Oth­er­wise, Tra­nis kept his at­ten­tion fo­cused on the vid trans­mis­sion of his quarry. He stared at the alien ves­sel fly­ing through space as if he could will it into his pos­ses­sion. The Kalquo­rian spy­ship had stalked the Earther freight trans­port for three days now, fly­ing cloaked to avoid de­tec­tion. The time to take ac­tion was upon the cap­tain. He could al­most taste vic­tory, and it took a great deal of self-con­trol to re­mind him­self not to rush the cap­ture.

  Li­don’s deep voice spoke, low and in­ti­mate into Tra­nis’ ear. “There’s still no sign they’ve de­tected our pur­suit, Cap­tain.”

  “How long be­fore they reach Earth’s main se­cu­rity grid?”

  “Two days, but we might run into se­cu­rity check points be­fore then. They’ll break com­mu­ni­ca­tion si­lence once they get past the largest gas gi­ant. They call it Jupiter, af­ter some an­cient Earth god.”

  “Earth­ers and their re­li­gious fas­ci­na­tions. It touches ev­ery­thing they do.” Tra­nis shook his head and darted a glance at the huge planet dis­played on an­other vid, float­ing at the for­ward sec­tion of the spy­ship’s bridge. Its red­dish stri­a­tions and swirls were hyp­notic in their beauty, a pretty round bauble seem­ingly sus­pended on one side of the stark com­mand cen­ter. He paused for a brief sec­ond to en­joy the view be­fore redi­rect­ing his fo­cus once more to his prey.

  A planet called Jupiter. Named for an Earther god. How typ­i­cal. Was there noth­ing re­lated to Earth that didn’t have re­li­gious con­no­ta­tions? That species’ fa­nati­cism had brought on the war driv­ing Tra­nis’ peo­ple to­ward ex­tinc­tion faster than the virus had. A year ago, Kalquor had a pro­jected 300 years of sur­vival left for its pure­blood cit­i­zens. Now the num­ber was 275 and fall­ing fast.

  The irony never failed to make the young cap­tain wince. The race de­stroy­ing his was also the Kalquo­ri­ans’ only hope for sur­vival. What a sick joke.

  Ten men manned the bridge of the spy­ship Tra­nis com­manded. Most bent over free-float­ing com­puter con­soles, their pur­ple eyes ab­sorb­ing the green-tinged vid read­outs as they gath­ered in­for­ma­tion. Forty more men, mostly ground in­fil­tra­tion teams, were on the ship.

  At the front of the room three large vids floated, their com­bined size span­ning the height and width of the cham­ber. On the left was the mon­u­men­tal gas gi­ant Jupiter, its rust-col­ored stripes giv­ing the dimly-lit room a red­dish hue. In the cen­ter was a di­ag­nos­tic read­out, con­tain­ing ex­haus­tive in­for­ma­tion about the planet, their po­si­tion, ship sta­tus, and the Earther trans­port they pur­sued.

  The third vid showed the Earther trans­port, a blocky un­ob­tru­sive space­ship de­signed to con­vey sup­plies and goods. In this case, it also con­veyed a cer­tain Gen­eral Patrick Hamil­ton. The mil­i­tary leader was in charge of Earth war sup­plies. He was hur­ry­ing home af­ter en­gag­ing in talks with the agri­cul­tural rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the planet Adraf. Mil­lions of Earther sol­diers, all look­ing to spill Kalquo­rian blood, needed a lot of food. Adraf, a world which thrived on trade, didn’t mind sell­ing to any­one with ready funds, be they Earther or Kalquo­rian.

  Tra­nis eyed the Earther trans­port they fol­lowed and licked his lips. “So Com­man­der Li­don, if we’re go­ing to make our move it will have to be soon?”

  “Don’t do it un­til you’re ab­so­lutely ready to com­mit. If we get any closer, they’ll be on to us.”

  Tra­nis nod­ded. His spy­ship was cloaked, which worked well enough to fool the eye. Its move­ment caused dis­tor­tions in the field around it, mak­ing it easy for the Earth­ers to de­tect it in a scan. Be­ing dis­cov­ered by their en­emy would be a very bad thing. Earther courier trans­ports, like the one he cur­rently stalked, were just as heav­ily armed as their fight­ers.

  Score one for para­noia, he thought. Even Li­don’s light­ning fast re­flexes and ex­per­tise with weapons wouldn’t make up the dif­fer­ence if they got into a fire­fight with the larger ves­sel. Spy­ships were made for speed and in­fil­tra­tion, not bat­tle.

  First Of­fi­cer Sim­dow turned from his com­puter’s green-lined read­out. His dark, hand­some face was an­i­mated with ex­cite­ment. “The Earther trans­port is slow­ing, Cap­tain.”

  “Match speed to main­tain dis­tance,” Tra­nis said, his calm tone a coun­ter­point to Sim­dow’s ner­vous pitch. Sim­dow was ca­pa­ble but young and anx­ious with in­ex­pe­ri­ence. The whole crew was mostly un­tried with the ex­cep­tion of Tra­nis’ clan. The more ex­pe­ri­enced Kalquo­ri­ans were fight­ing the war now, leav­ing him in com­mand of raw youth. Nev­er­the­less, his fifty-man crew rep­re­sented Kalquor’s last best hope for sur­vival.

  Tra­nis’ stom­ach churned at the thought.

  “What are the Earth­ers up to?” Li­don won­dered out loud. “All sta­tions on alert.”

  Tra­nis looked at his clan­mate of six years, mar­veling anew at his for­tune to have Li­don as his Nobek. The war­rior was the el­dest of their clan, thirty years Tra­nis’ se­nior, but still a young man by Kalquo­rian stan­dards.

  They were nearly the same height and weight, av­er­age for their race, colos­sal in com­par­i­son to their Earther en­e­mies. Li­don’s blue-black hair hung straight to his mus­cu­lar shoul­ders, left bare by his sleeve­less, red-trimmed black form­suit. His clean-shaven, strong-fea­tured face was grim with de­ter­mi­na­tion.

  “I doubt we’ve been de­tected,” Tra­nis said softly. “You’re too good a weapons com­man­der for that.”

  Li­don turned his preda­tory gaze to study Tra­nis. Blue-pur­ple with slit­ted pupils like all Kalquo­ri­ans’, those eyes missed noth­ing. “The Earth­ers have sur­prised us be­fore. They may not have our tech­nol­ogy, but stu­pid­ity is not one of their weak­nesses.”

  “They con­tinue to slow, sir. They’re ap­proach­ing one of the planet’s moons,” Sim­dow re­ported.

  Li­don hur­ried to his own com­puter vid to study the read­out. His slight limp was a rem­nant of a hor­rific in­jury he’d suf­fered long be­fore Tra­nis had met him. It kept the Nobek from typ­i­cal Kalquo­rian quick­ness, but he could move fast when he had to.

  “The moon is named Eu­ropa,” Li­don said, scan­ning his re­ports. “We have no in­tel­li­gence con­cern­ing any bases, mil­i­tary or oth­er­wise, on that moon.”

  A se­cret in­stal­la­tion? “Does it have an at­mos­phere?” Tra­nis asked.

  “Oxy­gen-based, but not the right mix to sup­port Earth­ers. Tem­per­a­tures are well be­low mi­nus-200 de­grees. If they’re us­ing it, the in­stal­la­tion would have to be con­tain­ment-based.”

  Sim­dow matched their calm tones with his own, fall­ing back into his habit of em­u­lat­ing the el­der of­fi­cers. “The Earther trans­port has dropped into or­bit around the moon.”

  “Helm, hold our po­si­tion here,” Tra­nis or­dered. He left his com­puter podium to join Li­don. “Do you think it’s a trap?”

  Li­don’s fin­gers flew over his com­puter con­trols, bring­ing up read­outs faster than voice com­mands could man­age. De­spite know­ing Tra­nis could see the in­for­ma­tion him­self, pro­to­col de­manded the Nobek an­swer his cap­tain. “There is no sign of other ships in the vicin­ity.” He pursed his lips and growled so only his clan­mate could hear, “I don’t like this, Tra­nis.”

  A slight smile curled one side of the cap­tain’s mouth. His voice de­lib­er­ately chal­leng­ing, he an­swered, “I want Gen­eral Hamil­ton.”

  Li­don twitched, the slight move­ment the only in­di­ca­tion his hunter’s in­stincts were aroused. His ex­pres­sion re­mained grim, but Tra­nis heard the smile in his voice. “Cau­tion is for Imdikos.”

  Tra­nis clapped a hand to his clan­mate’s shoul­der in an un­char­ac­ter­is­tic show of pub­lic af­fec­tion. “And our Imdiko will have our heads if we rush in blindly. You know De­gorsk’s tem­per.”

  Li­don snorted amuse­ment as Tra­nis re­sumed his place at the cap­tain’s podium. He knew in­deed, and a tongue-lash­ing by their third clan­mate was to be avoided as much as De­gorsk’s at­tempts at hu­mor.

  Tra­nis told his crew, “Hold here un­til the Earther ship’s sen­sors are blocked by their or­bit of the moon. When they’re out of range, pro­ceed in slow. We’ll en­ter or­bit on the op­po­site side of Eu­ropa.”

  Sim­dow ac­knowl­edged, “Yes, Cap­tain. We will en­ter or­bit in two hours.”

  Tra­nis didn’t mind wait­ing de­spite his ea­ger­ness to cap­ture the trans­port and the Earther gen­eral trav­el­ing in it. He was a pa­tient man, af­ter all.

  * * * *

  The spy­ship’s se­nior of­fi­cers gath­ered in the strat­egy room a few hours later. It was a fancy name for a space that con­tained a long, low ta­ble and sev­eral chairs. Li­don sat still and com­posed at his place on Tra­nis’ right, but in­wardly he chafed at the de­lay the meet­ing was ex­pe­ri­enc­ing. All but one of the re­quired mem­bers had ar­rived. The Nobek caught Tra­nis’ eye be­fore glanc­ing point­edly at the chronome­ter.

  “Dr. De­gorsk is on his way,” the cap­tain said. “Go ahead and start, Com­man­der Li­don.”

  The Nobek rose from his seat and started for the front of the room, ig­nor­ing the now-fa­mil­iar pull of his right leg. The stiff­ness cer­tainly beat the pain he’d known for sev­eral years, and he was glad to no longer re­quire a brace to walk around. De­gorsk had been right all along about the ef­fec­tive­ness of surgery, though Li­don had thus far avoided ad­mit­ting to it. De­gorsk al­ready had more than enough am­mu­ni­tion to tease Li­don with.

  He was half­way to the front of the room when the door slid open and De­gorsk walked in. The Imdiko nod­ded at Li­don, though his eyes nar­rowed slightly at his clan­mate.

  Li­don of­fered him a shrug and kept mov­ing to­wards the head of the ta­ble. De­gorsk was not just his Imdiko, the clan’s care­giver. He was also the ship’s chief medic, an im­mensely tal­ented doc­tor. Exquisitely tuned to dis­cern the slight­est hint of phys­i­cal dis­com­fort from his clan­mates, De­gorsk had im­me­di­ately no­ticed Li­don’s limp was a lit­tle worse than usual. For­tu­nately, Li­don could count on his clan­mate to not hu­mil­i­ate him by fuss­ing over him in pub­lic. De­gorsk knew bet­ter.

  Of course, the doc­tor had other ways of em­bar­rass­ing his preda­tory Nobek and staid Dramok clan­mates. De­gorsk took ad­van­tage of that as of­ten as pos­si­ble, hardly car­ing such shenani­gans of­ten re­sulted in get­ting his ass strapped. He lived to get laughs. A much younger Li­don would have been aghast to know he’d end up clanned to a man who de­lighted in prac­ti­cal jokes and bawdy hu­mor.

  At the front of the room, Li­don turned to face the other four men seated at the ta­ble. His eyes were im­me­di­ately drawn to his clan­mates. Like most Kalquo­ri­ans, Tra­nis and De­gorsk pos­sessed the same dark col­or­ing, pur­ple eyes, and sim­i­lar mus­cu­lar physiques clothed in black form­suits. The two still man­aged to look noth­ing alike.

  Tra­nis’ fea­tures were broader and thicker. His beard ac­cen­tu­ated his strong jaw. He let his wavy hair fall loose to his shoul­ders. His stern, no-non­sense ex­pres­sion be­trayed lit­tle of his youth and spoke vol­umes of the man’s ma­tu­rity. Tra­nis was the epit­ome of Kalquor’s Dramok breed, a born leader. He had at­tained the rank of cap­tain faster than any Kalquo­rian be­fore him for very good rea­son. In the end, his age had counted lit­tle against Li­don con­sent­ing to join his clan.

  By con­trast, De­gorsk’s clean-shaven face was leaner and sharper. His waist-long hair was pulled back in its cus­tom­ary thick braid. A slight smile soft­ened his face. Even now, with the ship on high alert and ready­ing to at­tack the Earther trans­port, the Imdiko man­aged an air of good hu­mor. He couldn’t have been more op­po­site in tem­per­a­ment to Li­don’s war­rior men­tal­ity.

  That the bat­tle-tested and scarred Nobek had clanned with such a man con­founded Li­don’s un­der­lings to no end. As mys­ti­fied as they might have been, they still had enough sense to not dare to ask why the match had been made. It was just as well; the an­swer would have con­fused them even more.

  De­gorsk was the only per­son who had ever made Li­don laugh out loud.

  The Nobek got straight to busi­ness, switch­ing on the vid mon­i­tor. “We found this on the moon Eu­ropa.”

  An im­age of a trans­par­ent con­tain­ment dome, hous­ing sev­eral struc­tures, filled the wall be­hind Li­don. His au­di­ence’s col­lec­tive in­take of breath wafted through the room.

  “A se­cret base,” Tra­nis said. His eyes were avid on the im­age.

  Li­don ad­dressed the as­sem­bled group, which in­cluded First Of­fi­cer Sim­dow and Weapons Sub­com­man­der Osopa. “It’s only about one thou­sand me­ters in cir­cum­fer­ence, not nearly large enough to be a mil­i­tary base.”

  “Is there any in­di­ca­tion of what they’re us­ing it for?”

  Osopa an­swered, his voice steady de­spite the ex­cite­ment Li­don knew the young man felt. “We’re not pick­ing up any­thing be­sides a few build­ings and agri-fields.”

  Li­don en­hanced the pic­ture to show the small-scale farm lo­cated at one end of the dome. The dome was on the dark side of Eu­ropa, and a dimmed bank of light­ing grids sur­rounded the crops, no doubt to give the il­lu­sion of day­light when turned on.

  De­gorsk drummed his fin­gers against the table­top. “It looks like a civil­ian colony where they’re grow­ing most of their own food. Hell, it’s barely big enough to be a start-up. Could the trans­port be drop­ping off sup­plies?”

  Tra­nis mused for only a mo­ment be­fore an­swer­ing. “I doubt a man of Gen­eral Hamil­ton’s stature would be act­ing as a courier. He’s us­ing a trans­port of that type to es­cape no­tice of his com­ings and go­ings.”

  “None of the Earth de­fec­tors have men­tioned this base?” Sim­dow asked.

  Tra­nis shook his head at his young first of­fi­cer. “There’s no in­for­ma­tion on this out­post in any of our in­tel­li­gence. Our records don’t con­tain one sin­gle hint of its ex­is­tence.”

  Sim­dow pursed his lips in con­sid­er­a­tion. “Not sur­pris­ing, con­sid­er­ing this is the clos­est any of our ships has got­ten to Earth space. So we’re look­ing at a top se­cret fa­cil­ity that’s too small for any func­tional use. It’s barely big enough to even be called a colony. It’s strange.”

  Li­don said, “The bulk of it could be un­der­ground. We won’t be able to tell with­out scan­ning from di­rectly over­head.”

  Tra­nis leaned back in his chair. “Is your team ready to take that ship?”

  Li­don looked at Osopa. The sub­com­man­der sat straight up as he ad­dressed the cap­tain. “We’ve been draw­ing up to the trans­port grad­u­ally, to avoid sen­sor sweeps of field dis­tor­tion. As soon as we’re within range, the board­ing party will be­gin our ap­proach.”

  Li­don grinned with a born preda­tor’s de­light at the younger Nobek’s ob­vi­ous ea­ger­ness. How he wished he could be part of the board­ing party! “Once the team has in­fil­trated the Earther trans­port, they’ll dis­able their weapons and com­mu­ni­ca­tions. Cap­tain Tra­nis, you’ll have that ship, Gen­eral Hamil­ton, and Earth’s se­cu­rity grid be­fore this work shift is over.”

  “And I’ll get plenty of bod­ies to patch up, de­pend­ing on how happy the Earth­ers are to fight,” De­gorsk said with fake cheer. “Thank the an­ces­tors; I haven’t been cursed out by a cranky Nobek in weeks. I was be­gin­ning to feel tol­er­ated, and that will never do.”

  Li­don rolled his eyes at his Imdiko. Tra­nis and Sim­dow ex­changed a grin while Osopa tried not to look pained. The young Nobek sub­com­man­der failed mis­er­ably.

  * * * *

  Cas­sidy woke in the black void of the vent, hav­ing fallen asleep af­ter plea­sur­ing her­self to two cli­maxes. She’d slept in the tight con­fines be­fore. The vent was no less com­fort­able than the iron bed in her cell with its gran­ite-hard mat­tress.

  The reader had gone dark in hi­ber­na­tion mode, let­ting her know she’d slept at least an hour this time. Cas­sidy couldn’t re­mem­ber the last time she’d slept an en­tire night through. Maybe she never had.

  As sin­ful as mas­tur­ba­tion was, its re­lax­ing af­ter­math helped her find elu­sive slum­ber. Rest was ev­ery bit as much a temp­ta­tion as the plea­sure her touch af­forded.

  Cas­sidy could tell she was re­ally awake, the kind of awake that might keep her eyes star­ing wide open for hours and leave her head pound­ing with a mi­graine for the en­tire day. Her hands were still buried in her panties, still in con­tact with the avid flesh of her sex. An­other or­gasm might give her an ad­di­tional hour, maybe even two, of sleep.

  “For­give me for my sin,” she whis­pered as her fin­gers ex­plored her soft, se­cret folds. “Not for wicked­ness this time, Heav­enly Fa­ther. Only to get rest so that I may serve you bet­ter.”

  Sex with her­self in ser­vice to God. Now there was a novel ap­proach to damna­tion.

  The petals of Cas­sidy’s nether re­gions were soon slick with honey. She imag­ined a man, much big­ger than her­self and naked, crouched over her as she plea­sured her­self. The hot iron of his dark devil flesh touched her in­ti­mate parts, ready to join his body to hers.

  She paused, one in­dex fin­ger set­tled over her open­ing. Did she dare com­mit this last trans­gres­sion of pen­e­tra­tion? Was it any worse than any of her pre­vi­ous ca­resses?

  If I’m dis­cov­ered, it won’t make any dif­fer­ence whether I’ve en­tered my­self or not. My hands will be cut off, my sex branded and burned. The pun­ish­ment will be the same.