First Assault Read online

“Did you?”

  “Well, I– aw! Easy! That’s my head you’re pressing on. It’s not made out of metal.”

  “Although it does seem like an empty metal sometimes,” she said thoughtfully. Ailios looked at her with one eye and she smiled. “Anyway, you never told me what the glass on your necklace means, and I haven’t heard you thinking about it.”

  “Maybe because you shouldn’t.”

  “Really. And why is that?”

  Ailios looked down. The triangular pendant rested on the coarse hair of his chest. He touched it with his fingers, brought it up. The light from the overhead caused a rainbow of colors to wash over the glass. “It’s something important.” He looked at her again. “It’s my women magnet.”

  Olivia couldn’t hide her smile. “Liar.”

  “Since you ask about it, it did impress you on some level.”

  “I’m not as easily impressed as you think, I’m just curious to know what it is.”

  Ailios tried to shrug without touching her with his shoulder. “Well, now you know– aw!”

  “Quit whining,” she said. She tapped the gauze one last time and then dropped it in the bin next to her feet. “It’s done.”

  Ailios started to sit up but she pushed him back down. What are you doing? he wondered with hidden hope.

  “I’m done cleaning the wound. I need to stitch it now.” The word alone sounded painful enough for him to wince.

  From a metal plate next to him she took something that looked like a pistol. She inserted a small box into the barrel.

  That will definitely hurt.

  “Of course it will,” she said, reading his thoughts again. “You caught a bullet with your head, did you expect anything less?”

  Ailios squirmed, expecting the stitching to bring another world of pain. “I’ll do my best to dodge it next time,” he said.

  “Make sure you do.” She pressed the pistol over the wound, and the world spun and blackened. And then she pressed the button – thuf!

  “Ow!”

  Thuf!

  “Ow! Easy!”

  Thuf!

  “How much more?” he wasn’t sure if he just shouted or not.

  Thuf!

  “Ow!”

  Olivia pulled back the pistol, examined the barrel. “Hmm, your skin is too thick to be pierced with this. I wonder if…” she pressed a button on the upper side. “Let’s try now.”

  “Let me see what you pressed,” said Ailios.

  “I think it will increase the piercing strength.”

  “You think?”

  “Hold still.” She grabbed him over his face with one hand and with the other she pressed the pistol back at the wound. Ailios yelped, but her hand had covered his mouth and stifled the sound of it.

  Thuf! Thuf! Thuf!

  She moved her hand away and Ailios gave a delayed scream from the depths of his lungs.

  “Oh, c’mon,” Olivia said, “it wasn’t that bad.”

  “No, it wasn’t. It was awful!”

  Olivia examined the wound. “Hmmm, what do you know, it worked.” She put down the pistol and smiled, content written all over that pretty face of hers. “You want to see what I did?”

  “No.” He closed his eyes, trying to relieve the pain. “I can feel quite well what you did.”

  “No, seriously, look,” she said.

  He opened his eye only to be blinded by the reflection on the metal surface. He squinted.

  “Sorry,” she said, adjusting the mirror. “Now you can look.”

  First thing he noticed was his wet hair that missed a lock above the wound. It hurt him more to see his hair ruined than that nasty bump with three white stitches.

  “Did you have to cut the hair?” he asked.

  “Yes, and I am deeply sorry for that. Trust me I know how much it hurts you. But it’s just a hair.”

  “It’s not just a hair. It’s my life’s investment. Do you have any idea how many women have fallen for this beauty?” he trailed his fingers through his hair.

  Olivia eyed him with raised eyebrow.

  Ailios waved a hand. “Ah, forget it.” He looked at the bump on the mirror again. It looks like you stitched a pebble under the skin. He said, “I couldn’t have done it better myself.”

  “That’s one thing we can both agree on.” She stood up and took her tools away. “You better wash your eye before you open it. The alcohol will burn you blind.”

  He stood up and for a moment he felt as if his legs were foreign; one foot moved to the side and didn’t obey his commands. Must be the alcohol.

  Ailios entered the cabin, careful not to fall down and make his bump worse than it already was. Inside the cabin, the archeologist was asleep on one of the beds, his legs wrapped up in bandages all the way to his hips. Luthis slept on the bed next to him while Friseal was fixing his broken fingers. It was one of the chameleon’s hidden abilities, although he said it was nothing more but a field medicine. And how in gods’ names does he know field medicine?

  Friseal looked up at Ailios as he came forward. “You okay?” he said. “I think I heard you scream.”

  Ailios didn’t say anything. He just waved his hand and went to the lavatory to wash his eye. Once he was done with it, he washed his hair. Finally it smelled of something nice. Now he could talk. He looked in the mirror where on its reflection behind him Friseal was finishing his work, cutting the excessive bandages from the mover’s hand. Ailios asked, “How is he?”

  “He’ll survive.”

  “I know he will. What about his hands? Will he be able to move things again?”

  Friseal smiled. “He doesn’t need his hands for that. He can move objects just by thinking of them.”

  Ailios didn’t know that. “Then why does he wave his hands every time he moves something?”

  “Maybe it makes him feel he’s in control.” Friseal shrugged. “You should ask him when he wakes up.”

  Sure I will. Ailios took some painkillers in his hand and a small bottle of alcohol from the locker above the mirror, and he left the cabin.

  Inside the bridge he took a seat next to Olivia’s piloting seat, though she wasn’t sitting there now. She was watering her plants inside the bridge with a spraying bottle.

  “Okay what do we do now?” Ailios asked her as he put his feet on the dashboard. He leaned back and dropped the pills in his mouth.

  She turned. “You shouldn’t mix those with alco…” and Ailios flushed them down with alcohol. Olivia shook her head. She turned and sprayed the earth under a broadleaf plant. “I have set course for Talam,” she said. “I thought you would approve.”

  “Mm.” Ailios nodded with a grimace. The alcohol burned his organs, but he hoped the painkillers would neutralize that as well. He laced his hands behind his head and closed his eyes. All he could do now was accept that he failed the mission. Somehow, though, it didn’t seem to matter. What was Major Ailig going to do to him – kill him? If he’s still alive when we go back…

  But this was wrong. Failing this mission put more than his life at stake. It was the survival of humanity as a whole. He couldn’t let the Cyons slaughter his people. Talam was his home, the home of so many pretty women he hadn’t slept with yet. He couldn’t let such beauty die. He had to do something. But what?

  Olivia stopped spraying her plants. “You’re an idiot,” she said.

  Ailios sent a glance at her. “Excuse me?”

  “The entire Cyon fleet with every fighting-capable Cyon is on their way to Talam, and you are thinking about women you haven’t slept with.”

  Ailios turned his seat to see her better. “Well, if you read my thoughts you would’ve found out that I don’t approve the Cyon attack on our home world. But you would also find out that there is nothing I can do about it. I failed. I am sorry. Giving this leader role to me was a mistake.”

  The door toward the cabin opened and Friseal entered wiping his hands with a towel. “What about the golden hand and the half-Cyon you found on Timor?” he
asked.

  Ailios exhaled in annoyance. “What about them?”

  “Aren’t they a lead on our next move?”

  “They would’ve been if we didn’t leave them on Timor in Faragar’s bag.” Ailios suddenly realized how much he missed the brute. He liked his never-ending enthusiasm for fights. He was also the only man who truly respected Ailios. He might’ve been a good friend. Then he remembered. “Wait – how do you know about the bag … don’t tell me you have it?”

  “Have it? No, I just know you guys found it there.”

  Ailios’s expression turned sour.

  “I’m just kidding.” Friseal took a seat. “I found the bag before I rescued Luthis inside the temple. It’s in the locker room below. Should I bring it here?”

  Ailios straightened in his seat and pulled his feet down from the dashboard. “You definitely should,” he said. Ailios wondered what happened to the chameleon as he watched him open the hatch and go down the ladder bolder than ever. He was the biggest craven I have ever seen. “Did you give him any drugs while we were fighting on Timor?” he asked Olivia.

  “He’s not as craven as you think.”

  “I notice that now, but he’s not exactly how I remember him to be.”

  She smiled and brushed a lock of hair behind her ear. “Well, let’s just say that you’re not the only one with secrets.”

  Ailios didn’t like the sound of that.

  I hope you’re secretly in love with me – he definitely liked the sound of that.

  Olivia widened her smile. “Yeah, maybe when we are reborn and our memories completely erased. Well, maybe not even then.”

  “You know, they never extracted any DNA samples from me,” said Ailios. “It’s now or never.”

  “Then too bad for you,” said Olivia and turned to caress