War Games Read online

  During her training, she had studied the Council, one of the smallest and noisiest of all the Fusion’s many warmongering parties. Their oldest members had fled to the Fusion three generations ago, but they had never fully assimilated. Regardless of how long ago they had fled the Empire, they all wanted the same thing. An all-out war. Perlim versus Fusion, no matter that it was singularly ill advised. The displaced community kept demanding military action, as if every social injustice could be erased through state-sponsored murder, and the Fusion kept ignoring it.

  The Free-Perlim Council’s youth arm was particularly strident. She recalled a handsome firebrand…Nees? Nuss? Nils! Much to her surprise, he had dropped out of the organisation just as she had been deployed to Menon. She remembered catching vids of him at various public meetings and had read his fervent, but ultimately unsuccessful, submissions to the Lower Convergence. It was strange because he had such passion and energy. After watching the way he spoke about the Perlim situation and listening to his grievances, she expected him to be spouting vigorous war speeches till his death-bed. He had that sort of look about him. Then click! He disappeared.

  Maybe he had grown sick of advocating war. Maybe, she thought dryly, it showed that she was not as good at reading people and their motivations as she thought she was.

  She looked at Copan. “You’re trying to distract me, aren’t you? Getting me to think about something else besides Rumis.”

  “Is it working?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then, in that case, yes. I’m trying to distract you.”

  His face was serious, but his eyes twinkled.

  Day 1,512 of the War:

  Lith cleared her throat. In one hand she held the Colonel’s uniform, recently laundered with less stiffening. In the other, she held the late afternoon’s despatches. In both, she held her nervously beating heart.

  It was five days since her dinner with the Colonel, and she had thought of little else but the kiss they exchanged. After that night, she had wanted to stay away from her superior as much as possible, and was still amazed at how circumstances conspired to exceed her expectations. The life of a commanding officer’s aide was a frantic one of visits to other sectors, hospitals and administration centres; double-checking of requisition and delivery forms; laundry and driving duties; all on top of whatever else an aide was specifically requested to do by his or her commanding officer. And Sie herself had been absent for two days, occupied by an Intelligence workshop that had been held at the Seventeen.

  Thank the universe that subsequent meals had been with company, and she had even missed one of those when Rumis took her out for a relaxing evening at a bar he frequented in Territory Three.

  Rumis.

  She supposed she would have to do something about him too. At the moment, she was using him as a shield against the Colonel. He was attractive, funny and protective and deserved better than the crumbs of attention she was throwing him. Even Nils had garnered more of her undivided consideration and she was starting to regret giving him so much of her time. What had seemed so simple on Laeyek Omni B had turned completely upside down on Menon IV. Her parents had painted their own unhappy past in strokes of widest black and Nils had not been any better. How strange, then, to be treated with a casual courtesy by most of the soldiers she met. Rumis had extended more friendship and solidarity to her than most of the other members of the Free-Perlim Council. And as for the Colonel….

  She pressed the access button and heard a distracted command to enter just as the door slid open.

  The Colonel was not alone. She was seated behind her desk, furiously perusing something on an e-pad. Rumis was standing in front and to one side of her. He turned at Lith’s entrance and a broad smile split his face.

  “Lieutenant,” he greeted.

  “Major, Colonel,” she murmured. Sie accorded her only the briefest of looks before turning back to her paperwork.

  Maybe she should hand over the reports and laundry and escape before she got herself into any more trouble. Yes, that was probably for the best.

  “I’ll put your clothes,” she began, but Cheloi interrupted her.

  “Please stay.” Her eyes were still scanning words. “I have some rough words I’d like you to pass along to the camp laundry.”

  Lith saw Rumis grin and wiggle his eyebrows at her. The Colonel had a reputation for not sparing her words when something displeased her.

  “Yes Colonel,” she answered.

  “Rumis, it looks like you and I will need to pay Colonel Twol a visit next week. I think he’s being a bit too conservative in his sector’s tactics.”

  “I’ll arrange it, Colonel. What time would suit you?”

  “Try to make it a morning visit. The guest quarters in Yellow sector aren’t very comfortable.”

  “Yes Colonel.”

  “Dismissed.”

  Cheloi looked up then, sketching her adjutant a quick, nominal salute and watching as he passed next to her aide.

  “The latest holo-vid will be showing down in Five the day after tomorrow. Care for an evening out?”

  Lith swung her gaze from the Colonel to Rumis. “Er, yes. If I’m free. That would be nice.”

  “Let me know. I’ll collect you at eighteen hours if you are.” He saluted again and left.

  Silence filled the room.

  “He likes you,” Cheloi finally commented, her expression bland.

  Lith felt ridiculous standing there with her hands full. “I like him too,” she replied, a little defensively.

  The Colonel lifted an eyebrow and made an airy gesture with her hand. “In that case, maybe after the war….”

  Lith stared at her. What was she trying to suggest? That after the war she and Rumis could settle down and play happy families? She was confused. Had she imagined that impassioned kiss they exchanged? She jiggled the uniform.

  “You had something you wanted me to tell the laundry section?” She hoped her voice didn’t sound as desperate as she felt.

  The Colonel got up. In deference to the fact that it was late evening, her jacket was partially unbuttoned exposing a neck of smooth brown skin. Lith looked away and felt rather than saw the reports and clothes being taken from her. Part of her wanted to run away. Another part wanted to jump headlong into those arms. She remained frozen to the spot.

  She heard the Colonel disappear into her private quarters, and only turned her head when she returned, watching as the commander leant against the edge of the desk. Her eyes caught and locked with Lith’s.

  “If you want, you can lock the door.”

  Lith’s breath stopped in her throat. Her face flamed.

  Chapter Eight

  Cheloi could have easily disappeared into a hole in the ground. How could she have even intimated that Lith and Rumis set up home together? She had said it to watch for a reaction, paradoxically half-disappointed when she saw nothing but confusion. If she only knew the power she held, Lith would realise that she was the flame and Cheloi nothing but the hapless moth.

  Copan’s words echoed in her head. Have a no-strings affair with her driver? As if it were that easy. Already the Perlim woman had entranced her, to the point that Cheloi could barely spend a handful of minutes together without the thought of her driver intruding. Lith’s sense of energy, her enthusiasm, was out of character in a war zone. It made her stick out like a candle in a dark bombed out landscape. Rumis recognised those qualities too. Was this then, as much a race against her adjutant as herself? Would she win? And, more importantly, what would happen if she did?

  If she stretched out her hand, she could touch her driver.

  The moments stretched between them, until Lith spun abruptly.

  She’s going to leave, Cheloi thought in panic. She’ll walk out.

  I’ve lost.

  Lith flicked the lock on the door and turned. Her expression was mutinous. “Now what?”

  Cheloi smiled, swallowed and tried to look nonchalant. Suddenly, she felt like a lovesick
teenager again.

  “Would you like something to drink? I have some tawny life-water I keep on hand.” Her lips quirked. “For medicinal purposes.”

  “I need something,” Lith admitted curtly, deliberately relaxing her shoulders.

  Cheloi nodded and walked over to the bureau, pouring two glasses of smooth brown-red liquid out of a bottle she kept behind closed doors. She carried them to Lith and held out one.

  “What should we drink to?” Lith asked, and Cheloi could see from the way her hand trembled that she was a lot more nervous than she appeared.

  “How about, possibilities?”

  “All right,” Lith said, a beat too quickly. “To possibilities.”

  The Perlim life-water burnt fire from Cheloi’s throat to her stomach. If she ever got out of this alive, she had to find a supplier willing to smuggle the drink across imperial lines. The Fusion had nothing like it. When she drained her glass, she put it down on the desk behind her.

  “What do we do now?” Lith asked, her voice a little breathless.

  Cheloi’s body thrummed. “What would you like to do?”

  Lith moved closer, placing her glass on the desk, stepping forward so her feet were on either side of Cheloi’s. She took a deep breath. Her voice faltered only slightly. “I think I would like you to kiss me.”

  This time it was Cheloi who sandwiched Lith’s head between her hands, closing her eyes and drinking deeply from her sweetness. The scent of the woman was enough to make her forget Menon, forget Sab-Iqur and why she was here in the first place.

  The kiss was as special as the first time, as intoxicating, as encompassing. Cheloi spread her legs apart, forcing Lith’s to open even more, eventually tumbling her blonde driver into her lap. Her fingers were quick and deft as they unbuttoned her aide’s tunic, then they were sliding underneath, capturing the warmth of a full breast in one hand, squeezing it gently.

  Lith, fallen sideways, could do little other than offer herself to Cheloi, closing her eyes as Cheloi’s questing hand stroked her body leaving trails of fire in its wake. The colonel set her on her feet again, peeling off the tunic then lifting the undervest up to her collarbone, bunching the soft black material. Lith’s breasts, unfettered by material, were firm and round and Cheloi wanted to dive straight into them, to lose herself in their globular softness, and breathe in nothing but pure, unadulterated Lith.

  Slowly, she kissed and licked the warm skin in short strokes. One of her hands was on Lith’s back, fanned out, pushing her forward. The other caressed smooth skin. Under her fingertips, she felt her aide trembling, each movement of her mouth or thumb sending a shiver through the lithe body she held. After many minutes, she lifted her head.

  “I want you,” Cheloi whispered hoarsely. “I want to fuck you.”

  “Yes,” Lith sobbed brokenly.

  “I want you in my bed, your hands on my body.”

  Lith’s head fell back as she offered Cheloi her throat. “Yes. Whatever you want.”

  It was a handful of steps to the bedroom and Cheloi wasted none of them, efficiently stripping Lith of the rest of her uniform before divesting herself of her own clothes.

  How many nights had she dreamt of this? It felt so barren and lonely gasping out a climax in the isolation of her room and now, finally, she had Lith in bed with her, rubbing against her like an impatient cat.

  For the first time since she landed on the dustbowl that was Menon IV, Cheloi was feeling joyous. Mindless pleasure was replacing the crushing pressure, distracting her from the politics of her assignment and the cynicism of seeing body after body thrown into the planet’s death-mill.

  Lith’s tongue and teeth, moving low on her body, were insistent and Cheloi couldn’t contain the cry that seared her throat as a climax overtook her and she convulsed on its compulsive and persistent waves.

  It grew in pleasure until it tipped the balance into pain, and Cheloi quickly moved away, smiling dazedly down into self-satisfied pools of searing amber.

  “It’s been too long,” she panted, a little embarrassed by how easily she had succumbed to Lith’s caresses. “What would you like me to do?” She was eager to please.

  “Just hold me,” Lith told her. “Can you do that?”

  Surprised, Cheloi nodded. Pulling Lith further up on the mattress, she slipped sideways between Lith and the wall, wrapping arms and legs around the other woman and holding her close. She liked the way Lith fitted, tight up against her, her hips curving into Cheloi’s flat abdomen, her breasts resting against Cheloi’s forearm and body.

  Idly, Cheloi began running a finger over Lith’s flesh, forming little circular flourishes on her smooth brown skin. She felt her aide’s breathing quicken and suppressed a smile, increasing the urgency of her strokes as she concentrated on one small nub of aroused flesh.

  Lith’s eyelids flew open and her body lifted off the bed, a cut-off cry filling the room. Cheloi finally granted her surcease, letting the aftershocks of climax tremble against the both of them.

  “I’m sorry it was so quick,” Cheloi said quietly after a few minutes of ragged breathing. “Next time, I’ll take it slower.”

  Lith tried to chuckle, but it remained a choked sound stuck in her throat. “I, it still felt good,” she said and her voice was husky with the aftermath of sex.

  She wanted her driver again but knew she shouldn’t. Her grip on Lith tightened for a moment, then she relaxed her hold.

  “It’s late. You have to go.”

  “Yes.” Lith swallowed. “I know.”

  The filtered air of Cheloi’s underground bedroom shouldn’t have felt so cold against her naked flesh, but chill emptiness filled the void when Lith rose. She was amused by her driver’s modesty as Lith turned her back and put her clothes on.

  “You may want to go into the bathroom and wash your face,” Cheloi suggested gently. “And head back to your quarters as quickly as possible.”

  Lith nodded and did as suggested, sluicing her face with a stream of water before donning her tunic. She hesitated after retying her hair into its usual pristine bun, pausing as she took in Cheloi’s still naked figure on the bed.

  “I’d…better go.”

  Oh, how Cheloi wanted to rip the clothes off her again and spend the next week dipping into Lith’s lithe body, only surfacing for food and the barest minimum of rest. But this wasn’t Ozca Secundus II, or any other resort planet. They were both on Menon IV. Even Cheloi’s friends weren’t really her friends.

  “Go back quickly,” she repeated, “straight to your quarters.”

  After a terse acknowledgement, Lith left.

  Day 1,514 of the War:

  It’s just a physical infatuation. No, it’s lust. No, it’s…something more.

  The words on the screen danced in front of Lith’s aching eyes. Just thinking about the last two nights made her cheeks burn and the ache in her groin start anew. She couldn’t blame the Colonel for their mutual passion. No coercion had been necessary. No sly shuffle of blame could occur.

  Lith grimaced at the columns of text and numbers that slowly scrolled past her. When had bitter chocolate become her colour of choice? For eyes that seemed to hold the entire galaxy in its dark depths. Too shadowed at rest, too cutting at play. There had been nothing deceptive or elusive about Nils, the Fusion lover she’d left behind. He lived on the outer layers of his skin, every emotion flashing across his face with the speed of a laser strike. Nils was crafted for the grand gesture, from the time she’d seen him at one of the Free-Perlim Council rallies to the time he’d thrown the gauntlet down to the Council demanding action and been rebuffed.

  She couldn’t imagine Sie operating that way, risking success on a group of people she couldn’t control. In fact, observing the Senior Colonel had shown her what a shrewd operator the woman was, able to sidestep potential objections, negotiate compromises and defuse potentially explosive situations with crisp efficiency. A smile quirked Lith’s lips. It was often instructional, as well as amusing, wat
ching the Colonel in action at the general staff meetings, on those rare occasions she had been given permission to attend.

  Compared to Nils, Cheloi Sie was another species completely, both figuratively and literally. She was quietly relentless where Nils was grandiose, silent where he was strident. She was like a cool dark pool of water. Calm and mysterious, with her obsidian-tinted eyes. A Perlim commander, surrounded by thousands of loyal soldiers willing to die at her command, yet so distinctly, so utterly, alone. When she looked at Cheloi Sie, she didn’t see the Butcher of Sab-Iqur any more. She saw her lover.

  Current lover. Future lover?

  Just the thought made Lith groan and she clicked to the second interminable set of expense records.

  She had volunteered for Menon IV to kill the very person she now found so fascinating. How could she even contemplate delivering the fatal shot to a person she had shared such intimacies with? But if she didn’t do this, how could she face herself in the mirror?

  Her head ached and Lith reached up to rub her temple, her fingers pulling at the flesh near her eyebrows.

  “Is something the matter, Lieutenant?”

  The voice behind her, as chill and grey as its owner, made her jump and turn hastily in her chair.

  “No, Colonel, not at all.”

  Grakal-Ski looked down at her with a paternal look of concern that didn’t fool her for an instant. “It’s just that you look, discomfited.”

  Lith pulled her hand from her face and looked at it as if she’d never seen it before, then smiled nervously.

  “Sorry, sir. It’s just a headache. I’m sure it will go away soon.”

  But the Colonel wasn’t to be placated so easily. He leant forward, focusing on the screen. Lith cringed away as subtly as she could. “What is this? Doing the monthly audit?”

  “Major Swonnessy thought I’d appreciate the exercise,” she said. It was easier to frown at the numbers than at the territory’s second-in-command. Better for her long-term health too.