Her Commanders - M.K. Eidem Page 0,88

continued to stare at him silently. Taarig couldn't help but respect her for that. Very few were brave enough to stare down an aggravated Apre. Reaching inside his jacket, he pulled out a writing utensil and grabbed one of the absorbent squares The Brink used to set drinks on. After writing for a moment, he folded the square in half and extended it to the Galaian female.

"Make sure Cali gets this," was all he said, then turned and walked out of The Brink.

∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞

Cali slowly opened the square Xanto had brought her from Mae. The walk to The Brink's loading dock on the other side of the base had tested Cali. It was like discovering a never-before-used muscle. By the time they'd returned to her quarters, she'd been mentally exhausted, yet when she morphed back to her natural state, her skin's glow had barely dimmed.

Still, she didn't have the power to deal with Taarig. Not right now.

"I'm going to go rest."

Xanto said nothing as he watched her leave. She'd done exceptionally well today. He'd never heard of anyone maintaining a morph that long on their first attempt. It again revealed just how powerful Cali was.

Reaching out, he turned over the square she'd left on the table.

I need to explain. CSCTY-2255427 was all that the Sub Commander had written. It had Xanto shaking his head in disbelief. Did the arrogant Apre think that would work on a female like Cali?

∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞

Jamis stared unseeingly out the viewport in his repaired office. Would Taarig pursue Cali on his own, take her as his Lalla? They'd agreed nearly two hundred years ago they wouldn't do that. But now, an Earthan seems to have changed his mind.

"You're not going to find any answers out there."

Turning, Jamis found Taarig casually sitting in one of the new chairs. When had he entered his office? Why hadn't he heard him?

"Who says I'm looking for them?" Jamis asked.

"I do. I know you."

"And I thought I knew you," Jamis fired back, "but apparently I don't. Not if all it takes is some female for you to throw away all the plans we made."

"Cali's not some female, and you know it," Taarig replied quietly, not taking Jamis’s bait because he did know his friend. And right now, what Jamis was struggling with was himself.

"Her life span will end in fifty, sixty years at the most if we're lucky. We both know Earthans don't survive long in space."

"Then it will be up to us to make sure she does. That viper, Jamis, could have ended our life spans. Ours. Not Cali's. Are you truly refusing to see that? I know you hate not being in control, hate having our future hinge on someone else, but it was always going to be that way no matter who our Lalla was."

"I know that," Jamis grudgingly admitted. "I just never considered we would have her for such a short time."

"Still, some time is better than no time."

Jamis just nodded his head in agreement, then looked back out the viewport.

∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞

"How long are you going to hold off linking the Sub Commander?" Xanto asked.

"Why are you so interested?" It had been three days since Taarig had left the note. Three days where Cali had traveled all around the Star Base in different life forms expending energy. She'd found it liberating, informative, and disturbing.

It was liberating because she got to view the Star Base through new and different eyes, literally.

Informative because each species she morphed into was looked at and treated differently.

And disturbing because she'd never realized the extent of those differences before now.

Oh, she'd personally experienced them as an Earthan, but never the open, sexual aggression she had when she'd morphed as a Galaian female. Was that why Mae rarely left The Brink without Tay? If so, why hadn't she said anything to her?

"Because he isn't going away," Xanto told her.

"I never expected him to, but it’s not like I could deal with him until I expended some energy."

"You could have at least talked to him," he persisted.

Cali gave him an exasperated look. "Taarig doesn't want to talk over a link. He wants to talk face-to-face."

"How do you know that?"

"Because I know him." She absently rubbed her chest as she crossed the room. "Jamis is the one afraid of having a relationship with me, not Taarig. Even though Jamis was the one who approached me first."

"You think…" Xanto trailed off as Cali smiled, then reached up and