Page 120 of Decadence

“Brave beyond compare,” he’d continued as they sliced through the stars and darkness. “Because you do not compromise. You are not afraid to be true to yourself.”

He’d reached across and wrapped his hand around hers, giving her a gentle, reassuring squeeze, as if to say: I’m here. I’m yours. I’m not going anywhere.

And at that moment, all her uncertainties and insecurities and fears had melted away, and she simply was.

Complete.

With him.

And now they were descending through Earth’s atmosphere, and she could see the very edge of the blue horizon as it bled into the infinite darkness of space.

They both fell silent as Ikriss flew from day into night; from the cold void above and into the clouds. Suddenly, Sienna could see a glittering network of lights stretching out below. She recognized the unmistakable shape of the Eastern Seaboard of the Independent States of America.

“Which skyport are you landing at?” she asked absently, wondering how the passengers at Westchester Skyfield would react when they saw a small fleet of sleek, black, and very alien looking ships landing in their midst.

“Skyport?” Ikriss shook his head. “We don’t use skyports.”

“Huh? So where are you going to land? In a field or something?”

Ikriss shook his head. “We’re going straight to our location. This craft is small enough that I can land it in most places.”

Her eyes nearly popped out of her head. “But you’ll draw so much attention to—”

Ikriss let out a soft chuckle, much to her annoyance.

Sienna’s eyes narrowed. “Are you laughing at me?”

“You are very considerate of your own people, but you don’t need to worry. Our ships use high-level cloaking tech that your human surveillance systems will not be able to detect for at least another thousand years.”

She gave him a rather salty side-eye. “Are you saying that you think we’re a thousand years behind Kordolians?”

“In certain things, yes.” The corners of his mouth quirked upwards. He gave her an indulgent look. “In other things, not so much.”

“Spend a few months with me on Earth,” she challenged him. “You’ll find that we’re actually a lot more sophisticated what you see on the surface.”

“Oh, I already know that.” He maneuvered the controls of the ship; a subtle, almost imperceptible action that looked as natural to him as breathing.

The ship banked sharply, ripping through the clouds.

Suddenly, they were flying through clear skies, the glittering strip of lights below growing bigger and bigger.

“Then you can quit being so pompous,” she teased. “Just because you’re Commander so-and-so doesn’t mean you know everything there is to know about the Universe.”

He laughed; a rich, deep, delicious sound that made her want to surrender to him over and over again. “That is certainly true.” His concentration snapped toward the glowing blue holo-monitors as he turned the ship again, and suddenly they were flying over New York proper, and she could make out the sharp outlines of the buildings and the lurid holo-adverts and the drone-traffic and the occasional hover-car, and suddenly they were descending right down into all of that chaos…

It was snowing. The tiny snowflakes dissipated like powder as the cruiser shot toward Earth.

They were heading straight for a stream of traffic… for a floating jam of drones and snow and hover-cars.

“Ikriss!” she gasped. “You’re going to…”

“Going to what?” he asked smoothly—too smoothly—as his hands twitched and his head tilted slightly to the left and his eyes narrowed, then widened.

He stared straight ahead and leaned back in his chair, his gaze becoming distant, his body relaxing as he made tiny adjustments to the ship’s controls, and for a moment, it almost seemed as if he were silently communicating with the ship; almost as if the craft were a living thing itself.

They darted through the traffic, slipping through impossibly narrow gaps; weaving, crisscrossing, flying so fast that the world outside became a snow-dusted black and neon blur.

Ikriss still wore that almost-smile.

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