Page 32 of Her Wolves

In spite of the Alpha Commander’s last order, all eyes in the monitor room naturally turned to us, showing us their hope and their confidence.The crew in the room repeated Brunson’s wishes for our good luck.Tara and I thanked them, and then we were out of there.

*****

The underground hangar was like another cavern, an artificial one, that would ordinarily be filled with flying and hovering craft, ready to be used in emergency situations.Since there was an emergency situation going on right now, the underground hangar was an almost completely empty, wide-open space.In the middle of it was a group of half a dozen Colonial and Guard engineers huddled with Catrox and the Caloxi that he’d brought up with him.They were gathered around something that looked like a shiny, four-sided stone pillar that reached from the floor to the ceiling, with electronic conduits branching off from the base of it, extending across the floor and hooking into places in the walls.Off to one side waswhat looked like a podium with a computer interface on top of it, which was hooked into the conduits on the floor.

When Tara and I entered, Lieutenant Commander Nealon, the human leader of our group of engineers, and Catrox, were the first to acknowledge us.They waved us over to look at what they had hastily put up using Guard requisitions and a lot of quick ingenuity.

Nealon explained, “This tower is what will transmit the signals from the two of you out of this hangar and broadcast them wide all over the planet and out into space.”He led us closer to the tower.On its east and west sides were pairs of flat, recessed nooks large enough for male human hands to fit into.Nealon said, “The two of you will place your hands palms-flat on these recesses.The circuits inside the tower will interface with your nervous systems.As Catrox explains it, you’ll go into something like a dream state where you’ll feel as if you’re sharing a dream.The system will feed data from your connected nervous systems into the tower.”He pointed to the other podium-like console where Catrox now stood.“Catrox will be there, monitoring the process and your responses to it, to make sure the feed from the two of you and the outgoing signal are stable and constant.Everything will depend on your own state of mind while you’re hooked into the system.”

Catrox said, “During the process, you must be focused on your thoughts of each other and your feelings that exist between you.The technology will use your input, the circuit that you create with it, and do all else that is required.”

“Think happy thoughts and you can fly,” said Tara.

“What?” I wondered aloud at her.

“You don’t know that old story?Sprinkle fairy dust on someone, have them think happy thoughts, and they’ll take off for the first star to the right and straight on ‘til morning.An old story from Earth—that’s what this makes me think of.You’ve never heard it?”

I scratched my head.“Yeah, I guess I have.It’s just not something that I’d think about at a time like this, looking at a thing like this.”

With a funny little smile, Tara said, “It’s the only thing I could think of, hearing what we’re supposed to do now.”

“We’d better hurry up and get started,” said Nealon.“All available comm channels are ready for you right now.”

The engineers brought chairs and put them on either side of the pillar for Tara and me to sit in.Catrox stayed at his post, ready and waiting for us.Nealon and the others stepped back, some of them standing behind Catrox.A hush fell over everything.It was a make-or-break moment for all of us, and for the world.

Tara and I faced each other.I put my hands on her shoulders.

“We can do this,” I told her.

“I know we can,” she said.

“There’s one thing we ought to do to start,” I said.And I put my arms around her and pulled her close.In response, she buried her head on my shoulder and wrapped me up in her own arms.In all my life, I’d never felt so completely as if I belonged with another person—except for that one night we spent alone together in Tara’s bed.I let my thoughts roll back there, to the way it felt to hold her, kiss her, penetrate her, come inside her and make her come all those times.If I could return to that night and whisper in my own ear, Kris, this is the most important sex of your life, I would have totally believed it.

I wondered if she might be thinking the same thing, which would have been the best thing to make us both ready for the task at hand.But some questions were better asked in privateinstead of surrounded by a room full of engineers and aliens.We pulled out of the hug, and I asked her, “Ready?”

“Ready,” Tara softly said.

Looking over Tara’s shoulder and around the space, I announced to Nealon and everyone else, “That was just preparation, people.We’re set to go.”

We stepped apart.Tara took the east position, and I took the west.We sat down and reached forward, putting our hands in the recesses, which lit up at our touch.I allowed myself to think about our bodies “lighting up” in a different way when we touched, and thought the idea was not out of bounds for what we now had to do.Our memories of being close, intimate, totally together, would be of service now.I hoped Tara had figured out the same thing and would be with me now, or that she would follow my lead when the system engaged.

As if he could hear me—or my thoughts—Catrox announced, “Now engaging the cyberempathic system.Engineering crew, stand by.”

For a second, it seemed as if nothing was happening.Then, a feeling washed over me like a warm wave of water on a beach.It was as if every cell in my body, especially my nerves, were sparkling and tingling; a kind of excitement as if I were floating above the floor.I remembered Tara’s words about pixie dust and flying.Then, it felt as if warm, soft hands were caressing my naked body all over, up and down.It was almost like foreplay with an invisible partner—except that in my mind, there was Tara.All of Tara, all the physical sensations and all the emotions that went with her:the humor, the gentleness, the passion, the caring; all the abandon of hot and raw sex, and all the sweetness and satisfaction of curling up in each other’s arms afterward.That, and every kiss we’d ever had.It was all of that.And it was what we knew it was but had never dared to give it the word.All at once, I felt all the love.

Yes, the love there was no hiding from it.Not only was it the love between Tara and me, but the love that reached out from us and wrapped up Nick and Lon in it.Nick and Lon were my superior officers, my comrades, my partners in battle.But the two of them also were my partners in sex with Tara, in sharing her bed and loving her.The four of us had become a single unit of love.It was something greater than our ranks and greater than our duties.

It was who we all were.

And into all of these feelings that now wrapped themselves around me and spread themselves out from me, there was one feeling that flowed through it all.It was like a sigh and a laugh and a moan all at once, and it came from Tara’s voice and it came with Tara’s face filling my mind—her face, her body, her whole being.It sighed through me—and I felt a sigh and a laugh and a moan radiating from me through her.Through this strange device, we were suddenly both out of our bodies and into each other’s body—and moving out everywhere, in every direction.We went up through the pillar, out through the walls, and out into everything.Everything.

We were what Catrox called us:a nexus, a core of feeling.And like a split atom in some old reactor, the feelings of our nexus exploded out everywhere; an empathic explosion, a wave of power strong enough to change a world.

Or save it.We would leave nothing untouched.And if we were strong enough—we had to be strong enough—we could save everything.

CHAPTER 20

Lon

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