Hope Nath’s thoughts
were wrapped around her younger sister’s hijinks as she traveled the battlecruiser’s
corridor. She controlled the urge to stomp from the teenager’s classroom back
to the department where she worked. She noticed little around her as she went.
The corridors of the battlecruiser Sword
of Truth were ever the same anyway: the carpet beneath her feet going
threadbare, half the computers and readouts set in the walls dim from failure,
musty from the constant recycling of old air. The hum of engines was so
omnipresent as to be unheard now, and she did not note the soft tread of the few
crewmates that hurried past her.
She came back to the
present in an instant when she turned the corner and crashed right into a big,
solid…and immovable…Kalquorian body. The collision knocked her back a couple of
steps.
“Watch it, boy,” the
owner of the body snarled.
Hope looked up and
up at the huge specimen and his even bigger companion. Being somewhat
diminutive, she was used to gazing up at others, but Kalquorians averaged well
over six feet tall. The one she’d plowed into was no exception.
The face staring
down at her blinked blue-purple, cat-pupiled eyes. They were bright eyes in the
well-lit corridor. Intelligent eyes that widened as he took her measure. For a
moment his face, made up of elegant features with the exception of a heavy jaw,
softened with a note of apology. “Oh. Matara?” He gave the bearded brute at his
side a startled expression.
Then the Kalquorian
blockade recovered his composure and scowled at her. “I thought the Earthers
kept their women under lock and key, Captain Kila.”
“Maybe this one
slipped her chains, Admiral.” The other man smirked. Despite the almost
primitive look of him, he had a wild handsomeness that one might ascribe to a
tiger or other beast.
Then with their
faces settling into unimpressed countenances, they stepped aside and continued
on their way without a backwards glance. Hope turned to watch the behemoths
stride in their armored black uniforms that molded to their bodies…especially
their backsides. Hope caught herself admiring the curves before she could help
herself.
Releasing Summer 2017
