona, not that they actually had a uniform.

Captain Jensen and five of the garrison boys had not been happy when Cole commissioned them as his and Sam’s personal guard. The men wanted to be in the battle. Orders were orders, and though Sam was not happy with the idea either, she knew Cole was right. Should this battle be lost, they would all be running for their lives. They not only needed men that would protect them, but who could fight alongside them too.

Sam scanned the horizon, peering through her brass telescope, for any signs of movement. Seeing none, she collapsed the instrument and clipped it to her belt next to her pistol, then rested her hands on her hips just above the hilts of her short swords.

Tension coiled between her shoulder blades as the waiting carried on. Everything hinged on her, and her predictions and her contingencies. How had she come to be in such a place of power? Even as Queen, she would not be directly orchestrating war, directly responsible for the survival of the kingdom. Yet here she stood surrounded by the very red and blue suited men who had witnessed her Verification, and she commanded them. The juxtaposition boggled her mind.

A shout went up from further down, and a whisper rustled along the wall; cloth on cloth, the chink of metal. Every person moved only slightly as muscles tensed, eyes and ears strained. Sam removed her telescope, and scanned the horizon again. There they were. Fate air ships.

“So it begins,” she whispered to herself.

Sam nodded to General Crom, who in turn nodded to an officer armed with a flare cannon. A sizzle, hiss and ear popping crack preceded the green fireworks display arrayed in the sky. Now they would wait again.

The distant thrum of the Fate air fleet, held aloft by grey air bladders, had just begun to reach their ears when incendiaries began toppling and exploding on the ground below the ships.

Had the Alliance reacted in normal battle strategy, that plain would be lined with soldiers, who would have been destroyed. The display stopped after a few seconds as Sam predicted, for it was only a show of power. There were no soldiers on the plain to kill.

The thrumming intensified, and the air vibrated around them. The fleet of Perspician blue air ships appeared from behind. Having come out of hiding at the flare signal, it seemed a poor show of a sickly fifty in comparison to the Fate two hundred. She had poured over every spec available, created her own, rechecked and still could not come up with a way to mount cannons on the ships. The payload would just be too great. Bows and arrows, small firearms, and light explosives were all the ships could carry. In a few moments she would know if her modifications to the crossbows were enough.

As expected, a volley of flaming arrows shot from Fate airships as they approached striking distance. The Perspician flotilla remained out of range. Sam focused her telescope across the plain on the closest pair of airborne combatants. She watched the blue clad soldiers lighting an arrow affixed to a modified crossbow. The trigger was pulled, and she followed the trajectory to the Fate foe. Though the enemy ship should be out of range, the arrow struck home in the gray air bladder.

A chorus of cheers erupted along the wall, and was echoed from soldiers below. Sam did not cheer, but turned her attention back to the flickering arrows lodged in most of the enemy ships now.

“Like the Perspician air bladders, I’m sure the Fate’s can take several shots,” Sam spoke to no one in particular. “The balloons are probably coated in a fire retardant as well. But if your scientists have done their job, Cole, this stage of the battle will be over shortly.”

The Perspician air sailors continued their volleys, well out of reach of the Fate. Superfluous arrows embedded themselves in the ships, for the first arrows launched burst bright white. Liquid fire began to drip down the air bladders, and onto the decks below. In moments, over half the Fate fleet was ablaze and falling from the sky. There would be no survivors in the downed ships engulfed in white flame. Alliance scientists had indeed completed the compound as specified.

Sam blocked out the whoops and whistles of her comrades as the decimated enemy fleet, less than a third remaining, turned and limped back behind their lines. There was nothing to celebrate. This was the easiest victory, and there were many more waves of attacks to defend.

The Perspician fleet dropped ballasts and sailed higher, moving forward slowly. Sam searched the ground for the next wave of attack, and found what she expected. Mechmen. Hundreds of mechmen were coming into view at the edge of the plain, surrounded by ground troops. Sam nodded to the General and two green flairs exploded above them.

Packages began tumbling from their airships. Sam’s heart sank with them. She hated asking Cole to use his knowledge of healing, and turn it to killing. She chanced a glance at him. He was stone faced, hands clasped behind his back, watching the battle before him. Would she ever forgive herself for causing that sadness in his eyes?