thirty-six #3
“She’s been acting strange lately,” Sulim said when there was a lull in their jabbing. “Her head is elsewhere the couple of times I’ve seen her this week. I don’t like it.”
“Well, you know her better than me, but if she’s like any of the other julah we’ve met out in the Federation, then they’re rarely actually thinking about us.”
“It’s not that.” Finally, she remembered to eat some of the food before Sonall consumed it all. “It must be something serious. She tells me everything.”
“Mm, does she?”
“Yes.”
Sonall met her gaze, refusing to back down and let her have “it.” “Clearly, she doesn’t.”
“Don’t be that way.”
He gestured for her to eat the rest of the tart.
“All I’m saying is that julah don’t really consider humans like us privy to what their kind are up to. We don’t have to know shit, because she might be panicking over something that will happen a hundred years from now. You’re the love of her life right now,
but don’t delude yourself into thinking she can’t—”
“And how many julah women have you wooed, exactly, Loverboy?”
“Eh, you have me beat by one on the full-blooded julah part, but I’ve known a couple of hybrid ladies, if you catch my cruiser.”
Sulim rolled her eyes in the midst of downing her drink.
“And most of those hybrid women have no reason to be loyal to their silly Houses. They sure as hell aren’t loyal to the hybrids. It’s a different game from those full-blooded julah who live thousands of years and tear whole planets apart. Your Mira will always be loyal to her kind.”
“You sound so sure of yourself.”
“I might as well be. Which is why I leave an open invitation for you to retire to Arrah with me once we’re free of our indentured servitude. At the very least, it would be nice if someone who knows me and all my faults shared a home with me.
Void knows I’ll be a mess trying to put my life back together after this.”
“Uh-huh. And you need me to handle the emotional labor. And probably some of the physical labor.”
“At least I’m upfront. How upfront is Mira?”
Sometimes, I liked you a lot more when you were a kid around here. The successful mercenary named Sonall was too jaded for Sulim to ever seriously entertain. Guess I’m jaded too. She hated that for both of them, but that was the nature of life on Cerilyn.
She didn’t get a chance to voice that, however, for one of the tavern regulars asked the bartender to turn up the volume on the news broadcast playing above their heads.
Usually, the televisions were only loud enough to hear when the tavern hosted a sports betting event, but when she glanced at the screen, she realized why half of Shield Town perked up and listened to the Federation newscaster sounding exasperated in Basic.
“…We’ve just received more news that the Federation Forces are retreating out of the potential blast zone,” said the pale-faced woman in the corner of the screen.
The rest was dedicated to a live feed of a gray, rocky planet in the solar system adjacent to Cerilyn’s, just a little too close to home.
“More than five hundred personnel were summoned to help apprehend the alleged perpetrator, Nerilis Dunsman, but reports are saying that the ritual is too far along.”
A ticker appeared at the bottom of the screen. Sulim narrowed her eyes to read the words, “Laus Farro V in Danger of Disappearing: Nerilis Dunsman to Blame.”
“Crazy bastard,” Sonall muttered. “Little too close to home, too. Just… why?”
Laus Farro V, like the other planets of its name in its system, was uninhabited.
There were no atmospheres of note, and the gravity was non-existent, not that it stopped the occasional criminal from attempting to hide out in the area.
Sulim was familiar with the layout of the system due to flying through it on a cruiser a time or two, but she didn’t like the idea of anyone, least of all Mira’s father and the former High Priest, destroying a planet for shits and giggles.
“Where are you going?”
Sulim hesitated on her way out of the booth. “You can have the rest. I don’t want to hang out here for this.” She had already seen Nerilis Dunsman’s work a few times in her life. It seemed that the man’s appetite for gobbling up planets out of existence was insatiable.
She passed through a growing crowd that came in just to watch the broadcast. That gave her plenty of cover as she stole back through the cramped and damp alleyways to the Temple, where she pulled a lockpick from her utility belt and walked through Mira’s wards to get in.
“Mira?” she called, closing the door behind her and tossing the used pick into the nearby garbage. “You here?”
The lights were dimmed. Sulim sauntered up through the aisle until she stood before the statue of the High Priestess, who was vaguely illuminated by two candles hanging from the ceiling.
Sulim turned her head and looked for signs of life.
It looked like Mira had gone up to her apartment, so that was where Sulim followed.
She bypassed the weaker wards there. Something she could only do because she knew Mira made her an exception.
Didn’t that mean she wanted Sulim there?
That she was welcomed? Don’t mind if I do.
Sulim helped herself into the priestess’s apartment at the top of a steep set of stairs.
Was it unlocked on purpose? Or was Mira so used to teleporting between floors that she forgot to lock the door sometimes?
It was also dark inside Mira’s apartment.
Although every standard Temple layout of every prefabricated size included a fireplace, Mira never used hers due to Shield Town being hot and humid all year round.
Yet she still placed her couch in front of it, the television above the fireplace currently turned off and not broadcasting her father’s latest crime.
But it was where Sulim found her. Right there, on the couch, having fallen asleep with her communicator clutched to her chest.
Sulim rounded the couch and hovered nearby. When Mira didn’t move, Sulim knelt against the nearest cushion and braced herself against the back of the couch. Only then did Mira slightly move, her eyes fluttering open and her chest rising with a deep breath.
“Bang.” Sulim mimicked firing her finger gun at Mira’s head. “Man, if you were my target, I could be one of the first mercenaries to take out a julah.”
Mira yawned as Sulim continued to hover over her. As the seconds went by, their legs entwined until Sulim had completely encapsulated her drowsy girlfriend. “You would shoot a sleeping woman, huh?”
I’d do more than that. This was someone who helped herself into Mira’s bed and curled up against her when it was the middle of the night. “Yeah. You do what you have to if you want the job done quickly and safely. Best that they don’t see you coming.”
Mira opened her arms so Sulim could fold against her chest. “I’m too comfortable with you around. You could be playing the long con to get my trust. Then, millions of dollars later, you kill me in my sleep.”
“That’s how it could have started, but unfortunately, I fell in love with you.”
Mira smiled against Sulim’s cheek. Moments later, their words were peppered with light but heady kisses. “That was my long con,” Mira said. “To keep you from wanting to kill me.”
“We have too much fun to warrant that.”
Was this a ploy to keep Mira from finding out the news she would inevitably have to face in the morning?
Yes. But Sulim also enjoyed the time they spent together like this, allowing sweet but passionate whims to take them over.
It let Sulim forget about her lot in life.
About how she had been abducted as a teenager on Qahrain, forced to become a mercenary who lied, pillaged, and killed for her living.
She had seen the despair that so many others fell into.
Even Sonall was a functioning alcoholic who spent a decent amount of his retirement fund at the brothels to keep his mind off the horrors he had seen—and enacted.
You don’t have your life ruined to come here, without you becoming the next generation of life ruiners.
Sulim only got away from the worst of it because of how skilled she was at non-killing jobs.
Ultimately, it was Chief Olma who decided what missions she took or didn’t take.
So here, in the Temple, with Mira beneath her as they made love on the couch? That almost made up for everything else. I never would have met someone like her on Qahrain. Not in this life, nor the next.
“I love you,” she said when she was half undressed. “Anything you need, anything you want, I’ll make it happen. You know that, right?”
Mira traced Sulim’s skin as it emerged from her bra and disappeared back into her pants. “The feeling is mutual.”
Sulim tried not to grin like a foolish girl. “Let’s go to bed. It’s cramped here.”
“Ah…” Mira remained on the couch as Sulim got up, foregoing putting her clothes back on as she stepped around the couch. The way she’s looking at me… It was as if Mira had never seen her girlfriend half-naked before. “There’s something I wanted to tell you about.”
“Can it wait until the morning?”
Mira’s gaze lingered on Sulim’s stomach. Yes, fifty sit-ups a day. You’re welcome.
“Suppose so, if you’re going to look at me like that?”
“Like what?”
Mira slowly pushed herself up, losing her shirt in the process. “Like you need it bad.”
“Such a way with words.” Sulim ascended the raised platform where Mira’s bed was. “Come say that to my face.”
Sulim knew she would, and it would be the highlight of her night.